True but that results in massive cost increases. Being able to build something MONSTROUS in the middle of nowhere is good. You can angle them to catch light better. Centralizing gives energy savings. And you can buy panels cheaper in bulk. And building in thousands of locations that must be individually repaired raises cost again. Until they are reliable enough that they only need repairing as often or less than the shingles on your roof it wont be viable on a massive scale. (Don't get me wrong I helped a friend install one last summer and on an individual basis it can make great sense!)
Every time info gets stolen. It's the reds, those commy bastards! Can we please move on its been 20 years. Honestly it could have been one or some of millions of people. Why are we pointing our finger at someone with out even anything pointing to them. There aren't even leads never mind proof. Come on/. I thought we were better than this...
On second thought I didn't but still come onnnnnn...
I like to think of it like social darwinism at work. Religions that like small families and abhor sex or enforce condom usage would die out. From a spiritual pov being 'clean' would mean not having sex at all but that doesn't really work out since you wouldn't get new members. Religions like Catholicism thrive because they push for people having large families.
Uhhh walmart made 405Billion dollars last year. Unless you just assume all the stuff the catholic church owns are priceless you are way off. They have the most wealth that is not producing maybe. But that is like seeing a guy smoking weed out of a 100$ bill and assuming he's richer than the guy with a 500$ car from 1988.
Not that I don't appreciate all the art, I frigging loved my trip to Rome and taking a tour of the vatican you definately get the feeling that they have more culture and art than most countries. I saw more art and culture in 3hours inside the vatican than I most people see over 5 maybe 10 years in North America.
Oh and I'd never think I was being attacked. No one writes something so eloquent and well thought out if they just want to troll. On the contrary I'm honoured you thought I was worth your time.
I don't think in-line upgrades for wind farms are feasible either. Since the 'plant' is broken into 50~100+ windmills any upgrade would need to be applied to ALL of these (excluding possible storage?). That would make the cost as prohibitive as upgrading a nuclear plant. (I don't think it will get upgraded more than minor improvements). Perhaps windmills that break can be replaced with better ones though.
I wasn't referring to IFR. I was thinking of CANDU reactors or actually recycling it in a plant (reprocessing). Both of which are being done today.
I do think Uranium prices will increase but reusing fuel will be viable for a long time. As well currently uranium accounts for like 5~10% of the cost of nuclear power. Even if the cost of Uranium triples it wouldn't be devastating.
I believe much of the research funding is going towards fusion which is a revolutionary increase. I believe solar power research should be increased. And I think the market is doing that for us. But windpower if completely lossless (something physically impossible) would not be worth it on a big scale. The amount of energy AVAILABLE per square km is not worth covering that land with windmills. It hardly matters how much you put into the tech you can't make it windier.
You ignore the waste caused storing the energy during windy periods for not windy periods. Also for wind power equivalent to the nuclear plant that is a 14,000acre area of land you are giving up. (Around the size of Manhattan). The nuclear plant would likely take 3~4% of the land. And windfarms are noisy and ugly (so are nuclear plants but they aren't 80m tall. Also if you try to build outside of a class 1 wind zone your prices will double or worse. And if you want to spread those towers out more so you dont lose a 60km^2 chunk you will end losing more again because of efficiency loss. Also to meet US' current energy needs you would need to cover an area 50% bigger than New York.... the STATE.
Or how about coal plants killing thousands and thousands of people a year. No one sues them. Its too hard to prove. Though that would be a good way to get the us to switch to nuclear.
Only 40% eh? even with that number you picked out of a hat. Solar power is generally not put in the city So it will suffer the same loss. And the sun is clearly not going to max the panels 24/7 so they might get 30% of their nameplate value BEFORE shipping. Wind similarly gets about 30% of its advertised amount before it even gets transported. Nuclear gets over 90~95% of its nameplate value.
Don't use once through designs. Or get the waste recycled. The only reason we aren't right now is because why bother? Fresh uranium costs pennies. We could reprocess and reuse the spent fuel no problem.
I think the yard thing can be easily fixed. Communal yards work for most people. It gives you enough space (assuming the block is large enough) to do w/e you want. Have the contents designed/preplanned like a combination garden/park. There will be enough private spots that you can go and eat or tan or talk with friends. Something divided by hedges or something prettier. Not ALL the neighbors will go out at the same time so you basically get a bigger yard. The downside is that you don't get to do much with the yard yourself. Many Americans (if king of the hill has taught me anything) take pride in their lawns and gardens. Maybe a small section behind each house to plant what you like (1m deep or so).
Parking seems to work fine in most rowhouses I've been to I guess you just had bad luck.
The window thing does suck but can mostly be overcome with good design and skylights.
With good sound insulation comes heat insulation so that issue is moot. Though come on that is a pretty friggin' petty thing to fight about.
