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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  15/12/2007  :  07:03
I thought it might be a good thing to have a topic devoted to this important subject.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 07/01/2008 : 11:33
I heard on the radio this morning that the tunnel will be broken through today for the Glendoe hydroelectric project near Loch Ness. It runs on an incline of 10% to a height of 600 metres above the loch. The big screw or digger or whatever they call it had two metres to go at about 09.00 this morning. I guess there will be a few bottles of champagne opened today!

I can't find anything up-to-date about it on the Web just now but there is an old BBC story about it here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/5180632.stm 

 

Edited by - Tizer on 07/01/2008 11:35:08


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 07/01/2008 : 17:29
They had the break-through on R4 this evening.  I love tunnelers, unsung heroes like miners and fishermen.  Did you see the report about the French fishermen off Cornwall?  One saved, one found dead and four still missing.  Imagine being in a cold stormy sea like that, waiting for death.


Stanley Challenger Graham




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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 11:07
BBC press release on "Hydro tunnel makes breakthrough"  - there are photos and a plan on the web page: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/7171802.stm

BBC Monday, 7 January 2008, 13:04 GMT

Hydro tunnel makes breakthrough

A huge boring machine has completed a five mile tunnel for a £140m hydro-electric scheme it started digging 15 months ago. The 220-metre long machine, called Eliza Jane, made its breakthrough at Glendoe, Fort Augustus, on Monday. Scottish and Southern Energy's plant above Loch Ness will generate power for 250,000 homes. The scheme is expected to begin operating later this year.

It is the first large-scale hydro-electric project since 1957. The project will turn rainfall into green energy through a nine-mile network of tunnels linking a dam above Loch Ness to a generating station 2,000 feet below. Scottish and Southern Energy said the project would pay for itself over the next 10 years.

Its chief executive, Ian Marchant, said: "The completion of this phase of the Glendoe development is significant. "It is a unique, large and complex project and I am delighted with the progress that is being made." In 2006, a convoy of lorries carried the tunnelling machine in parts from Inverness to Fort Augustus down the A82. Pupils at Kilchuimen Academy, Fort Augustus, dubbed it the Eliza Jane. Prime Minister Tony Blair ignited an explosive charge to begin the creation of the five-mile tunnel in hills above Loch Ness.

The scheme involves the construction of a 1,000m dam at the head of Glen Tarff and the building of an underground power station inside Borlum Hill.

 


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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 12:03
Environmentalists  oppose these schemes, and say they will fight anymore that are planned. It looks like you just can't win!!!!!!!!!!!!



Frank Wilkinson       Once Navy Always Navy Go to Top of Page
Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 17:43
I hear the cabinet has unanimously approved replacing the nuclear power stations with new ones.  Thank God for that!  Almost immediately the spokesman for Greenpeace was on the air whingeing about the decision.  i wish they would stop opposing everything.....  either that or go home and switch off at the mains.  They complain but burn the electricity.  Something wrong there.....


Stanley Challenger Graham




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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 19:07
They'll probably use it to get some more capacity, much of the aging nuclear plant is quite low capacity.  If they replaced the old Magnox kit with plants the size of Sizewell B, it would give a lot of extra capacity.   I found it quite interesting that power generation was a secondary consideration when the first Magnox plants were built, their primary function was to make Plutonium for warheads.  Most of the Magnox plants are closed now, the last will be shut down  around 2010.  Most of whats running now are AGR. Sizewell is a PWR, 

Current building trends are for the 'ABWR' or 'EBWR', safer, cheaper and more efficient than anything that precedes it.  


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softsuvner
Regular Member


604 Posts
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 19:23
I only heard a bit of the debate on Radio 4 this morning on the car radio. But, the point that Greenpeace were trying to make was that new nuclear stations would not come on stream soon enough to fill the coming energy gap.

I had to laugh when I heard the claim this afternoon, that it would all be built by the private sector and cost the taxpayer nothing! 

There is no magic answer, we'll all have to do like George W, bury our heads in the sand and hope that science comes up with something bloomin' quick!


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panbiker
Senior Member


2300 Posts
Posted - 08/01/2008 : 22:36


quote:
Tizer wrote:

BBC Monday, 7 January 2008, 13:04 GMT

It is the first large-scale hydro-electric project since 1957. The project will turn rainfall into green energy through a nine-mile network of tunnels linking a dam above Loch Ness to a generating station 2,000 feet below. Scottish and Southern Energy said the project would pay for itself over the next 10 years.


