Manipulation

Discuss life, the universe, and everything with other members of this site. Get to know your fellow polywell enthusiasts.

Moderators: tonybarry, MSimon

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

Fur Da Grater Gud Du Val.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Josh Cryer
Posts: 526
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:19 am

Post by Josh Cryer »

MSimon, the paper still points out the time period and cost of building nuclear vs building solar/wind. You can actually ignore the global warming aspect of it, if you wish. Nuclear isn't workable unless you have a massive change in the culture of nuclear production (lower permitting times, faster building times, and so on).

And I find it remarkable that you can say we're due for another ice age when the only evidence you have for that is the same data that suggests we're heating up! It's going to be so interesting when the next decade shows the warming trend validated (so people won't be able to so easily fudge the graph and say because one year is cooler than the rest the data is wrong). I remember reading an interesting national geographic article with this arctic circle zoologist. Not a global warming scientist, someone who just looks at animals. He was noting the ecological changes over time in his 50 years of studies (glacial reduction and the like), and basically said "CO2 is just humanities grandest experiment. We'll see what happens." (This was a perfectly neutral statement, he made no real statement about "global warming.")

We'll see what happens.



Mike Holmes, basically, in a very short nutshell, the paper is pointing out that solar/wind can be built now (and is, extensively, all around the world) with less land area that nuclear, with less cost than nuclear, with less time than nuclear. I'm not being anti nuclear here, I am only accepting the political reality of the paper. So a dozen nuclear plants are being built in the next decade. A hundred thousand megawatt windmills are, too.

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

MSimon, the paper still points out the time period and cost of building nuclear vs building solar/wind.
Nuclear is over regulated. The Greens have a regulatory veto. And until we solve the storage problem wind is not going to get much above 10% of grid power. Fortunately it is only at 2% so there is a ways to go. What can be done in the interim is a 2 MVDC backbone for power transfer. However, Greens have a regulatory veto on new power transmission facilities. And the 2 MV lines would need to be built in parallel with current lines to start.

Note also that wind power will not be fully competitive (no subsidy) until turbines get into the 8 to 12 MW (peak) range. The 5 MW jobs are just starting to go into series production.

Global warming started in 1850. There is a 300 year solar cycle that is fairly regular. 1850 + 150 = 2000. In 1850 we were just coming out of a little ice age. The decline in the solar cycle is coincident with the PDO going negative. Uh. Oh.

So I'm fairly confident in predicting at least 15 to 30 years of cooling. And 150 years is not out of the question.

So what do we have? CO2 only. Solar only. CO2 + Solar. None of the above. If it is CO2 + Solar we ought to keep burning carbon fuels to counteract the solar decline.

Because - shorter growing seasons = less food. And starving people makes me very unhappy.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Mike Holmes
Posts: 308
Joined: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:15 pm

Post by Mike Holmes »

Mike Holmes, basically, in a very short nutshell, the paper is pointing out that solar/wind can be built now (and is, extensively, all around the world) with less land area that nuclear, with less cost than nuclear, with less time than nuclear. I'm not being anti nuclear here, I am only accepting the political reality of the paper. So a dozen nuclear plants are being built in the next decade. A hundred thousand megawatt windmills are, too.
Ah, I see. Well, if this is all true, then I think that things will work themselves out fine. The economics will drive us to the best solutions in the most efficient way (as MSimon would assert).

The theoretical regulatory power of the greens aside. Politicians, even Democrats, are first about buying their constituencies votes with greater prosperity (or at least seeming to try to provide this). If, in fact, they don't move in that direction, then we'll have to wait only four years for a change (starting in 2 years, actually). Hard to believe that the greens would sabotage one of their favorite technologies - wind - by regulating it out of existence.

Oh, you mean the crazy greens who think that electricity is evil? They're not in charge, no. Al Gore talks about "sustainability;" you can't claim that the man who created the intarweb is a luddite. ;-)

Mike

tomclarke
Posts: 1683
Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 4:52 pm
Location: London
Contact:

Post by tomclarke »

Re comparison,

I have not seen this paper but one difference it may be (deliberately) avoiding is that renewable power is intermittent whereas nuclear power is suitable for base load, so there is an additional cost of storage associated with renewable power.

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

Hard to believe that the greens would sabotage one of their favorite technologies - wind - by regulating it out of existence.
Yes they would. Its for the birds. Poor critters. Evidently there are not enough birds for all the cats that want them.

Or in the case of Ted Kennedy NIMBY. Or in the case of new power lines NIMBY, ugly, and think of all the land lost.

Of course the anti-wind Greens only represent about 1/2 of the Greens. But still.

So far the only technology that gets near unanimity from Greens is rooftop solar. And even there in So. Cal they are against Com Ed using their economies of scale to do the installing. Because it would drive many of the independent installers out of business.

It is an ugly story and most folks don't get the news. No surprise. You have probably seen an ITER gush in your local rag. Ever seen a bit on the BFR?
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

tomclarke
Posts: 1683
Joined: Sun Oct 05, 2008 4:52 pm
Location: London
Contact:

Post by tomclarke »

Yes,

I agree with Simon on greens anti-tech bias. They have a whole load of prejudices, and it makes their responses incoherent.

Specifically, the anti-nuclear stance makes CO2 reductions effectively impossible - and they should be caring about GW.

