Would you support renewable no matter what the climate does?

[Annie]

I'm for developing new technologies, regardless of 'climate change'; in addition to, not in place of using and improving established energy sources.

 

[flacaltenn]

Flac -

I tend to ignore questions which we both know you could answer yourself, or which are wildly off-topic.

If you have a serious question - ask it here and you have my word that I will answer it.

Oh Good.. Look EveryONE!!!! I have Saigon's word...

Let's test this...

So you're telling ALL of us here that YOU don't see ANY environmental issues AT ALL with widespread adoption of this measly energy technology????

No marine life issues.. No fluid leakage issues, No silting issues, no problems with fishing industry, no increased traffic for maintenance, etc, etc...

EVEN THO its a 3 story underwater lawnmower????

And don't give me the crap about how this design is NOT TYPICAL.. It's actually an existing market SUCCESS -- even tho I'm talking to a SKILLED INVESTOR in the technology who should know all that....

 

[Saigon]

So you're telling ALL of us here that YOU don't see ANY environmental issues AT ALL with widespread adoption of this measly energy technology????

:

The only issue which has occured in real installations of MODERN tidal turbines is the killing of some sharks and dolphins.

The solution seems to be adjusting the height of the turbines to a level at which dolphins will tend to swim over or under the turbines. It may also be that some kind of nets can encourage dolphins into other parts of the stream.

There are no other major environmental issues in the installations I have been reading about.


btw. Your unit looks very old-fashioned to me - and produces only 180 KW!!!!!!!! Why not look at one of the more cutting edge designs?

 

[flacaltenn]

You really have no idea WHAT you're invested in do you?? TidGEN in the picture I supplied is one of the WORLDS MOST DEPLOYED tidal turbines with more sea experience than most other companies combined... Spare me what "most tidal turbines" look like...

I think not.

Perhaps you American products are, as I suggested, massively outdated.

This is what most turbines look like in the modern age:

The picture I Gave was of a design ACTUALLY LICENSED by the US Federal Energy RComm. In fact the first license GRANTED to operate in the US..

And in operation as of last year.. What you have might as well be artist's depictions for a Sci-Fi movie.. Are they LICENSED? Who makes them???

 

[Saigon]

Flac -

If your project is so great - why does it produce only 16KW of power?

You are that modern projects are looking to produce 1,000MW of power?

Any decent turbine these days is going to produce at LEAST 10 MW, surely?


The pics I posted before are from projects already up and running in Korea, New Zealand, Scotland, Northern Ireland etc...

 

[polarbear]

Flac -

If your project is so great - why does it produce only 16KW of power?

You are that modern projects are looking to produce 1,000MW of power?

Any decent turbine these days is going to produce at LEAST 10 MW, surely?


The pics I posted before are from projects already up and running in Korea, New Zealand, Scotland, Northern Ireland etc...

No not just any turbine. For 10 MW, do You have any idea what size of turbine you are talking about? Up until very recently (2011) the "Enercon E 126" made in Germany by "Enercon" was the largest Wind Turbine and had a name plate rating of 7.5 MW. It uses a 126 meter rotor. As of year end 2011 only 35 such turbines exist. 19 in in Germany 11 in Belgium, 2 in Austria, 2 in Sweden and 1 in the Netherlands.
Siemens Electric of Germany may beat this one with their latest Jumbo size B75 rotor which has a 154 meter diameter rotor.
siemens wind turbine with world's largest rotor goes into operation

Wind Turbine with Record-Breaking Rotors - Siemens Global Website

The B75 blade is the world's largest fiberglass component cast in one piece. The manufacturing process posed several challenges for the project team. In particular, the mold had to consist of two parts so that it could be transported

Maybe but just maybe they`ll get a 10 MW name plate rating for that if they manage to achieve 80% of the theoretical Albert Betz limit which is 59.3 % of the kinetic wind energy.

But what`s really funny is that what this lady wrote here in this thread:

You didn't read my entire post.

"But even where windmills are viable, why is there just one type - those mega giant huge ugly things? Why aren't there smaller ones on the market for smaller communities or farms? Where are the horizontal windmills?"

Remember the old-fashioned windmills that used to be on EVERY farm? Why aren't they being remanufactured for power in farming communities and schools?

