[jambutty]

Much obliged for bringing to the fore, as you put it but I don’t, my pet hate and pet alternative Less. I’ve just read through that post again and I stand by what I wrote one hundred percent.

Without a doubt we are racing towards an energy crisis and the time to take action is now and not when it happens. We need to be self sufficient in energy production and not rely on foreign imports. Mineral oil is a finite commodity, as is natural gas and sooner or later there will not be any more. Unless some way can be found to use coal without the atmospheric pollution that burning coal produces it is a non-starter. Wind farms are OK whilst a wind blows. Solar panels are only useful in daylight hours. All other ways of generating electricity apart from hydro-electric schemes and nuclear are in their infancy and unless there is a major break through will never meet our needs.

To conserve what we have we need to use electricity to power things only where some other alternative cannot be used. Such as electrical appliances and lighting. There is a viable alternative to electrified railways if not quite as fast. Does it really matter if it takes half an hour longer to get from “A” to “B” by a non-electric train than it does by an electric train?

It has been proven that bio fuels powering a Diesel engine can take the place of fossil fuels, but the will is not there to go down that road. The oil and gas companies are too powerful. A Diesel engine can provide motive power direct to the wheels as in a car, bus, lorry etc or can drive a generator producing electricity. A locomotive uses a Diesel engine directly coupled to an electricity generator and it is the electric power that drives the motors that turn the locomotive wheels.

Once upon a time we did have local power stations, as the Huncoat power station and the one at the Accrington/Blackburn border for Blackburn will testify to, except they are not there anymore. They supplied their own towns and any surplus was siphoned off to the National Grid and when the town demand was above the town’s supply the National Grid supplied the shortfall. Thus the electricity transportation losses were minimal. But the god of profit stepped in.

You may consider that 25% losses to be extreme Less but have another read of my post #17. It explains how and why such losses can and do occur.

Which reminds me. Before anyone asks I think that I had better explain back EMF.

When a Direct Current is passed along a wire it creates a magnetic field around it. If another wire is passed through that magnetic field a current is induced in that wire. The same applies to an Alternating Current except that the magnetic field also alternates in that in one instant there is no magnetic field and one two hundredth of a second later it rise exponentially to maximum and in the next two hundredth of a second it falls exponentially back to no magnetic field and continues thus.

Whether the wire is moved through a magnetic field or the magnetic field is moved through the wire makes no difference, a current of lower value is still generated in that wire but it is 180 degrees out of phase with the original. However the wire carrying the initial current is also subject to the changing magnetic field and an opposite polarity current is generated in it. This current opposes and cancels out some of the original current.

So as an example, and please don’t take these figures literally, it is just an example to establish the principle. If a wire is carrying an alternating current of say 10 amps and it has a back EMF of 1 amp induced in it the overall effect is that only 9 amps flow. So to ensure that there are 10 amps available something like 11 amps would need to be generated at source. Thus the back EMF creates losses.