Unfortunately the anti-nuclear lobby (in UK at least) is not just greens but many other people who see Chernobyl in every new reactor (359 Welsh hill farmers still cannot sell animals without strict radiation checks).

It is a shame that it is so difficult to get across the differences in technology between now and earlier generations of nuclear power.

Best wishes, Tom

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

The Green prejudice can be summed up:

Change is bad and what we have now is no good either. " I demand you sacrifice fur da God do Val. Me? I'm all right Jack. Hemp sneakers and I recycle everything. Down with the wasters. Or tax them out of business. Which ever comes first. Vegan all the way. What's your food mileage score?"
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

djolds1
Posts: 1296
Joined: Fri Jul 13, 2007 8:03 am

Post by djolds1 »

MSimon wrote:
Hard to believe that the greens would sabotage one of their favorite technologies - wind - by regulating it out of existence.
Yes they would. Its for the birds. Poor critters. Evidently there are not enough birds for all the cats that want them.

Or in the case of Ted Kennedy NIMBY. Or in the case of new power lines NIMBY, ugly, and think of all the land lost.

Of course the anti-wind Greens only represent about 1/2 of the Greens. But still.
Greens love all alternative energy sources. Until they succeed. After which point they become terrible dangers.

Duane
Vae Victis

Nanos
Posts: 363
Joined: Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:57 pm
Location: Treasure Island

Post by Nanos »

I was chatting someplace with some greens about solar panels and they showed me this graph which proves how solar PV production causes so much more CO2 than even nuclear...

Suddenly even solar is looking like its getting a bad name. :-(


(And with me having just fitted one of the infernal devices onto my bicycle to keep my airhorn battery charged..)


Though that was old fashioned panels, so perhaps the new thin film stuff they will not be able to argue so easily with, but I bet the production of it causes some toxic anti-green side effect someplace..

(So far they have been rather mute on the, 'would you object to acres of solar panels?' question..)


I think one of the reasons, at least in the UK for an anti-technology view is that science is taught less and less in schools now, all that dumbing down, I hear they have even stopped teaching about the internal combustion engine! (No more wankel jokes in class..)

hanelyp
Posts: 2261
Joined: Fri Oct 26, 2007 8:50 pm

Post by hanelyp »

tomclarke wrote:Unfortunately the anti-nuclear lobby (in UK at least) is not just greens but many other people who see Chernobyl in every new reactor.
Chernobyl is an example of what happens when stupidity is compounded by more and more stupidity. A second rate reactor design, being used in an experiment that involved deliberately pushing it into operating conditions known to be dangerously unstable, and the safeties disabled when they got in the way. Also implicated is Soviet society where getting things done tended to involve bending and breaking rules.

Josh Cryer
Posts: 526
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2008 7:19 am

Post by Josh Cryer »

I have my problem with the greens, of course. I'm just noting the current political (and economic) reality. Frankly, I would hate to live next to a windfarm (there's a good video circling YouTube about the noise they make). One windmill would probably be fine. But that said, the paper is likely correct.

Here's another paper: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7373/2 ... -2008.html

I think I know who's trying to manipulate me and it ain't the scientists.

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

Josh Cryer wrote:I have my problem with the greens, of course. I'm just noting the current political (and economic) reality. Frankly, I would hate to live next to a windfarm (there's a good video circling YouTube about the noise they make). One windmill would probably be fine. But that said, the paper is likely correct.

Here's another paper: http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/8/7373/2 ... -2008.html

I think I know who's trying to manipulate me and it ain't the scientists.
The place for windfarms is on farms in the upper Mid-West.

So far there is no proof that soy beans are adversely affected by wind turbine noise.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

MSimon
Posts: 14334
Joined: Mon Jul 16, 2007 7:37 pm
Location: Rockford, Illinois
Contact:

Post by MSimon »

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Q59FnkrY8

So 42 db? Peak?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure

A car at 30 ft is 60 to 80 db.

Normal talking at 3 ft = 40 to 60 db. So outside you may have to talk a little louder. Inside - if car noise is not bothersome neither will the windturbine noise be.

Still. I wouldn't put wind turbines in residential areas. Next to a major or even minor highway they would be unnoticeable.

BTW videos of wind turbines are not reliable measures because video cams have AGC built in so that variable levels of sound come out at the same volume. The AGC can be as much as 40 db to 60 db on a very good cam.

What you want is some one talking at 3 to 6 ft with the turbines rotating. That is a better measure.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... rch=Search

Of course offshore turbines are no problem.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

Helius
Posts: 465
Joined: Sun Oct 21, 2007 9:48 pm
Location: Syracuse, New York

Proper setabcks and community negotiation

Post by Helius »

Still. I wouldn't put wind turbines in residential areas. Next to a major or even minor highway they would be unnoticeable.
People will complain bitterly of not only sound, but visual effects such as strobing and Scenery degradation. I like the idea of loading up the windy great plains with wind turbines with the DC infrastructure to bring power to the East Coast Megalopolis corridor. Like you said: "Soybeans don't care."

More densely populated communities now know they need to negotiate proper setbacks, and not accept any excuses to diminish the proper levels of tax revenue for the community.

Perhaps new technologies will require increased setbacks... http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/ ... d=1549&a=f

Post Reply