14000 Abandoned Wind Turbines In The USA

Originally posted by Blaine91555
reply to post by jibeho

 

What viable form of energy are you for? Just wondering?

For residential heating and cooling I like geothermal. Its expensive up front but if you're building new and have the ability to go wide or deep with your land its a good alternative to conventional HVAC systems. Add an air recovery unit to your system and you're really tight.

The DOE has a grand goal for 20% wind by 2030 but its just not feasible in traditional urban and suburban settings. Perhaps spend the money to equip individual homes with low profile small scale vertical type turbines. It takes the load off the grid, excess energy can be fed into the grid etc etc. I just don't like the massive scale and ongoing expense of these colossal wind farms and what happens when the subsidies dry up and the maintenance costs outweight the benefits.

They want a wind farm a couple of miles out in Lake Erie just to try it out. You can't just back up a work truck to the towers to get a crew in their. Erie is shallow and gets quite rough in foul weather an it freezes in the Winter.

On a side note, I've done as much as possible to my 1936 house to make it as energy efficient as possible. New windows, insulation, roof, High efficiency furnace, low flow toilets, and a tankless H2O heater. I'm still not saving much on my monthly bills and as more people continue to use less, the rates will continue to increase to offset the loss. The savings are never passed on to the consumer. When you buy this crap they give you a projected savings over so many years. Looks good on paper but does not calculate the Utility rate increases, additional fees and surcharges. IN the end I've got a toasty house in the Winter and can Take a 30 minute HOT shower. Sorry for the wasted water.

Good chop them birds I see millions fly over me every year there are to many anyhow. Sorry bird lovers. The ones they just built in Michigan are just getting turned on I see nothing wrong with them I wish I could build one and have free energy for myself granted not every day but 30%lower or more if it were stored power. Yes an eye sore but can't have it all people. would you rather have a nuclear plant in your back yard? think about it. I think the government works for us I mean come on they have kids to. Do you think they want nothing left for them.They just don't always make good decisions that's all.There human not super committee.lol.peace out..

Originally posted by jibeho

Hopefully they read about the 14,000 abandoned turbines and can pick one up on EBay on the cheap.

S&F

Especially that last line!



No kidding right?

reply to post by getreadyalready


Normally, you have a great deal of intelligent posts and well thought out arguments, but really i have to say, this isn't one of your better offerings.

There is no such thing as "green" energy. Nothing is renewable, and nothing comes without a price.

Of course there are renewable energy options. 'Green' is just a moniker, a kind of rallying label i'll grant you, but the premise of Green energy is a real one, even if the name is made up.

Timber is a renewable and green energy source, provided it is a resource that is managed correctly.
Coppiced timber is the most 'green' / renewable wood based energy source we have (along with Hemp).

A properly managed coppiced woodland can be thousands of years old, and many of the coppiced trees are centuries old themselves! Cut the wood, preserve the lower trunk section and in ten or fifteen years, harvest the same tree again and again...and again. Totally green, totally renewable energy is harvested as a result, that adds ZERO net greenhouse gases to the biosphere, when burnt.

Sunlight of course, is the ultimate renewable energy source and as you say, is the source of all our other energy on Earth, apart from nuclear power.

Solar energy typically strikes the earth or is reflected back to the atmosphere. If we harness it, we change the dynamic.

This would only ever be the case, if solar energy was being harnessed at an almost unbelievable degree and without thought.

A large percentage of the planets surface would have to be covered in panels or reflectors for what you say to happen or have any measurable impact.

The harvesting methods used in relation to solar energy, are typically at or very near to ground level, so therefore the energy (heat) will still remain and cause winds and evaporation as it has always done, so no negative impact on anything would occur. The atmosphere will still receive exactly the same amount of solar energy and particles as it would ordinarily do.

If great swathes of panels (or concentrators / reflectors) were sighted out to sea, zero impact would occur in terms of obscuring plant life and so on. The heat would still reach the water, it would still evaporate the water, and the water cycle / monsoon seasons / winds would still be generated as normal.

Wind Turbines rob energy from the atmosphere that would have served some other purpose. If we get anywhere near a significant amount of energy from it, then we have surely affected the natural cycles in the atmosphere.

The commercially adopted design of a typical wind turbine is all wrong, and is a bad design for the reasons mentioned already (shut down in high winds, icing problems, bird deaths, noise, unsightly etc. etc.) very expensive and not very efficient either.

