autogyro wrote:Strange Ciro, I have a vertical shaft wind turbine on the roof of my workshop.
It takes up no extra land space and produces sufficient energy to run the lights and heating for most of the year.
Hmm, now if every building had one and decent insulation, I wonder how that would affect your figures?
Plenty of wind for a billion turbines and no need for any land space whatsoever.
Hmmm, someones wrong here and I think I know who.
Well, I am building a wind mechanical pump, a small reservoir and (maybe) a small water turbine generator.
The point I made about land use for industrial wind energy, I think, proves that is no big deal in terms of land use, as 3% seems not so much, specially considering what WB says about coastal use. How this became an argument against wind energy beats me.
I agree with you in this, autogyro: if every house were self sufficient, perhaps partially as you have done, this would be a different world.
Now, the point of the thread, for several pages has been to argument about nuclear energy pros and cons. Lately, it has become an exercise on the cost of wind energy. With all due respect, I gave the figures about the cost of wind energy that I found in the British press, they are not "my figures". They do not seem to give wind energy an economic edge over nuclear power and the tone of the articles where I found them seems to point to growing resistance to wind farms.
As for the comparisons between the source of energy of our countries, WB, perhaps I shouldn't have
erased most of the long post I wrote about how this was the result of a deliberate policy development of use of energy in which I participated indirectly. When I wrote it, last night, I gave more figures, specially about carbon use and the Happy Planet Index.
When I re-read it this morning, it seemed ridiculously long, so I erased most of it and I just left the end results of 10 years of work (and a big effort on my side to promote the renewable energy that, after a serious study, seemed the optimal for our country). Wind wasn't optimal, for many reasons, including the difficulty to access a lot of territory.
It included a rant about how Europe policy makers, down here, seemed blind. I guess this rant (and I ridiculous video I also erased) made Giblet to bump this thread into the no-man's land of the Off Topic forum. Sorry.
I can also say that in Latin America nuclear weapons are forbidden by treaty since the 60's. Nuclear power isn't. Perhaps this explain the deep roots of the distress I read is happening in Germany after a plant accident in Japan.
However, I also erased the prediction I made about Europe becaming energy dependent of Russian gas fields if Europe discard nuclear wholly. I don't think nuclear rejection is feasible, specially in Germany and France, that depend so much on nuclear power (as few else), because of this problem. I think that wind is not going to replace it. The 20% figures proposed using wind and solar seem, without major technological advance, a game with numbers that perhaps is not taking in account the status of European economy and the disadvantage it will get from using a power that costs double as gas.
Richard, I made the change in title, from
BMW city to
BMW city AND is nuclear the way to go, many months ago, when this thread was three or four pages long and I was a mod. Back then, the BMW thing was still an important part of the thread. Now it isn't.
About Germany having no other sources of hydropower left, well, sorry for the Germans. Good luck in their quest for clean energy.
And, hey, autogyro, glad to "see" you again.