We own 2 healthfood stores 1 in Chatham and 1 in Blenheim ,Ontario.
We have a radio show that has been running for over 2 years on CFCO called "Ask the Health Experts"
Thursday the 28th We will be having Dr. Nina Pierpont on our radio show ! She will be sharing her information on air to our audience.
Our radio broad cast can be hear from Buffalo,NY to Toronto,Canada, to Toledo Ohio ....

Please spread the word!

It is crunch time for us...Our city council is planning for a special meeting for March 25th to go thru with the rest of the tenders!

I visited the Kruger site with approx. 100 concrete slabs already DONE!!! some within .6 kilometres from residents. People need to be informed about the whole TRUTH!
check out www.wind-watch.org watch the videos and then read the hard facts ..BE INFORMED these giants are 16% efficient. they have nothing to do with oil use for cars!!!!
hydro power is 90 % efficient

Thanks, in health and abundance,Greg Foster

gflex64

Creeker

iamxyj

I want to hear about off shore wind farms those sound interesting and not terestrailly based solar farms.

Ultraorange

Maxwells_Nylon_Hammer

That's what I understand of the backstory, anyway. I could be wrong. What I DO know, though, is that every time I drive through that pass, I see acre after acre of wind turbines that simply aren't spinning. No one uses them! It's totally wasted potential, and it's sad to see.

I was in Denmark last summer and was amazed to see how many wind turbines they had: they completely dwarf the ones I see in California, and frankly they look quite graceful as well. I'd love to have one in my backyard.

J.T.

So wind power is a great way to help the problem, but a terrible way to solve the problem

MicroNaut

mathew

It's all about sustainable CORGI (COefficient Regression calculations of Generally Independent) models of energy production.

With a couple of cow hooves, those little guys can produce more energy than wind and the sun together. If they weren't so stubborn, one could harness all that energy to easily power thousands of homes from their bark alone.

capitalass

Joshua Carmody

OddManOut, the EV1 was a colossal failure and that is why that was canceled. They were destroyed because GM didn't want to maintain them or be sewed buy the first guy who got in a accident and was burned by battery acid(partially a joke as there are many reasons they could be sewed).
The EV1 cost GM 1 Billion dollars to develop and was produced for about $80,000 a piece, then subsidized to $40,000 for a lease of originally $600 a month(the people leasing never owned them) then after their performance was so poor they replaced the original batteries with better one's that was a additional $30,000 per vehicle. Then GM decided this type of product was bleeding them dry(it was pretty obvious from the beginning, but we are talking GM here).
So, to summarize, if you are not a engineer in the automotive field field please shut your mouth about anything automotive related. Thank you.

fastm3driver

mrAnderson

You mean Altamonte Pass ? Ah, memories. I always used to go past the hilly fields of wind turbines on my way out into the country to visit my grandparents.

From what I remember reading about that particular 'wind farm' dead birds were something of a problem, as was maintenance. But out at that particular site they had two types of mills. One with the familiar propeller design, the other with a seemingly bizarre 'hoop-like' blade. The later being able to catch wind from any direction. I think it also had less reliability problems and killed less birds.

"Wind is not a viable solution to our energy problems."

Not to everyones, no. But that mountain pass has wind blowing through it almost constantly, and it's hilly enough that it's not too useful for farming or livestock. So why not grab some cheap electricity ?

The truth is NEW technology ISN'T the solution to the worlds energy problems. Because technology isn't the problem. We've got tons of 'green' or at least 'greener' ways of producing energy, and greener/less wasteful ways to live and work, but the current energy infrastucture is centered around fossil fuels. It would cost many fortunes to roll all that over to cleaner technology, whereas the people who have that kind of money made it, and continue to make it, by squeezing every last drop and dollar that they can out of fossil fuels.

It is interesting that some of the oil companies are supporting alternative energy, but it's not too surprising given one simple thing. Electric cars.

The oil/car companies themselves proved all electric cars can be a technological and commercial success. Remember the EV-1 ? All the test owners loved them, but they were all reposessed and crushed. Why was this done ? Why are the oil companies dabbling in alternative energy. For the future of course! The oil WILL eventually run out, so the oil companies are gradually moving into new technologies that will allow them to continue providing 'power' even after the oil is gone. Does this mean oil will go out of style before it dries up? NO! As long as CARS run predominantly off GASOLINE oil will sell to the last drop. That's why viable electric car designs have been around almost as long as cars themselves have been, and yet they aren't commercially available. Why redesign the razor when the blades are selling like hot cakes ? The only reason I can think of (that makes BUSINESS sense) is if you run out of blades...

