cheezitmike writes "Researchers at Oregon State University are testing a new type of wave-energy converter to generate electricity from ocean waves: 'Even when the ocean seems calm, swells are moving water up and down sufficiently to generate electricity. ... For decades the challenge has been to build a device that can withstand monster waves and gale-force winds, not to mention corrosive saltwater, seaweed, floating debris and curious marine mammals. ... In the most recent prototypes, a thick coil of copper wire is inside the first component, which is anchored to the seafloor. The second component is a magnet attached to a float that moves up and down freely with the waves. As the magnet is heaved by the waves, its magnetic field moves along the stationary coil of copper wire. This motion induces a current in the wire — electricity.'"
Meanwhile, researchers at Stanford are working to design "turbine kites" that operate at 30,000 feet, where air currents flow much faster than they do close to the ground. Ken Caldeira, a Stanford associate professor, said, "If you tapped into 1% of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization."
The challenge with this plan is how are they going to transmit the energy from 30,000 feet? How much does 40,000 feet of cable weigh? That's about 7 miles. Perhaps they could use lightweight tether and beam the energy using microwave like the space energy proposal but that adds complexity. BTW, The design referred to in the article uses a series of helicopter-like blades to sustain lift and generate electricity.
The simplest idea I've seen uses a kite on the end of a tether. The tether is paid out, generating energy, and then pulled back in, requiring energy. By changing the kite's angle of attack during the recovery phase, a net energy output can be obtained.
The energy output is supposed to be around 20kW per square metre... is there any reason why this wouldn't scale to 20GW for square-kilometre kites?
Here in Oregon the greenies have been fighting against the energy buoys for a while. They are concerned that electromagnetic cables on the ocean floor could affect sea life, and that buoys could interfere with whale and fish migration.
We've also been tearing down hydroelectric dams because it disturbs the salmon.
We got Washington DC jacking up the price of non-enviro friendly electricity on one end and the greenies on the other end kicking the green energy in the balls.
Right, lets stop the irony and blame the greenies, lets ignore the fact the dams are 80yrs old, poorly designed and commercial fishermen [washingtonpost.com] want them altered/removed to allow salmon to spawn. Seems to me it's simply a failure to invest in modern infrastructure (fish ladders), failure to reinvest seems to be a bad habit power companies have picked up these days.
Dams are some of the most ecologically disruptive creations of mankind. They are not, repeat not "green" power.
You could put paddlewheels all up and down every river not being used for transport (and some of those too) and generate hydro power without having to build megalithic dams, but humans seem to be addicted to centralization. There are benefits to be had from it for sure, but [large scale] dams are still bad.
Dams are some of the most ecologically disruptive creations of mankind. They are not, repeat not "green" power.
Personally, I don't care one way or another. As I see it, "ecologically disruptive" is overrated. Even if humanity turns out to be one of the great ecological disruptions of the past few billion years for Earth, it's for a good cause, namely a space faring technological society. We need a better reason than that to stop building them. That dam does a lot of work for us.
You could put paddlewheels all up and down every river not being used for transport (and some of those too) and generate hydro power without having to build megalithic dams, but humans seem to be addicted to centralization. There are benefits to be had from it for sure, but [large scale] dams are still bad.
Building dams is a hell of a lot cheaper and more efficient than building paddlewheels all up and down the river. For example, every time yo
Most large dams are there also for water storage and flood control, to even the supply out over the year, and we really don't have much in the way of alternatives for that.
Sounds like a very green bunch: A combination of astroturf + money.
I suspect that the energy lobby is somewhere behind these bizarre anti-sustainability movements. Maybe even convincing poor fools that they are really helping things out.
I'm interested in this topic partly because of its connection to "seasteading" or sea-surface colonization.
As with other forms of "alternative" energy, though, the problem is cost. Generating energy from renewable sources certainly sounds nifty. But does it make sense for the kind of low-budget settlement that could plausibly exist anytime soon, or even for conventional markets on land? The article summary is about making an energy generator that will work, period, not making something that can compete wi
"If you tapped into 1% of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization."
