INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: Parts on June 29, 2008, 05:14:49 PM
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We have an add on tv around here about how if we replace "just" 20% of all vehicles with hybrids we would save so much in CO2 emissions. I am not against replacing cars but they never seem to take into consideration the energy and resources that go into building the cars :-\ Hybrids are nice and if you need a new car go for it but there are so many things that have a lot less impact on the environment than this. Just turning off lights for one. How about all those lights in cities, how many lights does the car dealership need on at 2am Sunday night? If you want to argue security put them on motion sensors. Most house I look at have almost no insulation in them but they will go out and buy all kinds of green shit that is green only in name but not want to spend where it counts. I could go on forever on different wasteful things I see everyday that have simple solutions that are indeed green in name and practice. :soapbox:
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We have an add on tv around here about how if we replace "just" 20% of all vehicles with hybrids we would save so much in CO2 emissions. I am not against replacing cars but they never seem to take into consideration the energy and resources that go into building the cars :-\ Hybrids are nice and if you need a new car go for it but there are so many things that have a lot less impact on the environment than this. Just turning off lights for one. How about all those lights in cities, how many lights does the car dealership need on at 2am Sunday night? If you want to argue security put them on motion sensors. Most house I look at have almost no insulation in them but they will go out and buy all kinds of green shit that is green only in name but not want to spend where it counts. I could go on forever on different wasteful things I see everyday that have simple solutions that are indeed green in name and practice. :soapbox:
I like the ones who pull out all their carpet and padding, even though it's in perfectly good condition, siding and roofing off their houses and replace it with some advertised, high fashion "green alternative" and send all that old carpet, padding, siding, shingles etc to the dump.
Oh yeah, that helps.
Fucking idiots!
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if the morons would just stay home the problem would be solved.
Like level the Post Mall for starters and all the movie houses and anything else that attracts crowds should be taxed out of business.
vermont is full a stupid morons, biggest bunch of whiners about GREEN shit and the state runs an SUV convention all winter called the skiing industry.
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Well they are gonna keep building new cars every fucking year anyway. Might as well be green cars if the buying public demands it.
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Well they are gonna keep building new cars every fucking year anyway. Might as well be green cars if the buying public demands it.
Yes I agree but think of ll the waste in just scraping a car that is only a few years old and the energy used to create a new one. You start getting in to true environmental cost in the long run rather that instant gratification. Yes, they will continue making cars and they should be greener cars but it should not be done at the expense of the envirorment
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The technology is still in its infancy. If there is no demand for more hybrid cars, then there is no revenue for auto companies to improve it's technology.
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We have an add on tv around here about how if we replace "just" 20% of all vehicles with hybrids we would save so much in CO2 emissions. I am not against replacing cars but they never seem to take into consideration the energy and resources that go into building the cars :-\ Hybrids are nice and if you need a new car go for it but there are so many things that have a lot less impact on the environment than this. Just turning off lights for one. How about all those lights in cities, how many lights does the car dealership need on at 2am Sunday night? If you want to argue security put them on motion sensors. Most house I look at have almost no insulation in them but they will go out and buy all kinds of green shit that is green only in name but not want to spend where it counts. I could go on forever on different wasteful things I see everyday that have simple solutions that are indeed green in name and practice. :soapbox:
There is an obvious solution for the medium term, nuclear power plants. Unfortunately there is a lot of opposition to them from the so called green lobby...
On a slightly different note, this might interest you. I intend to get my hands on this guys book when i get a chance...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/
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The technology is still in its infancy. If there is no demand for more hybrid cars, then there is no revenue for auto companies to improve it's technology.
There is plenty of demand already and new cars should be green but think about how you said the industry is in it's infancy and the advances that could be made in just a few years. Now think about how much energy goes into making a car production should continue but replacing so many cars right now would lock all those people into todays tech. By replacing them as needed you get the best of both world full use of the energy that was used to produce the current cars and tech improvement as the industry grows
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We have an add on tv around here about how if we replace "just" 20% of all vehicles with hybrids we would save so much in CO2 emissions. I am not against replacing cars but they never seem to take into consideration the energy and resources that go into building the cars :-\ Hybrids are nice and if you need a new car go for it but there are so many things that have a lot less impact on the environment than this. Just turning off lights for one. How about all those lights in cities, how many lights does the car dealership need on at 2am Sunday night? If you want to argue security put them on motion sensors. Most house I look at have almost no insulation in them but they will go out and buy all kinds of green shit that is green only in name but not want to spend where it counts. I could go on forever on different wasteful things I see everyday that have simple solutions that are indeed green in name and practice. :soapbox:
There is an obvious solution for the medium term, nuclear power plants. Unfortunately there is a lot of opposition to them from the so called green lobby...
