something fishy about wind power

[Anguille]

The Indians want to take out the dams. Then we'll be compelled to either use coal or possibly nuclear, as there is no way the windfarms generate even a miniscule fraction of what we need. And there is no way to make enough of them to do it.

If you keep blowing hot air like you do, there will be more than enough wind energy generated.

 

[Midnight Marauder]

Honest, I'm not making up the complaints about leaded fuel by hot rod fellas or a possible corporate misinformation campaign to discredit scientists who thought lead was bad for folks.

Old cars, new oil: Is there anything to worry about? - Washington Times

Oddly enough, the number of valve-seat failures in engines using Amoco unleaded gas in the 1950s and 1960s were no greater than in those using leaded gas, so it logically follows that valve recession was a function of other engine defects and not the type of gasoline used. Most automotive engineers will tell you that valve recession normally occurred as a result of extended high RPM operation or under extreme loads and had little to do with the valve-seat material.

Some automotive historians speculate that the valve recession story was mostly hokum pushed by the Tetraethyl Lead Corp. when they were trying to lobby against the regulations mandating unleaded gas, but you can form your own opinions.

Tetra-ethyl lead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the U.S. in 1972, the EPA launched an initiative to phase out leaded gasoline, Ethyl Corp's response to which was to sue the EPA

Damn Interesting • The Ethyl-Poisoned Earth

Upon learning that automotive fuel was the source of the contamination, Dr. Patterson began to publish materials discussing the toxic metal’s ubiquity and its probable ill effects. In order to demonstrate the increase of lead in the environment, Patterson proposed taking core samples from pack ice in Greenland, and testing the lead content of each layer– a novel concept which had not been previously attempted. The experiment worked, and the results showed that airborne lead had been negligible before 1923, and that it had climbed precipitously ever since. In 1965, when the tests were conducted, lead levels were roughly 1,000 times higher than they had been in the pre-Ethyl era. He also compared modern bone samples to that of older human remains, and found that modern humans’ lead levels were hundreds of times higher.

The Ethyl corporation allegedly offered him lucrative employment in exchange for more favorable research results, but Dr. Patterson declined. For a time thereafter, Patterson found himself ostracized from government and corporate sponsored research projects, including the a National Research Council panel on atmospheric lead contamination.

Folks do the darndest things in the name of making a dollar in the business world. Its a human failing and 1/2 their fault we need big government as a check or balance

You have failed to prove your claim. No one's ever, ever said cars would not run without lead in the gasoline. Since you cannot prove your bullshit claim, you move the goal posts.

However, it is a fact that the lubricating properties of leaded gasoline were necessary in the older engines, if you wanted them to have a decent lifespan.

Again I ask, how is this anywhere close to the topic of the thread?

 

[Big Fitz]

Honest, I'm not making up the complaints about leaded fuel by hot rod fellas or a possible corporate misinformation campaign to discredit scientists who thought lead was bad for folks.

Old cars, new oil: Is there anything to worry about? - Washington Times

Oddly enough, the number of valve-seat failures in engines using Amoco unleaded gas in the 1950s and 1960s were no greater than in those using leaded gas, so it logically follows that valve recession was a function of other engine defects and not the type of gasoline used. Most automotive engineers will tell you that valve recession normally occurred as a result of extended high RPM operation or under extreme loads and had little to do with the valve-seat material.

Some automotive historians speculate that the valve recession story was mostly hokum pushed by the Tetraethyl Lead Corp. when they were trying to lobby against the regulations mandating unleaded gas, but you can form your own opinions.

Tetra-ethyl lead - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the U.S. in 1972, the EPA launched an initiative to phase out leaded gasoline, Ethyl Corp's response to which was to sue the EPA

Damn Interesting • The Ethyl-Poisoned Earth

Upon learning that automotive fuel was the source of the contamination, Dr. Patterson began to publish materials discussing the toxic metal’s ubiquity and its probable ill effects. In order to demonstrate the increase of lead in the environment, Patterson proposed taking core samples from pack ice in Greenland, and testing the lead content of each layer– a novel concept which had not been previously attempted. The experiment worked, and the results showed that airborne lead had been negligible before 1923, and that it had climbed precipitously ever since. In 1965, when the tests were conducted, lead levels were roughly 1,000 times higher than they had been in the pre-Ethyl era. He also compared modern bone samples to that of older human remains, and found that modern humans’ lead levels were hundreds of times higher.