And if you tapped into 1% of the power in the heat of the earth's core, that would be enough to power all of civilization on Zeti Reticuli, and if you tapped into 1% of the solar output by building a tiny Dyson sphere that would be enough to power all of Known Space. But let's first ask ourselves, is it practical and cost-effective?
Most of earth's problems could be solved by having plentiful, cheap, easy, nearly-free energy. Not enough food? Grow-lights and mineral plants could fix that. Not enough fresh water? Purifiers would be easy to build as-needed along the coast. Not enough diamonds? Plenty of robots to mine them for you.
Presumably to harvest 1% of the wind energy in the upper atmosphere, you'd need to have around 1% of the wind there pass through your turbine. (Probably more, because your turbine isn't going to harvest all the energy in the wind.)
Is it "nearly free" to have 1% of the stratosphere full of turbine kites? That's a lot of kites...
Probably much less than 1%. The upper altitude wind energy is highly concentrated in the jet streams, so you would get most of your energy from there. The harvesting is greatly complicated by the jet streams wandering around, though.
Boondoggle: n. work of little or no value done merely to keep or look busy.
Political favor is unfortunately a far more dominant motivation to develop sustainable energy technology than sustainability itself. I've seen too many boondoggle projects get huge grants because they are the most visible, like big wind farms within sight of a large population, in favor of more suitable locations. If we can't implement a centuries-old technology effectively today at ground level, what good is a new technology in one of the most foreign environments known to mankind? Ignorant energy harvesting is what got us in this mess in the first place!
I have a strong respect for academic studies, but minds aimed at sustainable living are wasted on these implausible contrivances. There's enough dorks on Star Trek forums trying to prove useless theories. Don't waste our taxes on them.
These well-meaning schemes still founder on the basic problems of working in a salt-water environment and the issue of a very dilute energy source. You can't make a generator that works directly off ocean-swells-- the swells come by so slowly you'd need a coil inductance of about ten thousand Henries.
A simple loop of wire, as postulated, has about a millionth of that.
Plus you need considerable iron to channel the magnetic flux. No way around it.
Regarding the kites, figure out what the very lightest generator weighs, per watt. Hint: not under 30 kilos per KW. Now assume you want to power 100 houses, say 50 KW.
Figure out the size of the kite needed to lift than many tons. Now at a 30 degree kitestring angle, the pull on the string will be twice the weight of the kite. Figure out how much 60,000 feet of kite string that will take that kind of stress weighs. Now you need another large kite just to hold up the kite string.
And BTW, the "high speed" winds up there are not a panacea. They're high speed but low in density. The energy is, again, very dilute. You need to at least double the size of the kite to get the same amount of lift and pull as you can get at low altitudes. .
I say we just keep burning old tires to heat our homes and be done with it...
I'm sick of all the bogus reasons people come up with why something isn't going to work when they have no fucking idea what the are talking about.
It's not cost effective - No shit because no one is making 50 million of them yet. It's going to change the weather - Ahh yeah and so does standing outside on a windy day jackass. It's going to hurt the sea life - Ahh yeah and so does all the trash we dump in the ocean every day and don't forget about all the dead zones from algae overgrowth caused by fertilizer and raw sewage.
Get some fucking prospective people.. We already are killing the planet.
Step 1 is to learn to kill it sloooower. Step 2 is improve step on step 1. Step 3 is to get the fuck out of here. Step 4 ???? Step 5 Profit FOREVER.
by Anonymous Coward
on Saturday July 04, @01:24AM (#28578221)
Can you suggest a source of energy that has no potential downside whatsoever? No? Then, kindly, stop whining.
I swear, this attitude has got to stop. "Oh solution X for problem Y has a (potential) downside, it's clearly unsafe, we should abandon it". Happens every single fucking time power generation comes up on slashdot. Since when did people start thinking like Pierson's Puppeteers?
If a solution to a problem (in this case power generation) offers fewer downsides than the existing solutions (fossil fuels mainly), then please, by all means, implement it. This goes for passive power collection (ground based, sea based or orbital), fusion energy, biomass energy, even fission. Worry about the consequences, but don't let those dangers blind you to the very real danger of staying the course with what we already have.
