For some reason the earlier results weren't reported.
It's amazing what results you can get if you keep repeating the experiment until you get the results you want.
You mean if you are unscrupulous and are willing to change the experiment until it is flawed in such a way that it provides the answer you want.
To use my favorite counter example, Michelson and Morley very much wanted their experiment to demonstrate the existence of the Aether. And to that end, they repeated it over, and over, and over, and over, with every variation they could think of, hoping that it would give them a positive result.
Yet, because they were scrupulous and their experiment was correctly designed, they were never able to report success, and their experiment became known as evidence against the aether.
So yeah, I get what you're saying. I'm just pointing out -- it's not wanting a certain result that results in bad science, it's unethical and unscrupulous behavior that results in bad science.
Is there a link between vaccines and autism? I don't know. I don't believe for a moment that the debate is over. There's way too much anecdotal evidence, even if there is no merit.
What does that even mean? "There's too much anecdotal evidence, even if there is no merit"? So, like, we both know that anecdotal evidence is crap, and the science all says otherwise, but because there's "too much" spouting off of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies, it has to mean something? Yeah, it means most people are incapable of making good observations, have no understanding of statistics, and are more than happy to let confirmation bias run wild.
Also, anecdotally, none of these geniuses I've ever seen discuss the issue have any understanding of history, and of the suffering the human race endured before vaccination existed. Whatever tiny increase in autism they think actually exists, even if it turned out against all reason and evidence to be true, wouldn't be worth going back to that.
I swear, if there's ever an outbreak of smallpox, and these retarded fuckers refuse to get vaccinated, I'm going to start taking them out for the good of humanity.
1) Because their parents are also idiots. 2) Because no vaccine is 100% effective, the whole point is to try to prevent the disease from getting a foothold. But once someone has the full-blown disease and is exposing everyone around them to it, the system begins to fail.
In case 2, it's unlikely all the kids would actually get the flu. But some might, even if vaccinated. And then those sick kids might infect some others, even if vaccinated.
That's why these stupid fuckers are so dangerous -- not so much those who don't vaccinate for the flu, but those who avoid the serious ones. Herd immunity is what truly makes vaccines effective, but it requires that nearly everyone participate. And these morons obviously have no freaking clue of the horrible diseases they're allowing to return just because they're scared of an incredibly tiny chance that these things cause a tiny increase in autism rates.
You're more likely to die from falling down your basement stairs, and far more likely to die at the hands of your own family than a terrorist.
What?! My family is more dangerous than TEH TERRORISTS?!
My God, I have to respond to this threat in a disproportionate and irrational way! I must strike first for my own safety! Fight them at their house so I don't have to fight them at mine!
Hold on I'll be right back...
Okay. My family is all dead. I feel much safer now. Like I can finally think...
Hmm, wait a minute, I'm of course my family's family, and if they were killed by me, their family...
Wait, is this like that Star Trek episode, where if the enemy photoshops your city being nuked, then you have to report yourself as a casualty and be executed?
Or are you aware of some precognitive ability that I am not?
Yeah, I thought it was common knowledge! Tom Cruise was advertising them a while ago.
Of course it's not terribly practical in most vehicles, having to carry around the three bathtubs for your precogs (you can try one but the accuracy goes way down). Plus the way they tell you things is pretty useless while driving. By the time the little wooden ball rolls down the machine and get carved, you look at it and it just says "You're about to die!" Thanks, precogs.
Hmmm, now I'm thinking I'd be more interested in the woman's rodent than the gardner's gun. I don't like guns, they make me feel nervous and awkward as I try not to look at them.
We aren't going to go into Iran because even the most brain damaged of the neocon chicken hawks knew it was a terrible, terrible idea. And I'm sure they weren't deep enough thinkers to see the potential for China and Russia to interfere. Hell, they didn't even see the possibility for Iran to interfere in Iraq (as Tony Blair just admitted).
No, we won't be going into Iran because it'd be like Iraq times fifty before the Russians and Chinese even did anything. The biggest mistake anyone could make would be to look at those protesters with the green armbands and think that those people would be on our side if we came knocking on Iran's door. It'd be a nightmare.
Specific power of an IC engine: around 2 kW/kg Specific power of an electric motor: around 2 kW/kg
And where exactly on that page are you getting those numbers? Those particular figures don't appear anywhere, and the actual values vary wildly based on type and application.
