Bad News for Segway Lovers



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Zoot Katz <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
| Sun, 12 Jan 2003 04:31:09 GMT, <[email protected]>, "Buck" <j u n k m
| a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m> wrote:
|
| >"Zoot Katz" <[email protected]> wrote in message
| >news:[email protected]...
| >
| ><snip>
| >
| >> Reducing consumption would be a good place to start. I think Californians showed it could be
| >> done during the rolling black-outs. (Whether or not there was ever a real power shortage is
| >> mixed up somewhere with Enron's and the Bushies' criminal activities)
| >
| >The rolling blackouts were good evidence that reducing consumption is not enough. When that
| >debacle was happening, other states were unwilling to
send
| >additional power because they still had to meet demand in their own local areas.
| >
| >
| >> Natural gas is non renewable and it's not as clean as the lobbyists
will
| >> have us believe.
| >
| >Agreed
| >
| >
| >> Wind power has the greatest widespread potential for a pollution-free renewable energy source.
| >> The technology to do this has been here for years.
| >
| >Let me quote an oft-quoted article by Allan M.R. MacRae:
| >
| >"Of course, wind doesn't blow all the time - wind power works best as a small part of an
| >electrical distribution system, where other sources
provide
| >the base and peak power. Although wind power has made recent gains, it
will
| >probably remain a small contributor to our overall energy needs. A 1,000-megawatt wind farm would
| >cover a land area of 1,036 square
kilometres,
| >while the same-size surface coal mine and power plant complex covers
about
| >36 square kilometres. Wind farms cover a much bigger area, are visible
for
| >miles due to the height of the towers and kill large numbers of birds."
| >
| >
| >
| >Assuming he is correct, then we can figure how much land area is needed
to
| >generate enough electricity to cover California's consumption in 2001 (265,059 gw). Let's see,
| >265,059 gw = 265,059,000 mw. If the wind were steadily blowing, you would need 255,848 sqkm to
| >generate that
electricity.
| >That works out to 98,783 sqmi. The state of California has 155,973 sqmi
of
| >land area. Assuming all of it were usable for wind generation, then 63%
of
| >the total land area of California would be needed to generate the electricity it used two
| >years ago.
| >
| >
| >
| >Doesn't look like such a great alternative, does it?
|
| Consider the source:
|
| http://www.frankmag.net/storydetails.asp?storyid=170 <quote>
|
| Then there's Allan M.R. MacRae, identified by the paper as "a professional engineer, investment
| banker and environmentalist." Sounds like a real ecologist, eh? Whoops! Overlooked that little
| detail about Al being a longtime oil exec. and former president and CEO of Odyssey Petroleum Corp.
| (The firm was sold to Melrose Resources plc in 1999.) Remind us, please, precisely what are Al's
| "scientific" credentials? We know his biz rap sheet: "...a professional engineer, Mr. MacRae has
| 27 years experience in the oil and gas, engineering and management consulting businesses. From
| 1984 to 1996, Mr. MacRae was employed by Canadian Occidental Petroleum Limited, holding positions
| in the international, Canadian and oil sands divisions. From 1996 until joining Odyssey, Mr.
| MacRae worked with a major US-based multinational on international oil acquisitions." <\quote>
|
| A totally unbiased source, eh.
|
| Try these guys for more credible views of the issues you've supporting with atomic industry flak
| and "anti-environmentalist" propaganda from the likes of "Slippery Mac"
|
| http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/index.cfm
|
| >-Buck
| >
|
| --
| zk

A bit off topic, but what are the thoughts on this thing?
http://www.wentworth.nsw.gov.au/solartower/

It came up on rec.aviation.soaring

ED3
 
Tue, 14 Jan 2003 05:33:57 GMT, <[email protected]>, Erik Freitag
<[email protected]> wrote:

>In <[email protected]> Zoot Katz wrote:
>> Mon, 13 Jan 2003 21:41:26 -0600, <[email protected]>, "Edward Dike, III"
>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>>A bit off topic, but what are the thoughts on this thing?
>>>http://www.wentworth.nsw.gov.au/solartower/
>>>
>>>It came up on rec.aviation.soaring
>
>One klick high? Looks like a real head-banger if you're soaring. But the thermals would probably be
>great ...

