The Power company's up North are using wind/electrolysis. The electrolyer uses electricity from the wind turbine to produce hydrogen. When the wind turbine is producing electricity, hydrogen is produced and stored.The store hydrogen is use during low power production or peak demands. The hydrogen can be store in a storage unit inside the towers of the turbines. The wind turbines do kill a few bats and birds but they are working on those issues also.
Stupid bats and birds fly into all kind of things and die...tis natrure at work and survival of the fittest
Re the wind to hydrogeon and back to electricity... good play ...problem is the cost vs long term pay back of that cost to eventually be cost effective. I apploud any of these ventures that do not require tax payor subsidies
Problem solving, when in a envoronmet of emotional decision making, is never easy and some times the answer is readlilty available but public ignorance refuses to accpet the reality of the facts and costs...
We have enough coal in the contigous USA to provide 100% of our needs for literally hundreds of years.
If every city citizen stopped driving an internal combustion vehicle tomorrow the rual farm needs, rail, air planes, military, over the road trucking, industry, and other needs of transportation and commerce would still require more and more OIL refinment then can be supplied in the next ten years....with our current refinery capacity
BTW fossil fuel, in the form of crud oil, is not in danger of being a scarce commodity any time soon... we have only found and exploited those resources that are easy (and cheap) to get to.
I still think smart fortwo electric, and hybrid cars are a good idea in large scale in every major metropolitian area.
Stupid bats and birds fly into all kind of things and die...tis natrure at work and survival of the fittest
Re the wind to hydrogeon and back to electricity... good play ...problem is the cost vs long term pay back of that cost to eventually be cost effective. I apploud any of these ventures that do not require tax payor subsidies
Problem solving, when in a envoronmet of emotional decision making, is never easy and some times the answer is readlilty available but public ignorance refuses to accpet the reality of the facts and costs...
We have enough coal in the contigous USA to provide 100% of our needs for literally hundreds of years.
If every city citizen stopped driving an internal combustion vehicle tomorrow the rual farm needs, rail, air planes, military, over the road trucking, industry, and other needs of transportation and commerce would still require more and more OIL refinment then can be supplied in the next ten years....with our current refinery capacity
BTW fossil fuel, in the form of crud oil, is not in danger of being a scarce commodity any time soon... we have only found and exploited those resources that are easy (and cheap) to get to.
I still think smart fortwo electric, and hybrid cars are a good idea in large scale in every major metropolitian area.
ME TOO! I really look forward to the day the measure of fuel efficiency is not measured by miles per gallon but by miles per charge or more approriately, cents/ mile. That day is coming and sooner than most think.
A very good discussion with lots and lots of well thought out points. But it boils down to this. Either we use less energy and change the entire model of how we get things done (like living and eating), or we need a source of energy that doesn't burn carbon (and wind and solar aren't going to be enough). So all you are left with is something nuclear. Sure wish somebody could figure out fusion.
Last edited by Smartdavis; 02-27-2008 at 09:46 PM.
John check the EPA sites. The Feds make them do it and let the states "run" it we ALL have it in one form or an other. Our government working for us.
Here in MA MBTA is banned thanks to a couple of poisoned aquifers and we run CARB reformulated fuel.
Am happy to do my part to clean up. Don't like to do dumb stuff just to make sombody "feel" good. Oxygenated fuel does not pass the smell test, We need to grow food not fuel right now. Corn based ethanol is worse than dumb in my view.
karl
why is it that we can't clean up the Hanford Nuclear site in Eastern Washington? That mess was created during the cold war and we still have waste there that no one can figure out what to do with. The latest and greatest scheme is to make contaminated glass out of the stuff, move it accross country and store it in salt mines. The glass making plant is years away and then the contamination will need to travel the highways through at least 7 states.
I realize that there are state of the art facilities producing far less waste than the facilities of years ago, however, any waste is too much when we don't know what to do with it.
To me it is an embarassment that we continue to build nuclear plants when we don't know how to dispose of the waste in a manner that doesn't adversly affect the earth.
You sound like you are willing to think and use some reason...
We can NOT use less..(carbon based fuels). Yet
Our population grows at a predictable rate from better medicine, higher infant survival rates, immigration. For the next 50 ~75 years there only will be increases in our population and economy.
Even thought we have dramatically moved from a production based to a services/consumption based economy, there is strong move afoot to reverse that trend. We will require even more energy to support a new manufacturing and production base.
The trend has been for several decades to move out of metropolitan centers into rural enclaves. These are predominantly wealthier middle to upper class folks who desire several acres, large scale homes, and even hobby farms and ranches. Larger, safer, utilitarian transportation is required. This is the American dream at work and no amount of BS and regulation is going to revers this trend any time soon.
