Pickens Plans On Wind Power 587
Hugh Pickens writes "T. Boone Pickens (no relation) has launched an energy plan and social-networking campaign that calls for replacing Middle Eastern oil with Midwestern wind. The Pickens Plan would exploit the country's 'wind corridor' from the Canadian border to West Texas to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity and provide an economic revival for rural America. Transmission lines would be built to transport the power where the demand is and natural gas, now used to fuel power plants, would instead be used as a transportation fuel, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is domestic. Pickens proposed that the private sector finance the investment, which would result in a one-third reduction, equal to $230 billion, in the U.S.' yearly payments to foreign countries. Pickens has already invested heavily in wind, notably a planned 4,000-megawatt wind farm in his native Texas. 'We've got to get renewable into the mix. The problem for this country is that we're paying $700 billion — you heard that — $700 billion a year,' Pickens says. 'We can't afford that. In 10 years we'll be broke if we continue that.'"
What about??? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about upright wind tunnels? They build a big structure a mile tall with plastic tarps 10ft above the surface for a few miles radius.
Air warms up under the tarp and goes up the tunnel. Estimates put power at around 500 MW. It was a project around Australia somewhere but it was cut to 1/2 mile for some reason (I dont know).
Re:20% wind is about right. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Capitalisim at its best... (Score:4, Interesting)
> Pickens is putting his money where his mouth is and at the same time
> helping America, that is a true Capitalist and a Patriot.
Sounded like that when I first heard of this... but I actually dig a little before jumping into supporting something. Check his WSJ piece of July 8 and these two quotes from adjacent paragraphs no less:
Quote #1
"It will be accomplished solely through private investment with no new consumer or corporate taxes or government regulation."
Quote #2
"The future begins as soon as Congress and the president act. The government must mandate the formation of wind and solar transmission corridors, and renew the subsidies for economic and alternative energy development in areas where the wind and sun are abundant."
Eh? Sounds like another corporate welfare client trying to get his grubby hands into my pocket.
If wind were really economical he wouldn't need subsidies and wouldn't be waiting on Congress to quit masturbating and do something.
News flash: Democrats LOVE these high gas prices, sure they wish the extra money were flowing into the Treasury instead of OPEC but they still can't work up any real displeasure at something that pushes their agenda so well. So why are they going to act?
Screw the hippie crap with wind, solar, etc., we are outta time. Build nuke plants. Not in twenty years, not in ten. I want a plan to have enough nuke plants online inside of five years to make electricity cheap enough to change the economics in favor of plug in electrics. We have the tech to build a safe nuke plant now, waste disposal is still an issue but we have time to work on that problem if we can avoid western civilization collapsing. And eventually I'm sure we will perfect the greener alternative energy sources and not need so many nuke plants... or we get finally solve fusion and quit worrying about energy.
Re:Um (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I saw that commercial too (Score:3, Interesting)
Prices will recede before they get that high..market can't sustain the demand at such prices and you'll see oil taper off and level off somewhere in between...
I agree that increased price will, sooner or later, start to curb demand. However fuel is VERY inelastic. Yes people are starting to cut back on their "holiday driving". Yes eventually the Indian and Chinese consumer won't be able to afford to drive. However there is quite a large segment of fuel demand that is completely inelastic. The fuel needed to transport goods from A to B. The fuel needed to create electricity. The fuel needed to create fertilizers, plastics, etc. These are VERY VERY inelastic and the demand will only increase, until the last drop of fuel is gone. They are a function of population, not willful recreational activity that can be curbed.
You see fuel prices leveling off. I agree. Where? $300 a barrel? $1500 a barrel? $60 a barrel? Whoever gets this right can become rich. Personally I think we have a long way to go yet. And economies that aren't based entirely on borrowing, credit and BS are going to fare much better than those that are. The US consumer has borrowed far too much, for too long. Soon we go back to only the rich being able to drive, and the poor being poor, and the middle class won't exist anymore. You see it otherwise, fair enough. Watch the stock market over the next few months.
I call bull (Score:2, Interesting)
"a one-third reduction, equal to $230 billion, in the U.S.' yearly payments to foreign countries."