The Ethyl corporation allegedly offered him lucrative employment in exchange for more favorable research results, but Dr. Patterson declined. For a time thereafter, Patterson found himself ostracized from government and corporate sponsored research projects, including the a National Research Council panel on atmospheric lead contamination.

Folks do the darndest things in the name of making a dollar in the business world. Its a human failing and 1/2 their fault we need big government as a check or balance

The problem you're running into is that lead in fuel is not the same as proving global warming.

 

[Toronado3800]

I'll admit no one ever made that exact quote. They just sued the EPA to prevent or slow down the change over or claimed the "massive" problems associated with and the "massive" cost of switching to unleaded fuels.

My intent was to make a one line sarcastic comparison demonstrating a pattern of denial from big businesses in regards to environmental regulations.

However, it is a fact that the lubricating properties of leaded gasoline were necessary in the older engines, if you wanted them to have a decent lifespan.

Lead causes more maintenance problems than it prevents in anything like a properly tuned automobile. Even a non catalytic converter/O2 sensor equipped one.

I believe the supposed valve problems were from my 1970's counterparts in the hot rod world who owned autos pushing the limits of compression when available octane ratings were falling.

 

[Old Rocks]

No, that is not what the article is saying at all. However, I am glad that you get to see one of the good ways of generating power up close. You could be just down wind of a dirty coal plant.

I live a few miles from the Columbia and John Day Rivers.

The Indians want to take out the dams. Then we'll be compelled to either use coal or possibly nuclear, as there is no way the windfarms generate even a miniscule fraction of what we need. And there is no way to make enough of them to do it.

Allie, why don't you provide links that support your claims?

 

[Old Rocks]

And cars will never run on gas w/o lead!

Of course, your nonsense is completely off-topic.... But please show us where anyone -- ever -- made such a claim. I'll wait.

Yes, I heard the whole line of bullshit about how unleaded would lead to less efficient engines, and one that would fail sooner, also.

And, like most of the claims that you make, Midnight, it was all bullshit.

 

[Midnight Marauder]

And cars will never run on gas w/o lead!

Of course, your nonsense is completely off-topic.... But please show us where anyone -- ever -- made such a claim. I'll wait.

Yes, I heard the whole line of bullshit about how unleaded would lead to less efficient engines, and one that would fail sooner, also.

And, like most of the claims that you make, Midnight, it was all bullshit.

You reply with anecdotal "yeah I heard that too" nonsense, then say I'M talking bullshit?

Clearly your selective memory doesn't include what happened to older engines when they were operated on unleaded gasoline for any extended time. NEW engines were designed to run on the unleaded fuel, engines that didn't require the lubricating properties of the lead additive.

NO ONE ever claimed engines wouldn't run or would be less efficient without lead in the gas. Again, this nonsensical bullshit claim is shot down.

 

[mayya555]

In other words, they're a crappy alternative, they produce miniscule amounts of power, and a huge waste of land, money and time.

I'm surrounded by them.

You still can plant other things around them...

 

[Douger]

In other words, they're a crappy alternative, they produce miniscule amounts of power, and a huge waste of land, money and time.

I'm surrounded by them.

Thats funny Lolly Blah Blah.I never knew you were an electrical engineer.
I'm sitting here typing about 250 feet from my Skystream and the power company owes me 80 KWH from this month so far.
The window is open and I cant even hear it.

I guess I'll tear the useless piece of shit down and get me soma that thar diesel and a genset. I ought to be able to power this operation for a measly $1400 a month.

 

[Big Fitz]

In other words, they're a crappy alternative, they produce miniscule amounts of power, and a huge waste of land, money and time.

I'm surrounded by them.

Thats funny Lolly Blah Blah.I never knew you were an electrical engineer.
I'm sitting here typing about 250 feet from my Skystream and the power company owes me 80 KWH from this month so far.
The window is open and I cant even hear it.

I guess I'll tear the useless piece of shit down and get me soma that thar diesel and a genset. I ought to be able to power this operation for a measly $1400 a month.

Okay... let's talk some "apples to apples", not "apples to toilet seats".

First off, you have a small scale wing generator. It is not designed to produce Megawatts of energy like the big industrial types are supposed to... when the wind blows... but not too fast... or too cold. It's designed to produce enough electricity to build up a supply that can be stored in capacitors when the wind doesn't blow, or a few houses while it is. This is a completely different function from industrial level and 'off the grid' theories. Yes they work, but they are inconsistent. Nothing's going to change that.

I have maintained in the past that wind power and solar power ARE viable alternatives for single home systems, CONNECTED TO THE GRID as a supplemental power supply or revenue generator. In this capacity, they are quiet and generally a good idea. As the backbone of the national power grid, dumb as dogshit.

