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Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 10:09 pm Post subject:
What happened to deep drilling to superheat steam? Camborne school of mines where close to achieving results with that back in the 80s & Maggies government pulled the plug & stopped the money flow. Someone in the world must have followed that one up surely?

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 10:17 pm Post subject:
We've sent objects ten billion miles away from Earth, but never drilled more than a few klicks down.

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 10:22 pm Post subject:

Nick wrote:

Relax, we will solve it all with fusion, in about 15 years.

And in the mean time we have the Con.

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 10:24 pm Post subject:

Tavascarow wrote:

What happened to deep drilling to superheat steam?
Camborne school of mines where close to achieving results with that back in the 80s & Maggies government pulled the plug & stopped the money flow. Someone in the world must have followed that one up surely?

That`s already been done up in Durham i believe ,where a new estate is all heated from this source,

The Mine`s were hot up in that area.

And Maggie`s Government also pulled the plug on clean coal technology,developed in the facility in the Cotswolds.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 11:05 pm Post subject:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

Nick wrote:

Relax, we will solve it all with fusion, in about 15 years.

And in the mean time we have the Con.

The what?

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 11:30 pm Post subject:
I know its late, Con Fusion?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45539
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Feb 25, 15 11:30 pm Post subject:
lockeed martin recon their 100megw prototype will be on test in 2017 and if it works they will have a commercial version by 2022 and a few others are working on nif styles. tis plausible that 15 yrs will see working fusion power generation

Falstaff

Joined: 27 May 2009
Posts: 1014

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 2:48 am Post subject:

I'm still struggling to comprehend the utter stupidity of the original proposal !

Squidging various bits of vegetable matter into little pellets, using big machinery made using huge amounts of energy from steel. Then transporting these little pellets hundreds or even thousands of miles across country before piping them into huge ships and driving them 4-5000 miles across an ocean in order to put them into a fire, to heat up some mechanism.

So we're proposing to send millions of pounds out of the country to pay for someone to hoover up, chop up and squidge up these little bits of leaf / straw / twigs into pellets which a machine can digest without clogging up.

At the same time, we have high unemployment (despite what Govt massaged statistics might say) - which we are paying out for as well. We have masses of garden waste, which our council wants us to pay £45 a year to take away and "Dispose of" and much of which goes straight into landfill to become methane. We have masses of organic food waste - which goes straight to landfill and masses of waste straw, our farmers are not allowed to burn any more.

And all the time, under our very feet we have sufficient coal (and gas) to solve all our fuel needs for many decades to come !

The whole of the problem comes from the short -term nature of Govt and the fact that they will just pander to any pressure group they feel have an influence on public opinion and might affect whether they get their own jobs back for another 5 years. !

Tossers !

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15612

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 7:26 am Post subject:

Geothermal has been happily wandering away for over 50 years in some places, just not producing headlines.

Pellets have the advantage that they are less likely to spread pests and diseases than chips. Both chips and pellets can clog; in fact pellets are slightly less likely to than chips.

I agree with you Falstaff that we need to make better use of 'waste' to produce methane and other feedstock for energy production. In fact some power stations are powered by waste, but usually by incineration which is not ideal.

Tavascarow, I am not sure that slurry is the best way to fertilise SRC. It also has the problem of smell and cannot be used in some areas because of the risk of nitration.

If they are finally talking of nuclear fusion working it will be amazing. I learnt about it at school using text books that were printed in 1952, and nothing has really materialised yet.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 8:01 am Post subject:

Ty Gwyn wrote:

I know its late,

Con Fusion?

Ah, right.

Nick

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 34535
Location: Hereford

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 8:19 am Post subject:

Mistress Rose wrote:

Pretty sure nuclear fusion works. JET have even managed to contain it for half a second. The guys at Lockheed hope to have a small reactor running in a couple of years.

We just spend almost no money on it.

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 9:37 am Post subject:

Falstaff wrote:

At the same time, we have high unemployment (despite what Govt massaged statistics might say) - which we are paying out for as well. We have masses of garden waste, which our council wants us to pay £45 a year to take away and "Dispose of" and much of which goes straight into landfill to become methane. We have masses of organic food waste - which goes straight to landfill and masses of waste straw, our farmers are not allowed to burn any more.

Does green waste still go to landfill? Landfill gas I believe is where most of our 'green' energy came from and it's a dwindling resource because less green waste is going to landfill.

Falstaff

Joined: 27 May 2009
Posts: 1014

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 10:16 am Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Falstaff wrote:

Does green waste still go to landfill? Landfill gas I believe is where most of our 'green' energy came from and it's a dwindling resource because less green waste is going to landfill.

Briefly "Garden waste" was put into brown bins as "they" didn't like bonfires and individual compost heaps

Somewhere it was composted and "sold", but has a poor reputation as compost. We then got a new Council Leader who decided that we should pay £45 for "His people" to take away our waste. When pressed "His people" said if we didn't want to pay we should put the garden waste in our "!Black bins" (landfill)

"They" have a similarly joined up policy re "Food waste"

So I'd say 65-80% still goes to landfill - if those 2 are what you mean by "Green waste" - mostly I think, paper and card Does get put in "recycling"

I know methane was vented and burnt from landfill sites and the actual trenching process was quite dangerous, but I never heard of it actually being used in a meaningful way - perhaps I'm mistaken ?

Ty Gwyn

Joined: 22 Sep 2010
Posts: 4565
Location: Lampeter

Posted: Thu Feb 26, 15 10:50 am Post subject:

[quote="Mistress Rose:1432222"]

Pellets have the advantage that they are less likely to spread pests and diseases than chips. Both chips and pellets can clog; in fact pellets are slightly less likely to than chips.

I believe its only in the household biomass boilers that Chips are used,

Power stations like Drax ,upon delivery of the wood chips,store these in silos to lower the moisture content before pulverizing the chips to be blown into the furnace.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15612

Posted: Fri Feb 27, 15 7:59 am Post subject:

Chips are used for mainly larger buildings like schools, public halls and office buildings John as you need a moderate sized facility for the boilers, augers etc. There are some small scale local heating systems and I have visited one or two.

I didn't know they used the chips as dust for places like Drax, but I haven't taken much interest in large scale bio-mass power generation. It certainly makes sense as I believe they do the same with coal. It is the actual importation and storage that is the worry. It is quite possible that pests and diseases can survive in the wood chip and then escape into the surrounding area.

We have quite a lot of old rubbish dumps round here and all the methane is just vented. Green waste is now made into compost here, but people have to pay so much for bags to put it in. I don't think it is supposed to go into the rubbish bin. There was a scheme a little while ago to provide us with plastic compost bins at a reduced price, so home composting is being actively encouraged here.

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