Isn't the ZPE what supports the universe and provides a place for all those little superstrings to play? You might collapse the false vacuum or something.;-)
First off these are by no means perfect solutions themselves. They're expensive for the power generated, are subject to the whims of nature and of course, could affect surrounding nature in unforeseen ways. What happens when you cause large dead spots in the ocean or wind currents? Have any real life tests been performed?
Personally I don't like the idea of off shore power generation, I'm sure it would expand and screw up the laws for sailors and the sea. Not to mention the large zones a few miles off shore
I swear, this attitude has got to stop. "Oh solution X for problem Y has a (potential) downside, it's clearly unsafe, we should abandon it". Happens every single fucking time power generation comes up on slashdot. Since when did people start thinking like Pierson's Puppeteers?
Nonsense. Of you are looking to switch power generation because the current method will kill your grandchildren, then it's perfectly reasonable to point out that the purposed solution will kill your grand children.
Consider the effect of coastlines on waves. That should give you a little bit of insight as to why there is no worry at all about consequences. As for the kites, consider the effects of trees mountains and buildings and how they and kites are all tiny specks in comparionson to a high pressure system covering half of the continent of North America. You are quibbling about farts in hurricanes here.
Nonsense. Of you are looking to switch power generation because the current method will kill your grandchildren, then it's perfectly reasonable to point out that the purposed solution will kill your grand children.
There is no reason to switch to something more expensive, complicated, or convoluted if the end result is the same even if just by another means. We are looking to get off fossil fuels because it effects the environment and has the potential of destroying a lot of life, switching to something that does the exact same thing is fucking stupid.
So what happens of the consequences are better, but some idiot who can't tell the difference is still angsting in public? Should we not switch? As I see it, that's this current thread with an anonymous troll playing the role of the idiot.
Can you suggest a source of energy that has no potential downside whatsoever?
American Blubber (TM) - very high energy density, suitable for use in conventional power stations. They're gonna die anyway so use it or lose it. Also will result in a significant reduction in Global Stupidity (TM). Unlike Global Warming, there is no doubt that Global Stuipidity (TM) has an anthropogenic origin.
Since when did people start thinking like Pierson's Puppeteers?
Since they became pampered, overfed first world types with a vast environmental footprint? Of the course the fact that vast areas of the planet are populated by people dying early and painfully because they don't aren't allowed to have technologies considered 'environmentally damaging' is conveniently not mentioned.
Jet Airliners already catch free rides in the jet stream to save fuel, and as there are thousands of planes up around the world with likely hundreds of them doing it no problems so far that we can detect.
Also, there are huge current underwater like the antarctic circumpolar current that has about 140 times the flow of all the rivers on Earth.
A minor tap on it would power the southern hemisphere most likely.
An airliner flying in the jet stream doesn't slow it down significantly. There is a small effect when the airliner enters the jet stream (and accelerates), but I think in cruise flight the effect is very small.
A power generating kite extracts energy from the jet stream. The description of enough energy to power civilization is surprising to me (though it may be true), are they sure they have counted that the kites will slow down the jet stream?
Also the jet stream moves around and changes direction a lot
Changing the jet stream by 1% impacting weather? I would put money down that it varies by more than 5% over the course of a year. 1% of anything is RARELY an issue, and I doubt that it will be here.
The problem comes when you depend on one thing and increase the percentage more and more. For example, the world current depends on Coal, oil and natural gas. It is adding FAR more additional CO2 than all the natural processes such as Volcano's, space, etc. Had we added only 1% new CO2, we would not have issue
The problem comes when you depend on one thing and increase the percentage more and more. For example, the world current depends on Coal, oil and natural gas. It is adding FAR more additional CO2 than all the natural processes such as Volcano's, space, etc. Had we added only 1% new CO2, we would not have issues.
You might want to check the veracity of that statement...
1% of anything is RARELY an issue, and I doubt that it will be here.
You probably also should note that CO2 is 0.0383% of the earth's atmosphere.
If I only had mod points... This raises a question as to whether or not an idea of this magnitude comes to fruition through scientific means (not sexy) or political means (sexy to Al Gore).
