What is Digg?76 Comments
- Owwmykneecap, on 05/31/2008, -0/+23Where i live 200 windmills were to be built 8 kms out at sea.
7 test 3.6 MW ones were built. I can Faintly see them from my room on a clear day.
they operate at 30% above the expected level.
193 more should have been built but red tape, tax laws, contracts and negotiation with various gov deptments and the Electricity board have gotten in the way.Pure Bureaucracy. Basically its an absolute disgrace, the 7 turbines are providing enough electricty for my town and Surroundings twice over but it doesn't get used at all, by anyone.
Very sad, it was to be the world largest Offshore farm, no one objected. - inactive, on 05/30/2008, -1/+21Wasn't a similar plan rejected by the Kennedy clan?
- 45441, on 05/31/2008, -1/+14Exactly. Since when are wind turbines ugly?
They're a marvelous spectacle of human progress. They're downright beautiful.
http://www.ourworldfoundation.org.uk/turbine.jpg - StuartGibson, on 06/14/2009, -0/+12I'm pretty sure the only thing coming our of nuclear power stations is water vapour.
And depleted uranium, but that doesn't come out of the cooling towers. - inactive, on 05/31/2008, -2/+11Power generation should never be decided on emotional responses and hair brain schemes built on utter nonesense. Use logic, reason and cost benefit analysis when coming up with a solution. This sort of crap amazes me. It boggles my mind that in this age people are so ignorant or maye hateful? of logical solutions to problems, America has created a generation of XYZ uneducated fools with garbage college degrees that hasnt prepared them for reality.
When topics such as these come in in a conversation with my friends...some are engineers, chemist and so on, they always come up with answers that are not politically correct or filled with utter BS. However, when some of my other less educated (they have college degrees, just not in any field worth the paper its printed on) come up with a solution it borders on the emotional feel good, whatever someone on Tv said is "good" responses.
Folks you are hurting yourselves by not thinking rationally and logically. - PhireN, on 05/31/2008, -0/+9I don't know what kind of wind turbines you have, but I find the ones that I come across look really cool.
I can sit watching them for ages. - inactive, on 05/30/2008, -0/+7Make them so they can benefit from and withstand hurricane force winds and you may have a winner! Thinking about it in more detail though, there are alot of problems to overcome.
- thebookmarker, on 05/30/2008, -0/+6Actually i got a co-worker who got an amazing project for wave and wind energy. He is unable to get funding or sponsors and stuck with it for a long time now. Government just couldnt care less so private investors are required in a business that can bring free energy and billions of $.
- Owwmykneecap, on 05/31/2008, -1/+7no such thing as free energy.
- notoneofus, on 05/31/2008, -0/+6No one country has a monopoly on that kind of idiocy. It's quite widespread.
- SVOboy, on 05/30/2008, -0/+5Since the first set us going up off of norway, I doubt they are yet worried about hurricanes, so that may indeed be a constraint, but if they can work well in most of the world that's still a success, I think.
- inactive, on 05/31/2008, -0/+4Agreed, but I was just thinking in a global scale, particularly in the southern hemisphere.
- gadgetuk, on 05/31/2008, -0/+4You got a news story about it anywhere? Might be worth submitting to Digg et al - if it's gains some momentum it could shame the idiot bureaucrats into some action or maybe encourage your local politicians to get involved.
- inactive, on 05/31/2008, -1/+5Nuclear stations pump out smog?
Folks above is the definition of a liberal Idiot! - psylemon, on 05/31/2008, -0/+4sounds... typical
we have a 200+ turbine wind system in our town, or, on a plateau nearby. All the power gets wired to big cities, but we get all sorts of funding into our school system and community. Wind power is the way to go in my book, and offshore sounds fantastic... no geography or vegetation to block the air. - Murdats, on 05/31/2008, -0/+3yes most modern designs currently use cooling towers to pump out WATER! perfectly harmless water.
however forget that you are replacing thousands of turbines for a couple of towers, oh and you dont need to live somewhere windy, and you dont need other power sources to fill in the gaps, oh and you can shove them way out of town to avoid being seen, unlike most wind farms being on the coast people live on. - eryximachus, on 05/31/2008, -0/+3Reducing the human population level to a degree raping the planet will no longer be required would eliminate the need for such pipe dreams.