Anyway, in practice electric motors are smaller because they give peak torque throughout the majority of their rpm range, while ices only give it in a narrow band.
Your one remaining point, that what matters is the *total* power system mass, not just the weight of fuel, also doesn't make a big difference. The Chevy Volt's motor mass is negligible compared to the mass of its batteries.
So, I said batteries are 45 times worse than gasoline, with your correction it's only 15 times worse, but I think my point still stands.
No, jeeze, you have to look at total mass, as in all of it. Like, including the transmission and exhaust system and fuel system and environmental controls and all that. Yes, you're right that the batteries are the biggest portion of weight in an EV, but that is exactly why things don't turn out how you expect.
Let's actually look at this:
A Lotus Elise -- a car made by a company whose whole design philosophy is to minimize weight, and make much lighter cars than competing sports cars -- weighs 1984lbs at the curb. A Roadster weighs 2723. The roadster has a range of 240 miles. The Elise gets 27mpg, which would give comparable range with an 8 gallon tank. Slightly less, but let's call it the same.
The weight ratio here is only 1.37.
So, does your point still stand? To the extent that it is "gasoline has higher energy density", sure. To the extent that it is "batteries can never compete with gasoline for practical vehicles", then no, that's garbage. It doesn't take a fifteen-fold increase in battery density to erase the Lotus' weight advantage. Maybe a doubling?
As for the potential for future improvement, energy density of batteries has improved by a factor of 4 from lead-acid to lithium-ion... and it only took a century to get there!
Yeah because people were really trying to improve battery density for all those years. It's really more like a 4x improvement in 40 years. The very fact that it's becoming so important, and because of advances made in material science only in the last couple decades, means battery's future is looking good technology wise. You may feel differently, but I apologize if I decide not to take my technology development prognostications from someone who can't even figure out the proper metrics.
That's my point. Its a problem that simply didn't exist.
But it did exist, is my point. That the impact was exaggerated for political purposes doesn't change that.
Having a wide spread problem is different from saying it never happens. People get hit by cars but it doesn't mean its a wide spread problem. To say it does, is to manifest a problem which simply doesn't exist.
People, especially bikers, getting hit by cars in my town is a problem, and to say it doesn't exist is to deny the markers lying alongside the roads. It, like bird strikes, lies in the middle ground where the problem does exist, but is not so severe that we should abandon the technology that creates the initial problem.
The other issues you mention would have ALL been addressed through simply market economics.
That doesn't mean they didn't exist.
Birds and bird nests are bad for most mechanical structures. Their fecal material more quickly erodes paint. Birds being struck likely cause damage to relatively fragile and expensive blades. Depending on the design, nests can become fire hazards. So on and so on. Simply put, there has never been a real problem here.
I don't see many people redesigning structures like antennae to prevent bird nesting. I see bird nests on cell towers, freeway light posts, and definitely on radio towers all the time. So, whatever the market incentive is to prevent this, it has not yet been sufficient to cause actual change.
And even though there are more economic incentives that favor preventing bird strikes in windmills, nevertheless the towers they were building for quite some time did not include the features necessary to prevent them. So these economic incentives didn't prevent the problem from existing in the first place. No, the problem did exist and then later was fixed.
If there was "never a real problem", then there'd have been nothing to fix.
No, being a bird lover means I'm sensitive to bird deaths so if I was going to skew the data, it'd be toward amplifying it. Having actually looked it up is why I'm right. You can look up Altamont Pass vs modern wind farm bird strikes your own damn self if you don't believe me.
Oh but right, that's work, so because you can sarcastically question whether or not I'm right, we'll just figure that you're right instead.
It won't continue to be most viable to locate wind farms at flyway points, even though the best places to put the blades does happen to coincide with where the birds are most likely to have their travel paths.
"Continue to be", oh so now you're an expert?
"That magically is no longer the case. For some reason that nobody needs to explore. Because we have experts like you.
No, my point is that we have experts that do study it now whereas before nobody cared. Also, even if they do end up being placed there, the issue is still minimal due to the windmill design.
Also, we'll concede to your aesthetic judgment of what is beautiful and what is not.
You're so right. So let's avoid using a promising and eco-friendly power source because of your aesthetic judgment!