On a slightly different note, this might interest you. I intend to get my hands on this guys book when i get a chance...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/20/mackay_on_carbon_free_uk/
No time now but will look later..
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We have an add on tv around here about how if we replace "just" 20% of all vehicles with hybrids we would save so much in CO2 emissions. I am not against replacing cars but they never seem to take into consideration the energy and resources that go into building the cars :-\ Hybrids are nice and if you need a new car go for it but there are so many things that have a lot less impact on the environment than this. Just turning off lights for one. How about all those lights in cities, how many lights does the car dealership need on at 2am Sunday night? If you want to argue security put them on motion sensors. Most house I look at have almost no insulation in them but they will go out and buy all kinds of green shit that is green only in name but not want to spend where it counts. I could go on forever on different wasteful things I see everyday that have simple solutions that are indeed green in name and practice. :soapbox:
Hybrids suck, the fuel savings are not all that great (similar sized diesel vehicles do actually better, say a VW Golf Diesel vs a Toyota Pirus), plus those batteries are really expensive to replace and not to mention the environmental damage which is caused by the mining for minerals needed to building those batteries.
I really think diesel is the wave of the future, we can develop algae and other microorganisms which can be grown to produce biodiesel. They would feed off agricultural waste, coal fired power station emissions, sewage, trash etc. Algae can also be farmed as well, including areas like the sea and deserts. Plenty of farmers doing it tough for various reasons can become farmers of algae. The whole producing biodiesel process can be carbon negative and plus we get to bankrupt countries like Saudi Arabia. :green:
Diesel engines have come a lot way and Audi recently won the Le Mans 24 hour race in a diesel powered car. In Europe 50% of new car sales are diesel now.
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I think the whole issue is shit because everyone is being conned by these groups that need money for their pissy little projects, like solar energy and other crap. There are only two forms of reliable energy, coal fired and nuclear. Solar is unreliable becuase you need these huge fucking panels to collect the heat, and most of it is lost in the transfer to the batteries. Wind farms are pretty much the same, because you would need a shitload of turbines to get a small amount of power. The coal will never run out, because with vulcanization and compression, coal is being produced all the time, and regardless what those fucktards say, there is enough oil and coal left to last for approximately the next 500 years. Nuclear fusion energy is cleaner, but seeing as nobody has done the research on it, and everybody thinks that anyone with uranium is planning WW3, no-one want to try it. Ethanol could be a good alternative for petrol, given that most cars ran on it back in the 1930s and 40s. It wasn't until the car companies changed their engines and the fuel companies changed their fuel around the time of the petrol crisis in the 70s that everybody became totally petrol reliant. LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) is half the price of unleaded petrol, but not many people have the sense to convert. Sure, we are running a bit low with water, but it's cyclical, and this global warming crap is a scare campaign by idiots who know fuck all about historical weather patterns. So I think we have a long way to go yet before we have to worry. What we can do, is to clean up the pollution in the streets by getting rid of the litter and Stop upgrading things just for the sake of fashion.
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I think biofuels are where we have to go. Although, if the US would stop using corn to make ethanol, things would be much better. Brazil is energy independent, they use ethanol made from sugarcane which is twice as efficient as corn.
The problem that I see with most people is that they try to come up with one energy system to replace coal, which just doesn't make sense. Of course solar power is going to suck in Scotland... although you might be able to use wind. Wind might suck in Arizona, but solar would work awesome. There's also Stirling engines which are much more efficient than photovoltaics. Hydrogen power is mostly bullshit. You're gaining some efficiency but mostly just moving the pollution upstream. It's not going to be a single solution like coal is. Coal is cheap, and until it becomes expensive, people are going to use it.
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I think biofuels are where we have to go. Although, if the US would stop using corn to make ethanol, things would be much better. Brazil is energy independent, they use ethanol made from sugarcane which is twice as efficient as corn.
Bad move, Biofuels harm the developing world by increasing food prices, meaning that people cannot afford to eat.
The problem that I see with most people is that they try to come up with one energy system to replace coal, which just doesn't make sense. Of course solar power is going to suck in Scotland... although you might be able to use wind. Wind might suck in Arizona, but solar would work awesome. There's also Stirling engines which are much more efficient than photovoltaics. Hydrogen power is mostly bullshit. You're gaining some efficiency but mostly just moving the pollution upstream. It's not going to be a single solution like coal is. Coal is cheap, and until it becomes expensive, people are going to use it.