Note that he says it reduces foreign spending, but not cost. Weird, it might go either way but he doesnt say ...
Everything I have read on wind power shows it to be incredibly infeasible. You'd have to cover the entire corridor with mills to be able to get the % he wants. He also listed biofuel as generator option which is frankly frightening. And he is underestimating greatly the effort to change to natural gas.
Then he says all we need is proper leadership. HAH, if we had the perfect leader we could land a person on mars in 10years. But thats not happening. Hell if we had even semi-decent leadership, we could pass a law enforcing fuel efficiency and mpg for cars and usage would drop dramatically.
But maybe I just have it in for a guy that sounds like a hick while talking about science. And he has a name like T.Boone (reminds me of steak, country music stars, rappers and b/w westerns all at the same time). And was in SBVT a false smear campaign against kerry....
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:1, Interesting)
Does this really matter? If the oil companies invest this much capital in the US and we are able to reduce the overall import of oil who really cares. Really the only people with enough money to do something like this are companies like that, which is a bit sad, but basically the money for ambitious projects that hold a lot of risk has dried up quite a bit. We really are broke as a nation at the moment.
DIY project (Score:2, Interesting)
DOA (Score:3, Interesting)
Difficult to imagine how someone with this much wealth, presumably obtained via business acumen, could be this naive. The enviros will not simply stand by and permit private interests to carpet the front range with propellers. No way, no how.
They will claim bird extinction. The will claim the composites necessary to build the props are destroying the planet. They'll get a consensus of government funded scientists to assert that large wind farms cause devastating Atmospheric Thermal Depletion [nih.gov]*. They'll discover whatever "endangered" prairie critters they have too to prevent anything on this scale.
Forget it.
*should copyright that
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Alternative Energy... hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What about??? (Score:2, Interesting)
"only people with enough money... " (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that Firefox, for example, is a pretty ambitious project, as is SETI@home. Or, for that matter, the content aggregation that takes place at any big BitTorrent site.
To assume that "somebody big" needs to carry out the work of giving this country more power generation is like asking "who's in charge of this 'internet' thing?"
You want to see us have more power? Superinsulate a frackin' building with some friends. Earthberm one. Go on Craigslist for a few weeks, accumulate some surplus foam and other materials, and build a greenroof. Or put in your own solar panels. Or buy a surplus Whisper, put it on a tall post (height is good), and get more watts per dollar than PV. Plenty of biodiesel coops out there, both for refining fuel and converting vehicles. Join one.
We don't need no stickin' megacorps. We really don't. Most forms of renewable power just don't have that serious a set of economies of scale. Think about it. Me? I'm workin' on a few fronts, most notably getting local zoning codes changed to better accomodate this sort of thing and helping to optimize a 26,000 square foot building that's been converted into workspaces for things like bikemaking, vehicle conversions, and people like me who run small manufacturing businesses and such. Hopefully we'll have our first PV up this year. We've already got a guy making hydrogen and a project to build a pretty serious wind turbine.
Don't bitch. Build. Or, as a bumper sticker I sell says, Don't fight the system; replace it.
Re:Um (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago, I worked for the Evil Empire (ExxonMobil) as a summer intern. At that time, engineering students nearing graduation were a little nervous about working in the oil industry. What would happen to us if we spent most of our careers in oil, and then suddenly alternative energy sources took off? (It was kind of a dumb thing to worry about in retrospect. Major career changes are the norm.)
To convince us to stick with the company, a senior engineer gave us a presentation. He said first of all that our fears weren't unfounded. All the oil majors anticipate major technology changes to occur during our lifetimes. We will have to totally change gears and move to oil sand, oil shale, nuclear, or whatever.
The second thing he said was more interesting. ExxonMobil doesn't consider itself to be an oil company. As the parent suggests, ExxonMobil is in the energy business.
That's not just bluster, either. I haven't tried to independently verify this, but the presenter claimed that ExxonMobil is the second largest holder of mineral rights to uranium ore in the world. The largest is the Russian government.
