In article ,
"DGDevin" wrote:

"jamesgangnc" wrote in message
...


Nothing wrong with the government subsidizing renewable. Economies of
scale will reduce the costs and at the same time the costs of non-
renewable fuels will continue to rise. At some point the scale tips
and the renewables become cheaper. Until then the government
accelerates the growth with subsidies. Just makes the inevitable
happen a few years sooner.

Bingo. I wonder how long we would have waited for an interstate highway
system if it had been left up to private enterprise to build it?

The irony of the above statement is that the Interstate system was a
big reason we are in some of the jams we are in today. They are a major
reason for urban sprawl, they contributed to the demise of alternate
forms of transportation, and increased our dependence on oil for
transporting EVERYTHING.

--
People thought cybersex was a safe alternative,
until patients started presenting with sexually
acquired carpal tunnel syndrome.-Howard Berkowitz

"harry" wrote in message
...


Rob the poor to pay the rich is how politics works in America. You
are all slaves to capitalism.

So in one post you complain that everything costs more in your socialist
paradise, then in the next you whine about capitalism. Couldn't you at
least choose one bumper sticker and stay with it rather than hopping around
like a demented rabbit?

On Jul 20, 7:57*am, "chaniarts" wrote:
Harry K wrote:
On Jul 19, 7:46 pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me,
having a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic
to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute.
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants,
there would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd
starve.

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. *Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. *It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? *Ain't gonna happen. *Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. *Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources
but we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five
times the known reserves of natural gas than there was just five
years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered
$10,000 with a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of
ten commodities (picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore
be harder to find) in ten years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. *We are. *The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

depleting them? what are they being transmogrified into?

they are simply being moved around and either aggregated or diluted to some
degree.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

So you are going to recombine all those gases emitted by cars into the
original oil? Same for a lot of the other resources, one use and it
is gone forever. When it comes to moronic, your post qualifies.

Harry K

On Jul 20, 8:14*am, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 20, 10:41*am, Harry K wrote:





On Jul 19, 7:46*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute..
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve.

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. *Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. *It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? *Ain't gonna happen. *Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. *Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. *I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. *We are. *The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. * All take and no give. *Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. *The world
would be a much better place without us.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree we are depleting resources but the mining for materials and
fossil fuels is two completely different categories. *Mineral
resources are not actually being depleted. *For the most part all the
elements on the planet are still on the planet. *Just because we dig
up some copper, use it for something, and then bury it in a landfill
doesn't reduce the copper. *We could dig it back out of that landfill
and use it again. *Or we could quit burying it in the landfill and
start recycling it which is more practical than digging it back up.
But who knows, maybe some day our descendants will be setting up mines
where we buried stuff.

Fossil fuel is a energy resource. *It is the result of plants
capturing the energy in sunlight and it being turned into
hydrocarbons. * Which is the chemical storage of energy. *Like a
battery. *We are converting that stored energy into heat energy for
the most part. *Energy like matter is never lost but after we're
finished, the heat energy contributes to the gradual equilibrium of
the energy state in the universe which makes it of no further use to
us. *The issue is that we're converting that stored energy at a
tremediously faster rate than it was stored. *Years of our use equals
millions of years of capture. *So no matter how good we get at finding
the hydrocarbons we will eventually use them all up. *Will that happen
in 50 years or 500 years is debatable but most people would agree the
practical number is somewhere between those two. *Bottom line we
really are using up the energy in fossil fuels.

As to the co2, we are also raising the co2 level. *That's a fact. *The
bydrocarbons were buried in the ground. *We're releasing them and
breaking them up and combing the freed carbon with oxygen to produce
co2. *Who knows maybe we will be the start of the next cycle that
produces new hydrocarbons for some other lifeform to dig up a couple
hundred million yeasr from now. *On the short term the consequences
might not be so good for us.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Mostly true but we never recover 100% of the original elements and
never will. The 'pie in the sky' types keep pointing to new
discoveries as if those "new discoveries' will continue to be made for
infinity.

Harry K

On Jul 20, 9:04*am, harry wrote:
On Jul 20, 3:41*pm, Harry K wrote:





On Jul 19, 7:46*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute..
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve.

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. *Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. *It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? *Ain't gonna happen. *Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. *Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. *I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. *We are. *The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. * All take and no give. *Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. *The world
would be a much better place without us.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Hey, tell me that ain't a suicide note?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Nope, that is reality and it _will_ kick us in the butt somewhere down
the road in the future.

If we don't stop population growth we will be reduced to subsistance
level and a _greatly_ reduced world population - nature will see to
that.

Harry K

On Jul 20, 2:05*pm, Harry K wrote:
On Jul 20, 8:14*am, jamesgangnc wrote:





On Jul 20, 10:41*am, Harry K wrote:

On Jul 19, 7:46*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute.
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve..

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. *Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. *It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? *Ain't gonna happen. *Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. *Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. *I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. *We are. *The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. * All take and no give. *Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. *The world
would be a much better place without us.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree we are depleting resources but the mining for materials and
fossil fuels is two completely different categories. *Mineral
resources are not actually being depleted. *For the most part all the
elements on the planet are still on the planet. *Just because we dig
up some copper, use it for something, and then bury it in a landfill
doesn't reduce the copper. *We could dig it back out of that landfill
and use it again. *Or we could quit burying it in the landfill and
start recycling it which is more practical than digging it back up.
But who knows, maybe some day our descendants will be setting up mines
where we buried stuff.