Hydrogen would work very well when combined with Nuclear Fission, though 500 years down the line we would be back in the fossil fuel situation with Uranium, unless of course Fusion is made to work.
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We have an add on tv around here about how if we replace "just" 20% of all vehicles with hybrids we would save so much in CO2 emissions. I am not against replacing cars but they never seem to take into consideration the energy and resources that go into building the cars :-\ Hybrids are nice and if you need a new car go for it but there are so many things that have a lot less impact on the environment than this. Just turning off lights for one. How about all those lights in cities, how many lights does the car dealership need on at 2am Sunday night? If you want to argue security put them on motion sensors. Most house I look at have almost no insulation in them but they will go out and buy all kinds of green shit that is green only in name but not want to spend where it counts. I could go on forever on different wasteful things I see everyday that have simple solutions that are indeed green in name and practice. :soapbox:
Hybrids suck, the fuel savings are not all that great (similar sized diesel vehicles do actually better, say a VW Golf Diesel vs a Toyota Pirus), plus those batteries are really expensive to replace and not to mention the environmental damage which is caused by the mining for minerals needed to building those batteries.
I really think diesel is the wave of the future, we can develop algae and other microorganisms which can be grown to produce biodiesel. They would feed off agricultural waste, coal fired power station emissions, sewage, trash etc. Algae can also be farmed as well, including areas like the sea and deserts. Plenty of farmers doing it tough for various reasons can become farmers of algae. The whole producing biodiesel process can be carbon negative and plus we get to bankrupt countries like Saudi Arabia. :green:
Diesel engines have come a lot way and Audi recently won the Le Mans 24 hour race in a diesel powered car. In Europe 50% of new car sales are diesel now.
Diesels are horrible polluters and most of the batteries from hybrids are from recycled nickel anyway. It's only a matter of time before we use Li-Ion batteries, which are more efficient and have less of an environmental impact.
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Li-Ion batteries batteries have there draw backs also, ever throw one in a fire :o. Fire fighters will have to get more training in fighting metal fires but I think this is the way it will go
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Li-Ion batteries batteries have there draw backs also, ever throw one in a fire :o. Fire fighters will have to get more training in fighting metal fires but I think this is the way it will go
That is one of the reasons they haven't been implemented yet, in addition to the current cost.
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I think biofuels are where we have to go. Although, if the US would stop using corn to make ethanol, things would be much better. Brazil is energy independent, they use ethanol made from sugarcane which is twice as efficient as corn.
The problem that I see with most people is that they try to come up with one energy system to replace coal, which just doesn't make sense. Of course solar power is going to suck in Scotland... although you might be able to use wind. Wind might suck in Arizona, but solar would work awesome. There's also Stirling engines which are much more efficient than photovoltaics. Hydrogen power is mostly bullshit. You're gaining some efficiency but mostly just moving the pollution upstream. It's not going to be a single solution like coal is. Coal is cheap, and until it becomes expensive, people are going to use it.
If the government were offering a huge prize for somebody to invent vastly more efficient batteries, wind and especially solar power would become quite feasible. Batteries with huge store capacities can store energy produced by such power plants when it is sunny or windy and provide an even flow of power from the stations regardless of the weather.
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I think biofuels are where we have to go. Although, if the US would stop using corn to make ethanol, things would be much better. Brazil is energy independent, they use ethanol made from sugarcane which is twice as efficient as corn.
The problem that I see with most people is that they try to come up with one energy system to replace coal, which just doesn't make sense. Of course solar power is going to suck in Scotland... although you might be able to use wind. Wind might suck in Arizona, but solar would work awesome. There's also Stirling engines which are much more efficient than photovoltaics. Hydrogen power is mostly bullshit. You're gaining some efficiency but mostly just moving the pollution upstream. It's not going to be a single solution like coal is. Coal is cheap, and until it becomes expensive, people are going to use it.
If the government were offering a huge prize for somebody to invent vastly more efficient batteries, wind and especially solar power would become quite feasible. Batteries with huge store capacities can store energy produced by such power plants when it is sunny or windy and provide an even flow of power from the stations regardless of the weather.
Nuclear fusion is by far the more realistic prospect. Lots of money is spent of battery research currently as it is, and they have little chance in making the quantum leap needed. Realistically the only way you could store that amount of energy is convert into fuel and burn it back off again, for example hydrogen. Of course its still rather inefficient, but more feasible than hydrogen...
