By Paul Homewood
h/t Joe Public
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/01/glyndebourne-plagued-power-cuts-despite-wind-turbine/
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
July 2, 2025 at 03:08AM
What the National Energy System Operator (NESO) figures tell us is that a third of daily generation will have to be constrained. At an average price of £100/MWh, that works out at a cost of £3.3 billion, just for summer alone.
Throwing Away A Third Of Our Electricity | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
via climate science
July 2, 2025 at 01:30AM
“We have proved the commercial profit of sun power in the tropics and have more particularly proved that after our stores of oil and coal are exhausted the human race can receive unlimited power from the rays of the sun.” – Frank Shuman, quoted in “American Inventor Uses Egypt’s Sun for Power,” New York Times, July 2, 1916.
Solar electricity is not an infant industry. The following Wiki information on the inventor Frank Shuman tells an important part of the story.
- On August 20, 1897, Shuman invented a solar engine that worked by reflecting solar energy onto one-foot square boxes filled with ether, which has a lower boiling point than water, and containing black pipes on the inside, which in turn powered a toy steam engine. The tiny steam engine operated continuously for over two years on sunny days next to a pond at the Shuman house.
- In 1908 Shuman formed the Sun Shine Power Company with the intent to build larger power plants. He, along with his technical advisor A.S.E. Ackermann and British physicist Sir Charles Vernon Boys, developed an improved system using mirrors to reflect solar energy upon collector boxes, increasing heating capacity so much that water could now be used instead of ether.
- He also developed a low-pressure steam turbine [with] … sun-heated water. Shuman’s turbine processed energy four times faster than any engine of his day. Shuman then constructed a full-scale steam engine that was powered by low-pressure steam, enabling him to patent the entire solar engine system by 1912.
- Shuman built the world’s first solar thermal power station in Maadi, Egypt (1912-1913). Shuman’s plant used semicircle shaped troughs to power a 60-70 horsepower engine that pumped 6,000 gallons of water per minute from the Nile River to adjacent cotton fields. His system included a number of technological improvements, including absorption plates with dual panes separated by a one-inch air space.
- Although the outbreak of World War I and the discovery of cheap oil in the 1930s discouraged the advancement of solar energy, Shuman’s vision and basic design were resurrected in the 1970s with a new wave of interest in solar thermal energy.[8]
The post The First Solar Power Plant: 1916 appeared first on Master Resource.
via Master Resource
July 2, 2025 at 01:11AM
By P Gosselin
A 70-metre-long rotor blade of a V150 wind turbine fell from a height of 123 meters at the Lübbenow wind farm in Germany, heightening concerns about the safety of wind turbines.
AI generated symbol image. Hat-tip: Blackout News.
The affected turbine had been put into operation only 6 years ago, in 2019.
The incident raises questions about just how safe wind turbines really are. The incident is one in a series of technical defects. In January 2017, a rotor blade broke near Zichow (presumably due to a pitch control failure). In 2016: An entire wind turbine tower collapsed in Grimmen. A short time later, a Nordex 149 tower in Güstow had to be taken down for safety reasons. This affected a total of 18 identical turbines in Germany following a collapse in the Ruhr area in 2021 due to a design fault.
The Brandenburg Ministry of the Environment counted five accidents within two and a half years (as of August 2023), but no complete overview exists, as there is no central data collection for the dismantling of turbines and it is unclear who is responsible for the recycling and disposal of old turbine parts.
Not only are wind turbines prone to catastrophic failures, but they severely impact the quality of life of local residents due to the noise pollution they cause, especially in north-westerly winds. The rattling and clattering affect residents, restaurants and tourism. The rapid expansion of wind turbines has been accompanied by inadequate control systems and a lack of consideration for local residents.
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July 2, 2025 at 12:06AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 