Yes, it may power a civilization... but to what end? If it means stronger tornadoes in the midwest, it could be both tragic and expensive. The natural resources used to produce such a device would be somewhat trivial compared to usual consumption, but what impact would this have on us common folk?
Oh, for God's sake this neurotic fingernail chewing has to stop. Any energy used to create electricity MUST, by the laws of physics, come from somewhere else. Sorry kiddies, but there is no magic wand to make energy appear without some consequences. Grow up.
By choosing to shoot down any and all alt-energy methods, you thereby choose to continue burning fossil fuels as the major method of electricity generation, which is also the majority source of carbon and old school pollution.
It's time to put on your big-boy pants, recognize we have a problem that needs solutions NOW and be willing to deal with the consequences. The second worst thing we could do, next to "nothing", is pick a single new method to pursue. We need to try them all to see what works, what the problems are, etc.. The answer will probably be a mix of new technologies.
We've become a nation, no a WORLD of spoiled whiners. Man up, take some fucking responsibility and DO something. Spoiled whining children should be spanked.
Exactly my thought. 1% is a tiny number, until you multiply it by the surface area of the Earth. Let's talk some real numbers instead. Current world power consumption is around 500 Exajoules per year, or about 15 TW on average. About 89 PW of solar energy hits the Earth's surface. This means that you'd need 0.017% of the Earth's surface to be converted to solar power to generate enough power for the entire world[1]. Now let's turn these into real numbers, rather than percentages. The surface area of the world is 510,072,000km^2. For solar, you'd need 85,967.191km^2, or a square around 300km on each side. For wind energy, you'd need 5,100,720km^2, or a square around 2250km on each side. Which of these sounds more feasible?
The figures for solar are using the average power, but it's worth noting that a number of the places with the highest solar energy are not particularly suited to human habitation. The Sahara desert is 9,000,000km^2. Enough solar energy hits less than 1% of the Sahara to power the entire world.
That's not to say wind power is a waste of time. The nice thing about this idea is that it works at night. Without some very efficient storage system or room-temperature superconductors, it's not feasible to power the whole world with solar energy. It's much easier to take things like this seriously, however, without the needless hyperbole.
[1] Note I'm assuming 100% efficiency here. The original article stated 1% of the energy in the wind, not 1% of the extractable energy, meaning that he was also assuming 100% efficiency. Back in the real world, scale all of the areas up by another order of magnitude or so.
That is right, hot air can power steam turbines. Using 1% of the comments here could provide enough power to power the world. This one in particular would generated a LOT of power.
(Reminds me of the "Scream Floor" on Monsters Inc.)
Uh, no. You can't get any energy out of the pressure difference in the atmosphere or ocean. The pressure difference is there because the medium has already adjusted to the lowest energy state. You cant milk any more energy out of a system that is already at lowest equilibrium.
Zap (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Nature's take (Score:2)
My bet is on more efficient solar panels, a solid state power collectors.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
*Ring ring*
Photosynthesis----->Coal------------------>
\
-->Electricity
The problem is/solution is... (Score:2, Insightful)
The challenge with this plan is how are they going to transmit the energy from 30,000 feet? How much does 40,000 feet of cable weigh? That's about 7 miles. Perhaps they could use lightweight tether and beam the energy using microwave like the space energy proposal but that adds complexity. BTW, The design referred to in the article uses a series of helicopter-like blades to sustain lift and generate electricity.
BTM
Pumping kite wind generator (Score:2, Interesting)
The simplest idea I've seen uses a kite on the end of a tether. The tether is paid out, generating energy, and then pulled back in, requiring energy. By changing the kite's angle of attack during the recovery phase, a net energy output can be obtained.
The energy output is supposed to be around 20kW per square metre... is there any reason why this wouldn't scale to 20GW for square-kilometre kites?
www.win.tue.nl/casa/meetings/special/ecmi08/pumping-kite.pdf
Re: (Score:2)
How much does 40,000 feet of cable weigh?
Go to the top of the class !
This was briefly discussed in Number Watch [numberwatch.co.uk] a few years ago.
