Do those silly-looking windmills really provide
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That's your answer, 19th and 20th century technologies?!?! The only answer to long-term energy independence is fusion power. We need more investment into research to shorten the projected timeline of 40-50 years. For more info go to:
ITER - the way to new energy OR
Department of Energy - Fusion
Cuyo
Training a Guineapig army
Fusion is the way, period. We'll look back in shame one day at how long we put off it's implementation.
As far as current fission technology - There are places where it's appropriate, but it's more a soundbyte than anything else. We can build wind for less dollars per kWh than we can build nuclear... The American midwest has been called the "Saudi Arabia of wind."
whitehall
Diamond Member
It's easy being a lib, they operate on emotion.They wish windmills produced enough energy so therefore they do and they don't have to do any research. The other emotion libs are big into is hatred but that's another story.
LOL!!! Is this a canned response? I don't see any libs being "emotional" about wind energy in this thread. Actually, the first two responses downplayed its importance. Seems the "hatred" you're talking about is internal and you're just projecting it on others.
Midnight Marauder
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Wind farms have alot of dirty little secrets. Chief among them? Each wind generator needs 5 barrels of oil annually, for the oil changes in the gearhead and the transformer at the base of each one. Given a million of these, and you see why oil magnates like T. Boone Pickens LOVE these pieces of shit. About the only "green jobs" they provide is for the companies who... change the oil.
They also leak and sling this oil, great for the groundwater!
There's enough steel from China in each one to build 1,000 Prius's, enough concrete used for the footing of each one to build affordable housing for 50 families. I won't even mention the MILES of copper in each one that has to be MINED, stripped from the earth.
And? They automatically shut down in high winds, 42 MPH is usually the default. And of course they produce NOTHING in low winds.
Generators, no matter how they are driven, are 18th Century technology. So the earlier regurgitated "20th Century technology" fallacy isn't worth the bytes it took to publish it.
The wind farms are tied into the grid, requiring in most cases 100s of miles of new power lines to accomplish this. Really looks good on pristine landscape. And the conventional power plants tied in with them? Use MORE fuel than if the windfarm wasn't there, because they must stay in high-idle all the time, then drop the hammer and run balls to the walls when the wind gets too high or too low.... When normally they would cruise efficiently at 50-80% throttle.
There is nothing green about these, nothing at all efficient about them. This is why they need massive taxpayer funding, to "appear" viable. It's a "feel good" thing, proving ignorance truly IS bliss.
They also leak and sling this oil, great for the groundwater!
There's enough steel from China in each one to build 1,000 Prius's, enough concrete used for the footing of each one to build affordable housing for 50 families. I won't even mention the MILES of copper in each one that has to be MINED, stripped from the earth.
And? They automatically shut down in high winds, 42 MPH is usually the default. And of course they produce NOTHING in low winds.
Generators, no matter how they are driven, are 18th Century technology. So the earlier regurgitated "20th Century technology" fallacy isn't worth the bytes it took to publish it.
The wind farms are tied into the grid, requiring in most cases 100s of miles of new power lines to accomplish this. Really looks good on pristine landscape. And the conventional power plants tied in with them? Use MORE fuel than if the windfarm wasn't there, because they must stay in high-idle all the time, then drop the hammer and run balls to the walls when the wind gets too high or too low.... When normally they would cruise efficiently at 50-80% throttle.
There is nothing green about these, nothing at all efficient about them. This is why they need massive taxpayer funding, to "appear" viable. It's a "feel good" thing, proving ignorance truly IS bliss.
Seeems fusion is the only way to go.
Oil- Limited supply and introduces atmospheric pollution.
Nuclear- Melt down dangers and the accumulation of tons of radiactive waste with nowhere to put it.
Wind and solar- Availability limited by nature, but lower environmental problems.
Fusion- Fuel nearly unlimited, very low waste radiation. Down side, the worlds addiction to oil has made it turn a blind eye to the real answer to energy independence.
Oil- Limited supply and introduces atmospheric pollution.
Nuclear- Melt down dangers and the accumulation of tons of radiactive waste with nowhere to put it.
Wind and solar- Availability limited by nature, but lower environmental problems.
Fusion- Fuel nearly unlimited, very low waste radiation. Down side, the worlds addiction to oil has made it turn a blind eye to the real answer to energy independence.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Konradv, only one problem with fusion. No one knows how to do it yet.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
A really dumb statement.
Wind Powering America: U.S. Installed Wind Capacity and Wind Project Locations
And this is out of date. On one windy day, recently, the mills in Oregon were producing over 3 gw of power.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Well, Midnight, I take that you are in a constant state of bliss. Are you saying that the coal and natural gas industries get no subsidies? And anyone knows that the nukes simply could not have been built without massive government subsidies.
Nosmo King
Gold Member
There will be a day when we no longer have to build power plants. We will no longer be dependent on utility companies. There will be a hydrogen fuel cell (about the size of a standard 40 gallon water heater) in every home. We will add hydrogen (the most abundant fuel on our planet) and emit water vapor. The fuel cell will be in our cars, our office buildings and our factories.
We can then lose the transmission lines that crisscross the country side, lose the specter of nuclear meltdown and lose the carbon belching power plants.
Watch where the resistance to this idea comes from. Science fearing Conservatives and utility companies who can pour cash into the coffers of the Conservative media. Then the Limbaughs and the Becks and the Coulters will poo poo hydrogen and we will have to lag behind developing the technology because we will be mired in yet another silly partisan debate.
We can then lose the transmission lines that crisscross the country side, lose the specter of nuclear meltdown and lose the carbon belching power plants.
