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Danish Goal: 50% of Electricity from Wind
tres3 writes "The Danes have an ambitious
plan of producing 50% of their national electrical needs from wind by 2030. The website has tutorials on everything related to wind energy you can imagine. The index gives you an idea of the detail of the site. It includes land and sea wind turbines as well as details about the machinery needed and where to locate it. There are over 100 pages so I didn't link to them all. [ed. note: thanks] A picture says it all."
this idea blows...
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
The picture looks like something out of Total Annihilation....
Someothing to power my K-Bot lab.. YAY!
Ireland also plans to get 10% of their power by wind. You can read a BBC article here.
By harnessing the hot convection column above the webserver you should be able to extract a few megawatts.
The main problem with wind power is that it is mostly available during the spring and fall (during temperature changes).
Unfortunately, we need our electricity mostly during the summer and Winter months. Now if only we could cheaply store this energy in 3 month blocks.
Shouldn't be a problem. If the rest are anything like my Danish-born brother-in-law. Never shuts up!
And having a population of approximately 5.3 million persons, this goal should not be a difficult one to achieve in coming years. The energy demands of such a tiny nation are not large, aside from their few major learning institutions.
The rotational pollution caused by windmills is unacceptable! The rotational energy will throw the rotational axis of the Earth out of kilter, and penguins will be in Equidor within hundreds of years. Sure, Linux fans will love that, but I don't think Equidorians could harvest their frozen bananas that way.
Stop this nonsense, it is killing our planet's life! Save the poles!
Table-ized A.I.
The AERO concert with Jean Michel Jarre two days ago was staged in a windmill park in the north-western part of Denmark.
Unselfish actions pay back better
better eat a lot of baked beans.
It isn't coming up in my part of town, anyway. That's right folks, why stop at America, let's take over the danish world!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's only a matter of time before wind power falls out of favor with environmentalists. Consider how many birds a large wind farm will cut down out of the sky, or the pollution generated by manufacturing and maintaining so many metal armatures and power distribution lines.
And then there's the issue of where the energy is actually coming from. Given the recent report that airplane contrails might have an effect on global temperature variations, how long will it be before someone speculates that slowing wind down contributes to global warming?
Sure, wind power is non-polluting from a chemical standpoint, but it certainly disrupts the environment significantly. Producing any decent amount of power takes a lot of windmills. California's been experimenting with it a bit, and if you drive along I-10 in the desert east of L.A., you'll see acres and acres covered with windmills every 10 feet or so. Certainly ugly, and probably has an impact on the native wildlife as well. Now multiply that by 100x or so to get enough windmills to actually power California, and you'll have most of the state covered in ugly white towers...
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
this picture be more appropriate?
Bah... Don't believe that article. It's all wind in sails.
Trust the oldies. Don't bother with Sellafield (or-whatever-it-is-called-today), Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island; there weren't essentially any casualties anyhow.
Move on, there is nothing here to see.
It's all wind in sails, for the Danes.
The picture is not (yet) slashdotted, and its not the same picture either. The picture linked to in the article was at least 33.333333333% bigger
I think that this link will be crucial to their energy plans in the future.
Mordor...a magical, mythical land where women are more rare than dragons--but where every man would rather find a dragon
They need more power before they can survive a Slashdotting.
Cinnamon. With strong black coffee.
sulli
RTFJ.
Now if we can only convince Environmentalists that wind power is a good idea.
Think I'm smoking crack? Well check out this story from the NY Times about the enviro fight against windmills in Cherry Valley, NY:. html?ex=1031568343&ei=1&en=0920b9cbdc48601 9
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/28/nyregion/28WIND
And there is this story about enviros against wind power in Moosic Mountain Ridge, Philadelphia
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/3693755.htm
If you want a good site to view on how the Enviromentalists have shifted from Science to Socialistic Demigogery check out this site from GreenPeace co-founder Patrick Moore:t rickmoore.html
http://www.fcpp.org/publications/conversations/pa
I love this quote from Dr. Moore:
"Many factors including a lack of science education, a need to perpetuate themselves and "means justifies the end" thinking. The worst aspect is what I describe as the environmental movement has been hijacked by political activists who are using green rhetoric to cloak agendas that have more to do with anti-corporatism and class warfare than with ecology or the environment."
Remember this is the co-founder of Greenpeace. Not exactly your average "evil right-wing" nutcase.
Brian Ellenberger
... the amount of energy required to manufacture and erect such an array of wind turbines?
With the turbines running at full-pelt, how long will it take them to break even?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
We've put all our power in a winded man.
thank you, i'll be here all week.
Now, the US, with it's vast spaces and enormous power grids. That'd be a great place to use wind...
These windbags are just talking a bunch of hot air. Wait a minute, if they can harness the power of their hot air, then maybe it will work. But then it wouldn't be a bunch of hot air anymore. Ouch... brain hurting...
example.org - powered by Linux!
the picture appears to be /.ed... here's the same picture elsewhere--> picture [vub.ac.be]
One has to wonder what would happen if the sea level rose couple of meters and obstructed the propeller rotation. I would suppose the team behind the idea would feel pretty dumb.
At least in Nevada it stands on a ground. I'm not sure what to make of this water mountings.
He provides all the wind they need in Denmark...
Sure. Tell me more. You have some information or statistics that involve modern windmill technology?
You're familiar with modern wind technology, correct? Large blades, turning slowly. Certainly some birds might smack into them (the same way they do to buildings and cars), but we're not talking about the little, fast-moving windmills of the 1970s and 80s.
I'm tired of hearing this one trotted out every time somebody talks about wind. Show me the numbers, dammit!
They're certainly going to pollute the visual enviroment
Maybe we can disguise them as trees. Or put Budwiser advertising on them. Then they'll fit right in with the rest of the country :)
The amount of hot, empty air coming out of Washington DC these days could go a long way. . .
This is nice. They are in fact implementing known technology for the benefit of all, AND DOING SO IN an aggressive visionary project. It is unfortunate that most of the industrialized world is not as nimble in implementing technology, when the benifits don't neccessarily fit neatly in an accountant's bookkeeping. We admire ourselves as humans with descriptions such as adaptive, modular etc. But our culture is not, when it comes in conflict with immediate rewards like profit. This Danish wind power project is an example of human culture rising to the challenge and becoming, indeed, an adaptive and modular culture. Now if we just had an aggressive program for developing cheap, clean and abundant energy.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
By having a focus, Danish industry can seek to acquire the IP such as patents to build up a top industry. As in other industries the idea is to go so far down the learning curve that it becomes more economical for other countries to buy the technology from you rather than develop it themselves.
That is why conservatives who bash alternative energy are stupid. Any reading of US history shows massive government involvement to nurture any industry whether through protective tariffs, cash for infrastructure, land grants, whatever. To make money you have to spend money. A so-called conservative who espouses capitalism should understand that.
I think the subject says it all. While impacting native wildlife is a differnet issue, if it was simply staring at white towers vs. not being able to breathe, I know what *i'd* choose...
It gets 43% of its electricity from hydroelectric dams, 22% from geothermal, and another 4% from other renewable sources.