Stop the Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Stop the Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
More that boiling the message down to a one sentence eyeball grabbing headline ends up removing all the sane details of said message...
The paradox happens when the headlines are put up against each other, with no details included...
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Dams are some of the most ecologically disruptive creations of mankind. They are not, repeat not "green" power.
You could put paddlewheels all up and down every river not being used for transport (and some of those too) and generate hydro power without having to build megalithic dams, but humans seem to be addicted to centralization. There are benefits to be had from it for sure, but [large scale] dams are still bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Dams are some of the most ecologically disruptive creations of mankind. They are not, repeat not "green" power.
Personally, I don't care one way or another. As I see it, "ecologically disruptive" is overrated. Even if humanity turns out to be one of the great ecological disruptions of the past few billion years for Earth, it's for a good cause, namely a space faring technological society. We need a better reason than that to stop building them. That dam does a lot of work for us.
You could put paddlewheels all up and down every river not being used for transport (and some of those too) and generate hydro power without having to build megalithic dams, but humans seem to be addicted to centralization. There are benefits to be had from it for sure, but [large scale] dams are still bad.
Building dams is a hell of a lot cheaper and more efficient than building paddlewheels all up and down the river. For example, every time yo
Dual purpose (Score:3, Interesting)
Most large dams are there also for water storage and flood control, to even the supply out over the year, and we really don't have much in the way of alternatives for that.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like a very green bunch: A combination of astroturf + money.
I suspect that the energy lobby is somewhere behind these bizarre anti-sustainability movements. Maybe even convincing poor fools that they are really helping things out.
Seasteading (Score:2)
As with other forms of "alternative" energy, though, the problem is cost. Generating energy from renewable sources certainly sounds nifty. But does it make sense for the kind of low-budget settlement that could plausibly exist anytime soon, or even for conventional markets on land? The article summary is about making an energy generator that will work, period, not making something that can compete wi
Good luck with that (Score:5, Insightful)
"If you tapped into 1% of the power in high-altitude winds, that would be enough to continuously power all civilization."
And if you tapped into 1% of the power in the heat of the earth's core, that would be enough to power all of civilization on Zeti Reticuli, and if you tapped into 1% of the solar output by building a tiny Dyson sphere that would be enough to power all of Known Space. But let's first ask ourselves, is it practical and cost-effective?
Re:Good luck with that (Score:5, Funny)
I'm sure we can cap and trade it into being practical and cost-effective. That's the power of the free market when some people are in charge.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Practical and cost effective?
Yes.
Most of earth's problems could be solved by having plentiful, cheap, easy, nearly-free energy. Not enough food? Grow-lights and mineral plants could fix that. Not enough fresh water? Purifiers would be easy to build as-needed along the coast. Not enough diamonds? Plenty of robots to mine them for you.
Re:Good luck with that (Score:4, Insightful)
Except the major problem: too many people.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Except the major problem: too many people.
kill all humans.. I've been saying it for years....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Presumably to harvest 1% of the wind energy in the upper atmosphere, you'd need to have around 1% of the wind there pass through your turbine. (Probably more, because your turbine isn't going to harvest all the energy in the wind.)
Is it "nearly free" to have 1% of the stratosphere full of turbine kites? That's a lot of kites...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably much less than 1%. The upper altitude wind energy is highly concentrated in the jet streams, so you would get most of your energy from there. The harvesting is greatly complicated by the jet streams wandering around, though.
Boondoggle bait (Score:3, Insightful)
Boondoggle: n. work of little or no value done merely to keep or look busy.
Political favor is unfortunately a far more dominant motivation to develop sustainable energy technology than sustainability itself. I've seen too many boondoggle projects get huge grants because they are the most visible, like big wind farms within sight of a large population, in favor of more suitable locations. If we can't implement a centuries-old technology effectively today at ground level, what good is a new technology in one of the most foreign environments known to mankind? Ignorant energy harvesting is what got us in this mess in the first place!
I have a strong respect for academic studies, but minds aimed at sustainable living are wasted on these implausible contrivances. There's enough dorks on Star Trek forums trying to prove useless theories. Don't waste our taxes on them.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, perhaps a nation of 300 million can afford to research more than one thing at a time.