There are other designs that offer both performance, cost and operational / efficiency gains over the common but outdated designs.

Where you say turbines 'rob' wind energy that would do something else, again you're not really making a realistic
point.

Again, the harnessing of wind energy is performed at or very near to ground level (although one or two 'kite' or blimp type designs are available), and so any wind 'captured' by the turbine would have been cancelled out naturally by various land forms anyway. The high winds that drive or contribute to our weather patterns would be totally unaffected by our harnessing ground winds.

Hills, hedgerows, buildings, even fields of wheat (etc) would all naturally strip away the energy from ground level winds when it encountered any one of these or other obstacles. So taking the energy before it is lost when the wind strikes an immovable object isn't robbing anything that would be useful further down the line.

Wave action can be captured, but at what effect on the ocean? Tidal action can be captured, but at what effect on the planet? Geothermal can be exploited, but in order to get anywhere near the power we consume, what will it do to the inner processes of the Earth?

What affect does a sunken ship have on the tides or the ocean waves? None of course.

Same as a land shelf or a new volcanic islet, would not negatively impact our oceans or tides.

Harvesting energy from tidal forces is again totally green and renewable, providing the moon stays in orbit and the oceans remain, we would always have this powerful energy resource.

Geothermal is another resource that is green and abundant. Natural seepage of fluids through fissures, quakes and undersea volcanoes happens all the time..this doesn't 'extinguish' the Earth's mantle or demagnetise the core or anything like that, so i fail to see where you think this could have a negative impact?

GT energy would have to be taken from easily accessible places, yes, but it's viable and works.
We won't kill Earth, ourselves yes, the Earth, no.

reply to post by ANNED


Anned? So YOUR the guy that put those systems out in the Eastern California desert huh? I've been driving to Northern Cal. via Hwy395 and Hwy15 to Vegas for 30 years. I always wondered who built those gargantuan systems. Now I know.

Outstanding discussion here. Thanks to contributors.

I guess I'm just curious about a couple of solar questions. At what cost does the U.S. Government subsidize these giant systems,and get back their Return On Investement? People are throwing around 100million dollar costs like peanuts.

At what point SHOULD the U.S. Governement have realized that Sylondra was nothing more then a paper tiger and we as taxpayers should have never proceeded?

I remember back in the late 70's,early 80's, a BUNCH of investors got clobbered losing tax breaks in alternative energy deals. The BIG guys got to keep the incentives and kept building.

I don't know of ANYONE on the planet that wants to intentionally hurt the earth. An effort to minimize 7billion peoples footprint is not only an obligation,but mandatory. We need to make sure we're not substituting man made problems with one energy source and another one.

Nuclear meltdowns are bad. Fossile fuels are bad. Solar..fraud on large levels. Wind..The damage by electromechanical windturbine devices have not been completly tested out with underground noise vibrations having been totally ignored as a side effect. Google Windturbine noise side effects. It's like you can't "hear" the vibration but it goes through your body with long tern side effects.

Lithium batteries to power electric cars? Why is the disposal of these ticking time bombs still not being addresses before we decided it's ok..we'll figure it out later? How's that nuclear disposal Mnt. in Nevada working out? Where IS all that crap that didn't get buried yet?

Hard choices. I like water falling over a cliff with a spinner in the middle of the falls wrapped in copper to generate power. Pisses off fish spawning though. sigh.

reply to post by spikey


I admit, I am talking about a worst-case scenario a couple of hundred years down the road.

But, the point is the same. If our energy consumption continues to grow at the rates it has grown over the last 200 years, then somewhere in the next 200-300 years there will not be enough combined energy to run our needs on a daily basis. In order to just provide a daily allowance of energy needs, we would have to harness significant amounts of the sun, wind, and hydro processes. This would in turn impact many other things, like the "renewable" forestry you suggest.

Sure, forests are renewable to a certain extent, but not when the usage outpaces the growth, and not when we are harnessing the wind power, solar power, and natural processes that cause the forest to grow.

Even fossil fuels are "renewable" over a decent amount of time, but when we use it faster than it replenishes, then we have a serious problem.

Maybe I should have been more clear in my original posts, but I think it is important to get the shock and awe response, because too many people have been misled to think certain industries are sustainable. They are sustainable short-term, but they are not a long-term solution to our energy needs.