The city really focuses on finding plausible, cost-effective power sources, but for some reason it doesn't get any of its power from the wind. Perhaps the Santa Clarans know something the Danish don't?
Also, in line with Trepidity's comment, the main problem with wind power from what I've heard is that it just requires too many turbines to get the neccesary amount of power. You have to have truly giant wind farms to get a pitiful amount of power...
And who the hell wants to double their power bill anyway....? (see California for all the hell that breaks loose when power generation prices get real high.)
Why stop there? Why not just get a gun and shoot Michael? I mean, from your rant it sounds like no one who has a differing view from yourself should be run out of a job. If you don't like his posts here's a suggestion:
Don't fucking read slashdot.
Jesus christ on a crutch, since when did the Universe become your personal little fifedom?
Anyone know EchoMirage's mother's phone number? I want to make a couple of calls to see if I can get her to have a retroactive abortion.
What is is about wind power, or the discussion of any environmentally friendly power source, turns jackasses' brains to mush. They start spewing words like 'cunt' and 'fuck', because they are too immature to notice that they are behaving like windbags.
I am glad that some countries are trying power sources other than nuclear and water, to meet their energy needs. Now only if we could convince the jackasses to support it. There are sure enough here to power a windmill with their hot air.
you're fat.
- TV setup. My television, amplifier, and Tivo alone took up
1.6 Amps = 185 watts, while they were completely idle. The Tivo was not
recording anything, and I verified that it was not doing anything by
telnetting in and observing that the load average was 0.00. Does it
really require 1.6 amps just to spin a hard drive and wait for a
10mW infrared signal??
- Computer monitors. I run XFree86 4 in dual-head mode. My two
monitors take up 2.6 Amps = 300 watts while they are on, and a whopping 70
watts when they are turned off at the switch. It's worth noting that they
produce about a third of the light, and twice the heat, of two 150W light
bulbs.
- Computer hardware. The power strip supporting my 1.6Ghz Athlon
and 1Ghz Duron draws a whopping 4.4 Amps, or 500 watts, while
both systems sit at zero load! Apparently, AMD expended significantly
more effort making sure their processors were well-equipped to start house
fires when the heatsink falls off, rather than making those Linux kernel
"CPU idle" calls actually do anything.
- Uninterruptable power supplies. These were the sleeper hit of
my power measurement experiment: with full batteries and no devices on the
load side, my UPSes drew 50-80 watts of power each. I understand that
filtering power comes at a cost, but these things really should be designed
to be at least a little bit more efficient than the average space heater.
So, this brings me to my main point: why is it that my cell phone can run for two weeks without a recharge, my digital scale can run for 10 years (guaranteed) on a single battery, my thermostat, analog clocks, and smoke detectors can run for 2-3 years between battery changes, but my computers and consumer electronics have to suck up as much power as my toaster while they are completely idle?As long as our toys are designed to waste as much energy as legally possible, even the most well-intentioned power conservation efforts are doomed to utter failure.
-sting3r
If anyone has ever looked into living off the grid, or trying to get most of their power from solar, wind, bicycle, whatever, you know that the key is to get appliances that use less energy. Not that hard, even given the current US President being in the pocket of the oil companies.
If I typed a word wrong or dropped some clause, I don't really need to hear about it. It doesn't make you sound smart. It makes you sound like an asshole.
Many of this guy's view are repugnant to me, but certainly not warrenting this kind of attack
Dawn of the Dead
That's right. Twenty Eight Years from now. Do they have only 2 people working on the project?
That's like whopping 3 decades. Almost a new generation. This is depressing, considering the technology was already in use since the 70's.
With the proper funds, a small gov't of 6million could easily deploy a countrywide energy clusters within 5 years. And Denmark is not really a 3rd world nation. They have the sweet cash to accomplish it in 1/3rd of the time.
(Besides, your premise is wrong: wind is not limited to spring and fall in many places.)
This seems off. Oil fired power plants don't take much time to get up to speed and on the grid... a few minutes is generally fine.
What I think you are talking about is called "spinning reserve," which is not idling; it is there to back up a plant that goes down, or a circuit tripping. Spinning reserve would be even more important (regionally) when dealing with wind power.
Just to nitpick, I have never lived somewhere where the wind picks up during the day. The peak windspeed is almost always early to late evening.
There is a lot of potential for wind power, especially when it is combined with other forms-- tidal power or solar come to mind.
I applaud the Danes for their bold, foward thinking Energy 21 energy policy. Bush's policy on the other hand, involves meddling in the middle east or drilling in our national parks and preserves.
Being the man of vision that he is, Bush, should reconsider our depenence on oil from the middle east and its impact of our foriegn policy. Like a drug addicted individual the US governments choices sometimes are far from rational.
For example, we call the Saudi's "our fiends". Bullshit! They would slice our thoat in a heart beat if we were not their biggest customer. They are a twisted theocracy that rejects womens rights, democracy, personal liberty, religious freedom, etc. We have nothing in common.
If the man would come out with a Kennedy like vision and plan of developing renewable technologies such as wind, solar, geothermal, wave, conservation, etc. and even clean and safe nuclear we would be much further down road to world stability, peace and prosperity. Instead he wants to start another war and one which has the potential of being a messy urban war where civilian casualities are unavoidable if you want to win.
The above post is an editorial, the poster cannot and will not be held responsible for all or in part for it's contents
People living near the windmills have complained of the humming noise they produce. Drives them nuts.
The quantity of turbines improves the efficiency of the system, and improves the ability to maintain power quality. I think the problem with what has been done today is that people are going too much for the HUGE turbines. A few dozen 10kw turbines on a building would make an impact. It wouldn't do everything, but it can run a chiller or UPS system and reduce the overall oil dependancy.
...uncertainty of imported oil, it's worth some subsidies now!
An interesting link on novel wind turbines is www.windside.com. They are vertical axis turbines, and therefore have much slower tip speeds (thus less impact on wildlife).
As far as costs go, the industry will require subsidies for a while, to develop the industry more. The same holds true for fuel cells. However, the cost per kw is competitive with everything but oil-fired plants. Looking at long-term financials, and
I'm all for anything that gives me cleaner air to breath. Just NIMBY. Think what these things will do to property value on ocean front property.
Give every nation a surface "resistance" allotment or budget. For every windmill you put up you can cut down several trees :)
When you say that the Tivo wasn't recording anything, do you mean you went in and shut down its normal operation?
Otherwise, the Tivo is always recording, whether you want it to or not. That's why you can rewind up to 30 minutes anytime you want. But considering you're familiar enough with your Tivo to telnet into it, you probably know that.
In the United States, about 10 billion kiloWattHours are produced and distributed per year. That's about enough for 1 million standard US households.
The Danes plan to have 2.5 times this number of households provided for by 2030. I would imagine the US could match them in number of homes covered in the same time period. The fact that this represents 50% of their total needs is something very ambitious indeed!
In order for the US to match the Danish goal, approximately 250 billion kilowatt hours would have to be produced for half the 100 million (approximate) US homes occupied today.
