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- alphaterminus, on 12/11/2007, -0/+20Great Scott!
- chadu, on 12/11/2007, -2/+21fantastic idea. now if only the USA would get on board with alternative fuels and renewable energy in any sort of measurable amount.
- inactive, on 12/11/2007, -0/+16yesterday when this was on here the figure was half.
i told you a million times not to exaggerate! - glasgowm, on 12/11/2007, -0/+14You've never been to Britain have you?
- Coven, on 12/11/2007, -0/+14Actually, at 1.21 Gigawatts per unit, you could operate 27.27 Flux capacitors
- drlha, on 12/11/2007, -1/+14When these wind turbines hit 88 RPM, you're going to see some serious *****!
- tugger, on 12/11/2007, -0/+12Yesterday it was 50% of UK power needs from wind turbines.
The other 50% is recovered hot air from the house of commons.
Seriously though, the uk govornment tells us that it isn't going to pay for it, there are no tax incentives for private companies to invest, so whats changed from before the announcement? - ukdave, on 12/11/2007, -1/+12Ambitious to say the least.
- wyrdness, on 12/11/2007, -0/+10WTF do what Dennis Kucinich and Hilary Clinton have to do with British electricity generation?
- radioedit, on 12/11/2007, -0/+10Solar panels. Though there are few days with no wind over here :)
- jquipp, on 12/11/2007, -1/+11Makes sense. Island nations are likely to have much more wind.
- Andrewmatt, on 12/11/2007, -1/+11TBH it's both.
- Hockey13, on 12/11/2007, -2/+1133 gigawatts?!?!
- loconet, on 12/11/2007, -0/+8The solution isn't nuclear power nor wind power. The solution is to diversify our energy sources. The dependence in one source is what got is in this mess to begin with. We need a little bit of solar, a little bit of wind, a little bit of hydro, nuclear here and there.
- forcedfx, on 12/11/2007, -1/+9From what I've read that's actually a myth.
- dortiis, on 12/11/2007, -1/+9We just got a windfarm here where i live, this is only the beginning of the stupid comments.... Here's my Favorite:
The blades are going to break off and impale our young boys (yes only boys, so if you have girls, they will be safe!) - BobCFC, on 12/11/2007, -1/+9Just over 60million people in UK
Most of us don't need a/c and our houses are made of brick, instead of wood/straw that you use. :) - Asdfglpwglion, on 12/11/2007, -0/+7Let them evolve out of flying into windmills.
- SlimeyPete, on 12/11/2007, -1/+7Total demand averages 40GW, peaks at 60GW according to http://www.iop.org/activity/policy/Publications/fi ...
- CrackaPleeze, on 12/11/2007, -0/+6Great Scott! 33 jigawatts!!! That could send us back to the future over 27 times!
- wil2200, on 12/11/2007, -1/+7and in the US - alternative energy like solar, wind, geothermal is off the table in favor of big oil
very progressive indeed - dn11, on 12/11/2007, -0/+6don't forget geothermal. currently Iceland is running on almost 100% clean geothermal power - and for a climate as cold as Iceland that requires the amount of heating that they do, that is saying something.
- ahughes, on 12/11/2007, -0/+5Does 33 gigawatts represent today's demand or 2020's demand on their grid?
- inactive, on 12/11/2007, -0/+5It's in Africa, right?
- LokitheComplex, on 12/11/2007, -1/+6I'm here to discuss ideas even if that is my apparent ignorance. But you don't give me much to work with.
- HonestAbe, on 12/11/2007, -1/+61. Breeder reactors can burn plain uranium.
2. There's enough uranium in the Earth's surface to power civilization even after the Sun burns out.
3. The uranium in the Earth is constantly being brought to the surface and dissolved into the oceans by tectonic cycles so that we can easily access it.
So yes, nuclear is, effectively, renewable. - Xanin, on 12/11/2007, -0/+5nuclear wessels
- Sigma0, on 12/11/2007, -0/+5You make a good point however the need is to balance the costs of not acting now versus benefits of spending time with careful analysis. The fluid dynamics involved would be much, much more complicated than anything ever dealt with and I'm almost certain the end result would be 'We're not really sure'. Sometimes trial and error is the only real way of finding out. I would suspect based on nothing at all that the effect would be so miniscule as to be non-existant. Areas of high wind pressure will continue to flow to areas of low pressure like it always has.
- rabidbob, on 12/11/2007, -0/+5Rain panels would generate more electricty here, if such a thing existed.
- KhanneaSuntzu, on 12/11/2007, -3/+8Europe is interested in progress it seems. The US can go on orally pleasuring and rectally tongue-ing those arabs for all I care, like the petrol-junky-whores they are.