Since when have aesthetics ever been a reason for or against a piece of industrial technology? Oh hold on, the clue phone is ringing. They say it's ever since NIMBY anti-environmentalists realized they had no good reasons to be against it.
if one is in the business of long distance trucking then the downtime for refuel is going to become an issue.
If you're in the business of long distance trucking, then the vast majority of our ICE vehicle fleet -- the part that EVs are aiming to replace -- is completely inappropriate for you to begin with! Yeah I don't think truckers are going to be driving the Tesla Model S, and I don't think anyone has been implying that they would.
For the people who only need a commuter car, a pure EV is imminently practical to operate. Personally I'd love to be able to plug in my car every night and know I had a its full range the next morning. Yeah, today I only need to fuel up every two weeks but there's always that one day or two where I'm deciding whether or not to go out of my way to refuel or risk running on fumes the next day. If "refueling" was as simple as pulling into my home and plugging in, I'd never have to worry about that again. The only reason refuel time matters for these people is because they're having to do it at a gas station.
And for the people who mostly only need a commuter car, but have to drive farther often enough that rental isn't a practical option, there's always the in-line hybrid design. Pure electric drivetrain with an ICE generator 'range extender' that is optimized for that purpose. Whenever you aren't needing the range, it is a pure EV.
This is the perfect stepping stone imo. I even bet that once people start using them and realize they really don't need the range as much as they thought, they'll be more willing to by a pure-pure EV the next time.
Pure electric vehicles will remain in the realm of curiosities, luxuries, and niches unless we find some unobtainium to recharge the batteries.
I'm waiting for an unobtanium cluestick for people who can't envision doing things even the tiniest bit different than they do now.
Altamont Pass was quite literally a worst-case scenario for bird deaths involving old and obsolete windmill designs (we'd never build them like that today for simple economic/efficiency reasons) and a very unfortunate placement. Raptor deaths are among the most keenly felt, but it is no longer an issue.
So you're right, we need to consider environmental impact, but for wind power and birds that's basically "build them right, and check with your local ornithologists about migration paths just to be sure there's no extra hazard".
So on the other hand, let's not fall into the trap that because obviously nothing can have zero effect on the environment, every such effect must be considered equally or even considered relevant at all. When comparing power sources, you could put "kills birds" in the negative column of wind, and "many tons of fly ash" in the negative for coal. It would be totally appropriate to downplay the bird-killing versus the coal waste because it is in fact completely insignificant next to the problems of coal. Treating it as though because they each have an entry in the "negative" column that they each have an equal score against them is what I call "bullet point engineering" and it is not a reasonable way to do things.
Not that this is what you're doing. I'm just saying -- I'm not downplaying bird deaths because I'm a proponent of wind (though I *am* a proponent of wind). I'm downplaying them because they are imminently down-playable. Before I'm a wind farm fan I'm a bird watching fan, and I stand by that statement.
Its my understanding that the bird strike issue NEVER existed and that it was completely fabricated by environmentalist.
No, there were legitimate issues with older windmill designs. They used scaffolding-style towers which encouraged birds to nest, and had much smaller blades with commensurately higher RPMs. Also, they didn't used to do any kind of research into bird migration paths to see if they were putting the farm right in the middle of one.
These issue all came together in Altamont Pass, which you may have heard of since it's pretty much the deadliest windfarm for birds ever (though often the person bringing it up often neglects to mention that fact). Though lets be clear: this deadliest of wind farms killed fewer birds in a year than the office building that would accompany any such power plant, though the deaths were concentrated in raptors so the effect was probably a little greater than an office building.
Now these issues have all been resolved. They now use single-pole towers with rounded tops that make nesting impossible. As you note, the economics themselves dictate using the largest blades possible. And now as a basic step in preparing to build a farm they check ornithological records to see if migrations are a problem.
So yes, there were actual issues that were subsequently resolved.
On a different note, the impression I always got was that the magnitude of the issue was played up by NIMBYs and anti-environmentalists who were finding their previous arguments of "but they're ugly" and "but I'm invested in the status quo" to be unpersuasive. They used the bird thing to try to drag environmentalists along with them, and it worked to an extent, but not for very long.
At the end of the day, unless you want to be eating grass and nuts out of your fecal/grass adobe hut, just ignore the crackpots and those who would ignorantly repeat their crack-pottery.
