Wind turbines used to absorb a power surplus?...

[Scott Lurndal]

Cindy Hamilton <hamilton@invalid.com> writes:

On 2023-03-20, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

I like birds. I feed a bunch of them twice a day. They prefer Fritos
to anything else we\'ve tried; I\'m sympathetic to that choice. I have
one giantic raven and a one-legged blue jay that will fly and snatch a
Frito out of my hand.

The tiny little Juncos clean up every spec of food off the deck

We feed the birds, too. The rabbits also benefit.

One afternoon I came out and put some banana bread out. I barely
had time to turn around and step away from it before a rabbit
dashed out of cover and started in on it.

https://bunnylady.com/feeding-wild-rabbits/

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 11:17, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly,

Tell that to any operator of a steam locomotive. Of course they can.
All reliable generators except hydro take a bit of time to get steam up,
but there is energy in to boilers to cope with medium term peaks of a
few minutes.

and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing output.

Rubbish. You mean wind generators who get paid not to produce

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

It is not, That is why you add batteries to the grid.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

They take power form the grid to turn when there is no wind otherwise
the main beraings deform
> Sylvia.

--
The New Left are the people they warned you about.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 16:31, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:17:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

Sylvia.

If a steam plant makes too much power until it can throttle down, and
nobody wants the power, why not dump steam into the condenser?

You can throttle a stem plant instantaneously. All that happens in the
limit is a safety valve will blow of excess steam pressure.

The UK ran on pretty much 100% coal up until the 1960s. They managed.

--
\"If you don’t read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed.\"

Mark Twain

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 16:38, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 11:29:24 +0000, SteveW <steve@walker-family.me.uk
wrote:

On 18/03/2023 11:17, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

That idea has probably come from the use of \"barring gear\". When not in
use, some wind turbines are electrically driven and turn slowly, to
prevent semi-permanent sagging of blades or shafts when left stationary
in one position.

Steam turbines on ships (now mostly diesels) engaged a \"turning gear\"
electric motor to slowly rotate things so a hot turbine shaft wouldn\'t
sag.

Steam ships used cheap fuel, basically street paving quality gunk, but
were so complex that it was hard to find crews to keep them running.
Diesels are much simpler.

And those also use street paving quality gunk, preheated to make it liquid.

I am not sure why they switched from steam turbines to diesel, I
wouldn\'t think there was much difference in complexity

Ah. according to the net it was simply a matter of fuel efficiency.
Diesels use less bitumen

--
\"If you don’t read the news paper, you are un-informed. If you read the
news paper, you are mis-informed.\"

Mark Twain

 

[Scott Lurndal]

The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid> writes:

On 18/03/2023 11:17, Sylvia Else wrote:
On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly,
Tell that to any operator of a steam locomotive.

There are massive differences between steam locomotives and
plants that generate electricity using steam.

? Of course they can.

All reliable generators except hydro take a bit of time to get steam up,
but there is energy in to boilers to cope with medium term peaks of a
few minutes.

A given generator needs to spin at a specific frequency, and the margins on
that frequency are very small.

Where multiple generators are fed from a common steam prime mover, the startup
time for any one generator is on the order of 10\'s of minutes - far too
long to respond to large changes in demand.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 21:46, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 19-Mar-23 3:31 am, John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 22:17:53 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 8:39 pm, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy, building
new wind farms?

Coal fired power stations cannot change their output rapidly, and can be
willing to pay for the right to generate in preference to reducing
output.

So the windfarm notion is not entirely implausible. However, wind
turbines use electronics to match the turbine output to the grid
frequency, and it seems unlikely that it\'s designed to operate in
reverse for the relatively rare occasions that that would be used.

On balance, then, I doubt that using wind turbines as fans is real.

Sylvia.

If a steam plant makes too much power until it can throttle down, and
nobody wants the power, why not dump steam into the condenser?


I don\'t know what the technical issue is, but here in Australia, it\'s
not especially unusual for the spot electricity price to go negative at
night when coal plants don\'t want to reduce their output. If they had
another solution that didn\'t involve spending money, I\'m sure they\'d use
it.

Sylvia.

The spot price is not what you think it is. In general power stations
are contracted to supply power at a fixed rate. If those contracts
exceed demand, the price goes negative and someone will be paid to shut
down.

Its not a question that the coal people are paying to stay on, its that
someone else will be paid to not generate, even if they could, and have
a contract to do so.
The ones who benefit most are those that pay the most from fuel. So gas
typically would shut down

The way the electricity market works is that there are long term
contracts and then there is an imbalance between the long term supplies
and the short term demand. That goes into a balancing market - al least
here in the UK - and prices can and do go crazy until some one steps in
to silly the next 15 minute period or something at insane prices. Or
someone agrees to get paid to cut output.