-gnuDaruma
Nowhere is the potential for renewable resources more visible than in wind energy. Iowa has the potential to produce 4.8 times its own annual electrical consumption through wind power. Because of decreasing capital costs, new technological advances and favorable legislation, wind power is Iowa's and the world's fastest growing renewable resource.
Iowa has more than 400 wind turbines with total nameplate capacity of 335 MW. This is enough power to generate electricity for more than 100,000 homes per year and avoid more than one million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.
-- botsex is {grep;touch;strip;unzip;head;mount}
Current power lines do that too. Acid rain is a greater risk to habitat and migration routes, in my opinion. We could also stop building glass buildings for the birds to slam into, as well.
What we need to do is have more power generation "on-site". Then we don't need such high voltage, as less will be lost before it gets to the user.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
Here is the picture that "says it all," since it's being Slashdotted.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Most places will be fucked if they rely on fossil fuel until 2030. Denmark is just another country which is starting to catch on.
Comment away
the vacuum, but as it turns out that idea sucked.
My carpet is clean and fresh though.
So instead I started working on transportation. I figured out a way to travel between NY City and LA for free. Just build a big tube between them, LA Sucks and NYC blows. It only works one way though, so that idea was down the tube.
Let's face it, all of my ideas just seem to break like the wind.
KFG
Didn't Heston's character hop on the bike to keep the lights on?
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!
I'm so old now...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
Anyone for pureed seagull?
We're currently producing 10-15% of all electricity in Denmark with wind-energy and nobody wants that number to increase currently due to the problems we are facing.
The main problem is that we actually get so much wind-generated electricity during a storm that we cannot get rid of it, this unbalances the power-grid and results in voltage and frequency instabilities.
The secondary problem is that you also need electricity when the wind does not blow. This could mean keeping large centralized power-plants around, paying a lot of maintenance costs, waiting for the wind to die.
Various suggestions abound, and the Engineers weekly newspaper here in Denmark has been the home of a fierce debate for the last couple of months about the merits of these and wind-generation in general.
The fact that all sorts of micro-plants and co-generation is popping up like mushrooms is in fact a very interesting problem for the electrical grids: How do you balance supply and demand, when you have almost as many suppliers as consumers ?
Poul-Henning Kamp -- FreeBSD since before it was called that...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The only thing George W has said that I agree with is that we need to crack down on "Vampire devices" like the ones you speak of. There should be, and may soon be, laws that say how much a device can leach, while it is "off". This topic came up while California was having it's power crisis a year ago [what ever happened to that?].
Being environmentally friendly works at both ends; The user, and producer both have to play a part in saving energy. We could produce enough electricity to meet our "future" needs, or we could make our needs of the future, fit what we can do now. For example, who really needs a car that goes 70MPH, if it runs on electricity or otherwise? Why leave a monitor on while it isn't being used for the night? That power being used for the monitor may not be much, but it is still enough power to run a monitor somewhere else for the same amount of time.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
flamebait.
Your comments are true of large continental land masses like North America, but Europe is a different story.
Remember that countries like France, UK, Denmark, Germany, are at a higher latitude than even Newfoundland.. yet those countries enjoy much higher temperatures than the average Canadian will get.
London's (51oN 00' lat) temperatures are generally similar to those of New York (40oN 42' lat) even though London is over ten degrees 'higher'.
This is because of the Gulf Stream, but also because the land masses in Europe are, generally, quite small and broken up with lots of lakes, fjords, rivers, and seas (North Sea, Baltic Sea, Mediterranean Sea).
This gives Europe cooler summers and mild winters, and a climate that remains quite the same throughout six months of the year. We don't get many 'surprise' weather events, like the US. Nor is our weather as extreme as that in the US.
Therefore, we might not get big hurricanes and sudden gales like the US can experience.. but.. we get a metered regulated amount of wind, that is perfect for generating electricity.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Now you know what those who support fission power feel every time the "environmentalists" say something about fission power based on what the tech was in the 1970s and 80s.
we're talking about Denmark, not California or LA, and that the entire nation of Denmark has a significantly smaller population that greater LA alone.
What may be unworkable in one enviroment may well be ideal in another.
KFG
mmmmmmmmmm....
McDonald's has signed a 50 year deal with the government of Denmark for the manufacturing of chicken McNuggets.
yes, It's a joke, I know about modern windmills.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
That is a very good idea. We have got so used to the old wires everwhere, we forget how our pioneers did things. On your own can be the best way sometimes. There are people in my home province who generate enough energy from their home windmills, that they sell extra back to the power company.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
You bring up a valid point.
I've bought AMD since the K6/2, but with the money I saved on the chip, I've probably spent twice as much on my electritiy bills with my Socket-A bohemoth then if I'd bought Intel.
The newer chips are much better, but Intel has still got them on heat/power.
With chips as fast as they are, I wish they'd spend a product cycle making the same speed chip *cooler*, Again.
superconducting storage?
...a lot of the renewable, or green energy policies have been put on hold.
You can read about renewable, or green electricity in this great report Green Power Marketing Abroad: Recent Experience and Trends from NREL'sGreen Power Network.
For lots of technical info on wind power, check out National Wind Technology Center which has a good online library.
The Danish Wind Industry Associationhas a lot of great info about Denmark's tremendous growth in wind power.
"The old forget, the young don't know" --Japanese Proverb
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why can't the US, the world's largest economy, do the same?
How? Living in Texas requires a A/C unit so that the house is not a danger to health* during the summer. I already use CF and F bulbs thru out most of the house and almost everything else is turned off when not in use, including most wall warts.
I know I could go out and spend tens of thousands of dollars to retrofit my house with more energy efficent materials, but how would I pay for it and how many years would it take to show any ROI?
*Quite a few people die each year due to heat during the summer because they don't have/won't run their AC's
Here's the real picture of the aftermath
Be VERY afraid.
What about smaller wind gennys? I've got a AIR 403 sitting in the garage, with those sharp carbon-fiber blades. I haven't put it up yet because I haven't installed the inverter/battery setup, but I have worried about complaints of noise from the generator at night, and about possible injury to birds (I live in an urban/suburban area). After all, these generators only have a 3 ft dia, so they tend to spin fairly quickly. On the other hand, they do present a smaller cross-area, so if I stick lights on it (LEDs along a vane), maybe that will warn any flying creatures off.
On the topic of advertising, has anyone seen the billboards with the horizontal wind generators, the ones that look like ultra-thin, slowly rotating helicopter blades?
danish...
Well birds have been chopped up in these things so it's no use pretending it's not a concern. That's why the U.S. DOE initiated research into the environmental impacts of wind farms and attempted to identify the optimal locations for wind farm placements.
The National Wind Technology Center has a pretty thorough collection of research on the topic, which you can access here.
And about "polluting the visual environment," yeah that sounds dorky, but it's the kind of argument you hear in opposition to wind farm proposals in places like Nantucket. Personally I think they're kind of majestic, but that's just one man's opinion. Supporters of renewable energy really need to have some ready answers for these kinds of arguments.
is that enough to power my American house??
