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Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 10:01 am
by diamond lil
Found a huge waterwheel behind a big hotel near here, apparently it was part of a hydro electric plant built in the 1880s. I'm wondering if they produced more electricity than modern wind turbines? If anybody has or could repair or copy them? If Victorian technology was as good as or better than ours? Is anybody on here living off grid or knows about this stuff?

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 1:29 pm
by pseudonym
The Restoration man, george Clarke did one on a mill:

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6ou58u

they said that one could produce 8 kilowatts per hour or power 80 light bulbs.

HTH

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 2:41 pm
by diamond lil
Oh very good! TY Pseud :mrgreen:

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 3:56 pm
by jansman
The thing with water is, as long as it is there, it flows. Wind however, does stop blowing at times. I would love something like that flowing through my land.

One of my customers is a heat exchange engineer at the nearby power station. He was telling me that it is one of two coal fired stations locally. The waste is scrubbed of sulphur dioxide etc. And he tells me it is cleaner than nuclear, despite the bad press coal gets. Anyhow, he told me that the coal fires stations are what are known as ‘Black Stations’ , which unlike gas fired, can be brought online very quickly to deal with power emergencies.

During the Beast from the East spell, last year, the Black Stations were brought in to deal with the spike in electricity demand. Here is the point: Had the wind not blown ( which he tells me happens frequently), even with the Black Stations, We WOULD have had blackouts for sure! He tells me that the government want to shut the Black Stations by 2025! That will be interesting.

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 5:51 pm
by diamond lil
Everybody too busy jansman running around and shouting about how they're being clean and saving the planet. Meanwhile we'll all be dying of bronchitis and TB every winter in damp unheated houses :evil:

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 6:01 pm
by pseudonym
diamond lil wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 2:41 pm Oh very good! TY Pseud :mrgreen:
YW

Here's a mini version series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8pdCOL ... GI&index=1

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 6:13 pm
by jansman
diamond lil wrote: Wed May 08, 2019 5:51 pm Everybody too busy jansman running around and shouting about how they're being clean and saving the planet. Meanwhile we'll all be dying of bronchitis and TB every winter in damp unheated houses :evil:
Dead right!

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Wed May 08, 2019 6:51 pm
by Yorkshire Andy

Re: Off Grid Electricity - question!

Posted: Thu May 09, 2019 6:23 am
by diamond lil
So the Victorian technology isn't lost then, and we still know how to do it if we ever have to. Awesome.