It's not actually as bad as you think. (Score:3, Interesting)
Um, actually, not always. A lot of our older suburbs and cities (Pasadena comes to mind) were designed for streetcars. America is filled with moderately intact streetcar suburbs [wikipedia.org]. They were designed for mass-transit and would work even better now that fifty years of technology could make streetcars that would be cheaper, lighter, and easier to maintain.
What is keeping cheap, small, streetcars like this from being brought back? Well, among other things, there are now thousands of expensive regulations about how a mass-transit rail vehicle can be made. The doors alone cost thousands of dollars because, for example, they need to be able to be opened manually if the power goes out while simultaneously not being easy to open while the vehicle is in transit while ALSO needing to be controllable electrically from at least two points, and on and on and on.
I've been looking into this for a few years now and the tech is ludicrously easy. I did a little thought experiment [typepad.com] and I would say that it should cost about thirty thousand bucks for a bunch of techies to build a light-duty streetcar these days. But making it legal for use? Good luck with that.
No, the truth is, America, other than the winding suburban streets of the sort that are being phased out anyway, could actually implement mass transit and related technologies pretty fast and cheaper than you would think. IF, that is, the people in the various legislatures get off their asses and make it possible.
Re:I call bull (Score:3, Interesting)
Everything I have read on wind power shows it to be incredibly infeasible.
Hmmm, seems to be feasible in Europe. Germany currently gets over 14% of its energy from renewable sources. That's not projected, that is *right now*.
He also listed biofuel as generator option which is frankly frightening.
I agree that any biofuel solution that competes with food resources is a bad idea, but there are other ways of generating biofuel (ie., algae) that seem sound.
One or two problems (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Transmission of electricity from the midwest to California would entail tremendous transmission losses. By way of comparison, at present the longest transmission line in the country is the pacific intertie from northern Oregon to Los Angeles, which is an HVDC line; at only ~800 mi it loses 15% of everything it transmits.
2. Most of the natural gas in this country is used for heating homes directly and would not be freed up for powering cars.
3. Oftentimes there are "low pressure" weather fronts which span large geographical areas and last for several days, resulting in practically no wind for hundreds of miles. As a result, we would need nearly 100% backup capacity for the windmills. This could be solved using pumped storage but that would add to capital expenditure.
4. Unfortunately, the areas which have tremendous wind resources in this country (and therefore wouldn't require long-distance HVDC lines) already generate almost none of their electricity from natural gas. Places like Illinois get their electricity from coal or nuclear. Thus, very little natural gas would be freed up for cars. It's in California that we get most of our electricity from natural gas but we have inadequate wind resources and HVDC lines to the midwest would entail the transmission losses I indicated above.
5. HVDC lines from the midwest to california or NY would require large capital expenditures.
...Don't get me wrong, I think wind power will be an important part of our future energy mix.
However I think an even better idea would be to replace all the natural gas-fired turbines in california with nuclear plants. Doing so would actually free up tremendous amounts of natural gas to use as automotive fuel, because california has a huge population, and it gets most of its electricity from natural gas which could be freed up.
Re:Natural gas for cars = bad idea (Score:1, Interesting)
One main point that many are overlooking that T. Boones is making, and something that I have known for a long time, is that the idea is to use natural gas as a transition technology. The second point that he makes is substituting wind for natural gas.
It's true that burning natgas in a car is less efficient than in a turbine. But one could make the argument that using a car is less efficient than using public transportation. And, if you happen to not live in the US and don't know this, Americans are heavily dependent for their car to get to work, and most public transportation is woefully inadequate. In fact, the argument could easily be made that much of our high productivity is the result of the ease of transportation we have enjoyed to this point.
Again, effieciency is not the question here, as (T. Boones is suggesting) the same amount of natural gas will be burned in cars, and that amount used will be replaced by wind energy which is achieved by burning nothing. If you listened to T. Boones in the morning news shows, not doing anything is far worse than doing nothing and staying the present course of ever increasing oil consumption.
I'm sure that plug-in hybrids will eventually become a viable technology. For some it is already. But frankly, there are still difficult technological problems with the batteries. The whole crux of T. Boones argument is that all the technology exists today to achieve roughly a 30% decrease in our foreign dependence on oil that exports 700 billion (and increasing) of our dollars overseas in ten years.
