Nuclear, too dangerous. Coal, too dirty. Wind, too dangerous to wildlife.

[Suzie]

Window for Wind
Posted 5/25/2006 06:00 AM

<TABLE class=body id=storybody width=468><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top>Developers have their sights set on Mountain State ridges.
Story by Pam Kasey Email (pkasey@statejournal.com) | Bio (http://www.statejournal.com/bios.cfm?func=viewbio&bioid=63)

When the Mountaineer Wind Energy Center's 44 turbines started spinning in Tucker and Preston counties in December 2002, it was the largest wind generation facility east of the Mississippi River.
It's still West Virginia's only wind facility, but four projects nearing construction could increase the state's wind infrastructure 10 times during the next few years to more than 450 turbines -- a jump from 66 megawatts nameplate capacity to 650.
And more ventures have lined up behind those. The project queue for electric grid coordinator PJM Interconnection lists six developer inquiries into connecting another 570 MW wind generation capacity in West Virginia.
The best winds could produce about 3,800 MW of power on private lands in West Virginia, according to a study commissioned by the state Development Office. That's a significant addition to the 15,000 MW of all types of electric generation capacity now in place statewide.
But what some call "wind farms" to emphasize their clean and renewable nature, others see as a blight, and a deadly one at that. They call them "wind mines."
An evidentiary hearing held this month by the state Public Service Commission on siting the proposed Greenbrier County Beech Ridge Wind Farm ran for six days.
"I've been here 15 years, and this is probably the longest one I've seen," said Jim Ellars, chief utilities manager in the commission's engineering division, during a break on the fifth day. "There are a lot of issues." Arguments Against One of the more vigorous arguments at the Greenbrier hearing was that the turbines will take away from the state's natural beauty, Ellars said.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>MORE HERE (http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=11127)

Soon I will be living in a cave cooking with fire rocks and sticks.

[Beowulf]

Soon I will be living in a cave cooking with fire rocks and sticks.
No you won't! You would be making a bear homeless and how dare you kill a tree!

[Suzie]

:lol:

[DoctorDoom]

It's another example of the elitist mindset of the leftist asswipes who have paralyzed domestic energy supplies in the US since the 70s. Unfortunately, the people and the legislators would rather listen to screeching, ignorant, alarmist jerkoffs whose technological expertise ends at turning on the lights than to scientists and engineers who know what they're talking about on the subject.

We have two choices: we can continue to allow f**king imbeciles to dictate energy policy, or we can tell them to stuff their heads up their asses and commit NOW to exapnding our resources. There is no luxury of time to think about it.

And the story evinces a long-understood truth about ecowackos: they strongly favor "alternative" energy sources until it becomes practical to exploit them. And then they oppose them.

[CzechPrince]

I'm all for nuclear power. We should be using more of it.

[Timberwolf]

Absolutely, CP. TMI, in reality, ought to be the "poster child" FOR nuclear power, not some "boogey man" that scares people into thinking it will be the ruin of humanity.

With the advances in nuclear reclamation technology, nuke power is as safe as any other source of power and cleaner than most.

[Suzie]

The bat expert "Batman" was an interesting testimony. When asked what redeeming quality the creatures have that we should be so concerned they are being lost to the windmills his answer was. They have a value in and of themselves just because they are bats. Now how do you argue with that... without laughing. :lol:

[DeclinetoState]

<center><img src="http://www.darrenfrodsham.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/images/batman.jpg" width="400" height="300" border=0></center>

"I resemble those remarks"

[2nd_Amendment]

Nuclear all the way!

With that, I still say that the short term "modern" methodology, large centralized metro areas subsisting on large, centralized power generation, is going to come to an end. It's something we tried and it was fun while it lasted. Yay. Time, next, to use technology to provide independent power per home and time to return to a more rural lifestyle for most people...

Problems with that: We breed like rodents these days and we've got to many enviro-nazins out there who would love to regulate wood burners, windmills, bio-diesel, etc... And thus there's one more reason we are, in my opinion, heading for one helluva hiccup of some form...

[DeclinetoState]

Wasn't the Batmobile nuke powered?