Why? They function in very narrow parameters only part of the time. They are dependent on forces we cannot control or regulate or homogenize. Besides, you're able to put this item 250 feet away. How many urban plots have that kind of space?

Ideally, I'd use Nuclear as the backbone of our electric grid, and offer new homes and buildings lots of ability to put wind and solar on their property, to both cut consumption from the grid and provide extra power for peak hours if you combine these with new capacitor technologies. Suddenly the tech becomes more efficient, functional and economical.

Remember, bigger better faster stronger easier cheaper. We are a nation of convenience which is the spirit of a market economy. People will flock to anything that makes their life easier, cheaper or more successful. This type of arrangement does that quite effectively.

Industrial grade wind farms and solar farms, frankly... suck and will fail every time.

 

[Old Rocks]

Nuclear is a good base line, but very spendy. Wind, geothermal far cheaper at present, and solar will be cheapest of all in the near future.

Thermal Solar is 24-7.

 

[Cuyo]

Nuclear is a good base line, but very spendy. Wind, geothermal far cheaper at present, and solar will be cheapest of all in the near future.

Thermal Solar is 24-7.

Nuclear is extraordinarily expensive compared to wind, geo & solar, not to mention that no state in the union wants the waste they produce. It was supposed to be stored in the AZ desert a few years ago, but Arizona balked.

As of now nuclear plants in the States have to store their waste, on premises, indefinately.

Fusion power is the way of the future but we're dragging our feet IMO... (current plants are nuclear fission if you didn't know)
ITER - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's an interesting read.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

Fish inspire wind farm configuration - physicsworld.com

How fish save on energy
Now, Robert Whittlesey and John Dabiri of the California Institute of Technology have worked out how best to arrange such closely spaced turbines by drawing on the work of aeronautical engineer Daniel Weihs, who showed in the 1970s how fish save on energy by swimming within schools. Such fish form a series of offset rows, and Weihs found that fish get carried forward by the vortices created by the swimming motion of their two closest companions in the row immediately in front of them. Whittlesey and Dabiri wondered whether the relative spacing of vortices produced by an individual fish might serve as a good template for the arrangement of vertical-axis turbines within a wind farm and set up a computer model to test this idea.

The researchers took wind speed and other measurements from a vertical-axis turbine and then fed these data into the model, in which they analysed various arrangements of virtual turbines to see if any of these would lead to greater average rotation than that that of a free-standing turbine. What they found was that a staggered column of alternately clockwise- and anticlockwise-rotating turbines significantly enhances the speed of turbine rotation. The reason, they say, is that the presence of neighbouring turbines concentrates and accelerates the wind.

Same thing with migratory birds, which is why you see them in that familiar V configuration.. They become one super wing.

 

[JiggsCasey]

Dirty little secrets of wind farms:

• There is enough steel in one tower to make a thousand Prius's.
• There is enough concrete used for one tower to build 1,000 low-cost green homes.
• There is enough oil used annually by just one turbine to power a diesel-electric locomotive across the country and back twice.

Wind farms are NOT carbon neutral, in fact they're nothing even close to it. Just in the steel alone, they fail the "green" test.

Then there's this:

In terms of stationary wind mill farms all that is needed is jet engines to provide wind when natural winds are not available.

Above, you see the mentality and average intellect of these greenies.

Curious... is it standard practice by the strip-mine-everything crowd here to pontificate boogeyman "facts" about green initiative and not link your source?

I'm gonna call intense bullshit on your little prose here above. Hopefully you have a source more objective than "elephantsdrillingdryholes.com" or something.

As for those who believe nuclear expansion is the silver bullet, please tell the forum where the uranium is going to come from, especially when global uranium supply currently only meets some 55-60% of demand.

Current global uranium production meets only 58 per cent of demand, with the shortfall made up largely from rapidly shrinking stockpiles. The shortfall is expected to run at 51 million pounds a year on average from next year to 2020. Uranium prices have doubled in the last year to over US$20/lb and are forecast to settle at US$25-30/lb in real terms in the longer term. 'A uranium supply squeeze is looming and the market is set to remain tight as nuclear power programs expand,' Mr Michelmore said. 'Japan is planning 16 new plants, with India and China building another seventeen. This will come on top of the global supply shortfall facing the current 438 reactors.'​

Nevermind that nuke plants require an astronomical amount of hydrocarbon energy to build, maintain and enrich the uranium.