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Electric Rag and Tube


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12 hours ago, FlyBoy1960 said:

The one at our airfield runs 100% off solar. 

 

The panels charge some large storage batteries in the hanger and the plane gets charged off those batteries DC to DC.

 

When the plane is out flying the batteries are still charging in the hanger for the next recharge.  Simples

What brand is it ?

 

And how many have crashed due battery or overheating issues ?

 

 

 

 

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It's a Pipistrel trainer aircraft,  I only know of 2 that have crashed that i have read about. 

 

One ran out of power because the guy flew until the batteries were completely flat (somewhere in Norway) and another crashed because the pilot spun in on turning final. 

 

Apparently (I'm just repeating exactly what I was told) they had set the aircraft up for very high regeneration in the circuit but this also slowed the aircraft significantly and during the turn from base to final the aircraft just got too slow and stalled when turning because of the propeller regeneration.  If my memory serves me correctly this was in the Netherlands

 

I was told that the manufacturer has now limited regeneration so that the aircraft will never fall from the sky again and that the owner has no control over boosting the amount of regeneration and therefore slowing the aircraft down, nothing comes free

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12 hours ago, danny_galaga said:

Sigh, here we go again with the ' it'll  be powered by coal anyway' argument. Look to the future- do you think there will be more coal power, or less? It's a confusing statement too. If you are for renewable energy, you would be dismayed about the idea that seemingly all power generated in the future is from coal. If you love coal, then you should be happy that all electric vehicles will be exclusively powered by coal. In fact, you would lobby the government to make sure absolutely everything is electric powered so you can burn more of that lovely coal.

For the grid I’m for cheap reliable energy like coal. Nuclear is still a bit expensive.

 

On me little farm I run solar/generator. 

 

I’ve got an old Sunbeam 32volt wind turbine and tower in bits in the shed. There’s some old 32volt power tools to go with it. The farm I removed it from had a heap of one volt battery’s hooked up. Back in the 90’s I did a wind power course at TAFE and sorta lost interest after that.

 

 

 

 

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 Oil accounts for about 39% of australian energy consumption. Coal, gas and renewables the balance. (source: energy.gov.au).

 

‘’Let’s assume all of that oil is used in transport fuels and neglect the gas component. Now that figure is energy consumption, so efficiencies don’t come into it. Assume the balance coal and gas are used for electricity production. Renewables about 7%.

 

So you want to phase out liquid transport fuels - find 40% more electricity. Then distribute 40% more electricity.

 

‘’Want to use renewables - multiply current production by 6 times and distribute it.

 

Want to phase out coal and. gas - multiply renewables by eleven or twelve times - and distribute the electricity.

 

 

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My rooftop solar generated 6.4 MWh last year of which I used 4.3 MWh this leaves a little over 2 MWh that I sell back to the grid.    2 MWh would drive a Kona EV for approximately 14000km. 

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32 minutes ago, Flying Binghi said:

For the grid I’m for cheap reliable energy like coal.

Perhaps its not a good time to talk about the reliability of coal, since Victoria yesterday declared an energy emergency due to weather damage to the coal mine. Or there was the time the coal mine caught fire and burned for weeks.

 

And renewable energy is now cheap, and the price is dropping faster than anyone predicted. No-one wants to invest in coal power stations because they know that the energy produced is too expensive to compete with renewables.

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25 minutes ago, FlyBoy1960 said:

It's a Pipistrel trainer aircraft,  I only know of 2 that have crashed that i have read about. 

 

One ran out of power because the guy flew until the batteries were completely flat (somewhere in Norway) and another crashed because the pilot spun in on turning final. 

 

Apparently (I'm just repeating exactly what I was told) they had set the aircraft up for very high regeneration in the circuit but this also slowed the aircraft significantly and during the turn from base to final the aircraft just got too slow and stalled when turning because of the propeller regeneration.  If my memory serves me correctly this was in the Netherlands

 

I was told that the manufacturer has now limited regeneration so that the aircraft will never fall from the sky again and that the owner has no control over boosting the amount of regeneration and therefore slowing the aircraft down, nothing comes free

Norway:

 

“...2.2.2.2 Viewed from an aviation perspective, the power controller appears to be vulnerable considering its relatively low operating temperature limitation of 65°C, combined with the unit's tendency to suddenly cut off the power supply if entering failure mode. It seems as if protecting the electronics in the power controller takes priority over safe operation of the propulsion system. This does not appear to be in line with common aviation design philosophy.
On the other hand, as Pipistrel has pointed out to NSIA, overheat without power reduction could also result in an unsafe situation.
2.2.2.3 Admittedly, it may be that design criteria for reliability and redundancy are less stringent for aircraft like this. However, NSIA believes that there is nevertheless reason to question whether the reliability of the propulsion system in Pipistrel Alpha Electro is acceptable...”