Fossil fuel is a energy resource. *It is the result of plants
capturing the energy in sunlight and it being turned into
hydrocarbons. * Which is the chemical storage of energy. *Like a
battery. *We are converting that stored energy into heat energy for
the most part. *Energy like matter is never lost but after we're
finished, the heat energy contributes to the gradual equilibrium of
the energy state in the universe which makes it of no further use to
us. *The issue is that we're converting that stored energy at a
tremediously faster rate than it was stored. *Years of our use equals
millions of years of capture. *So no matter how good we get at finding
the hydrocarbons we will eventually use them all up. *Will that happen
in 50 years or 500 years is debatable but most people would agree the
practical number is somewhere between those two. *Bottom line we
really are using up the energy in fossil fuels.

As to the co2, we are also raising the co2 level. *That's a fact. *The
bydrocarbons were buried in the ground. *We're releasing them and
breaking them up and combing the freed carbon with oxygen to produce
co2. *Who knows maybe we will be the start of the next cycle that
produces new hydrocarbons for some other lifeform to dig up a couple
hundred million yeasr from now. *On the short term the consequences
might not be so good for us.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Mostly true but we never recover 100% of the original elements and
never will. *The 'pie in the sky' types keep pointing to new
discoveries as if those "new discoveries' will continue to be made for
infinity.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

We can recover enough that we don't really have to worry about running
out of things like copper and iron.

On 7/20/2011 7:00 AM, jamesgangnc wrote:
....

Nothing wrong with the government subsidizing renewable. Economies of
scale will reduce the costs and at the same time the costs of non-
renewable fuels will continue to rise. At some point the scale tips
and the renewables become cheaper. Until then the government
accelerates the growth with subsidies. Just makes the inevitable
happen a few years sooner.


Subsidizing _research_ perhaps; subsidizing production facilities, not
so much.

It perverts actual winning technolog(y|ies) on basis of winners to
cashing in on subsidies to pad bottom lines irrespective of best use of
(limited) capital...as do mandates for usage or generation mixes.

--

In article , Frank
wrote:

On 7/19/2011 7:20 PM, Malcom "Mal" Reynolds wrote:
In ,
wrote:

Nice, clean windmill sound nice but energy consumed in building them and
the need for back-up diesel generators are not considered.

do you think that the energy consumed in building any power plant is
considered?

It's just a guess, but if we actually did that I would imagine the balance
point would shift considerably towards all renewables

Of course. You have to do complete studies of all of the factors involved.

The green energy projects all depend on subsidies.

As do nukes and to some extent coal


Lot of them are
being sucked into Delaware and I strongly suspect when subsidies dry up, so
will the companies. The government is being snookered by them.

There is a new one with direct conversion of natural gas to electricity with
fuel cells. Opponents have pointed out that there are gas burning turbines
with the same efficiency that put out the same amount of carbon dioxide but
cost far less.

Probably the same argument was used on gas burning turbines when they were first
being used.

FWIW and I'm not suggesting this is practical in all cases, but when the price
comes down I could put a fuel cell in my back yard to generate my electrical
needs with less hoopla than I could with even a very efficient ICE/genset




Who do you trust more, engineers or politicians?

I certainly don't trust engineers with a vested interest in the outcome

On Jul 20, 9:59*am, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 20, 9:50*am, dpb wrote:





On 7/20/2011 8:03 AM, Home Guy wrote:
...

When you look at an ordinary fan, it has large blades that occupy a
significant portion of the cross-sectional swept area.

When you look at a wind turbine, the blades are very thin, occupying a
very minimal amount of swept area, allowing much of the wind energy to
flow right through or between the blades.

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move air*,
then why won't that same basic blade design also be *efficiently moved
by air* ?

Size has a lot to do with the design limitations.

Interestingly enough, the efficiency of adding blades is relatively
small; a one-blade rotor is nearly as efficient as two and the third is
even less of an increase.

While it doesn't go into a lot of technical detail, the wiki article
outlines some of the basics of the various competing factors that go
into modern generator blade design.

Limiting is more the physical characteristics required for survival and
control and related cost and the efficiency obtainable within those
restrictions as opposed to only the efficiency (altho modern designs run
probably nearly 80% of theoretical Betz limit of kinetic energy
extraction which is roughly 60% of input field KE.

I've not read the article for a while to see what, if anything has been
added/updated, but had the link bookmarked--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine_design

--

The trick is balancing the one blade model. *Interestingly the same
things apply to boat propellers. *It also occurred to me there is
another example of powered thin blades, helicopters.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Fan blades and boat propellers act more like a a screw or auger.
Airplane propellers and wind turbines are airfoils acting like
airplane wings. Airfoils are much more efficent.

Jimmie

Home Guy wrote:
HeyBub wrote:

"The wind energy business is the electric sector's equivalent of
the corn ethanol scam: it's an over-subsidized industry that
depends wholly on taxpayer dollars to remain solvent while
providing an inferior product to consumers that does little, if
anything, to reduce our need for hydrocarbons or cut carbon dioxide
emissions."

When you look at an ordinary fan, it has large blades that occupy a
significant portion of the cross-sectional swept area.

When you look at a wind turbine, the blades are very thin, occupying a
very minimal amount of swept area, allowing much of the wind energy to
flow right through or between the blades.

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move air*,
then why won't that same basic blade design also be *efficiently moved
by air* ?

Efficiency for a fan is not the same importance as efficiency for a huge
windmill.

High performance fans have narrow blades.
\http://www.airkinglimited.com/pages/...ial/drum1.html

jamesgangnc wrote:

Nothing wrong with the government subsidizing renewable. Economies of
scale will reduce the costs and at the same time the costs of non-
renewable fuels will continue to rise. At some point the scale tips
and the renewables become cheaper. Until then the government
accelerates the growth with subsidies. Just makes the inevitable
happen a few years sooner.