Well there are crackpots who want us to end up there, and there are crackpots who would have us end up there regardless as an unintentional consequence of trying to avoid it.
And yes, I do tend to ignore them, at least when I can't inform them. For example on the bird issue -- so far I've met very few environmentalists who continue to be anti-wind once they're informed that bird deaths were played up by focusing on one worst-case scenario and that everything has been fixed.
Personally, I consider the turbines I've seen mounted on hilltops eyesores that ruin the view; but that's my opinion.
Indeed. Personally I can't fathom how anyone could see even a single cooling tower to be more beautiful than a thousand elegant towers spinning away, but yes, that's just opinion.
My point is a mix of energy sources are needed to generate the reliable energy we depend on as economies.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-nuclear. Obviously a variety of energy sources is optimal, obviously it's what we're going to have anyway. Even as Obama announces this plan, more windmills are being hauled past the nearby highway out to west Texas. About the only thing I want to not build is more coal plants -- but guess what? We're getting those too!
I'm just saying I don't find the anti-wind arguments convincing. "It's ugly" is just opinion, and "it kills birds" is factually wrong, at least in the sense that the statement is supposed to imply an amount of bird death that is worth mentioning or caring about.
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For some reason the earlier results weren't reported.
It's amazing what results you can get if you keep repeating the experiment until you get the results you want.
You mean if you are unscrupulous and are willing to change the experiment until it is flawed in such a way that it provides the answer you want.
To use my favorite counter example, Michelson and Morley very much wanted their experiment to demonstrate the existence of the Aether. And to that end, they repeated it over, and over, and over, and over, with every variation they could think of, hoping that it would give them a positive result.
Yet, because they were scrupulous and their experiment was correctly designed, they were never able to report success, and their experiment became known as evidence against the aether.
So yeah, I get what you're saying. I'm just pointing out -- it's not wanting a certain result that results in bad science, it's unethical and unscrupulous behavior that results in bad science.
Is there a link between vaccines and autism? I don't know. I don't believe for a moment that the debate is over. There's way too much anecdotal evidence, even if there is no merit.
What does that even mean? "There's too much anecdotal evidence, even if there is no merit"? So, like, we both know that anecdotal evidence is crap, and the science all says otherwise, but because there's "too much" spouting off of post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacies, it has to mean something? Yeah, it means most people are incapable of making good observations, have no understanding of statistics, and are more than happy to let confirmation bias run wild.
Also, anecdotally, none of these geniuses I've ever seen discuss the issue have any understanding of history, and of the suffering the human race endured before vaccination existed. Whatever tiny increase in autism they think actually exists, even if it turned out against all reason and evidence to be true, wouldn't be worth going back to that.
I swear, if there's ever an outbreak of smallpox, and these retarded fuckers refuse to get vaccinated, I'm going to start taking them out for the good of humanity.
1) Because their parents are also idiots.
2) Because no vaccine is 100% effective, the whole point is to try to prevent the disease from getting a foothold. But once someone has the full-blown disease and is exposing everyone around them to it, the system begins to fail.
In case 2, it's unlikely all the kids would actually get the flu. But some might, even if vaccinated. And then those sick kids might infect some others, even if vaccinated.
That's why these stupid fuckers are so dangerous -- not so much those who don't vaccinate for the flu, but those who avoid the serious ones. Herd immunity is what truly makes vaccines effective, but it requires that nearly everyone participate. And these morons obviously have no freaking clue of the horrible diseases they're allowing to return just because they're scared of an incredibly tiny chance that these things cause a tiny increase in autism rates.
What is the private sector's motivation for going into space? Rich people's tourism. What is NASA's? Science. I chose the latter over the former.
If NASA's science requires a person go into space (most of it does not), then they'll pay the private sector to do it. What's the problem?
Making explosives is just not hard for a dedicated person with basic reading comprehension and math skills.
Yeah, that's what I told myself too. :(
- Chris "Lefty" Burke
You're more likely to die from falling down your basement stairs, and far more likely to die at the hands of your own family than a terrorist.
What?! My family is more dangerous than TEH TERRORISTS?!
My God, I have to respond to this threat in a disproportionate and irrational way! I must strike first for my own safety! Fight them at their house so I don't have to fight them at mine!
Hold on I'll be right back...
Okay. My family is all dead. I feel much safer now. Like I can finally think...