She actually nailed it
Because the way wind mills were used on farms was to pump water for the cattle. And after trillions of $$$$ (or Euros) German engineers have concluded that the only way to use wind turbines is to use them primarily as water pumps just like "Grandma" has asked here... and then run the water they pumped uphill into these basins down these tunnels through conventional hydro-electric turbines.
Shit I thought this video explained how it works..:
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2H38UpdQhM&list=UUvj7dbOY14kt_MFIR1Y1iwA&index=29&feature=plcp"]How Climate Science destroyed Germany.wmv - YouTube[/ame]
If You are too impatient to watch the whole video just run the YouTube cursor to 4 minutes and 7 seconds and watch from there. Even if You can`t understand German, (but if You live in Helsinki Finland as You say in Your profile then You should..!! ) ...my wife who does not understand a single word in German could figure out from that video what`s going on.
Or are You just pretending You can`t get it from the video how Germany has decided that this is the only way that wind energy can be configured to a power on demand grid.
So "Grandma" in this forum actually had it right. And I bet You if she watches this video she can figure it out the same as my wife could.

And with Your tidal power You were also way off the mark. The U.S. department of Energy estimates that the entire tidal power potential for the ENTIRE U.S. east & west coast is 2,640 (TWH/yr) ...1 terra watt per year is 114 MW, ...so You would have to barricade the coastline for an entire state like Main, Maryland or Florida with these tidal turbines.
I think the guys who make their living fishing with nets would get pretty pissed off when their nets get trashed or tangled in one of Your how did You put it..:

modern projects are looking to produce 1,000MW of power

And just how many of these 1000 MW tidal projects do You think Americans should build ? You should come over here some time and see how serious Americans are about their sea food...hey I think it tops what the sea food restaurants serve up in Finland any day..!!!

 

[Saigon]

Polar bear -

We are talking about TIDAL turbines - not wind.

 

[polarbear]

Polar bear -

We are talking about TIDAL turbines - not wind.

I just did tell You about tidal...:

And with Your tidal power You were also way off the mark. The U.S. department of Energy estimates that the entire tidal power potential for the ENTIRE U.S. east & west coast is 2,640 (TWH/yr) ...1 terra watt per year is 114 MW, ...so You would have to barricade the coastline for an entire state like Main, Maryland or Florida with these tidal turbines.
I think the guys who make their living fishing with nets would get pretty pissed off when their nets get trashed or tangled in one of Your how did You put it..:

modern projects are looking to produce 1,000MW of power

And just how many of these 1000 MW tidal projects do You think Americans should build ? You should come over here some time and see how serious Americans are about their sea food...hey I think it tops what the sea food restaurants serve up in Finland any day..!!!

Or are You demanding that I must address each of Your statements with a separate posting..???
You are a typical European. There are 2 categories. The well to do try to imitate Americans and the rest hate Americans because they are not as successful.
I dug up a CD one of my friends has sent me about 12 years ago. He gave his daughter Karin a brand new motorcycle and an all expenses paid trip to Your "arctic" in Europe. He is in the publishing business and wanted to make sure nobody bothers his girl, so he hired 2 bikers as escorts and sent a professional film crew along to document Karin`s "arctic adventure"...if I were You I`ld shut up about "environmental protection" seeing what a Disney Kitsch Tourist Trap You guys made out of Your arctic circle segment in Europe....:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOX_ZkLOxdk&list=UUvj7dbOY14kt_MFIR1Y1iwA&index=1&feature=plcp]Karin`s Arctic Trip.wmv - YouTube[/ame]

Next Year Karin wants to visit me and see THE REAL ARCTIC...Like ALASKA...You know , "evil big oil Alaska"... it`s got anything You got beat by a long shot

 

[Grandma]

Because Granny --- Wind in "small scale" enviros is not productive. Doesn't help a school to go dark 3 days a week when the wind doesn't blow. And if it blows at night on a farm, it's NOT THERE to use the next day... Makes little economic sense or we would have seen WIDESPREAD worldwide adoption 40 years ago.. The tech for "small turbines" hasn't changed since then..

It's only feasible on LARGE SCALE farms with huge taxpayer subsidies and backed up by a fully functional Nat Gas, Nuclear, or Coal plant for the days and times when NOT A DROP of energy is being produced...

BTW: I BELIEVE that those "old fashioned windmills" on farms were used solely to pump WATER and not largely to generate electricity.. Something that's no longer required once you're connected to the grid...

