Renewable Energy
Comments
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Fair enough, I expect we're talking about a rather early stage in some new technology here so good luck to them.MountainMonster wrote:These are not typical turbines, they are all inclusive boxes which change airflow through them to produce high current from smaller sources, if I understood the basics correctly. Don't ask me the technical details as I have nothing to do with the company, I just know these things are being developed! He tried explaining it to me, but I can't say I understand the technical things in wind power!
The laws of physics dictate that a wind turbine can only ever extract around 60% of the energy from wind, in practice it's a good bit less than this, 20-40% or so, which leaves some room for improvement - but not that much: you'll still need to intercept a lot of wind, i.e. have a very big installation, to get that kind of power output.0 -
EKIMIKE wrote:the playing mantis wrote:
no i think i got it.
it is indisputable that on a planetary level it is a period of warming. so technically global warming is still correct. climate change is also correct, but they have to be mentioned together, the reason being the like of the daily mail cwill claim thios cold march means glbal warming BS, whcih it isnt. its fact. how this overall warming effects locales is the climate change part, disruption of ocean currents, air flows in the atmosphere potentiall etc. (ie we could get colder if the gulf stream is shifted), however a genral trend of warming is evidenced in nature.
Again, 'global warming' is fine if you want to cast a huge generalisation based on a statistical average. True it is a statistical fact. But it is a fact that doesn't hold true for many parts of the globe - making it not particularly useful. 'Climate change' reflects the terrestrial reality not the crude organisation of data by statistical means. I know which one I prefer to give prominence. I know which one I think will disarm the idiot logic of the Daily Mail.
I think it is a misnomer. Statistics are a way of organising data - they should not be used to describe something conclusively. They only ever describe one part of a larger thing. It's about time people stopped focussing on historical data and actually conduct some real-life action. What we need is less climate change scientists and more climate change engineers. After we've done something then by all means go back to reviewing the data to partially evaluate it.
so basically your saying im right?!
or technically right, the best kind of right.
its climate change caused by global warming. shall we just stop there.0 -
Energy from waste plants? We produce a lot of rubbish.0
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the playing mantis wrote:
so basically your saying im right?!
or technically right, the best kind of right.
its climate change caused by global warming. shall we just stop there.
Don't you see, it's not about disputing the cause - it's about best describing what is happening. If you want to be selective and narrow then of course you are correct! (You seem the points scoring type so by all means count it as 1-0 to you - I really couldn't care less
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If you want to use the term 'global warming' then it is only ever sufficient by giving it an accompanying explanation of how it actually affects our climate. Climate change is the optimum term. It's a basis description that requires no qualification - you can't straw man it. Global warming requires appropriate qualification.
Anyway I have a genuine question of curiosity about a post quite a while back but please, can you answer it without treating as a point scoring thing (by all means consider it 2-0 ):
When you said wind energy is inefficient, by what measure(s) is that? Cost inefficient; price (consumer) inefficient; resource inefficient; or simply the physical mechanism for capturing energy is inefficient? I'm genuinely interested.0 -
thus climate change caused by global warming, is a nice succint term that satisfies all of us pedants.
onshore wind is inefficient in all terms, as a reliable electricty generator, in the carbon terms of its production/ transportation methods/maintenance, price ineffcient, as its only viable becuase of gross subsidies from government, and increased bills to you and me.
(awaits someone to attach link opposing the above!)0 -
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To cut to the core, are you guys suggesting this is simply a change on climate due to natural change or solely man made through output ?Living MY dream.0
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no idea. no one can categorically state either way. they can guess with a high degree of conviction, but there is no way of knowing for sure, unless you have a paralell earth under the exact same conditions without human impact and compare the 2 no one will ever be sure.
whether the guess is beyond reasonable doubt is another debate.0 -
That's a completely different debate VTech! Well, i'm certainly not wanting to determine, define or deliberate over the causes. For me, the above was about giving it the right name regardless of the causal distinctions one wishes to make.
To sum up my thoughts on energy I think you need diversity, scale and a greater focus (ie more spending) on engineering solutions rather than scientifically analysing data or creating theoretical climate/resources models - which ultimately identify or speculate on the problems but offer no solutions.
"A little less conversation, a little more action please".0 -
bompington wrote:
Fair enough, I expect we're talking about a rather early stage in some new technology here so good luck to them.MountainMonster wrote:These are not typical turbines, they are all inclusive boxes which change airflow through them to produce high current from smaller sources, if I understood the basics correctly. Don't ask me the technical details as I have nothing to do with the company, I just know these things are being developed! He tried explaining it to me, but I can't say I understand the technical things in wind power!
