http://www.treehugger.com/files/2008/03/biogasoline-virent.php
Promising idea, I hope this works out.
Basically a non fossil fuel, gassoline substitute. A good idea, given how many existing internal combusiton engines are out there.
Mmmmm, tasty greenhouse gases. This is great, now we'll never run out! :D
Switchgrass (Panicum sp.) is actually something I've talked about before in relation to this. It grows everywhere, and I do mean that. Line the highway medians with it, hell, you don't even really need to, its already there.
It would be nice to have a viable alternative to fossil fuels, but right now the leading cause of deforestation is FUCKING BIOFUEL. There's big money to be made in biofuel, and corporations are razing forests at an absolutely astonishing rate to plant fields with crops destined for biofuel. Utterly fucked-up.
What really needs to happen is a viable alternative to combustion engines.
26000% Troof, Nigel. This sort of thing is about as progressive as a way to keep producing cow farts even if they all died.
Hooray, we're finding newer ways to fuck up the environment just as much!
Quote from: Nigel on April 02, 2008, 02:47:33 AM
It would be nice to have a viable alternative to fossil fuels, but right now the leading cause of deforestation is FUCKING BIOFUEL. There's big money to be made in biofuel, and corporations are razing forests at an absolutely astonishing rate to plant fields with crops destined for biofuel. Utterly fucked-up.
What really needs to happen is a viable alternative to combustion engines.
Hm. You don't really need to raze forests to plant
Panicum. That being said, an alternative to combustion? I believe we tried this with solar cars, didn't quite work well enough to be viable. Electric vehicles would simply be using another form of combustion (largely) to supply the go-go; Most electric generator power plants are coal powered. Hydrogen fuel cells seem to me to be unenergy efficient to the point where its not even worth investigating anymore, except to find something else that would work better, especially because the hydrogen being used for these cells are taken from fossil fuels. Not exactly viable.
So, what do we have then? We could power vehicles with electricity using alternative sources, for example, battery cars charged by wind turbines, which falls into the same trap as solar power, being unefficient and not working all the time. The /most/ efficient way to get electrical energy (besides peddling a bike with an electric generator, in other words, making it ourself) is hydropower, which is 90% efficient. Compare that to coal power, which is 50% efficient, or wind and solar which is around 5%. Nuclear power...not even gonna go into that. Essentially if you have that sort of waste, its not viable over the long term. Plus, uranium isn't exactly a common element.
What its going to come down to? People will have to change their life styles. Seriously. No, I'm not kidding. We had this whole discussion in a class and everyone just realized that people are going to keep increasing, and as they learn more about pollution and land degredation and use, urban sprawl, etc, they are going to be opposing big power projects (NIMBY, anyone?) more and more, thus leading to increased brownouts and blackouts. People will have to start changing their lifestyles to compensate. Thats the /only/ long term viable solution.
We don't have an alternative to combustion engines yet.
We have alternatives to combustion energy sources, but nuclear energy is still far from perfect, hydroelectric continues to damage the everloving fuck out of the environment, and windpower is woefully underutilized partly due to planted misinformation hysteria about turbines destroying wildlife habitat.
However, the fact that we don't have a viable alternative to combustion energy yet doesn't mean we won't develop one. Combustion is OLD technology... really old. I feel like we are at a technological plateau, as a species, until we make the next energy breakthrough, which could take one of three forms: an efficient way to harvest energy, and efficient way to store energy, or an efficient way to use energy. Any of those three things would change everything about our relationship with energy sources.
What if we hijack chlorophyll?
GO NUTS MAN.