At least, that's my conspiracy theory... :)

OddManOut

scraejtp

That means, all those people who tell you how much they love the environment, hate oil, belive in the fairy tale of human created Global Warming, and hate the Dubya refuse to drop $32 a month to power their homes with entirely clean renewable energy sources.

So, put your money where your mouth is or STFU. BTW, I spent 6 yrs making my 30 mi roudtrip commute via bicycle, and nothing pissed me off worse than some jerk driving by in their Lexus RX300 with some goofy enviromentalist bumpersticker on it.

All talk, no walk. Wind isn't the answer, its a motivated population that is willing to practice what they preach (unlike Algore and his 10k sq ft mansion that uses 30 x the energy I use every year).

Environmentalsim starts at home (and no the fairy tale of recylcing doesn't count).

kidquick

Fierock

2renu

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

...and its related references tells us that 21% of US energy usage in 2004 came from residential sources, of which "space conditioning" was 44%. So almost 10% of energy usage is AC and heat. If we're talking strictly electricity as opposed to all energy sources, AC is the primary draw here since half of US residential heating systems use oil or gas. AC is obviously used primarily during the day.

Commercial accounts for 21% of energy usage. Commercial being defined separately from "industry", we can infer that this is mostly office and retail, and the bulk of its usage will again be conditioning and lighting. Both intensive by a wide margin during the day.

Most of our energy is used when the sun is up, because that is when most people are out being energetic. The fact that solar peters out at night is hardly the issue, and is becoming less accurate as the technology develops. If we had no wind and no hydroelectric, and only solar during the day and only coal at night, there would still be an enormous downturn in coal usage overall. Additionally, non-photovoltaic solar applications like concentrating towers can use heat transfer materials to "store" the heat for later use. Sodium is often implemented for this use and obviously has little of the availability concerns that Lithium for batteries engenders. Distributed generation could make most of this issue irrelevant anyways, as the sun is always shining somewhere.

The main problems facing solar are efficiency and production costs. Efficiency is gaining as fast as the free market can innovate, and production costs are on a clear downward trend, one that will only continue as quantities ramp up.

Solar is not the only answer, but it is hugely promising. Hydrocarbons are organic matter. The food chain begins with plants and phytoplankton, because they convert sunlight into something else. The wind blows because of the Earth's rotation and, you guessed it, sunlight. The water cycle that sends all that power streaming through Hoover is set in motion by the sun. If it's the source of most (geaothermal gets a free pass) of the energy on the planet anyways, why not go to the source? In the end, we only have two sources of energy: solar fusion, or fusion we kick off ourselves. So until the ITER tokamak starts glowing underneath south France, the choice is clear.

anonymous

Type-E

If you live in Massachusetts, the local gov't would help subsidize your solar panels. There was a program on NOVA recently about solar power homes and various ways it's being implemented.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/solar/

jabber

...Well I guess that is all I had to add

Broken-Infinity

hubfam

Dangerous to flying vehicles? Uh, anything that a vehicle flies into is dangerous. Do you feel a nuclear cooling tower would be safer to fly into?

I don't think that any one energy source is going to solve all of our problems. Each geographic area has it's own concerns and possibilities and I feel that a balance will be needed to provide energy in the future. There are several sources of "green" energy, we need to stop trying to pick one and open our minds to diversifying our energy portfolio. Lets not put all of our power eggs in one basket.

atomx

Additionally, I wasn't stating that we would need batteries if they were a supplement, but thats all they could be - a supplement to current (more reliable) power.

And thank you, I understand efficiency increases with mass production, but I'm thinking about first 15 years here. Also, I am referring to general wind efficiency. Its something to be aware of, especially with solar power cells growing more efficient by leaps and bounds.

Also, breeder reactors are so crazy good right now that we could, for much less fuel, power the US.

Station

To most who see them occasionally they look kinda cool and interesting - but that fades VERY VERY quickly and you just want the monstrosities out of your sight.

I am all for renewable energy but I have to say that wind farms are an extremely unappealing solution.