Again pettiness ruins it. I think the whole thing would have to be planned more like a low to the ground apartment building rather than townhouses. They would pick the colour before you moved in. They would also be able to centralize decision making and bill paying. This would let you get good deals by pooling resources.
I never understood why we don't use rowhouses. We could even keep our block system. It would turn our backyards into a roman style courtyard... Maybe its because our entertainment level isn't high enough or we don't get a regular supply of furniture. In any case rowhouses are efficient and cool. All you need are good soundproof walls and a design that optimizes the sunlight you miss out on. Plus utilities people would love it. Lots easier running things through basement than it is running a main line to each house. You could even share hot water (1 big one every other house?). And you could probably use industrial AC.... It'd be like a 2 story condo building.
There are indie/free only sites out there if that is your preference. I think all in all you are just being idealistic:P You can't think for people.
An idea for you though. There is a lot of code out there for 'also recommended'/'you might like' suggestions. You could modify this pretty easily to give only free/indie songs. Or better yet. Set it so that it puts free songs first followed by a little break and then the other songs. I bet if you fought for it this could get implemented someplace maybe amarok? Honestly remake another topic about doing that and you will probably get some supporters.
Oh and I posted elsewhere in this thread more clearly/less flameingly laying out my thoughts.
Electricity produced by wind is expensive REALLY expensive when you ignore the government funds. It is also ugly, takes up land (or water but that makes it REALLY REALLY expensive). And as we fill in the windiest places in the world it will become MORE expensive. Even if we increase efficiency and drop costs it will be much more expensive than the alternatives. Wind power does have a place. But not over more than a small portion of the earth's surface. What set me off was this article.
The idea is for everyone to put a windmill on their roof. The idea is: Dangerous. It is inefficient since they are low to the ground. Inefficient since they are close together. Inefficient because they have small blades. Prohibitively expensive to install, Prohibitively expensive to maintain. Horrendously ugly. Will kill all birds in the area.
I want to do the calculations to see if you had solar panels on your roof already would this gain or lose you electricity by shading some of the panels.
Jetstreams aren't feasible sources of energy. Building flying powerplants... just seems like a pretty obvious bad idea. And I think solar power is a good idea. I just think nuclear is a better idea for RIGHT NOW. 20~30years from now solar will probably be the way to go. But wind power is an expensive waste of time.
Probably not. So? 100 years is a LONG time. 100years ago we only had coal power. 100years before that we didn't have the lightbulb. Also I think that number is pretty frivolous. Nuclear reactors will get more efficient. They will be able to reuse their waste (already have that tech). And we will be able to find much more in the ground. Uranium is more common than tin. If there is a demand I'm sure we'll find more. Enough to last 150years I'm sure. By then we will have something way better. Gimping what is effective now for something that may happen in 100+ years from now is silly.
4% a year return rate on a machine that must function and is costly to repair. And that is WITH government funding your project. That means it will probably result in a return of -4% a year. That doesn't invalidate your point about the investment vs the economy... but still.
It doesn't matter. At this rate if you spread them out further you would have to cover more land than the country has. Wind power has always been a complete waste of time (even if these numbers are silly).
If we harvested ALL the wind of the entire planet at 100% efficiency. It would only produce 72TW. Unfortunately we can't come remotely close to 100% assuming we can get the energy of 5% of all the moving air... That is 3.5TW. (Global consumption NOW is 15TW). That power is also intermittent which means we need to store it meaning more loss. Not to mention if we covered the entire planet there would be problems involved. We'd probably kill all the birds on the planet and use all the easily mined metal on the planet. Plus it would cost countless trillions of dollars. All that for what? 25% of our current energy consumption.
For a comparison a nuclear plant makes 8GWh each. So we would need 500 nuclear power plants to have the equivalent power production of covering the entire planet with windmills. Giving a cost per MWh thousands of times less.
The idea that windmills even get mentioned is embarrassing. Put the biggest windmills we can make in the top 2~3% windiest places in the world and be done with it.
People that complain about Gnome bloat.... are probably not the same people that drive SUVs an hour to work. I think techies do or are at least more likely to live a more efficient lifestyle.
Slashdot Mirror
True but that results in massive cost increases. Being able to build something MONSTROUS in the middle of nowhere is good. You can angle them to catch light better. Centralizing gives energy savings. And you can buy panels cheaper in bulk. And building in thousands of locations that must be individually repaired raises cost again. Until they are reliable enough that they only need repairing as often or less than the shingles on your roof it wont be viable on a massive scale. (Don't get me wrong I helped a friend install one last summer and on an individual basis it can make great sense!)
Every time info gets stolen. It's the reds, those commy bastards! Can we please move on its been 20 years. Honestly it could have been one or some of millions of people. Why are we pointing our finger at someone with out even anything pointing to them. There aren't even leads never mind proof. Come on /. I thought we were better than this...