--
It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.
Mark Twain

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 16:45, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 11:28:24 +0000, Davey <davey@example.invalid
wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 07:23:09 -0400
Frank <\"frank \"@frank.net> wrote:

On 3/18/2023 5:39 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much
power on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra
power.  Is this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations
they can just turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to
speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install
smart meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green
tax. Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Does not make any sense. I think it is done with hydroelectric where
water is pumped back up at night when usage is down but what do you
do, pump back wind?

See:
https://www.energy-storage.news/delivering-pumped-hydro-storage-in-the-uk-after-a-three-decade-interlude/

\"Up to days at a time\".

As long as its only twowatts. In general the biggest pumped hydro only
lasts an hour or so, at full chat. The rest is marketing spin.


--
“People believe certain stories because everyone important tells them,
and people tell those stories because everyone important believes them.
Indeed, when a conventional wisdom is at its fullest strength, one’s
agreement with that conventional wisdom becomes almost a litmus test of
one’s suitability to be taken seriously.”

Paul Krugman

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 17:23, alan_m wrote:

On 18/03/2023 16:45, John Larkin wrote:


Does not make any sense.  I think it is done with hydroelectric where
water is pumped back up at night when usage is down but what do you
do, pump back wind?

See:
https://www.energy-storage.news/delivering-pumped-hydro-storage-in-the-uk-after-a-three-decade-interlude/

\"Up to days at a time\".


Yep, this 1,500 MW scheme will make up for the UK shortfall when the
wind doesn\'t blow. The difference for the UK wind between blowing and
not blowing is close to 15,000 MW so to just backup the existing
windmills we need 10 of these pumped storage facilities. When even more
windmills are built the shortfall when the wind is absent requires
perhaps 20 to 30 of these facilities. And what happens for when the wind
doesn\'t blow for 14 days and the pumped water head runs dry after a
couple of days?

This scheme probably only makes financial sense if we rely on windmills
where they can sell back the electricity at 10x the going rate when
there is no wind.

Its not quite that bad, although the amount spent on adding kit to make
renewables reliable is far greater than the cost of just chucking in a
couple of nukes

If you look at UK demand ( https://gridwatch.oreg.uk ) there is
generally an evening peak of around 5GW in winter, that is spread out
over an hour or two.

This is covered by a couple of GW of pumped, and a couple more of
straight hydro, plus a little messing with imports, since france has a
slightly different clock as it were.

Another couple would be handy if it could be built sanely
No storage can cope with two weeks of no wind and cold weather and
buggrall sun.
That\'s renewable pie in the sky.
In the end once you have skimmed all the profits and gouged all the
customers, the reality that if you want to decarbonise electricity you
don\'t use renewables. Nuclear is way cheaper overall.

You just plug it onto the existing grid close to where the demand is and
that\'s all you need to do.


--
“It is not the truth of Marxism that explains the willingness of
intellectuals to believe it, but the power that it confers on
intellectuals, in their attempts to control the world. And since...it is
futile to reason someone out of a thing that he was not reasoned into,
we can conclude that Marxism owes its remarkable power to survive every
criticism to the fact that it is not a truth-directed but a
power-directed system of thought.”
Sir Roger Scruton

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 19/03/2023 10:49, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 10:23 pm, Frank wrote:
On 3/18/2023 5:39 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much
power on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra
power.  Is this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations
they can just turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Does not make any sense.  I think it is done with hydroelectric where
water is pumped back up at night when usage is down but what do you
do, pump back wind?

I don\'t think the OP intended to suggest that this was used as a way to
store energy, just as a way to get rid of it.

Well if you get paid to USE surplus electricity that is of course a
grand plan

> Sylvia.

--
The New Left are the people they warned you about.

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 19/03/2023 16:01, John Larkin wrote:

On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 21:49:31 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 10:23 pm, Frank wrote:
On 3/18/2023 5:39 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Does not make any sense.  I think it is done with hydroelectric where
water is pumped back up at night when usage is down but what do you do,
pump back wind?

I don\'t think the OP intended to suggest that this was used as a way to
store energy, just as a way to get rid of it.

Sylvia.

Electrolyze water. Or churn masses of ice cream.

Or melt lots of salt, or heat a heatbank of water.

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don\'t think.

Adolf Hitler

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 19/03/2023 23:45, Sylvia Else wrote:

On 20-Mar-23 3:01 am, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 19 Mar 2023 21:49:31 +1100, Sylvia Else <sylvia@email.invalid
wrote:

On 18-Mar-23 10:23 pm, Frank wrote:
On 3/18/2023 5:39 AM, Commander Kinsey wrote:
An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power
on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power.  Is
this really true?  Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just
turn down a bit?  Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

I was also disturbed to hear from him it costs £700 to install smart
meters into each home.  And in the UK that comes from green tax.
Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Does not make any sense.  I think it is done with hydroelectric where
water is pumped back up at night when usage is down but what do you do,
pump back wind?