It isnt smog pollution but its definitely a very invasive pollution of natures natural beauty.

brundlefly76

mfaerber

Secondly, anyone who is concerned about avian fatalities should actually take the time to wait for one of these turbines to turn all the way around. When you're done you'll realize that the chances of a bird hitting these is about the same as their chances of hitting a house. They have had massive windfarms both on and offshore in Europe for decades and they haven't had any problems with bird or bat graveyards.

Finally, to anyone who doesn't like the view of windfarms I have this to say... I'd rather have one of these outside my window than a coal power plant.

This development needs to catch on.

JimiThing41

slowrey1161

sheepdip

Likewise, solar "isn't reliable" -- every single day, night time comes around and ruins it. And then there's cloudy days. The solution? Well, for people with solar plants on their homes, they do have some batteries in the house, but they also buy power from the electric company when needed (and sell solar power to the local electrical service when they produce more than they can deal with). This is not an unsolvable problem. *Most* of the energy is still green. So if you're going to build a solar farm, you might as well put some wind turbines in too so that when one isn't generating power for you, the other might.

"How efficient is the turbine? The more efficient, the more money up front."

Environmental cost of taking wind out of the atmosphere? You could say the same thing about solar cells -- much of that energy was supposed to heat the surface of the planet, what happens if its captured by solar cells instead? Yes, it's worth looking into...but it doesn't make the technology useless. Just because the current environmental concern is global warming doesn't mean that you can assume decreasing the heat from the sun is a good thing...

And switching to Nuclear power would eventually have us in the same situation as using oil -- we're still going to have waste to deal with (nobody wants the stigma of having nuclear waste near their home), and, eventually, supplies of uranium/plutonium will run low and we'll end up fighting wars over it. Great. So what if that's several hundred years from now? If you're going to plan ahead, do it right.

Nobody knows what the ultimate solution is, and every solution is going to have drawbacks...lets not declare wind energy useless just yet, kay?

EQC

but the rest of your comments are spot on.

drewheyman

OniMirage

Wind energy projects do not "store" their energy in batteries. Energy produced by the turbines is converted to kilowatts by on-site transformer stations and that power is fed into the existing power grid system. There is no "storage."

Your discussion about efficiency - You may want to research the theory of mass production - the greater a quantity of thing is manufactured, the cheaper the cost gets for each unit. You may also want to note how a computer in 1980 that couldn't exceed the processing power of a modern TI calculator cost $10,000, while a modern laptop that costs less than $800 has more processing power than the computers onboard the original space shuttles. Turbines are becoming more efficient AND cheaper at the same time.

As far as having a climatic effect on the environment, I have not seen any data or studies that show wind projects in the US have an effect on climate or weather, other than in the very immediate proximity to the turbine itself, if at all. Wreaking havoc on the world's weather? You're getting into Dr. Evil territory here. Please, show me your information.

Whew. I'm exhausted.

EBone

I would install Solar panels on my roof today if I could afford it.

But as it becomes more popular the gov't will regulate and tax it appropriately....

iPhoneGroupie

Canoehead

See pictures I took in 2005 here (follow the links at the top of my blog pages to see more then just this first one.)

http://andy.the-broyles.com/blogsphere.nsf/Pictures/SADR-6...

abroyles

bvicarious

LankySean

Fusion would have no heavy materials to create bombs, hence my choice as best long term primary / stable power, with solar helping it along as it were.

Station

Reactors. Think underground. Only footprint will be the steam vent. Everything elses is built completely underground. Solar takes space, but can reflect sunlight (lowering the earths temperature). Reactors produce heat which is bad in general.

Hard to say which is ideal. But, I'm veering to solar because it means getting rid of ALL nuclear fuel production and removes ANYONES excuse for making bombs.

FrankenPC

Where would we install a new one? The location has to be well chosen or the entire system produces far less than the cost.

How efficient is the turbine? The more efficient, the more money up front.

What about the noise? Last time I checked, these things were loud and dangerous to flying vehicles / animals.

How about the long term effects on the environment? Leaving out what the batteries would cost us (plenty, environmentally speaking) studies have shown that wind power significantly changes weather patterns in an area. Large use would wreak havoc on the worlds weather. We need wind for many things, not just this.