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I think the whole issue is shit because everyone is being conned by these groups that need money for their pissy little projects, like solar energy and other crap. There are only two forms of reliable energy, coal fired and nuclear. Solar is unreliable becuase you need these huge fucking panels to collect the heat, and most of it is lost in the transfer to the batteries. Wind farms are pretty much the same, because you would need a shitload of turbines to get a small amount of power. The coal will never run out, because with vulcanization and compression, coal is being produced all the time, and regardless what those fucktards say, there is enough oil and coal left to last for approximately the next 500 years. Nuclear fusion energy is cleaner, but seeing as nobody has done the research on it, and everybody thinks that anyone with uranium is planning WW3, no-one want to try it. Ethanol could be a good alternative for petrol, given that most cars ran on it back in the 1930s and 40s. It wasn't until the car companies changed their engines and the fuel companies changed their fuel around the time of the petrol crisis in the 70s that everybody became totally petrol reliant. LPG (Liquid Petroleum Gas) is half the price of unleaded petrol, but not many people have the sense to convert. Sure, we are running a bit low with water, but it's cyclical, and this global warming crap is a scare campaign by idiots who know fuck all about historical weather patterns. So I think we have a long way to go yet before we have to worry. What we can do, is to clean up the pollution in the streets by getting rid of the litter and Stop upgrading things just for the sake of fashion.
I think that solar energy works pretty well if you understand how to make effective use of it. Solar calculators work pretty well and many people make effective use of passive solar energy to heat their homes
Wind energy actually works great here. Here, in some cases, it is more cost-effective than the alternative, except that the power company charged more when wind energy became cheaper because of an idea that people who opt for wind energy actually want to pay more rather than pay the actual cost.
I wonder if you realize how much power is generated by a single turbine on a wind farm? Those turbines are gigantic! It is an oversized load for a trailer to carry just one of the three turbine blades. They don't look so big way up in the air.
(http://www.windstar.org/eMagazines/eMagazine43/PonnequinSunset.jpg)
(http://www.solutions-site.org/artman/uploads/turbine_row_051207.jpg)
The 165-MW Colorado Green Wind Farm, Prowers County, Colorado Photo: American Wind Energy Association
(http://www.solutions-site.org/artman/uploads/somerset_pennsylvania_wind_turbines_051207.jpg)
Somerset Wind Farm, Somerset, Pennsylvania Each turbine has a generating capacity of 1.5-megawatts and generates on average enough electricity to serve the equivalent of 400 homes or more. Photo: American Wind Energy Association
Here is a turbine blade on a trailer:
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I had no idea the turbine blades were that big, having only seen them from a distance. We have some wind farms here, this one in Albany:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/2320842064_36a17777f6.jpg)
They should definitely make more wind farms here because if there is one thing we have a lot of, it is wind. ;)
Green energy is more expensive here as well. If I could afford it, I would have it.
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I thought this thread was going to be about people with an iron deficency.
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I thought this thread was going to be about people with an iron deficency.
Charming
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I had no idea the turbine blades were that big, having only seen them from a distance. We have some wind farms here, this one in Albany:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3081/2320842064_36a17777f6.jpg)
They should definitely make more wind farms here because if there is one thing we have a lot of, it is wind. ;)
Green energy is more expensive here as well. If I could afford it, I would have it.
This is the case against them: :P
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuK7YFhqwWY
All you need is the brakes to fail, and BOOM!
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
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It went to fast. There should be control over the pitch of the rotor to slow it in high wind it apparently failed
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
Basically if the brakes fail on any wind turbine then they spin too fast and self destruct. Somehow I remain convinced the nukes are a tad safer...
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
Basically if the brakes fail on any wind turbine then they spin too fast and self destruct. Somehow I remain convinced the nukes are a tad safer...
Wind turbines are as about as safe as anything else man made nukes too if made correctly and maintained properly. Wind turbine failure would not really affect you unless you where really close though
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
Basically if the brakes fail on any wind turbine then they spin too fast and self destruct. Somehow I remain convinced the nukes are a tad safer...
That is the worst argument I've ever heard. Are you fucking retarded?
What about nuclear waste that has to be isolated for hundreds of thousands of years, the possibility of a meltdown, the release of radio active material? How many people have been killed by wind turbines? How many birth defects have been caused by meltdowns at a wind farm? How many cities have had to be abandoned because of wind energy?
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
Basically if the brakes fail on any wind turbine then they spin too fast and self destruct. Somehow I remain convinced the nukes are a tad safer...
I dunno, compare say Chernobyl to a wind turbine failing and self destructing. Tell me again why nukes are a tad safer?
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
Basically if the brakes fail on any wind turbine then they spin too fast and self destruct. Somehow I remain convinced the nukes are a tad safer...
