Windmills Kill

[Turboswede]

It’s interesting to see the same Ideas about energy emerge in 2008 as 1978. In school I studied economics and one of my all time favorite subjects was energy economics because some of the solutions offered back in the 70’s and today were just silly.

Windmills Kill was one of my favorite articles on the issue of how horribly inefficient some alternative energy can be. Due to the minimal power produced from wind farms, the land they use and, most of all, the number of deaths attributed to windmills per kw/h generated, Windmills are the most deadly and dangerous generators ever devised by man.

First off, why all these CAFE rules and the demonization of folks who drive cars with poor (for today) gas mileage? If the goal is to get the American public to stop using so much gas, raise gas taxes and use the revenue to fund mass transit. It’s an easy solution that works. Oh, and BTW lower taxes on Diesel so the transportation industry doesn’t feel the pinch.

Second, Nuclear Power, why won’t this just go away? Here in Washington we have a number of nuclear reactors that just sit there and blot out the (occasional) sun. The reason we don’t use them is because they are too expensive to operate. Just from an economics argument, nuclear power projects are so capital intensive and have such high maintenance and decommissioning costs that oil will NEVER be expensive enough to justify them.

Third, we are running out of oil? It’s a simple issue of how hard the oil is to get at, not whether or not its there so:

At $40 a barrel no one cares about energy policy anyway, Texas looses tons of Jobs and the American oil industry tanks.

At $60 a barrel, it’s cost effective to start hiring rig workers again and bring Texas crude out of the ground.

At $80 a barrel, OMG the sky is falling and we are running out of oil. Drill everywhere even if it’s in Ralph Nader’s back yard.

At $100 a barrel, Exxon Mobile starts thinking that it may be worth investing capital in oil shale refining, but they realize that everyone is thinking of that and shale production is only cost effective at a sustained oil price of $70 per barrel. Why should they invest millions in capital to have a complex that produces oil at $70/barrel when they know it will fall below that before the oil shale process would be on line?

Then, oil goes back to $40/ barrel and all those investors holding oil futures lose their shirts.

It’s happened before, and it will happen again.

Oh, and the US has 500 years of Oil Shale reserves so we are not running out, it just costs to much to get at.

Let me make it clear, I do not hate alternative energy, there are lots of environmentally friendly methods of power production but they are very capital intensive so the private sector will always be scared that energy prices will tank and they will be left holding the bag. As long term, environmentally friendly energy production is the goal, it becomes the state’s responsibility to lessen the market barriers and get the private sector interested in Solar, Water, Fusion and Geothermal.

BTW, electric cars only displace pollution and hybrid cars use extremely toxic and dangerous elements in their hybrid motors (which will only last 100,000 miles before they need replacement).

 

[Remey688]

Todays large windmill design is much less apt to kill or hurt people, and efficient for generating large amounts of electrical power in areas like Kansas, Oklahoma and West Texas.

 

[auditor0007]

There is also new developing technology that provides for much smaller wind turbines that can be placed on every single home and business. These turbines will create electricity no matter which direction the wind is blowing. We need to start looking at things differently if we want to truly move forward.

 

[Zoomie1980]

...These turbines will create electricity no matter which direction the wind is blowing.....

No shit???

 

[Remey688]

There is also new developing technology that provides for much smaller wind turbines that can be placed on every single home and business. These turbines will create electricity no matter which direction the wind is blowing. We need to start looking at things differently if we want to truly move forward.

The directional technology was originally developed for larger units. Oklahoma has built several large wind turbine farms west of Oklahoma City.

 

[Old Rocks]

We are rapidly expanding wind farms here in Oregon. By the Kw, they are almost as economical as dirty coal, and far more economical than proposed clean coal. I say proposed, because in spite of all the advertisements, there is not one clean coal plant running in the US. Geothermal is also relitively cheap. Nuclear is not. Solar will be cheapest of all, once the thin films exceed 15% efficiency. We have already produced effective, for urban use, electric cars. The problem here is leadership, not technology. Combine electric vehicles with grid parallel solar on residential roofs, and you get transportation that is cheap for the consumer, and environmentally freindly.

 

[Remey688]

We are putting solar panels in to partially heat our swimming pool.

 

[editec]

I fear we won't actually get serious about alternative energy until the oiliocracy has squeezed every possible cent out of the public folks.

The golden rule is in effect.

 

[Remey688]

I fear we won't actually get serious about alternative energy until the oiliocracy has squeezed every possible cent out of the public folks.

The golden rule is in effect.

Not true, the oil and gas giant are buying up alternative energy companies now and not to close them down!

 

[bigbroodmaster]

No shit???

This made me lol

 

[Old Rocks]

Not true, the oil and gas giant are buying up alternative energy companies now and not to close them down!

I wish I could believe that. Chevron and GM very effectively shut down a very good EV, the electric RAV 4 from Toyota, by stopping the importation of large NiMH batteries that powered the vehicles.