Hmm, wait a minute, I'm of course my family's family, and if they were killed by me, their family...
NOOOO! Damn you, self fulfilling prophecy! DAMN YOU!
Wait, is this like that Star Trek episode, where if the enemy photoshops your city being nuked, then you have to report yourself as a casualty and be executed?
Or are you aware of some precognitive ability that I am not?
Yeah, I thought it was common knowledge! Tom Cruise was advertising them a while ago.
Of course it's not terribly practical in most vehicles, having to carry around the three bathtubs for your precogs (you can try one but the accuracy goes way down). Plus the way they tell you things is pretty useless while driving. By the time the little wooden ball rolls down the machine and get carved, you look at it and it just says "You're about to die!" Thanks, precogs.
Hmm, I foresee fan-out issues with this method.
Hmmm, now I'm thinking I'd be more interested in the woman's rodent than the gardner's gun. I don't like guns, they make me feel nervous and awkward as I try not to look at them.
Clearly this means that children will be 40% less dead when hit by a Canyonero
That might be enough for Miracle Max to work with!
****And by having bulbs planted, I mean having roots... oh screw it. I mean having a tryst.
I'm still confused... What's a tryst? Are they perennials? What's this landscaper's number, I think I could use a tryst or two.
Damn, and we already shipped all of our tiny straw manufacturing over to China!
I like the idea of a DS phone, simply because about the only way to one-up Sidetalking would be to holding an open DS against my face.
Some hot metal, a tiny straw, and a guy who's really good at measuring his breaths.
Needless to say, scaling is a problem.
Mark Twain, anyone?
No thanks, I just had lunch.
I can't wait for one robot to announce: Alumino-Lent Green is made out of Robots!
Yeah, well, the day we build the Charltron Hestonator, the Robot Doomsday has already arrived.
We aren't going to go into Iran because even the most brain damaged of the neocon chicken hawks knew it was a terrible, terrible idea. And I'm sure they weren't deep enough thinkers to see the potential for China and Russia to interfere. Hell, they didn't even see the possibility for Iran to interfere in Iraq (as Tony Blair just admitted).
No, we won't be going into Iran because it'd be like Iraq times fifty before the Russians and Chinese even did anything. The biggest mistake anyone could make would be to look at those protesters with the green armbands and think that those people would be on our side if we came knocking on Iran's door. It'd be a nightmare.
Then Russia and China would get involved.
So yeah. Not happening.
Which completely proves my point. A localized issue does not make a world problem.
It's a problem everywhere bikers and cars can interact.
That means it's a problem, and a real one.
Your point is that the problem doesn't exist, and never existed, but that is simply wrong.
Overall, worldwide, there was never a bird/windmill problem.
Yeah, only where windmills using the old design actually were.
"The problem exists only where it exists!" is not the same as "the problem doesn't exist".
The problem existed. It was then fixed. Any "point" you make that is not compatible with those two statements is wrong.
Specific power of an IC engine: around 2 kW/kg
Specific power of an electric motor: around 2 kW/kg
And where exactly on that page are you getting those numbers? Those particular figures don't appear anywhere, and the actual values vary wildly based on type and application.
Anyway, in practice electric motors are smaller because they give peak torque throughout the majority of their rpm range, while ices only give it in a narrow band.
Your one remaining point, that what matters is the *total* power system mass, not just the weight of fuel, also doesn't make a big difference. The Chevy Volt's motor mass is negligible compared to the mass of its batteries.
So, I said batteries are 45 times worse than gasoline, with your correction it's only 15 times worse, but I think my point still stands.
No, jeeze, you have to look at total mass, as in all of it. Like, including the transmission and exhaust system and fuel system and environmental controls and all that. Yes, you're right that the batteries are the biggest portion of weight in an EV, but that is exactly why things don't turn out how you expect.
Let's actually look at this:
A Lotus Elise -- a car made by a company whose whole design philosophy is to minimize weight, and make much lighter cars than competing sports cars -- weighs 1984lbs at the curb. A Roadster weighs 2723. The roadster has a range of 240 miles. The Elise gets 27mpg, which would give comparable range with an 8 gallon tank. Slightly less, but let's call it the same.
The weight ratio here is only 1.37.
