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- ChronicColonic, on 11/16/2009, -1/+51I will make a bet that my neighborhood association would not approve of my having one of those in my back yard.
- setabs, on 11/17/2009, -2/+20That's why I will refuse to buy a house with an HOA.
- Djerrid, on 11/17/2009, -0/+15You should go to a doctor to get that looked at.
- jerrycan, on 11/17/2009, -0/+14We have some hurdles to overcome considering the number of people who have a sh!t fit over clothes lines....
- hbyrne, on 11/16/2009, -2/+14This is cool stuff, but when neighborhood backyards start sprouting wind turbines, the potential unsightliness is going to bring the issue of 'how green are you?' to a head. I know a lot of my Sigg-toting, Prius-driving neighbors would pitch a fit over this.
- grnicon, on 11/17/2009, -0/+10Americans are only fine with going green until it makes them uncomfortable. Otherwise we'd all be sitting on bidets and never buying toilet paper.
- lead2thehead, on 11/17/2009, -1/+10Depending on where you live, there may be laws prohibiting them from denying your request. http://www.cohoalaw.com/from-capitol-hilllegislati ...
- Barackalypse, on 11/17/2009, -0/+8Wind power is far more cost effective, plus has the benefit of working at night.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Compara ... - mafiax, on 11/17/2009, -0/+7i don't understand how you can say that wind power is not economical. These small wind turbines pay for themselves in less than 7 years on average.. seems like a good investment to me.. for any home owner.. and they are way cheaper than solar panels.
- setabs, on 11/17/2009, -1/+7America the free!
- Chairboy, on 11/17/2009, -0/+6Why would you bet that?
- realeskimopimp, on 11/17/2009, -2/+8"So why would the $183-billion a year industrial conglomerate bother to invest in a small company that makes wind turbines so small they can be erected in your backyard?"
To make sure no one buys them? - realeskimopimp, on 11/17/2009, -1/+7You can get insurance to cover anything you want - as long as you pay the extra cost.
- haikuFU, on 11/17/2009, -0/+5I wish I had a bidet.
- energyx, on 11/17/2009, -1/+6f this. i want my home nuke plant
- gellfex, on 11/17/2009, -0/+5I think lots of city & towns would find them against their building codes. I'd love to see them in my city as ubiquitous as the wooden water towers of NYC's rooftops, but it is unlikely.
This game will really be happening when you can buy a cheap Chinese import windmill for under $1k. They're developing them for both domestic and export markets. GE is late to the game. - seanayb, on 11/17/2009, -0/+4I prefer a home Sun.
- Berkana, on 11/17/2009, -0/+4Wind is often intended to supplement the grid, not to take a house off-grid entirely. Wind is often strong at night, when solar is not available; hybrid wind-solar combos coupled with maritime boat batteries have proven to be quite reliable at filling the gaps and providing consistent reliable power for those who absolutely need to go off-grid. Admittedly, the combo systems with batteries are expensive, but in general, they are less expensive than expanding the grid out to places which are presently not on the grid, like cabins in the mountains or in certain rural areas, and a lot less expensive in the long run, since they are easier to maintain and do not incur a monthly bill after they've been paid off. This has been done in France and was found to be a very successful and economical approach. Coastal cities could greatly benefit from the popularization of small wind turbines to supplement their power consumption, especially since they get strong sea breezes in the morning and evening.
The point of small wind is to reduce the need to build centralized power plants, and to cut out the need to transmit all that power--at a loss due to heating of transmission lines--to the point where it is consumed. Our electrical grid is aging as well; distributed generation, if popularized, will do a lot to reduce the load on our fragile and aging electrical grid. - Shipyaad, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3I don't think you need to worry. GE isn't going anywhere.
- haikuFU, on 11/17/2009, -2/+5HOA's now exist out of necessity. Cities won't finance the streets and sewers in new developments, so the developer forms and association that collects dues for the maintenance to get the city to approve it. Once the association is formed, it's illegal to dissolve it and dump it back on the city.
