Become a Friend

Please help us to continue to look after and make freely available these important and vulnerable objects that tell us so much about our vanishing heritage.

Find out about becoming a friend

Please make a donation:
every pound counts!

Please note: the site may look odd in older browsers. If your view is distorted, please change to the latest version of Firefox, Internet Explorer, Chrome or Opera. All are free of charge.

Friends Online

There are 6 unregistered guests browsing the site.

Mill Writing

Green Power is not so simple!

November 26 2008 by Ron Cookson (793 views)
Electricity Generation &Mills outside the UK &TIMS &Watermills | 2 Comments

Frans Bouwers from Belgium responded to William Hill's news item on watermills and green power (see the thread "Anyone interested in Mill News?") by pointing out some of the problems with turbines in Flanders. His email follows:

William

Interesting bit on watermills and green power.

Do all these millers that are so happy to generate electricity, realise that the big problem is flooding?

We know the problems already in Flanders were the authorities are firmly against converting watermills to electrical powerplants due to the increased risk of flooding caused by the year round high water level needed to run the turbines of the power plant.

The fear for flooding is so big that in the province of Limburg, the old traditional watermills are allowed to operate (store water), only once a month and then only for a few hours and with low risk of rain.

On rivers, the situation can be different.

A small mill generating electricity is a good way of keeping the miller at home.

It looks good to generate so called "green power" but reality is not that simple.

Besides, there is the small problem of fish migration that has to be realised by 2010 or 2015 in Europe. In order to achieve that, big money is needed to make fish bypasses, etc....

Groeten

Frans

There are no related articles.

Did you enjoy this article? Share it with your friends

Trackback URL:
http://www.millsarchivetrust.org/index.php/trackback/22715/y7lI8cA8/

Messages & Comments

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Mon, December 01, 2008

Frans Bouwers raises an important point regarding flooding in mills - see the photograph of Heatherslaw mill, Northumberland in the most recent SPAB Mills Section newsletter.

This will be a particular problem for mills sited on river banks (like Heatherslaw), possibly not so much for those on more minor watercourses or with better flood from their manmade watercourses. However, climate change could alter this for some regions, like the British Isles, with the prospect of more unpredicatable rainfall patterns for the future.

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Thu, February 26, 2009

In the UK the EA will demand a flood risk assessment if the project is likely to increase flood risk. However there are situations where the opening of a redundant channel or a new channel will increase the flow management capabilities. I know this sounds like heresy but mills have evolved over the centuries generally providing the milling service most economically viable for the period. Original corn mills were turned to paper mills or hammer mills etc when the new product promised greater returns. Mills eveolved with the time. Very few mills are now capable of grinding corn and the demand is limited. However there is a demand for electricity and there is a large market place. It will reduce the carbon footprint and is a more reliable source of energy than wind. Why not encourage the ongoing development of mills with the latest most economically viable product they can produce. I would hazard to say that over the centuries all mills changed and eveolved with changing technology. Why is there this great desire to fix a mill in a period of time which would have been changed many times in the preceeding and following years.

Get Involved

If you'd like to respond to this article, please use the form provided below.

Please note that your comments will need to be moderated first, so it might take a little while for your remarks to be published. If you'd like to avoid waiting for moderation, you will need to register first, or login if you've done this already.

Being Discussed Now

Hand Mills Anyone? (1)
Unknown windmill (4)
Wolverton Watermill Stony Stratford Buckinghamshire (1)
Mystery Watermill - possibly Sussex (1)
Kent Outrage (2)