- kazamx, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4They are changing the way planing permission is given. Its now going to be much much easier and cheaper to start building.
- Swift2, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4Great! Now, if only the US was a small island. However, there's one thing that stops us from making the latest energy bill law: we don't have a sane opposition party. Instead, the green energy bill was filibustered in the Senate. There, they can all see that it would be great to have a large fraction -- all? probably not -- of your energy from renewable sources, whether they're Labour or Conservative. Here? The GOP has already broken the two-year record for filibusters, and we're only at the end of one year! Their idea of an "energy policy"? The veep has secret meetings with oil execs, promotes the drilling of Alaska, offshore Florida in the coral reefs, gives new subsidies to the oil industry, and invades the country with the world's second-largest oil reserve. Result: $3.50 a gallon for gas and a war with the strategic aim of the permanent occupation of a middle eastern country.
In 50 years, there will be energy companies who also sell a little oil. They should get used to that. - inactive, on 12/11/2007, -1/+5You would hope they'd be building more than one at the same time ;)
- dn11, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4yes, that is a total myth. only the small wind machines are any danger to birds. the large scale machines like those described here are so huge and the blades travel at such a relatively slow rate of speed that they won't hit birds.
- floorman56, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4what do you think initiated it?
Some engineers who did it with out authorization ...And were sent to prison for it - dn11, on 12/11/2007, -1/+5NO. wind energy is not incredibly inefficient. where are you getting your information? it is currently competing to be the cheapest energy source available. as turbine designs continue to improve and oil and natural gas prices continue to go up, it's looking better all the time
- jon30041, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4The rotors of the turbines now rotate at 1 revolution every 4 seconds, and they shift with the power of the wind. It's not like in the early days in California, with the tiny towers that spin with the wind speed.
- xman2000, on 12/11/2007, -2/+6The primary reason Chernobyl was a catastrophe was because there was no containment vessel. The reason the world is not building reactors faster is because 1) the licensing process is too expensive in the U.S. and 2) only one company in the world manufactures the steel pressure vessels which are used in all nuclear reactors these days. We also need to figure out what to do with the waste. Yucca mountain was supposed to be online 10 years ago but is being held up by a bad case of "not in my back yard", which is good to a point - we want to make sure we get things right when we are storing that much nuclear waste, but is it really safer to have it scattered all over the country at every civilian facility?
- LokitheComplex, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4A good dam is better than a good oil plant surely?
- jon30041, on 12/11/2007, -0/+4You forgot K-Man, corruption-fighting partner to The Babygiver. So your equation is N-2.
Also, it'd be better to have wind power in South Dakota. It has 4x the potential wind-power output than Germany, which is the world's current leader in wind power production. Illinois ranks 16th for the nation, by the way. - floorman56, on 12/11/2007, -0/+3and in the US - alternative energy like solar, wind,
You don't need the government for that ..YOU can still do it and remove yourself from the grid - fulibs, on 12/11/2007, -1/+4they grind up punks like you and burn them for energy because of their extremely high carbon footprint.
- floorman56, on 12/11/2007, -0/+3Greens hate both
- Asdfglpwglion, on 12/11/2007, -0/+3Well, there is hydro-power, although that's hard to put on your roof.
- PawFox, on 12/11/2007, -0/+3Kudos to you, I coudn't agree more
- kazamx, on 12/11/2007, -1/+4I don't know the facts, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that one of the big problems with the mills is sea birds nesting on them. Nature is pretty amazing sometimes.
- dn11, on 12/11/2007, -0/+3ok, before someone else corrects me. iceland isn't using only geothermal (it accounts for about 50% of their energy consumption), they are also using a high percentage of hydro power but only a small amount or coal and no nuclear power. geothermal does account for almost all of their heating. however, the point is - Iceland is like a laboratory of alternative energy right now, and they seem to be getting a lot of things right.
- domness, on 12/11/2007, -1/+4All countries have known about this renewable source for a long time yet it seems that they don't ever do anything until a criticle moment arises such as global warming etc.
Finally it seems that the UK are going somewhere! - loconet, on 12/11/2007, -0/+3More than oil spills, air pollution, eventual full blown global warming?
- slowbo, on 12/11/2007, -0/+2While Sigma0 is right about modeling such a thing, there is really nothing to worry about. The amounts of energy involved in running the weather 'machine' are wast compared to what we 'consume'. Even the most rudimentary beack-of-the-envelope calculation can prove this.
Think about it: we heat our homes in winter, but does the temperature outside rise by any measurable amount? Even in the most densely populated city's it's less than two degrees in dead calm conditions. -
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