 

Could it be that the Beeb have this wrong? What about Dinorwig Power Station in Snowdonia. The first of it's kind I believe.

http://www.fhc.co.uk/dinorwig.htm

I have always thought that this was a good way forwards, we have enough rainfall and mountains in these fair isles to go at. Far more preferable in my book to more and more nukes that we can't decommission properly yet or dispose of the contaminant radioactive waste by-products. At the end of the day we are an island surrounded by enormous energy reserves in wave and wind power. This has got to be the way to go.


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 00:03
Dinorwig isn't strictly speaking a power station, since it consumes more electricity than it generates.  Its a convenient way of 'storing' electicity for times of peak demand.


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panbiker
Senior Member


2300 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 00:37
Dinorwig can operate in both modes Pluggy, 288MW output for a 12MW input overhead when in generating mode. That adds up to a Power Station as far as I am concerned. The folk that built it and run it class it as a power station so who am I to argue . The earlier constructed FFESTINIOG plant is classed as a storage power station. Both run by the same operators, I think they should know the difference!


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 00:43
Bah, wrong Welsh name.....   Its Festiniog thats the pumped storage facilty......   Frown

Sorry. 

 


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panbiker
Senior Member


2300 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 01:01
Both stations are described on the web link I put up. I think the new one in Scotland is the next generation progression and much bigger but not the first to use the concept, which is why I queried the news story.


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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 08:48
Festiniog 

Is that not a nuclear magnox station  Wyflya ???

The reason the greens are against hydro is the loss of ground and habitat. It might look nice as a lake,but what do the wild life eat ??



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frankwilk
Senior Member


3975 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 08:54
The last big Hydro scheme was 1971

Loch Mhor  to Glen Liah and then down to Loch Ness

background
Foyers Hydro-Electric Power Scheme

Foyers Power Station (300 MW) and Great Glen Hydro Group HQ
©1995-2008 Gazetteer for Scotland
Foyers Power Station (300 MW) and Great Glen Hydro Group HQ

Located on the southeast shore of Loch Ness, 19 miles (30 km) SSW of Inverness, Foyers is primarily a pumped-storage power station with small amount of conventional hydro-electric capacity. Pumped-storage involves raising water to a high reservoir during off-peak periods and releasing it later to generate additional power during times of peak demand. The scheme was redeveloped to focus on pumped-storage in 1969, having been purchased by the Hydro Board from the British Aluminium Company (BAC). The scheme was originally built BAC in 1896 and was the first large-scale commercial hydro-electric scheme in the UK, used to power an aluminium smelter also located here until this closed in 1967. BAC created a reservoir by joining two small lochs to form Loch Mhor, which lies almost 180m (590 feet) above Loch Ness.

During the redevelopment, a modest 5-megawatt turbine was installed in the original power station building to replace the original plant and provide pure hydro-electric generation, while the tunnels and pipes which carried the water were reused. The River Fechlin was diverted into Loch Mhor to provide additional water and, to support the pumped-storage system, new tunnels and a further power station were built close to Boleskine House, made famous by the psychic experiments of Aleister Crowley in the late 19th C. A new power station was built to house two 204,000 hp generation/motor sets, each weighing 914 tonnes, with 5m wide turbine blades, one of the largest in Europe. 100 cubic metres of water pass through each turbine and out into Loch Ness every second during generation. The turbines can be brought from a standstill to full power output in less than two minutes, which makes the station extremely responsive to demand. The new scheme became fully operational in 1975.

Today, the scheme has a total capacity of 305 megawatts and is run by the privatised Scottish & Southern Energy Plc, headquartered in Perth, which has an annual turnover of £2.3 billion.





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panbiker
Senior Member


2300 Posts
Posted - 09/01/2008 : 19:05
BNFL Magnox operate a Magnox Reactor at Wyfla it's Published Lifetime is given as 1971 - 2010. So it should be coming to the end of it's life. This is a different station to the hydro storage power station at FFestiniog and the Dynorwig station which are both operated by First Hydro.

http://www.dti.gov.uk/energy/sources/nuclear/technology/generation/page17922.html

This link gives all current and obsolete nuclear power plants and types in the UK with details of the operators and operational life expectancy.


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