Wind turbine backlash article

[jinjimbob]

Personally i think that the gains to society from clean power (I KNOW dirty power, we live downwind of a coal fired station, and have an open pit coal mine in our town) far outweigh the deaths of a few bats or birds. Its unfortunate about their deaths, but the technology to prevent it will come soon.

Technology is here right now, nuclear power, its safe, and 99% of all environmental groups agree that this kind of power is the best kind. It is the only power that is clean right now. It can be dirty if not maintained properly.

How clean is power if it is guaranteed to kill animals?

Birds migrate where there is wind, and that is where they want to install wind turbines.

 

[dmccarty]

... Roofs are not the best location due to the heat, unless they are covering the entire roof surface. There are also ways to passively cool the collectors, but of course that adds to the overall cost. IMO, solar thermal is still the best bang for the buck, but it won't help with the cooling loads in the summer...

Just read an article about the solar farms that are being planned out west and the fights that are going on over them. What I had never heard of is that some of the solar technologies in these solar power plants require large amounts of water. One proposed plant would use up twice the amount of water that is available at one site.

If the plants don't use water cooling they are not as efficient and require 10% more land. Various groups including BLM don't want the power plants taking up so much land since they impact public use and endangered plants/animals. Fienstein is trying to create a huge public monument in the Mojave that was hundreds of thousands of acres. The land would not be usable for solar power production.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

...
I would like to see more research into affordable earth sheltered housing. Besides the heating and cooling advantages, the is a huge potential savings in insurance costs not to mention possibly saving life's due to tornadic activity.

I would think there would be quite a bit of information on earth sheltered homes. I think I have a book or two on the subject. Whether its affordable will be a factor of the site and house design.

The NC Solar Center at NCSU is in a earth sheltered house on campus. The house is a half H shape with the middle being a two story glassed in area. We went the center one year at the end of December. The temperatures had been in the 20/30s for days and we had dressed accordingly. The house was so hot we had to take off our layers of coats and sweaters. The glassed in area was 90+ degrees. Outside was in the 20s.

That is good in the winter. In the summer that might be a problem.

I don't think you will see many earth sheltered homes in the 'burbs. The HOAs won't like them.

Later,
Dan

 

[riptides]

.. It is the only power that is clean right now. ..

I never understood these type of statements with nuke power. The by products can kill every living thing on the planet, for a gazillion years, and takes huge infrastructure to secure and maintain.

 

[Duffster]

Brazil makes ethanol from waste left during sugar production. It is much more efficient process because it contains sugar as opposed to starch. Brazil could supply all our current ethanol needs but the farm lobby killed the deal.
Ethanol is a bad deal regardless because it contains 76000 BTU as opposed to gasoline 116000. In other words to produce the same power the engine will consume little less than double volume. The energy deficit is somewhat made up by better combustion efficiency (ethanol bring its own oxygen) but still it can't get even close to gasoline. In fact you get more energy just by burning the corn.

Really not trying to stick up for Ethanol because I am not convince that it is good or bad

But most studies I have seen seem to forget about the feed that is left when done making Corn based Ethanol

 

[mohrds]

I love to hear the term "Free Power". There isn't such a thing. There are drawbacks to every form of green power.

Wind Turbines affect wind patterns and disrupt natural earth heating and cooling cycles. Very minimal effect, but if you build enough of them to actually generate a usable amount of electricity, there will be measurable effects.

Solar panels reduce thermal heat while they create electricity. Loss of thermal heat causes higher temperature fluctuations between night and day times. There was an article in a physics magazine a few years back on a group trying to calculate the climate change from snow removal. It was quite eye opening. The snow gets removed on streets and sidewalks, allowing the sun's energy to absorb into the pavement and warm up the ground. If there was no snow removal, the sun's energy would mostly be directed back into the atmosphere where it would be absorbed evenly and stabilize temperatures throughout the daily cycle. The end result of their research was that it would be better for the environment if we didn't move the snow and everyone just drive 10 mpg, 4WD trucks.

Fascinating stuff. I'm all for better energy production, but not necessarily thrilled about anything a politician tells me. I'd rather take my cues from the scientists.

So far, Hydro is still #1, followed by Nuclear and closely by the new generation coal plants.

 

[Scooby074]

Technology is here right now, nuclear power, its safe, and 99% of all environmental groups agree that this kind of power is the best kind. It is the only power that is clean right now. It can be dirty if not maintained properly.

How clean is power if it is guaranteed to kill animals?

Birds migrate where there is wind, and that is where they want to install wind turbines.

I agree, nuclear is the best for base load generation, but we need to be reprocessing our waste. Burying usable uranium makes no sense. Reprocessing also greatly reduces the volume of waste needing disposal. Not reprocessing out of proliferation fears is outdated. Any country that wants the technology can find out all they need, its all over the internet.

Wind power is very clean INHO. How many animals and humans are killed by fossil power every year?

Corn ethanol was a dumb idea. Using food crops to make fuel??? However Cellulosic ethanol from waste, makes sense.


All alternatives have some tradeoffs. Wind can be intermittent, solar takes a large area,nuclear is NIMBY, and hydro can flood large areas and destroy fish. But something has to be done to change the status quo. New technology going to take effort and likely government money. Dont forget that most of the infrastructure we enjoy came from gov't money at least in part.

 

[charlz]

I agree, nuclear is the best for base load generation, but we need to be reprocessing our waste. Burying usable uranium makes no sense. Reprocessing also greatly reduces the volume of waste needing disposal. Not reprocessing out of proliferation fears is outdated. Any country that wants the technology can find out all they need, its all over the internet.

A few years back I saw an article where a physicist was talking about transmutation.... 'turning lead into gold'. He said it is possible using a particle accelerator, just not practical. He also said its possible to turn radioactive waste into a non-radioactive substance using the same method. Not sure how accurate or how much power it would require but certainly sounds interesting

 

[Eagleview]

Split the Hydrogen and Oxygen from water and you have rocket fuel . I know where there is plenty of water .

 

[Scooby074]

A few years back I saw an article where a physicist was talking about transmutation.... 'turning lead into gold'. He said it is possible using a particle accelerator, just not practical. He also said its possible to turn radioactive waste into a non-radioactive substance using the same method. Not sure how accurate or how much power it would require but certainly sounds interesting

Lead into gold ,Eh? Hmmm....i got a pile of old batteries kicking around... hello retirement