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.

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.
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...NESS/107170308

In article , Frank
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

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.
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...ESS/107170308- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

All power plants have maintenance costs.

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. 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.

Who do you trust more, engineers or politicians?

"HeyBub" writes:

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.

If that's a "fact" I guess there's no point, but what the hell...

The link provided refers to a "Bentek" report but if there is a link to
the report, I must have missed it.

Here's the Bentek web site:

http://www.bentekenergy.com/

"We are a recognized leader in natural gas, oil and NGL market
fundamental analysis."

On the link provided, there's this odd bit:

The Global Wind Energy Council, one of the industry's main lobby
groups, claims that reducing the amount of carbon dioxide into the
atmosphere "is the most important environmental benefit from wind
power generation."

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.

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.


--
Dan Espen

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.


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.

--------
* Paul R. Ehrlich's works include:
- The Population Bomb
- The Race Bomb
- Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future
- Healing the Planet
- How the Anti-Environmental Rhetoric Threatens Our Future
- The End of Affluence
And so on. And on. And on.

wrote in message ...

stuff snipped

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.

Me too. While solar and wind may never fully replace oil and coal, they can
put a serious dent in our need for either. We seem to have entered a binary
world where things are either black or white. No gray allowed. "If taxing
the rich like they used to be taxed doesn't *immediately* solve the money
crisis, then there's no sense in doing it at all" seems to be the mantra of
many who forgot we got in this mess one day at a time and it's going to take
time to get out of it.

A similarly nonsensical position is to believe solar, wind, tidal and other
sources of power shouldn't be explored because they are not going to replace
oil and coal instantly. Even if the Feds have to pony up some seed money,
it's better to have the idle machinists in Detroit building *something*
useful instead of sitting home doing nothing.

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.

Finally!!! A person who gets it!!! Why is it OK to steal resources from our
children's future but not OK to put them into debt? The answer is, of
course, that neither thing is good to do. It's just that the national debt
situation makes for good political theater. Maybe if we got smart and
didn't hand over billions of dollars to a country that gave safe-haven to
Osama bin Laden we could save our way back to prosperity.

I don't seem to recall anyone clamoring over how much it cost to start the
two wars we have no chance of winning. I don't even recall anyone clearly
elucidating what we stood to gain from these wars. What have we gained? So
far it seems to me the only thing we have to show for those wars is a large
group of horribly wounded soldiers that the CBO estimates might cost ANOTHER
trillion dollars to care for duing their (often) miserable lifetimes. I
don't know about you, but if I spend two or three trillion on something, I'd
like to get at least some value.

Obama and Bush were equally stupid about these wars, thinking they could
deny Al-Qaeda "training camps." Someone should have told them it's an
awfully big world out there and we don't have enough troops to keep it all
terrorist free. We weren't able to stop McVeigh on our own home turf. What
does that say about the sanity of thinking we can lock terrorism down
worldwide? The terrorists are laughing themselves silly at us because we've
spent ourselves into near bankruptcy chasing down ghosts and goat herders.
That's just what they wanted - to terrorize us into not thinking clearly -
and it just BURNS me that we've allowed them to succeed to the point where
we're near broke and openly fighting amongst ourselves.

Both parties have people in them with good ideas but they're getting drowned
out and run over by leaders who believe that winning is the ONLY thing.
It's more important than getting the country back to prosperity. If there's
a SINGLE economist who thinks the plan to default on the US debt is a *good*
idea, I haven't come across them. Universally they seem to be saying that
going into default has the potential to double our trouble by raising the
cost to borrow money and paying the added costs of dealing with the chaos a
government shutdown would cause.

Ironic, considering it was two wars, the TSA and a pro-business Medicare
drug plan that have helped drive us so deeply into debt. All that happened
under someone else's watch. We've reached the uneviable situation where
political leaders are saying, in reality, "we would rather see the baby cut
in TWO rather than have those devils in the OTHER party get it all!"

--
Bobby G.

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.


Hi,
Every coin has two sides. Been to Denmark? They have hundreds of wind
turbines along their coast line. Denmark is not a country of children,
is it?

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.
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 -

- Show quoted text -

All power plants have maintenance costs.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

PV?