Frankly, he is right on all points. And I find the arguments over car motor efficiency pedantic and meaningless posturing by a nut calling himself "green," when two percent of our GDP is going overseas for oil now. Not to mention that there is not much greener technology than wind to replace our energy needs in our power grid.
I suspect that this "green" blogger might see the wisdom in implementing a suggestion like this with the next $1-2 dollar rise in gas prices rather than argue and do nothing for the next 10 years when gas will be $15 and he has no job to go to.
Works for me. (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldn't agree more. Impeachment hearings and every other kind of fight to create accountability is key if we're to prevent even more of the same.
Re:Good transit options in many cities (Score:2, Interesting)
What percentage of the population can live in areas which support car-free life. I don't mean car-free commuting, I mean car free errands, car free food buying and so on.
Yes, areas in cities such as Boston, New York City, and Philadelphia do support this, but the vast majority of these metro areas only have frequent transport availability during commute times, with non-commute tasks accomplished primarily via car.
FlexCar/ZipCar etc are smart. Bicycles are smart. But even these require a certain level of density, such as that of towns relatively near the center. For example I live in Oakland, California, the less-dense neighbor and bedroom community to San Francisco. The walking transportation service is poor, but the density is sufficient to support ZipCar service, carpools, commuter transit, and effective living via bicycle self-transport.
The majority of the population, however, lives in towns like Walnut Creek, Dublin, Fremont, Lafayette, Milpitas, Hercules, Kensington, Richmond, and Novato which have even less density, even poorer public transit and are not friendly to bicycle-transportation living.
Add in smaller city areas such as those in California's central valley -- Merced, Modesto, Lodi, Stockton -- where proportionally much more growth is happing, and public transit worth using exists at all. On top of that, look at how the state government is planning to drastically cut funding for public transit. Consider that this will only continue as our economic troubles deepen.
The possibility per-capita to achieve a car-free lifestyle is actually shrinking.
Re:ExxonMobil as an "energy company" (Score:5, Interesting)
If you look at ExxonMobil's last annual statement on page 19 it says "Fossil fuels are expected to continue to provide about 80% of energy in 2030". That does not sound much like a company that expects to be a big player in any other kind of energy any time soon.
Yeah, that's because nearly all their current assets are in oil, and they know that investors read those statements.
Reality, folks! They'll do anything to make money. Most alternative energy is only profitable after short-term govt incentives. If they can arrange for solar energy that's in their reach and not their competitors, they'll go for it hard-core. If the technology is too "small" (easily implemented on a very small, local scale at low cost) they'll do everything they can to torpedo it.
Picture it: You are part owner of XYZ gasoline-selling corporation. You are there with your partners. You profit when the company does, you lose money when the company does. You read yesterday that people can create their own gasoline out of used clothing. Do you (A) Try to promote the use/sale of cheap, used clothing? (B) pretend like you don't know what's happening (C) try to figure out how your company can remain profitability despite this new threat?
If you answered (A) or (B), it's because you have never been part owner of XYZ gasoline-selling corporation. Real altruism only exists in the absence of interest in the issue at hand. You can only really be altruistic with regards to child care if you aren't a child care provider. You can only really be altruistic about paper production if you don't make/sell paper. You can only really be altruistic about alternative energy if you aren't an energy company.
The actions of any large conglomerate with respect to society is like anyone: they'll work to amplify any cost they have to pay, and downplay any benefit they receive from others. (EG: you) Think about it: How much attention would you give if you drove your mother's car to the grocery store to get yourself groceries, vs. your mother driving your car to get her groceries?
Only when you are of significant means and/or maturity do you not actually care about the difference. Pretending that *any* company operates otherwise is naivety.
Re:One or two problems (Score:4, Interesting)
Transmission of electricity from the midwest to California would entail tremendous transmission losses.
That may be true, but California has the #2,#3, and #4 largest wind farms on the planet: Tehachapi Pass Wind Farm (690 MW), San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm (619 MW), Altamont Pass Wind Farm (606 MW)
Of course, their combined peak power is less than equal to the base power of one two-reactor nuclear power plant (~2 GW).