I'm not saying that alternative energy should be the only source. They would simply be using less off the grid. Farms and schools both run lights and heaters (or fans) at night.

And yeah, the old windmills were used as water pumps. That's why they'd have to be remanufactred and updated. Actually it would be a good idea for the total-electric homes, especially those that have wells.

I know what a car alternator would do in a home application, it would keep the fridge and the (gas) furnace going, charge backup batteries and maybe a couple lights could be turned on. Not much more, but that would do in a power outage. Would an oldschool windmill be enough to turn the alternator?

 

[Grandma]

Those tidal mills - could they be used in the Great Lakes? There's not a lot of edible fish in Lake Erie to worry about.

 

[Saigon]

Those tidal mills - could they be used in the Great Lakes? There's not a lot of edible fish in Lake Erie to worry about.

There are at least three completely different ways of generating electricity from water - from waves, from outflow from harbours and inlets, and from multi-directional tidal flow between islands or headlands.

But on lakes...I don't see it.

Ditto the Baltic Sea here - it just doesn't move enough.

But North America has a lot of tidal inlets, waterways between islands and so forth that could work. It does take a lot of research though. I understand it is very difficult to decide where the turbines have to sit to generate most efficiently.

 

[flacaltenn]

Flac -

If your project is so great - why does it produce only 16KW of power?

You are that modern projects are looking to produce 1,000MW of power?

Any decent turbine these days is going to produce at LEAST 10 MW, surely?


The pics I posted before are from projects already up and running in Korea, New Zealand, Scotland, Northern Ireland etc...

You're bluffing as usual.. A particularly dangerous move for someone who claims to be "invested" in this technology..

The longest TESTED tidal turbine is a smaller version of the Hammerfest (300KW) installed in Norway. And INITIAL TESTING has produced 80KW realized from a 300KW placarded turbine.. Not surprising that taking a "wind - type" 3 blade model and tossing into 50m of water would work at slightly less efficiency than a wind turbine. So you can take the HYPE of what the turbines are RATED for and start dividing by 3 or 4 for AVERAGE production -- even before you derate for actual tidal energy variations.

Scotland has ONE installed turbine off Orkney that MAY come on-line this year. And there are NO numbers available about specifically how much it produces on a day to day basis and there is NO SIGNIFICANT body of work about the enviro impact of these projects.

Even the founder and CEO of the company that makes the TidGen device says they "have not fully studied the full environmental impacts of installed turbines."

So I find it CHILLING and CYNICAL that you Greenies are being used as useful idiots YET AGAIN by LARGE COMPANIES such as Siemans and GE to push this vision against the better judgement of REAL environmentalists like myself and PolarBear and WestWall who understand how LITTLE we really know about the tonnage of crustaceans and marine mammals that will be Cuisinarted by these giant choppers..

Not to mention the possible unintended side effects of say the Iranians parking a modified diesel sub along side these acoustically noisy generators because the Royal Navy can no longer defend the coastline with sonar surveillance..

This is the same farce the Brit EcoFrauds fell for with "biomass conversation" where they became "useful idiots" to a cabal of forces that ended up placing 2 dozen GARBAGE INCINERATORS in their neighborhoods with their unwittingly DUMB HELP...

Those "sweet hearted" earth crusaders learned their lesson the hard way.. YOU on the other hand are naive as they come and still function as a "useful tool"...

 

[polarbear]

Because Granny --- Wind in "small scale" enviros is not productive. Doesn't help a school to go dark 3 days a week when the wind doesn't blow. And if it blows at night on a farm, it's NOT THERE to use the next day... Makes little economic sense or we would have seen WIDESPREAD worldwide adoption 40 years ago.. The tech for "small turbines" hasn't changed since then..

It's only feasible on LARGE SCALE farms with huge taxpayer subsidies and backed up by a fully functional Nat Gas, Nuclear, or Coal plant for the days and times when NOT A DROP of energy is being produced...

BTW: I BELIEVE that those "old fashioned windmills" on farms were used solely to pump WATER and not largely to generate electricity.. Something that's no longer required once you're connected to the grid...

I'm not saying that alternative energy should be the only source. They would simply be using less off the grid. Farms and schools both run lights and heaters (or fans) at night.

And yeah, the old windmills were used as water pumps. That's why they'd have to be remanufactred and updated. Actually it would be a good idea for the total-electric homes, especially those that have wells.

