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Windmills stopped at night after bat death

And it's shocking that private industry isn't trying to get in and corner the market early before too many smart players take all the business.
The problem with wind is storage. Battery technology really limits a lot of non-fossil power sources and applications.
 
And it's shocking that private industry isn't trying to get in and corner the market early before too many smart players take all the business.

What is "the market" for wind?
 
About 2.3%
Energy policy of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What do you think it will be when oil reaches $6.00 per gallon? $8.00 per gallon?

If you wait until then to start thinking, how long will it take to get the business started while the nation experiences a depression that makes the last one look like a hiccup?

I stand corrected. You will forgive me, as the wind industry has been experiencing exponential growth the past several years. Perhaps I meant 0.5% of US energy consumption. In either case, I am clearly in error, and thank you for setting me straight.

My energy argument is best explained by people like Richard Heinberg and James Howard Kunstler: yes, civilization should pursue ALL energy options, from drilling to wind, to freaking fairie dust... but it ain't gonna matter one bit, 'cuz nothing beats the ER/EI ratio of high-pressure, shallow petroleum, and that's G-O-N-E gone, and it ain't coming back.
 
It's a scam. It's been an underachiever in every country it's been tried.
 
I stand corrected. You will forgive me, as the wind industry has been experiencing exponential growth the past several years. Perhaps I meant 0.5% of US energy consumption. In either case, I am clearly in error, and thank you for setting me straight.
No worries, and you're very welcome.

My energy argument is best explained by people like Richard Heinberg and James Howard Kunstler: yes, civilization should pursue ALL energy options, from drilling to wind, to freaking fairie dust... but it ain't gonna matter one bit, 'cuz nothing beats the ER/EI ratio of high-pressure, shallow petroleum, and that's G-O-N-E gone, and it ain't coming back.
I'm cool with oil so long as it's "USA Oil." In fact we'll need it for looong time to come, so we have to be careful about how we use it.


That's a pretty good energy argument. The more bat-killing windmills, solar plants, thermal plants, thorium reactors, tidal energy plants, and hydro-electric plants we build right here in the USA, the less chance a middle-eastern frontman for extremist, murdering thugs can tell us how much we'll be paying for our nation's life-blood. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can tell the whole lot of them to f**k off and die. Any middle-eastern country that wanted to play nice and fair with us can enjoy the fruits of an American economic revival based on purely American energy. The rest can pretend to be princes and go back to riding camels after their "Blood Mercedes" rots.
 
No worries, and you're very welcome.


I'm cool with oil so long as it's "USA Oil." In fact we'll need it for looong time to come, so we have to be careful about how we use it.


That's a pretty good energy argument. The more bat-killing windmills, solar plants, thermal plants, thorium reactors, tidal energy plants, and hydro-electric plants we build right here in the USA, the less chance a middle-eastern frontman for extremist, murdering thugs can tell us how much we'll be paying for our nation's life-blood. The sooner we get started, the sooner we can tell the whole lot of them to f**k off and die. Any middle-eastern country that wanted to play nice and fair with us can enjoy the fruits of an American economic revival based on purely American energy. The rest can pretend to be princes and go back to riding camels after their "Blood Mercedes" rots.

I guess I'm with you... it would seem that you are just a bit more optimistic about how it will all turn out. Hopefully, you're right ;)
 
Build a bunch with your own money and get back to us.
 
The problem with wind is storage. Battery technology really limits a lot of non-fossil power sources and applications.

Google is actually doing experiments where electric car battery banks serve as grid storage/load leveling.

If enough vehicles are electric, excess reserve capacity will represent a significant amount of storage. A car bank is BIG, enough to power your house in a blackout for a while. Its all experimental at this point, but shows promise.
 
Google is actually doing experiments where electric car battery banks serve as grid storage/load leveling.

If enough vehicles are electric, excess reserve capacity will represent a significant amount of storage. A car bank is BIG, enough to power your house in a blackout for a while. Its all experimental at this point, but shows promise.

With tax subsidies, or, as you call it, corporate welfare.
 
Google is actually doing experiments where electric car battery banks serve as grid storage/load leveling.

If enough vehicles are electric, excess reserve capacity will represent a significant amount of storage. A car bank is BIG, enough to power your house in a blackout for a while. Its all experimental at this point, but shows promise.

Yes... awesome, but: what are the batteries? Still lithium-ion versions. They are very low energy density, poor at long-term storage, and have a relatively short lifespan of 10-20 years, with a high cost of replacement! Yes, as I say, this is part of the answer, but far from what we enjoy today. Find the battery if you hope for a renewable future. I am not sure that it exists. Electrochemical cells are limited by chemical constraints.
 
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The more bat-killing windmills, solar plants, thermal plants, thorium reactors, tidal energy plants, and hydro-electric plants we build right here in the USA....
I wonder if this method is legit or a scam



Seems better than burning garbage for steam power. :p

Reminds me of Back To The Future. The doc powering his Delorian with trash.

(no this isnt free energy, over-unity or whatever you call it)
 
Beats all the other scams we invest in. At least this one gets us clean power. Better that than, say, another $300 million fighter plane built for a war that will never be fought.
And you know this how?
 
I see it now. Windmills, soon to be an endangered species.
 
