Pros And Cons Of Windpower

[alek]

Another site in PA, Firetower, is endangered by a proposed wind farm: http://www.newage-examiner.com/site/new ... 0505&rfi=6

And, I hear that yet another site in upstate NY, Utz, is already closed to make way for wind mills.

[RedBaron]

Spent rods emit way more gamma than unspent rods. You don't want to be near gamma emitters.
Good times to get signed off on aerotow it appears....

[brianvh]

I know McKee is just banging his head trying to come up with a good response to that one. Spent rods, hard emissions, threats to society....come'on boy, we're counting on you!

[mcelrah]

When I was in submarines, the nukes had training sessions that included the following thought problem: you are given an alpha cookie, a beta cookie and a gamma cookie. Which one do you eat, which one put in your pocket and which one throw as far away as possible? Answer: go ahead and eat the gamma, 'cause it will go right through you without doing much damage. The alpha will be stopped by the fabric of your pocket, so put it there. Throw the beta away because it has enough energy to do damage.

On another front, I saw mentioned "vertical wind turbines" - wishbone shaped affairs that rotate on a vertical axis. I doubt we would want/be permitted to soar a ridge with these on it, but they seem somewhat less threatening than the giant propellers we are seeing...

- Hugh

[cs]

What to do when petrol costs further drive up aero-tow prices, demand declines, operators shutdown, etc. -- or if downwind dashes to OC simply grow boring? Back to the foot-launch sites on the ridges? Oh, wait a minute... should have preserved at least one site.

Drachenflieger Elektroselbststartersonnenenergie or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Unbalanced Proliferation

Yes, better start preparing the compact solar powered [self] launching apparatus. My personal choice is already in production (solar recharge remains a roadmap item).

N.B. There is no incompatibility between being green and being a supporter of responsible and balanced wind farm deployment. Study the facts and make your own carefully formed judgments. Consult Lovelock, his critics, think for yourself.

[CraginS]

Some of them just can't handle the pressure
http://www.snopes.com/photos/accident/windmill.asp

neat videos.

[RedBaron]

CS,
Please clarify what you mean by responsible and balanced wind farm development. With all due respect, you must have more in mind than wind turbines interfering with a dozen HG and PG pilots or being an aesthetic nuisance. Please note that remote off-shore locations come with many problems, some of which are stated in the article I added below. Can you provide examples, data or reasonable assumptions as to how wind farms negatively affect local communities and local businesses? I'm willing to change my position on this if somebody can give compelling evidence or precedence of wind farms gone sour.
Many small German towns are now provided with electricity by one wind turbine. Dave Bodner thinks one turbine is no big deal. Well, if it feeds 3000 homes it is in my book. We still have our hiking and biking trails and we can still take our dogs for a walk in our forests. Plus we are now a world-wide leader in the turbine industry which created tens of thousands of jobs. I really want to know how a wind farm could raise enough concern offsetting such tremendous potential, whether in Germany or any other country in this world.
http://ecoworld.com/features/2004/12/16 ... n-germany/

[dbodner]

Three thousand homes from one turbine is under optimum conditions. Power output can range all the way down to zero at any given time.

Don't think I'm anti-wind. I'm not. That's why I was ambivalent about any attempt to kill turbines on Woodstock ridge. And I agree with Janni that the negatives of wind turbines are probably overstated. However, they way we're going--and the way Germany is going--wind isn't going to be more than a very important supplement. Germany is installing a serious amount of wind power. I applaud that, as I applaud the same thing in Texas. However, without the ability to store energy, wind can't wean us off fossilized carbon. It can reduce our carbon output but not eliminate it.

That's why I don't think wind is a radical enough solution--at least not the way it's going. There are schemes for storing energy on a large scale, but these schemes will require lots of time, lots of money, and, most likely, lots of centralized (governmental) planning.

[mcelrah]

This may be pablum at this point, but there will not be a single silver-bullet solution to our energy needs. So if energy can go from 1% to 5%, well hurray for that.
Just not at Woodstock.

- Hugh

[RedBaron]

So if energy can go from 1% to 5%, well hurray for that.
Just not at Woodstock.

And just not at any other site somebody might take issues with. It's okay Hugh, just say you don't give a rat's ass about clean and independent energy if it interferes with your fun. I can understand that and most people I'm sure can, too. Who cares about the big picture if things can stay the same in my lifetime.

[mcelrah]

OK, yeah, I want my cake and to eat it too. Why should I have to settle for a hair shirt existence? I want a giant windfarm in the wind belt of the midwest (T. Boone Pickens' idea) - and 12 miles off Rehoboth. But not at Woodstock. And lots of nuclear power plants. And electric cars, with hybrid backup generators running natural gas. And electric Dragonflies (there was an electric plane at Oshkosh this year with one hour endurance - last year it was a trike). And a goddam shower in my office building so I can bike to work. Come to think of it, why should I even have to go in to work when it's mostly e-mail and phone calls anyway? And why do men wear jackets and ties to show they are important - and overaircondition their offices to enable that charade? Even fossil fueled airplanes can be twice as fuel efficient with new Diesel powerplants. There is so much inefficiency in our systems that simple taxation could squeeze out: $10/gallon gas like in Europe, big carbon tax on coal (replace coal with natural gas for electricity generation = 1/3 the carbon - more T. Boone Pickens). - Hugh