On second thought I didn't but still come onnnnnn...
I like to think of it like social darwinism at work. Religions that like small families and abhor sex or enforce condom usage would die out. From a spiritual pov being 'clean' would mean not having sex at all but that doesn't really work out since you wouldn't get new members. Religions like Catholicism thrive because they push for people having large families.
Uhhh walmart made 405Billion dollars last year. Unless you just assume all the stuff the catholic church owns are priceless you are way off. They have the most wealth that is not producing maybe. But that is like seeing a guy smoking weed out of a 100$ bill and assuming he's richer than the guy with a 500$ car from 1988.
Not that I don't appreciate all the art, I frigging loved my trip to Rome and taking a tour of the vatican you definately get the feeling that they have more culture and art than most countries. I saw more art and culture in 3hours inside the vatican than I most people see over 5 maybe 10 years in North America.
You realize Europe is bigger than the US?
...o...k...
Working far away from work is a stupid decision that is WHAT we are jabbing you for. Being wasteful ~___~.
A: Hey you sure are fat.
B: That's only because I eat a lot. If you were a pig you'd be fat too.
A:
We were talking about nameplate watts so either you are confused or disingenuous.
Oh and I'd never think I was being attacked. No one writes something so eloquent and well thought out if they just want to troll. On the contrary I'm honoured you thought I was worth your time.
I don't think in-line upgrades for wind farms are feasible either. Since the 'plant' is broken into 50~100+ windmills any upgrade would need to be applied to ALL of these (excluding possible storage?). That would make the cost as prohibitive as upgrading a nuclear plant. (I don't think it will get upgraded more than minor improvements). Perhaps windmills that break can be replaced with better ones though.
I wasn't referring to IFR. I was thinking of CANDU reactors or actually recycling it in a plant (reprocessing). Both of which are being done today.
I do think Uranium prices will increase but reusing fuel will be viable for a long time. As well currently uranium accounts for like 5~10% of the cost of nuclear power. Even if the cost of Uranium triples it wouldn't be devastating.
I believe much of the research funding is going towards fusion which is a revolutionary increase. I believe solar power research should be increased. And I think the market is doing that for us. But windpower if completely lossless (something physically impossible) would not be worth it on a big scale. The amount of energy AVAILABLE per square km is not worth covering that land with windmills. It hardly matters how much you put into the tech you can't make it windier.
You ignore the waste caused storing the energy during windy periods for not windy periods. Also for wind power equivalent to the nuclear plant that is a 14,000acre area of land you are giving up. (Around the size of Manhattan). The nuclear plant would likely take 3~4% of the land. And windfarms are noisy and ugly (so are nuclear plants but they aren't 80m tall. Also if you try to build outside of a class 1 wind zone your prices will double or worse. And if you want to spread those towers out more so you dont lose a 60km^2 chunk you will end losing more again because of efficiency loss. Also to meet US' current energy needs you would need to cover an area 50% bigger than New York .... the STATE.
Or how about coal plants killing thousands and thousands of people a year. No one sues them. Its too hard to prove. Though that would be a good way to get the us to switch to nuclear.
Only 40% eh? even with that number you picked out of a hat. Solar power is generally not put in the city So it will suffer the same loss. And the sun is clearly not going to max the panels 24/7 so they might get 30% of their nameplate value BEFORE shipping. Wind similarly gets about 30% of its advertised amount before it even gets transported. Nuclear gets over 90~95% of its nameplate value.
Don't use once through designs. Or get the waste recycled. The only reason we aren't right now is because why bother? Fresh uranium costs pennies. We could reprocess and reuse the spent fuel no problem.
"All you need are good soundproof walls"
I think the yard thing can be easily fixed. Communal yards work for most people. It gives you enough space (assuming the block is large enough) to do w/e you want. Have the contents designed/preplanned like a combination garden/park. There will be enough private spots that you can go and eat or tan or talk with friends. Something divided by hedges or something prettier. Not ALL the neighbors will go out at the same time so you basically get a bigger yard. The downside is that you don't get to do much with the yard yourself. Many Americans (if king of the hill has taught me anything) take pride in their lawns and gardens. Maybe a small section behind each house to plant what you like (1m deep or so).
Parking seems to work fine in most rowhouses I've been to I guess you just had bad luck.
The window thing does suck but can mostly be overcome with good design and skylights.
With good sound insulation comes heat insulation so that issue is moot. Though come on that is a pretty friggin' petty thing to fight about.
Again pettiness ruins it. I think the whole thing would have to be planned more like a low to the ground apartment building rather than townhouses. They would pick the colour before you moved in. They would also be able to centralize decision making and bill paying. This would let you get good deals by pooling resources.
I agree. I don't think it is a completely fair comparison vs the US. BUT i doubt that makes up for the difference, it is a pretty big gap.