The laws of physics dictate that a wind turbine can only ever extract around 60% of the energy from wind, in practice it's a good bit less than this, 20-40% or so, which leaves some room for improvement - but not that much: you'll still need to intercept a lot of wind, i.e. have a very big installation, to get that kind of power output.
We are talking VERY early stage at the moment, so things are still uncertain as to their true power and capacity. It will definitely be interesting to see the outcomes from these tech products should they live up to their hopes. These are also not explicit wind turbines, but an evolved form. Something along the lines of multipliers within the box to generate extra capacity through simple physics if that is a decent enough way to describe it.0 -
Amazed solar PV has not taken off more than it has.0
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Part of the problem is that the UK is not particularly sunny, so increased capacity would not really benefit us. I think that with the news that countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE are considering implementing large scale PV farms in the desert is absolutely great.RideOnTime wrote:Amazed solar PV has not taken off more than it has.
In an ideal world I think a global energy market should be created once differences are worked out between countries. This way we could benefit from the solar farms there, they could benefit from our wind farms which can be very good, and other countries can join in in their own capacity.0 -
New developments are generally becoming far more energy efficient and in a lot of cases they are being built to make use of micro scale renewable energy. It is pretty easy to build homes that generate all their electricity from renewables such as ground source heat pumps, PV panels and small wind turbines. I have worked on supermarket sites that are supposedly 'zero carbon' but I suspect the figures get massaged to look better than they actually are. So given time the developed world should be able to generate more than they need but this is likely to take the best part of a century to really take effect.0
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My next door neighbours have photovoltaic panels on their roof. This is how it works. They outlay a sum of money to by the panels and get them fitted. The electricity companies then give them 40p per kW/hour for the electricity generated over their life time. They buy the electricity that they use at around 10p per kW/hour whilst the rest of the population pay for them to profit by up to £1000 per year for the electricity they generate at around 4-8 time the current market value compared to other commercial generators. Over 10 years this will just about cover the costs of the panels they have installed.
If I was on minimum wage living in an inner city area I would be more than pissed that my bills were goin up to pay for subsidies to my well to do neighbours in the country, large land owners and of course the many companies profiting from the subsidy game. Why would you bother to invest a couple of hunded mil in a conventional power generation station when the government are giving money away to my neighbours.0 -
MountainMonster wrote:Three is a village/town in Florida, USA that weirdly enough is designed by Walt Disney, but that is beside the point. This town lives only on renewable energy, and only drive electric cars... The town in Florida is called Celebration, Florida.
Are you sure? I don't think Celebration is renewables only.MountainMonster wrote:With regards to nuclear being the only way forward, yes at the moment it is, but I stress the AT THE MOMENT
Seems that this is a myth that simply won't die. Nuclear isn't especially cost competitive and we don't have the capacity to build much of it at the moment. That may change - but every time we are promised a nuclear renaissance it doesn't pan out.
If you look at what is currently expected to be built globally to supply additional electricity demand over the next 20 odd years, it's: gas (around 25%), wind (a bit more than 20%), coal (a bit less than 20%), solar and hydro (more than 10% each), and nuclear (5%). Renewables are on track to generate a third of the world's electricity.
I guess that with a big push you could double nuclear's contribution - but not much more than that by 2030. I'd happily see more nuclear being built, though all energy sources have their own problems, but it's not a silver bullet. Even China is expected to build more than twice as much wind as nuclear - and it's the heart of today's nuclear industry.0 -
bdu98252 wrote:My next door neighbours have photovoltaic panels on their roof. This is how it works. They outlay a sum of money to by the panels and get them fitted. The electricity companies then give them 40p per kW/hour for the electricity generated over their life time. They buy the electricity that they use at around 10p per kW/hour whilst the rest of the population pay for them to profit by up to £1000 per year for the electricity they generate at around 4-8 time the current market value compared to other commercial generators. Over 10 years this will just about cover the costs of the panels they have installed.
If I was on minimum wage living in an inner city area I would be more than pissed that my bills were goin up to pay for subsidies to my well to do neighbours in the country, large land owners and of course the many companies profiting from the subsidy game. Why would you bother to invest a couple of hunded mil in a conventional power generation station when the government are giving money away to my neighbours.
There were grants available up until about 10 months ago, anyone with a reasonably south facing roof could have got them fitted. Most of the PV panels I see are fitted to roofs of social housing where people took advanatge of those grants so that sort of shoots down the 'cheap energy for the well to do at the expense of the low paid' argument.0 -
Not really as unless you put in your own money as well as the grant then you are renting your roof and receiving much less in return. Stobarts for example are a big provider of this scheme in cumbria and it is not good value for the householder. In the case of social housing it is the social housing provider that is benefiting not the tennant. The same is the case in schools an other public buildings.0
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RideOnTime wrote:Amazed solar PV has not taken off.