So, does your point still stand? To the extent that it is "gasoline has higher energy density", sure. To the extent that it is "batteries can never compete with gasoline for practical vehicles", then no, that's garbage. It doesn't take a fifteen-fold increase in battery density to erase the Lotus' weight advantage. Maybe a doubling?
As for the potential for future improvement, energy density of batteries has improved by a factor of 4 from lead-acid to lithium-ion ... and it only took a century to get there!
Yeah because people were really trying to improve battery density for all those years. It's really more like a 4x improvement in 40 years. The very fact that it's becoming so important, and because of advances made in material science only in the last couple decades, means battery's future is looking good technology wise. You may feel differently, but I apologize if I decide not to take my technology development prognostications from someone who can't even figure out the proper metrics.
That's my point. Its a problem that simply didn't exist.
But it did exist, is my point. That the impact was exaggerated for political purposes doesn't change that.
Having a wide spread problem is different from saying it never happens. People get hit by cars but it doesn't mean its a wide spread problem. To say it does, is to manifest a problem which simply doesn't exist.
People, especially bikers, getting hit by cars in my town is a problem, and to say it doesn't exist is to deny the markers lying alongside the roads. It, like bird strikes, lies in the middle ground where the problem does exist, but is not so severe that we should abandon the technology that creates the initial problem.
The other issues you mention would have ALL been addressed through simply market economics.
That doesn't mean they didn't exist.
Birds and bird nests are bad for most mechanical structures. Their fecal material more quickly erodes paint. Birds being struck likely cause damage to relatively fragile and expensive blades. Depending on the design, nests can become fire hazards. So on and so on. Simply put, there has never been a real problem here.
I don't see many people redesigning structures like antennae to prevent bird nesting. I see bird nests on cell towers, freeway light posts, and definitely on radio towers all the time. So, whatever the market incentive is to prevent this, it has not yet been sufficient to cause actual change.
And even though there are more economic incentives that favor preventing bird strikes in windmills, nevertheless the towers they were building for quite some time did not include the features necessary to prevent them. So these economic incentives didn't prevent the problem from existing in the first place. No, the problem did exist and then later was fixed.
If there was "never a real problem", then there'd have been nothing to fix.
No, being a bird lover means I'm sensitive to bird deaths so if I was going to skew the data, it'd be toward amplifying it. Having actually looked it up is why I'm right. You can look up Altamont Pass vs modern wind farm bird strikes your own damn self if you don't believe me.
Oh but right, that's work, so because you can sarcastically question whether or not I'm right, we'll just figure that you're right instead.
It won't continue to be most viable to locate wind farms at flyway points, even though the best places to put the blades does happen to coincide with where the birds are most likely to have their travel paths.
"Continue to be", oh so now you're an expert?
"That magically is no longer the case. For some reason that nobody needs to explore. Because we have experts like you.
No, my point is that we have experts that do study it now whereas before nobody cared. Also, even if they do end up being placed there, the issue is still minimal due to the windmill design.
Also, we'll concede to your aesthetic judgment of what is beautiful and what is not.
You're so right. So let's avoid using a promising and eco-friendly power source because of your aesthetic judgment!
Since when have aesthetics ever been a reason for or against a piece of industrial technology? Oh hold on, the clue phone is ringing. They say it's ever since NIMBY anti-environmentalists realized they had no good reasons to be against it.
if one is in the business of long distance trucking then the downtime for refuel is going to become an issue.
If you're in the business of long distance trucking, then the vast majority of our ICE vehicle fleet -- the part that EVs are aiming to replace -- is completely inappropriate for you to begin with! Yeah I don't think truckers are going to be driving the Tesla Model S, and I don't think anyone has been implying that they would.
For the people who only need a commuter car, a pure EV is imminently practical to operate. Personally I'd love to be able to plug in my car every night and know I had a its full range the next morning. Yeah, today I only need to fuel up every two weeks but there's always that one day or two where I'm deciding whether or not to go out of my way to refuel or risk running on fumes the next day. If "refueling" was as simple as pulling into my home and plugging in, I'd never have to worry about that again. The only reason refuel time matters for these people is because they're having to do it at a gas station.
And for the people who mostly only need a commuter car, but have to drive farther often enough that rental isn't a practical option, there's always the in-line hybrid design. Pure electric drivetrain with an ICE generator 'range extender' that is optimized for that purpose. Whenever you aren't needing the range, it is a pure EV.