- Ratteler, on 05/31/2008, -0/+3The real trick is not to put up giant windmill farms to feed the power grid, but to put a your own small windmill on your property... and get OFF the grid.
- nick111, on 05/31/2008, -0/+3Well technology is accelerating like ***** - every couple of weeks something new turns up - but there are a couple of driving... things:
- dececentralised is better than centralised
because it's more efficient not to transport energey, more resiliant (unlike the nuke system that plunged so much of the UK into darkness this week) and when the technology improves, you can swap in new parts without it costing billions. And you're not beholden to a clique of corrupt, greedy old man.
- improved efficiency of the stuff we use energy for is going to meet renewables 1/2 way - or at least some of the way, coming from the other direction.
It makes no sense that it takes a tonne of steel and glass to transport a 40 kg human. From a design perspective, that's... stupid.
I have a feeling that transition from one type of energy to another isn't necessarily that big a deal - what's causing the problems is massively wealthy vested interests clashing with reality as their revenue stream becomes irrelevent. - Badandy127, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Sorry, this is slipping my mind. I'm kind of embarrassed to bring this up but:
How much oil have we taken from Iraq? - reefsurfer226, on 05/31/2008, -1/+3i wouldnt mind tipping back a few brews watchin the turbines do their thing
- nick111, on 05/31/2008, -1/+3Not according to one of the various thermodynamic laws, no.
But there is a difference between
a) "not free" and
b) "you need to kill loads of people in the middle east and completely ***** yourself up the arse and sell your grand children into debt slavery and ruin the ecosystem so the majority of your own population become so poor that you have to live behind barbed wire (in the name of freedom)"
though isn't there. - PhantomPhoenix, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Even a melted-down reactor wouldn't be emitting visible 'smog'. It would [maybe] have an explosion and then simply emit [invisible] alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.
(And since when has melting metal created 'smog'?) - WolverineBlue, on 05/31/2008, -1/+3I suppose that would be ugly, since it would mean that the reactor had melted down and had been uncontained long enough to begin smelting the surrounding structure. This has never, nor will it ever, happen. It is people like icemanex who have strong opinions on subjects which they have no understanding who cause horrible restrictions on safe, useful technology like nuclear power, genetically engineered foods, and modern pharmaceuticals. This is why decisions on advanced technical topics such as power ought to be left to the scientists and engineers.
- inactive, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2the wind generator on my houseboat is bringing you this comment,go pay rent!
- Murdats, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2or we could just use nuclear.
- MacEnvy, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Tell him to talk to these guys:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/vc100
The cash is there, it's just a matter of coming up with a solid business plan and convincing major backers that he can actually make it happen. - Badandy127, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Ya, those damn nuclear reactors with smog. Terrible thing, those SMOG EMITTING NUCLEAR REACTORS.
Didn't your brain go, "No, no, no...WAIT. God damnit iceman, why are you typing this? Seriously, I'm sending some signals down to your fingers to stop typing. Really, you're gonna override me like this? *****. This is why you're so dumb, you keep not listening to me." right before you clicked submit? - Ratteler, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2... and then he got brain cancer. See what happens when you challenge our Windmill Overlords.
(I know I must be dugg down... but I bet you chuckled.) - cubicledrone, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2We sure as ***** ain't gonna build it! We couldn't make a snack in this country if someone handed us a cracker and a bowl of guacamole. There's not one, not ONE corporate middle management ***** with the huevos to even suggest a project like this much less start trying to plan it. First room full of suits they saw and they'd be crying under their desks.
Our fat ass will keep sinking into the couch until we start employing our neighbors and start building again. Simple as that. - arkaycee, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2First hurricane, I'm hooking it up to a Delorean.
- kcfreels, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Won't get in the way of "US" of course. You are missing the obvious. Would you not have us build buildings because birds run into them? They go around, when I'm watching, and it seems if I was a ocean dwelling creature, within 25 feet of the surface in deep offshore water is probably not where I'd go.
Additionally, how many turtle migrations are screwed up by the undersea fiber optic cables? I can't imagine the power cables would be much different. - bossm4n, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Most if not all of these turbines are designed to run at virtually the same speed regardless of wind speed by automatically adjusting the pitch of the blades. I was just talking with an engineer last week who was working on these monster turbines in West Texas. Some of them are so efficient, they can produce peak power with as little as 5 mph of wind.