The problem is when you get a bunch of ***** running it. Because the only people that truly WANT to run one, are *****. I'm in one. My suggestion to you is to attempt to get on the board of one if you move into one to keep people from ***** with you. - Berkana, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3I respect your view of the market, but you are mistaken about something.
In case you didn't study the history of conventional power supplies, coal, nuclear, oil, and natural gas were all developed with governmental financial support, both in subsidies and tax credits; without the billions of dollars spent on developing any of these, none of them would be viable. Comprehensive data on the investments in the research for each of these sectors over the years is provided in Hermann Scheer's book "A Solar Manifesto".
I agree with the free market in principle, but it is not honest if one does not admit that the energy market is *not* a free market; it is not a free market when alternatives have to compete with established power sources that were themselves turned into behemoths by government assistance. My preference would be to subsidize none and have them all stand on their own legs, but since assistance has been so asymmetrical towards non-renewables, I fully support doing likewise to alternative power sources such as wind.
You also need to consider that our industries compete against companies in foreign countries receiving governmental support for their research and development. Solar and wind power both got started in the US, but now the US is importing turbines from Germany and Denmark, solar panels from China and Japan, and solar thermal technology from Spain. This is a crying shame. It is not a free nor fair market to have US industry compete against renewable energy corporations that were nurtured to competitive strength by foreign governments. Given this recognition that the market is not free, it is a lesser evil to invest in encouraging the development of this technology as well than to do nothing and end up having to import all of this technology from elsewhere; if we develop it here, we can compete and export, and create jobs here in the long run. Pretending to practice free market economics when that is not the reality facing the domestic players simply dooms them to fail and dooms us to importing what we should have developed ourselves. - mkriss5681, on 11/17/2009, -0/+3GE owns NBC who has taken a massive hit to prime time ratings because of the new Leno show
- Yez70, on 11/17/2009, -1/+3There's also the vertical wind mill option - much less of an eyesore IMO. They start around $3800 too, so they're very economical compared to other options.
http://www.mariahpower.com/ - qwertydvorak, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2these are only $3800 after tax incentives (if your state supports that), pre rebate they are $9-$12K. they are also only 1.2kW. the ones in the article are $15k before rebates, and are 2.4kW. the ones on the site you linked are nowhere neare as good of a buy.
here are some better alternatives for the home:
http://www.arcrenewable.com/
http://www.earthtronics.com/honeywell.aspx - bungoman, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2You don't buy GE stock for hope of short term gain. You buy it for modest gains over a long period of time.
- tuka, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Well then i guess its gonna have to be a breeder reactor for you!
After you set that up, give the HOA my regards and complementary Geiger counters - lilhelper, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2So the average consumer cannot produce enough electricity to collectively put the electric companies out of business AND cannot produce enough electricity to cover their own demands?
- wilf_brim, on 11/17/2009, -1/+3And I'm a GE shareholder...
*facepalm*
*looks at GE stock performance over the past 3 years and starts to cry* - honemasterT, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2My Grandfather had one of these back in the 30's
http://www.antiqueradio.com/Mar02_Russell_Windradi ...
A $15 upgrade to your Zenith Farmradio! - mkriss5681, on 11/17/2009, -3/+5GE making wind turbines powered by Jay Leno's sucking
- celotil, on 11/17/2009, -0/+2Most homes I've seen around my neighbourhood have several wind turbines on their roof, except the occupants don't realise it yet.
They're called a Whirly-Bird, and basically it's just an exhaust vent for hot air, that spins around on a horizontal plane.
Attach a small dynamo, and voila. - grantmoore3d, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLa_NY5U1nk
I want one of those. - twoblueday, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1I wish I knew how to build a small wind turbine, because it looks like one big problem is that, for as relatively simple they are, and how cheap the components are, they are grossly overpriced.
I have a house at a very windy location, and am intrigued.
As for homeowner's associations, in Florida there is a statute forbidding homeowner's associations from prohibitig "renewable energy" devices. Mostly that has meant solar (some folks just thought they were "ugly"), but I don't know that anyone has erected a wind turbine to test the law further. - haikuFU, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1DealExtreme!! If anyone starts selling them dirt cheap, they will.
