Slashdot Mirror
Government Approves First US Offshore Wind Farm
RobotRunAmok writes "In a groundbreaking decision that some say will usher in a new era of clean energy, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said today he was approving the nation's first offshore wind farm, the controversial Cape Wind project off of Cape Cod. The project has undergone years of environmental review and political maneuvering, including opposition from the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy, whose home overlooks Nantucket Sound, and from Wampanoag Indian tribes who complained that the 130 turbines, which would stand more than 400 feet above the ocean surface, would disturb spiritual sun greetings and possibly ancestral artifacts and burial grounds on the seabed. But George Bachrach, president of the Environmental League of Massachusetts, hailed the decision, saying it was 'a critical step toward ending our reliance on foreign oil and achieving energy independence.'"
Nuclear doesn't produce that much waste. Especially if we could reprocess the fuel. In the end you get a few tons of waste that's hot for a couple hundred years, but that can be dealt with better than the tons of crap coal spews out a day. It's just that we've had 30+ years of people scaremongering about Nuclear energy.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I know people in the area. They told me the biggest objections came from people living in NYC and Conn. who had summer and weekend homes in the area. The thing is some 15 miles off of the coast. The people most bothered will be on their yachts miles out to sea.
Basically we have some choices;
1) Invest in newer, cleaner forms of energy
or
2) continue to destroy the environment, kill oil rig workers and coal miners, and rely on oppressive regimes in oil producing nations, e.g., Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela.
AFAIAC, this is a sudden outbreak of common sense.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Nuclear power does not create all the much waste. Unlike coal, we know where the waste goes.
Nuclear Waste: Amounts and On-Site Storage
"Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced about 62,500 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about seven yards deep. "
When the wind stops, just connect a whole lot of fans to Flander's house.
From what I understand, the objection of the Indian tribes was that it might disturb ancient burial grounds that are on land that used to be above water but now isn't. I find it hard to believe they've kept track of where any of those burial grounds are since they've presumably been underwater for many decades, but I suppose we could find them by burying dead pets in the ocean floor and seeing which ones come back to life, then simply avoiding those areas.
Standing up to the salt air may be an issue.
The Dutch have had them for a couple of years, so there's at least some precedent and any issues they encounter are likely to give a 4 - 5 year heads up to this initiative.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Use nuclear waste as ... wait for it ...
radiation shielding.
One of the issues with nuclear energy is absorbing the high energy neutrons to generate heat. We can line the reactors with nuclear waste and the neutron bombardment would transmutate it from 100s of years to safe in decades.
And when the wind stops, make sure you have candles handy...
This may just be a wry comment, and not an attempt at serious criticism, but this point is often brought up to criticize both solar and wind power. And certainly it sounds like a serious problem since, after all, existing power systems are on-line all the time, and having a major aspect of the power system dependent on something as fickle as weather introduces serious unresolved problems into power grid management.
Doesn't it??
No, it doesn't.
The reality is that even "base load" (constant output) plants get shut down for extended periods for maintenance of various kinds, not infrequently unpredictably due to equipment problems. And, due to large fluctuations in power demand across the daily cycle (which can be unpredictable due to weather) there must be special expensive peaking power plants anyway.
It turns out that managing a diverse national power grid has a substantial component of solar and wind power is exactly like managing one that doesn't. A lot of solar and wind power necessarily means many plants spread over a vast geographical area, and while the wind may die (or the sky may cloud over) down in one place, it will be blowing hard (or shining brightly) in others. The power fluctuations are no worse than fluctuation in demand, and both are addressed in the same way - by having peaking capacity in with costly peaking plants, or some energy storage method, and by having redundancy in base load plant capacity.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I actually think they are rather beautiful. Certainly not a "natural" beauty, but there is something majestic about them as a feat of engineering. Now the noise is what would bother me, but I think they are planned to be sufficiently far away were that wouldn't be a problem.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If that is true and not just made up then why is it that France is building new Nuclear plants all the time? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Nuclear_Power Are you saying the French are better then us at something? Are you saying the French insurance companies know something the US based ones do not? Come on people. Just actually do some research and then stop making shit up when you oppose Nuclear Power on Slashdot. Nuclear is done correctly with new technology actually has the potential to REDUCE the amount of Nuclear waste we have and at the same time can be designed to be passively safe meaning in the event of a complete power failure the system would still not go critical. Now I can honestly say I want Nuclear Power and I WANT it in my own backyard.
Many of the wind turbines at Altamont pass are of the older, smaller variety. The blades on these small wind turbines rotate very quickly and are harder for birds to detect. The larger blades of modern wind turbines are less dangerous to birds. This is probably why the judge made a distinction between the various types of turbines installed at Altamont.
For people who are complaining that wind tech/solar tech isn't there yet, I think you have to think of the politics behind this. If we get the ball moving now and get lawmakers and the public to overall have a good impression of these energy generation systems, when the technologies do improve it will be vastly easier to implement them. The biggest issue I see extends not only to clean tech, but all tech. America's energy infrastructure is incredibly aged and inefficient. Power consumption will continue to increase which will continue to strain the system. So even if our energy source is clean, there is still a large energy issue that needs to be addressed.
A friend of me lives in Germany in a small village in the shadow of a nuclear power plant. They actually live with the thing in their back yard and could not be happier! The power plant provides the town with some good income they invest in the local economy and infrastructure. People are actually moving *to* the town instead of away as with many small rural towns.
I've visited the power plant and they have a special visitor center where you can learn all about the specific processes used, from mining the fissionables to storing the waste in huge steel containers. But the best part about the exhibit is the cloud chamber, you can see all kinds of different radiation particles in the box of about 1 square meter (really awesome!). It really emphasized the fact that absolutely *no* radiation leaks from the reactor, the only trails you could see were random in all directions. In fact the kind gentlemen who showed us around told us that every single coal plant exhausts more radioactive radiation in one day than a nuclear power plant in a year!
I can also honestly say that I want nuclear power and I want it in my own backyard. Sadly nuclear is still on the decline here, mostly because people are very misinformed by the eco-mafia... If they knew that the alternative (coal realistically) is so much worse for the environment and health of locals (and that modern nuclear is completely different from Chernobyl) they would not protest. So I guess the only way is to properly inform people (so good move by E-On with their visitor center).