We are a wide spread mobile society with distant family or work
As long as the major metropolitan centers are polluted and high crime these trends will continue unabated. Plan for it and make wiser decisions from historical models.
Rapid, safe transportation is going to be a necessary evil until we develop the Star Trek "transporter" 600 years from now
For the immediate near term, and probably next 50 years, internal combustion is going to be the most efficient and least costly method of transportation. Fixing the pollution issue at the tail pipe is most effective.
There are some interesting hybrid technologies here today and more coming. There is a real need to dramatically change big city infrastructure to make mass transit reliable, convenient, and cheap. Insisting on electric conveyence is in our best interest.
I often wonder why there is no serious high speed rail considered for people transport coast to coast or border to border.
Mikie.....
Hanford, is not too much different from several other industrial things we did in the 1800s to present in its long term impact on the environment.
Once upon a time we slashed every stick of timber off almost every acre of Michagan, Maine, and several other states... today the forests are back and we learned a valuable lesson.
That dumb use of a natural resource was done time and time again all across America decades and centuries ago.... we did learn from those mistakes. Today we agressivly reforest timbe cut areas by law or out of common sense.
Once upon a time you could walk across several major rivers they were so polluted with crap... Today you can water-ski and eat fish out of the Ohio river where just 20 years ago you would not have dared to dip your foot in her.
Now this does not mean that we did not do long term or even permanent harm.... But we did learn. The same is true of our early Nuclear years. Or Chemical Bio weapons research years. (there are places in Utah I will not walk without a full protective suit on.)
There is potential risk in all we do. Certainly the storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel is a major problem. But it is a solvable problem and in my opinion, we should understand and accept the risks, make plans, and exploit a energy source from a fact based historical point of view and not a hand wringing, fear, and emotional point of view. We have the need, money, wisdom, and knowledge to design and safely use nuclear energy.
NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) folks do a grave disservice to the entire nation. My little 7500 population county is fighting tooth and nail against a wind mill farm because of visual ugliness or fear of killing some bats... In my area of Texas, the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) has tried time and again to sell the idea because of the Fed mandated and State mandated XX% of future electricity must come from some renewable resource. Our county has a plateau series of hill tops that are ideal for wind generated power...but NIMBY is fighting an emotion fueled battle to thwart any progress....hummmm?
Nuclear is safer than ever. Thats like basing it off of Chernoble. That was a flawed design and no one uses that anymore. Plus, if you look at video and pictures from that area, the vegetation is greener than ever around the site. As of right now, the waste that is not recycled is being put in old salt mines deep below the water table in an area that is inhospitable. to man. Then next best thing would be in magma itself. And another question I have is if the Hoover Dam supplies a good chunk of the NW with electricity, why are we not taping into Yellowstone for geothermic energy like Greenland and feeding that into the national grid? Cleaner than even nuclear.
Nuclear is safer than ever. Thats like basing it off of Chernoble. That was a flawed design and no one uses that anymore. Plus, if you look at video and pictures from that area, the vegetation is greener than ever around the site. As of right now, the waste that is not recycled is being put in old salt mines deep below the water table in an area that is inhospitable. to man. Then next best thing would be in magma itself. And another question I have is if the Hoover Dam supplies a good chunk of the NW with electricity, why are we not taping into Yellowstone for geothermic energy like Greenland and feeding that into the national grid? Cleaner than even nuclear.
I saw that documentary on TV some time ago about Greenland and Iceland, too using the geothermal for the good of all.
Perfect usage of that resource and WAYYYYYYY cleaner than anything!
Yes, we do have the largest %, but I dont see them replacing coal. In fact, from what I understand they only feed the grid 15-20%. Thats not much compared to coal. What I meant by 'large scale' is that I think smaller versions installed near communities might be more efficent, or maybe individual turbines attached to houses. As far as all over europe, there are nuclear reactors all over europe also. I dont think we should get rid of wind energy, I just dont think we have the technology to harness it effectively yet (though more so than solar). As far as being the envy of the other states, we are also the most air polluted in the US. We have more polution than some small countries. I saw a special about 2 weeks ago about nuclear power and how some plants were able to use the radation from waste for electricity. Some even sell the waste to other plants who use it.
Thanks.
Being perhaps the last person on earth without cable TV i missed that program. As far as I know a nuk plant uses the heat from the reaction to make steam that in turn powers a turbine that generates electricity. Never heard of radiation making power are they using it for fuel this is interesting please give me a hand on where to look for more information.
Thanks karl
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