- joeanon, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Offshore means higher costs when they erode faster, get stolen or get devoured by weather conditions.
Just tell the people who think plumes of coal smoke are beautiful sights to GO ***** THEMSELVES and put the turbines up on land where they offer the best price per kilowatt. - gkiltz, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Or not!
Remember, wind turbans are a well-known way to reduce the bird population, in areas with an overpopulation.
Wind turbines are mechanical devices out in the weather. They are high-maintainence under the best of circumstances. Out in storm seas, well off shore, where they are difficult and time-consuming to access, this problem snowballs very fast!
There is also the issue of electrical resistance! In any electrical generating system, you never get out as much as you put in, so there WILL always be losses! The farther you have to haul it, the greater the resistance losses!
Electricity and water, generally,salt water especially, just do not mix! You HAVE to keep them well separated. To make matters worse, salt water is quite corrosive. The undersea communications cables that already exist need regular, costly maintainance.Communications cables don't carry much wattage, and therefore don't get the mechanical stress that electrical cables do! Electrical cable would be far worse, because of the mechanical stress exerted by the voltage/current combination. Most land-based long-distance transmission lines essentially have large transformers at the input to bump the voltage up into the 50,000+ range, lowering the current, and making the whole system more efficient. The cost of maintaining such a rack of transformers off shore is extremely high!
Electricity, for better or worse is like any other basic commodity! To create it efficiently, there is little alternative to creating it in huge volumes, to take advantage of economies of scale!
In conclusion, this is just one more thing that "could" happen, but won't!
Think about your own life! How many things could have happened, but didn't?
There are just so many more economical alternatives! Some places can generate wind power efficiently, but so many places just don't have enough wind! Wind power can be a small part of the total picture, as can using solid waste incinerators as generation facilities, which has been done since the mid 1980s.
Good research to you!
Time to take another look at nukes! - benchwarmer, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2Here's to hoping they can produce enough jiggawatts.
- ratexla, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2I hope they'll function as nice artificial reefs. :)
- PhantomPhoenix, on 05/31/2008, -1/+3Wind turbines aren't ugly! They're clean and white (well, most are). Much better than coal, oil or gas plants. In fact, I would love to one day see every home accompanied by a wind turbine and an underground network of power lines connecting them. It would sure look better than ***** power lines crisscrossing the sky.
- inactive, on 05/31/2008, -0/+2the sea would probably prefer to host the turbines than have its waters fouled by gasoline and diesel
- HonestAbe, on 05/31/2008, -1/+2Wind turbines are much too dangerous to put next to a home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ
http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/page4.htm - Derrekito, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1Source please, I am interested.
- HonestAbe, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1"The US government has been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil interests in the country since the industry was nationalised in 1972."
- cubicledrone, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1Remember that scene in Apollo 13 when they dumped all the stuff on the desk and said "we need to make THIS fit THIS using only THIS." And a room full of really smart people got it done?
Yeah, we'll never do anything like that in this country again. Happy? - MrSlumberjack, on 06/01/2008, -0/+1Pumping water vapor into the sky adds to cloud productions, artificially changing weather patterns
- HonestAbe, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1They're great until the blades snap off and land on your house.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nSB1SdVHqQ - cubicledrone, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1"There's not enough money in it."
The battle cry of *****. That is the key reason we never build anything cool any more. There's enough money in ***** television and ***** plastic ***** ***** at *****-Mart, but there's not enough money in building a power system.
*****. - kd1s, on 06/01/2008, -0/+1Getting the power back is simple. I don't think it's beyond our engineering technology to built a tower and microwave it back.
- init100, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1"it seems if I was a ocean dwelling creature, within 25 feet of the surface in deep offshore water is probably not where I'd go."
No? Never heard of whales? - inactive, on 05/31/2008, -1/+2@Badandy
Technically, all of it. By setting up a new government, they privatized what was a national industry and a very large source of money for the Iraqi people.
Oil conglomerates are buying it from the new government, that was impossible 7 years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/world/middleeast ...
"Iraq has 80 known fields, 65 of which will be offered up for bids for development contracts once the draft law is approved by the Iraqi Parliament" - bossm4n, on 05/31/2008, -0/+1And what you probably didn't realize is that the company doing this is an oil company, StatoilHydro. in fact most people have no idea the amount of research being conducted by traditional oil companies, primarily in the field of nano technology.
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