"The island should be energy self-sufficient" debate in Tynwald

[Happier diner]

7 minutes ago, John Wright said:

If @Happier diner is correct it means a one bar electric fire rated at 1kw would cost £0.33 x 40 to run each hour. That’s £13.20 an hour, and a 3 bar fire £39.60. I know Manx electricity isn’t cheap, but….

JW is right . I need to check my work.

[Jarndyce]

13 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

My money’s on daddy. 

“Daddy”?   H’mm…

[John Wright]

18 minutes ago, Roxanne said:

Perfect. Thank you. I didn’t have it on at all last winter thinking it cost a fortune. Twenty pence for four hours sounds like a bargain! 

Actually 2p for 4 hours.

What sort of lava lamp have you got Rox? I’ve a floor standing rocket. Having difficulty sourcing replacement incandescent bulbs.

[The Phantom]

49 minutes ago, CallMeCurious said:

 

If you want a view of how bad things could get without that, just look at South Africa.

 

I've kept their app on my phone, which tells you in advance when to expect the power cuts (aka Load Shedding).  

When I was there a few months ago, it was generally 6-9 hours a day without power. 

It varies day to day and location to location, depending on what parts of the grid have broken down due to lack of maintenance and/or sabotage. 

Looking at the app now, it's a bit better and will only be off today 19:00 - 21:30. 

Oh and they are going to be building more coal power stations there as it's the quickest, easiest solution to their generation needs.  Obviously before some ANC appointed manager embezzles all the funds for that. 

Edited June 22, 2023 by The Phantom

[Roxanne]

8 minutes ago, John Wright said:

Actually 2p for 4 hours.

What sort of lava lamp have you got Rox? I’ve a floor standing rocket. Having difficulty sourcing replacement incandescent bulbs.

Of course it is. I saw what you had written but couldn't believe it was that low in cost so thought must be 20p.  For that money I shall leave it on all night.

I have a Mathmos from the 1960's. The chrome one. The wax is all but gone from bright orange to cream now but it's still very pretty. On the back of your calculations I'm now chiselling out 4 metres of plaster board so I can have it sitting at the top of the spiral stairs, where, of course, there is no power supply. Dust everywhere.:)

The bulbs are now becoming really difficult to find. They are however still available on ebay. I would suggest, if you find them, buying two or four. Soon they may not  be available at all.

[Roxanne]

14 minutes ago, Jarndyce said:

“Daddy”?   H’mm…

You knew what I meant. 😀

[CallMeCurious]

2 hours ago, Roxanne said:

Of course it is. I saw what you had written but couldn't believe it was that low in cost so thought must be 20p.  For that money I shall leave it on all night.

I have a Mathmos from the 1960's. The chrome one. The wax is all but gone from bright orange to cream now but it's still very pretty. On the back of your calculations I'm now chiselling out 4 metres of plaster board so I can have it sitting at the top of the spiral stairs, where, of course, there is no power supply. Dust everywhere.:)

The bulbs are now becoming really difficult to find. They are however still available on ebay. I would suggest, if you find them, buying two or four. Soon they may not  be available at all.

Fluorescent lamps are being phased out in a month or two as well. With a bit of luck you'll find an LED of a similar output and colour temperature that'll use even less energy and will last longer. However, I believe the heat of the lamp is what generates the thermal cycle that moves the wax which might not be as effective with an LED lamp but they do still generate waste heat.

 

[Roxanne]

6 minutes ago, CallMeCurious said:

they do still generate waste heat

Sadly not enough. The lava lamps take golf ball type bulbs and the LED just doesn’t get warm enough. I once left one on for two days to see if it would eventually melt the wax. It didn’t. 

In better news however, it only cost me 2p for the experiment. 😀

[Bombay Bad Boy]

We could do it, by sticking wind turbines on every hilltop, and solar on every government building, business, and household. 

Or a small nuclear power station. There are many practical locations for such, but nowhere that anyone would admit would be socially acceptable.

But that would mean no longer having a 'view' . Can't have it both ways.

It's kind of how driving for fun will no longer be a thing. Every car will be a soulless eco-appliance.

[Happier diner]

4 minutes ago, Bombay Bad Boy said:

We could do it, by sticking wind turbines on every hilltop, and solar on every government building, business, and household. 

Or a small nuclear power station. There are many practical locations for such, but nowhere that anyone would admit would be socially acceptable.

But that would mean no longer having a 'view' . Can't have it both ways.

It's kind of how driving for fun will no longer be a thing. Every car will be a soulless eco-appliance.

It's not windy or sunny all the time and small nuclear power stations are way beyond our budget. 