Both these technologies are sound ideas for research because they both seek to use some of the highest power densities that also are widespread.
The motion of the waves typically has a higher power density than the wind that created them, which is perhaps not entirely intuitive.
captain's opinion (Score:2)
Damage to boats, caused by these extremely dangerous items in the oceans, will cancel environmental gains thousand times over.
Re: (Score:2)
So ridiculous (Score:4, Interesting)
These well-meaning schemes still founder on the basic problems of working in a salt-water environment and the issue of a very dilute energy source.
You can't make a generator that works directly off ocean-swells-- the swells come by so slowly you'd need a coil inductance of about ten thousand Henries.
A simple loop of wire, as postulated, has about a millionth of that.
Plus you need considerable iron to channel the magnetic flux. No way around it.
Regarding the kites, figure out what the very lightest generator weighs, per watt. Hint: not under 30 kilos per KW. Now assume you want to power 100 houses, say 50 KW.
Figure out the size of the kite needed to lift than many tons. Now at a 30 degree kitestring angle, the pull on the string will be twice the weight of the kite. Figure out how
much 60,000 feet of kite string that will take that kind of stress weighs. Now you need another large kite just to hold up the kite string.
And BTW, the "high speed" winds up there are not a panacea. They're high speed but low in density. The energy is, again, very dilute. You need to at least double the size of the kite to get the same amount of lift and pull as you can get at low altitudes.
.
Fuck it (Score:5, Insightful)
I say we just keep burning old tires to heat our homes and be done with it...
I'm sick of all the bogus reasons people come up with why something isn't going to work when they have no fucking idea what the are talking about.
It's not cost effective - No shit because no one is making 50 million of them yet.
It's going to change the weather - Ahh yeah and so does standing outside on a windy day jackass.
It's going to hurt the sea life - Ahh yeah and so does all the trash we dump in the ocean every day and don't forget about all the dead zones from algae overgrowth caused by fertilizer and raw sewage.
Get some fucking prospective people.. We already are killing the planet.
Step 1 is to learn to kill it sloooower.
Step 2 is improve step on step 1.
Step 3 is to get the fuck out of here.
Step 4 ????
Step 5 Profit FOREVER.
Re:Consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you suggest a source of energy that has no potential downside whatsoever? No? Then, kindly, stop whining.
I swear, this attitude has got to stop. "Oh solution X for problem Y has a (potential) downside, it's clearly unsafe, we should abandon it". Happens every single fucking time power generation comes up on slashdot. Since when did people start thinking like Pierson's Puppeteers?
If a solution to a problem (in this case power generation) offers fewer downsides than the existing solutions (fossil fuels mainly), then please, by all means, implement it. This goes for passive power collection (ground based, sea based or orbital), fusion energy, biomass energy, even fission. Worry about the consequences, but don't let those dangers blind you to the very real danger of staying the course with what we already have.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Zero point energy has no downsides, I'm going to attach one to my flying car when the Government stops suppressing the technology.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First off these are by no means perfect solutions themselves. They're expensive for the power generated, are subject to the whims of nature and of course, could affect surrounding nature in unforeseen ways. What happens when you cause large dead spots in the ocean or wind currents? Have any real life tests been performed?
Personally I don't like the idea of off shore power generation, I'm sure it would expand and screw up the laws for sailors and the sea. Not to mention the large zones a few miles off shore
Re:Consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
America needs to get its nuclear ass in gear.
You clearly have no idea what fission is so why are you here and who is paying you?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Nonsense. Of you are looking to switch power generation because the current method will kill your grandchildren, then it's perfectly reasonable to point out that the purposed solution will kill your grand children.
There is no reason
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Nonsense. Of you are looking to switch power generation because the current method will kill your grandchildren, then it's perfectly reasonable to point out that the purposed solution will kill your grand children.
There is no reason to switch to something more expensive, complicated, or convoluted if the end result is the same even if just by another means. We are looking to get off fossil fuels because it effects the environment and has the potential of destroying a lot of life, switching to something that does the exact same thing is fucking stupid.