 

“...2.3.2 Considering that it is a closed circuit cooling system, that no evidence of leakage was found, together with the explanations of the personnel replacing the motor, NSIA finds reason to conclude that an insufficient quantity of coolant was replenished in connection with the motor replacement, and that, consequently, there was a significant amount of air trapped in the system...”

 

https://havarikommisjonen.no/Luftfart/Avgitte-rapporter/2021-03-eng?pid=SHT-Report-ReportFile&attach=1

 

 

Stadskanaal:

 

”...It was found that there were technical problems with the batteries prior to the flight...”

 

”...the batteries nevertheless played no role in the cause of the accident...”

 

https://www.onderzoeksraad.nl/en/page/12366/fatal-loss-of-control-pipistrel-alpha-electro-near-stadskanaal

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, walrus said:

 Want to phase out coal and. gas - multiply renewables by eleven or twelve times - and distribute the electricity.

 

 

That's the general direction, but it's a lot more than that.

After 40 years of subsidies to Solar and Wind Farm facilities, Victorian renewables recently hit a record of just over 50% of all power supplied to the grid in autumn/winter conditions.

 

This is because they can undersell the coal-fired power stations which have to cost in their requirement to keep producing a Base Load at night instead of switching off like renewables can.

 

So renewables are able to undercut Coal and grab a bigger market share. Sounds impressive, doesn't it? 

 

However, consumers also need a Peak Power supply once the temperature starts to rise and people turn on their air conditioning. When that happens the maximum power output of all renewables is around 1% of the total Peak Power with Coal and Gas plants at full capacity.

 

This is what the official AEMO dashboard showed on the night when we tripped the max. power demand and power was switched off to 100,000 homes to save the system.

 

 

Edited by turboplanner
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That's why you need storage of the cheapest power imaginable. Pumped hydro or Hydrogen etc. Both provide quick response. COAL certainly does not. New critical coal starts at about 55 cents:/Kw/ Hr. Nev

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20 minutes ago, facthunter said:

That's why you need storage of the cheapest power imaginable. Pumped hydro or Hydrogen etc. Both provide quick response. COAL certainly does not. New critical coal starts at about 55 cents:/Kw/ Hr. Nev

Hydro is the cleanest of all.

Pumped Hydro is a little like a perpetual motion machine - a few basics to solve yet before it's viable.

Hydrogen? How is power generated with hydrogen?

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I didn't see these before, but AGAIN (as is so common in aviation) operator error led to a failure in the system.

 

"NSIA finds it most likely that the LN-ELA motor failure was caused by the power controller interrupting power to the motor. This is likely to have been caused by overheating due to low fluid level and air in the cooling system. The investigation indicate that an insufficient quantity of coolant was added in connection with a motor replacement that was conducted by the aircraft's maintenance organization in Norway"
 

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39 minutes ago, facthunter said:

That's why you need storage of the cheapest power imaginable. Pumped hydro or Hydrogen etc. Both provide quick response. COAL certainly does not. New critical coal starts at about 55 cents:/Kw/ Hr. Nev

Have you seen this?

 

https://arena.gov.au/blog/raygen-solar-thermal-plant-to-be-built-in-victoria/

 

If successful will net 17 hours storage each day. Bloody brilliant idea.

 

I can't wait for Allen Moans, Andrew Dolt and Peta Cretin to tell us why it won't work...

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3 minutes ago, danny_galaga said:

 

 

this looks like a great idea, now if you could make the mirrors that they are using also solar panels you could get double bang for your buck. You could harvest the electricity coming through the solar panels and the reflection would do everything else needed for the system.

 

2 underground insulated pits the size of 9 Olympic swimming pools each is a pretty big operation!

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42 minutes ago, octave said:

 

Hydrogen fuel cells


How Hydrogen Energy Storage Works

Fuel cells are old technology.

Mercedes Benz supplied MTT Perth with three trial route buses around 2002.

They worked well, passengers were happy with the low noise level.

The buses cost three times a diesel bus so they were handed back to MB and diesel continued.

In California one manufacturer tried getting around the price problem by leasing fuel cell cars.

They brought a trial unit to Australia and I made an offer to do the introduction paperwork, but it was never leased because ultimately the high Prime Cost has to be recovered in the Lease rate. 

The electricity to operate to fuel cell was charged overnight, much like an EV, so it wasn't CO2-free.

Power Stations would have longer to recover the Prime Cost but an enormous increase in power is required to handle the step up from an autumn day to a hot summer day. From what I saw, they would have similar issues to Renewables.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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39 minutes ago, danny_galaga said:

Have you seen this?