Uh, there are many things wrong with a government subsidizing anything. I
don't have much problem with research grants, but subsidizing production is
an outrage. Poor Mexicans are almost starving because the cost of tortillas
is almost prohibitive, thanks to our ethanol subsidies!

You said: "... the costs of non-renewable fuels will continue to rise." Er,
no. The cost of natural gas has dropped from ~$6.50 per 1000 cu ft in 2007
to about $4.00 today. In 2008, USA bituminous coal sold for a high of
$175/ton. Today it is $75/ton.

Oil, and its derivative, gasoline is still pretty high (although it gasoline
is cheaper today than it was during the Carther administration), but oil is
used primarily for transportation - and chemicals. "Renewables" are not
involved in transportation, with the exception of corn which I've already
dissed (poor Messicans).

harry wrote:

I mis-remembered. There were five (picked by Ehrlich). The wager was
$1,000 each. Whatever the differential in price after a decade would
go to the winner.

chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten

"Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800
million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by
September 1990, without a single exception, the price of each of
Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen, and in some cases had dropped
significantly. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980,
was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was
down to $3.88 a decade later."



Why does costing more make them harder to find?

It doesn't. Being harder to find makes them cost more. Price is a
convenient metric for scarcity.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ah,you got it mixedup :-)

Population is the main problem I think.
Everything comes back to that.
Nature will soon organise a cull.

That's what Malthus thought. He was wrong. That's what Ehrlich thought. He,
too, was wrong. In fact, EVERYBODY who has EVER predicted that
over-population spells our doom has been wrong.

By the principle of inductive reasoning, I suggest that you, too, are wrong.

jamesgangnc wrote:

As to the co2, we are also raising the co2 level. That's a fact. The
bydrocarbons were buried in the ground. We're releasing them and
breaking them up and combing the freed carbon with oxygen to produce
co2. Who knows maybe we will be the start of the next cycle that
produces new hydrocarbons for some other lifeform to dig up a couple
hundred million yeasr from now. On the short term the consequences
might not be so good for us.

I trust you'll permit an analogy to illustrate the CO2 in the atmosphere and
its increase.

If the atmosphere could be represented by the area of a football field,
including the end-zones, the amount of CO2 is roughly equal to the area
occupied by a prostate official who died as a result of seven stab wounds
inflicted by irate fans after he made four consecutive bad calls against the
home team.

The increase in CO2, since 1900, could be represented by the stain left on
the astoturf as he slowly bled out without a single person coming to his
aid.

(In case you're interested, the remaining seventeen minutes of play took
place without a single penalty.)

In other words, CO2 ain't much (one three-hundredths of one percent).

Harry K wrote:

Mostly true but we never recover 100% of the original elements and
never will. The 'pie in the sky' types keep pointing to new
discoveries as if those "new discoveries' will continue to be made for
infinity.


Nothing lasts forever. The Romans denuded all of North Africa and much of
Europe and used the wood for charcoal. Just as the trees were about to run
out, it became practical to mine and exploit coal. (The industrial
revolution was fueled by coal).

While in some places coal is still very economical, oil proved to be more
versatile and, in many instances, cheaper.

Heck, the archetype villain, John D. Rockefeller, and his example of
monoply, Standard Oil, drove the price of Kerosene down from $3.00/gallon to
a nickle. In less than three years. Of course the people who sold
"renewable" energy (i.e., whale oil) squealed and were eventually put out of
business, but for the rest of us, the night was brightened.

Point is, as with trees and whales, even renewables face the same problems
as truffles. There is only so much and only so many pigs to find it.

jamesgangnc wrote:

You're pulling the typical conservative stunt. Cherry pick statistics
to support your point. What about the percenatges of wealth held by
the rich. And the increased difference between the wealthy, the
middle class, and the poor. You can't take one stat in isolation and
use it to prove a point. You have to look at the whole picture.
Besides it's not just the rich, what about tax breaks for oil
companies that post record profits? What kind of sense does that
make. How do you defend that?

The "tax-break" bucket is not connected to the "profit" bucket. The tax
breaks were legislated to achieve some social goal (e.g., employment) with
no regard by the taxing authorities as to the profitability of the
recipient.

To the degree that oil companies - or others - take advantage of these "tax
breaks," they should be applauded for promoting the social goals envisioned
by the legislative bodies.

Maybe we should name a holiday or something in the oil companies' honor.

"HeyBub" wrote in message
...


Maybe we should name a holiday or something in the oil companies' honor.

Bend Over Individual Taxpayers Day, yeah, it's a natural.

jamesgangnc wrote:

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move
air*, then why won't that same basic blade design also be
*efficiently moved by air* ?

That's not true. Look at a propeller airplane. It's blades
move air and they are long and thin.

The cross-sectional area of a plane's propellers are a hindrance (drag)
to forward motion. So while a fatter blade can provide more thrust at
a lower rpm or with a lower swept area, a fatter blade will present more
drag to counter a plane's forward movement. The slower a plane is
designed to fly, the slower a plane's engine is designed to operate, the
more sense it makes to use a fatter blade, or more blades (3 or 4 vs 2).

A helicopter develops lift because it's blades are really air foils that
just like wings develop a low pressure area on their upper surface as
they are moved forward (ie - as they are rotated).

When you look at the constraints of a typical house fan (low speed,
inefficient motor, small design envelope or package) what you get are
wide, fat blades. If wide fat blades are best at being turned by motors
of low power to generate a breeze that consumers demand out of a small
package size, then I'd have to assume that wide, fat blades would also
be most easily and efficiently rotated by a breeze or flow of air
passing through them.

If it doesn't take much motor force or motor power to turn wide/fat
blades to generate an acceptible air flow, then the converse must also
be true - that wide/fat blades are more easily turned by a given breeze
vs long/narrow blades.