Probably suck up a Volkswagon.
--
zk
 
"Zoot Katz" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...

<snip>

> A totally unbiased source, eh.
>
> Try these guys for more credible views of the issues you've supporting with atomic industry flak
> and "anti-environmentalist" propaganda from the likes of "Slippery Mac"
>
> http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/index.cfm

Look Zoot, everyone has a bias, everyone has an agenda. When someone finds it difficult to refute
evidence against their argument, they attack the character of the person who provided that evidence.
However, I find it surprising that when you were faced with this situation, you immediately jumped
on the "bias" bandwagon. I thought more of your character than that.

Only those who drag themselves out of the mire and objectively consider all sides of an issue can
make an unbiased decision about the best path. When looking at our energy problem, it is obvious
that no solution is perfect. Wind power cannot generate enough power to meet our needs consistently
and takes up a lot of space. Solar has the same problem with the additional concern of a high input
cost. Geothermal is unfeasible in most places. Hydroelectric plants cause environmental damage and
are limited to areas with copious amounts of flowing water in the right geographical location. Coal
and natural gas are dependent upon limited resources. Nuclear has the most hazardous waste, although
in small quantities. After looking at the advantages and disadvantages of all our options, it is my
opinion that nuclear power offers the best power output with the lowest environmental cost.

Your opinion may differ. However, if you want to prove your point, try tackling some numbers instead
of all your arm-waving about the bad men who point out the problems with specific technologies.

-Buck
 
Wed, 15 Jan 2003 04:07:49 GMT,
<[email protected]>, "Buck" <j u n k m a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c
o m> wrote:

>"Zoot Katz" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
>
><snip>
>
>> A totally unbiased source, eh.
>>
>> Try these guys for more credible views of the issues you've supporting with atomic industry flak
>> and "anti-environmentalist" propaganda from the likes of "Slippery Mac"
>>
>> http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/index.cfm
>
>Look Zoot, everyone has a bias, everyone has an agenda. When someone finds it difficult to refute
>evidence against their argument, they attack the character of the person who provided that
>evidence.
\snip After all the arm waving about science to quote an oil executive/consultant about the
efficiency of wind turbines, was just an easy target.

>Nuclear has the most hazardous waste, although in small quantities. After looking at the advantages
>and disadvantages of all our options, it is my opinion that nuclear power offers the best power
>output with the lowest environmental cost.
>
>Your opinion may differ. However, if you want to prove your point, try tackling some numbers
>instead of all your arm-waving about the bad men who point out the problems with specific
>technologies.
>

The reason I dismissed the page from Argonne National Laboratories as R&D is because they're
projecting their process will render this stuff safe in a thousand years. Good on 'em, let's just
not make any more. I really feel the world has enough plutonium and that the nuclear legacy will be
too expensive even without accidents or attacks.

There were numerous papers on UCS site which explain things about wind power and a few very
disturbing papers about safety standards in the nuclear industry.

One of the papers quoted roughly one quarter acre per turbine in a windpark. Here's a bit more
detail from The Danish Wind Industry Association's site:

http://www.windpower.dk/faqs.htm <quote> Wind turbines and access roads occupy less than one per
cent of the area in a typical wind park. The remaining 99 per cent of the land can be used for
farming or grazing, as usual. Since wind turbines extract energy from the wind, there is less energy
in the wind shade of a turbine (and more turbulence) than in front of
it.In a wind park, turbines generally have to be spaced between three and nine rotor diameters apart
in order not to shade one another too much. (Five to seven rotor diameters is the most commonly
used spacing). If there is one particular prevailing wind direction, e.g. West, turbines may be
spaced very closely in the direction at a right angle to that direction, (i.e. North-South).
Whereas a wind turbine uses 36 square metres, or 0.0036 hectares to produce between 1.2 and 1.8
million kilowatt hours per year, a typical biofuel plant would require 154 hectares of willow
forest to produce 1.3 million kilowatt hours per year. Solar cells would require an area of
1.4 hectares to produce the same amount of electricity per year. Hydropower on average requires
flooding a land area equivalent to the size of a wind farm with the same annual output, i.e. to
produce between
2.2 and 1.8 million kWh per year requires flooding 200 hectares of land (source Hydro
Québec). <\quote>