Noble goal and all, but it does mean that taxes will have to be raised to cover the increased subsidies.
follows the idea of hydro-electricity I guess? How about a 'SETI' at home like application that utilizes the power produced by our cpu fans - only problem is how tunnelling of energy over IP?
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
The Technology Review recently ran an article on wind power. It's an interesting read:
7 02.asp?p=0
http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/fairley0
they don't mean that kind of wind.
wake up america - it's about time.
- a dane
Windpower demo for Kids on Windpower.org rejects the Mozilla user agent by name, basically saying "Netscape 6 is broken, get Internet Explorer". It is quite apparent that this is in error because that site works fine in Konqueror. These scattered sites are a serious problem to alternate web browser adoption. When people try Mozilla for the first time, they expect all sites to work without problems. One of the greatest problems they run into is when sites like this reject their visit.
Several months ago I discovered that my local bank was rejecting the Mozilla user agent by name at their online banking site. My LUG began a small letter writing and phone call campaign. After we spoke with a bank vice president, they were concerned enough to make sure that our needs were taken care of in their planned site rewrite coming later this month. I have confirmed with their site designer that their new site works properly with alternative web browsers.
I have begun the "BrowserAdvocacy" discussion mailing list for the purpose of organizing advocacy campaigns in identifying these sites, analyzing the problem, and politely contacting the sites with reasoning and suggested fixes. Please join if you wish to help in this project, or if you know of sites that reject alternate web browsers like Mozilla/Galeon/Opera/Konqueror by name.
I am looking for a volunteer to organize the web page of this project. This webmaster would simply need to keep a scoreboard showing the current status of the sites that we target. Please post to the list if you are interested in helping. Once we have some formal guidelines and infrastructure in place, I plan on making a formal announcement on Slashdot. (I hope my server can handle it!)
Thanks,
Warren Togami
Mid-Pacific Linux Users Group
http://www.mplug.org
If they continue to vote for those neo nazi parties at elections, they may well use imigrants to produce energy.
Danish morons, WAKE UP, NAZISM ISN'T A JOKE!
Cold some expert explain why these modern windmills have such narrow blades? It doesn't seem logical for a non-expert.
Athlons have circuitry to disconnect from the system bus when idle (on a signal from the Northbridge, which gives the signal when the OS enters the ACPI C2 idle state), reducing clock rate and essentially going into a standby mode (~5W power consumption). Unfortunately, it's not enabled by default, partly due to minor performance problems (~3% is the normal performance hit), and partly due to intermittent problems with some motherboards, especially when using PCI bus-mastering cards that require low latency (such as video capture cards). I'm not sure why it's not available as a BIOS option though.
In any case, you can enable it manually by setting the relevant bit in the Northbridge. For Linux, see the Athlon Powersaving HOWTO for a variety of methods to enable it.
For Windows, there's a utility called VCool, whose site was at vcool.occludo.net, but it appears to have disappeared in the past week or two.
When idled using the setpci trick mentioned in the HOWTO, my Athlon 1.33 GHz, which used to idle at 57 C, now idles at 33 C (case temp is 31 C, so it's generating very little heat and by extension using very little power, especially compared to what it used to do).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The report was from Sven Auken, a leading member of the social democrats, and the primary hate figure for the then opposition, now current government.
The new right wing government have basically stopped or severely reduced funding for all environmental programs, and the current "wisdom" is that the emphasis on wind power was a mistake, because it (despite Denmarks 50% markedshare of the world production of wind mills) hasn't been short term profitable.
The new government appointed Bjørn Lomborg as head for the only new environmental institution.
Your citation of Dr. Moore shows what, exactly? That some in the left wing disagree with some others in the left wing? Oooh! Just because Greenpeace gets more involved in politics in the process of protecting the environment, and this old-schooler thinks they should proceed a different way, that doesn't mean Greenpeace is doing anything wrong. The thing about the lacking science education is true up to a point, but exactly how many science Ph.D.'s are memebers of Greenpeace? One that I know personally, and I bet you there are tons more. Yes the average environmentalist hippy doesn't know much about science, that's unfortunately a fair observation, but why should we hold them to a special standard regarding this? After all, only a right-wing nutcase could possibly think the average Greenpeace hippy knows less about science than the President of the United States.
Just about all new large structures get some opposition from locals, who believe their view will be ruined. And the modern wind mills are huge. This has nothing to do with the traditional environmental groups, it is more a "not in my back yard" thing.
There have been one case in Denmark where a (rather moderate) environmental organization protested, in that case the park was proposed in a protected wildlife area. In general, the environmental organization support wind power, but it is not clear how much more than the current 15% can be derived from that source, both for technical reasons (we need energy when the wind doesn't blow too), and because of the increasing impact on landscape.
The 50% mentioned in the Auken sounds unrealistic.
Agreed 100%
In fact, I think the best thing would be a plugin for Mozilla which sticks a button on the Mozilla nav bar. Every time you hit a site that blocks non-IE browsers, or simply fails to show properly, you click the button and a form email is sent to webmaster@thesiteyouvisited.com and/or an email to advocacy groups such as you plan.
I know I visit pages all the time that wont show, I curse them then go somewhere else, or if I _really_ need to get to them, Citrix into a box and run IE there. I just dont have the time to fire off an abusive email every time I visit a dodgy site, but if I had a button staring me in the face, I'd do it every time.
Just a thought anyway.
"I'm tired of all this 'Aren't humanity great' bullshit. We're a virus with shoes" - Bill Hicks
California's power crisis was manufactured by Enron, mind you. It was an artifical result created by deliberately causing power shortages by crafty re-routing of electricity.
If you had bothered to look on this page (same site) and read the second paragraph you would have found out that the goal is to get 35% of our energy from renewable sources, that is wind, waves, solar etc..
My opinion? See above.
[what ever happened to that?].
Christ man, haven't you watched the news?! Maybe you've heard of Enron? Go read.
However, Denmark has a higher density than the US, which means that the space that is used to produce wind-energy is more valuable. With the huge amounts of empty space in the US, wind power should be even more viable.
I'd be less worried about birds smacking into them than their presence screwing up jetstream patterns or something. I don't know much about wind streams, but way back when we started putting dams in rivers we thought it was the greatest thing in the world, and now we have to deal with things like metallic sediments and screwed-up salmon runs. I can't imagine even a huge number of windmills affecting wind patterns to any noticable degree, but it still might not be a bad idea to keep an eye out for weird things like screwy migration patterns, or something.
c-hack.com |
(A bit off topic, sorry)
Yes, as a tribute to the wind. Although the concert was good (Jarre + light + sound + fireworks cannot go wrong) it was NOT well planned.
Imagine trying to get 30000 (yes, thirty thousand) people through a 3-4 meters wide gate. It's just not possible in less than 2 hours...
And then there was the mud...
It's 19:11:42. Do You Know Where Your Meat Body Is?
milk and sea wind turbines. What do you get when you combine these two? Cream. I see great synergy benefits in here!
They're actually dressing up cell phone towers as trees here in the nicer suburban areas of New York. While, I must say that it's nicer than some grey metal monster, they certainly aren't fooling anyone either...
