Re: Using nuclear power to make renewables and a hydrogen economy cost effective

From: Alex Terrell (alexterrell_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 10/31/04 

Date: 31 Oct 2004 01:09:18 -0700

"charliew2" <charliew2@ev1.net> wrote in message news:<10o5jsr8l2sttf3@corp.supernews.com>...
>
> I'm continually amazed by the "good ideas" of posters who have absolutely no
> industrial experience. Such ideas seem to take on a life of their own, such
> as the idea that power plants produce excess electricity at night.

You seem to equate industrial experience with the specialist area of
power systems engengineering. Very few of the many with industrial
knowledge know about this area. For a brief intro, read this excellent
description by a certain Charliew2:

http://groups.google.co.uk/groups?hl=en&lr=&threadm=d81e59c9.0410150122.35be8c8f%40posting.google.com&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dalexterrell%2Bcharliew2%26hl%3Den%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch

Meanwhile, I'm continually amazed at how people with no experience of
economics or business choose such a narrow definition of excess. If
their trying to get rid of the stuff at below cost, that could be
treated by excess. (I wonder if Ryanair considers the seats it sells
for €0.99 "excess seats").

Enough of the friendly jousting. Do you know the efficiency
(engineering definition) drop of a power plant that is running at half
capacity?

Finally, using thermal sources to produce hydrogen at night, or when
the wind blows, will still have merit because it enables full
utilisation of plant (apart from the turbines), even if the efficiency
gain (hopefully you can quantify this) is not that great.