(http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/6931/neutralcrown1px7.gif)
Quote from: Nigel on April 05, 2008, 07:16:47 PMand windpower is woefully underutilized partly due to planted misinformation hysteria about turbines destroying wildlife habitat.
planted by who? :)
i agree about the hysteria btw, just wondering about its plantedness.
over here we have, apart from a lot of wind turbines, the story that today's turbines aren't actually energy-efficient. the reasoning is that if you factor in the energy needed to build such a turbine and the amount of time it functions before it needs to be replaced, it doesn't quite produce that amount of energy in that period. and that the windmills mostly run on being heavily government-subsidized.
apart from whether if this is true or made up or planted, there's the problem that it's incredibly hard to check. because, as you always see with environmental energy balances, the outcome can change wildly depending on how far back you're willing to look.
come to that, there's other stories that say it's only the old models of wind turbines that have this problem, but they were needed because building them gave the research experience needed for building the newer generation wind turbines that are more efficient.
further, i tried looking this up, you know i really want wind turbines to be a reliable energy source, cause that would be great, but if they dont work, then we shouldnt spend our energy (lol) on this. but it's nearly impossible to find out, every expert says something different and both sides make arguments with very big holes in them.
and if i'm being really honest, the only reason why i'm inclined to think that wind turbines are in fact energy efficient, is mostly because i really want them to be. so if i'm really really honest, i dont know :)
No one is too sure who is behind the anti-wind-power activists. They're pretty well documented, but why they're spreading disinformation and who's funding them is kind of a mystery.
nobody who is in favor of wind farms lives within 30 miles of one.
ECH,
has seen an entire town go all "John Brown" over those things
Quote from: Nigel on April 05, 2008, 07:16:47 PM
We don't have an alternative to combustion engines yet.
We have alternatives to combustion energy sources, but nuclear energy is still far from perfect, hydroelectric continues to damage the everloving fuck out of the environment, and windpower is woefully underutilized partly due to planted misinformation hysteria about turbines destroying wildlife habitat.
However, the fact that we don't have a viable alternative to combustion energy yet doesn't mean we won't develop one. Combustion is OLD technology... really old. I feel like we are at a technological plateau, as a species, until we make the next energy breakthrough, which could take one of three forms: an efficient way to harvest energy, and efficient way to store energy, or an efficient way to use energy. Any of those three things would change everything about our relationship with energy sources.
You're second paragraph summs up the reasons why people will oppose new power developments, and to offset growing population, power use is going to have to change. The technological revolution needed is not going to come fast enough.
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on April 05, 2008, 11:13:36 PM
nobody who is in favor of wind farms lives within 30 miles of one.
ECH,
has seen an entire town go all "John Brown" over those things
I think they're pretty.
Quote from: East Coast Hustle on April 05, 2008, 11:13:36 PM
nobody who is in favor of wind farms lives within 30 miles of one.
come visit the netherlands some time.
really?
they put one up on Mars Hill up in The County and there was immediate and instant hatred. Several other planned sites have been ixnayed since then. I hear they're not very popular off the Mass coast either.
The obvious solution in this part of the world is tidal power. We get 30+ foot tides in some places, and "underwater windmills" would be relatively inexpensive and fairly low-impact on the environment. I've been preaching this for years, but thankfully the retards who run this state are actually beginning to catch on and have recently approved funding for R&D and instruction in tidal power engineering at MMA.
some people call it "horizon pollution", others think they are pretty:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?p=windmolens
(the ones i'm referring to are of course the big white ones with two or three blades, not the oldskool four-bladed wooden ones used for milling grain and stuff, because everybody likes those, as they are considered dutch cultural monuments nowadays)
personally, i think they look damn cool, and really sort of symbolize renewable energy in a way.
also, 30 miles is quite a lot for a small but densely populated country like the netherlands, i'm pretty sure there are windmills within 30 miles of my city, that doesn't mean i see them every day though :)
I like them:
(http://www.gasdetection.com/news2/wind_farm_4_hnd.jpg)
Also I think it's funny how people oppose them because they're not PRETTY, because obviously PRETTY counts for more than CLEAN AND SAFE.
Also most of the fuckers who complain about them live in these:
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1141/1387727605_2c9bc0816d_o.jpg)
So FUCK 'EM.
The windfarm rooint the view from mah subdivision.
/
:mullet:
The windfarm raped mah cousin!