::)
What about Windscale in the UK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7030281.stm), Three Mile Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident), Santa Susana Field Lab in California (http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00003&segmentID=1) or Chernobyl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)?
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What happened? Did someone run into it with a car?
Basically if the brakes fail on any wind turbine then they spin too fast and self destruct. Somehow I remain convinced the nukes are a tad safer...
::)
What about Windscale in the UK (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7030281.stm), Three Mile Island (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident), Santa Susana Field Lab in California (http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=06-P13-00003&segmentID=1) or Chernobyl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster)?
Windscale happened while developing the technology, and does not reflect on a modern reactor today. In fact the reactor was designed to help build an atomic bomb.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/10/09/scinuke109.xml
Santa Susana was also 50 years ago, so I think we can discount that one too.
In Three Mile Island the nuclear pumps went, again something that would not happen in a modern nuclear reactor with ill effects (they are designed now to be fail safe in that respect).
Chernobyl was down to total Russian incompetence, and poor reactor design (they used the RBMK).
I would be far more worried myself about all the nuclear weapons floating around, those could cause some real damage if they accidentally got set off. But again that has never happened. As long as they don't let total prats run or build a nuclear reactor, then we are fine.
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Anything man made made can fuck up just some things affect lot lot more territory than their immediate area. Wind turbines are in my option perfectly safe. Though in my opinion they should start building nuclear plants in the US again technology has come some way since the accidents and properly built and maintained ones should be no problem
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
As would I but in a practical sense I just don't think you could have enough in many areas
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Yes, because parachuting is a completely safe activity that usually has no accident or fatalities.
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When can we have this instead?
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Yes, because parachuting is a completely safe activity that usually has no accident or fatalities.
Its safer than driving your car if you are not a prat. Most of the fatalities are suicides or people not following instructions.
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Yes, because parachuting is a completely safe activity that usually has no accident or fatalities.
Its safer than driving your car if you are not a prat. Most of the fatalities are suicides or people not following instructions.
Yes, but that can be said of pretty much any technology or activity. Which is my point.
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Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Well I don't have access to the top of your head....
When can we have this instead?
A few ZPMs would be good. :)
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Yes, because parachuting is a completely safe activity that usually has no accident or fatalities.
Its safer than driving your car if you are not a prat. Most of the fatalities are suicides or people not following instructions.
Yes, but that can be said of pretty much any technology or activity. Which is my point.
Would you drive your car if it exploded when the brakes failed? When these turbines get a few years old, or heaven forbid we get microgeneration everywhere, they are going to become a real hazard.
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Would you drive your car if it exploded when the brakes failed? When these turbines get a few years old, or heaven forbid we get microgeneration everywhere, they are going to become a real hazard.
There are benefits and risks in almost anything, Hadron.
Would you continue jumping out of perfectly good airplanes if there was a good chance that you could die?
26 people have died doing that in 2008, so far.
61 people died doing that in 2007.
60 people died doing that in 2006.
61 people died doing that in 2005.
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/index.shtml
Do you propose that everyone stop skydiving?
What about driving a car?
There were 38,588 fatal motor vehicle crashes in 2006 in the US alone, with 42,642 fatalities.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Do you propose that everyone stop driving?
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Yes, because parachuting is a completely safe activity that usually has no accident or fatalities.
Its safer than driving your car if you are not a prat. Most of the fatalities are suicides or people not following instructions.
Yes, but that can be said of pretty much any technology or activity. Which is my point.
Would you drive your car if it exploded when the brakes failed? When these turbines get a few years old, or heaven forbid we get microgeneration everywhere, they are going to become a real hazard.
Oh you mean like Hollywood cars? Yeah why not. Perhaps then more people would take road safety seriously.
The problem I have with your arguement is that you are comparing a well maintained nuclear reactor with a poorly, if not at all, maintain wind turbine.
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Would you drive your car if it exploded when the brakes failed? When these turbines get a few years old, or heaven forbid we get microgeneration everywhere, they are going to become a real hazard.
There are benefits and risks in almost anything, Hadron.
Would you continue jumping out of perfectly good airplanes if there was a good chance that you could die?
26 people have died doing that in 2008, so far.
61 people died doing that in 2007.
60 people died doing that in 2006.
61 people died doing that in 2005.
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/index.shtml
Do you propose that everyone stop skydiving?
What about driving a car?
There were 38,588 fatal motor vehicle crashes in 2006 in the US alone, with 42,642 fatalities.
http://www-fars.nhtsa.dot.gov/Main/index.aspx
Do you propose that everyone stop driving?