[Gonzo67]

There was a man who had a pretty logical solution. Solar Power. But his idea was a little "different". Solar Collectors placed on the moon, where one side of the moon is in Daylight 24/7. We already posses the technology to beam energy over satellites. So why cant solar energy be converted into a form that can be transmitted to earth via satellites, while it can be collected non stop, 24 hours a day, year round. Thats as close to an "Endless Supply" of safe energy that you can get.

Of course, his ideas were shot down without so much as an offer to "look into it".

Personally, I would be in full support of research geared toward making something like that a reality.

[Suzie]

Solar and wind can't meet base load capacity no matter how much of it you transmit. It just isn't capable of producing enough. One large city would use up all of what you could produce globally. (or on the moon) Like wind, solar has the same problems for production, either it's there or it isn't. You can't store electricity except in a battery and that type of storage is limited. At least the wind blows at night so it's much more of a constant than solar, but for a large heavy populated area neither solar or wind would meet the demand.

[DoctorDoom]

The bat expert "Batman" ...<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v349/DocDoom777/moonbat200.jpg" />

[DesertFox]

I got an even better idea: Let's just shoot these idiots and do what seems best.

[Gonzo67]

Like wind, solar has the same problems for production, either it's there or it isn't. You can't store electricity except in a battery and that type of storage is limited. At least the wind blows at night so it's much more of a constant than solar, but for a large heavy populated area neither solar or wind would meet the demand.


Actually, you can store electricity, it's called a Capacitor. As for Solar vs. Wind, if Collectors were placed on the side of the moon thats in daylight 24 hours a day, then solar would provide more than wind hands down. No atmosphere full of clouds to block the sunlight, and no "night time" to worry about. With wind, yes, it does blow at night, but there are times when there's very little to no wind, so your power generation would fluctuate depending on the wind. Solar energy is constant.

As for Solar not providing enough energy, every little bit would help. If used in conjunction with nuke, it would provide additional energy. Same with Wind.Consider we're using Fossil fuels now, if we were to add solar and wind to that energy, we would have more available energy than we have without adding wind and solar.

As long as the amount of energy provided covers and exceeds the cost of gathering and supplying it, theres no reason NOT to use it.

At any rate, Wind and Solar are RENEWABLE forms of energy, or more accurately, I should say "near inexhaustible" forms of energy. Fossil fuels are finite. They will run out eventually. And when they do, we better have some sort of structure in place to provide the energy that will be needed.

[Gonzo67]

The bat expert "Batman" was an interesting testimony. When asked what redeeming quality the creatures have that we should be so concerned they are being lost to the windmills his answer was. They have a value in and of themselves just because they are bats. Now how do you argue with that... without laughing.


While I understand your amusement at his comment, he was rather "vague" about the benefits bats provide, they do actually provide a great deal of benefit. Just those that live in cities are not as aware of those benefits.

I live in the woods in SC. By a creek, and on my street, thees probably 7 to 10 houses. There are bats all over the place where I live. The people across the street from me, they are "stereo-typical red-necks". Thy delight in killing anything and everything that moves. So a bat to them is nothing more than a funny moving target.

But at my house, bats are not killed. There are some roosting in the barn, there are many living in trees in the woods surrounding my house. I can sit on my deck, outside, all summer long, and never get bitten by a mosquito. I don't have to have the "red-neck entertainment" aka Bug Zapper hanging up on my porch, because there's next to no flying insects that need to be killed. The bats are the reason.

My neighbors, they kill bats flying around their yard at dusk, and they send the entire summer bitching and moaning about "these damn mosquitoes" and all the other insects that bother them all summer.

Me, I sit back and enjoy a peaceful, mosquito bit free summer. THOSE are the people I laugh at. The ones that KILL the solution to their problem.

[Suzie]

This guy testified that the bats in question do not eat mosquitos, (fruit bats I believe) that is why the question was asked in the first place. Whether that is true or not I have no idea, but he is supposed to be a bat "expert".

[Gonzo67]

Even more reason to keep the bats... just think of all the "fruits" you'll have walking up and down the street by those turbines! My god, it'll be a second San FranSisco!

[Suzie]

Actually, you can store electricity, it's called a Capacitor.

