Scottish Scientist
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Independent Scientific Adviser for Scotland
Scottish Scientist
1M ago
I strongly oppose all the proposals in this Heat in Building Bill consultation.
Firstly, I strongly oppose the misleading context set in the factually and scientifically erroneous “Ministerial Foreword”.
Whether those errors are because Mr Harvie has been badly advised by the civil service or because he is a commonly foolish politician, this foreword does not reflect well on the ministerial competence of Mr Harvie, the Scottish Government or the Scottish Parliament.
“the climate crisis” is patently NOT “the most significant challenge of the 21st century” – that’s a ridiculous claim by Mr Harv ..read more
Scottish Scientist
2M ago
Phases of Scottish tidal races
Generation of baseload power from tidal stream generation at a single tidal race at one site is frustrated at slack water when no power can be generated. However, if you pair up tidal races whose slack water times are approximately 3 hours out of phase then you can add their generations together to provide baseload power.
Research today discovered that it looks like suitable tidal races to pair up in Scotland would be the Mull of Kintyre and the Horse Island, Sumburgh Roest, Shetland. No doubt there will be other pairings between UK tidal races to be found ..read more
Scottish Scientist
2M ago
There is no good reason for a pumped hydro project to be blackmailed by active feral horse shooters or indeed to make any corrupt payments whatsoever so the government of Australia needs to get a grip over Snowy 2.0’s unreasonable costs and delays.
Snowy 2.0 is sited in the Kosciuszko National Park which is governed by active feral horse shooters.
Feral horses at the Kosciuszko national park are to be culled
Not only do they shoot animals they don’t like in the national park but they hamstring projects they don’t like too, such as Snowy 2.0, with red tape.
They tied up the contract with so muc ..read more
Scottish Scientist
2M ago
Torrefied biomass pellets
The above picture is of bad-ass biomass pellets after torrefaction, taken from this webpage.
“Torrefaction of biomass, e.g., wood or grain, is a mild form of pyrolysis at temperatures typically between 200 and 320 °C. Torrefaction changes biomass properties to provide a better fuel quality for combustion and gasification applications. Torrefaction produces a relatively dry product, which reduces or eliminates its potential for organic decomposition. Torrefaction combined with densification creates an energy-dense fuel carrier of 20 to 21 GJ/ton lower heating value (L ..read more
Scottish Scientist
3M ago
3-WAY PIPE HYDRAULIC DIFFUSER JUNCTION
This design concept could be applied for connecting a straight pipe or tunnel with a vertical shaft, but unlike the normal Tee-junction, the flows are turned by the shape of the junction (represented by the above diagram’s thick black lines) to meet at 120 degrees to each other and so there should be no efficiency bias in favour of horizontal flow through the junction, even for fast flow.
The diffusers (unlike so casually illustrated by diagram’s red lines) should be properly designed to serve efficiently to decelerate flow into the junction and accelerat ..read more
Scottish Scientist
3M ago
This is my design for the Snowy 2.0 Headrace Surge Shaft & Tank.
See – Snowy 2.0 design botch – water hammer.
Snowy 2.0 Headrace Surge Shaft & Tank design by Scottish ScientistHeadrace Surge Shaft & Tank
Shaft & Tank Chainage 19+200m or thereabouts
Shaft diameter 10m as per headrace tunnel
Tank cylinder base diameter at least 54m
Tank base elevation no higher than 1,175m
Tank crest elevation no lower than 1,260m
Tank height at least 85m
Note: the above typed design values may differ from those in the diagram after this blog post is updated when values are re-calculated as and w ..read more
Scottish Scientist
3M ago
Hydroelectric schemes prevent water hammer or damaging knocking in pipes etc. by the design of surge shafts, towers or tanks and / or expansion chambers, as close as possible to the pumps and turbines, connected upstream and / or downstream as necessary for every long power waterway tunnel.
So I am aghast to learn that there are reports of a significant water hammer problem with the extant botched Snowy 2.0 design but that instead of re-designing to include optimally placed surge shafts and tanks to avoid water hammer problems in the tunnels, Snowy Hydro and their contractors appear to have o ..read more
Scottish Scientist
4M ago
Subject: Community Energy Scotland – blocking from the bunker
To: The Ministers of the Scottish Government, the Net Zero, Energy and Transport Committee of the Scottish Parliament
CC: Community Energy Scotland
BCC: Energy contact list
Independent Investigation and Report into Community Energy Scotland
by Scottish Scientist, 16th December 2023
Prompted by: @Scot_Scientist being blocked by @CES_Tweet on X, formerly Twitter
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Community Energy Scotland is grossly mismanaged and as a charity it refuses to engage justly with particularly knowledgeable members of the community in S ..read more
Scottish Scientist
4M ago
After emailing all of the Carbon Neutral Islands Community Development Officers named in the November Island Updates with a copy and paste of my blog post “ISLAY: Carbon Neutral Island” I got an email reply from Shona MacLeod, CNI CDO and author of the Community Climate Action Plan for Barra & Vatersay, which was nice.
Barra & Vatersay Carbon Neutral IslandBarra & Vatersay Wind Generation Capacity Focus Table
Wind, solar, storage and back-up system designer
Row E configuration text page.
Peak Demand Power: 7.67 MW
Daily Usage of Energy: 115 MWh
Wind Power Capacity: 10.3 MW
Wind Ca ..read more
Scottish Scientist
5M ago
The Carbon Neutral Islands Project website was launched a couple of weeks ago and it looked to me like they could do with some help fleshing out their Community Climate Action Plans particularly as regards electrification and renewables and so I’ve started with the example of Islay.
Wind, solar, storage and back-up system designer
Row C configuration text page.
Peak Demand Power: 28.6 MW
Daily Usage of Energy: 429 MWh
Wind Power Capacity: 56 MW
Wind Capacity Factor: 49%
Wind energy per day (average): 659 MWh (= ~240GWh/year)
Storage Energy Capacity: 549 MWh
Back-up power: 8.57 MW (Bowmore g ..read more