[finlo]

1 hour ago, Roxanne said:

Sadly not enough. The lava lamps take golf ball type bulbs and the LED just doesn’t get warm enough. I once left one on for two days to see if it would eventually melt the wax. It didn’t. 

In better news however, it only cost me 2p for the experiment. 😀

Everyone I've encountered has been powered by an ses E14 R39 reflector lamp which are/were readily available in Deals.

[Roxanne]

2 hours ago, finlo said:

Everyone I've encountered has been powered by an ses E14 R39 reflector lamp which are/were readily available in Deals.

What? The last one I bought on eBay cost me £12!

Thanks for the head’s up! 

[CallMeCurious]

3 hours ago, Bombay Bad Boy said:

We could do it, by sticking wind turbines on every hilltop, and solar on every government building, business, and household. 

Or a small nuclear power station. There are many practical locations for such, but nowhere that anyone would admit would be socially acceptable.

But that would mean no longer having a 'view' . Can't have it both ways.

It's kind of how driving for fun will no longer be a thing. Every car will be a soulless eco-appliance.

WTF is the obsession with energy independence?  It's delusional. It's expensive as hell and unneccessary. Use the technology we have, cables have no moving parts and little to no maintenance once installed apart from losses in transmission, they are highly efficient and the large portion of it can be recycled when irt comes to an end.

And it takes up little valuable land being mostly underwater or underground. You can build it into the existing HV network without tons of new supply grids to connect generation sites all over the landscape. Don't forget the windmills will be built in the areas of lowest population density which by defintion means it has no existing infrastructure that then have to be connected to the areas of highest use.

Then we can use the power from existing and future nuclear power stations throughout Europe, hundreds of existing wind turbines (some of which we have on the horizon) all without despoiling our unique home. Access to hydroelectric without flooding our own valleys. If hydrogen* or nuclear fusion or any other technology leap frog, we can benedit from them too.

(* can be piped undersea like natural gas)

Does anyone actually beleive that we could stand alone if the UK fell into chaos for a sustained amount of time? No food, no medicine, no fuel, no internet, no travel. no banking...

What we need is resilience of supply which means reliabilty combined with proven technology, the simplest most economic systems to provide  N+2 or N+3 and capacity on demand. And we need politicians to grasp the nettle and do something about it now before we are having rolling blackouts.

[Happier diner]

36 minutes ago, CallMeCurious said:

WTF is the obsession with energy independence?  It's delusional. It's expensive as hell and unneccessary. Use the technology we have, cables have no moving parts and little to no maintenance once installed apart from losses in transmission, they are highly efficient and the large portion of it can be recycled when irt comes to an end.

And it takes up little valuable land being mostly underwater or underground. You can build it into the existing HV network without tons of new supply grids to connect generation sites all over the landscape. Don't forget the windmills will be built in the areas of lowest population density which by defintion means it has no existing infrastructure that then have to be connected to the areas of highest use.

Then we can use the power from existing and future nuclear power stations throughout Europe, hundreds of existing wind turbines (some of which we have on the horizon) all without despoiling our unique home. Access to hydroelectric without flooding our own valleys. If hydrogen* or nuclear fusion or any other technology leap frog, we can benedit from them too.

(* can be piped undersea like natural gas)

Does anyone actually beleive that we could stand alone if the UK fell into chaos for a sustained amount of time? No food, no medicine, no fuel, no internet, no travel. no banking...

What we need is resilience of supply which means reliabilty combined with proven technology, the simplest most economic systems to provide  N+2 or N+3 and capacity on demand. And we need politicians to grasp the nettle and do something about it now before we are having rolling blackouts.

Good points. N+1 is sufficient though. 

[CallMeCurious]

12 hours ago, Happier diner said:

Good points. N+1 is sufficient though. 

Nope, I have to disagree. Given a major cable or equipment fault could last days or even weeks, we need N+2 minimum. 

If we can tap into different markets (i.e UK and Eire) we can get the best avaiable rates and physical seperation of supplies.

I'd suggest, we run the Pulrose power station as a +1 until it is no longer viable, which would give time for a 3rd interconnector (who knows Scotland might go big on renewables and offer even greater savings).

As nod to the IOM underground roundabout, why couldn't we also use the connectedness to arbitrage and tranship electricty between the regions and make money too. i.e if Eire is low on wind say, then maybe UK has excess we coudl sell on. Everyone wins that way as utiltisation of capacity is maximised, reducing the need for excess capacity

The importance of such a connection to generation would also ensure the IOM has a higher priority on the national grid etc. than just a 80k consumer base to maintian the connection between literally millions.