A capacitor stores charge, it doesn't store energy.

[Gonzo67]

A capacitor stores charge, it doesn't store energy.


True, a charge that can then be supplied to an end user. Same way UPS's work, same way the electric company delivers electricity to your residence.

Are you aware that you can set up a personal "windmill" to supply additional power to your house, and if you have an excess of power, you can generate a charge, store it in capacitors, and resell that electricity back to your electric company? Granted, it's not something the "average person" can do because of the expense. An average person doing it won't "turn a profit", but it can be done.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

[Suzie]

That also depends on what the net metering laws are in your state, and they will be different for every state.

[Gonzo67]

That also depends on what the net metering laws are in your state, and they will be different for every state.


Good point, also very true. But "uniform regulations" have been set in other areas, it could be set here as well. Especially when dealing with a form of energy that the general public can not only buy, but produce as well.

[Suzie]

Energy policy act of 2005 left net metering up to the states because of the diversity of regulation and energy prices. We pay 6 cents a KWH here using coal, and they pay 16 cents in New England. I personally do not want to pay to heat New England in the winter if it's going to have me paying what they pay. The only base load energy that is affordable and practical is coal and nuclear. The people here who do have the windmills pay much more than we do for coal. The only thing that would make that viable is government incentives and federal support.

[Gonzo67]

The only thing that would make that viable is government incentives and federal support.


All of which can be enacted. Hell, they give incentives and support for everything else. :)


Energy policy act of 2005 left net metering up to the states because of the diversity of regulation and energy prices.


Regulation could be standardized, as for energy prices, I'm not claiming to know allot about how those prices are set, but I suspect it includes things like Availability of the resource. Proximity to the resource, amount of demand, etc... All of which probably wouldn't change much until the necessary infrastructure is built within each city to supply the energy. Once that happens, prices could possibly fall in line, and be pretty much equivalent across the board no matter what state or city you live in.

[Rhino]

True, a charge that can then be supplied to an end user. Same way UPS's work, same way the electric company delivers electricity to your residence.An UPS uses batteries. I've had to change plenty of them. Capacitors are used for surges/ebbs in line supply. Capacitors aren't suited for long term storage, and they suck at delivering energy because they give an instantaneous discharge rather than a steady supply.

[DoctorDoom]

Solar and wind can't meet base load capacity no matter how much of it you transmit. It just isn't capable of producing enough. One large city would use up all of what you could produce globally. (or on the moon) Like wind, solar has the same problems for production, either it's there or it isn't. You can't store electricity except in a battery and that type of storage is limited. At least the wind blows at night so it's much more of a constant than solar, but for a large heavy populated area neither solar or wind would meet the demand.Well said, gentle lady.

One problem with solar energy is its diffuseness. At Earth's (and the moon's) distance from the sun, the "insolation" is about 1.4 KW/m². On Earth's surface that decreases to about 1 KW/m². So lets put it on the moon for maximum power.

To equal the output of a 1000-MW nuke would require 714,286 square meters or 0.2757874 square miles. But that's just the beginning.

The best SPV cell for practical use is less than 20% efficient. But if we assume 20%, the collector increases to 3,571,429 square meters or 1.378936 square miles. Adding peripheral equipment, mounting, et al, we can use 1.5 square miles as the collector size.

Inasmuch as the moon rotates, meaning the sun travels across the lunar sky, the array will not always be perpendicular to the incoming sunlight. We then encounter the cosine effect, where the amount of sunlight on a given area is calculated thusly: P = 1.4 x cos(A), where A is the angle of the sun to the surface in degrees.

At A = 0° ; cos(A) = 1.000; P = 1.4 * 1.000 = 1.4 KW/m²
At A = 30°: cos(A) = 0.866; P = 1.4 * 0.866 = 1.21 KW/m²
At A = 45°; cos(A) = 0.707; P = 1.4 * 0.707 = 0.99 KW/m²
At A = 60°; cos(A) = 0.500; P = 1.5 * 0.500 = 0.70 KW/m²

Obviously, maximum output can be obtained only when the incoming sunlight is perpendicular to the arrays. If the facility is centered on the moon so that Earth is directly overhead (in or near the crater Pallas), the maximum sunlight would be at the full moon. The only way to maintain perpendicularity would be heliotropic (sun-tracking) arrays. They are easily (albeit expensively) built, but then there is the issue of tilted segments shading the ones behind them, thus reducing the output.