Re:I saw that commercial too (Score:3, Interesting)
As a percentage of GDP, the U.S. debt situation [nationmaster.com] is about the same as Germany, France, and Canada, and is considerably better than Japan and Italy's. It's a common misconception that the U.S. is badly in debt.
I've heard this argument many times and I think there are some serious problems with it. You are basically saying, it's OK for debt to grow as long as the GDP is growing faster.
But you have to ask yourself, now much of that GDP growth is due to real long term sustainable industries and how much of it is just because of the regular cash injections from borrowing more money.
It's like someone who's not worried about credit card debt because he knows he can get a new card to pay off the previous one next month. This works great until no-one wants to lend you more money.
There are also longer term problems that are slowly sneaking up and for which there are no contingency plans - like the trillions of dollars the social security fund is going to be short by in ten year's time.
The political parties don't want to touch it because every possible solution will be unpopular which is bad if you want to get re-elected
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course. Decentralization of energy is the future and obvious best-case scenario, the ultimate refinement of how we generate power. A utopia compared to what we have today. Centralized power is ugly, dangerous, clumsy, and corrupt compared to a future where all technology is completely independent and decentralized. Centralized power lends itself to political corruption and only aids government in its continuous goals of more power and revenue. Decentralization would completely eliminate that justification for government power.
Imagine a future where every house is completely independent in terms of energy -- that's one less mega-industry for government to overtake, one less justification for concentration of political power into the hands of the elite few. This is the future, and someday when technology permits, it will happen with water, sewer, and communications as well -- if government isn't powerful enough to prevent it from happening.
In the future, we will even see decentralization within each household. Each device will be self-powered by some technology we probably can't even imagine today -- electronics, large appliances, small appliances, lighting -- each one will run independently of the rest, perhaps by some kind of super "battery" that lasts 50 years and generates exactly the necessary power and no more. If one device fails, nothing else is affected. We don't know exactly what this technology will be, but we do know that it will be decentralzied. Why? Because it just plain makes sense. It's the ultimate refinement of technology.
In the future, the era of centralized power will be viewed as primitive and clumsy, much like the people of today view the era of early communications compared to the internet.
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
Media scare-mongering has nothing to do with those of us who feel the US has had an irresponsible energy policy for decades now - completely relying on foreign oil production while shunning home-grown alternatives. This includes wind, solar, biofuels, and other 'green' sources, but it's also stupid to overlook our own domestic oil production, such as off-shore drilling in the gulf and in Alaska. We're still very much reliant upon oil, a fact which is not likely to change for the next 20-40 years no matter what our current intentions are, or what investments we make in alternative sources of energy. Additionally, there's natural gas production, coal (we have the technology to produce clean-burning coal plans now), and nuclear power which are all real, viable power production systems that we could start building tomorrow.
Sales taxes and incentives will not solve a fundamental supply issue on such a massive scale, so I don't see a point with punishing consumers even more than the current gas prices are already doing. No, I don't believe people are under the delusion that this will be solved immediately, but given that it's going to take a while to actually get fixed, I can see why people are anxious to see a real energy plan get underway instead of political pandering to various constituency groups to which politicians are beholden to (extreme environmentalists on one side, and big oil on the other).
I'm sorry but I'm going to have to say that I hope gas prices reach $10/gallon and higher. Maybe then something will be done.
Let me say this. I don't support the bogus "windfall profit tax" crap. I don't think it's the government's job to keep gas prices low. I support nuclear energy but not drilling for more oil. In fact, I don't support ANY fossil fuel expansion at this point. It's a limited resource. It's going to run dry. The problem isn't foreign oil. The problem is oil as a whole. Drilling in ANWAR or oil-shale or off-shore isn't going to make a lick of difference because the oil market doesn't conform to normal capitalistic "rules".
Regardless of how long it takes or not to get the oil up and into our cars, the Middle Eastern oil companies have a captive audience in China and India and there is no motivation to lower the prices. Flooding the market with US oil does nothing to lower that price either since we seem to have no gumption to reduce our consumption here in the states. As soon as gas prices go back down, people will start buying SUVs again and Detroit will shelve all of the fuel efficient projects they might have going now. It wouldn't make financial sense to anything other than that.