Somewhere around 75% of the World is "developing," otherwise known as "third-world" which means it is not industrialized yet. That means, there is the immediate threat of quadrupling our energy needs as these areas are brought into the modern technological age. Since 1990 the World's energy usage is up 39%, while population growth is up 27%. We have more people, using more power per person. Wiki

There is a known amount of existing energy reserve. There is a known amount of new energy striking the Earth each day. There are known limiting factors of efficiency in converting that energy to something usable. There are infinite unknowns about the overall environmental effect of harnessing that power.

But, assuming a very best case scenario. Assuming we could convert 100% of the existing reserve and 100% of the new energy striking the Earth, and assuming we could do so with 100% efficiency, and assuming we could mitigate all environmental factors, we would still cease to have enough energy for the population somewhere in the next 300-700 years. That sounds like a long time, but it really isn't.

So, as you can see, at some point, the only solution is conservation. We will reach a limit, and since we know that all of those 100% factors above are impossible, then we also know that it won't take 700 years to reach that limit! We better learn to conserve NOW! We better educate people that "renewable" is a farce. We better end our addiction to energy and find a way to be more harmonious with our closed system known as Earth, or we better learn to branch out to other planets. Everything on Earth is limited.

I'm no tree-hugger. I'm no hippie. I am, in fact, trained in Chemical Engineering. I am a scientist. I don't work in the field, instead I work for the Government in a Health-related field, but my concerns are not unfounded concerns of a scared, Al Gore-liberal. I despise Gore, I don't believe in man-made global warming, and I am a registered Republican Tea Partier. My concerns are purely from a mathematical, scientific point of view on a most generalized scale. Our resources are limited, our consumption and population is growing exponentially, the math is pretty easy, there is a foreseeable tipping point, and the hype about "green" and "renewable" is short-sighted and misleading. It just is what it is.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
The only real solution, as I have been saying, is conservation. We need to learn to recycle our heat production, limit our inefficient waste, and put a cap on total consumption. If we can add that to all of the other ideas, we will be on a long-term sustainable plan, and maybe at some point our technology will catch up to our consumption.

I applaud this post of yours. You got many things wrong when it gets to science, but you are right on the money when it comes to value of conservation. Thank you.

PS. You can't really recycle heat in most cases. It's called co-generation and due to laws of thermodynamics the efficiency goes way down then the temperature differential is low... In principle the heat dissipated in your car's exhaust can be used, but nobody does it because it's not very efficient.

Dan Nocera - Personalized Energy

According to MIT Chemistry Professor Dan Nocera - This is what the future holds which consists of using solar power to power the home for lower power needs and also to create hydrogen via photosynthesis which is stored and powers a hydrogen fuel cell for higher energy/power needs.

Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and Professor of Chemistry, says that solar energy is the only feasible long-term way of meeting the world’s ever-increasing needs for energy, and that storage technology will be the key enabling factor to make sunlight practical as a dominant source of energy. He has focused his research on the development of less-expensive, more-durable materials to use as the electrodes in devices that use electricity to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms in water molecules. By doing so, he aims to imitate the process of photosynthesis, by which plants harvest sunlight and convert the energy into chemical form. Nocera pictures small-scale systems in which rooftop solar panels would provide electricity to a home, and any excess would go to an electrolyzer — a device for splitting water molecules — to produce hydrogen, which would be stored in tanks. When more energy was needed, the hydrogen would be fed to a fuel cell, where it would combine with oxygen from the air to form water, and generate electricity at the same time.....

web.mit.edu...

His video analyzes our future energy needs as it pertains to population growth as well as the pros and cons of various sources...





Peace

Originally posted by TheRedneck
I have often wondered why street lights do not use some sort of traffic or motion sensor to control operation at night. That is a conservation effort I can get behind, as it would not decrease the amount of useful energy, only conserve wasted energy. I can only assume the equipment is too expensive in the short term for cities to put into place.

Yup. As an example, in the place I worked, somebody wanted to put motion sensors in a few building with long corridors that are lit for most of the day, even when there is no traffic. Cost/benefit analysis says it would take a long time for the cost to be recouped. I'm sure it will change, eventually. I have a motion sensor for my entrance light in the house, and it cost me $9. At least I paid for the coolness factor

Where I have a concern with the idea of conservation is that some tend to take it too far. Take light bulbs for instance. In my shop, I work with extremely static-sensitive components. The CFL light bulbs may use less electricity, but they also give off static electric fields that could easily blow chips before I could get them soldered into place.