Take a look.
Ehh... Insects tend to go towards lights when it's dark... bad idea... :-) /Ripat
The secondary problem is that you also need electricity when the wind does not blow
Exactly. You have to have enough means to produce power on the cold, dark and windless winter days. At that point energy demand is also highest.
I would hope that these turbines have a control system that would "feather" the blades (turn them to their point of least wind resistance) in extreme conditions. I imagine that this would also be varied to keep a constant angular velocity. (Are these turbines AC or DC?)
On the other hand, here's a US company that makes turbines using a flexible design that they say can "shed excessive wind loads".
(this is not a
Well let's say you happen to own some land and you have a little cottage there that you visit every summer. Then someone wants to build a few dozen windmills and they put it infront of your cottage?
The problem is that few people live near the coast and people who vote for the windmills live in the city. Also, surprise surprise, more people live in the cities, so our democracy gets its way, so let the people at the coast suffer and make all the hypocrites in the city think they made a favor to their environment.
My cousin who is a so called "green" and lives in the Finnish capital Helsinki, opposes nuclear energy, opposes fur-farming, wants people to do catch and release when they fish etc. etc. Now when I asked her about the placement of these windmills, she simply told me it's not her problem. Well I'm quite sure she wouldn't want one of these in her backyard.
Besides these windmills have a very annoying low frequence sound. If I'm disturbed about it, then how about animals that usually hear a lot better than humans?
making alternating energy cheaper per unit.
Remember the fixed costs in the utilities industry are about about the highest you can get.
Which might be a bit surprising, since Søren Krohn, the guy who got an award for the site, is a die-hard Mac user. But I guess IE exists for the Mac too...
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
A device running at 120VAC can consume 4 Amps *without* consuming 480 Watts.
:)
How? Well, most real-world devices are slightly (or sometimes not so slightly) inductive loads - this causes the current draw to lag after the voltage "peak" supplied.
In the DC world, your formula is valid: P = U * I, effect equals voltage times current.
In the AC world, it is still valid but it cannot be used the way that you used it. You multiplied the voltage with a current that was drawn at a different time - what you need to do is to find out the "power factor", the phase distortion (or whatever the english word for that is), of your devices.
The formula becomes:
P = U * I * cos(d)
where d in most household devices would be anywhere from near-zero to 0.3 or so.
The minimum cos(d) is regulated by law, at least in Denmark and probably everywhere else, since the power companies have a hard time measuring and correcting phase distortion.
Anyway, what this all means is, that your devices probably only consume 60-80% of what you *think* you measured.
It's still a lot though, I'll give you that
Not too surprising, the site was made last year and rejects Netscape 6 by name. Netscape 6 did indeed suck... Mozilla just wasn't ready back then.
Get me two of what he got !
ROTFL
Windmills in rough areas such as on buildings do not generate very much electricity. The wind is not even enough. They are also subject to large stresses from the turbulent flow, which reduces the lifetime. The site in the article has more details.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Is available here.
You're right, Denmark has roughly the same wind all over. Having said that, frontal systems tend to run over the country in a few hours, so even there you don't get the same situation for the whole country.
The problem here is aggravated by the lack of power transmission possibilities to the neighbours. There was one case on New Years morning, when the generation reached 100% of demand, and turbines had to be shut down, since the electricity could not be sold anywhere. This is partly due to the fact that northern Germany (actually the current world leader for installed wind power by a fair margin) has roughly the same wind speeds, and therefore the same problems at the same time. So the electricity has basically nowhere to go (and yes, in northern Germany they already were regulating down even the nuclear plants).
On the US situation I found a good quote in one IEEE proceedings paper from an electrical engineer in the US (it was roughly the time of the California problems): "The US is a country with a first rate power generation infrastructure, depending on a third world grid." (or similar). And it's not far off, since the grid in the US is splintered into many small units that have not that much capacity for transfer across the country.
Hurricane Application Group, Dept of Meteorology Control, Ministry of Proactive Defense
...in Denmark?
Denmark is flat - not billiard table flat (it undulates a lot) - but the highest point is man-made (it's the top of one of the support columns of the suspension bridge between two islands) - there is no topography higher.
What you could do is put a high-voltage supply under the sea to Norway and pump water up one of their hydro-electric schemes, then generate it back at time of demand. I'm sure the Norwegians would rent out the land and facility, meanwhile laughing and saying "Those crazy Danes".
Temporary storage of a significant amount of a country's electric power demand (at useful efficiency) is a non trivial problem. Whatever method you use should be cheaper than generating new using the cheapest non-renewable fuel, or it isn't worth it (economically), 'green' issues aside.
Fair enough, but, fundamentally, wind farms are still basically trying to obstruct the movement of a fluid that is being driven, at some remove, by solar power.
Environmentalists get all worked up about hydro-electric and the fact that it fundamentally changes the river ecosystem, and then hold up wind as a better solution.
As far as I can see, the only real difference between hydro and wind is that hydro is better localized, more consistent, and easier to harness. How many hillsides do you have to cover with windmills to match the power generation of a Grand Coulee or a Hoover Dam? They plan to have basically run out of terrestrial sites by 2005, at only 2.5x their current capacity.
The energy consumption of a wealthy western population is huge. Attempts at renewable energy sources are laudable, but they pale by comparison to the volume of power generated by conventional means. The first page I found with actual numbers claims a goal of only 35% combined from all renewable sources by 2030, not 50% from wind alone, but that still seems optimistic to the point of hubris when compared to the existing renewable energy sources. Even their own numbers only give a duty factor of 20% (1200GWH per year on 600MW of capacity).
Attempts to migrate to renewable energy resources are laudable, but how long will it be before there's a backlash against the giant tracts of land being dedicated to unsightly wind farms?
Well, since Greenland is still Danish territory, we are actually the seventh greatest nation in the world (area wise).
;)
However, I do see a problem getting the power from a huge windmill farm on Greenland across the atlantic
If the water rose a couple of meters. Most of Denmark would cease to exist (the same would happen to the netherlands), the lack of electricity would be the least of our problems.
The highest point in Denmark is the top of pillars for the Great Belt Bridge. The highest natural point is a hill 220meters above sealevel.
Btw. the largest wind mills are now a 100 meters tall.
The problem wasn't the amount of people. It was the rain. There is simply no way to keep things organized properly when you are standing knee deep in mud.
The massive amounts of rain delayed transportation so that most people arrived just hours before the event began. All paths up to the main gate were completely flooded with water/mud, making it even more difficult to get to the gate.
I was just standing just in front of and to the left of the central sound/mixing tower (for a total of 7 hours straight!), and had plenty of room, though I was in mud to my ancles. When the second thunderstorm arrived in the beginning of the second half of the show I and another in my party decided to leave. I took us at max three quaters of an hour to walk the kilometer from the concert field to the parking field. That is extremely fast given the circumstances.
In my oppinion the event was perfectly planned. Everything was reviewed and approved by police and rescue officials beforehand.
There is just no way to deal with rain in those amounts.
