From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 09:28:35 MDT
--- Spike <spike66@attbi.com> wrote:
>
> <<The nation's leading environmental groups can barely control their
> enthusiasm. ''We're bullish on wind,'' says Kert Davies, research
> director of Greenpeace USA. ''Everybody has to ante up in the
> fight.''
> ...
>
> Well, this is a new day. I and the director of Greenpeace agree on
> something.
>
> Robert had an objection that I kinda punted: that his detroit doesn't
> run on electricity. My notion is that a transition would be gradual
> enough that major pain would be averted.
A fuel cell car burning natural gas is actually more efficient than a
wind generator generating H2, since the electrolysis has its own losses
that dip H2 + O efficiency below that of light fossil fuels.
>
> So now I ask, if the current low interest rates hold and wind power
> keeps going in at the current rate (they are building them like
> hell out here), we know who the winners are. But who loses?
Given that renewable energy sources are HIGHLY dependent on
construction with very low interest capital, its obvious that fossil
fuel generators will thereafter be at a competetive disadvantage to
those finished before interest goes back up.
Nuclear power similarly depends upon low interest capital, so it
doesn't lose, except that too many people do not view it as a green
technology.
>
> I want to ignore for the time being those who hold stock in the
> alternatives.
> Someone mentioned climate change downwind of the windmills. What is
> that? I haven't heard of anything like that, altho it stands to
> reason if we are
> extracting energy from the wind, the entropy of the wind must somehow
> increase. Anyone know?
Reducing wind velocity downwind of turbines reduces water evaporation,
but the turbines also increase the 'height' (so far as the wind is
concerned) of whatever ground they are on, which would cause a slight
increase in precipitation up wind of the generators, which would
obviously reduce precipitation downwind.
>
> Some have said that a hilltop covered with windmills is unsightly,
> but I beg to differ. I find them very sightly. On a windy day when
> they are all spinning like hell, generating all that power and all
> that beautiful money, they are quite scenic.
>
> OK, so I know who wins, but who loses (besides the bird fans and
> pilots) if we start poking windmills into the ground like weeds?
Here in the Northeast, opposition to cellphone towers has reached fever
pitch in many areas populated by retired yuppies whose primary concern
is their own property value and consider the view from their land to
belong to them. Similar opposition exists to radio towers and
windmills. Note how Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, normally proponents of
alternative energy, are opposed to the Cape Cod wind project because it
would sit of the coast of their own oceanfront estates.
The only way to resolve this is to come up with some sort of court
ruling that property owners do not and cannot 'own' the view from their
property, though they may derive value from it which they have not paid
their neighbors for.
=====
Mike Lorrey
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- Gen. John Stark
Blog: Sado-Mikeyism: http://mikeysoft.zblogger.com
Flight sims: http://www.x-plane.org/users/greendragon/
Pro-tech freedom discussion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/exi-freedom
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