What is Digg?100 Comments
- DeskFlyer, on 10/10/2007, -9/+50Wake me when it reaches 1.21 gigawatts.
- geekchic, on 10/10/2007, -0/+29They should stick a wind turbine on top as well.
- chubbybubba, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19Electricity and Fresh Sushi.... now that, is efficient.
- Pyro979, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15And some solar panels.
- Phillipo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+15And a hamster running around a wheel...
- joot2112, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9does it change the currents? Any more than windmills change the wind?
- jeffeb3, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11jigga what?
- fluidfoundation, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Great Scott!
- Otto, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7fezzen: No, wind turbines do not kill birds all the time. That's a myth. Moving cars kill more birds by several times over than wind turbines do.
See here: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php - LordSlashstab55, on 10/10/2007, -2/+9big up for Northern Ireland. I wish Americans could do the same.
- johnhummel, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7And since they're underwater, that means you won't have the windmill morons complaining "Oh, noes, not in *my* backyard - it'll ruin my view!". Though, I guess I should give it time....
- Otto, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6gbarger: Sorry, but no.
In the 1920s a German committee member of the International Electrotechnical Commission proposed giga- as a prefix for 10^9, drawing on a verse by the humorous poet Christian Morgenstern that appeared in the third (1908) edition of Galgenlieder (Gallows Songs). This suggests a hard German g was originally intended as the pronunciation.
At some point, this changed to a soft-G, but has since changed back to the correct hard-G, like it should be. If you use a soft-G, you are pronouncing it wrong. - Livewire, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6then throw the whole thing into a coal power plant for fuel.
- LordSlashstab55, on 10/10/2007, -1/+6so put some nets up at the top and catch dinner for the whole population of Ireland.
- fezzen, on 10/10/2007, -3/+8For such small turbines, that's pretty impressive.
The illustration is terribly out of scale, though, and I have to wonder why they're only using 2 blades instead of the standard 3.
Also, the tip of those blades (according to the numbers given) are moving at about 30mph. That IS definately fast enough to kill small fish and wildlife (20m sweep radius @ 20rpm). - cmadach, on 10/10/2007, -2/+7I read a story about underwater turbines in a 1972 issue of OMNI that my dad had packed away. There was an idea to put things like this in the Gulf Stream. It also said this is supposed to be detrimental to marine life (think Will It Blend, blue whale edition).
Ah well, human < whale. (human eats whale) - eaasness, on 10/10/2007, -0/+5My thought too. Some thing like the wind farm proposed for the Nantucket sound. http://www.capewind.org/
- fluidfoundation, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4and frikin laser beams.
- Error601, on 10/10/2007, -4/+8And of course changing water currents would never have an environmental impact.
- ilselu1, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4There are plans to do a similar project in the San Francisco Bay as well, http://www.itwire.com/content/view/13061/1066
- Otto, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4No, it's damn well not supposed to have a soft G sound. The fact that people can't ***** pronounce it properly doesn't change a) the spelling or b) the correct pronunciation. It is GIG-A-WATT.
And despite what Steve Wilhite says, the correct pronunciation of the file format is GIF, not JIF. The fact that he couldn't pronounce the word "graphics" properly doesn't make him correct. - SpacemanSpiff, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4Thank you for managing to bring politics into this thread.
- Livewire, on 10/10/2007, -0/+4yea just wait till scuba divers get "wind" of this.
- fluidfoundation, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3yes it, is, kirk.
- frazw, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3I made 66 mph for most conservative but I did it quick and stupid in my head. They are referring to the blade as being 10-20m in diameter not radius which is signalled by the saying 10-20m across rather than 10-20m long
- joot2112, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3 I never understood that. I always liked to look at windmills and wouldn't mind a field of them in my backyard.
- satx, on 10/10/2007, -2/+5How many sea creatures is this going to kill? Does anybody care?
- TTSkipper, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3They are although not to the same scale in the East River off of Manhattan, this was from a Digg a while back http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/lunar_power_com_1.php
- Sle3per, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3Instead of assuming that 2 blades are mounted on each axis, why not consider that each axis has only 1 blade. There is a huge difference between the two interpretations and the article isn't very clear.
