Pickles

It is the best answer to the problem tbh. As wind generated power only accounts for 0.5% of the total energy requirements of the uk, if people were to install the correct energy controls to their properties, they can reduce their usage by at least 20% therefore reducing the demand for electricity, this in turn would reduce carbon emissions, help the environment, and reduce the price of electricity in the long run. for anybody wishing to find out more about wind generated power and where new wind farms are planned for, have a look here.

Going on those efficiency figures it means that wind generated energy, even at it's lowest efficiency figure of 15%, is (at worst) the same as the most efficient photovoltaic solar cell. • Monocrystalline: has a typical efficiency of15 per cent. • Polycrystalline: has a typical efficiency of around 12 per cent. • Thin Film: has a typical efficiency of 7 per cent. Please also consider these costs Solar photovoltaic panels £4,000 to £9,000 per kilowatt Wind £2,500 to £5,000 per kilowatt so why not use wind turbines? Solar power is dependant on sunlight and you are correct that the sun (as far as we know) will rise each morning and set in the evening but there is no sure thing on the wind blowing, great theory but the wind can blow 24 hours a day, what happens to solar panels in the winter when daylight hours are at their minimum? Tidal power has a huge potential until the shipping community says the turbines are causing problems for them. I think the best answer has not even been mentionedon this thread and it is is to plant BILLIONS of potatoes and use them to power cities.

Apparently not :huh:

That is why the advice by the experts/manufacturers, is to get a site survey done before spending money on a system that does not work well in that position. if the mean windspeed was not viable across the whole of the UK then there would not be any windfarms. Also his calculations have been made from old technology, the 'windmills' of today are much more efficient than those of 2-3 years ago so his savings would be much better with newer technology.

Tests have proven them to supply around a third of the electricity needed by an average house, plus when it is producing electricity overnight when demand is lower you can sell it back to the national grid and there is talk of energy credits that you can sell to the power companies so they can meet there renewable energy obligation.

yes these are becoming more acceptable in a technological sense but what about when the natural resources of gas/coal run out? insnt that what renewable energy is about. As for the Nuclear power-stations perhaps I should have said many are against them, as I can remember a thread on them in the serious discussion area, where many people were against them. As for the terminology I am sorry to have referred to them as turbines but I am only going from what others on here and this Have referred to them as. Yes wind generated power is not as efficient as traditional methods of generating energy but it is more cost effective than a lot of the renewable energy sources such as solar. This may be of interest to some. Daily telegraph And this The company

Without the use of renewable energy (wind, tidal, solar) where would we get our required electricity supply from? Very few people want nuclear stations due to the visual impact and safety concerns and the waste material issue, yet If we continue to use the traditional methods of production e.g. fossil fuel, then what is this going to do to the environment we live in? Are the Fens and Dales etc going to remain unspoilt for eternity or will they become wrecked by environment change? 99.9% of the UK population require electricity to to lead a normal life (I know in economic terms they don't but I am talking in reality terms) and with the UK population growing by means of immigration and birth rate, demand on the electricity suppliers is getting greater, put this together with the demand from the developing world and importing electricity becomes more and more expensive. So how do they produce electricity that keeps everyone happy? they cant. The thing is that wind generation is a lot, lot more cost effective than solar power and it doesn't destroy the environment like fossil fuel emmissions. I know I would rather see a landscape with a few turbines on it rather than have to wear breathing apperatus to go and see them.

Just had a small storm, not much thunder but on one occasion there was a very bright flash followed quickly by 3 loud 'pops' then the thunder and it seems there were 2 houses struck by lightening about half a mile away from me but no one has been hurt thankfully

This is in fact a normal day in Tewkesbury.

It all started at 8:45 when Curry's delivery called to say they would be here within the hour. I pushed all the furniture over to the side of the room and thought that would be it. OH NO NO NO They turned up and said they would have a look at the route through the house, "it's not going to fit through here" he said "What about round the rear access" I replied. We then had a look but unfortunately there is a load of paving slabs in the way and the passage is too narrow to get it through anyway. This is when I have the brainwave of asking next door if we can come through his garage and through his garden. He agreed but the delivery guy said they would not do that as they were not insured. So the only choices were for them to leave it in the garage for me to get round myself, or cancel the order. I thought 'how difficult can it be to get it round' so chose for them to leave it here. This is when the fun really began. Next door said they would give me a hand round with it, so we started to get it through his garage door at the back. This was proving to be difficult in the box so we half stripped the box and it got half through the door. The passage way is 3ft wide and the fridge is 2.5ft deep and 3.5ft wide the passage way has 2 90 degree bends in it and HAD fences each side, with wooden and concrete posts. Well I had to go and borrow a pair of sack trucks from a bloke 10 mile away before we could move it from the garage door. Getting it round the first bend was a job in itself. We broke the first fence and smashed the trellis work on the other side flattening plants and bushes in the process and brought down one small tree. The straight wasn't too bad but at the next bend we broke another 2 fences, then we had to get into a garden. this caused a wooden arch to topple falling onto a table snapping the top off when it hit. then across a lawn, now bear in mind it had been raining far a couple of days up here, it didn't do the lawn very good at all to have 200kgs of fridge freezer on a truck going across it, or rather into it. we then finally got it into our garden through a fence panel we had taken out by cutting the nails, but then we had to conquer the steps in our garden. this was no easy task with an item of this size, we managed it but then it was trying to get it through our back door, so out with the screwdriver and of with the back door (forgot to mention we had to take off the neighbours garage back door at the start) we then lifted it into the kitchen and the clear up began. And that was the story of getting our fridge. The anoying thing is that it is going to have to come back out as the doors and side panel were damagedwhen we took the rest of the box off

I think you got off lightly there OON

Glad it is going well for you guys, the pictures are amazing, I wish I was out there with you all. Best of luck with the rest of the chase.