The energy potential in a wind field is measured in terms of the swept
area of the blades.

So how can you capture a respectible fraction of this energy by using
thin blades that "see" or experience only a small fraction of this swept
area, vs using fatter blades that expose themselves to a greater
percentage of this wind field?

On Jul 20, 5:40*pm, Home Guy wrote:
jamesgangnc wrote:
If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move
air*, *then why won't that same basic blade design also be
*efficiently moved by air* ?

That's not true. *Look at a propeller airplane. *It's blades
move air and they are long and thin.

The cross-sectional area of a plane's propellers are a hindrance (drag)
to forward motion. * So while a fatter blade can provide more thrust at
a lower rpm or with a lower swept area, a fatter blade will present more
drag to counter a plane's forward movement. *The slower a plane is
designed to fly, the slower a plane's engine is designed to operate, the
more sense it makes to use a fatter blade, or more blades (3 or 4 vs 2).

A helicopter develops lift because it's blades are really air foils that
just like wings develop a low pressure area on their upper surface as
they are moved forward (ie - as they are rotated).

When you look at the constraints of a typical house fan (low speed,
inefficient motor, small design envelope or package) what you get are
wide, fat blades. *If wide fat blades are best at being turned by motors
of low power to generate a breeze that consumers demand out of a small
package size, then I'd have to assume that wide, fat blades would also
be most easily and efficiently rotated by a breeze or flow of air
passing through them.

If it doesn't take much motor force or motor power to turn wide/fat
blades to generate an acceptible air flow, then the converse must also
be true - that wide/fat blades are more easily turned by a given breeze
vs long/narrow blades.

The energy potential in a wind field is measured in terms of the swept
area of the blades.

So how can you capture a respectible fraction of this energy by using
thin blades that "see" or experience only a small fraction of this swept
area, vs using fatter blades that expose themselves to a greater
percentage of this wind field?

Fat and thin. They are all airfoils. Do you think they woudn't use
fat blades if they worked better? You think engineers didn't design
the blades on wind turbines?

wrote in :

harry writes:

On Jul 20, 12:23Â*am, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 19, 7:02Â*pm, Frank wrote:





On 7/19/2011 6:12 PM, HeyBub wrote:

Warning: It's not pretty. Summary of a report based on power
usage by about 1/3rd of the nation's consumers (110 million)
over three years.

"For years, it's been an article of faith among advocates of
renewables that increased use of wind energy can provide a
cost-effective method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The
reality: wind energy's carbon dioxide-cutting benefits are
vastly overstated. Furthermore, if wind energy does help reduce
carbon emissions, those reductions are too expensive to be used
on any kind of scale. "

And in conclusion:

"The wind energy business is the electric sector's equivalent of
the corn ethanol scam: it's an over-subsidized industry that
depends wholly on taxpayer dollars to remain solvent while
providing an inferior product to consumers that does little, if
anything, to reduce our need for hydrocarbons or cut carbon
dioxide emissions. The latest Bentek study should be required
reading for policymakers. It's a much-needed reminder of how the
pesky facts about wind energy have been obscured by the tsunami
of hype about green energy."

http://www.forbes.com/2011/07/19/win...-carbon_2.html

The report overlooks the fact that wind energy is for the
children.

Nice, clean windmill sound nice but energy consumed in building
them and the need for back-up diesel generators are not
considered.

Nor the noise and dead birds.
if in a cold weather place,they may freeze up or the blades may ice over
and throw big chunks of ice when they break loose.

They may or may not be putting them offshore here in
Delaware and you can imagine the compounding cost of installation
and effect of salt water on them, Â*They don't use above ground
transmission lines either and cables have to be run under the sea
surface.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/2...107170308-Hide
quoted text -

All power plants have maintenance costs.

PV?

Pretty low maintenance costs.

solar uses a lot of water,gotta keep the panels clean.
then there's inverter maintenance,and if storage batteries used,battery
maintenance.
Plus,the hazards of battery chemicals and lead,along with fire hazard.

Wind turbines need more maintenance,being rotating machinery.


Bell Labs just put up a PV farm not far from me.
These are in a field about 4 feet from the ground.
I'm curious about how they are going to cut the grass or
keep plants from growing in there.

I thought they might use mulch or a ground cover, but so far
it doesn't look like it.

They used to just mow the area with a big ride on mower.
Now the panels are in the way. Maybe they can be tilted out
of the way.

Anyway, it mostly just sits there and pours electricity into the
grid. Pretty cool, especially with this heat, you can imagine
all the air conditioners it's running.


"POURS" electricity? how big a plant is it? how many MW?


It probably runs THEIR AC and maybe the building lights.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:01:15 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 7/20/2011 7:00 AM, jamesgangnc wrote:
...

Nothing wrong with the government subsidizing renewable. Economies of
scale will reduce the costs and at the same time the costs of non-
renewable fuels will continue to rise. At some point the scale tips
and the renewables become cheaper. Until then the government
accelerates the growth with subsidies. Just makes the inevitable
happen a few years sooner.


Subsidizing _research_ perhaps; subsidizing production facilities, not
so much.

It perverts actual winning technolog(y|ies) on basis of winners to
cashing in on subsidies to pad bottom lines irrespective of best use of
(limited) capital...as do mandates for usage or generation mixes.

Give that man a cigar! The government picks winners and losers, not the
market.

Harry K writes:

On Jul 19, 7:46Â*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute.
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve.


CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? Ain't gonna happen. Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.




But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. Â*I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.


Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. We are. The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. All take and no give. Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. The world
would be a much better place without us.

The world has billions of years before the sun burns the planet up.
We ought to live here in such a way that the planet will be livable that
long.

I think the planet can easily support 1 billion humans.
7 billion, ridiculous.


