Alternative Energy Confusion

pcnetworx1 writes "New York State is starting to get crunched for electricity. While other states may just say 'pop a couple more coal/oil/natural gas/nuclear power plants down', NY has decided to take the green route. NY State wants to get more power by strategically placing windmill powerplants in upstate NY to help the grid. While getting a dedicated power plant placed on your property for FREE (and being paid $3,000 a year per tower) may sounds good to some Slashdotters, the citizens in upstate NY still need some education in the safety of alternative energy."

Comments

Use less energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't folks just use less energy? I mean, come on. Unneeded outside lighting, all the lights on inside, monitors left on all night long at work. People need to conserve energy a lot more than they need to start producing more of it.

Re:Use less energy

[CyricZ]

It's basically a tragedy of the commons situation. Even if it is metered, electricity is so widely available and so relatively cheap that the people there have very little incentive to make efficient use of it.

Of course, that situation may very well change, if they do not get their act together. Then, like any other scarce resource, electricity will become very wisely efficiently allocated by the market.

Re:Use less energy

[maarten_delft]

Of course it makes sense to reduce the " on time " of the small energy consuming devices.

If you bother listing all your devices in a spread sheet with their energy usage, you can easily calculate, for your situation, what types of devices are responsible for what share of electricity consumption in your home.

Of course, consumers are only a part of total energy consumption, but you can never say that reducing your own personal consumption doesn't do anything to improve the situation because the large other parties consuming too much energy, like it are only the industrial companies are too blame or that sort of thing.

Large industries typically provide their own power, for example through combined heat/power plants which are really efficient. Furthermore, because of their scale, large industries have really more incentives to reduce their energy consumption, even from a short term business perspective.

However if our consumption is to be more sustainable then we really have to look at ourselves and what we use. It is not business that drive the world's energy consumption, it is *us*, the consumers. The largest part of oil usage is for transportation, of us and our goods and consumables. Asides for the US military, which is (on a global scale) really a large consumer of fossil energy, all energy consumption is driven by you, me, we, consumers. So savings will have to start with ourselvs, not with "someone else"...

Going from where we are now to a more sustainable situation requires that we are all more willing to focus on the long term prospects of our energy usage, that we realize that what we use now is not without consequences for us a couple of years from now.
This thinking is difficult for most people, our economy is focussed on the present time, what things are worth to us now. At the moment, energy doesn't cost much, it is almost free, so we don't care.

I find out that around 25% of my personal electricity usage was lighting, 25% computers, 25% "silent energy consumption" (power adapters, little adapters, chargers, equipment on standby), 25% kitchen. Last year I thought a little about that and saw things I could improve. I installed some other types of lamps, cut back on computers and behaved differently myselves.

I just got the electricity bill for last year, I have saved around 20% in total, so I am really pleased that you can do that with small things. I imagine all people of New York could also easily save as much as I did. In that case an extra power plant easily is avoidable.

This is just like voting in a democracy: each individual's vote doesn't matter anything, but all worthless little votes combined, is a really powerful thing, the policies of a nation is decided by it.
Each individual energy consumption is nothing, but all those individuals combined, use a not sustainable amount of energy.

Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[CyricZ]

I noticed this gem in the article:

"So I guess my final question is: Who do I sue if I have any health problems or my property value decreases because of this project?" asked Patricia Oakes, a Hartsville, New York, resident at a recent meeting.

Innovation and a solid legal system were some of the key ingredients that allowed America to become the most powerful nation on earth during the past half-century or so. Unfortunately, innovation is often at odds with tort law, as shown perfectly by the comment above.

With increasing competition from Europe, Japan, China, India, and other areas and nations, America will have to make a choice. They can choose to continue innovating, and perhaps maintain a lead over other nations. Otherwise, they can choose to let legalities unnecessarily interfere with progress, and they will fall behind those countries who aren't bogged down with pointless and greed-driven lawsuits.

Education in the safety of alternative energy

[Anonymous Coward]

Windmill safety warnings:

Do not place windmill into eye.
Never use windmill chop vegetables.
Windmill cannot be used for personal hygiene.
Tilting windmill may result in cliché.

