For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1876895
Not really pits, just scraping off outcrops :D
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By Sooty25
#1876900
Colonel Panic wrote:3 of the 13 energy companies that have gone bust since 1st September had less than 10,000 customers. One has to wonder how they ever survived in the first place with such a diminutive customer base.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58959620


Quite easily really.. Bulb was set up by two chaps that understood how the system works, a couple of computers and some server space and some time. Lets face it, once you've got an account to buy electricity, and someone who is prepared to buy it, all you need is the ability to create the software to sit in the middle and add 5%.

No stock to store, the server reads the smart meters and bills it on. I'd love to babysit a server harvesting 5% of 5,000 electric accounts! It went wrong for those that were too clever/greedy, fixed prices in a variable market, gambling in futures, an extra half a percent to get a few hundred more customers, they got it wrong.
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By Flying_john
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1876923
johnm wrote:
Flying_john wrote:We'll be opening old british coal mines next, Shouldnt have destroyed all those power stations and be reliant on French Nuclear and Ruski gas !!


While French nuclear is undoubtedly a factor we get gas from Norway :-)



Although we do get some from Norway, we import a lot more gas from other sources including Russia !
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By Flying_john
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1876926
johnm wrote:Not really pits, just scraping off outcrops :D


Still a couple of deepmines and a couple of drift mines operating in the UK, including; Hopewell, Wallsend, Ayle, Aberpergwm.

Scrapers and diggers.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1876937
Flying_john wrote:I see the Drax coal fired power station is going great guns and the share price rising too.


I thought Drax was biomass now, not coal?

Lots of opencast around where I am in Wales.
By LowNSlow1
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1877006
I think Aberpergwm is doing the last gasp of clearing the vast flock coal tips that used to be around Glyn Neath and Hirwaun. The last pit in the Dulais Valley, Onllwyn is also a clearing up of one of the last big open cast pits.

Thankfully the Welsh Pyramids (coaltips) are now a rare feature on the skyline compared to when I was a kid when we used to sledge down them on sections of discarded conveyer belts!

Drax has 4 biomass furnaces and 2 coal furnaces. The coal ones are supposed to close in 2021 and be converted to CCGT units.
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By Flying_john
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1877036
"Drax power station in North Yorkshire has scrapped controversial plans to swap coal-burning units for gas turbines after opposition from environmental groups. ..."

Drax has 4 biomass furnaces


Its just very young coal, its actually wood pellets. I think Biomass is a term that satisfys the greenies
By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1877041
I think the theory is that wood pellets from trees are replaced by planting trees so there’s a closed loop. A bit like coppicing.
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By Flying_john
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1877062
johnm wrote:I think the theory is that wood pellets from trees are replaced by planting trees so there’s a closed loop. A bit like coppicing.


Its merely a question of time 8)
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