--
Dan Espen

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 15:45:28 -0500, "HeyBub" wrote:

harry wrote:

I mis-remembered. There were five (picked by Ehrlich). The wager was
$1,000 each. Whatever the differential in price after a decade would
go to the winner.

chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten

"Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800
million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by
September 1990, without a single exception, the price of each of
Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen, and in some cases had dropped
significantly. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980,
was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was
down to $3.88 a decade later."



Why does costing more make them harder to find?

It doesn't. Being harder to find makes them cost more. Price is a
convenient metric for scarcity.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ah,you got it mixedup :-)

Population is the main problem I think.
Everything comes back to that.
Nature will soon organise a cull.

That's what Malthus thought. He was wrong. That's what Ehrlich thought. He,
too, was wrong. In fact, EVERYBODY who has EVER predicted that
over-population spells our doom has been wrong.

By the principle of inductive reasoning, I suggest that you, too, are wrong.

harry? Wrong? You don't need induction to come to that conclusion!

jamesgangnc writes:

On Jul 20, 2:05Â*pm, Harry K wrote:
On Jul 20, 8:14Â*am, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 20, 10:41Â*am, Harry K wrote:

On Jul 19, 7:46Â*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute.
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve.

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. Â*Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. Â*It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? Â*Ain't gonna happen. Â*Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. Â*Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. Â*I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. Â*We are. Â*The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. Â* All take and no give. Â*Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. Â*The world
would be a much better place without us.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I agree we are depleting resources but the mining for materials and
fossil fuels is two completely different categories. Â*Mineral
resources are not actually being depleted. Â*For the most part all the
elements on the planet are still on the planet. Â*Just because we dig
up some copper, use it for something, and then bury it in a landfill
doesn't reduce the copper. Â*We could dig it back out of that landfill
and use it again. Â*Or we could quit burying it in the landfill and
start recycling it which is more practical than digging it back up.
But who knows, maybe some day our descendants will be setting up mines
where we buried stuff.

Fossil fuel is a energy resource. Â*It is the result of plants
capturing the energy in sunlight and it being turned into
hydrocarbons. Â* Which is the chemical storage of energy. Â*Like a
battery. Â*We are converting that stored energy into heat energy for
the most part. Â*Energy like matter is never lost but after we're
finished, the heat energy contributes to the gradual equilibrium of
the energy state in the universe which makes it of no further use to
us. Â*The issue is that we're converting that stored energy at a
tremediously faster rate than it was stored. Â*Years of our use equals
millions of years of capture. Â*So no matter how good we get at finding
the hydrocarbons we will eventually use them all up. Â*Will that happen
in 50 years or 500 years is debatable but most people would agree the
practical number is somewhere between those two. Â*Bottom line we
really are using up the energy in fossil fuels.

As to the co2, we are also raising the co2 level. Â*That's a fact. Â*The
bydrocarbons were buried in the ground. Â*We're releasing them and
breaking them up and combing the freed carbon with oxygen to produce
co2. Â*Who knows maybe we will be the start of the next cycle that
produces new hydrocarbons for some other lifeform to dig up a couple
hundred million yeasr from now. Â*On the short term the consequences
might not be so good for us.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Mostly true but we never recover 100% of the original elements and
never will. Â*The 'pie in the sky' types keep pointing to new
discoveries as if those "new discoveries' will continue to be made for
infinity.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

We can recover enough that we don't really have to worry about running
out of things like copper and iron.

The iron in landfills turns to iron oxide and mixes with the other
materials. I don't believe it's sufficiently concentrated to be
practically recovered.

Not sure about copper.

There's lots of other important stuff in landfills that will be really
hard to get back, like tungsten.

--
Dan Espen

jamesgangnc used improper usenet mesage composition style by
full-quoting:

The energy potential in a wind field is measured in terms of the
swept area of the blades.

So how can you capture a respectible fraction of this energy by
using thin blades that "see" or experience only a small fraction
of this swept area, vs using fatter blades that expose themselves
to a greater percentage of this wind field?

Fat and thin. They are all airfoils.

A typical air foil is an airplane wing. The "foil" is cross-sectional
profile - curved upper surface, flat lower surface. The foil is what
gets you life when it's moved forward through the air. You create a
low-pressure area on the upper surface.

I can move air with flat blade angled at 45 degrees. The blade doesn't
need a foil-shaped cross section - instead it can be flat. When a flat
blade is angled (any angle other than 0) and rotated, it is pushing air
out of the way as it turns.

Similarly, wind that wants to move past the blade must push it aside,
and in doing so it will rotate the hub. The more surface area you
present to the wind (ie the wider the blade) the more rotational force
you transmit to the hub.

Do you think they woudn't use fat blades if they worked better?

Maybe it's all a scam. Maybe wind turbines don't need to cost a few
million each, and be hundreds of feet tall with blades made from exotic
materials and methods.

You think engineers didn't design the blades on wind turbines?

Explain what's wrong with my concept.

How much cross-sectional area is occupied by the blades in a water
turbine as water flows past them in a hydro-electric station?

On 07/20/2011 01:26 PM, DGDevin wrote:


"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...

Warning: It's not pretty. Summary of a report based on power usage by
about 1/3rd of the nation's consumers (110 million) over three years.

You sure know how to pick 'em. This "report" was created by Bentek
Energy. Guess which segment of the energy industry Bentek
represents--come on, guess.

If your answer is the fossil fuels segment, specifically the natural gas
and related areas (like propane), you're right. Forbes of course goes
where the money is, so if the fossil fuels industry is profitable and
wind generation of power is not (at least not yet) then it isn't hard to
guess who Forbes will side with.

Hey, if next week the bottled water industry releases a report saying
that home water filtration is a bad idea, will you believe them?