Interesting. Are you using static protection (like the anti-static wrist band etc)? I do not believe, to be honest, that electromagnetic field can propagate that far from the bulb. The CFL will make your power line "dirty", so the spikes can get into your soldering iron and what not, but as to chips being fried at a distance by a CFL... I donno.

I need incandescent light, at least until LED bulbs are more available.

Go to s.dealextreme.com...

reply to post by buddhasystem


Remember though that the heat in your car's exhaust is actually used in the catalytic converter to clean the car's nasty exhaust of toxic chemicals and gases and converting it to CO2 and water.

A catalytic converter (colloquially, "cat" or "catcon") is a device used to convert toxic exhaust emissions from an internal combustion engine into non-toxic substances. Inside a catalytic converter, a catalyst stimulates a chemical reaction in which noxious byproducts of combustion are converted to less toxic substances by dint of catalysed chemical reactions. The specific reactions vary with the type of catalyst installed. Most present-day vehicles that run on gasoline are fitted with a "three way" converter, so named because it converts the three main pollutants in automobile exhaust: an oxidising reaction converts carbon monoxide(CO) and unburned hydrocarbons(HC), and a reduction reaction converts oxides of nitrogen (NOx) to produce carbon dioxide(CO2), nitrogen(N2), and water(H2O).[1]

The Next time you see a pre mid 70's muscle car take off you can actually see these toxic pollutants spewing out of the tailpipe.....

Fortunately we don't have to breath that any longer...

Peace

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by buddhasystem


I agree, "recycle" heat isn't exactly what I meant. It was meant more along the lines of our heat waste due to inefficiency.

1 example: Our refrigerators have a coil outside that dissipates the heat removed from inside the frig. This heat is then moved to our kitchen, where our air conditioner must again remove it to the coil outside the house. The one outside the house has a fan to pull air through to move it to the surrounding air more quickly. We lose efficiency at each step of the way, and we consume more energy because of it. If the refrigerator coil were on the outside of the house to begin with, it would be much more efficient.

That is just a quick example, but the idea is valid for everything from our alarm clocks, computer towers, and televisions to stoves and blenders.

Some people don't realize how much energy efficiency is saved by cooking out on a propane grill in the summer time instead of using the electric range in the kitchen!

People 100 years ago understood. They only baked at night.

We've lost sight of a lot of common sense conservation ideas that were general knowledge 100 years ago, but now we ignore them and let technology take their place.

At my home, I am converting light fixtures to LED, converting my septic to a gray water system, converting water and pool heaters to solar, splitting my electrical box into several small boxes with their own solar supply so if one goes down it doesn't affect my whole home. I've got timers on many things that don't need to run all the time. I measured the electrical consumption of my well pump compared to my air conditioner, and I created a sprinkler system on a timer to run along my roof and bricks. I let the cool well water cool my roof and bricks for 30 minutes at the heat of the day, and again just before sunset. It clears the heat-sink effect of the bricks and asphalt holding that heat through the night, and it helps the air conditioner be able to run less. My electrical bill was almost $800 cheaper this past 12 months compared to the previous 12 months. I just replaced my fireplace blower motors with smaller, quieter, 12 volt motors that consume very little power, but push almost as much air. I also fixed all of the air leaks around the glass doors so my damper will work better, and I think I can heat my whole house on one tank of propane for the entire winter instead of the usual 2 to 3 tanks. This will save another $1000 on utility costs this year.

As soon as I get my electrical consumption to a manageable rate, I will convert to full solar, and I will be 100% off-grid at my home.

Currently, I have a 2600 sq ft home, with a pool, and my total utility cost for the past 12 months is $3600. That includes about $900 in propane and $2700 in electricity. I hope to get it below $2000 for the next 12 months, and then convert to solar and drop it below $500 per year for the occasional propane shipment for my grill and emergency heat on the coldest nights.

I also ride a motorcycle every day. 40 miles per gallon, and I look cool doing it! LOL! Plus, no insurance required!

Originally posted by nh_ee
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

Remember though that the heat in your car's exhaust is actually used in the catalytic converter to clean the car's nasty exhaust of toxic chemicals and gases and converting it to CO2 and water.

It appears that most of the reactions in the converter are actually exothermic, i.e. even more heat is produced.

Link

reply to post by nh_ee


The 70's style car runs on an inefficient fuel/air mixture. The black smoke you see is unburned fuel from an inefficient conversion in the carbeurator and cylinders. Modern cars have very precise and constantly computer controlled fuel air mixtures. There is much less fuel waste. It has nothing to do with the catalytic converter, although the O2 sensors do play a part in it.