We've had 30 years roughly to think about this issue. Since Carter and not a damn thing has been done. Every time someone floated ideas about conservation or alternative energy, they were summarily dismissed as being a anti-capitalist hippy.
And let's not forget that even IF we got the drilling restrictions lifted and started getting more oil out there, all of these figures assume our current rate of growth. That's just stupid. The amount of shit grows to fill the bucket. It's just some sort of unwritten law of physics. Cheap oil causes MORE growth thus making the supply last even less longer.
And honestly, gas is the least of our concerns. We have alternate fuel sources and methods for getting us from point A to point B. There are a lot of other things made from petroleum that we DON'T have replacements for. Medical plastics and other things. I don't want to have a catheter shortage just because billy bob had to have the biggest SUV he could find.
There seems to be this sentiment today that we shouldn't have to make sacrifices as citizens. And then I look at posters from WW2 that show Hitler driving a car and wonder how that would fly today.
I'm not a hippie. I'm not a liberal. I'm not a republican. I'm not an environmentalist. I'm a realist.
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
You forgot the most economical viable but somewhat paradoxically unpopular course of action: Get serious about efficiency and simply use less energy.
What do you mean by "use less energy"? Like take cold showers? Ban hot tubs? Stop driving (or just certain cars like the evil SUV that no one in these discussions ever seems to own, but I see all over the freaking roads)? Or more easily adoptable things like using energy star appliances and them funny lookin' lightbulbs?
Basically, I think it's only "the most" economically viable to a point. What I think many of the "Just use less" people really want is a complete change of lifestyles. I can indeed save money by turning down the thermostat on the water heater and furnace. I can save money by not driving anywhere and walking or bicycling. But these things also change my life and my lifestyle. I'm sure you're quick to tsk-tsk me and that you get a good belly-laugh out of my awful American selfishness, but it's a serious question that too many people ignore. How much conservation (specifically, preemptive sort-of-types of conservation) is necessary? I mean, I could get dead serious about conservation, but I'd pretty much have to start a new life.
Of course, conservation can be achieved without impacting my lifestyle. As long as I can pay for it. Which then makes it NOT economically viable.
Stay with me as I make a ridiculous example, in hopes of making a point. Let's say you buy an older house. Maybe even a mansion-sized house. First of all, I'm sure some here would scold you for buying a mansion in the first place because you should be willing to live in a small apartment like the Japanese or Europeans do. (They have faster broadband, too, after all.) Anyhow, for starters, you'd need to replace all the windows (ka-ching). You'd also probably want to reinsulate the attic space (actually not too expensive). Then you'd need to buy one or two new energy efficient furnaces and air conditioning units (ka-ching ka-ching). It'd probably make the most sense to also retrofit a tankless water heater system, with additional smaller tankless units at the points of use (KA-ching). Then you'd want to add solar panels and utilize some kind of net metering setup with the power company. Uh oh - it's actually a historic mansion actually, so first you have to deal with the municipal government to add an aesthetically-pleasing, non-obtrusive solar setup (waiting...waiting...finally, ka-ching). Then you want to add some wind turbines or even a simple windmill. But you can't because zoning doesn't allow such a structure in your neighborhood (no ka-ching). Then you can do the simple stuff like caulking, foam insulating, etc (mini-ching) and getting all new energy efficient appliances (ka-ching).
Now I know I'm being a bit silly, but if you scale it down to a smaller home, you're also dealing with a smaller budget. It's easy to say "Just use less", but to get to the point where you can use less sometimes requires some economically UNviable steps, like those I mentioned above.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, while NIMBYs are stopping a lot of alternative energy sources, it's also the existing energy industry. For example, North Dakota is so rich with the right kind of wind for wind power (strong, steady) that you can build very profitable wind farms. It's considered the Middle East of wind power.
Unfortunately, the state government is in the pocket of the coal industry, which is also very big in ND. Wind farms put coal workers out of jobs. So they don't let many wind farms get built and they don't give the infrastructure necessary to do so (such as a way to tap in to the power grid).