\
:mullet:
The reason a large windfarm didn't go through around here was because people were afraid of effects on migratory birds. The plans had set the farm up near Horicon marsh, which happens to be the worlds largest cattail marsh and one of the major stopover points for migratory waterfowl in the Mississippi flyway. In addition, theres a huge colony of bats nearby. In other words, environmental protest shut down what was otherwise environmentally viable.
Right, and of course the "effects on migratory birds" claim turns out to be completely unfounded in reality with absolutely no research or evidence to indicate that it even MIGHT POSSIBLY be factual. Pure propaganda.
Quote from: Nigel on April 06, 2008, 07:00:14 PM
Also most of the fuckers who complain about them live in these:
(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1141/1387727605_2c9bc0816d_o.jpg)
So FUCK 'EM.
we don't have those in Maine. these are complaints from rural people who have a long history of land conservation and stewardship of renewable resources. Hell, 90% of our state is still forested. So we're not the suburban yahoos you have an issue with.
though I gotta admit, I don't agree with your view that just because someone lives in a suburban subdivision, their concerns about views and/or the property values that are HUGELY affected by the presence or absence of said views are somehow invalidated.
I don't see how windfarms would be viable in a heavily forested area anyway... makes no sense.
My point wasn't that their opinions don't count because they live in ugly subdivisions, my point is that the beautiful deserts of California are rapidly being gobbled up by UGLY FUCKING SUBDIVISIONS which ruin the natural beauty far more than erecting a bunch of windmills, and the irony is that it's the SUV-driving residents of the hideous goddamn nature-wrecking McMansion-infested subdivisions who don't want their pretty desert view wrecked by windmills.
Drive around outside of Sacramento sometime and you'll see what I mean.
Actually, there's no reason to go to Sacramento, ever, so don't.
Quote from: Nigel on April 06, 2008, 08:36:33 PM
Right, and of course the "effects on migratory birds" claim turns out to be completely unfounded in reality with absolutely no research or evidence to indicate that it even MIGHT POSSIBLY be factual. Pure propaganda.
Not necessarily.
Quote from: B_M_W on April 07, 2008, 01:44:08 AM
Quote from: Nigel on April 06, 2008, 08:36:33 PM
Right, and of course the "effects on migratory birds" claim turns out to be completely unfounded in reality with absolutely no research or evidence to indicate that it even MIGHT POSSIBLY be factual. Pure propaganda.
Not necessarily.
I've looked for a basis in fact, because I believed it originally. Find me the studies.
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/04/common_misconce.php
This article (linked from the previous one) is even better:
http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html
I think our "sky cuisinarts" ( :lulz: ) are fairly exonerated.
Quote from: Nigel on April 07, 2008, 01:50:53 AM
Quote from: B_M_W on April 07, 2008, 01:44:08 AM
Quote from: Nigel on April 06, 2008, 08:36:33 PM
Right, and of course the "effects on migratory birds" claim turns out to be completely unfounded in reality with absolutely no research or evidence to indicate that it even MIGHT POSSIBLY be factual. Pure propaganda.
Not necessarily.
I've looked for a basis in fact, because I believed it originally. Find me the studies.
I've only got hearsay at this point, but I'm more apt to believe it coming straight from the mouth of wildlife professionals who work with bats and migratory waterfowl. In other words, professors at my university.
~Kaimi
Quote from: Nigel on April 07, 2008, 01:42:09 AM
I don't see how windfarms would be viable in a heavily forested area anyway... makes no sense.
My point wasn't that their opinions don't count because they live in ugly subdivisions, my point is that the beautiful deserts of California are rapidly being gobbled up by UGLY FUCKING SUBDIVISIONS which ruin the natural beauty far more than erecting a bunch of windmills, and the irony is that it's the SUV-driving residents of the hideous goddamn nature-wrecking McMansion-infested subdivisions who don't want their pretty desert view wrecked by windmills.
Drive around outside of Sacramento sometime and you'll see what I mean.