Anders - Copenhagen
If the US were able to reduce their energy consumpion it would probably be feasable to produce at least part of their energy domestically from renewable sources.
So much energy is wasted in the production and operation of large houses and vehicles....
Another thing: by reducing their dependence on foreign oil, they would most likely also stop harassing the oil-rich countries.
My country (the Netherlands) is planning a large off-shore wind power park in the North Sea. That would be a great thing to have when the oil price starts to rise again.
WIND POWER IS EXPENSIVE!!! It doesn't cost much to use, but it does cost a ton to build initially, check out this article
So why was my previous comment a troll? Is it a troll because I don't want to pay higher costs for power? Is it a troll because I'm not ranting and raving about wind power????
Last time I checked, you shouldn't moderate something as a troll just because you don't agree
Today, according to the Danish electrical power companies, the energy cost to society (the social cost) per kilowatt-hour of electricity from wind is the same as for new coal-fired power stations fitted with smoke scrubbing equipment, i.e. around 0.04 USD per kWh for an average European site.
Ouch! What idiot would think of burning coal? Blech! A sky full of nasty brown stuff is what you get, unless you use "newer" "smart coal" technology Al Gore tried to push a while back which was really a revival of 1920's coal gassification. What to do with the open strip mines or dead underground miners is not answered by that nor is what to do with all the ash developed. The only thing dependable is the cost.
Four cents per kilo-watt is twice the cost of nuclear or natural gas power. Who out there wants to double their electric bill tomorrow? Great, just go with wind power. The more distributed your electricity generation, the higher your costs. It's a sad fact of life that everything needs to be maintained and that costs money. Why is it that people turn their backs on cheap, clean, proven and reliable power sources?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It's inertia that does it. When the wind blows fast at your farm, all is well. Your windmills turn, regardless of size, and do their job. When the wind stops, the windmills don't. They keep turning as they wind down, creating local air circulation loops which can suck in bald eagals!
It's part of the trade off. Sure, one pass might not kill a bird. It's a statistical thing, many passes by many birds kills a few. The more windmills you make, the more birds you kill. There are dead birds in California and other nutty places where people are willing to pay 4 cents per kilowatt hour to generate electricity. Go visit the windmill FAQ where they tell you that windmills cost as much as "scrubbed" coal. Barf, nuclear power costs half that and natural gas is less on average.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If just someone would start making & selling these ... i'd buy some just because i can. Remember those beowulf clusters made with transmeta that require *no* active cooling?
better yet, place LEDs on the blades and as they rotate change the scene. It offers the possibility of doing a funky movie.
> so if I stick lights on it (LEDs along a vane), maybe that will warn any flying creatures off.
I can just see the 4 foot pile of moth choppings waiting for you in the morning 8-)
Si
It's nice to see that somebody is looking closely at this problem. At the treacle-ish rate we're rolling out windmills, we'll have some pretty conclusive evidence by the time wind becomes a major power source in the US.
You should check out Banks'n Browsers
We're already paying 40-70% in tax .. so whats a few more %% ..fessor..
It's odd how activists want windmills and solarpanels, but fail to see that with windmills and solar panels you can't have trees around them and they most certainly don't please the eye. But what I think is the real question here is that both of these take energy from the ecosystem, and since we have a limited supply of energy, one can see the problem. How much can we use before it starts affecting the whole planet.
Ofcourse we're surrounded by rather bad option all around and oil probably being one of the worst, but we do have to produce power, and it doesn't come without risks and problems. Fission and fusion is probably the best way.
http://uabar.mozdev.org/
How do we get more energy?
The answer my friends, is blowing in the wind.
I live in Texas, and I get 100% of my energy from wind power. Green Mountain Energy offers it, and seems to be doing well. It isn't cheaper, but it isn't much more expensive either. And IMHO it's worth it.
The paper is written signed by the minister of environment of the former social democratic gouverment in 1999. The new gouverment (Currently presidents of the EU) has a very different perspective on the environment. During their first month in power they hired the infameous Bjoern Lomborg to create a and Institute of Environmental assessment . For further information on Bjørn Lomborg see here
Want to use the Minnesota "payoff time" information to see whether you want to plant a windmill? Use National Renewable Energy Laboratory maps.
To be a bird in Denmark.
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
Minnesota has a nice worksheet to calculate payoff here, on the 6th page of the document. The "example" appears to be a fairly reasonable case for their state, and that calculates out at 8.8 years. I note that it does not include the normal (modest) maintenance costs, but there's also no tax benefit column.
According to that site a single windmill produces tonnes of power when it's operational, (I.E. wind is blowing).
Now, admittedly this is for a huge windmill, but scale it down to, say, a 1.2 metre diameter windmill, and say you only achieve 5% of the effeciency of their windmills, you'd still have enough to do something useful with.
Maybe a micro windmill on everybody's roof, would be the solution?
The following document probably has a certain bias (it's prepared by the Uranium Information Centre), but I've found it to be an excellent discussion of the world's energy requirements in general, and electricity and nuclear power in detail.
Good explanations of the pros and cons of different energy sources, as well as explaining which sources are appropriate for base-load and peak-load electricity production. Read this and you'll understand why Denmark isn't aiming for 50% of their power from wind.
http://www.uic.com.au/ne.htm
Warning, it's quite long. Hit sections 2 and 6 for the high-points of alternative energy sources.
Everyone knows that fusion power is only a short 10-20 years away.
Last post!
I'm a major Jarre fan and I immensly enjoyed the concert. But it was NOT well planned, and the mud was just a minor thing.
Obviously you didn't have to walk 2 clicks in the blistering dark with no guidance to find your bus... And when you finally found some busses they told you that they wouldn't pick you up because they were going to another place to pick up people. Dispite the fact that everyone was trying to get picked up where we were because the dude on stage had just said that we were to go to the right and not the left...
The concert ended at 23.00 (ca.) the last people were picked up and 6AM!!!
Please get your facts right before publishing
I'm guessing that you don't spend much time on slashdot, right?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
you've obviously never driven on the beltway in dc. you'll be passed, often, even doing 70. i wouldn't hit the fast lane except to go 85 or faster.
Denmark SUCKS!!!!
I stopped and checked 'em out this year when I saw the huge (over 200') towers along route 76 (the Pennsy Turnpike).
No dead birds under the towers.
No "annoying noise" as someone else claimed. Of course, annoying is a relative term - I am annoyed by large trucks and trainloads of coal passing by my community, and I am really annoyed by the way refineries in my area keep blowing up. (I regret that I can't find a link to the deadly 1981 explosion that literally shook three counties). But I'm not annoyed by the sights and sounds of the big modern windmills.
See this site for more info.
Why?
Because a nation is not only its economy. As Spengler once wrote a nation is like a living creature. The economy is akin to the digestive and circulatory system, and therefore essential to life, but it is not the entire organism.
Let's be frank and recognize that this is a good idea because it makes Denmark more independent and self-sufficient (as opossed from dependant from the faceless bureaucrats from Brussels).
I'll gladly pay a little more for electricity if it helps to keep our nation free and independent.
In all honesty I can't see how wildlife would bw harmed by wind turbines.