Right now, if you have the cash, the location, and the government allows it, you can make a lot of money (passive income, even) building and running wind turbines. The key is getting the government to cooperate.
Re:Alternative Energy... hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you've go an available head of water, you can use a hydraulic ram pump [clemson.edu] to keep a reservior full, and use a turbine to generate your electricity.
It's a handy way of using gravity, and is essentially free (you're using the power of the water that would flow downhill anyway).
Re:What about??? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nevada solar one: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Nevada+Solar+One,+NV&ie=UTF8&ll=35.799402,-114.973984&spn=0.032336,0.051327&t=h&z=15 [google.com]
but it was under construction at the time of the pix.
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:3, Interesting)
I think pure electric cars can work for a substantial portion of people, but electric cannot yet offer any method for rapid refuelling if you are going further than one charge can take you
That is incorrect. It was correct ten years ago, but not today. Just ignoring battery swapping, there are several companies now that make massively powerful fast chargers, all of which are cheaper than a hydrogen pump. Perhaps the most notable is Aerovironment, with their PosiCharge line. They already have a network of 60kW fast chargers installed across Oahu, but they make chargers as big as 250kW. For a ~10kWh battery pack (Aptera-sized), that's 10 minutes and 2.4 minutes, respectively. For a ~50kWh battery pack (Tesla-sized), that's ~50 minutes and ~12 minutes, respectively. Compared to the length of time you'd spend driving, these charge times are pretty trivial. An Aptera, for example, gets 120 miles per charge, so with just a 60kWh charger and a car like an Aptera, that'd be two hours of driving for ten minutes of charging. And heck, you're supposed to take a five to ten minute break every two hours of driving for safety reasons anyways!
On the battery side of things, the phosphates, titanates, and spinels can all take 5-10 minute charges, as can most upcoming technologies (some even less).
Re:What about??? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the ideal power source is an underground wire going to your house, with all the electrons you need, and that costs you very little. Fusion power would be just like that: Massive, industrial, pointless on a small scale, and awesome.
Let's use our rooftops for gardens!
Re:What about??? (Score:3, Interesting)
'The 2006 US energy use was about 4,060,000 thousand mwh.'
"Given Nevada's land and sun resources the state has the ability to produce more than 600 GW using solar thermal concentrators like those used by Nevada Solar One.[12"
well, for one state, Nevada's solar potential is pretty good. the reason why picken likes wind power is simple though, wind power is a lot cheaper than solar. wind is available closer to power consuming states in the north east, wind turbines generate income for farmers as well as utilities, and don't require buying and building giant solar energy factories, oh and, you don't need to clean the dust off of windmills like you do off solar mirror based solar thermal.
solar is nice, it has it's place, and maybe we can power California off solar, but the distributed nature of wind power makes it more attractive long term.
remember, any state that gets hail, even if within a solar corridor, is a threat to solar thermal based on mirrors. hail is the natural enemy of solar thermal. making hail proof mirrors is expensive.
even though piken isn't for it, making all those wind farms, would free up natural gas for the making of ethanol from corn. he'd rather see cars that run off natural gas... oh and piken isn't for it either, but all those windmills could be used to power 'plug in hybrids'
Re:Global warming (Score:3, Interesting)
my point was that the effect, if any, won't be thought about until we have hard evidence of what it is.
the most likely effect as i said, is slowing of large weather systems, that traditionally cross the Dakotas in hours, this could lead to increased precipitation and flooding, since the Dakotas don't have adequate drainage because traditionally there were no trees to slow weather patterns.
but really when when a company buys cane sugar from Brazil, do they think about the damage to the amazon river that was caused by slash/burn campaigns to clear the rainforest, and replace it with cane sugar growers?
trees have a larger impact than just slowing weather systems, the return rainwater to the groundwater tables, create secondary rain from evaporation of previous rain, and generally slow runoff, and they don't take water from underground aquifers like farms do.
in other words, long term commercial farming will eventually cause Brazil's non farm land to have California style wildfires, because the can sugar regions suck too much water out of the ground for normal vegetation just like farming in California has caused such water table crisis's that cause the massive wildfires..
but don't you dare say that farming isn't sustainable, oh no, farming can't possibly be ruining the environment.