What is Digg?40 Comments
- Ajjah, on 10/31/2008, -4/+34I was REALLY excited about this, until I realized that it's not in America....
We really are bass ackwards. - oakaleafy, on 10/31/2008, -5/+29And that's how desperate we are.
- jflaker, on 10/31/2008, -0/+17No, it was something that was already built and just needs to be used......It was ahead of its time and now it's time!
- jboitnott, on 10/31/2008, -0/+14Whatever it takes to pull us out of our dependence on oil.
- korvan504521, on 10/31/2008, -0/+8they're actually kinda boring inside. typically lots of long concrete tunnels, lots of condensation, conduits and cables running around. 40 year old dim lights.
actually never mind, they're pretty awesome. except i'm always worried nazis are going to jump out and try and shoot me with their chain gun arms. - Dr3w, on 10/31/2008, -1/+8I'm just waiting for horse and buggy lanes to open up on the freeways
- dotorg, on 10/31/2008, -1/+6There's a reason we don't do this in America -- a lot of small dams on small rivers is an environmental disaster, at least with typical designs. (There are bypass designs and other designs that use slow moving impellers to make power, but they are uncommon.)
- warriorscot, on 10/31/2008, -0/+4Not really and issue in Britain, where I lived we had more than 90 days of the summer where there was rain every day.
- localzuk, on 10/31/2008, -0/+4This is a brilliant idea. We have dams and old installations all over the UK which aren't being used. If we just use what we've let go fallow, it'd be a nice start.
Also, we have hydro plants using old, out of date technology. If we updated their turbines to modern standards, we'd get more out of them also. - morepowerr, on 10/31/2008, -0/+4"Hydroelectric is the cleanest, unfortunately it's impossible to achieve economies of scale without building a dam."
No you can always use a suspension turbines. That way boats can go throw. And you don't need to dam up a river to use them. - ncc74656m, on 10/31/2008, -0/+4Awesome! There are a number of decommissioned plants in upper New York as well that I've seen. I wonder if they could be repaired too.
- MrChunks, on 10/31/2008, -0/+3No doubt, but gets me out of the house and doing something other than browsing digg and wanking.
- JGent, on 10/31/2008, -0/+3One of the first projects I started as a student was a feasibility study on a river with a waterwheel. We looked at the power it could generate.
It was a basic project (simple mathmatics etc and lots of given information) as we had all just started. I think we estimated that this 2.5 meter wheel could generate something like 14Kw/H Peak (in that river at recorded max flow etc etc. etc ...hazy memory looking back 10 years).
Anyhow assuming that you would get half that all the time and store it effectively, it was only really enough to power one/two average households. - yessuz, on 10/31/2008, -1/+4Hydro is good when you have some "spare" water
- Zippo, on 10/31/2008, -0/+3We have all this running water, blowing wind, and shining sun on this big planet of ours... all three of those forces can produce vast amounts of energy and are, for the most part, unlimited. We can use all three can be used in conjunction with one another.
Its time we get off the oil and coal and harness what nature's given us. - Annasach, on 10/31/2008, -0/+3Makes you wonder what other stuff we've forgetten and tossed aside, just so we could "move forward" as a race.
- MrChunks, on 10/31/2008, -2/+5Ah cool, that's not a million miles from where I live. I'm going to go check it out this weekend. This is the first positive story I've ever seen coming out of the Daily Mail. I was surprised to see they hadn't slipped in an attack on immigrants, somewhere, somehow.
- witalit, on 10/31/2008, -0/+3Thats cool man anything that can stop our need for oil is cooL!
- warriorscot, on 10/31/2008, -1/+4Big dams on big rivers are also environmental disasters look at the dams on the colorado it causes thousands of miles of ecological disruption from the northern US right down to mexico and its not just the rivers by using the water for irrigation of arid areas they are lowering the soil quality and increasings the salt levels making the soil worse for farming and it gets worse each year as they just need to use more and more water. Not to mention the fact the whole river system is completely changed and most of the dams are now reaching the maximum operational ages.
