CANAL & RIVER TRUST PROVIDES UPDATE AS DROUGHT DECLARED

[Chris John]

1 hour ago, frangar said:

Are you new to this forum? That’s how it’s been since the beginning…this is not the place for harmony….much like real life. 

Oh that makes it ok then in your eyes does it……quite sad that is tbh 

[Midnight]

17 minutes ago, Chris John said:

Oh that makes it ok then in your eyes does it……quite sad that is tbh 

Whatever you do don't join Thunderboat 🤣

[frangar]

12 minutes ago, Chris John said:

Oh that makes it ok then in your eyes does it……quite sad that is tbh 

Just saying as it is. 

[Arthur Marshall]

4 hours ago, Chris John said:

Not at all but the constant slagging on here (from the same old posters) make zero difference and generally makes the thread direction totally change from the subject into a tit for tat spat. 

Which post has,  of course, moved the thread from the subject into guess what?

[jake_crew]

The droughts effects on the canal susyem featured on BBC Breakfast now at 7 25am.

[Momac]

The river level here at Farndon has  started to react to the rain we had yesterday and overnight. 

We do need much more rain of course. 

We 

 

 

[Heartland]

Is this time for more lateral thinking

Water flows down hill at locks, and especially through flights of locks passing at side weirs. How practical would it be to design a turbine at such locations that sent power to battery storage facilities and use that stored power for back pumping ?

 

[BEngo]

On 16/08/2022 at 19:58, Rob-M said:

40mph on the M5.

An aspirational speed round Taunton on a summer Friday night or Saturdayl😊

 

N

[Tracy D'arth]

1 hour ago, Heartland said:

Is this time for more lateral thinking

Water flows down hill at locks, and especially through flights of locks passing at side weirs. How practical would it be to design a turbine at such locations that sent power to battery storage facilities and use that stored power for back pumping ?

 

I think that an estimation of the power requirement to pump a useful amount of water would rule that out.  We need to find perpetual motion first. 

[BEngo]

The basic idea is possible, But:

 

The laws of thermodynamics say:

 

The battery powered pump cannot be 100% efficient,

You cannot get back all the energy you put into the battery.

You cannot put into the battery all the energy you can extract from the water flowing down.

You cannot extract all the energy out of the water flowing down.

 

There are four sets of losses there, with more  in the pipes, inletsq, outlets, and cables.  There are probably more.  This all means the scheme is very inefficient, to the point that it is not worth doing.

 

  There are also problems caused by the intermittent nature of the flow through locks.  Even with a pound  well above  weir level the flow will stop or slow greatly  when  top paddles are raised, for example.

 

N

 

[cuthound]

2 hours ago, BEngo said:

The basic idea is possible, But:

 

The laws of thermodynamics say:

 

The battery powered pump cannot be 100% efficient,

You cannot get back all the energy you put into the battery.

You cannot put into the battery all the energy you can extract from the water flowing down.

You cannot extract all the energy out of the water flowing down.

 

There are four sets of losses there, with more  in the pipes, inletsq, outlets, and cables.  There are probably more.  This all means the scheme is very inefficient, to the point that it is not worth doing.

 

  There are also problems caused by the intermittent nature of the flow through locks.  Even with a pound  well above  weir level the flow will stop or slow greatly  when  top paddles are raised, for example.

 

N

 

 

True, what might work though is a design Ericsson used to telecoms power repeater stations in remote areas of the world.

 

Basically they used a water driven turbine to charge a battery. The turbine was situated between two water tanks at different levels. A wind powered pump pumped water from the lower tank back up to the higher tank, and the tank capacities were determined by how long wind free periods could be expected.

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

36 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

True, what might work though is a design Ericsson used to telecoms power repeater stations in remote areas of the world.

 

Basically they used a water driven turbine to charge a battery. The turbine was situated between two water tanks at different levels. A wind powered pump pumped water from the lower tank back up to the higher tank, and the tank capacities were determined by how long wind free periods could be expected.

 

 

 

 

A smaller version of the 'Electric Mountain' in North Wales.

 

Dinorwig Power Station - Wikipedia

 

Water is stored at 636 metres (2,087 ft) above sea level in Marchlyn Mawr reservoir. When power needs to be generated, water from the reservoir is sent down through the turbines into Llyn Peris, which is at approximately 100 metres (330 ft). Water is pumped back from Llyn Peris to Marchlyn Mawr during off-peak times. Although it uses more energy to pump the water up than is generated on the way down, pumping is generally done when electricity is cheaper and generation when it is more expensive.

The power station comprises six 300 MW GEC generator/motors coupled to Francis-type reversible turbines. The generators are vertical-shaft, salient-pole, air-cooled units each having 12 electromagnetic poles weighing 10 tonnes each, producing a terminal voltage of 18 kV; synchronous speed is 500 rpm. From standstill, a single 450-tonne generator can synchronise and achieve full load in approximately 75 seconds. With all six units synchronised and spinning-in-air (water is dispelled by compressed air and the unit draws a small amount of power to spin the shaft at full speed), 0 MW to 1800 MW load can be achieved in approximately 16 seconds. Once running, at full flow, the station can provide power for up to six hours before running out of water.