The difference is you have the choice to get into a plane, car or whatever. You don't have a choice if someone puts a wind turbine next to your house. Plus with both cars and parachutes you have several fail-safes, with a wind turbine if the brakes go, it explodes, simple as. I certainly would be uneasy if I had to walk past a few wind turbines whenever I go for a walk.
Mind, I think driving and parachuting could both be a lot safer mind. Though the general rule with both is that you are safe if you dont be a prat.
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Even if you chose not to go in a car you still have to worry about them hitting you
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I would prefer wind turbines anyday.
The wind turbines are set up in a clear area. Not like there are loads of people are around. I can't find anywhere where it is written that wind turbines have killed people.
O really?
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2720796920070828
Also someone died while parachuting because they got lost and had to do a low turn to avoid it
http://www.dropzone.com/fatalities/Detailed/28.shtml
Thats two I could find off the top of my head...
Yes, because parachuting is a completely safe activity that usually has no accident or fatalities.
Its safer than driving your car if you are not a prat. Most of the fatalities are suicides or people not following instructions.
Yes, but that can be said of pretty much any technology or activity. Which is my point.
Would you drive your car if it exploded when the brakes failed? When these turbines get a few years old, or heaven forbid we get microgeneration everywhere, they are going to become a real hazard.
Oh you mean like Hollywood cars? Yeah why not. Perhaps then more people would take road safety seriously.
The problem I have with your arguement is that you are comparing a well maintained nuclear reactor with a poorly, if not at all, maintain wind turbine.
Lol, the only problem is that cars blowing up on their own accord has nothing to do with driver incompetence.
In practise wind turbines are going to be less well maintained than a nuclear reactor (simply because nukes have people on site 24-7, where as a turbine might get a monthly inspection if you are lucky. If they become on people houses, in practise you would get inspections every 18 months at best. The other things is that modern nukes are fail safe, they shut down automatically if anything goes wrong, and the designs do not require active input to shut them down. Wind turbines don't have that failsafe.
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Even if you chose not to go in a car you still have to worry about them hitting you
I would be a lot more worried about getting stabbed myself. Actually we worked out everytime I go skydiving its more dangerous for me to get there than to actually do the jump.
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I'd be all for wind turbine plants if they could generate anything close to a gigawatt of power.
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I'd be all for wind turbine plants if they could generate anything close to a gigawatt of power.
A big enough wind farm could generate that. The main flaw is you cannot guarantee the amount of power they will produce. The micro-generation ones people are putting on their houses are the most pointless though, they don't even manage 20W on average.
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I'd be all for wind turbine plants if they could generate anything close to a gigawatt of power.
Currently the UK (http://www.bwea.com/ukwed/) has 2033 wind turbines producing a total of 2.546 gigawatts, which is sufficient to power 1,424,027 homes. Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany#Installed_capacity_growth) generates 22.247 gigawatts through wind power using around 18,000 turbines and Spain produces 15.145 gigawatts. The latest and largest wind turbine designs can produce 5MW per turbine, and Germany is currently replacing older model turbines with these larger versions.
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The difference is you have the choice to get into a plane, car or whatever. You don't have a choice if someone puts a wind turbine next to your house. Plus with both cars and parachutes you have several fail-safes, with a wind turbine if the brakes go, it explodes, simple as. I certainly would be uneasy if I had to walk past a few wind turbines whenever I go for a walk.
Mind, I think driving and parachuting could both be a lot safer mind. Though the general rule with both is that you are safe if you dont be a prat.
They only disintegrate (not explode) if the brakes fail during exceptionally high wind conditions; the sort of wind conditions in which falling trees and roof tiles would make it hazardous to be outside anyway. They won't randomly spray you with shrapnel on a normal breezy day like time bombs waiting to go off, and if the brakes fail during a gale or hurricane, you'll have plenty of warning from the sound the blades make as they spin up beyond their design speeds and the obvious visual effect of fast moving blades; failure isn't instantaneous as the blades have substantial mass which takes time and energy to accelerate and the structural materials are flexible and can absorb energy before failing.
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A big enough wind farm could generate that. The main flaw is you cannot guarantee the amount of power they will produce.
Energy can be stored and moved around, and different energy generation technologies can be combined to even out the variation in the production of each one. A common way of storing energy is to pump water into an elevated reservoir when excess power is available and then to drain the water into a lower reservoir through a turbine to generate power when it's needed. Another common method is in large flywheels which operate in vacuum cases on magnetic bearings and store energy in their angular momentum. The flywheels are spun up when excess energy is available and the process is reversed to extract the energy when it's needed. With moving energy around, an area with an energy surplus can power an area with an energy deficit, so even if there's no wind in one region for a while, another region that does have wind can export their surplus through those wonderful cables that are strung between those pylon thingies we see all over the place.