I never understood why we don't use rowhouses. We could even keep our block system. It would turn our backyards into a roman style courtyard... Maybe its because our entertainment level isn't high enough or we don't get a regular supply of furniture. In any case rowhouses are efficient and cool. All you need are good soundproof walls and a design that optimizes the sunlight you miss out on. Plus utilities people would love it. Lots easier running things through basement than it is running a main line to each house. You could even share hot water (1 big one every other house?). And you could probably use industrial AC.... It'd be like a 2 story condo building.
There are indie/free only sites out there if that is your preference. I think all in all you are just being idealistic :P You can't think for people.
An idea for you though. There is a lot of code out there for 'also recommended'/'you might like' suggestions. You could modify this pretty easily to give only free/indie songs. Or better yet. Set it so that it puts free songs first followed by a little break and then the other songs. I bet if you fought for it this could get implemented someplace maybe amarok? Honestly remake another topic about doing that and you will probably get some supporters.
Oh and I posted elsewhere in this thread more clearly/less flameingly laying out my thoughts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_resources_and_consumption#cite_note-EIA-0
I guess stanford missed some uses of electricity or something. It still doesn't matter. I know many of my figures were off. But not by enough for it to matter. Ignoring everything in my last post. Here is how it is:
Electricity produced by wind is expensive REALLY expensive when you ignore the government funds. It is also ugly, takes up land (or water but that makes it REALLY REALLY expensive). And as we fill in the windiest places in the world it will become MORE expensive. Even if we increase efficiency and drop costs it will be much more expensive than the alternatives. Wind power does have a place. But not over more than a small portion of the earth's surface. What set me off was this article.
The idea is for everyone to put a windmill on their roof. The idea is: Dangerous. It is inefficient since they are low to the ground. Inefficient since they are close together. Inefficient because they have small blades. Prohibitively expensive to install, Prohibitively expensive to maintain. Horrendously ugly. Will kill all birds in the area.
I want to do the calculations to see if you had solar panels on your roof already would this gain or lose you electricity by shading some of the panels.
Oh and the depressing statistic is cars.
Dutch use 339L/person/year (2000)
http://earthtrends.wri.org/pdf_library/country_profiles/ene_cou_528.pdf
US use 1672L/person/year (2002) http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_prim_dcu_nus_a.htm
Around 5x as much gas used yay.
Sorry, how rude of me.
www.allianceforwaterefficiency.org/WorkArea/linkit.aspx?LinkIdentifier=id&ItemID=2538
Source being the IEA. The figures are based on 1998 data.
Jetstreams aren't feasible sources of energy. Building flying powerplants... just seems like a pretty obvious bad idea. And I think solar power is a good idea. I just think nuclear is a better idea for RIGHT NOW. 20~30years from now solar will probably be the way to go. But wind power is an expensive waste of time.
Probably not. So? 100 years is a LONG time. 100years ago we only had coal power. 100years before that we didn't have the lightbulb. Also I think that number is pretty frivolous. Nuclear reactors will get more efficient. They will be able to reuse their waste (already have that tech). And we will be able to find much more in the ground. Uranium is more common than tin. If there is a demand I'm sure we'll find more. Enough to last 150years I'm sure. By then we will have something way better. Gimping what is effective now for something that may happen in 100+ years from now is silly.
Uhhh I know you think you have it the worst but when it comes to costs.
heating > cooling
4% a year return rate on a machine that must function and is costly to repair. And that is WITH government funding your project. That means it will probably result in a return of -4% a year. That doesn't invalidate your point about the investment vs the economy... but still.
It doesn't matter. At this rate if you spread them out further you would have to cover more land than the country has. Wind power has always been a complete waste of time (even if these numbers are silly).
If we harvested ALL the wind of the entire planet at 100% efficiency. It would only produce 72TW. Unfortunately we can't come remotely close to 100% assuming we can get the energy of 5% of all the moving air... That is 3.5TW. (Global consumption NOW is 15TW). That power is also intermittent which means we need to store it meaning more loss. Not to mention if we covered the entire planet there would be problems involved. We'd probably kill all the birds on the planet and use all the easily mined metal on the planet. Plus it would cost countless trillions of dollars. All that for what? 25% of our current energy consumption.
For a comparison a nuclear plant makes 8GWh each. So we would need 500 nuclear power plants to have the equivalent power production of covering the entire planet with windmills. Giving a cost per MWh thousands of times less.
The idea that windmills even get mentioned is embarrassing. Put the biggest windmills we can make in the top 2~3% windiest places in the world and be done with it.
People that complain about Gnome bloat.... are probably not the same people that drive SUVs an hour to work. I think techies do or are at least more likely to live a more efficient lifestyle.
I was curious (in kWh):
Dutch: 6310
USA: 13,388