On Jul 20, 4:21*am, Tony Hwang wrote:
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.

Hi,
Every coin has two sides. Been to Denmark? They have hundreds of wind
turbines along their coast line. Denmark is not a country of children,
is it?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

The Danish are a special case.
They have many ideal sites for turbines.
At times of high wind, they can export surplus power to other
countries,(Norway and Germany.)
They make most of their money selling turbines to others (mostly us it
seems)
They get subsidies for power produced (again a lot from us)

On Jul 20, 3:46*am, "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.



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.

--------

Which commodities were they? (Just about everything seems more
expensive to me.)

Why does costing more make them harder to find?

harry wrote:

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.

--------

Which commodities were they? (Just about everything seems more
expensive to me.)

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.

On Jul 20, 3:24*am, harry wrote:
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.
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...308-Hidequoted text -

- Show quoted text -

All power plants have maintenance costs.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

PV?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Limited life span then the cells have to be replaced. Supports,
controls, etc all require maintenance.

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.

In article ,
"Robert Green" wrote:

wrote in message ...

stuff snipped

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.

Me too. While solar and wind may never fully replace oil and coal, they can
put a serious dent in our need for either. We seem to have entered a binary
world where things are either black or white. No gray allowed. "If taxing
the rich like they used to be taxed doesn't *immediately* solve the money
crisis, then there's no sense in doing it at all" seems to be the mantra of
many who forgot we got in this mess one day at a time and it's going to take
time to get out of it.

Actually it wouldn't be. Taxing the rich like they used to be would
actually make it worse. According to IRS figures, 1980 the top 1% (and
you can't get any richer than that) paid 19.05% oF fed income taxes. By
1987 (I toss this in since the tax changes in '86 include some in the
definition of Adjusted Gross Income so prior to this is not exactly
comparable) it was 24.81% and by 2008 (the last I could find) it was
38.02%. So, in order to tax the rich like we did in the 80s, we would
have to cut their taxes in half.

A similarly nonsensical position is to believe solar, wind, tidal and other
sources of power shouldn't be explored because they are not going to replace
oil and coal instantly. Even if the Feds have to pony up some seed money,
it's better to have the idle machinists in Detroit building *something*
useful instead of sitting home doing nothing.

Not from an economical standpoint. If the only reason something is
"successful" is because of the tax impacts, when they go away so will
the jobs. Better to get the person in something that is going to last
than to put him into make work jobs. The second wave of S&L failures,
for instance, were largely related to a change in the tax laws that
(retroactively) took away some artificial incentives to build. These
were largely built as a tax dodge (which made at least some econ sense
until the advantages went away).

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

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* ?

On Jul 20, 9:03*am, 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* ?

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

On Jul 20, 8:27*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:

wrote in ...

stuff snipped

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.

Me too. *While solar and wind may never fully replace oil and coal, they can
put a serious dent in our need for either. *We seem to have entered a binary
world where things are either black or white. *No gray allowed. *"If taxing
the rich like they used to be taxed doesn't *immediately* solve the money
crisis, then there's no sense in doing it at all" seems to be the mantra of
many who forgot we got in this mess one day at a time and it's going to take
time to get out of it.

* Actually it wouldn't be. Taxing the rich like they used to be would
actually make it worse. According to IRS figures, 1980 the top 1% (and
you can't get any richer than that) paid 19.05% oF fed income taxes. By
1987 (I toss this in since the tax changes in '86 include some in the
definition of Adjusted Gross Income so prior to this is not exactly
comparable) it was 24.81% and by 2008 (the last I could find) it was
38.02%. So, in order to tax the rich like we did in the 80s, we would
have to cut their taxes in half.
* * *

A similarly nonsensical position is to believe solar, wind, tidal and other
sources of power shouldn't be explored because they are not going to replace
oil and coal instantly. *Even if the Feds have to pony up some seed money,
it's better to have the idle machinists in Detroit building *something*
useful instead of sitting home doing nothing.

* * Not from an economical standpoint. If the only reason something is
"successful" is because of the tax impacts, when they go away so will
the jobs. Better to get the person in something that is going to last
than to put him into make work jobs. The second wave of S&L failures,
for instance, were largely related to a change in the tax laws that
(retroactively) took away some artificial incentives to build. These
were largely built as a tax dodge (which made at least some econ sense
until the advantages went away).