Between the last quarter and first quarter, the facility would be in darkness, with only "earthshine" for illumination. It would thus be useless. The only way to compensate for that would be a similar facility on the far side of the moon. In terms of constant output, a more reliable approach would be three of them spaced at 120° intervals, so that at no time will there be less than the equivalent of full output from the triad. When the sun is at 60° from site A, it is also at 60° to B, and by the chart above, each of them would be at half power without heliotropic arrays. Thus the 1000-MW output would be maintained no matter where the sun is.

Each of the facilities will require a certain amount of power overhead to run the facility and equipment, so the solar arrays will have to be upsized to compensate for that. An increase to 2 mi² should be adequate to provide the power for themselves, for the ones that are in darkness, and to account for losses in conversion to AC for practical transmission via the power lines, and for line losses.

We then have the matter of interconnecting the three units to the Pallas base so that the power can be transmitted to Earth. The other two would be on the moon's unseen side, and thus inaccessible to Earth. This would require two 3400-mile runs (300 miles more than Boston to San Francisco) of physical conductors, with the strings of towers to keep the cables off of the surface.

The bucks keep piling up. And we haven't even cited the number of supply ships to bring those many thousands of tons of materials to the moon, along with the support supplies for the hundreds of humans involved in the project.

But, let's fantasize that the infrastructure is in place. Now comes Phase Two, getting the 1000 megawatts to Earth. The only practical way would be microwaves. Aside from the task of building a microwave transmitter than could pump out a gigawatt beam, we encounter several prodigious obstacles.

First, converting the incoming power to microwaves introduces losses. The arrays must therefore big enough to provide 1000 MW after all the losses on the moon are covered.

Second, the size of the transmitting dish determines how much the beam spreads (divergence). Since the desire is to maintain a minimum "footprint" on Earth to keep the receiver size down, a very large dish will be required. It must be steerable, since the moon's position in the sky WRT the celestial equator varies over a range of about 48°, and the location of the receiver on Earth moves with the rotation.

Third, since the Earth-based receiver is seldom perpendicular to the received energy, the cosine effect works there as well. And the size of the footprint increases as the moon moves away from the zenith, going from circle to a very elongated ellipse. For the system to be practical, the receiving antenna (probably a "rectenna" or "rectifying antenna") must be large enough to capture the power from the whole footprint for at least 8 hours. Atmospheric absorption and inclement weather will also reduce the received power.

Fourth, between moonset and moonrise, there is no input to the antenna, ergo no output. Some other location on Earth could avail itself of the power, but for US use, it's gone. I suppose we could deal with other nations to build receivers and then feed the power to America, but how likely is that?

Fifth, the maximum power density allowable over a given area is limited by law, especially when the area might be accessible to humans or animals. A square mile of microwave oven wouldn't be tolerated. This factor sets a minimum footprint, ergo a minimum rectenna size, most likely several square miles. It will of course be larger due to beam elongation.

Sixth, rectannas are not 100% efficient, meaning that they don't put out the amount of power that they receive; rectennae provide DC output, requiring conversion to AC with more losses; rectennae are of mesh construction, ergo they have holes, and whatever energy goes through the holes is wasted. Therefore, for 1000 MW output, the power from the moon must be quite a bit above 1000 MW.

Seventh, what will the beam from the moon do to satellites in its path and to aircraft that pass through it?

With all those factors considered, which would be preferable, a 1000 MW nuke for a couple of billion, or a lunar 1000 MW system for a trillion?

Things always seem good until one ignores the sales-brochure hype.

[Suzie]

Regulation could be standardized, as for energy prices, I'm not claiming to know allot about how those prices are set, but I suspect it includes things like Availability of the resource. Proximity to the resource, amount of demand, etc... All of which probably wouldn't change much until the necessary infrastructure is built within each city to supply the energy. Once that happens, prices could possibly fall in line, and be pretty much equivalent across the board no matter what state or city you live in.

