Mokihinui .Woz up there? and do we need so much of this electrickery

[sAsLEX]

Oh,have they made some new stuff?

Oh read it so literal.

Modern power stations using coal.

[Swoop]

And those dirty big wind turbines "disturb" ag pilots, too

Eh?
They are "disturbed" enough already...

[Pussy]

Eh?
They are "disturbed" enough already...

Look mate.... I used to be REALLY stupid, but I'm better now!

[taff1954]

Geothermal power generation with waste fluid re-injection is a fairly good option - either dry steam, flash or binary cycle. And plenty of opportunity in these shaky isles.

The Aussies are getting into hot rock steam generation these days - in areas where there is no actual geothermal activity.

[Jantar]

Geothermal power generation with waste fluid re-injection is a fairly good option - either dry steam, flash or binary cycle. And plenty of opportunity in these shaky isles.

The Aussies are getting into hot rock steam generation these days - in areas where there is no actual geothermal activity.

No opportunity for traditional geothermal other than Hamner or Muria Springs. Even then these two would be very small schemes and we would have the same issues that affect Murchison. Loss of natural springs and hence tourist trade for a few MW. As for the Hot Rock technology. its nice in principle but:

It's interesting that the heat itself comes from the decay of radioactive materials. So if you're passing water through fractured rock where you have decaying, radioactive material how contaminated is the water going to be? And what's the potential for an environmental problem there?

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ear...ies/s18546.htm

[R6_kid:Me]

Sorry. The ultra greenies have over-ruled the regular greenies on this. Wind generated power (south of d'Auckland) makes noise that "disturbs the horses".

I don't remember hearing anything when I stopped by the wind farm to the East of Palmerston North. Yes they were spinning.

Also, what's this bullshit about 'visual pollution'? That ridgeline looked boring as hell before they put the wind farm on it. I've seen billboards that look a hundred times worse - for instance the ones that Brian Tamaki currently has up around South and East Auckland.

[taff1954]

No opportunity for traditional geothermal other than Hamner or Muria Springs. Even then these two would be very schemes and we would have the same issues that affect Murchison. Loss of natural springs and hence tourist trade for a few MW. As for the Hot Rock technology. its nice in principle but:



http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ear...ies/s18546.htm

No argument with that - I understand there's been no beds identified in NZ as ideal for hot rock anyway (at least up until I quit the drilling industry 2 years ago). But after working at Wairakei, and then being involved in the drilling of 20 plus wells in the Taupo / Whakamaru / Kawerau areas I rather like geothermal drilling. 2000 metre postholes, and a lot less of the bullshit you get on hydocarbon wells.

[sAsLEX]

As for the Hot Rock technology. its nice in principle but:

Bore some pipes nice and deep in the return path, use this as a sealed system to gather the heat from depth and transport to the surface to heat a secondary loop?

[Jantar]

Bore some pipes nice and deep in the return path, use this as a sealed system to gather the heat from depth and transport to the surface to heat a secondary loop?

Do we have any sufficiently highly radioactive rock in the desired area?

[sAsLEX]

Do we have any sufficiently highly radioactive rock in the desired area?

Its hot pretty much everywhere if you go deep enough. Highly oversimplifying this I know. But a stable structure of not too hard rock, whack a pipe down in a big u bend and steal the heat......

[Jantar]

Its hot pretty much everywhere if you go deep enough. Highly oversimplifying this I know. But a stable structure of not too hard rock, whack a pipe down in a big u bend and steal the heat......

Geology is outside my field of expertise, but from what I have read there is nowhere in New Zealand suitable for either DHR or FHR technology. I hope someone does drill a test well to either confirm or refute this.

[taff1954]

Its hot pretty much everywhere if you go deep enough. Highly oversimplifying this I know. But a stable structure of not too hard rock, whack a pipe down in a big u bend and steal the heat......

