From: noone@nospam.com   
      
   it is, chaos happens. here, we have many, many wind turbines and the   
   government's agenda is to shut down all lignite power plants, even the   
   brand new, 560 MW, ptolemaida V. They are using them as peak load power   
   plants, which is a very inefficient way to use a lignite (thus coal)   
   power plant, because they were designed to be used as base load plants,   
   thus to run for 1 1/2 years continuously, 24/7. They need 7 1/2 hours   
   from the time the boilesr starts to heat up, until the unit synchronises   
   and the circuit breaker closes. In the beginning it needs LOTS of diesel   
   oil to pre-warm the boiler until it's hot enough to burn lignite and   
   produce enough super heated steam to run the turbine. Now they use it   
   4-5 hours a week which is VERY inefficient. It is due to over-generating   
   of (supposed) clean electricity by wind turbines and photovoltaics, if   
   it exceeds on-the-fly demand the frequency of the grid rises with risks   
   of damage to equipment and, even blackout. So they'll have to stabilize   
   the grid by shutting down conventional units, when that happens. Lignite   
   or (God forbid) nuclear don't provide that flexibility, so they have   
   exchanged them with gas turbine units, that run on natural gas, which   
   can be shut down and fired up again at will. at their best they're   
   combined cycle, with the majority being open cycle, unfortunately. The   
   natural gas, of course, comes from Russia. The same situation is all   
   over Europe.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)