+1

"HeyBub" writes:

harry wrote:

I mis-remembered. There were five (picked by Ehrlich). The wager was
$1,000 each. Whatever the differential in price after a decade would
go to the winner.

chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten

"Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800
million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by
September 1990, without a single exception, the price of each of
Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen, and in some cases had dropped
significantly. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980,
was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was
down to $3.88 a decade later."



Why does costing more make them harder to find?

It doesn't. Being harder to find makes them cost more. Price is a
convenient metric for scarcity.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Ah,you got it mixedup :-)

Population is the main problem I think.
Everything comes back to that.
Nature will soon organise a cull.

That's what Malthus thought. He was wrong. That's what Ehrlich thought. He,
too, was wrong. In fact, EVERYBODY who has EVER predicted that
over-population spells our doom has been wrong.

By the principle of inductive reasoning, I suggest that you, too, are wrong.

The predictions may have been wrong, but the ultimate outcome is based
on logic.

Ultimately we'll have a standing room only future.

--
Dan Espen

Jim Yanik writes:

wrote in :

harry writes:

On Jul 20, 12:23ÂÂ*am, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 19, 7:02ÂÂ*pm, Frank wrote:
All power plants have maintenance costs.

PV?

Pretty low maintenance costs.

solar uses a lot of water,gotta keep the panels clean.

Just watched a video.
Every 2 weeks:
Wipe off dust with dry towel.
Wash with towel dampened in water, vinegar, detergent.

That doesn't sound like a lot of water.

then there's inverter maintenance,and if storage batteries
used,battery maintenance. Plus,the hazards of battery chemicals and
lead,along with fire hazard.

Just looked up maintenance procedure for a solar panel
inverter.

"replace every 10 years".

Anyway, it mostly just sits there and pours electricity into the
grid. Pretty cool, especially with this heat, you can imagine
all the air conditioners it's running.

"POURS" electricity? how big a plant is it? how many MW?

1.2MW:

http://newprovidence.patch.com/artic...-labs-campus-3
http://tinyurl.com/3srexrm

It probably runs THEIR AC and maybe the building lights.

The building is pretty big. The article says it's enough power to power
200 homes.

--
Dan Espen

Home Guy wrote:

When you look at an ordinary fan, it has large blades that occupy a
significant portion of the cross-sectional swept area.

When you look at a wind turbine, the blades are very thin, occupying a
very minimal amount of swept area, allowing much of the wind energy to
flow right through or between the blades.

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move air*,
then why won't that same basic blade design also be *efficiently moved
by air* ?

Basic aerodynamics/physics. A fan blade is a wing. The larger the blade, the
more drag (energy loss). Fans are designed to move a large volume of air and
aren't particularly concerned about how much electrical power is used to do it.

Wind tubines have the opposite requirement. The blades are designed to be as
efficient as possible as the larger the blade, the more wind is required.

Robert Neville wrote:

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move
air*, then why won't that same basic blade design also be
*efficiently moved by air* ?

Basic aerodynamics/physics. A fan blade is a wing.

The function of a wing is to provide lift in a vector perpendicular to
it's surface.

Please explain how or why a wind-turbine blade needs to provide lift?

It actually can't provide lift, because (a) it's not turning under it's
own power, and (b) if it did produce any lift, that lift would be a
vector force pointing out of the down-wind-facing surface of the blade,
and would act to pull the blades forward and destabilize the support
colum and topple it.

The larger the blade, the more drag (energy loss).

So by that logic, a sailing ship would be propelled faster (capture more
wind energy) by having a small sail vs a large sail.

Great logic.

In article ,
"HeyBub" wrote:

Uh, there are many things wrong with a government subsidizing anything. I
don't have much problem with research grants, but subsidizing production is
an outrage. Poor Mexicans are almost starving because the cost of tortillas
is almost prohibitive, thanks to our ethanol subsidies!

Not true. The corn used to produce ethanol is what is fed to beef and pork (as
well as poultry)

which is then fed to them as DDGS

If the poor Mexicans are almost starving because of the cost of tortillas, it's
because they aren't growing enough corn...they aren't producing ethanol

wrote:

The predictions may have been wrong, but the ultimate outcome is based
on logic.

Ultimately we'll have a standing room only future.

But it'll be a while. A long while.

At the population density of Hong Kong, the earth's population, some six
billion people, would fit in the state of Georgia.

Which, come to think on it... would be a terrible thing.

On Jul 20, 1:53*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
jamesgangnc wrote:

As to the co2, we are also raising the co2 level. *That's a fact. *The
bydrocarbons were buried in the ground. *We're releasing them and
breaking them up and combing the freed carbon with oxygen to produce
co2. *Who knows maybe we will be the start of the next cycle that
produces new hydrocarbons for some other lifeform to dig up a couple
hundred million yeasr from now. *On the short term the consequences
might not be so good for us.

I trust you'll permit an analogy to illustrate the CO2 in the atmosphere and
its increase.

If the atmosphere could be represented by the area of a football field,
including the end-zones, the amount of CO2 is roughly equal to the area
occupied by a prostate official who died as a result of seven stab wounds
inflicted by irate fans after he made four consecutive bad calls against the
home team.

The increase in CO2, since 1900, could be represented by the stain left on
the astoturf as he slowly bled out without a single person coming to his
aid.

(In case you're interested, the remaining seventeen minutes of play took
place without a single penalty.)

In other words, CO2 ain't much (one three-hundredths of one percent).

It ain't the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere that counts. It is the
_effect_ it has.

I hope you aren't in the "CO2 isn't a gsreenhouse gas" crowd. Or like
my old man "if a little bit is good, a bunch more lot is better".

