Global Warming Protest March...

[blueknight0517@yahoo.com]

The following is from a paper by Conrad R. Hilpert Ph.D. P.E.

"That the wind is free is hardly news. that at no time was any fuel cheaper than wind seems to be a forgotten fact. free Wind power gave way to costly fire wood, more costly coal, much more costly oil, even more costly atoms. WIND POWER NEVER WAS AND STILL ISN'T FREE. Wind power is the most expensive form of power since the discovery of any other form of power.

a Formula of intrest and accuracy is: HP = 0.000005247 X P(to the second power) X W (to the third power)

HP = Horse Power

D = Diameter feet of a wind turbine

W = MPH of wind

this is the absolute power in the wind. To get this power we must completely stop the air. Obviously we can't get all this power because if we stop the air in our wind turbine no new "live air" can enter to give up its energy. German Physicist Alber Betz mathematically proved that the greatest fraction of energy in the wind that can be obtined is 16/27 of the total calculated as above. Some modern large (blades over 100 feet long) wind turbine makers claim 70%. What they mean is that if the wind blows at the turbines best velocity they might get 70% of 16/27 or ~41.5 % of the maximum wind energy as calculated above. Since the wind doesn't always blow at the turbines peak efficient velocity the average is more like 20 -25%.

A Kansas rancher's 12 ft. diameter 1900 galvanized iron wind mill in a good windy Kansas prairie can average 1.3 HP, 10 hrs a day, 26 days a month; a 16 ft turbine, 1.9 HP. (this is 14.4% efficient) this is in a location where the average given wind speed is 11 MPH, the fastest 5 minute wind is 61MPH. The "effective wind speed" for this area is 16.2 MPH.

The local power company delivers to the average home 8442 KWH/year. The average 6.7MPH wind means that this average home would require a 13.3 ft diameter wind turbine to get 10% of their electric power "free". This windmill on a 30 to 50 ft tower and its installation would cost aout $10,000. Let's assume interest is 10%. The "Free Power" is costing the home owner $1,174.60 per year. this for 844 kWH is $1.39 per kWH instead of $0.0319 per kWH that I can buy from the local power company."

All of this equates to instead of hundreds of acres of wind turbines or (God Forbid) solar arays and milllions of dollars of equipment that would sit idle or under-utilized by 80%of the time. A bigger bang for your buck would be........I dare say......Nuclear Power. In this case fusion and not fission thus resulting in no waste. We were within ten years of a fusion reactor in the Clinton Adminstration. The research was stopped. Gee for Political reasons? We surely must not have an abundance of cheap energy. Why, there would be no crisis to regulate and pass laws rasing taxes and creating bigger and bigger Government.

Oh and Dr. Hilbert has also written papers on Solar Power (it doesn't work), Hydrogen and Batteries. Let's not be dupped by the constant banging of the drum by the "Main Stream Media". They have an agenda. NBC is owned by GE and GE is big into the "Green" game. Would NBC tell you Wind power doesn't work if GE has commited millions to it. (A lot of it a tax write offor even subsides which is our tax dollar).

Use the web. check out the facts. Seek the truth. NBC is not telling you the truth.

I am sorry to get carried away and this may not be the arena for this disscussion but Always,Always question Authority!

Jim

[vanscottbuilders]

Jim,

What you are saying about nuclear power is essentially true - with some qualifications.

Nuke power is clean and efficient - barring any bad problems. The only real ongoing issue with nuclear power is the storage and/or disposal of the spent fuel. We could use a good solution that utilizes the left-over waste for something that further wrings out the remaining energy, thereby rendering the spent fuel to an inert and stable state.

The second issue with nuclear plants, in our country at least, is the waste of time, money and government intrusion required to get a plant approved. (Currently that time period is at approximately ten years!! And that's if everyone involved does their respective job, which is very rare)

There are a few reasons and benefits that make wind, solar, earth mass and hydro energy sources effective.

