Eco holiday In Brecon Beacon 2

Holiday home in Beacon Beacon is really beautiful. Apart from the wood burner that gave the heating to the compound we found another interesting feature. A renewable energy source.  A micro turbine housed in a small hut that our landlord Chris described as his pet project. It's a micro hydro power project generating 5 KW when full throttle. 

mini turbine housed in here

Chris found a water source on top of the small hill. It's about 40 m drop to below. He put a large pipe and directed the water stream down to the small turbine unit. 

turbine is below 

power generation unit with Chris

mini generator 

Mini plant

metering

In full throttle unit would generate 5 kW per hour. For 24 hours this would generate 120 KWh of electricity. Chris claims this is enough for his farms  daily needs. Any extra electricity generated would be feed back to the main grid. Specially late night and mid day when they don't use much energy.  Our children were very interested to see this mini hydro power generating unit. 

Water from the turbine unit released to this small stream.

How this works:

I took this explanation from the website quoted below.

"Micro hydro power is the small-scale harnessing of energy from falling water. Hydraulic power can be captured wherever a flow of water falls. The vertical fall of water, known as the “head”, is essential for hydropower generation (fast-flowing water on its own does not contain sufficient energy for useful power production). Hence, two quantities are required for production of hydropower: a Flow Rate of water and a Head. The capacity of a micro hydro power plant is usually between 20 and 500 kW."

Source: 

Invest in micro hydro power plants

Eco holiday In Brecon Beacon 1

holiday cottage 

Recently we went for a holiday in Wales again. Generally we would go to wales at least once a year. What attract us is the beautiful hillsides,  hikes in valleys and mountains and beautiful waterfalls and yes, the quietness of the surroundings. You don't here buses, cars trains and horns the usual noises from london. It's quiet at night and you can sleep with your window open.  Wales is bit more like upper hill country in Sri Lanka where I am originally from. Most of the landscape seems familiar. This time round we stayed in a converted barn in a farm called "The Beast barn" in Brecon Beacon. It's owned by farmer Chris and his wife Liz.

What we have noticed first was how beautiful and clean was converted barn - cottage we stayed in.

the kichen 

living room

There was a small wood burner to provide the heat to reception room. But house was rather warm and cosy. There was no need to fire it.

beautiful wood burner

House was quiet warm. Then we saw the big wood burner in the outside shed. The wooden oven produce the necessary heat and the hot water for the cottages and to the farmer's house. There is a water jacket around the burner. The water carries the heat from the burner and the same heat used to make water tanks hot as well. 

Chris the farmer with his wood burner

small but enough to heat 3 houses

heat exchanger

the heat exchanger used to heat the water that flow through the pipes. Chris collect the debris and wood from his own farm. It's a quite large farm.
This link explains how the heat exchangers work.

Wood and other debris for the burner

This is the first part of a series of articles I will be writing  about this holiday. 

Link to : the Beast House Barn.

Trump have to be rescued from own establishment he represents

I am completely perplexed by the current news items. For example in "the Independent" article points to " CIA boss John Brennan says Donald Trump "doesn't understand Russia". According to the writer it's a scathing attack on President-Elect. Well, it's all about that infamous Trump-Dossier.

Next news item is MI6 chief used Trump dossier details in key speech on Russia. Mind you both are intelligence agencies.  One is from US itself and other one is United Kingdom who for years and years had "that special relationship" with US.

Now, it seems to me that they are afraid of one thing. That one single  interesting fact that comes up always. it is like when you throw a tennis ball deep down into a pond. It comes up always. The so called relationship with Putin and Trump.

What kind of relationship is that?  I don't really think anyone know about that yet.  Outgoing Obama administration deported some Russian diplomats accusing them of hacking democratic contenders emails, changing public opinion against Clinton and also changing outcome of the US presidential election. Pretty crazy ha?

What's worrying for me is this? Exxonmobil's contract with Russia.  Russia has vast oil reserve in Siberia, Arctic and Black sea They have a contract with Russia's biggest oil company Rosneft for over $1 billion. Russia today reported that much in February 2015.  However, European Union and United States (That is Obama-Clinton Administration) imposed sanctions relating to the Energy Sector. Sanctions over Russian invasion of  Crimea, Interference of Syria or whatever But for Energy Sector?  The biggest assets of western world, Middle East and Russia is oil. Are you carazii?  (Or crazy for that matter) Wars happened for energy resources and money.

Rosneft and Exxonmobil connection go as far as 2013, 2014 when they did joint projects.  Does anyone want to let go of a $ 1 Billion deal and future oil revenue for that matter? See then Donald Trump enters the stage. If the Russian wants to change the outcome of  American presidential elections this is their chance. Obama is already somewhat unpopular in US and in the world over Syria. Russia and Putin backed the correct horse.  Well their horse won. And there is this hacking scandal. Do you beleive it? Why not I may say.

And who is the future secretary of State, I may ask? Rex Tillerson.  Well who is that? He dealt with Russia and Puting on behalf of  of ExxsonMobil.  First thing I would say that President Elect Trump will do is to  lift sanctions against  Russia. And then Rosneft and ExxsonMobil contract's  will be back on track.

Now there is no problem except Donald Trump is saying CIA mislead him about Russian Hacking scandal.  Security chiefs are criticising him and  He criticize them. What I am saying is this is dangerous.

We want free world to be free world. We want president of united States of America to be in safe hands. American's voted for him. Although he lost the popular votes he won by the electoral system. We can't argue with that.  Yeah, its is strange that he won with that low margin. Hey, Remember "Forest Gump"- "Shit happens." Anyway I can't see that he is that bad.

Although I can't see he is going to be president for a long time either. I kind of see some sort of an impeachment process hanging above him. It seems to me  part of the American (and British for that matter) establishment is dead against him . I wonder where the people stand in here. On Which side? Mr Trump's future will depend on that.