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The difference is you have the choice to get into a plane, car or whatever. You don't have a choice if someone puts a wind turbine next to your house. Plus with both cars and parachutes you have several fail-safes, with a wind turbine if the brakes go, it explodes, simple as. I certainly would be uneasy if I had to walk past a few wind turbines whenever I go for a walk.
Mind, I think driving and parachuting could both be a lot safer mind. Though the general rule with both is that you are safe if you dont be a prat.
They only disintegrate (not explode) if the brakes fail during exceptionally high wind conditions; the sort of wind conditions in which falling trees and roof tiles would make it hazardous to be outside anyway. They won't randomly spray you with shrapnel on a normal breezy day like time bombs waiting to go off, and if the brakes fail during a gale or hurricane, you'll have plenty of warning from the sound the blades make as they spin up beyond their design speeds and the obvious visual effect of fast moving blades; failure isn't instantaneous as the blades have substantial mass which takes time and energy to accelerate and the structural materials are flexible and can absorb energy before failing.
Ok, lets say you are on a walk, nice sunny day, a little bit breezy and then the weather suddenly changes. Obviously you have to get home or take shelter. Then you are at risk from the big turbines blowing apart, remember the blades are 100m long. If you are out in the middle of a big farm of them then they can be difficult to avoid. Not to mention that poor weather conditions make them a lot harder to spot, e.g. rain fog and the like...
Though personally I think the smaller ones that people are installing on their roofs are the ones that are going to be the ones we have to worry about. They are going to be be poorly maintained, and there are a lot of them. I could just imagine them being poorly installed and falling on a toddlers head as they go out and play.
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A big enough wind farm could generate that. The main flaw is you cannot guarantee the amount of power they will produce.
Energy can be stored and moved around, and different energy generation technologies can be combined to even out the variation in the production of each one. A common way of storing energy is to pump water into an elevated reservoir when excess power is available and then to drain the water into a lower reservoir through a turbine to generate power when it's needed. Another common method is in large flywheels which operate in vacuum cases on magnetic bearings and store energy in their angular momentum. The flywheels are spun up when excess energy is available and the process is reversed to extract the energy when it's needed. With moving energy around, an area with an energy surplus can power an area with an energy deficit, so even if there's no wind in one region for a while, another region that does have wind can export their surplus through those wonderful cables that are strung between those pylon thingies we see all over the place.
That is a possibility I guess, though the most logical way of solving it would be a hydrogen economy, so when you need the extra power, you have a power plant that you can turn on with a switch. Though of course such a system is going to take longer to set up than building a few nuclear power plants, and will be an awful lot more costly. Bear in mind the deadline in practise to sort out this mess is around 20:20, we should have been building stuff years earlier.
The other thing with all these storage systems is that they tend to waste energy by the bucketload, so you would need a lot more wind turbines to do it. That costs.
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If everyone did everything in the safest possible way, life would be way boring.
Sometimes you need to take a risk.
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A big enough wind farm could generate that. The main flaw is you cannot guarantee the amount of power they will produce.
Energy can be stored and moved around, and different energy generation technologies can be combined to even out the variation in the production of each one. A common way of storing energy is to pump water into an elevated reservoir when excess power is available and then to drain the water into a lower reservoir through a turbine to generate power when it's needed. Another common method is in large flywheels which operate in vacuum cases on magnetic bearings and store energy in their angular momentum. The flywheels are spun up when excess energy is available and the process is reversed to extract the energy when it's needed. With moving energy around, an area with an energy surplus can power an area with an energy deficit, so even if there's no wind in one region for a while, another region that does have wind can export their surplus through those wonderful cables that are strung between those pylon thingies we see all over the place.
That is a possibility I guess, though the most logical way of solving it would be a hydrogen economy, so when you need the extra power, you have a power plant that you can turn on with a switch. Though of course such a system is going to take longer to set up than building a few nuclear power plants, and will be an awful lot more costly. Bear in mind the deadline in practise to sort out this mess is around 20:20, we should have been building stuff years earlier.
The other thing with all these storage systems is that they tend to waste energy by the bucketload, so you would need a lot more wind turbines to do it. That costs.