Other than the slicing and dicing of endangered species not to mention all the regular birds, windmills can make lots of clean electricity. Catch is though, the wind doesn't always blow so you need the old reliable fossil fuel power plants right beside them ready to go. Catch with this is these things can't sit idly by unmanned and unpowered ready to go at a moments notice. They have to be up and running 24-7 so the windmills are basically just expensive and unreliable extra electricity. The fossil fuel plants need to be able to provide 100% of the power needed when the winds not blowing so the windmills become rather redundant.
 
It's a scam. It's been an underachiever in every country it's been tried.
"Underachiever" how? Because one windmill plant or one solar plant didn't solve the WHOLE problem? C'mon man!

Build a bunch with your own money and get back to us.
Part of the reason I know about this stuff is I'm researching how to EXACTLY THAT, but on a seriously limited budget. I want in on this goldmine before the "big guys" wake up and get their thumb out of their a**.

I wonder if this method is legit or a scam

Seems better than burning garbage for steam power. :p
[...]
(no this isnt free energy, over-unity or whatever you call it)
You're right, it's not free. There's no such thing as free energy. You always gotta spend energy to get energy. But this is certainly better than throwing it all in a hole and covering it up. This kind of forward thinking is what I expect from the US, what we're famous for. That's why I have no patience for those communist pansies who are always crying, "oh wee wee, it can't be done. It's too hard." Bull****! Americans CAN DO it and Americans WILL DO it. Mark my word.
 
Other than the slicing and dicing of endangered species not to mention all the regular birds, windmills can make lots of clean electricity. Catch is though, the wind doesn't always blow so you need the old reliable fossil fuel power plants right beside them ready to go. Catch with this is these things can't sit idly by unmanned and unpowered ready to go at a moments notice. They have to be up and running 24-7 so the windmills are basically just expensive and unreliable extra electricity. The fossil fuel plants need to be able to provide 100% of the power needed when the winds not blowing so the windmills become rather redundant.

Not exacty redundant because although we still need 100% capacity for when the wind power is not available we don't provide 100% of the power all of the time and therefore save fuel which is what this is all about anyway. Though I agree it is not nearly the savings that make it viable economically.

As an electrical engineer alternative energy has always fascinated me. Love the idea of harnessing the wind or the sun to provide power. But I am well aware of the practicality of doing so. Technology and necessity have to evolve. I don't mind a few grand experiments to prove or disprove the worth of wind power. Hell, look at the money we used to explore space. The use of wind power will grow but I don't see it ever being a major contributor. If it got up to 10% I think that would be amazing. A big country like the U.S. needs a big power source. Nuclear seems to be the only viable source to replace coal, oil and natural gas. I think we can only use wind a solar as a supplement to that and we should.
 
The use of wind power will grow but I don't see it ever being a major contributor. If it got up to 10% I think that would be amazing. A big country like the U.S. needs a big power source. Nuclear seems to be the only viable source to replace coal, oil and natural gas. I think we can only use wind a solar as a supplement to that and we should.

I believe the opposite. Wind, Solar, Tidal should be the primary supplier with oil and natural gas and Thorium nuclear as the backup. When AE (Alternative Energy) is unable to meet the load demand, more traditional systems can take up the slack. Traditional energy relies on depletable energy sources, so these sources should be used sparingly and only when really needed. That's why traditional energy should be the backup, not the other way around.

The big issue with AE is storage, which more than one person has pointed out in this thread. Folks are right to bring it up. Well there's many ways to handle that problem. The kneejerk solution people suggest is batteries. I think that's fine for cars, but I hate it as a grid solution. The best battery tech we have requires Lithium, and that's another finite resource, which puts us back where we started. So I say, leave the Lithium for cars (until we find a better idea) and apply different solutions for grid storage. Here's some ideas:

First, battery solutions are getting better all the time:
Battery Technology - Galvanic cells that store chemical energy

Next, here's a top-level "executive view" of many AE storage solutions (settle in, there's LOTS of them):
Energy storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here's another one:
Energy Storage Industry Grows To Integrate Wind, Solar | Renewable Energy News Article

My favorites are:

Hydro-electric storage (Water):
Grid energy storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pumped-storage hydroelectricity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Since the best wind is in the mid-west and most of the mid-west is flatter than a pancake, hydro-electric may not be the best solution.

So then you use...Air (compressed that is):
Compressed air energy storage - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
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:prof Nuclear does.

Not when you include the energy embedded in the massive amounts of concrete and steel needed for a reactor and the energy costs of uranium extraction and isotopic fractionation.

Not that I am anti-nuke mind you. It makes a hell of a lot more sense than hare-brained corn ethanol, for example.
 
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You're right, it's not free. There's no such thing as free energy. You always gotta spend energy to get energy. But this is certainly better than throwing it all in a hole and covering it up. This kind of forward thinking is what I expect from the US, what we're famous for. That's why I have no patience for those communist pansies who are always crying, "oh wee wee, it can't be done. It's too hard." Bull****! Americans CAN DO it and Americans WILL DO it. Mark my word.

My thoughts exactly. Why have landfills and such when we could be super compressing and seperating fuel from almost ANY waste? Aside from recyclables.

Supposedly the energy made from this process is self sufficiant and this plant could completely run itself on trash. Ive seen people stick trash into gaint furnaces and harness steam power. But this seems far better than that. (BTW, inspecting metal integrity inside a gaint burnt trash furnace IS NOT FUN)
 
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