Not really, the demands are so different for different areas. Customers should pay for what they benefit from. That is the whole purpose for regulating the charges for utilities. If you do what you are saying you would be subsidizing charges for other states with what you pay. The demand in the northeast is huge, you have Boston, New York, Philly and other places.

[cerberus]

Everyone is making such good points. I think the answer clearly lies in some combination or middle ground utilizing wind, solar, hydro, fuel cells, nukes etc etc.
You build a bunch of large light-water reactors (and a full fuel cycle infrastructure) for base-load use along with the existing hydro plants. These can then be supplimented by wind-farms. The goverment can then give tax incentives for homeowners and businesses to install solar panels on their houses or ontop of offices (imagine all the space your local mall has unused on its roof!)

Of course the big issue is storage; how do you get the most of these facilities so as to even out the flow when it's dark and not windy? I've read several proposals, including things like giant solar/wind-powered flywheels to store energy that can be tapped later, but one of the best ideas IMO was hydrogen production/storage. Have electrolysis plants near rivers/lakes/the ocean connected to the grid so that when there is a surplus of energy the plants 'crack' water molecules for hydrogen and oxygen which can then be liquified and stored. You then transport the fuel to local, distributed fuel cells for use. A wonderful system and the only emission is water! I've read that Argentina is considering such a plant near the Tierra Del Fuego with wind turbines to take advantage of the almost constant wind at the tip of S. America and then liquify and pipe or ship via tanker the hydrogen. Why not us?

[DoctorDoom]

Why not us?Ecowackos.

[Lazarus]

If we as a society had not chosen to let the anti-nuke activists paint nuclear power with an unjust image of evil we would be driving nuclear cars by now... Nuclear IS the answer to our energy problems...

And for those who ring their hands over what to do with the spent fuel, that's what God gave us deep space for...

It is my hope that this present fuel crisis that we see looming on the horizon will finally bring some objective voices to the issue of Nuclear Energy and we can start over where we should have started 30 years ago...

[Suzie]

And the "not in my backyard" people too. We have needed new power plants many places for years now and everyone wants the power but no one wants to see whatever makes it. And the windmills aren't attractive either, even though they are considered "green power" the environuts don't like them either because a bird or a bat might get whacked by a blade.

Here's a photo we took of the windmills while we were in Palm Springs. Many find them to be an eye sore.

[Rhino]

Everyone is making such good points. I think the answer clearly lies in some combination or middle ground utilizing wind, solar, hydro, fuel cells, nukes etc etc.Harness the power of cow farts. Then every steak can come bundled with the power to cook it.

[Betrayed]

What more do these idiots want from us? We protect the environment all we can, we even use WIND to power us! And that is still bad?

I say we all just go and set up our tree house communities already so these guys can stop bitching. We'll build networks of them, all over the country, jumping tree to tree like little monkeys. Then we'll build grain-fueled hover crafts to travel the world. And then fairies will pop out of the ground and make everyone happy all the time.

[Lazarus]

What more do these idiots want from us? We protect the environment all we can, we even use WIND to power us! And that is still bad?...Mr Limbaugh stated it clearly... The Environmental Movement is the new home of the Communist party...

No doubt there are some Eco-idiots in there who think they are saving the planet, but the movement is being directed by Marxists who will not be satisfied until the United States' industry, economy, and culture is utterly eliminated... They care nothing for the environment, but it is a convenient sacred cow that they can manipulate and use as a guilt hammer to slowly destroy our freedoms and our economy... They will not stop until our culture is in slavery and our will is broken...

[Maggie_T]

I got an even better idea: Let's just shoot these idiots and do what seems best.


:hahaha: I love it.

Drill, drill, drill. drill. Sorry, Mr. Moose. You'll just have to bug off.

Heck, if humans are evicted from their homes by Eminent Domain, I see no reason why animals should not move to a better place (seeing as how ANWAR is considered to be a frozen wastland, by those who know what they're talkin about), to accomodate humans' needs.

And eco-nazis can just eat sh** and die.

[Suzie]

No oil here Mags. We burn coal. And it's worked my entire life, if it ain't broke these nuts shouldn't try to fix it.

Posting with my coal powered computer. :D