I don\'t think the OP intended to suggest that this was used as a way to
store energy, just as a way to get rid of it.

Sylvia.

Electrolyze water. Or churn masses of ice cream.


The problem there is that it\'s not economic to have the equipment
required to do that standing around unused waiting for the occasions
when power is available.

So get rid if the stupid mediaeval windmills and solar panels that
generate when you don\'t need it. And stop paying them not to produce


> Sylvia.

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don\'t think.

Adolf Hitler

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 20/03/2023 14:56, John Larkin wrote:

On Mon, 20 Mar 2023 06:50:08 +0000, alan_m <junk@admac.myzen.co.uk
wrote:

On 19/03/2023 23:45, Sylvia Else wrote:

The problem there is that it\'s not economic to have the equipment
required to do that standing around unused waiting for the occasions
when power is available.

If the climate activists have their way there will not be any other
source of backup equipment after 2030 to provide any electricity when
the wind doesn\'t blow or the sun doesn\'t shine.

There seems to be another climate emergency (or whatever its called this
week) conference going on soon. On the early morning news there was an
activist from California and one from the UK spouting off about we have
the technology of Windmills and Solar (nothing else) to replace all
fossil fuel generation by 2030.

In Extinction Rebellion have their way there will be no oil to
lubricate the moving parts for the windmills, no oil to make tyres for
their bicycles and no tarmac for their cycle lanes.

This isn\'t about Saving The Earth, it\'s about fame and power.
Political power, not electrical.

And massive, guaranteed profits.

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don\'t think.

Adolf Hitler

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 11:39, upsidedown@downunder.com wrote:

On Sat, 18 Mar 2023 09:39:03 -0000, \"Commander Kinsey\"
CK1@nospam.com> wrote:

An electrician (who I don\'t believe) told me if there\'s too much power on the grid, they use wind turbines as fans to absorb extra power. Is this really true? Aren\'t there plenty of power stations they can just turn down a bit? Take your foot off the gas so to speak?

If there is a risk of overproduction due to wind turbines, simply stop
some wind turbines. Wind turbines must have brakes so that they can be
stopped during a strong storm (about 25 m/s) to avoid damaging the
turbine. Of course greenies will complain about stopping renewable
production, but who cares .

We do, because they still get paid to stop generating as if they had
been generating.

In practice, district heating companies are installing electrically
heated boilers to heat district heating water when there is an
overproduction of wind energy and hence the selectivity price drops
towards zero, thus saving on coal/oil/gas/biofuel during
overproduction.

No they are not.

In areas with mainly cooling loads, wind and solar overproduction can
be used to cool water in advance for air conditioning.

But no one does

The problem with renewable overproduction is not a big issue, but
underproduction lasting several days is. IMHO oil/gas should be used
to address those periods when renewables are not available, but
greenies object also to this.

The greenies are either in the pockets of Big Energy - gas/ oil.
renewables...or they are simply so low IQ that they cant see the flaws
in the fairy stories they swallow.

--
How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don\'t think.

Adolf Hitler

 

[John Larkin]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2023 16:17:09 GMT, Cindy Hamilton
<hamilton@invalid.com> wrote:

On 2023-03-20, John Larkin <jlarkin@highlandSNIPMEtechnology.com> wrote:

I like birds. I feed a bunch of them twice a day. They prefer Fritos
to anything else we\'ve tried; I\'m sympathetic to that choice. I have
one giantic raven and a one-legged blue jay that will fly and snatch a
Frito out of my hand.

The tiny little Juncos clean up every spec of food off the deck

We feed the birds, too. The rabbits also benefit.

One afternoon I came out and put some banana bread out. I barely
had time to turn around and step away from it before a rabbit
dashed out of cover and started in on it.

We have squirrels that like Fritos too, but no local rabbits. We do
have coyotes and owls in the canyon a couple of blocks away, but they
don\'t visit us much.

Sf has big flocks of wild parrots. They are noisy.

This is a sweet rom-com:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wild_Parrots_of_Telegraph_Hill

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 19/03/2023 09:16, alan_m wrote:

You just need to point out that most peoples Wi-fi will operate at the
dangerous 5GHz.

The 5G mobile phone (cell phone) masts causing Covid. Here in the UK the
government took the opportunity to insert a tracking device under the
skin with every Covid vaccination.

Jesus wept. A full blown tinfoil hatter.

--
\"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women\"

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 19/03/2023 10:44, SteveW wrote:

On 19/03/2023 09:00, alan_m wrote:

Zero extra cost to me for fitting the switch.

Bless! The naivete of people. It all goes on yer bill at the end of the
day.

I depends where you are and who you are with. They definitely wanted to
charge to fit one for me.