This paper gives a "cradle to grave" energy accounting of a standard 600 kWh turbine. It pays for
itself in 3 months by their accounting so you might want to investigate their methodology since it's
such an obviously biased source.

http://www.windpower.org/publ/enbal.pdf

<quote> The Cap Verde Islands, Southern Argentina, or Southern China, wind speed are on average some
30 to 50 per cent above the figures known from Denmark. In these areas wind turbines may recover the
energy spent on their manufacture and operation in one month. The alternatives to wind energy in
these areas will usually be diesel generators or coal fired power plant with far lower efficiency.
Even if a 65 tonne wind turbine has to be shipped 10 000 nautical miles, it will only affect its net
energy use by 1.5 per cent. <\quote>

The large vertical-axis wind turbines in R&D are more efficient because they can be built larger to
give greater output with less overall material and land use.

>-Buck
--
zk
 
On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 22:52:59 -0800, Zoot Katz <[email protected]> wrote:

>a few very disturbing papers about safety standards in the nuclear industry.

And security. Greenpeace have (again!) occupied a nuclear reactor in the UK. Glad it was them and
not al-Quaeda or the Provos.

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony. http://www.chapmancentral.com (BT ADSL and
dynamic DNS permitting)
NOTE: BT Openworld have now blocked port 25 (without notice), so old mail addresses may no longer
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"Buck" <j u n k m a i l @ g a l a x y c o r p . c o m> wrote in message
news:p[email protected]...
> Only those who drag themselves out of the mire and objectively consider
all
> sides of an issue can make an unbiased decision about the best path. When looking at our energy
> problem, it is obvious that no solution is perfect. Wind power cannot generate enough power to
> meet our needs consistently and takes up a lot of space. Solar has the same problem with the
> additional concern of a high input cost. Geothermal is unfeasible in most places. Hydroelectric
> plants cause environmental damage and are limited to areas with copious amounts of flowing water
> in the right geographical location. Coal and natural gas are dependent upon limited resources.
> Nuclear has the most hazardous waste, although in small quantities. After looking at the
> advantages and disadvantages of all our options, it is my opinion that nuclear power offers the
> best power output with the lowest environmental cost.
The federal government is doing very little to see that we have an alternative to oil. There are a
lot of military contractors who make large political contributions as well as a variety of other
folks with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

The plains in the central U.S. tend to have a fairly steady wind flow that could be put to use to
generate electricity.

A lot of farms operate small scale oil pumping rigs and if they put up a wind turbine on the
land these are on, they could hook them into the power grid and make some money from the oil
and the wind.

The federal government could make this happen with the proper assistance. It would help reduce our
dependence on foreign oil and help out our farmers at the same time.

It isn't likely to happen though because the lobbyists will do everything they can to prevent
something like this from happening.
 
Wed, 15 Jan 2003 20:23:21 +0000, <[email protected]>, "Just zis Guy, you
know?" <[email protected]> wrote:

>Greenpeace have (again!) occupied a nuclear reactor in the UK. Glad it was them and not al-Quaeda
>or the Provos.

. . .or those damn Critical Mass anarchist pranksters.
--
zk
 
On Wed, 15 Jan 2003 18:36:44 -0800, Zoot Katz <[email protected]> wrote:

>>Greenpeace have (again!) occupied a nuclear reactor in the UK. Glad it was them and not al-Quaeda
>>or the Provos.

>. . .or those damn Critical Mass anarchist pranksters.

The cagers have a critical mass every day round here!

Guy
===
** WARNING ** This posting may contain traces of irony. http://www.chapmancentral.com (BT ADSL and
dynamic DNS permitting)
NOTE: BT Openworld have now blocked port 25 (without notice), so old mail addresses may no longer
work. Apologies.
 
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