First - We don't have to become completely free of "the grid" or free of any fossil fuel usage. There is no need to go back to living in caves - the change in thinking doesn't have to be painful. If we reduce our oil and coal addiction to 50% of its' current level, we could produce all of our fossil fuel requirements within our own borders, with existing reserves. So - the renewable enegy sources don't have to produce all of our needs, at least not yet. Maybe they could start us on a path of "foreign oil independence". Our current renewable energy technology might buy us enough time to research and develop some new power generators to carry us into the future. That future probably includes nuclear power.

Second - You say solar power doesn't work, and that "solar arrays" are a bad thing. But you are ignoring the one spot where solar collectors work extremely well. On your own roof! "Low profile" solar collectors are now available from numerous manufacturers that essentially match the profile of a standard residential roof shingle, or a standard metal roof panel. These panels are barely noticeable when you look at the house, yet can produce enough power even in the cloudy Northeast, to provide a good amount of all of the electric power needs of a normal new home. It's not free. Neither is anything else. But, it's renewable, leaves no waste, produces no pollutants and requires little infrastructure. And the jobs created are American and local!

Think of all of the available roof space, just in your own town. Then think about all of the available roof space in the country, if you can!! It's mind boggling. Collectively vast areas for solar exploitation that already exist. Huge opportunities for America to go to work. Furthermore - it's just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm with you on wind power, in that I think the landscape suffers from the proliferation of wind turbines. But, huge work benefits and job opportunities exist if we produce wind equipment and build wind farms. Thousands of localized, good paying jobs. And that's just as important as weaning ourselves off of oil and coal. Wind is dependable and a proven source of energy. Perhaps not perfect, but still a source, nonetheless.

In short, there is no perfect single solution. Rather, there are a number of suitable clean, renewable energy resources. The United States can become the world's leader by simply doing what we do well. That is, to think of new ideas, capitalize on new opportunities, and take care of ourselves by going to work.

It will be an exciting time, as long as we recognize the issue, open our minds and act accordingly.

Paul Van Scott

[ThaddeusW]

All of this equates to instead of hundreds of acres of wind turbines or (God Forbid) solar arays and milllions of dollars of equipment that would sit idle or under-utilized by 80%of the time. A bigger bang for your buck would be........I dare say......Nuclear Power. In this case fusion and not fission thus resulting in no waste. We were within ten years of a fusion reactor in the Clinton Adminstration. The research was stopped. Gee for Political reasons? We surely must not have an abundance of cheap energy. Why, there would be no crisis to regulate and pass laws rasing taxes and creating bigger and bigger Government.

Oh and Dr. Hilbert has also written papers on Solar Power (it doesn't work), Hydrogen and Batteries. Let's not be dupped by the constant banging of the drum by the "Main Stream Media". They have an agenda. NBC is owned by GE and GE is big into the "Green" game. Would NBC tell you Wind power doesn't work if GE has commited millions to it. (A lot of it a tax write offor even subsides which is our tax dollar).

Fusion isnt going to be viable for a long long time. Every test reactor to date hasn't worked (produced net power) and future TEST reactor designs will go on line in 10 years (ITER in 2018). And we don't know of those will even work (they should). Fusion requires enormous amounts of power to start (your trying to ignite a small sun) and then a ton of power to confine the plasma via magnets in the tokamak. Funding was yanked because the results weren't able to justify pumping more money into what was looking like a dead end project.

Solar is expensive but guess what? It works and can supplement daytime peak power demand. Good solar power systems will take the power from your panels and store it in batteries for use later when you get home from work. If those batteries are charged and you now have a surplus of power. The inverters feed that surplus power back into the grid. That would mean millions of homes are now small power stations and form a distributed power grid. The only problem so far is solar panels are incredibly expensive because of the enormous silicon crystals that have to be grown to make them. But alternatives are on the way.