The climate is warming. Whether due to nature, to man or a
combination of both can be argued but the basic fact is that it _is_
warming.

Harry K

On Jul 20, 8:01*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

The predictions may have been wrong, but the ultimate outcome is based
on logic.

Ultimately we'll have a standing room only future.

But it'll be a while. A long while.

At the population density of Hong Kong, the earth's population, some six
billion people, would fit in the state of Georgia.

Which, come to think on it... would be a terrible thing.

So we should just ignore the problem and go along procreating at an
unsupportable rate? Just sentence our future off spring to starvation
and subsistance living?

Harry K

On Jul 20, 4:56*pm, Jim Yanik wrote:
wrote :





harry writes:

On Jul 20, 12:23*am, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 19, 7:02*pm, Frank wrote:

On 7/19/2011 6:12 PM, HeyBub wrote:

Warning: It's not pretty. Summary of a report based on power
usage by about 1/3rd of the nation's consumers (110 million)
over three years.

"For years, it's been an article of faith among advocates of
renewables that increased use of wind energy can provide a
cost-effective method of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. The
reality: wind energy's carbon dioxide-cutting benefits are
vastly overstated. Furthermore, if wind energy does help reduce
carbon emissions, those reductions are too expensive to be used
on any kind of scale. "

And in conclusion:

"The wind energy business is the electric sector's equivalent of
the corn ethanol scam: it's an over-subsidized industry that
depends wholly on taxpayer dollars to remain solvent while
providing an inferior product to consumers that does little, if
anything, to reduce our need for hydrocarbons or cut carbon
dioxide emissions. The latest Bentek study should be required
reading for policymakers. It's a much-needed reminder of how the
pesky facts about wind energy have been obscured by the tsunami
of hype about green energy."

http://www.forbes.com/2011/07/19/win...-carbon_2.html

The report overlooks the fact that wind energy is for the
children.

Nice, clean windmill sound nice but energy consumed in building
them and the need for back-up diesel generators are not
considered.

Nor the noise and dead birds.
if in a cold weather place,they may freeze up or the blades may ice over
and throw big chunks of ice when they break loose.

They may or may not be putting them offshore here in
Delaware and you can imagine the compounding cost of installation
and effect of salt water on them, *They don't use above ground
transmission lines either and cables have to be run under the sea
surface.

http://www.delmarvanow.com/article/2...107170308-Hide
quoted text -

All power plants have maintenance costs.

PV?

Pretty low maintenance costs.

solar uses a lot of water,gotta keep the panels clean.
then there's inverter maintenance,and if storage batteries used,battery
maintenance.
Plus,the hazards of battery chemicals and lead,along with fire hazard.

Wind turbines need more maintenance,being rotating machinery.







Bell Labs just put up a PV farm not far from me.
These are in a field about 4 feet from the ground.
I'm curious about how they are going to cut the grass or
keep plants from growing in there.

I thought they might use mulch or a ground cover, but so far
it doesn't look like it.

They used to just mow the area with a big ride on mower.
Now the panels are in the way. *Maybe they can be tilted out
of the way.

Anyway, it mostly just sits there and pours electricity into the
grid. *Pretty cool, especially with this heat, you can imagine
all the air conditioners it's running.

"POURS" electricity? *how big a plant is it? how many MW?

It probably runs THEIR AC and maybe the building lights.

snip

And then only during daylight.

Harry K

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:33:31 -0700 (PDT), Harry K
wrote:

On Jul 20, 8:01*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
wrote:

The predictions may have been wrong, but the ultimate outcome is based
on logic.

Ultimately we'll have a standing room only future.

But it'll be a while. A long while.

At the population density of Hong Kong, the earth's population, some six
billion people, would fit in the state of Georgia.

Which, come to think on it... would be a terrible thing.

So we should just ignore the problem and go along procreating at an
unsupportable rate? Just sentence our future off spring to starvation
and subsistance living?

Funny, I never figured you for a leftist. How about you first!

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 22:31:19 -0400, Home Guy wrote:

Robert Neville wrote:

If a fan has fan blades that are designed to *efficiently move
air*, then why won't that same basic blade design also be
*efficiently moved by air* ?

Basic aerodynamics/physics. A fan blade is a wing.

The function of a wing is to provide lift in a vector perpendicular to
it's surface.

Please explain how or why a wind-turbine blade needs to provide lift?

It does exactly the opposite. It converts "lift" into rotational energy. If
the two processes aren't complementary, the world ends.

It actually can't provide lift, because (a) it's not turning under it's
own power, and (b) if it did produce any lift, that lift would be a
vector force pointing out of the down-wind-facing surface of the blade,
and would act to pull the blades forward and destabilize the support
colum and topple it.

The larger the blade, the more drag (energy loss).

So by that logic, a sailing ship would be propelled faster (capture more
wind energy) by having a small sail vs a large sail.

But a sail *does* have lift. Note that drag is a function of V^3.

Great logic.

Seem you're short a loaf, too.

On Jul 20, 6:47*pm, "DGDevin" wrote:
"harry" *wrote in message

...

Rob the poor to pay the rich is how politics works in America. *You
are all slaves to capitalism.

So in one post you complain that everything costs more in your socialist
paradise, then in the next you whine about capitalism. *Couldn't you at
least choose one bumper sticker and stay with it rather than hopping around
like a demented rabbit?

Where have I complained that everything costs more?
America is the proof that capitalism (as practised in America) is a
fraud.

On Jul 20, 7:07*pm, Harry K wrote:
On Jul 20, 9:04*am, harry wrote:





On Jul 20, 3:41*pm, Harry K wrote:

On Jul 19, 7:46*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute.
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve..