I bolted mine to the roof
seriously, I think the problem is that people are looking for a simple one stop solution to their continued use of ever more energy, alternative energy would be prohibitively expensive if you don't consider how much energy you really need.
If you were to add up all your electricity bills and estimate future increased costs and consumption then making your own energy seems a lot more feasible.
The biggest lesson that solar taught me was how little you could get away with consuming if you thought about your actual requirements and how you could personally achieve them, without relying on the energy corporations.my isetta is a 300cc bike0 -
The earth's climate is changing and has been for 5 billion years or so. The impact that man is having is the question that no-one has the answer to.
Governments have been quick to impose green taxes but have been canny in their levels, giving rise to suspiscions. They imposed airport taxes to supposedly reduce aircraft pollution, but at such a rate as to have little impact apart from raking in money. I don't know anyone who has cancelled their holiday to the Med on the strength of the extra tax. Business men still fly the Atlantic, passenger numbers will continue to grow, hence the Heathrow debate.
Governments regard the green tax in the same bracket as tobacco and alcohol, ie a cash cow.
As I said, I don't know what effect man is having on the planet, but I do believe the tax man is milking us.0 -
Ballysmate wrote:The earth's climate is changing and has been for 5 billion years or so. The impact that man is having is the question that no-one has the answer to.
This is such balls. The world was cooling very very slowly until the beginning of the 20th century and is now warming very very quickly. A colossal amount of research has gone into understand what is happening and why. I can't think of a single scientist - even those the tiny number still in the sceptic camp - who deny the existence of the greenhouse effect or that humans are causing it.0 -
Is it balls that the earth's ice caps grew until the entire planet was almost completely covered in ice and then receded? Is it balls that the earth's magnetic field reversed. all before man was even plankton. The point is climate changes for lots of reasons and no-one, not even you, can say how much is down to man.0
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Ballysmate wrote:Is it balls that the earth's ice caps grew until the entire planet was almost completely covered in ice and then receded? Is it balls that the earth's magnetic field reversed. all before man was even plankton. The point is climate changes for lots of reasons and no-one, not even you, can say how much is down to man.
Most things happen for more than one reason. Science work out the relative importance of each factor. For today's climate, long-term natural changes have a tiny net cooling effect and human activity a very very large warming effect.0 -
How can mans impact be so great when the icelandic incident a few years ago produced more co2 than we have done since humans started to roam the earth. The issue is that no papers have been submitted but on a counter claim, none were allowed to be submitted to the climate control council.
Also, submarine volcanos cannot be screened correctly which again means that papers are not accepted although they pump out 24/7 in quite incredible amounts.
The earth gets hot and it also gets cold. Thats the way it is meant to be, im just not convinced that man is having such a dramatic impact, if it were the case it would be more about life sustainability than money.Living MY dream.0 -
VTech wrote:How can mans impact be so great when the icelandic incident a few years ago produced more co2 than we have done since humans started to roam the earth.
Myth. Submarine and land volcanoes: around 200 million tonnes of CO2 each year. Human activity: 30 billion tonnes/year. That eruption in Iceland: 150-300 thousand tonnes of CO2 a day - about the same daily rate as Ireland.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1 ... 5/abstract
http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/volcanowatch/arc ... 02_15.html
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/ar ... sMnheg0oow0 -
As I said above, the reason people argue that as myth is down to the allowance of papers and those that have questioned it have been discredited even when some have had impeccable backgrounds.
I don't know the answer either way but I don't trust people who levy tax on such important topics as a method of reasoning, if it were genuine there would be legalities involved and not a couple of shillings.
How can a seabed volcano pluming out co2 for 3-5 years, 24 hours a day and 7 days a week not be as negative as a car?
The issue is twofold as far as I can see, 1) it is difficult to measure and so is costly and who wants to foot the bill and 2) natural accurances of emissions are not seen as a negative as they can't be stopped and can't be taxed.Living MY dream.0 -
Still impermeable to facts, Vtech.0
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I did say I don't know either way.
I just don't trust governments and I've never seen any proof that global warming to do with humanity having any greater impact over nature and history.Living MY dream.0 -
But there isn't any proof that you'd listen to. You made an absurd claim that a single volcano has spewed out more CO2 that all human activity, ever. And when shown figures to the contrary simply dismissed them.
BTW really believe cars of the future will run on water?0 -
ooermissus wrote:But there isn't any proof that you'd listen to. You made an absurd claim that a single volcano has spewed out more CO2 that all human activity, ever. And when shown figures to the contrary simply dismissed them.
BTW really believe cars of the future will run on water?
This doesn't have to end up in an argument just because we don't see eye to eye.
There is no shortage of oil so in our lifetime and those of our children's children's children.Living MY dream.0