Sunny and aparently 24.2 oC

19.5oc & hazy sunshine

Great pics, looking forward to more.

Dull and only a megre 11.8.c here today but dry so far

"I took the label off and have pretended they're from me." A good few years ago when I worked in car sales we used to give flowers away when we handed over a car. The above reminds me of a guy who bought a used car just before his wifes birthday (the car wasn't for his wife) and came in a week before his car was to be picked up and said "If you give away flowers can I pick them up before I pick my car up, as it is my wifes birthday on Tuesday"

Sunny and, oh, my thermometer has stopped working, but it is warm

17.c here and scattered-broken cloud

It is a lovely Summery day outside, 17.c and a bit of a breeze and becoming overcast.

Now I think I am a fairly well mannered person, I say please and thankyou, I close my mouth when I am eating and I hold the door open for people before or after I have gone through the doorway, if I am doing something for/with a person, then my attention is on them and I try not to intentionally ignore people. What I cannot understand, is when I go to buy something in a Tesco store and other stores too, why do the cashiers always find it ok to talk to each other whilst serving, usually not hearing when I ask for something from behind the counter, and when asking for payment or ending the transaction do they never say please or thankyou? Is it part of their training not to be pleasant or is it just a case of them doing us a favour. It has happened 3 times this week and it really does get me annoyed :unsure:

Patchy rain and showers with bright spells and 13.7c

Wet raining and 11.3 C and falling.

14.3 0C and overcast now

Well what a few days it has been since Friday. Friday. Decide that as I have not been out for a drink in months, I would go to the pub. Have a few pints and on the way home I am walking up the road to the future in-laws house and find a nice 3inch deep pothole to put half my foot into it then takes me 5 minutes to walk the further 100 yards to the house, in pain, to be greeted with “where the hell have you been, I want to go home”. After being told not to be so stupid it doesn’t hurt, about a dozen times on the 10 minute drive home, I hobble in the house, take my shoe of and the o/h realises how swollen my foot actually is. So at Midnight, it is of to the local A&E dept. After waiting for 20 minutes and finally being asked what the problem is after 20 non essential questions by the receptionist, I get to see a nurse who seems would be quite happy not to be there. After the usual questions she informs me that I need to come back in the morning as x-ray is not open at night, but as I am in pain I let the fact that it is a 30 mile round trip from home go, and return home with a couple of “pain Killers” that would have worked well if it was a paper cut I went there for but unfortunately not so good if it is an injured foot. Saturday Well off we trot (in my case limp) to the A&E dept for round 2. We get there, and tell the receptionist that we have come to have my foot x-rayed and explain the earlier visit and tell her that the happy nurse was going to create an x-ray form to save a bit of time, this is when we found out happy had not created a form, therefore we had to go through the whole process from the start. By this time I was in severe pain from walking on the ball of my foot as I could not put any weight on my poorly foot, at all, could not even move it. Had the x-ray and had to limp back to the waiting area to see a doctor. He came and called me so I limped to the cubicle to be tended to and all he said was “I cant see any break in your foot so keep on it and it will be fine in a couple of weeks”. KEEP ON IT, did he not realise how much it bloody hurt. 14 hours in severe pain, walking like I’ve had a toilet accident and with one foot twice the size of the other and he tells me to keep on it. Well we go home and taking no notice of the kind doctor who spent all of 30 seconds with me, I put my foot in an elevated position on the sofa. Having rested my foot after the half mile tip toe around the hospital (partly due to my considerate o/h parking 300 yards downhill of the entrance) I start to feel peckish, so the o/h reluctantly agrees to cook dinner of scampi and chips, then to top the day off, as I’m eating dinner, I hear a crack come from my mouth and on inspection with my tongue, I realise I have broken one of the teeth that is being taken out soon. Sunday Well it is now getting to the end of the weekend and my o/h phones me to tell me that as she is not happy with the diagnosis by Flash the doctor,and there is no improvement in my condition, she has called a colleague in the Dudley ED and has booked me in to see them!!!! So she comes home from work and takes me back to hospital (thankfully we bypass the queue and get pretty much straight into x-ray. After a much more thorough investigation the SHO tells us that I may have a fracture that they cannot see so I should rest my foot and use crutches that they gave me and come back in a weeks’ time. Now I have not used crutches for years, and anyone who has used them will know that they are not exactly user friendly. They give me a crash course (quite literally) and send me on my way……straight through the packed waiting room, and as some of the staff there know me and my o/h as we are saying goodbye it suddenly dawns on me how much of a complete numpty I looked on these crutches stumbling through the waiting area with nothing to watch apart from some blithering idiot getting nowhere fast on a set of crutches, oh, the humiliation. That is the end of this essay on what I did over the weekend