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Alternative Energy Mega Projects

darkroastedblend.com — Great pics and conceptual drawings of some of the latest alternative-energy projects around the world - floating wind farms and off-shore turbines, solar thermal power plants, tidal power stations...

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  • jmpeagle, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3guess you can't really make geothermal energy look sexy
  • crazybugger, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3Alternative energy sources exist. Its frustrating to know that wealth is being wasted, there are more than 2 billion people below poverty line.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_fuel_cell

    There is more. Just type these keywords in google.
    1. over unity.
    2. scalar waves
    3. nikola tesla
    4. wireless electricity
    5. EV Grey Motor.
    6. Stanley Meyers
    • thcobbs, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2Over Unity ISN'T possible with our current technology.... and maybe not even with the best technology we could ever develop.
    • Devrdander, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5Yeh, except the ones listed in the article actually exist and or would work versus the crap you talk about...
    • ChrisGranger, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0In this case, it's clear your username is accurate. I'm all for advanced technologies used to solve our energy problems, but over-unity? Please.
  • Drexus, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10I love all these ideas. They appear well thought out. Now if only our "elected" leaders shared this inspiration.
    • Stevejsam, on 10/11/2007, -8/+3Our elected leaders were elected in accordance with all applicable national, state, and local laws. Your little jab with the "elected" is retarded. Get over it the American people didnt want some socialist hippie in office so they voted for the other guy. Ass.
      • byronm, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Are you suggesting that the people you may have elected are out there fighting for your best interests? And if so, what evidence do you have of that? Just because people got elected, doesn't mean they deserve to do a crappy job. I certainly hope being elected is treated as a privilege to serve and not a right to abuse power or express "convictions of your own party".
  • irvman21, on 10/11/2007, -3/+8Nuclear energy has been available for decades. All the technology we need is already in place, no further research is needed. It is proven, it is reliable, it is safe. All these other sources are cute and they have their place, but nothing has the potential to provide base load energy like nuclear power.
    • Gadren, on 10/11/2007, -2/+3Agreed -- excellent series of images, but it's odd that a nuclear power plant is implied as a "bad" source of energy. That's steam, not smoke, that's coming out of it.
      Nuclear power is cleaner than many other sources of energy, pebble bed reactors make meltdowns impossible, and they offer much more bang for your buck than wind and solar. Not that wind and solar are bad, but it does require a lot of them to get a good amount of energy.
    • netengineer10, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Well, the only problem is radioactive waste, right now we store it in cement and bury it in a mountain in nevada. All it requires is one unexpected earthquake and those cement enclosures could rupture, creating ecological disasters. It might not seem like our most current problem, but considering that waste will be radioactive for 10,000 years, those cement enclosures would have to remain unharmed for 10,000 years as well.
    • OneHine, on 10/11/2007, -1/+2The primary difficulty with nuclear power is that while marginal costs (the costs associated with running the plant) are relatively low, the sunk costs (the costs associated with building a power plant) are extremely high. Nuclear power plants only get built when governments step in to provide funding. Furthermore, developing countries would have an even harder time building nuclear power plants due to concern over proliferation of nuclear weapons. Solar and wind power also comes at a premium, but the costs of those are projected to decrease, largely due to economies of scale.

      Of course, it doesn't make any sense to invest everything into a single production method. Nuclear power is good for base load, especially since you can add gigawatts of production capacity at a time. I can see nuclear being extremely competitive compared to coal when the true costs of coal power plants are finally taken into account.
    • lettruthout, on 10/11/2007, -3/+4It's had decades to try to prove itself but has proven to be a failure - except for those out to make a short-term profit. Besides the ugly radioactive mess it leaves behind for centuries we also have very little of it in the US. So we'd soon have to rely upon foreign sources. And how about the damage that mining for fuel does world wide? Give up trying to green-wash nuclear. We all need to move to sustainable energy sources instead.
    • UKsHaDoW, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Nuclear Fusion would be our best bet in fact. No Nuclear Waste at all. Its practically free energy. Although at the moment it requires more energy then it generates, but in the future its a possibility. There is no way we can generate a un-natural amount of energy of sustainable sources. Sustainable sources are also not very reliable. Sometimes you would have enough energy, and then you would have no where near the energy required. Imagine coming into your house one day and not having any power, not having any heating, no where to cook your food etc. People literary NEED power these days. Epically the old, without power people will die.
      • Stratochief66, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Am I the only person that things that if a person literally needs electricity to live they really aren't human anymore?
      • lettruthout, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1How much more reliable do you want than tidal? How about geothermal? What, don't you trust the moon to continue rotating or the earth to continue to have a high core temperature?

        Image not having a home because a global-warming-induced wildfire burned it to the ground. This happened to more than 200 homes in California recently.

        Imagine not having any water for your home because global warming has dried up the sources. That's what we're facing in Southern California.

        We need to move to many sources of sustainable energy. This, coupled with reducing the amount of energy we waste will be the answer. Sustainable energy is not something to be scoffed at by ignorant pro-nuclear and pro-oil dreamers but the only hope we have if we we want a world capable of supporting human life.
  • tuzziel, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Where are those Streon lunatics I wanted to see some myth-bust fun.
    • smackywentz, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2Agreed, what's the deal? Those guys just fell off, and I never saw their presentation that was going to be on like April 1st or 13th or something.
      • Devrdander, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1They were suppose to show on july 5th but they claimed that excessive heat caused by the lights in the display case damaged the unit and they have postponed the demonstration indefinitely...
  • TomPlansMedia, on 10/11/2007, -3/+1http://www.bustedtees.com/shirt/thisiswhyimhot/male
  • dpw45, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3Correct me if im wrong, but isnt that a picture of cooling towers? rather than polluting, they are just water vapour clouds above them?

    I do love the way the media do things...
    • Timmmm, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1Yeah I thought so too.

      Also that last picture is actually a (render of a) solar chimney.
  • OMightyColumbia, on 10/11/2007, -0/+2ah yes, let us leave out the magnificent hydroelectric dams of the world. grand coulee dam of the state of washington produces 6.8 gigawatts of clean renewable energy, but it seems the digg hippies want to build more nuclear plants. where do you expect to do this when it take 15 years to get the clearance to build a highway overpass out in the boondocks of montana or idaho? certainly not anywhere in the industrialized world folks.
  • czecho, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Good to see someone thinking out of the box, or a least thinking about alternatives.

    http://3rs.org
  • kirkness, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1how bout getting China, India and others up to speed on environmental laws and practices?
  • simplejoe79, on 10/11/2007, -0/+1These alternatives are good, but how far can they get?
  • InvestWise, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0Really great collection of pictures ..
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