Amazing facts from your area of expertise

I've worked in the power industry all my working life: 40 years this September. Don't blame me for your bill. We make it, others sell it on at profit.

Some facts about electricity generation:
One Megawatt (MW) of electricity takes 1340 HP of mechanical energy to produce. Our steam powered turbine generators are 500 MW. So that's 670,000 shaft HP.

Power, Mr Clarkson? THAT''S Power!

Typically there are 4 generating units in a power plant: so nearly 3 million HP. In your local power plant. As long as its a real one with cooling towers, not a little renewables plant.

A Jumbo Jet engine produces enough HP to generate about 20 MW.

Weedy.

So, amazing facts about your work please! :yesnod:

The first inflatable tyre was made of leather

it takes half a barrel of crude oil to make just one truck tyre

In Australia in July 1964, Donald Campbell set a new land speed record and took the car tyre to a new level. His car, the Bluebird CN7, had tyres 8.2 inches (21cm) wide and 52 inches (1.32 metres) high. Each tyre weighed 50 lbs (23 kg) and was filled with nitrogen at a pressure of 100psi. The car reached 403.10 mph.

Is this the future??

John and Sue wrote: I've worked in the power industry all my working life: 40 years this September. Don't blame me for your bill. We make it, others sell it on at profit.

Some facts about electricity generation:
One Megawatt (MW) of electricity takes 1340 HP of mechanical energy to produce. Our steam powered turbine generators are 500 MW. So that's 670,000 shaft HP.

Power, Mr Clarkson? THAT''S Power!

Typically there are 4 generating units in a power plant: so nearly 3 million HP. In your local power plant. As long as its a real one with cooling towers, not a little renewables plant.

A Jumbo Jet engine produces enough HP to generate about 20 MW.

Weedy.

So, amazing facts about your work please! :yesnod:

Ditto.

most people think of the Californian redwood as the biggest ever circumference tree but 4.The tree with the world’s greatest recorded tree circumference {girth} is the Santa Maria del Tule, an Montezuma Cypress. As the trunk of the tree is not circular in shape but in reality has a distorted and irregular shape, you can’t multiply the diameter by 3.14159 {pi} and come up with its true approximate circumference {girth} which is in excess of 160 foot. It is approximately 141 foot tall and over 2000 years old.
but Up until a few years ago, the world’s oldest living tree, a Bristlecone Pine, named the Methuselah was located in the Great Basin National Park, California. It is approximately 4,844 years old. It is also the tallest living {55 foot} Bristlecone Pine. although With John White’s refined measurement techniques of today, The Lime in the Silkwood at Westonbirt Arboretum (Near Tetbury, Gloucester, U.K.) is probably around 6000 years old. speculation continues though because The Fortingall Yew, in Glen Lyon, Perthshire, Scotland, might be as much as 9000 years old. The usual way of calculating a trees age by counting the annual rings in the trunk or by carbon dating, are not accurate when it comes to Yews because a Yews trunk tends to hollow with age, while it continues to grow by rooting its branches and wrapping them around itself. There is even documentation of the formation of aerial roots growing inside the hollow trunk. Another reason are Yews have been known to stop growing for long periods of time, {documented 325 years}, thus having no growth rings for that period.

That will do for now lol

Amazing facts? hmmm
In coal mining the roof is held up with steel bolts and glue,

Coal can spontaneously combust due to small changes in air circulation and regularly does,

the weather has a massive effect underground, a high pressure system forces air into gaps in the coal causing fires and in a low pressure system, gases such as carbon dioxide and methane are drawn out of the coal creating oxygen starvation or an explosive atmosphere,

There are no toilets or other facilities underground

If I think of some decent amazing facts then I'll post up some more lol

if anyones interested theres a brief description of how a mine works here:
link

and some video at the pit I worked at here, the big orange machine that has men drilling into the roof is the machine I looked after ( a joy 12cmED15 continuos miner)
link

That is interesting about the old trees Jac. What do you do??

Davem wrote: That is interesting about the old trees Jac. What do you do??

If I Told you I would have to cut you down.. lol.. I sell them in their new form of planks lol.. from your normal pine to various specialist species


2.The world’s tallest living standing hardwood tree, is a Mountain Ash named Centurion which is located in Tasmania, Australia. It is approximately 329 foot 8 3/4 inches tall.. But can you guess how short the worlds smallest tree is ????? answers on a postcard please

5cm Salix herbacea or dwarf willow

Scuba Diving
Light
When diving the colours you can see change the deeper you go.
Red disappears first at around 9 meters, followed by orange, yellow and green until at 30 metres all you can see is blue and shades of blue.

So the next time you see James Bond battling on the sea floor and red blood is being spilled. You'll know they are in less than 30 feet of water.

Through a mask underwater, everything appears 30% bigger than it is. This is due to light travelling slower through water than through air. Objects appear closer than they really are.

The greeting card industry is directly and indirectly responsible for the jobs of 100,000 people in the UK including: publishers; artists, photographers and image suppliers; verse and prose writers; printers; paper and board companies; envelope and cello wrap suppliers; specialist finishers; warehousing and distribution companies; trade fair organisers and retailers.
No other country has such a tradition of card sending or card display in the home - the sending and receiving of cards is an important part of our culture. 85% of all cards are bought by women!
The UK card industry is acknowledged to be ten years ahead of the rest of the world in terms of design.
There are approximately 800 publishers in the UK, most of which are small businesses with fewer than five employees. Out of the 460 members of the GCA over 350 are small/micro businesses.
It’s a creative industry with strong bases in London, Nottinghamshire and the North, especially Yorkshire and Lancashire, where it has replaced many of the heavy manufacturing industries as a major employers.
Charities estimate that £50m is raised for good causes through the sales of charity Christmas cards each year.
Greeting cards are stocked in more types of outlet than any other product – with one in six retailers stocking greeting cards.
The commercial Christmas card was invented in 1846 by Sir Henry Cole, the chief organiser of the Great Exhibition, pioneer of the penny post and founder of the V&A Museum.
One of Sir Henry’s first Christmas cards, sent to his Grandmother was recently sold at auction for £22,500.
Greeting card making is also the number one craft hobby, according to Crafts Beautiful, the top consumer craft magazine, which receives more enquiries about greeting cards than any other subject.

Are you medic or a nurse Megatron's? I remember the Bristol chat well from my RN days.

I now work on sewage farms so I won't post any fascinating facts lol......

Regards,
Andy