Broithe

There is often excess capacity in the generating system, at little extra cost, and this will become even more prevalent as wind generation expands further. You will often hear the nay-sayers repeat 'They have to turn the windmills off, if it's too windy" - this is because there is no spare demand to be filled, you cannot shove energy into the system if there is nothing there to use it. About all the storage that is there now is Turlough Hill, once that is full all you have is the current 'live demand'. There will, eventually, be some battery storage coming on-line and you can export limited amounts, assuming that the export destinations have the demand for it at the time. Fizzing up hydrogen with the nightly excess generation would just really be another form of storage. Even the old 'boiler stations' need to be kept running overnight, you can't just start them up every morning. The gas turbines are a little more 'on demand', but you still have to run some a bit light, to have spare capacity available now, if there are any failures around the system. Having a mix of systems does allow you to defer to the best one at the time, but there is a bit of extra cost in duplication. The gamble is whether that extra cost is better or worse than being caught out by a dominant system failing, for whatever reason, technical, political or economic.

With any potential project like this, you either do it too early or too late, there is either not enough traffic or not enough capacity, according to the general observers. I can remember the opinion that I often heard about the LUAS, before it started running, there was a widespread opinion that it was a pointless vanity project that would be so little used that it would become a financial liability. Etc.

Not keen on the vegetation part of landscaping, but prepared to do the water aspect? This is the prototype for you.

It seems almost appropriate to put this here.

Is there a Nobel Prize for Modelling Innovation? There should be.

My understanding is that it was felt to be a necessary personal protective equipment development after Lambe's and Phillips's closed.

Does your domestic supervisor need a new coat? Get her a Ballybrophy coat. Ideal for going to exhibitions and trudging round model shops behind you. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334866370054 Only £160 - but, if you watch it for a few days, you'll get an offer of £120. Is she worth that..?

You'll have seen this? https://kenfentonswar.com/rescue-attempts/

My favourite picture of a polar bear in the snow, taking on a nuclear submarine single-handed. "Come on out here, if you think you're hard enough"...

Looks like a sunny spell in Wexford to me...

In the pub last night, amusing discussions about a lot of people. All were overshadowed by talk of a chap who worked in the most gruesome part of the meat factory, but became steadily inured to the carnage all around him. "You would see him having his tea and sandwiches, sitting on a warm carcass. He didn't smell much, but his arms were always green."

I was one of the first of 'our crowd' to get a CD player in the mid-80s. One chap was very sceptical that it was worth bothering and I volunteered to let him experience the sound. We were in my front room at home, sitting facing the window, and had listened to a few things. He was coming round to 'my side', and then I put on one of the Transacord Sounds of the Steam Age discs. He was very impressed by that, even commenting "It's just like there was a steam engine going past!" At that point, a steam locomotive went serenely down the street (albeit on the back of a low-loader that wasn't visible, due to the hedge). He leapt up, pointing at it, genuinely speechless. He remains convinced that I somehow knew it would happen.

We need someone with experience to direct the operation. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/222883.stm

Complete with an advert for "Crossley's gas & oil engines", facing the bottom of the stairs at this end of the bridge.

The technology is there - the Hornby 00 live steamers had a boiler heated by a tiny immersion heater.

I am not at liberty to throw any light on that subject.

These days, the illuminati have a stay-alive capacitor - nobody is safe.

It would take some layout to run all of them at the same time!

We await your translation of Horatio on the Malahide Viaduct.

Only twice? I found a redundant steel bench where I worked. It was clearly a bit too long for where I wanted it to go, but I wanted it to fit as snuggly as possible. The shed was clearly an Imperial construction, although I had extended it slightly. I was quite bilingual in both systems, so measured the space 'in English' - then I took the pencil note to work the next day, borrowed a tape and marked the bench with the section to be cut out - it was six-legged and I intended to remove the right amount from one side of the central legs, leaving it lop-sided, but the right size, after it was welded back together. I looked at the cut-lines and it just didn't 'look right', so I repeated the exercise, over several days. But, whatever I did, it all came out the same and I had become more convinced that something was wrong. I didn't want to go through the whole cutting and rewelding thing only to find, as seemed obvious, that it wouldn't fit in the shed. After multiple circuits of this procedure, I eventually realised that I was using two different forms of 'English measurements' - inches on one tape and feet + inches on the other, borrowed' tape - thus, I was reading my note of 96 inches as 9'6" and getting an extra 18".