So what happens of the consequences are better, but some idiot who can't tell the difference is still angsting in public? Should we not switch? As I see it, that's this current thread with an anonymous troll playing the role of the idiot.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Can you suggest a source of energy that has no potential downside whatsoever?
American Blubber (TM) - very high energy density, suitable for use in conventional power stations. They're gonna die anyway so use it or lose it. Also will result in a significant reduction in Global Stupidity (TM). Unlike Global Warming, there is no doubt that Global Stuipidity (TM) has an anthropogenic origin.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when did people start thinking like Pierson's Puppeteers?
Since they became pampered, overfed first world types with a vast environmental footprint? Of the course the fact that vast areas of the planet are populated by people dying early and painfully because they don't aren't allowed to have technologies considered 'environmentally damaging' is conveniently not mentioned.
Re:Consequences (Score:4, Interesting)
Jet Airliners already catch free rides in the jet stream to save fuel,
and as there are thousands of planes up around the world
with likely hundreds of them doing it no problems so far
that we can detect.
Also, there are huge current underwater like the antarctic circumpolar
current that has about 140 times the flow of all the rivers on Earth.
A minor tap on it would power the southern hemisphere most likely.
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem comes when you depend on one thing and increase the percentage more and more. For example, the world current depends on Coal, oil and natural gas. It is adding FAR more additional CO2 than all the natural processes such as Volcano's, space, etc. Had we added only 1% new CO2, we would not have issue
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem comes when you depend on one thing and increase the percentage more and more. For example, the world current depends on Coal, oil and natural gas. It is adding FAR more additional CO2 than all the natural processes such as Volcano's, space, etc. Had we added only 1% new CO2, we would not have issues.
You might want to check the veracity of that statement...
1% of anything is RARELY an issue, and I doubt that it will be here.
You probably also should note that CO2 is 0.0383% of the earth's atmosphere.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it may power a civilization... but to what end? If it means stronger tornadoes in the midwest, it could be both tragic and expensive. The natural resources used to produce such a device would be somewhat trivial compared to usual consumption, but what impact would this have on us common folk?
Re:1% is such a small number (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, for God's sake this neurotic fingernail chewing has to stop. Any energy used to create electricity MUST, by the laws of physics, come from somewhere else. Sorry kiddies, but there is no magic wand to make energy appear without some consequences. Grow up.
By choosing to shoot down any and all alt-energy methods, you thereby choose to continue burning fossil fuels as the major method of electricity generation, which is also the majority source of carbon and old school pollution.
It's time to put on your big-boy pants, recognize we have a problem that needs solutions NOW and be willing to deal with the consequences. The second worst thing we could do, next to "nothing", is pick a single new method to pursue. We need to try them all to see what works, what the problems are, etc.. The answer will probably be a mix of new technologies.
We've become a nation, no a WORLD of spoiled whiners. Man up, take some fucking responsibility and DO something. Spoiled whining children should be spanked.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1% is such a small number (Score:5, Informative)
The figures for solar are using the average power, but it's worth noting that a number of the places with the highest solar energy are not particularly suited to human habitation. The Sahara desert is 9,000,000km^2. Enough solar energy hits less than 1% of the Sahara to power the entire world.
That's not to say wind power is a waste of time. The nice thing about this idea is that it works at night. Without some very efficient storage system or room-temperature superconductors, it's not feasible to power the whole world with solar energy. It's much easier to take things like this seriously, however, without the needless hyperbole.
[1] Note I'm assuming 100% efficiency here. The original article stated 1% of the energy in the wind, not 1% of the extractable energy, meaning that he was also assuming 100% efficiency. Back in the real world, scale all of the areas up by another order of magnitude or so.
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Hot air can work! (Score:2)
That is right, hot air can power steam turbines. Using 1% of the comments here could provide enough power to power the world. This one in particular would generated a LOT of power.
(Reminds me of the "Scream Floor" on Monsters Inc.)
Re:Why use all these wires ? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no. You can't get any energy out of the pressure difference in the atmosphere or ocean. The pressure difference is there because the medium has already adjusted to the lowest energy state. You cant milk any more energy out of a system that is already at lowest equilibrium.
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