People can't have their cake and eat it too!

[grqb]

I have to be a bit skeptical about some of these claims about wind turbines:

1. Wind turbines make the same noises as Nazi troops torturing Jews? WTF??
2. Wind turbines causing women to have multiple menstrual cycles a month?

Come on. The real issue is that these people think wind turbines will decrease their property value. They don't have to make up shit like this. Especially if you compare the health effects of what would be built instead of wind turbines...probably coal power plants, which would be far worse health wise.

That being said, wind power is definitely inconsistent. From what I've heard about Denmark, which has the most wind power per capita in the world, most Danes are so untrusting of the quality of their electricity that they wouldn't even think about powering something without a UPS, otherwise they'd fry their electronics. Can any Danes back that up?

Re:People can't have their cake and eat it too!

[scarlac]

Yes, Denmark is one of leading countries when it comes to windmills. I don't know about how many we have, but you do them every once in a while when driving around in the country. We are getting more and more, but there are, like many others pointed out, other alternatives.

Wind power is great, and there are really no known sideeffects of them, besides a nice view. Wind power has been around for a long time, so other alternative energy methods are not as widespread. Each year we hear of windmill companies expanding and increasing sales, and I'm very satisfied with that "on behalf of the environment".

Our electricity over here is very stable compared to other contries, _afaik_. I don't know of _anyone_ who would complain of more windmills. When mother nature does her thing sneezing (yes, I know - it's usually very quiet over here) on the trees making them fall on power lines, there aren't much we can do, but actually NESA is putting power lines into the ground, so that's less to worry about.
In short: No we are not paranoid about electricity, and yes - I personally do fine without an UPS. I bet our electronics are just as sensitive as any other electronics from Taiwan ;)

However, like i said: Alternative methods are approaching, but far from popular.
Amongst other methods are "wave-farms" (I don't know the formal term). Swedish scientists and Danish scientists recently improved this technology to such a point that... well i don't know any numbers, but I remember it being more promising/effective per square mile and cheaper set-up than windmills.

To be fair...

[YrWrstNtmr]

Town board members surveyed the population and found that only 5.5 percent of townspeople are against the wind farm, while 58 percent are for it.

Of COURSE the news outlets are going to interview the squeaky wheels. Sells more copies.

I imagine in any population, you can find 5% who are against something, no matter how good an idea it may be.
That 5% will get pushed aside, so that the rest of us can get on with things.

Re:Intriguing...

[melvin xavier]

Yes, yes. My post was absurdly wrong. This is why rum and slashdot should never mix. Just remember, friends don't let friends drink & post.

Upstate NY

[NitsujTPU]

I'm in upstate NY.

Politics are on the lips of just about every person residing in upstate, as far as I can see. I couldn't go down from my office to get a coffee in Collegetown without overhearing at least 2 or 3 townies discussing politics if I wanted to.

It's also a fertile breeding ground for rather furious debate about such things. The Socialist party has a strong presence here (seriously, and they're proud to be Socialist). The town prints 2 forms of currency to be used in addition to US currency, City Bucks and Ithaca Hours.

So, to hear people talking about building wind farms in upstate is unsurprising. People have been talking about that for quite a while.

The flip side, however, is that you can always hear opponents of such actions. For instance, Cornell University does its cooling with water from the Cayuga River. We're not talking about dumping hot water into the river. Cold water from the Cayuga is pumped through campus buildings to cool them, reducing the amount of energy required by the campus. As far as sustainable, environmentally sound solutions are concenred, it's probably one of the cleanest ways to do it. It's definately pushing the curve a bit and showing that such solutions are viable.

This solution has vocal opponents as well.

To be brief, you can find just about any statement, as long as it's left-wing, that you want in upstate, and, according to people who've lived her longer than I, quite a few right wing ones too if you look hard enough. It's just the nature of upstate. People like politics.

Re:Intriguing...

[bxbaser]

everyone has one of those doooh moments.
Its just sucks harder when its on slashdot.