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

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?

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:09:59 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Jul 20, 9:03*am, 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* ?

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

I feel an aerodynamics lesson coming.

Jim

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

--

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.

Kurt Ullman wrote:

Seems like we do this over and over again.

-snip-
Actually it wouldn't be. Taxing the rich like they used to be would
actually make it worse. According to IRS figures, 1980 the top 1% (and
you can't get any richer than that) paid 19.05% oF fed income taxes.

Lets just say for the sake of argument that the whole enchilada is
$100.

That top 1% made 8 1/2% of the money in 1980. Their rate was 34%.
[data from http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html ]
The gov't collects $2.89 from those boys/girls.

By
1987 (I toss this in since the tax changes in '86 include some in the
definition of Adjusted Gross Income so prior to this is not exactly
comparable) it was 24.81% and by 2008 (the last I could find) it was
38.02%. So, in order to tax the rich like we did in the 80s, we would
have to cut their taxes in half.

In 2008 they were making 20% of the money. And their rate was 23%.
the gov't collects $4.46.

So the gov't would make out pretty well if they started paying what us
peons pay [if we include FICA]

Jim

"HeyBub" writes:

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.

No.

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.

If you know of a combustion process that produces only CO2 I'd like
to know about it. I didn't say CO2, I said pollution.

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.

It's ridiculous to think we can take tungsten, helium, iron, copper,
tin, lithium, etc out of the ground and scatter them through landfills
without using them up.

Yes, with advances in technology we can dig deeper and extract more.
To think that this can go on forever is wishful thinking.

Mining landfills is in our future. It won't be pretty.

--
Dan Espen

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

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.
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.

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.

--
Dan Espen

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.

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:41:21 -0400, Jim Elbrecht
wrote:

On Wed, 20 Jul 2011 06:09:59 -0700 (PDT), jamesgangnc
wrote:

On Jul 20, 9:03Â*am, 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* ?

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

I feel an aerodynamics lesson coming.

Jim

One word.......plastics. er, no, I mean feathering.

--Vic

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.

On Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:12:17 -0500, "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.

As is the debt we are passing down to them.
Aren't we wonderful!
--
Mr.E

On Jul 20, 12:52*pm, "HeyBub" wrote:
harry wrote:

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.

--------

Which commodities were they? *(Just about everything seems more
expensive to me.)

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.

On Jul 20, 1:27*pm, Kurt Ullman wrote:
In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:

wrote in ...

stuff snipped

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.

Me too. *While solar and wind may never fully replace oil and coal, they can
put a serious dent in our need for either. *We seem to have entered a binary
world where things are either black or white. *No gray allowed. *"If taxing
the rich like they used to be taxed doesn't *immediately* solve the money
crisis, then there's no sense in doing it at all" seems to be the mantra of
many who forgot we got in this mess one day at a time and it's going to take
time to get out of it.

* Actually it wouldn't be. Taxing the rich like they used to be would
actually make it worse. According to IRS figures, 1980 the top 1% (and
you can't get any richer than that) paid 19.05% oF fed income taxes. By
1987 (I toss this in since the tax changes in '86 include some in the
definition of Adjusted Gross Income so prior to this is not exactly
comparable) it was 24.81% and by 2008 (the last I could find) it was
38.02%. So, in order to tax the rich like we did in the 80s, we would
have to cut their taxes in half.
* * *

A similarly nonsensical position is to believe solar, wind, tidal and other
sources of power shouldn't be explored because they are not going to replace
oil and coal instantly. *Even if the Feds have to pony up some seed money,
it's better to have the idle machinists in Detroit building *something*
useful instead of sitting home doing nothing.

* * Not from an economical standpoint. If the only reason something is
"successful" is because of the tax impacts, when they go away so will
the jobs. Better to get the person in something that is going to last
than to put him into make work jobs. The second wave of S&L failures,
for instance, were largely related to a change in the tax laws that
(retroactively) took away some artificial incentives to build. These
were largely built as a tax dodge (which made at least some econ sense
until the advantages went away).