Examples would be enlightening.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You can report this kind or problems as bugs and they will take into their shoulders to educate webdesigners.
I am sure that if you are serious abot this you could partner with them regarding this.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
...should harness Slashdot.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
It's good to see someone looking at the demand side. Once you do, it's obvious that our only problem is demand -- not supply.
There were scads of common devices in my house that were wasting virtually all of the power they consumed (90% or more) -- computers, inkjet printer, scanner, ethernet and usb hubs, monitors, instant hot-water (under-the-sink tank style), microwave, laptop, cordless phones, cordless mixer, etc. etc.
In all these cases the "off" or "idle" states burned significant amounts of power ALL DAY LONG. When you multiply the load by 24 hrs, suddenly "small" loads become not-so-small as a percentage of your total usage.
Things with rechargable batteries (cordless appliances) were particularly bad. The charging circuits have not been well designed, so they leak A LOT of power after the battery is charged. They leak even more when the battery gets a bit old, because they don't hold charge well any more, and the charging circuit doesn't have any mechanism for figuring this out.
The laptop had a battery that would only hold charge for 10 or 15 minutes, so it was plugged in all the time. Turns out being plugged in and "off", it was drawing HUGE amounts of power trying to charge the fried battery. Solution was to remove the battery.
(For those who doesnt want to know why - skip to the last paragraph).
;)
I know it's hard research since most stuff is in danish but this is very far from the reality today. So here is some insight for those who want it
If you notice the date (april 1999) it's actually 3+ years old. A lot has happened since then.
We got a new goverment close to a year ago after around 8 years of government by the "Socialdemokratiet" (Social Democrats) together with minor party which isn't important regarding this issue. The new government consists of "Venstre" (The United Left) and another minor party which isn't important either in this issue.
Note that "The United Left" is not even close to be a left wing party, it's somewhere between The Democrats & The Republicans, although quite a bit closer to the Republicans as their main ideoligy is liberalism, however as any governing party they practice a fair bit of populism, which currently in denmark results in a policy which on some issues moves them more to the left.
However one issue they have in common with The Republicans in the US is "Environment and Energy". You wont hear any Venstre members in the parlament deny global warming but they generally believe that denmark is far to extreme and carefull on enviroment and energy issues.
This knowledge is important considering the fact minister in charge of the linked document "Svend Auken" no longer is in charge of the "Enviroment and Energy" Ministry but it's currently a Venstre member.
One of his first actions as minister was cutting 1/3 the employees.
(FOR THOSE WHO DIDNT CARE WHY)
In short, the current government makes HUGE doubts about how valid this document and it's goals are today.
still reading?
Are you sure that what you're seeing on those billboards are wind-powered generators?
In my neighborhood, they put those on top of dark-background billboards to keep the birds off.
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
...say "screw you" to Kyoto like the 'States then the rest of the world would respect them. The rest of the world would probably follow them blindly into any unjust war-like situation too.
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
urrrrrrrrrrrggggggmmmmmm (drool) !!
There's a plan to put a couple of hundred windmills off the coast of cape cod (consistant wind is good). It is being thwarted by so-called "environmentalists" who think it will spoil the view. Such short sighted people!
How about enclosing it in a metal cage? Perhaps chicken wire or something?
I wonder which part of the beltway you drive on. 70 is usually fine, at least down 395 and 495 in VA...
My thoughts on it: 70 gets me there a hell of a lot faster than 55, so ME. I'm someone who needs to go that fast. Particularly when I'm driving back to Buffalo...
Dubya announced that he will personally power wind powered devices by passing wind.
ceci n'est pas une signature
Nobody has raised the issue of the tremendous amount of CO2 emissions from the curing of tons and tons of concrete that are needed to support the massive turbine towers. Most certainly the "green" windturbine industry doesn't want to talk about it. I haven't found a source that quantifies the emissions so anyone who knows please contribute to the debate. I have heard that the CO2 emissions are the equivalent of years of fossil fuel emissions.
just thought i'd mention this site: dieoff.com basically world population is going off the scale, and fossil fuels will be gone by 2030, so yes we'd best have some alternative energy sources by then. i think the probability of a large die off is as inevitable as the growth, but i also think other technologies will kick in by then and the rich will continue to be rich and lit up. one issue currently is that china's fossil fuel needs are increasing, making US control of what's left pretty critical. hence the war etc. also read on the site criticisms of fuel cells and nuclear power.
Remember the Overture.com list of bulk emailers and how much they pay per click?
Apparently someone saw all the slashdot hits, and upped their max bid to over $6.00.
We need to keep hitting these guys where it hurts
Go to Overture.com and search bulk email, hit the top few sites 5-6 times daily, like I do.
is it really necessary to make your comment fill up the whole page? Are you trying to make it look big and impressive or something?
Since we are talking about offshore wind turbines here and floating obstacles tend to attact fish in large numbers, I would say any chopped birds would provide a ready supply of fish food - which in turn would be turned into human food.
;)
So in a round about way these windmills would be transforming protein that is not normally in the human food chain (ie seagulls and such) into one that is (fish). Maybe we should be looking into the older faster turning wind conversion technology
... it's all gonna run on Mindstorms bricks from right there in Billund! Don't think the tiny LEGO propellers will get them much, though...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Maybe we can disguise them as trees. Or put Budwiser advertising on them. Then they'll fit right in with the rest of the country :)
Maybe Tuborg or Carlsberg should get in on the Danish ones first.
Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars to preserve the oil industry, the USA should be planning for the future. Declare a technical equivalent of war and ramp up spending for deep research into energy production and efficiency. The advances that produced microelectronics never would've been made without enormous government spending, yet all that spending has been recouped through taxes on the industry it fostered.
The Danes and other nations that are investing for the future will build industries that will sell to the world. If the USA invests mostly in arms, used largely to defend the oil supply, we will make more enemies than customers and the trade deficit will grow. This is not a recipe for a peaceful and prosperous future.
to err is human, to forgive is divine, to forget is... umm...
"The United States Of America has got it all figured out. Our monopolizing power hoarding corporations must be on to something if they have found ways to even get the attentention of the department of Justice" Axis of Enron forever
I went to battle MC Escher but drew a blank
Somebody please think of the children.
On the other hand, if you think that jetstreams occur anywhere near ground-level, you must have failed your earth-science course in junior high (or you went to a school which doesn't even teach that much science). Either way, it is an indictment of the educational system (of the USA, I presume). This has consequences all the way through the system, right down to public policy; if voters can't tell facts from bullshit, they'll vote for whoever's platform sounds "best" whether it's hard sanity or utter crap.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Some of these devices will draw power even when they are switched off. For example, TV's will draw enough power to keep the CRT tube warm (which is why TV's don't need to "warm up" like they used to) and accept signals from the remote control. The only way to ensure it doesn't draw any power is to unplug it.