Actually, there's no reason to go to Sacramento, ever, so don't.
most of the places they've been proposed or erected are in northern or far eastern Maine where there are more flat open spots.
I'm still waiting / hoping for the one to go up in Nantucket Sound. Just to give the Kerrys and the Kennedys a constant, visible symbol of their impotence.
Quote from: B_M_W on April 08, 2008, 07:10:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on April 07, 2008, 01:50:53 AM
Quote from: B_M_W on April 07, 2008, 01:44:08 AM
Quote from: Nigel on April 06, 2008, 08:36:33 PM
Right, and of course the "effects on migratory birds" claim turns out to be completely unfounded in reality with absolutely no research or evidence to indicate that it even MIGHT POSSIBLY be factual. Pure propaganda.
Not necessarily.
I've looked for a basis in fact, because I believed it originally. Find me the studies.
I've only got hearsay at this point, but I'm more apt to believe it coming straight from the mouth of wildlife professionals who work with bats and migratory waterfowl. In other words, professors at my university.
~Kaimi
Is their knowledge firsthand? Are they talking about bird death or habitat disruption? Also, don't give your professors too much credence. Most college students go through a phase lasting a couple of years after graduation where they give college professors too much credit... truth is, they're schmucks like the rest of us.
Opinion is just that, and there are solid numbers in my citation that argue the contrary.
Ooohhhh yeah baby, you tell it true.
What? Stop that, you're ruining the mood! It's ruined now!
<limpness>
Quote from: Nigel on April 08, 2008, 10:04:47 PM
Quote from: B_M_W on April 08, 2008, 07:10:42 PM
Quote from: Nigel on April 07, 2008, 01:50:53 AM
Quote from: B_M_W on April 07, 2008, 01:44:08 AM
Quote from: Nigel on April 06, 2008, 08:36:33 PM
Right, and of course the "effects on migratory birds" claim turns out to be completely unfounded in reality with absolutely no research or evidence to indicate that it even MIGHT POSSIBLY be factual. Pure propaganda.
Not necessarily.
I've looked for a basis in fact, because I believed it originally. Find me the studies.
I've only got hearsay at this point, but I'm more apt to believe it coming straight from the mouth of wildlife professionals who work with bats and migratory waterfowl. In other words, professors at my university.
~Kaimi
Is their knowledge firsthand? Are they talking about bird death or habitat disruption? Also, don't give your professors too much credence. Most college students go through a phase lasting a couple of years after graduation where they give college professors too much credit... truth is, they're schmucks like the rest of us.
Fuck /no/ I don't play into that shit. I tend to believe it coming from wildlife specialists in the same way I believe that kentucky bluegrass is perfectly fine when it goes brown and dormant in the middle of the summer, its not dead, and it will come back in the fall when two grass specialist professors of mine tell me the same thing. I trust their knowlege because they have shown over 4 years time that they are truly knowlegable about the subject.
~Kaimi
But
But
They're
Wrong... :(
Quote from: Dr. Felix Mackay on April 09, 2008, 07:52:42 PM
But
But
They're
Wrong... :(
about kentucky bluegrass? No, they aren't. if your grass doesn't grow back in the fall its prolly ryegrass, another genus (Poa versus Lolium).
What? Since when am I talking about grass?
Quote from: Nigel on April 07, 2008, 03:51:45 AM
This article (linked from the previous one) is even better:
http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html
Yeah, thats a pretty good 'un. I'd be more apt to believe its validity if it was conducted by a third party source. The article also says nothing of the study period, the seasonality, or any number of things. I'd want to get my hands on the actual journal paper itself, as well as the one for bats.
Something I've learned in Fisheries Management while writing briefs (though I hate that class) is that summary articles like the one above can twist what was actually in the study itself, especially when coming from the AWEA homepage whos goal is to forward wind power technology. What, you think they would post /bad/ information about themselves on the website to forward their goals? The same thing happens everywhere, in both scientific and non scientific reporting.