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

Not everything is about economics. We've seen where the "free market"
and "economics" lands us. Right in the **** where we are now.

On Jul 20, 2:03*pm, 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* ?

Ordinary fans are made to a restricted diameter.
They are inefficient because each blade is close to, and in the
turbulence of, it's predecessor.
Wind turbines have less restriction on their diameter and are much
more efficient.

On Jul 20, 2:19*pm, jamesgangnc wrote:
On Jul 20, 8:27*am, Kurt Ullman wrote:





In article ,
*"Robert Green" wrote:

wrote in ....

stuff snipped

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.

Me too. *While solar and wind may never fully replace oil and coal, they can
put a serious dent in our need for either. *We seem to have entered a binary
world where things are either black or white. *No gray allowed. *"If taxing
the rich like they used to be taxed doesn't *immediately* solve the money
crisis, then there's no sense in doing it at all" seems to be the mantra of
many who forgot we got in this mess one day at a time and it's going to take
time to get out of it.

* Actually it wouldn't be. Taxing the rich like they used to be would
actually make it worse. According to IRS figures, 1980 the top 1% (and
you can't get any richer than that) paid 19.05% oF fed income taxes. By
1987 (I toss this in since the tax changes in '86 include some in the
definition of Adjusted Gross Income so prior to this is not exactly
comparable) it was 24.81% and by 2008 (the last I could find) it was
38.02%. So, in order to tax the rich like we did in the 80s, we would
have to cut their taxes in half.
* * *

A similarly nonsensical position is to believe solar, wind, tidal and other
sources of power shouldn't be explored because they are not going to replace
oil and coal instantly. *Even if the Feds have to pony up some seed money,
it's better to have the idle machinists in Detroit building *something*
useful instead of sitting home doing nothing.

* * Not from an economical standpoint. If the only reason something is
"successful" is because of the tax impacts, when they go away so will
the jobs. Better to get the person in something that is going to last
than to put him into make work jobs. The second wave of S&L failures,
for instance, were largely related to a change in the tax laws that
(retroactively) took away some artificial incentives to build. These
were largely built as a tax dodge (which made at least some econ sense
until the advantages went away).

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

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?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Rob the poor to pay the rich is how politics works in America. You
are all slaves to capitalism.
Kept in check by the myth that one day you may become rich.
That drawbridge is pulled up. Keep the proles in their place.
Who is bailing out the banks? Not the people who made all the money.

On Jul 20, 2:59*pm, 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 -

There is two sorts of balancing. Static and dynamic.
Put simply,static is balancing the weight of the blades. Dynamic is
balancing the force they generate.
The one blade prop. can be statically balanced but obviously not
dynamically.

On Jul 20, 3:37*pm, wrote:
"HeyBub" writes:
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.

No.

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.

If you know of a combustion process that produces only CO2 I'd like
to know about it. *I didn't say CO2, I said pollution.

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.

It's ridiculous to think we can take tungsten, helium, iron, copper,
tin, lithium, etc out of the ground and scatter them through landfills
without using them up.

Yes, with advances in technology we can dig deeper and extract more.
To think that this can go on forever is wishful thinking.

Mining landfills is in our future. *It won't be pretty.

For plastics too I reckon.

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?

On Jul 20, 4:14*pm, 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 -

There is exactly enough hydrocarbon fuel in the ground to convert all
the oxygen in the atmosphere to CO2 and water.
Because that's where the oxygen all came from in the first place.

So we know exactly how much fuel is there. It may not all be
recoverable and we need to stop a long time before we turn all the
earth's O2 back into CO2 and water.

"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?

"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?

"HeyBub" wrote in message
m...


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.

Badly broken logic. Water is necessary for life too, but that doesn't mean
you want to be caught in the middle of a flood.

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.

More broken logic, as all fossil fuels are available in finite quantities
which means eventually the expense of extracting them will make them
economically impractical. Or do you think that China and India competing
with us for oil isn't responsible for the price staying up? If we're
finding more oil than we're burning, why isn't it twenty dollars a barrel?
And aside from that there is the little problem of pollution, e.g. "clean
coal" being a marketing phrase rather than something the industry can
actually deliver.