- Salgat, on 10/10/2007, -1/+4Nuclear Power Plants are running on a quickly vanishing fuel source. The price of plutonium and uranium has increased more than 1000% since we first started using nuclear reactors.
- frazw, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2How did he say graphics? I just wondered coz I'm imagining him saying giraffics which I think we should all use to describe the study of elongated necks starting now!
- Sle3per, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3If by "Each blade is 15 to 20 metres across" they are referring to both blades combined, the speed would only be around 15 mph.
- Phillipo, on 10/10/2007, -1/+3A nuclear power plant provide on average 1200 MW. This provides only 1.2 MW. High end wind turbines provide about 2 MW. If wind turbines are to become economically feasible, they are going to have to double their power output, and cut the price to 10% what it costs today...
- timla, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2they will care when 1/2 a whale carcus come sfloating up on shore somewhere.
- Phillipo, on 10/10/2007, -2/+4Gigawatts is 10^9 watts. Jiggawatts is a made up number of watts from Back to the Future.
- disrupter, on 10/10/2007, -4/+6I see what you did there
- Livewire, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2"The rotors on the SeaGen turbine turn slowly: about 10 to 20 revolutions per minute. A ship's propellers, by comparison, typically run 10 times as fast. The risk of impact from SeaGen rotor blades is small, because the marine creatures that swim in strong currents tend to be agile, and can avoid slow-moving underwater obstructions."
- rekenner, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2To be fair - That says transcript. I believe that's just someone typing up the dialogue, not a copy of the script.
- neoblaque, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Production size is 16m or 52.5 feet for each blade. 3.11415 x 52.5 ft = 164.92 ft of circumference x 20 rpm = 3298.40 ft in one minute. 3298.40/60minutes per hour = 54.97 mph
Sushi! - manicallday, on 10/10/2007, -0/+2Well just throw 1200 turbines out there and call it a day.
- fixedcoma, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1About time slow asses! I came up with this idea 10 years ago!
- Rustbelt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I wonder if the Kennedy's will object to these underwater turbines as well.
- Xeminis, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1A 1000% price increase over that period (say 50 years) means 5% a year. When you take inflation into account, it doesn't sound that bad.
- gingerbreadcat, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1They're like wind power generators, only they use ocean currents instead of wind. It's a good way to get cheap energy that (probably) doesn't hurt the environment.
- fluidfoundation, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1wow... what a loss of perspective.
- Phillipo, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I'll bet they'll cause global warming...
- almalax19, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1It werkt for me...
- BigManOnCampus, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1They would except, the rich people who live on the coast would fund every crackpot enviro whacko they could find to claim that it would destroy the habitat of some rare albino pigeon-toed mammalian duck-billed-crab and suddenly the project would stop due to spiraling environmental assessment costs.
Ain't capitalism under a toothless administration great? - Malakin, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1I come up with a maximum speed of 75 km/h, at the blade tip (about 47mph).
First, calculate the distance the tip of the blade travels during one rotation:
Circumference = Pi x Max Blade Diameter
62.83 m = 3.14 x 20 m
Next, find the maximum speed of the tip over a minute:
Speed (meters/min) = Circumference x Max Revolutions Per Minute
1256.6 m/min = 62.83 m x 20
Finally, convert it to something most people can understand:
m/hour = m/min x 60
km/hour = m/hour / 1000
75 km/h = 1256.6 x 60 / 1000 - DanaG, on 10/10/2007, -0/+1Strictly speaking, uranium is a "vanishing fuel source". But only if you don't or won't recycle your nuclear "waste" (think of nuclear waste as fuel you haven't processed yet). I think it was Carter that outlawed nuclear waste recycling in the US back in the 70s and it's been piling up ever since.
There are also reactor designs both old (breeder reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor ) and new (Thorium cycle reactors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fuel_cycle#Thorium_cycle ) which could extend our nuclear fuel sources virtually indefinitely. -
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