On balance more small systems are allot less taxing on the environment than large systems. The US Hydropower system only proves it works as long as you don't give a ***** about the consequences. - skywake, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2kill the beavers!!
- DeceasedVirus, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2What about those old river wheels, Can't they spin a Turbine? Do they require a dam? Do they injure aquatic wildlife? Can we not just improve on an existing technology? I think I will research this further, I have a fork of the Vermilion River in my back yard.
- korvan504521, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2I was going to say something about people being more concerned about river environments than making cheap clean electricity in the states, but one of said people beat me to it.
- daonlyfreez, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2Very good idea...
I get my electricity from a hydroelectric plant too. I "bought a stake" (am customer of) a zero-emissions small electricity company (mainly hydroelectric, but solar and wind too). Pay a bit more (and I'm in no means rich) to support them expanding. And I'm not nearly close to them geographically (they feed the grid, I get the electricity from my local supplier).
Reviving those old dams is a good idea, as long as there are no new dams built that destroy existing nature ofcourse.
http://www.naturenergie.de/cms/NaturEnergie-AG/Was ...
(In German. You can see they use a number of small, "old" dams too) - morepowerr, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2Look up
Engineering an empire - Documentary
technology of atlantis - korvan504521, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2waterwheels produce too little power to be of significant benefit. there are alternative systems, typically floating units chained to a mount that work much better on a turbine system. but they're not exactly appealing looking and your neighbors will complain.
they also still don't produce much power compared to a simple dam. - stonecircle, on 06/11/2009, -0/+2They're taking out the old retired hydroelectric dams here in Michigan and restoring river habitat. We have SO much potential here in wind power, yet movement in that direction has been s-l-o-w. We have one wind generator up north of here, though a couple wind farms are in process not far from here.
- localzuk, on 10/31/2008, -0/+2We're suffering with flooding at the moment in the UK. So water shortage isn't an issue.
- occasus, on 10/31/2008, -2/+3I was really excited about this until I realized they weren't talking about a zombie flower.
- DLit, on 11/03/2008, -0/+1damn nazi and their chain guns...
- DLit, on 10/31/2008, -0/+1its stuff like this that really interest me
the place looks like a WWII bunker lol, and i wish the had pictures of the inside, id love to see that - mickstephenson, on 10/31/2008, -0/+1You'll probably find it still looks like the old wreck in the picture.
- morepowerr, on 10/31/2008, -2/+3Many of you have been blinded by stupidity thinking you have to have mass amounts of electricity to run things. And the truth is you don't.
And you know 80% of the time This BS come from people in there late 30's +. How have never learn how to do any thing but wast energy. Or from Coil & oil group who don't give a damn about people. Just wont make as much money as possible.
People like McCain & These other how have ***** up this world so much. Those who still think "Greed is Good". And who ever die with the most useless ***** win. - Nephersir7, on 11/01/2008, -0/+1In the province of Quebec, we are the biggest hydroelectricity producer of the world http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroquebec
- inactive, on 10/31/2008, -1/+2DoTorg: What the ***** are you talking about? There are plenty of small river dam in the United States. Fact is the bigger hydros are seen as less environmentally friendly then the small ones.
- ivosilva, on 10/31/2008, -3/+3Hmmm... There's a horror movie plot in this somewhere...
- Torx, on 10/31/2008, -1/+1It only needs a spit shine!
- morepowerr, on 10/31/2008, -2/+1I find it ever so sad that people think they have to use as much power as posable 24-7.
- morepowerr, on 10/31/2008, -2/+1As some one once side. The seeds of the future lie barred in the past. If humans really wont to learn how to make it work. They need to look to the stories of Rome,and Atlantis.
- Hjacker, on 10/31/2008, -3/+1))))
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