Just a different way to pay for it

--
\"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women\"

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 11:56, Jeff Gaines wrote:

On 18/03/2023 in message <tv467v$2f79h$1@dont-email.me> The Natural
Philosopher wrote:

Shouldn\'t that tax be scrapped to make our bills cheaper.
It used to be spent on giving us all free CFL light bulbs.

Of course it should be, along with all windmills, solar panels and any
feed in tarriffs.

Your confusion arises from the fact they you think they are working
for you. Government is not your friend, or your servant, It\'s your
enemy, and wants to be your master. Because if it isn\'t it fears you
might get rid of it.

Are you an American?
Dont be bloody stupid.

It\'s that sort of argument that makes them feel
they need guns to defend themselves from government (and as a penis
substitute of course).

I think they are correct to do that. switzerland everyone has a gun
too. In case Putin wanders in.

Governments since really Thatcher have all been about following a common
plan that has no interest in giving people more than the bare minimum
that will get them re-elected. The people behind the scenes pull the
strings and the politicians spout bullshit and argue over gender
identity while you get more tax and a worse service.

And there is no point voting for a different party, they are already
compromised. Maybe the Reform party has some honesty. Its a shot to
nothing as far as I am concerned, UKIP never got into government, but it
scared the fuck out of the tories.
And no, its former voters haven\'t all died off. Or changed their minds



--
\"I am inclined to tell the truth and dislike people who lie consistently.
This makes me unfit for the company of people of a Left persuasion, and
all women\"

 

[server]

On Mon, 20 Mar 2023 07:26:04 -0700 (PDT), Anthony William Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

To avoid building alternate power generation for unreliable renewables
(such as wind and solar) huge electric transfer networks needs to be
built. Building new high voltage lines is problematic in order to get
the Right of Way for the pylons (NIMBY). Building the required
connection requires underground cables and this requires HVDC cabling
which is quite expensive not to mention using super conductive lines
all across a continent.

Nobody has bothered to put in super-conducting lines anywhere.

The longest commercial super conducting cable I have heard of was less
than 2 km long.


>It is already feasible, but doesn\'t seem to make economic sense yet.

The problem with super conducting cables is the outside heat entering
_into_the cable. This heat must be removed to maintain
superconductivity even in \'high temperature SC cables. Removing the
heat requires a lot of electricity and is proportional to the cable
length but independent of the actual SC current. In order to use only
a small fractional part of the cable current, the cable current/power
must be huge (about 10 GW for a 1000 km cable). This might have been
feasible for a DESERTEC cable feeding solar energy from Sahara into
Europe.Unfortunately Desertec is not feasible due to the political
instability inn the area.

>Higher temperature superconductors do seem to be being developed\\, so we may get there eventualy

After 5 or 50 years ?

We\'ve already got a lot of them, and we won\'t have any trouble get the additional rights of way to put up those extra lines that may turn out to be necessary.

Perhaps in Australia with very low population density, but getting
RoWs in Europe with a much higher population density becomes harder.


Regarding wind turbines, some sources claim that the turbine should be
installed at least 20 times the windmill height from the closest
inhabited house to avoid NIMBY problems. Thus wind farms can be only
at remote locations.
..

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 17:36, alan_m wrote:

There were never \"FREE\" LED bulbs - you just paid for them in a
convoluted way.

And in a nutshell, that is socialism., thee taxation of the money you
would have used to by serviecs you want and need, like potholes fixed,
to have 40% removed and used to pay little bureaucratic cunts to make
your live a misery, buy installing speed cameras, that no one wants.


--
\"What do you think about Gay Marriage?\"
\"I don\'t.\"
\"Don\'t what?\"
\"Think about Gay Marriage.\"

 

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 18/03/2023 18:12, Jack Harry Teesdale wrote:

On 18/03/2023 17:00, Rod Speed wrote:
alan_m <junk@admac.myzen.co.uk> wrote

And in the UK that comes from green tax.

Shouldn\'t that tax be being spent on making more green energy,
building new wind farms?

Shouldn\'t that tax be scrapped to make our bills cheaper.

It used to be spent on giving us all free CFL light bulbs.

And that is a completely insane thing to do, tax everyone,
pump that money thru the bureaucracy and staight back to
precisely the same people that it came from in the first place.

Only advantage is that in theory it forces people to have
CFL light bulbs which they would otherwise not bother
with and might see some use them given they are \'free\'

We were never actually stupid enough to have a green tax
and our electricity suppliers did hand out free CFL light
bulbs. I ony ever used a couple of the dozens I got given.

There are probably thousands of CFL\'s in their original boxes stored in
cupboards in houses in the UK that have NEVER been used!

Ive got a box full I removed because they were plain awful.
LEDs are all I install when incandescents go.

--
\"What do you think about Gay Marriage?\"
\"I don\'t.\"
\"Don\'t what?\"
\"Think about Gay Marriage.\"