Hard enough drilling a horizontal well. A 180 deg. turn? At 3 deg / 100m, a 6000m plus hole. Doubt it. And you'd need to be in at least 12 1/4" hole. Drill 2 wells, fracture the formation between and pump in cold water, bring up steam. Plus radioactive elements. Hence we don't do that in NZ. And not too hard rock? The hot rock formations are usually granite. Not too bad for drilling into, but still pretty tough going.

The biggest issue with geothermal is field depletion. Look at what's happened to Rotorua. At the end of the day though, we need to look really hard at energy conservation so we DON'T need more power stations.

[sAsLEX]

Hard enough drilling a horizontal well. A 180 deg. turn? At 3 deg / 100m, a 6000m plus hole. Doubt it. And you'd need to be in at least 12 1/4" hole. Drill 2 wells, fracture the formation between and pump in cold water, bring up steam. Plus radioactive elements. Hence we don't do that in NZ. And not too hard rock? The hot rock formations are usually granite. Not too bad for drilling into, but still pretty tough going.

The biggest issue with geothermal is field depletion. Look at what's happened to Rotorua. At the end of the day though, we need to look really hard at energy conservation so we DON'T need more power stations.

So just drill two at an angle and intersect........like a V!

[peasea]

Ya see? HD had it sussed from day one.

The alternative? A bunch of niggers in a ferris wheel.

Works for me.

[Jantar]

... At the end of the day though, we need to look really hard at energy conservation so we DON'T need more power stations.

As the following posts show, we have already gone beyond the point where energy conservation will help the upper South Island. We need new power generation, or energy replacement (eg replace those heat pumps in Canterbury with log burners)

.... Either a new power station is needed in the upper South Island / West Coast area, or new and massive power lines need to be built into the region. Every year now the situation is getting worse in this area, and there are two main reasons: Irrigation and the Clean Air Act.

As more and more farms are being converted from dry crop to dairy there is a growing need for irrigation. Many of these irrigation systems require huge pumps with an equally huge demand for power. There has been around a 400% increase in irrigation power demand in the last decade. We're not talking TVs or Cell phone chargers but massive water pumps.

The last Liabour government made it mandatory that regional councils had to clean up the air and placed limits on the amount of air polution that was permitted in any area. To comply with this many regional councils outlawed solid fuel burners and open fires in certain areas including Christchurch. people in these affected areas had to replace those nice warm fires with heat pumps which of course use more of that electrickery.

This extra demand in Canterbury, Nelson and the west coast (ie the Upper South Island) has caused considerable strain on the South Island grid. Hence the need for either the Mokihinui scheme or a new coal fired station on the west coast. Solar and wind just wont do it.

Mmmm. Not often we see the data to contradict the claim in the same post. A 30 MW power station at a very conservative 50% load factor (ie its average generation is 50% of its peak) would produce 30 x 24 x 365 x 50% = 262800 MWh per year. This is considerably more that the 6000 MWh per year you claim we could save from efficiency gains.

Or perhaps you dont mean an energy figure of 6000 MWh per year, but an actual power useage saving of 6000 MW (without the per year attached). This may be possible but as it is equal to the country's actual demand of 6000 MW that means using no electricity at all. Is this really achievable just through efficiency gains?

The fact remains that we need more generation in the north and west of the South Island, and we need it soon. Otherwise power restrictions or blackouts will soon affect Christchurch, Nelson and the west coast.

.....
I agree that cylinder wraps, insulation, low energy light bulbs etc should all be used, and I believe that New Zealand already has a better than 50% usage. So lets assume that no domestic properties in the upper South Island have cylinder wraps and work out how much energy could be saved if all homes installed them.

A cylinder wrap improves the efficiency of a hot water cylinder by around 15%, and as an average domestic home without a cylinder wrap uses around 30% of its energy in hot water that means we could save 15% of 30% or a total of 4.5% of domestic energy. The upper south island current consumes around 800 MW of power and domestic use is about 40% of this, so if we installed wraps in every home in the upper south island we would save 4.5% of 40% of 800 MW. That is a saving of 14.4 MW.

However if we assume that half of all homes already have wraps then that saving comes down to 7.2 MW. This is still much less than the increase in generation required.