Green technology - am I bonkers ?

**Churchill** · 31 August 2009, 14:34

Originally posted by EternalOptimist View Post

I was up in Scotland last week and took the grandkids to Cruathin, a hydro electric plant buried in a mountain near loch Awe.

According to the spiel on the bus, this plant pumps water up a mountain during low demand, then uses the water to supplement the grid during high demand. It is nowhere near 100% efficient.
So all the energy originally comes from stinky burning coal and gas , but it is doubly carboniferous because the process is so inefficient.

far from being green, this place is actually the spawn of the carbon-devil

???

It's an electricity storage device.

Cheap electricity to pump the water.

Supplements the grid at peak times.

**TykeMerc** · 31 August 2009, 14:39

That station is designed for demand spikes not long term generation, it can be at full generating power very quickly.

Ordinary power stations can't just be turned on and off quickly and to reduce their output costs more fuel than you would imagine so it's better to keep them ticking over at efficient levels. Unfortunately during the night when demand falls off there's too much being generated so the electricity is used on things like lighting motorways and pumping massive amounts of water up mountains for the type of station you visited.

There's no such thing as a 100% efficient motor, generator or pump so it's inevitable that the power they get back out is less than they used pumping the water up there, fact of life I'm afraid.

**RichardCranium** · 31 August 2009, 14:39

The "Electric Mountain" in Wales is the same.

a) It is VERY inefficient to turn a power station down or off; instead the electrical energy is converted into kinetic energy.

b) Until a few years ago, at 21:00 precisely, tens of millions of kettles were turned on within seconds of each other. For just a moment, a HUGE surge of power was required to meet that demand. Dropping the entire contents of a lake onto a hydro-electric generator does just that. There are other times this happens, too. (The ad breaks in Corrie is another example.)

So, (a) is 'free' and is used to power (b).

It might seem silly, but it works.

**Pondlife** · 31 August 2009, 14:40

My undersanding is that they're used to supplement spikes in demand rather than having additional more traditional power stations that need to run at a constant output.

I think the Dinorwig one in Snowdonia exists to handle the demand of all the cups of tea being made during the ad break in corrie.

**Zippy** · 31 August 2009, 14:41

As Churchill said - nothing to do with being green, they are just regulators. There are a few of these plants around (see the Ffestiniog plant in N Wales).

The advantage is that they can respond very quickly to surges in demand.

**Pondlife** · 31 August 2009, 14:41

That Corrie reference was freaky

**EternalOptimist** · 31 August 2009, 14:42

I am not saying it's silly

just not 'Green'

some bird on the coach tour was having multiple orgasms about how green it all was

**Pondlife** · 31 August 2009, 14:45

Originally posted by EternalOptimist View Post

I am not saying it's silly

just not 'Green'

some bird on the coach tour was having multiple orgasms about how green it all was

It is green in the fact that you don't need to build another coal power station in order to handle the load that this one does.

**Churchill** · 31 August 2009, 14:46

Originally posted by EternalOptimist View Post

I am not saying it's silly

just not 'Green'

some bird on the coach tour was having multiple orgasms about how green it all was

They use electricity that would otherwise be wasted so I suppose in a way it is green.

Green technology - am I bonkers ?