Watch where the resistance to this idea comes from. Science fearing Conservatives and utility companies who can pour cash into the coffers of the Conservative media. Then the Limbaughs and the Becks and the Coulters will poo poo hydrogen and we will have to lag behind developing the technology because we will be mired in yet another silly partisan debate.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Well, you sure have the partisan politics part correct. If these Conservatives had their way, we would still be shoveling horseshit out of the streets.
I don't know if the fuel cells will ever be reasonably enough priced to be a factor. However, the combination of a reasonably priced fuel cell and a high efficiency, 40% or better, cheap solar cell, would certainly change the landscape of energy production worldwide. It could make the majority of home owners producers of energy as well as consumers.
I don't know if the fuel cells will ever be reasonably enough priced to be a factor. However, the combination of a reasonably priced fuel cell and a high efficiency, 40% or better, cheap solar cell, would certainly change the landscape of energy production worldwide. It could make the majority of home owners producers of energy as well as consumers.
Nosmo King
Gold Member
What would be a reasonable price? If I could buy a fuel cell for say $20,000 and then heat water, provide HVAC, and power all the electrical devices in my home for the next twenty years, all the while NOT paying a utility bill, I'd jump on it like Oprah on a glazed ham!
whitehall
Diamond Member
I guess I struck a nerve since konrad and rockie took immediate offense to my observation that libs operate on emotion. They "hope" that windmills "change" things but hope is an emotion and change is what you have left in your pocket after the libs spend everything else on "alternate" energy.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Honda Worldwide | Fuel Cell
Honda Worldwide | January 27, 2010 "Honda Begins Operation of New Solar Hydrogen Station"
Tax Credits for Residential Fuel Cells | HouseLogic
50k at present for a natural gas fuel cell for a home. 20k would make sense, providing heat, electricity for the home, and fuel for a vehicle.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Real fucking dumb, asshole. Solar plants alone have put 7000 new jobs into Oregon, and we have battery manufactures establishing plants. The windmills have provided extra income for the wheat farmers, and good paying jobs for the people trained to maintenance them.
Yes, I do take offense to your senseless yapping about 'Liberals', when we are discussing nuts and bolts of energy production. As the link I provided pointed out, we are adding gigawatts per year now in wind, and increasing the amount added every year. This would not be happening were there not a market for the energy.
You want to go back to shoveling horseshit, by my guest, ******.
How many birds of prey were killed on that day? From the Wall Street Journal.............
Robert Bryce: Windmills Are Killing Our Birds - WSJ.com
Windmills Are Killing Our Birds
One standard for oil companies, another for green energy sources.
Text
By ROBERT BRYCE
On Aug. 13, ExxonMobil pleaded guilty in federal court to killing 85 birds that had come into contact with crude oil or other pollutants in uncovered tanks or waste-water facilities on its properties. The birds were protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which dates back to 1918. The company agreed to pay $600,000 in fines and fees.
ExxonMobil is hardly alone in running afoul of this law. Over the past two decades, federal officials have brought hundreds of similar cases against energy companies. In July, for example, the Oregon-based electric utility PacifiCorp paid $1.4 million in fines and restitution for killing 232 eagles in Wyoming over the past two years. The birds were electrocuted by poorly-designed power lines.
Yet there is one group of energy producers that are not being prosecuted for killing birds: wind-power companies. And wind-powered turbines are killing a vast number of birds every year.
A July 2008 study of the wind farm at Altamont Pass, Calif., estimated that its turbines kill an average of 80 golden eagles per year. The study, funded by the Alameda County Community Development Agency, also estimated that about 10,000 birds—nearly all protected by the migratory bird act—are being whacked every year at Altamont.
Altamont's turbines, located about 30 miles east of Oakland, Calif., kill more than 100 times as many birds as Exxon's tanks, and they do so every year. But the Altamont Pass wind farm does not face the same threat of prosecution, even though the bird kills at Altamont have been repeatedly documented by biologists since the mid-1990s.
The number of birds killed by wind turbines is highly variable. And biologists believe Altamont, which uses older turbine technology, may be the worst example. But that said, the carnage there likely represents only a fraction of the number of birds killed by windmills. Michael Fry of the American Bird Conservancy estimates that U.S. wind turbines kill between 75,000 and 275,000 birds per year. Yet the Justice Department is not bringing cases against wind companies.
"Somebody has given the wind industry a get-out-of-jail-free card," Mr. Fry told me. "If there were even one prosecution," he added, the wind industry would be forced to take the issue seriously.
According to the American Wind Energy Association, the industry's trade association, each megawatt of installed wind-power results in the killing of between one and six birds per year. At the end of 2008, the U.S. had about 25,000 megawatts of wind turbines.
whitehall
Diamond Member
7,000 jobs? The only reason is that the government is underwriting the manufacture and going broke doing it and losing jobs in every other sector.. It takes a football field worth of panels to produce anything close to being industrially useful. Solar panels are a toy that might power an emergency phone on the interstate or heat your greenhouse. There is no substitute for oil and the monumental fools who follow Obama down the garden path to 3rd world status because they are emotionally attached to the issue should have their heads examined.
Old Rocks
Diamond Member
When oil hits $150-200 a barrel, there damned well better be a substitute for oil. If there is not it will be because of Luddites like you that have done everything possible to prevent the implementation of research and development that would give us a viable substitute.
As for your comments on solar, China contracted with First Solar of the US to build a 2 gw power station in Inner Mongolia. Sounds like someone thinks that solar is a good addition to their grid.
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