Wind & Solar: Facts & Fantasies

[K-Dog]

In theory, if all this was done properly, people would have practically free power all the time, just the cost of maintenance and replacement of worn out parts.  Unlikely to happen either in China or here, though in China it stands a better chance.

Your free power all the time would do no good because all the networks which dissipate fossil fuels still dissipate fossil fuels.  Free power all the time will dissipate all the stuff in the earth's crust as fast as matter can move.

Free power all the time is a highway to doom.  And no stroad with a yellow line down the center of it.  Free power all the time is multi-lane freeway with eighty mile an hour curves.  It's foot thick smooth concrete, and all one way on a sunny day.  No limits, go as fast as you can.  Fun fun fun on the autobahn.  Stop at the Diner and have some cherry pie.  The coffee is good.

Free Power uses all the stuff in the crust before the third rock goes around the sun ten times.  A lot of cherry pie in that crust.   Enough to make you sick.  Free energy without a brain is a curse.


As society has no brain.  Enjoy.

[RE]

Agreed, like all the rest of the bacteria, insect and animal kingdoms, Homo Saps will keep eating and growing exponentially until they consume everything in their path.  Like ecoli in a Petri dish, locusts every 7 years or the reindeer on St. Matthews island.



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[RE]

Another Sail design for shipping, on a cargo vessel.  14% reduction in emissions which is better than nothing, but in the photo there are no containers on the deck.  On a fully loaded ship, the containers would block the wing halfway up the vertical wings.  Plus, you're losing about 25-30% of the deck space to stack containers.  Not convinced yet with this solution.



https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/wind-power-shipping-pollution-cargo-ship-sails/

Winged cargo ship with revolutionary tech features completes impressive trial at sea: 'It's an exciting time'

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[RE]

Great!  They can't keep up with the Maintenance of the roads and bridges already, now they're going to maintain solar roofs on top of them also?  They better have AI controlled maintenance robots, because we're not breeding enough Homo Saps to do it.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/solar-panels-america-fully-covered/6720/

The biggest project in history of mankind begins: 52 billion solar panels, and America fully covered

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[RE]

This is a pretty amazing project because of its sheer size.  I'm wondering what effect dropping down that many solar panels and covering that much acreage will have on the local ecosystems and weather?  Also, what the maintenance issues will be and how they will hold up long term to wind and sand blasting.  I'm guessing they will drop it in the desert which covers most of the interior of the continent.

I also wonder what the carbon footprint is for the manufacture of all those solar panels?  That has to be pretty significant.  Also, how much will it cost and how long before it starts to turn a profit?  What price do they need to get for the Green Hydrogen they produce?

Pretty impressive though.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/the-western-green-energy-hub/8555/

This plant will have 25 million solar panels and 3,000 turbines: It will produce almost unknown energy

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[K-Dog]

Pave over an ecosystem, why not!

This is wrong in so many ways.

[RE]

Here's a few reasons why covering the desert with solar panels might not be such a fabulous idea.  What could possibly go wrong?   

https://dailygalaxy.com/2024/12/why-is-covering-the-sahara-desert-with-solar-panels-a-very-bad-idea/

Why Is Covering the Sahara Desert with Solar Panels a Very Bad Idea?

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[RE]

Some good graphics in this article , particularly the comparative chart of the amount of each type of waste we produce.  It's way too big to reproduce here.

Anyhow  I suspect Recycling of solar panels and wind turbines to be about as successful as all the rest of the recycling programs that have ever been tried.  That Plastics Recycling program really worked wonders, right?   

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2024-recycling-renewables-solar-wind/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjDi7PAKMIXduwIwo7GyAw&utm_content=rundown&gaa_at=g&gaa_n=AVINqTzDO-0JSMKh6cTjzVE-Pw5GFJkWEhiOmVdLeA27pY_mJ0M4p6lWHylxEHC29rgcTUOGJMkXekGvF4B6&gaa_ts=6752e0ad&gaa_sig=hGscE_SslVJUt61GQMOyE7KT-leATHKLJ7fOiypsbc5wP7S6Gn9LCk0CAWUgx_Wh9xaa2WN_QZ6B4VCO_fykUQ%3D%3D

The Quest to Make Clean Energy Even Cleaner

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[monsta666]

When I worked in a charity many moons ago the motto was always: reduce, reuse and recycle. The 3 R's as it was called was arranged in order of importance. It is underlying principle that people should follow but you can kinda guess why recycling is most heavily promoted as the other two Rs are not conductive to our consumer lifestyle. If you are serous about reducing your impact then most of your efforts have to be directed towards the first two Rs.

I would also add that many items commonly labelled as recyclable are a bust so you can't even rely on the stuff being recycled and quite often, it just ends up being dumped in some landfill. And that is only considering the stuff with the recycle label with items not even labelled as such I would expect the recycle rates to be much lower.

In fact a big concern I have with EV's is what will happen to all those discarded batteries? I have a hard time believing it will be reused or recycled in large quantities. Solar panels and wind turbines might fair marginally better to recycling but I would put stress on the word marginal.

[K-Dog]

Conspicuous consumption is still a deeply embedded value.  I want this way to show your social feathers gone with the wind, but I also want the onus of saving the world taken from 'the individual' and given to society at large. 

Changing the superstructure and base of society is the only way real change can happen.  Placing the onus of action on the individual is guaranteed to fail.  It is idealistic and simply won't work.  The math fails.  There are people with an elite bias to cancel out every concerned individual on the planet by their self concerned selfish actions.

Society at large must change their ways.  Any society has only so many 'good' people.  Bozos screw everything up for everybody else in direct proportion to the money they have and we have a lot of bozos.

Not everyone believes in egalitarian values.  At this time I am not even sure a majority of people do.  Our elite controlled social superstructure has sold the century of the self to almost everyone.  Focus is on the individual, and as long as that is where the focus is.  We are doomed.

[K-Dog]

The rant at 10:21 should get a prize.

Mad dog Kennedy.

"He acts like he knows what he's talking about when he doesn't, and he says things with a definition that makes people convinced he has the data to support his statement," Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN, adding, "We all agree it's a very important issue. But a lot of his thinking is like 'A plus B plus C plus miracle, and you've got an answer.'"

Osterholm is a leading epidemiologist.  Unlike MadDogKennedy he has a brain.

For the first time in his career, Dr. Osterholm also shares comments about the upcoming elections in the United States.  It starts at 40:50.

We of course know what happened.  We bought the ticket and now we ride.