The energy storage capacity of the station is approximately 9.1 GWh. At peak output water flows through the generators at 390 cubic metres (100,000 gallons) per second (about the volume of a 25 metre; 28 yard swimming pool every second).

[David Mack]

3 hours ago, BEngo said:

The basic idea is possible, But:

 

The laws of thermodynamics say:

 

The battery powered pump cannot be 100% efficient,

You cannot get back all the energy you put into the battery.

You cannot put into the battery all the energy you can extract from the water flowing down.

You cannot extract all the energy out of the water flowing down.

 

There are four sets of losses there, with more  in the pipes, inletsq, outlets, and cables.  There are probably more.  This all means the scheme is very inefficient, to the point that it is not worth doing.

 

  There are also problems caused by the intermittent nature of the flow through locks.  Even with a pound  well above  weir level the flow will stop or slow greatly  when  top paddles are raised, for example.

 

N

 

And you would only capture the water going over the bywashes, and not that used in the locks (unless you put turbines in every paddle).

[ditchcrawler]

4 hours ago, BEngo said:

 

 

  There are also problems caused by the intermittent nature of the flow through locks.  Even with a pound  well above  weir level the flow will stop or slow greatly  when  top paddles are raised, for example.

 

N

 

Get a good flow if they put them on a flight when people dont set ahead going down

[jonathanA]

1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

A smaller version of the 'Electric Mountain' in North Wales.

 

Dinorwig Power Station - Wikipedia

 

Water is stored at 636 metres (2,087 ft) above sea level in Marchlyn Mawr reservoir. When power needs to be generated, water from the reservoir is sent down through the turbines into Llyn Peris, which is at approximately 100 metres (330 ft). Water is pumped back from Llyn Peris to Marchlyn Mawr during off-peak times. Although it uses more energy to pump the water up than is generated on the way down, pumping is generally done when electricity is cheaper and generation when it is more expensive.

The power station comprises six 300 MW GEC generator/motors coupled to Francis-type reversible turbines. The generators are vertical-shaft, salient-pole, air-cooled units each having 12 electromagnetic poles weighing 10 tonnes each, producing a terminal voltage of 18 kV; synchronous speed is 500 rpm. From standstill, a single 450-tonne generator can synchronise and achieve full load in approximately 75 seconds. With all six units synchronised and spinning-in-air (water is dispelled by compressed air and the unit draws a small amount of power to spin the shaft at full speed), 0 MW to 1800 MW load can be achieved in approximately 16 seconds. Once running, at full flow, the station can provide power for up to six hours before running out of water.

The energy storage capacity of the station is approximately 9.1 GWh. At peak output water flows through the generators at 390 cubic metres (100,000 gallons) per second (about the volume of a 25 metre; 28 yard swimming pool every second).

In the late 1990s I had a job to upgrade an FDDI network at Dinorwic and got to drive my car into the mountain and work in the control room. (Although normally everything is controlled remotely from the National Grid control room). A remarkable experience and a quite amazing bit of engineering (Dinorwic not my FDDI network although that was pretty good too 😀)

[Alan de Enfield]

39 minutes ago, jonathanA said:

In the late 1990s I had a job to upgrade an FDDI network at Dinorwic and got to drive my car into the mountain and work in the control room. (Although normally everything is controlled remotely from the National Grid control room). A remarkable experience and a quite amazing bit of engineering (Dinorwic not my FDDI network although that was pretty good too 😀)

 

Do you mean Dinorwig ?

My boat (and I) are in Dinorwic Marina but the Electric Mountain is a long way away.

[howardang]

10 hours ago, jonathanA said:

In the late 1990s I had a job to upgrade an FDDI network at Dinorwic and got to drive my car into the mountain and work in the control room. (Although normally everything is controlled remotely from the National Grid control room). A remarkable experience and a quite amazing bit of engineering (Dinorwic not my FDDI network although that was pretty good too 😀)

In the early 1980's I was involved with a North sea Offshore construction barge which we had stationed temporally in the port of Penrhyn, North Wales, just  at the time when they were building the power station in question. As part of the project the port was being used to bring in the turbines which are now installed in the underground tunnels and very impressive they were.  The turbines in particular were immense. For a short time this relatively sleepy small port was a hive of activity with tugs, deep sea barges and

all the associated land transport, cranes etc. which goes with such a massive project. I wish I had taken a few photos at the time.

 

Howard

Edited August 26, 2022 by howardang

[Pluto]

Penrhyn in 1980, with the tanker Lobol at the quay.

[Alan de Enfield]

Port Penrhyn 'Today'

It is where we had to be 'lifted in' as we are too big for the hoists at any of the local leisure marinas.