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. *Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. *It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? *Ain't gonna happen. *Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. *Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. *I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. *We are. *The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. * All take and no give. *Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. *The world
would be a much better place without us.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

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Hey, tell me that ain't a suicide note?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Nope, that is reality and it _will_ kick us in the butt somewhere down
the road in the future.

If we don't stop population growth we will be reduced to subsistance
level and a _greatly_ reduced world population - nature will see to
that.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

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Exactly so.

On Jul 20, 7:50*pm, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 20, 2:05*pm, Harry K wrote:





On Jul 20, 8:14*am, jamesgangnc wrote:

On Jul 20, 10:41*am, Harry K wrote:

On Jul 19, 7:46*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

I suppose CO2 emissions could be important, but it seems to me, having
a power source that doesn't run out seems pretty strategic to me.
The rest of the page deals with CO2.

I don't know about you, but I LIKE power sources that don't pollute.
I'm willing to pay a little more just for that benefit.

You're presuming that CO2 is a pollutant.

Were it not for CO2, there wouldn't be any plants. With no plants, there
would be no cattle. With no cattle, there'd be no food. We'd starve.

CO2 is poisonous to us in excessive quantities, just as is Oxygen,
Water, etc. *Nature has adjusted to the what was the average CO2
content back before the industrial revolution. *It is now adjusting to
our adding to it and we are not going to like the result.

As to reducing our part in it? *Ain't gonna happen. *Best we can do is
not increase our contribution above what it is today. *Nothing we can
do will reduce it withough totally wrecking industry.

But the real issue is being prepared for the future.

We're hearing all this crazy deficit talk as if we're creating a
problem for our children. *I think using up resources on the only
planet we have is much more important.

We're NOT using up resources. More precisely, we're using resources but
we're accessing more than we're using. Today, there is five times the known
reserves of natural gas than there was just five years ago.

Look up the Simon-Ehrlich wager in which a doom-sayer* wagered $10,000 with
a more pragmatic scientist over whether the scarcity of ten commodities
(picked by Ehrlich) would cost more (and therefore be harder to find) in ten
years. Ehrlich lost.

Availability of resources has zip to do with whether we are depleting
them. *We are. *The supply of any mineral, oil, etc. resource you can
name is finite.

The truth of the matter is that we (humankind) meet every definition
of a parasite. * All take and no give. *Even our funeral practices do
everything possible to keep even our worn out bodies from decomposing
thus denying even that little bit from returning to nature. *The world
would be a much better place without us.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

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I agree we are depleting resources but the mining for materials and
fossil fuels is two completely different categories. *Mineral
resources are not actually being depleted. *For the most part all the
elements on the planet are still on the planet. *Just because we dig
up some copper, use it for something, and then bury it in a landfill
doesn't reduce the copper. *We could dig it back out of that landfill
and use it again. *Or we could quit burying it in the landfill and
start recycling it which is more practical than digging it back up.
But who knows, maybe some day our descendants will be setting up mines
where we buried stuff.

Fossil fuel is a energy resource. *It is the result of plants
capturing the energy in sunlight and it being turned into
hydrocarbons. * Which is the chemical storage of energy. *Like a
battery. *We are converting that stored energy into heat energy for
the most part. *Energy like matter is never lost but after we're
finished, the heat energy contributes to the gradual equilibrium of
the energy state in the universe which makes it of no further use to
us. *The issue is that we're converting that stored energy at a
tremediously faster rate than it was stored. *Years of our use equals
millions of years of capture. *So no matter how good we get at finding
the hydrocarbons we will eventually use them all up. *Will that happen
in 50 years or 500 years is debatable but most people would agree the
practical number is somewhere between those two. *Bottom line we
really are using up the energy in fossil fuels.

As to the co2, we are also raising the co2 level. *That's a fact. *The
bydrocarbons were buried in the ground. *We're releasing them and
breaking them up and combing the freed carbon with oxygen to produce
co2. *Who knows maybe we will be the start of the next cycle that
produces new hydrocarbons for some other lifeform to dig up a couple
hundred million yeasr from now. *On the short term the consequences
might not be so good for us.- Hide quoted text -

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Mostly true but we never recover 100% of the original elements and
never will. *The 'pie in the sky' types keep pointing to new
discoveries as if those "new discoveries' will continue to be made for
infinity.

Harry K- Hide quoted text -

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We can recover enough that we don't really have to worry about running
out of things like copper and iron.- Hide quoted text -

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You need to be re-cycling it, not recovering it.

On Jul 20, 9:45*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
harry wrote:

I mis-remembered. There were five (picked by Ehrlich). The wager was
$1,000 each. Whatever the differential in price after a decade would
go to the winner.

chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten

"Between 1980 and 1990, the world's population grew by more than 800
million, the largest increase in one decade in all of history. But by
September 1990, without a single exception, the price of each of
Ehrlich's selected metals had fallen, and in some cases had dropped
significantly. Chromium, which had sold for $3.90 a pound in 1980,
was down to $3.70 in 1990. Tin, which was $8.72 a pound in 1980, was
down to $3.88 a decade later."

Why does costing more make them harder to find?

It doesn't. Being harder to find makes them cost more. Price is a
convenient metric for scarcity.- Hide quoted text -

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Ah,you got it mixedup *:-)

Population is the main problem I think.
Everything comes back to that.
Nature will soon organise a cull.

That's what Malthus thought. He was wrong. That's what Ehrlich thought. He,
too, was wrong. In fact, EVERYBODY who has EVER predicted that
over-population spells our doom has been wrong.

By the principle of inductive reasoning, I suggest that you, too, are wrong.- Hide quoted text -

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The cull has already started in Ethiopia. It will spread.
Few people/governments seem willing to donate money to alleviate it.
(Least of al the USA.
Ergo, these people will die.