In what way would hydrogen be an improvement? You need energy to produce the hydrogen in the first place, whether it's hydrocarbons that you crack or electrolysis of water using electricity from coal, nuclear, wind, solar or other sources. Hydrogen in the sense of the 'hydrogen economy' isn't a source of energy; it's just a way of storing energy that you've already produced, and it's not a particularly efficient way of storing energy. Hydrogen is difficult and expensive to store, whereas it's extremely cheap by comparison to have a big-ass water reservoir in some unpopulated upland region, and those reservoirs are needed even with traditional coal and nuclear plants, since the boilers in power stations take hours or days to heat up and can't respond to rapid changes in demand, whereas the flow rate through a water turbine can be quickly adjusted to match demand.
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A big enough wind farm could generate that. The main flaw is you cannot guarantee the amount of power they will produce.
Energy can be stored and moved around, and different energy generation technologies can be combined to even out the variation in the production of each one. A common way of storing energy is to pump water into an elevated reservoir when excess power is available and then to drain the water into a lower reservoir through a turbine to generate power when it's needed. Another common method is in large flywheels which operate in vacuum cases on magnetic bearings and store energy in their angular momentum. The flywheels are spun up when excess energy is available and the process is reversed to extract the energy when it's needed. With moving energy around, an area with an energy surplus can power an area with an energy deficit, so even if there's no wind in one region for a while, another region that does have wind can export their surplus through those wonderful cables that are strung between those pylon thingies we see all over the place.
That is a possibility I guess, though the most logical way of solving it would be a hydrogen economy, so when you need the extra power, you have a power plant that you can turn on with a switch. Though of course such a system is going to take longer to set up than building a few nuclear power plants, and will be an awful lot more costly. Bear in mind the deadline in practise to sort out this mess is around 20:20, we should have been building stuff years earlier.
The other thing with all these storage systems is that they tend to waste energy by the bucketload, so you would need a lot more wind turbines to do it. That costs.
In what way would hydrogen be an improvement? You need energy to produce the hydrogen in the first place, whether it's hydrocarbons that you crack or electrolysis of water using electricity from coal, nuclear, wind, solar or other sources. Hydrogen in the sense of the 'hydrogen economy' isn't a source of energy; it's just a way of storing energy that you've already produced, and it's not a particularly efficient way of storing energy. Hydrogen is difficult and expensive to store, whereas it's extremely cheap by comparison to have a big-ass water reservoir in some unpopulated upland region, and those reservoirs are needed even with traditional coal and nuclear plants, since the boilers in power stations take hours or days to heat up and can't respond to rapid changes in demand, whereas the flow rate through a water turbine can be quickly adjusted to match demand.
Hydrogen you need the energy to produce and store, but once stored you are not losing anymore energy until you need it. There are two easy ways we can store it, either shove it back underground where gas initially was and mined years back, or this: http://www.physorg.com/news98556080.html Also there are simple cycle plants you can turn on in seconds, in a similar manner to a car. Whilst a little inefficient, they are brilliant for emergency supply with peaking demand.
In contrast, all your other suggestions have energy leakage, and are in many cases difficult to build. For example, hydroelectric power there is a limit as to where you can build dams, and they lose quite a lot of potential energy due to evaporation. Flywheels always lose some energy due to damping forces constantly, you have to keep putting energy in to maintain the angular momentum.
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Though personally I think the smaller ones that people are installing on their roofs are the ones that are going to be the ones we have to worry about. They are going to be be poorly maintained, and there are a lot of them. I could just imagine them being poorly installed and falling on a toddlers head as they go out and play.
I know Hadron is not here to answer, but do people really have wind farms on their roofs? I mustn't have read this properly before, but I haven't ever heard of this done even now, since 2008.
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Though personally I think the smaller ones that people are installing on their roofs are the ones that are going to be the ones we have to worry about. They are going to be be poorly maintained, and there are a lot of them. I could just imagine them being poorly installed and falling on a toddlers head as they go out and play.
I know Hadron is not here to answer, but do people really have wind farms on their roofs? I mustn't have read this properly before, but I haven't ever heard of this done even now, since 2008.
Some companies do have smaller windturbines on their roofs. But solar panels are way more common. And they are properly maintained, because it is easy to notice when a panel is not working the way it should.
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Eating licorice jellybeans will give your shit a teal tint from the blue dye. :M
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Thanks, now I can go on with my day.
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Thanks, now I can go on with my day.
They have glitter pills for sparkly poop on eBay. :zoinks:
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Thanks, now I can go on with my day.
They have glitter pills for sparkly poop on eBay. :zoinks:
Wow, I never knew life could be so...erm. :o
It seems people on the internet are mixing up anything and everything for something "different".