This is the perfect stepping stone imo. I even bet that once people start using them and realize they really don't need the range as much as they thought, they'll be more willing to by a pure-pure EV the next time.
Pure electric vehicles will remain in the realm of curiosities, luxuries, and niches unless we find some unobtainium to recharge the batteries.
I'm waiting for an unobtanium cluestick for people who can't envision doing things even the tiniest bit different than they do now.
Altamont Pass was quite literally a worst-case scenario for bird deaths involving old and obsolete windmill designs (we'd never build them like that today for simple economic/efficiency reasons) and a very unfortunate placement. Raptor deaths are among the most keenly felt, but it is no longer an issue.
So you're right, we need to consider environmental impact, but for wind power and birds that's basically "build them right, and check with your local ornithologists about migration paths just to be sure there's no extra hazard".
So on the other hand, let's not fall into the trap that because obviously nothing can have zero effect on the environment, every such effect must be considered equally or even considered relevant at all. When comparing power sources, you could put "kills birds" in the negative column of wind, and "many tons of fly ash" in the negative for coal. It would be totally appropriate to downplay the bird-killing versus the coal waste because it is in fact completely insignificant next to the problems of coal. Treating it as though because they each have an entry in the "negative" column that they each have an equal score against them is what I call "bullet point engineering" and it is not a reasonable way to do things.
Not that this is what you're doing. I'm just saying -- I'm not downplaying bird deaths because I'm a proponent of wind (though I *am* a proponent of wind). I'm downplaying them because they are imminently down-playable. Before I'm a wind farm fan I'm a bird watching fan, and I stand by that statement.
Its my understanding that the bird strike issue NEVER existed and that it was completely fabricated by environmentalist.
No, there were legitimate issues with older windmill designs. They used scaffolding-style towers which encouraged birds to nest, and had much smaller blades with commensurately higher RPMs. Also, they didn't used to do any kind of research into bird migration paths to see if they were putting the farm right in the middle of one.
These issue all came together in Altamont Pass, which you may have heard of since it's pretty much the deadliest windfarm for birds ever (though often the person bringing it up often neglects to mention that fact). Though lets be clear: this deadliest of wind farms killed fewer birds in a year than the office building that would accompany any such power plant, though the deaths were concentrated in raptors so the effect was probably a little greater than an office building.
Now these issues have all been resolved. They now use single-pole towers with rounded tops that make nesting impossible. As you note, the economics themselves dictate using the largest blades possible. And now as a basic step in preparing to build a farm they check ornithological records to see if migrations are a problem.
So yes, there were actual issues that were subsequently resolved.
On a different note, the impression I always got was that the magnitude of the issue was played up by NIMBYs and anti-environmentalists who were finding their previous arguments of "but they're ugly" and "but I'm invested in the status quo" to be unpersuasive. They used the bird thing to try to drag environmentalists along with them, and it worked to an extent, but not for very long.
At the end of the day, unless you want to be eating grass and nuts out of your fecal/grass adobe hut, just ignore the crackpots and those who would ignorantly repeat their crack-pottery.
Well there are crackpots who want us to end up there, and there are crackpots who would have us end up there regardless as an unintentional consequence of trying to avoid it.
And yes, I do tend to ignore them, at least when I can't inform them. For example on the bird issue -- so far I've met very few environmentalists who continue to be anti-wind once they're informed that bird deaths were played up by focusing on one worst-case scenario and that everything has been fixed.
Personally, I consider the turbines I've seen mounted on hilltops eyesores that ruin the view; but that's my opinion.
Indeed. Personally I can't fathom how anyone could see even a single cooling tower to be more beautiful than a thousand elegant towers spinning away, but yes, that's just opinion.
My point is a mix of energy sources are needed to generate the reliable energy we depend on as economies.
Don't get me wrong, I'm 100% pro-nuclear. Obviously a variety of energy sources is optimal, obviously it's what we're going to have anyway. Even as Obama announces this plan, more windmills are being hauled past the nearby highway out to west Texas. About the only thing I want to not build is more coal plants -- but guess what? We're getting those too!
I'm just saying I don't find the anti-wind arguments convincing. "It's ugly" is just opinion, and "it kills birds" is factually wrong, at least in the sense that the statement is supposed to imply an amount of bird death that is worth mentioning or caring about.
Bats on the other hand...