The catalytic converter was originally just a platinum mesh that provided a lot of surface area for carbon monoxide molecules to bond and break down into CO2 and O2. The platinum happened to be the perfect catalyst for that breakdown. It wasn't a "chemical reaction" it was just a structural byproduct. No platinum was consumed in the process, it only trapped the CO until it would break down to CO2 and O2.

Anyway, modern converters do more than the original ones, but black smoke is no indication of anything in the converter. The black smoke is all about the fuel/air mixture and incomplete burn in the engine.

In airplanes like the C-130 you will often see black smoke, and it is because the fuel actually helps to cool the engine. The engine intentionally runs "rich" to maximize power and help in the cooling process.

Originally posted by getreadyalready
1 example: Our refrigerators have a coil outside that dissipates the heat removed from inside the frig. This heat is then moved to our kitchen, where our air conditioner must again remove it to the coil outside the house.

I know, it irks me to no end. But this is a classic example of what I was talking about -- low potential, low temperature difference heat. Hard and inefficient to capture.

Some people don't realize how much energy efficiency is saved by cooking out on a propane grill in the summer time instead of using the electric range in the kitchen!

I use charcoal grill, it tastes better

reply to post by buddhasystem




True.

I'm just too impatient to deal with charcoal more than once or twice per month. When I'm hungry, I wanna EAT!

Originally posted by getreadyalready
The catalytic converter was originally just a platinum mesh that provided a lot of surface area for carbon monoxide molecules to bond and break down into CO2 and O2.

Dude... Wrong again. Just leave science alone

CO is simply further oxydized to CO2.

reply to post by getreadyalready


There are these new micro inverters that connect directly to the solar panels which immediately convert the panels DC power to AC thereby eliminating the traditional DC losses and making the solar panels considerably more efficient overall.

AC being more efficient to distribute as well as integrate into your home's junction box and circuitry.

These inverters also phase the AC in with that of the grid's for seamless integration as well as more readily backfeeding excess generated power back into the grid reducing your electric bill.

These micro inverters also integrate data pertaining to the solar panel's health into the AC providing real time status and metrics of the system.




Peace

reply to post by buddhasystem


My degree is in Chemistry. I also happen to be an ASE certified mechanic.

You said the same thing as I did? Except you said "oxidized" and I said "breaks down" which is technically incorrect (actually it isn't incorrect, but I would have had to say 2CO +O2 "break down" into 2CO2), yet my way was more descriptive to a layman.

The CO molecule naturally attaches to the platinum lattice structure, and then it is more easily and quickly oxidized into CO2. It was a simpler (less techical) system in the 70s when it became important, they often used air pumps to supply extra air for the O2 to be used in the conversion (and an extra benefit to the air pump was a dilution of the exhaust and thus they could claim less ppm). It is more complicated now.

Two-way catalytic converters of this type are now considered obsolete except on lean burn engines.[citation needed] Since most vehicles at the time used carburetors that provided a relatively rich air-fuel ratio, oxygen (O2) levels in the exhaust stream were in general insufficient for the catalytic reaction to occur. Therefore, most such engines were also equipped with secondary air injection systems to induct air into the exhaust stream to allow the catalyst to function.

The catalyst itself is most often a precious metal. Platinum is the most active catalyst and is widely used, but is not suitable for all applications because of unwanted additional reactions[vague] and high cost.

Oxidation of carbon monoxide to carbon dioxide: 2CO + O2 → 2CO2

The Platinum is not at all involved in the reaction, it just provides a structure that expedites the natural reaction already occuring.

Wiki

Originally posted by getreadyalready
reply to post by buddhasystem

 

My degree is in Chemistry.

I also happen to be an ASE certified mechanic.

You said the same thing as I did? Except you said "oxidized" and I said "breaks down" which is technically incorrect (actually it isn't incorrect, but I would have had to say 2CO +O2 "break down" into 2CO2), yet my way was more descriptive to a layman.

You said:

carbon monoxide molecules to bond and break down into CO2 and O2.

which does imply that O2 is one of final products (which it's not).

Not too important.

reply to post by buddhasystem


Well, actually O2 is a very small biproduct of the reaction, but you're right it wasn't important, and that wasn't my intention when I said it. I was just posting in a hurry. I'm at work, and checking into ATS and posting periodically between other things going on. It was a slight misspeak on my part. O2 is a required reactant, it is not a significant product of the reaction.