I know what a car alternator would do in a home application, it would keep the fridge and the (gas) furnace going, charge backup batteries and maybe a couple lights could be turned on. Not much more, but that would do in a power outage. Would an oldschool windmill be enough to turn the alternator?

I do respect Your views but that idea with the car alternator won`t work.
I know because I tried. I built an 8 foot diameter 4 foot rotor with the same pitch angle to diameter relationship as a Herc C130 4 blade prop.
Right now it`s in my shop because I made it out of laminated aircraft quality spruce...I have to touch up the leading edges because they got nicked in a storm that dumped golf ball sized hail on us last summer.
The first thing I did is try out a heavy duty 80 amp 12 VDc truck alternator. The problem is that automotive alternators don`t produce unless they spin @ 2000 rpm or higher. You can`t let a decent size wind mill rotor spin at these rates, so I made a chain drive gear box from a scrapped 10 speed bike. It worked so so...and put out ~ 20 amps at ~ 15 mph winds. But that`s only 240 watts and to maintain power even for a small house You need about 10 times that much. I did rewire an old 2 hp 3 phase motor to run as a permanent Magnet generator,...for that I butchered a bunch of old PC hard drives and salvaged the (very powerful magnets)...so that I don`t have to "waste" any power for an exciter field...In ~ 30 mph winds or higher I got my 2000 watts...but not always when I needed it.
I also have solar and use a (very expensive) 12 Volt deep cycle marine battery bank and an inverter which is capable to put out 4000 watts at a 100% duty cycle...but it does not take long and the battery bank "beeps out" at 11 Volts. Still it comes in handy when a storm knocks out our power and I got lights and such long enough before I have to fire up my gas powered 6 KVA 220 Vac Genset. Only then You get both legs "legs" because most of the solid state inverters You get to buy off the shelf only put out 115 Vac and most houses are "balanced" wired so You have to make a choice which outlets in Your house are powered up...
Yes mine is a "DUY" setup and they do sell 220 Vac Inverter systems for solar & wind, but they can cost You almost as much as a new car.
I`m planning to build a 16 foot rotor and a more powerful "grid tied" generator, not because I need it...our Hydro on this Reserve is free, because our band also owns land where some of the hydro dams are up north...but just for the fun of it, and to get a check from Manitoba Hydro "as long as the wind blows, the sun shines and the rivers flow"...which is the staring line out the treaty our band signed over a century ago.. I love the pun and I`ll put these checks in the "college fund kitty" for my grand children.

 

[flacaltenn]

Polar bear -

We are talking about TIDAL turbines - not wind.

I just did tell You about tidal...:

And with Your tidal power You were also way off the mark. The U.S. department of Energy estimates that the entire tidal power potential for the ENTIRE U.S. east & west coast is 2,640 (TWH/yr) ...1 terra watt per year is 114 MW, ...so You would have to barricade the coastline for an entire state like Main, Maryland or Florida with these tidal turbines.
I think the guys who make their living fishing with nets would get pretty pissed off when their nets get trashed or tangled in one of Your how did You put it..:

modern projects are looking to produce 1,000MW of power

And just how many of these 1000 MW tidal projects do You think Americans should build ? You should come over here some time and see how serious Americans are about their sea food...hey I think it tops what the sea food restaurants serve up in Finland any day..!!!

Or are You demanding that I must address each of Your statements with a separate posting..???
You are a typical European. There are 2 categories. The well to do try to imitate Americans and the rest hate Americans because they are not as successful.
I dug up a CD one of my friends has sent me about 12 years ago. He gave his daughter Karin a brand new motorcycle and an all expenses paid trip to Your "arctic" in Europe. He is in the publishing business and wanted to make sure nobody bothers his girl, so he hired 2 bikers as escorts and sent a professional film crew along to document Karin`s "arctic adventure"...if I were You I`ld shut up about "environmental protection" seeing what a Disney Kitsch Tourist Trap You guys made out of Your arctic circle segment in Europe....:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOX_ZkLOxdk&list=UUvj7dbOY14kt_MFIR1Y1iwA&index=1&feature=plcp]Karin`s Arctic Trip.wmv - YouTube[/ame]

Next Year Karin wants to visit me and see THE REAL ARCTIC...Like ALASKA...You know , "evil big oil Alaska"... it`s got anything You got beat by a long shot

I think his language skills are probably passable, but his actual comprehension of the technology is woefully lagging.. And his dedication to "the environment" now has to be seriously called into question what with his joyful acceptance of an energy source with OBVIOUSLY HUGE enviro impacts...