I would instead suggest switching to more nuclear and high efficiency solar cells. Solar cells are reliable and, when used in conjunction with a stable power source, completely impact free on the environment. Hell, just use them to help pre-heat your water, that would save tons of money / energy. We have an irrational fear of nuclear power due to old stereotypes and Soviet morons. Its causing more problems than anything. Current breeder reactors are a wonderful solution until we can get more solar / hybrid fusion. Also, as a bonus more use of nuclear power would increase fusion research, leading to faster, cheaper power.

Station

mitchx3

takeshi

Crazy!

What will they think of next?

Monty

It's easy to attack Bush, but a recent survey found that his home is far more "green" than The Goreacle's.

bvorka

I think I could adjust as long as they weren't noisy or our home was in the debris field in case of a major failure.

strider_mt2k

pisspaws

First, state and federal guidelines require all energy producers in the US to "green" up their production profiles by 2012 and 2017. This means that a minimum percent of all energy generated by a single energy company must be from renewable resources. This could mean solar, wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc. You can complain all you want about the president or congress, but this was passed during this administration and forces energy companies to look beyond the easy route of coal and oil.

Watt_Mink said it correctly - no matter what kind of energy project you are developing, some group will be unhappy with it. Geothermal has it's naysayers, wind energy has the bird lovers and viewshed preservationists, hydoelectric has its problems with the environment, solar has its own NIMBYs, etc. You're going to face opposition anywhere you try to develop, regardless of how green it is.

Jeff McAwesome - while wind energy does have its drawbacks with wind speed and direction variance, wind farms are built in areas that have years of recorded data for wind resources, where winds can be counted upon to be fairly consistent. That said, wind will never replace existing power sources, but is a good clean supplement to existing power sources. One 200-foot tall turbine tower with a 300-foot turbine span can produce 2.5 megawatts of continuous energy. A typical project has around 100 turbines, so the numbers do add up.

I urge anyone interested in more data about wind energy production in the United States to visit the website of the American Wind Energy Association, www.awea.org for more information about how wind energy helps reduce the load of environment polluting power sources.

EBone

But the thing I'm not hearing here is any mention of improved efficiency. WHY are we so obsessed with making MORE energy, when we don't use our existing resources efficiently? We do not need more electricity, we need more planned efficiency. Look at Google's call for more efficient PC power supplies. Look at the movement towards sustainable communities and green building standards. I know many of us are engineering type people and we like to see impressive new toys, but isn't there is a lot more practical value in increased efficiency of existing systems than there is in diving head first into making more energy with systems who's long range environmental impact has not been sufficiently addressed?

aldenhoot

@bdkennedy1: Get your facts straight. Bush's family has always profited from war, not just oil. GW wasn't very good at oil either.

Spare_Change

Nick_M

monkeyrotica

Gari N. Corp

asimpleart

zarchitect

Because neighborhood associations and town councils soil themselves in rage at the mention of putting cellphone towers in their backyard. They'd probably think these behemoths are the tools of satan.

monkeyrotica

bdkennedy1

Inigo Montoya

@bdkennedy1: Here's a dollar, buy a clue.

I agree that the 'environmentalists' are one of the roadblocks facing wind power (specifically, wind power placement). These are the same folks (some of you included) that are so quick to rush into areas like CFL bulbs - which will become much more harmful to the environment than creating electricity ever could be.

Also - what ever happened to the plan to build 'windmill' like power up in the atmosphere where the currents are much stronger and constant?

bitfactory

Monkey_Man

Vesta's largest turbine does 3MW, Enercon's E112 looks like its 4MW, which is huge, but I can't find product info on their website.

Inigo Montoya

Hamm Beerger

http://www.awea.org/news/news050512sta.html

nap70

Hamm Beerger

mredraider

bvicarious

agrajag42

Yup, it's a heartless opinion, but it's practical, and practical opinions should outweigh lame ones always.

bigTrue

namlu

OniMirage

Walt_Mink

Back on topic, I'd be curious about the build and maintenance cost of one of these. Probably worth it for the environmental benefits, but... I'm still curious. Also, what kind of wind activity do you need to power 4000 homes? Is this in a very windy area?

bobman1235

And those things are actually pretty cool, not an eyesore. There's a 2 or 3 farms (that i know of) of them around Texas, you know, oil country.

drewheyman

Jeff_McAwesome

Face it. The average US consumer couldn't give a rat's @ss about living green. Money talks louder than the enviroment sadly...

Simple_thinking

Jovix

bdkennedy1