Whether you are worried about chemical toxicity or terrorist actions, anything radioactive will someday become so dilute that it just isn't worth worrying about compared to other issues.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
I completely agree with you there. The most sensible solution is to do what we are doing now: Burn oil, which is cleaner than coal and is both safer and cleaner to get out of the ground, while developing nuclear and solar technologies so they will be cheap enough to use once oil reserves become too expensive to get at (probably in the next 150 years or so). Also, continue to research space-based power systems and nuclear fusion, keeping in mind that we have one really big, really safe fusion reactor already (hint: we orbit around it).
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Untapped wind potential of over 10,000 billion KWH (gawd what an ugly unit - why didn't they use quads?), which is some 3 times current US consumption.
Rosebud Sioux reservation is good for 35,000 megawatts (that's 35 gigawatts) in ONE COUNTY.
The real problems with wind power aren't that it doesn't exist, it's that most sources are a long way from where consumers are (and nobody likes big transmission lines), and it can't be scheduled (you either use it when it's available or throw it away, and you need backup generation for your base load). If we had a much more opportunistic pattern of consumption we could get maximum benefit out of this, but right now our whole system is tied to consumers being able to flick loads on and off whenever they feel like it and most of them pay a flat rate regardless of the immediate supply/demand situation. Trying to re-engineer that to squeeze the most out of intermittent supplies like wind is going to be like pulling teeth on an irritable and unanesthetized orca.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Another thing is that most switching power supplies use a bridge rectifier feeding a capacitive filter; these draw no current at the zero crossing, suddenly start drawing amps as the line voltage exceeds the capacitor voltage plus the diode drop(s), and then stop drawing current again shortly after the waveform peaks and the line voltage falls faster than the power supply draws down the filter cap. The harmonic content of such current waveforms is horrendous, and it really messes with transformers (and everything else in the system).
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
- Heat water. Over-heat the domestic hot water systems, if necessary (control outlet temperature with a tempering valve); if you get things hot enough you may not need any electricity for water heating for some time afterward. You could also dump some of this excess heat as space heat via radiators, allowing fossil-fired heating to be turned back or shut down for a while.
- Charge batteries of hybrid vehicles. Most hybrids are designed to be independent of the electrical grid, but if your nation's fleet could be plugged in you could drain the batteries just as you got to your destination and then plug in to drive on wind power instead of oil. You'd need improved information systems to be able to do this - there would be no point in draining the vehicle battery if there was no charging facility where it was going, so the vehicle system has to know both the state of the grid and the destination of the current trip.
- If you can keep energy-hungry systems like aluminum smelters on standby, use them to suck down the excess watts when you have them.
People keep suggesting that you make hydrogen, but the efficiency of electrolysis isn't all that great and the systems to make use of the hydrogen aren't there either. That makes it a much bigger infrastructure project than anything I suggested above.Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Plutonium halves every 24000 years. That's a lot of man hours (21 millions) before you can go from two guards to one guard.
The problem is that few people live near the coast and people who vote for the windmills live in the city. Also, surprise surprise, more people live in the cities, so our democracy gets its way, so let the people at the coast suffer and make all the hypocrites in the city think they made a favor to their environment.
Don't tell me you never heard about global warming? That's caused by burning fossil fuel. Too much of that and the polar icecaps will start melting and the people in the coastal areas will be living under water.
Building windmills are one way to halt global warming. The technology is rapidly advancing and modern windmills generate several megawatts per windmill. They might not be pretty but they're clean and fairly efficient. In Denmark nuclear power is not a politically acceptable option, so the only useable alternative is wind power.
If you knew anything about climatology, you would realize that the extraction of energy from wind will alter the earths climate via the 'butterfly effect.' This could plunge the earth into another ice age in less than 20 years!!! If you think global warming is bad, just wait 'til your tators won't grow!
All these damn fans will cool the earth down and trigger the next ice age...
This'd be great for Hot countries who could build Solar Farms in their deserts, for Wet countries who could build Hydroelectric power stations, for windy desolate places - Wind farms.
You get the idea.
The Japanese chap suggested the use of Super Conductors or something.
This would allow, for example, the Sunlit Side of the world to generate electricity and sell it to the Dark Side (Redmond?).
Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
handmadehands.co.uk
The fridge is a bad example. Until NASA developed the motor controllers that are used to regulate the current draw of the compressors in all modern refrigerators, home refrigerators were on a trend of increasing inefficiency due to the makers reducing the amount of insulation (to get that "modern, slim look"). Recently a small research outfit found that the most efficient fridge they could obtain commercially was made in the 1940s - it had walls almost a foot thick.
But your main point is still valid, of course; incremental advances in efficiency combined with research in all areas of power production and management makes more sense than the extreme legal and technological "quick fixes" that people keep proposing - most of which are unworkable anyway.
It's nice to see someone post something that reflects independent thought, rather than parroting the propaganda of one side or the other. I don't know many pro-nuke people who are in favor of increased energy efficiency - most of 'em seems to be either drones of the power companies or surly contrarians.
In your quote from my post, you'll note that I said "It can be argued".
In English, this is a commonplace rhetorical construct that indicates the author takes no stand on the credibility of the argument, merely relates it as being of possible interest to the reader.
If you want to know my opinion, I think that humans will either wipe themselves out, evolve into something more robust, or come up with a way to reconvert nuclear waste into less harmful elements long before the stuff degrades into non-radioactive (but still toxic) material.
I'm not particularly interested in what will be going on more than 12,000 years from now, though; I already have enough to worry about when I restrict my plans to the next thirty years or so.
The energy costs of lifting waste out of the gravity well (assuming you are going to at least try to do it safely and accurately) are too high. You won't get enough payback to compete with more readily available sources like solar or coal.
Change your plan to injecting the waste into the center of the Earth and you'll have a better (though still titanically expensive) idea. And once you get far enough down, you can generate electricity from the temperature differential, as Nikola Tesla proposed.
Use nuclear-powered mohole machines and it all ties up into a nice tidy blue-sky project. I'll donate twenty bucks to the effort! Hell, set it up as tax deductible and I'll give you $100 every year!
I have several devices at home where the power button is a "soft" power button which only converts the device to standby. For example, the stereo receiver. The only way to turn it off completely is to unplug it or turn off the power strip it's plugged into. My DVD player turns power off if you push the mechanical power button but is only in standby if you turn it off using the remote control. My initial comment about AC/DC converters still stands. Although they draw less power when they are not being actively used, they still use power when they are plugged in. Devices which maintain any memory tend to be pretty bad, drawing 4-7 watts even when they are "off." In other words, the only true "off" for many devices is unplugged. I suppose you could turn everything off at the power strip level. Then your VCR, microwave, etc. will always blink 12:00, you will have to reprogram your TV stations every time you want to use it, etc. There are chips that electronics makers can put into a device to make it use 1 watt or less which is not as bad, however it increases the cost (50 cents is a lot to a manufacturer) and most consumers don't know or care about energy vampires.
See also: CNN article
What else is wind energy than a way of indirectly tap two other sources of energy; 1. the rotation of Earth, and 2. the sun heating up our athmosphere.
There are two reasons we haven't given the bastards the spanking they richly deserve - 1) they own Mecca and 2) they keep the price of Texas oil nice and high.
--Charlie
More like 5...
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