 

https://arena.gov.au/blog/raygen-solar-thermal-plant-to-be-built-in-victoria/

 

If successful will net 17 hours storage each day. Bloody brilliant idea.

 

I can't wait for Allen Moans, Andrew Dolt and Peta Cretin to tell us why it won't work...

We're still awaiting the Mildura plant announced in the 1970s - much the same principle.

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4 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

Fuel cells are old technology.

 That couldn't be more wrong, well I guess they have been around a long time if that is what you mean but if you are implying old as in no longer used that is a different matter.  From space to energy storage to new vehicles such as the Toyota Mirai fuel cells are being used now.     For a detailed and academic deep dive into the technology try   https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-energy-storage     

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3 hours ago, FlyBoy1960 said:

I didn't see these before, but AGAIN (as is so common in aviation) operator error led to a failure in the system.

 

"NSIA finds it most likely that the LN-ELA motor failure was caused by the power controller interrupting power to the motor. This is likely to have been caused by overheating due to low fluid level and air in the cooling system. The investigation indicate that an insufficient quantity of coolant was added in connection with a motor replacement that was conducted by the aircraft's maintenance organization in Norway"
 

Apparently there were a few failures in the ‘system’. From manufacturer to maintenance through to pilot.

 

After the fan stopped, the pilot could have done a reset to get back power. The manufacture indicated though that a reset could have led to other problems - I’m guessing a possible battery fire from overheating. Whilst a temporary reset may have been enough to get the aircraft clear of the lake to a suitable forced landing area the aircraft might turn into a fireworks display on the way.....

 

I note the maintenance issues appeared after an ‘engine’ swap ?

 

Also... “...They previously had another unexplained shutdown, fortunately on the runway...”

 

https://www.euroga.org/forums/flying/12749-pipistrel-alpha-electro-crash-norway-18-8-19

 

 

 

 

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Batteries mounted C of G with quick release system.   Batteries overheat and impending fire alarm goes off……jettison them.  You are suddenly flying a glider but, the bad bit is a Lithium fireball raining from the sky and that is not a good look……

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On 17/06/2021 at 9:19 PM, kgwilson said:

Coal is dead. It is just that some just keep propping the corpse up. They look to China & India who are still building coal fired power stations. These are interim solutions to deal with their current problems but both countries have invested massively in renewables far in excess of Australia. Germany & the UK will not build any more nuclear facilities & the existing ones will close at the end of their life. Calder Hall was the worlds first nuclear power station in 1956 but was decommissioned in 2003 and has now been completely emptied of fuel.

 

Banks and venture capitalists will not invest in anything coal any more. Everyone in the coal industry knows it but the fossil fuel dinosaurs funding the Libs & Nats keep pushing the dead horse & they will do so until they run out of money or change. Renewables are the future and we don't need gas either. Every motor vehicle manufacturer in the world is getting into the EV revolution. There is huge progress in Aviation as well. Short haul electric passenger aircraft is already possible with current technology and electric trainers have been around for 5 years and getting better all the time.

 

The argument that EVs are created with fossil fuels is only true of the present as we have yet to transition fully. They are now producing steel in Germany without coal. Industry, the Australian public & the States especially SA are forging ahead despite the poor attitude of Morrisons mob who can only see the future as far as the next election..

“...China & India who are still building coal fired power stations. These are interim solutions to deal with their current problems...”

 

Kgwilson, I’m not sure where your getting yer info from though it ain’t born out by reality. Perhaps you seen it on the ABC... 😏

 

“...Last week, Bloomberg’s Indian enterprise Bloomberg Quint reported that, “India Considers 2050 Net-Zero Target, a Decade Before China.” It claimed, “Officials close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi” are drawing up a plan to achieve the Net-Zero target.

When contacted about the source of this information, Bloomberg did not respond. As of March 25, this information from Bloomberg remains as a false news, as no official sources have confirmed that New Delhi is devising a Net-Zero target for 2050...”

 

 

Seems we need to look at the actions of the Indian government...

 

“...India, unfaced with these noises, is currently going ahead with its second tranche of commercial coal mine auctions, where 67 mines across the country were offered for auctions...

 

...As a strategy to expedite the auctions, the government has even made a call for private bidders to make a request of their preferred mines. “With rolling auctions, we will upload a comprehensive list of mines along with key technical data and bidders can submit their preferences for the mines to be included in the next tranche of auction. This would be a continuous process and would result in expediting the auctions...”, said Pralhad Joshi India’s Minister for Coal and Mines...”

 

https://www.thegwpf.com/vijay-jayaraj-india-speeds-up-fossil-fuelled-economy-despite-net-zero-noises/

 

 

 

 

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