 

[westwall]

You really have no idea WHAT you're invested in do you?? TidGEN in the picture I supplied is one of the WORLDS MOST DEPLOYED tidal turbines with more sea experience than most other companies combined... Spare me what "most tidal turbines" look like...

I think not.

Perhaps you American products are, as I suggested, massively outdated.

This is what most turbines look like in the modern age:

Amusing. Clearly you havn't the slightest idea of hydrodynamics. Nor does the artist. Those types of blades will work in an air environment but they will not work very well at all in a water environment. Something called drag is involved. I can't remember what the loss rate is but it is over 40%.

 

[flacaltenn]

SShhhh... -- they have to waste a lot of money and time finding out about efficient marine blade design FIRST. Then they will realize why the first REAL INSTALLATIONS are gonna look more like giant combines or pinwheels and less like props on a DC3...

Actually the top one he presented IS the design for the Hammerslog 1000 ((sp?) .. Which is in testing in Scotlan right now.. NOT WIDELY DEPLOYED as Saigon asserted. I want to see that "pitch reverse" feature work after the barnacles get a hold of it..

 

[westwall]

SShhhh... -- they have to waste a lot of money and time finding out about efficient marine blade design FIRST. Then they will realize why the first REAL INSTALLATIONS are gonna look more like giant combines or pinwheels and less like props on a DC3...

Actually the top one he presented IS the design for the Hammerslog 1000 ((sp?) .. Which is in testing in Scotlan right now.. NOT WIDELY DEPLOYED as Saigon asserted. I want to see that "pitch reverse" feature work after the barnacles get a hold of it..

DC3....I like that! How about the simple electrolysis that will no doubt attack the damned thing. Or the salt attack on the metal itself. That pitch control would last all of two weeks in the real world. What do these people use for brains?

And yes, Saigon is about as full of crap as you can get.

Really? That is the real design?

 

[Mr. H.]

Renewables... it's like being told you have to kiss your grandma on the lips...

...then thank her for it.

 

[polarbear]

SShhhh... -- they have to waste a lot of money and time finding out about efficient marine blade design FIRST. Then they will realize why the first REAL INSTALLATIONS are gonna look more like giant combines or pinwheels and less like props on a DC3...

Actually the top one he presented IS the design for the Hammerslog 1000 ((sp?) .. Which is in testing in Scotlan right now.. NOT WIDELY DEPLOYED as Saigon asserted. I want to see that "pitch reverse" feature work after the barnacles get a hold of it..

So You liked our clan reunion..Thanks for Your reply. But Now I have a question for You, Westwall and "Grandma". The town of Meredith (NY) has made a documentary about their windmill nightmare and sent it to Canada, presumably because the U.S. main stream (left wing) media did not want to show it on television. But it could be that some other U.S. channel which is not on my dial aired it since then and I missed it. The title of this documentary is "Windfall". Anyhow our, believe it or not LEFT-lobbed CBC Canada actually aired it today at prime time, after some e-mail bullying...but I missed it, because of our clan re-union. So I stayed up till after midnight when the CBC aired it a second time and recorded it. If that documentary has been aired in the U.S. then I won`t bother uploading it later in the wee hours of the morning to my YouTube channel, but if it has not been seen in the U.S. then I feel it is my duty to put it on my YouTube channel. It is 1 hour long but it is a desperate cry for help going out to the rest of America from this town and a few more...and if it`s on YouTube then it stays public and You guys can link to it....unlike a TV documentary which is over when it`s over.
Right now my laptop is processing the video and after that I would like a few suggestions for a title. Right now I temporarily called it "Windmills The Ugly Truth"...because I was too tired to come up with something better.
For now I`ll get some shut eye and check back in here later for suggestions...if I have to upload and if so hopefully with a better "Google-catch" title.
Good night, or what`s left of it from
Long Plain First Nations Canada

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right...

... it ain't about th climate so much...

... as it is about weanin' us off fureign oil...

... so's we can tell dem Arabs dat's don't appreciate us fightin' dey's wars fer `em...

... dat dey can sit on dey's camels an' pound salt.