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Rail station set for switch to wind power

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Published Date: 25 March 2008
A RAILWAY station is set to go green when it becomes powered by wind energy.
First ScotRail has lodged a planning application for a 6kw wind turbine at Leuchars station in Fife.

The turbine would supply all the power for the station building, including heating and lighting, and might generate some excess electricity to feed into the national grid.

If approval is given, the turbine will be mounted on a 15-metre mast at the end of the station platform. The electricity it generates would be enough to supply a four-bedroom house.

The move is part of the train operator's strategy to reduce its carbon footprint, and funding for the £29,000 scheme has come from Transport Scotland.





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  • Last Updated: 24 March 2008 10:12 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

,

25/03/2008 09:52:02
Comment Removed By Administrator
Reason:
2

Neil,

Glasgow 25/03/2008 10:14:00
"The turbine would supply all the power for the station building"

I very much doubt if that is true for the reason Unimpressed gives. This this looks like merely reprinting a press release without any true journalistic questions. Obviously Sc otrail, which has to at least aim at breaking even would never have done this had it not been supplied free by the taxpayer.
3

nabodican,

Rural Scotland 25/03/2008 11:03:52
29 grand for a 6kw windturbine that will not provide the station power for even the 25% of the time that the wind blows at a suitable speed.
They have been duped by a very dodgy salesman.
4

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 11:47:00
or nuclear that works at 28% of its capacity and costs £3B to clean up?

Mitcheln tyres in dundee have over capacity in their generation from the two turbines they have, ie they generate too much.

5

Neil,

Glasgow 25/03/2008 12:27:12
Saoghal your first figure is made up, your 2nd seems low for the whole UK but has no context & the 3rd assertion again has no context - do you mean they produce to much electricity for Dundeed or for the burglar alarm of their tire yard?

Other than that well done.
6

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 16:00:34
ok copy and paste but referencing output from scottish nuclear plants in 2007.

Safety problems cause big drop in nuclear output
from Sunday Herald, 06 January 2008

The amount of electricity produced by nuclear power stations in Scotland has suffered a dramatic drop because of safety and technical problems, according to a new analysis by the UK government.

The number of units of nuclear electricity generated fell 24% from 18,681 in 2005 to 14,141 in 2006. This caused nuclear power’s share of electricity output in Scotland to drop from 38% to 26%.

The analysis (pdf) by the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) in London (formerly the Department of Trade and Industry) comes as UK ministers prepare to confirm their backing this week for a new generation of nuclear stations in England.

BERR said the decline was due to “unplanned outages at nuclear stations”. Reactors at Hunterston in North Ayrshire and Torness in East Lothian have had to be shut for prolonged periods because of cracks in their boilers and other potential safety problems.

In 2006/07, reactor three at Hunterston was shut for 353 days, while reactor four was off for 244 days. The station is still only operating at 70% capacity.

Despite the problems with nuclear power, the total amount of electricity generated in Scotland increased by nine per cent from 49,246 to 53,609 units between 2005 and 2006. Electricity from renewable sources like wind power increased by 46%, while electricity from coal, gas and oil plants rose by 34%.

7

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 16:03:32
So assuming that hunterston actually maintain full output for 24 hours on the days it was generating it's out put was actually 18%.

Sorry for the over estimate.
8

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 16:06:36
£3B is the decommisoining costs for Dounreay, and is likely to fall well short of the true cost with long term security, rising costs, etc. SO that's a per plant cost. Decommissioning is a real cost of nuclear and must be included in the overall economic equation and to ignore it is just ludicrous spin.
9

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 16:25:00
Finally Neil,

the plant has over capacity in terms of generation. That means that they make too much sparky stuff that makes lots of the bits in their factory work. they can make their factory work on just one of their turbines.

embedded generation is certainly part of a future of secure generation.
10

Neil,

Glasgow 25/03/2008 16:36:36
7 - Glad you admit you made the figure up. In fact neither "28%" or "16%" appears anywhere in what you have posted, the nearest is an admission that it is running at 70% capacity due to its age which hardly gives confidence in the Green/SNP policy of keeping it running rather than replacing it.

8 - The real economic costs of decomissioning should be small & almost non existent for new reactors since they are built with decommissioning in mind. We had a previous poster here involved in decommisioning who related how they were not allowed to use granite chips in covering sites but had to ship in limestone ones because granite is to radioactive. The cost of decomissioning Aberdeenshire of all its granite would be substantial.

Those in authority are obviously making sure decommisioning is as expensive as possible. I could bring in a bill of billions for decomissioning a single windmill if required but that would not be the genuine cost of decomissioning.
11

Neil,

Glasgow 25/03/2008 16:41:15
If your complaint is that embedded generation requires that you have more capacity than you will generally need (which would seem obvious to me) this is a strange argument in favour of it.
12

Andrew,

25/03/2008 17:41:21
Next - how about 'powering-up' the line to St Andrews?
13

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 19:53:28
Yes Neil it is running at 70% and i gave you the benefit of the doubt and counted the operational days as 100%. So the grim reality is that nuclear in scotland is the most unreliable source of energy due to so many unplanned outages.
14

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 19:58:59
as regards decommisioning costs, obviously you are of the opinoin that the poor nuclear industry is ebing picked on. Decommisioning may be a smaller proportion of the total costs of a nerw station, nevertheless it will be no small sum, then there is waste storage and security.

Though a small proportion of the costs the price of uranium is rocketing and people are already scratching round for new reliable sources, the grand canyon for starters.
15

Saoghal Beag,

25/03/2008 20:06:18
i am not sure how you turn my pro-embedded generation into a complaint? the turbines in dundee and hopefully the turbine at leuchars are good examples of generation at source, cuts down transmission losses, typically 30%, excess can be fed into the grid and used to feed demand or pump hydro storage up. the important thing about embedded energy is that it is disperssed and diverse. it includes things like the combined heat and power in dunfermline running off landfill gas and providing power to the grid and direct heating to properties.

 

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