Hydrogen to me is a waste of time for automotive use. The amount of energy that has to be put in to produce and compress it is very wasteful. And most people dont know that most of today's commercially produced hydrogen comes from steam reforming of natural gas which produces CO2 as waste. So hydrogen still isn't clean unless we use renewable energy to produce it via electrolysis and compress it. Storage of hydrogen is also very difficult because of its low density which requires a heavy thick wall tank to hold the thousands of PSI so it can have the same energy capacity as a gasoline vehicle. BUT hydrogen could be useful in certain applications such as fuel synthesis from bios mass via the Fischer-Tropsch process. We could still continue to run on diesel or gasoline using that method but only use bio mass that has already absorbed carbon from the atmosphere. The Germans used it in WW2 to turn coal into fuel for their war effort so its nothing new.

Nuclear fission is the way to go in terms of power generation. By using fast breeder reactors we can produce more fuel from unusable U-238 instead of refining U-235. Waste is an issue but there ways to deal with it. But the problem is politics which always pisses me off. I say let the engineers do the work and the politicians can go jump off a cliff. Nuclear is the future for serious power generation because you cant rely on solar and wind to operate large industrial plants 24/7 (if they arent moved to China first).

[blueknight0517@yahoo.com]

Thad,

You are correct about Fission reactors and I was a little over zealous on this type of reactor. Fussion reactors have a bad rap because of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. TMI was run by idiots and Chernobyl was a reactor that should have never been built using 1940's technology.

I agree Fission reactors are the only way to go using todays technology. They would be fast and cheap to build and very reliable to produce and abundance of cheap electricty.

Paul,

Sorry,I have to disagree with your solar arrays on every roof top. Photo voltaic cells are vastly ineffiecent. The cells also wear out and need to be replaced. To quote Dr.Conrad Hilpert;

"The best of the power of photo voltaic cells are 11% efficient. Jimmy Carter has told people that 10% of our electrical energy can come from the sun. For 10% of 173,000,000kWH/year we need photo voltaic cells that can deliver 5,360,000,000,000 BTU. This means 11,254,301 square feet of cells times 3 because they need to be spread out for service and shading, times 2 for storage and D.C.-A.C. conversion. Or, we have about 1.613 square milesof Solar cells. These will cost about $50 per suare foot. We just spent $2,249,060,314 ($2 1/4 Billion dollars) For a period of 20 years @10% interest gives us about $264,173,780.00 a year for 173,000,000 kWh or $1.53 per Kwh. This is 10% of out power. Can you imagine the rates if we were to generate 100% of our power this way."

There is no easy answer to our problems but I do agree with the person who stated "Get the Government out of the way so we can solve the problems." The path that this Country is heading down has been trod by many other Nations who are not around today. The Soviet Union comes to mind. We are the greatest Nation in the World. We are the greatest Nation in the History of the world, far out shinning Rome and Greece. We have done more for people, world wide, than any other people in the history of the world. All of this is due to Free Enterprise and Capitolism.

Any way I have gone on long enough about this. I do admire the people on this web site. If this is a true sampling of the U.S. .......Then we do have a very bright future under Free Enterprise and Capitolism.

"Merry Christmas to All.......and to all Good Night!"

Jim

[other dog]

Notice in the last few years the terminology has changed. The ENVIRO-NUT JOBS now refer to it as "climate change", no longer "global warming". So far 1998 has been the warmest year on average, and average temps have been lowering for the last ten years. No one can predict the NATURAL climatic cycles of mother earth, nor should we try to change it. This is all part of the greatest HOAX perpetrated on mankind the end game being to destroy the few capitalist economies that remain and promote one world socialist government. DON'T FALL FOR IT, PEOPLE!

That is absolutely 100% true!.. I listen to George Norrie at night.

[other dog]

Now all of this climate change junk is just that JUNK! It is a vailed ploy to gain control and power. To establish a "Ruling Class" (those who know what is best for "us".) I will decide what is best for me......Thank you very much.

To imagine that we (Man) can have an impact on a system that is as large as the world is taking ourselves way to seriously. This world has been here for millions of years and is in a constant state of flux. Nothing remains unchanged.

All it took was one meteor in the Yucatan peninsula and POOF the dinosaurs were gone (World wide). What makes us think we are any better?

Merry Christmas

Jim

Amen brother! (Bulldogman)

[Double L]

I never bought into that Liberal global warming agenda. I'm tired of the Liberals trying to tell me how to live my life!