- katana0182, on 11/17/2009, -2/+3Not too many people are getting into wind for the wind power. Everyone's in wind power for the tax credits and subsidies. You could almost run a power company on the subsidies alone without generating a kilowatt. Actually - guess what - you can run a "power company" on the tax credits and subsidies alone. It doesn't even matter WHEN you generate the energy that you do - you can do so in the middle of the night when no one needs it - you get the same tax-funded subsidy rate per kilowatt.
This is why everyone and their mother is getting into the wind business, because other people (subsidy recipients) are willing to spend the money of a third group of people (taxpayers' and electric ratepayers') money to erect wind turbines. It doesn't matter if they generate a single watt. Actually, it's preferable that they don't generate that much power, so that the same company or same companies can also sell them a useful and clean nuclear plant or power therefrom on the flip side, a useful but dirty fossil plant or power therefrom as well, both of which produce power when people need it, instead of power when the wind decides to blow (or the sun decides to come out).
Not saying that anyone is doing this for less than the soundest of business reasons, but the wind's blowing lots of money around these days, and some things that are less than sound are getting inflated by a quite a bit of moving (but not-so-hot) air.
As soon as wind gets subsidies based on how much of the time it generates (e.g. it gets 100% subsidies for generation during demand periods, and 0% subsidies for non-demand periods) then I'll see it as something more than hot air. - kinsider, on 11/17/2009, -1/+2why go nuclear when you can have fusion? I mean, a nuke will slowly leak off radiation, but if a fusion plant goes- not gonna feel a thing
- haikuFU, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1I prefer a Matroska Shell.
- eddantes7, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1Everyone knows what channel Leno is on, it's the one they always avoid...
- fireburner23, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1You know, I have been wondering if Horizontal is better in lower altitudes than Vertical. Could anyone provide some information on this?
- bungoman, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1Or to try and become the de facto supplier of small wind turbines nation wide (or world wide) for residential use and thereby make billions upon billions of dollars when everyone who doesn't live in a neighborhood with a nosy homeowners association comes running to purchase three or four so they can save money long term by reducing their power bill. Cynicism is cool and all, but sometimes it just makes you look dumb.
- fireburner23, on 11/21/2009, -0/+1I prefer a power from a blackhole.
- jaquatics, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1How environmentally friendly are these when everyone has 10 of them and all you can see for miles is spinning blades? All flying creatures will be effected and the noise from thousands of these things will surely increase noise pollution considerably.
- Moralogic, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1Your neighbors can still complain to the town sadly...
- Ddraig, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1I would love to have one of these in my back yard, but if GE makes these anyway that it did my microwave I won't be getting one. Front plate started to peal off with in the first couple of months and now the darn thing is broke and we haven't had it for that long....and I'm a shareholder :P
- DarkShroud, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1That's what they get for putting him in the same time slot as the Mentalist among other shows. Giving him another show was smart. The time slot was just really stupid.
- DarkShroud, on 11/17/2009, -0/+1Depends on your region, here in the midwest solar has limits. You can't put them on your roof if you want to use them in the winter. Wind is 24/7 year round. I had issues with a solar water heater one really bad winter when part of the insulation/cover fell of the pipe. I couldn't get up their to fix it, had the pipe burst I would have been screwed.
- Berkana, on 11/17/2009, -1/+1The Savonius turbine style microturbines look a lot nicer, don't kill birds, and are a lot quieter. I don't see why a neighborhood association would oppose the installation of one of these:
Helix Wind:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9flSPAdOLk
Windside:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLa_NY5U1nk - kinsider, on 11/17/2009, -1/+1I can envisage it. Perhaps not on stand alone towers- high points on houses perhaps, on top of smallish warehouses, factories. The greatest problem will be competing against solar power imo, not getting communities to accept this (well, I live in Australia, so I'm not sure about in other places).
- kingcam, on 11/17/2009, -3/+3Waste of money, at least with the way that solar panels are developing. With the current doubling rate of every 2 years in 2 decades we will be a 100% solar world.
- ShellShock11, on 11/17/2009, -2/+2This doesn't seem realistic. People are not going to be putting turbines in their backyards on a large scale.
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