My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #15 – July 16, 2008, 09:54:37 AM Quote from: 85bird;227547Quote from: oldraven;227516OK, let's be honest. You're not suffering. You're driving less. There are billions of people in this world who tell you what suffering is. That is a head in the sand kind of attitude, since we're only now paying what the rest of the world was paying for fuel before the 'crisis' hit. Sometimes a little bit of perspective is all we need, (not a bigger car).Yeah, becasue you know me and my situation..... rrriiiggggghhhhtt.Nice car..... did you eat today? Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #16 – July 16, 2008, 11:20:08 AM Quote from: oldraven;227629Quote from: 85bird;227547Nice car..... did you eat today?Do some research on my car. Get back to me on how it was paid for.If you would like to continue this. PM me. We can set some time aside to visit man to man.Oh, and thank you. I am very proud of my Thunderbird. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #17 – July 16, 2008, 12:15:04 PM Man to man? Oh, good Lord. :rolleyes: I guess there's no point in trying to explain that some of the worst situations a US or Canadian citizen finds themselves in is a far cry from Suffering.My apologies if you thought I was threatening you somehow. This isn't a Mustang forum. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #18 – July 16, 2008, 12:50:03 PM Man to man, person to person. Hang on whatever word(s) you would like.Again, you do not know my personal situation right now. It does not make me happy when somebody, who does not know it... makes light of it. I am not willing to make my whole life an open book on this forum; so if you're interested in knowing details, please feel free to contact me privately. I think you would feel badly for your generalizations made about me.Apology accepted.I also apologize for being defensive and somewhat sensitive. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #19 – July 16, 2008, 02:10:42 PM My intent wasn't to generalise about you. I was generalising about people living in the US and Canada ('WE, The People......are suffering.' Your words, not mine), who on the whole; the vast majority; are not suffering because the price of gas went up. They're just not quite as comfortable as they were three years ago. In my opinion, if you've got a roof to keep you dry, food to keep you living, clothes to keep you warm, and a car to get you where you're going, you don't know what suffering is. Disagree all you want.... are you still looking to meet at the swing-sets? You need to lighten up, man. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #20 – July 16, 2008, 06:11:23 PM Don't tell me to lighten up when you're firing shots across my bow with your comments toward me personally. I didn't call you out... I invited you to visit man to man instead of utilizing the forum as your tool. Suffering may have been the wrong word. Does struggling sound better to you??? Regardless, this has gone nowhere and is quite frankly a meaningless conversation. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #21 – July 16, 2008, 06:25:50 PM Whatever, man. I didn't call you out, I replied to your post. That's what we do on message boards. What are you so excited about? I've already told you I was talking about 'We the people.' After reading your posts in the fast food thread, I'm seeing some anger issues. You're taking these comments pretty personally.*edit*I admit, I should have said 'we', not 'you aren't suffering'. Do you see what I was trying to say now? Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #22 – July 16, 2008, 06:32:23 PM Let's get along.Aren't we supposed to be a team around here?Feel the love (brotherly love,not that "prison love" stuff).......... Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #23 – July 16, 2008, 06:36:22 PM New alternative fuel - hot air! Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #24 – July 17, 2008, 01:36:06 AM I'm not mad, or angry, man. If that happens I turn green and rip my clothes.I think the hot air would be the best bet. Ha-ha. OldRaven, no hard feelings. We must just be thinking about things differently. Oh, and yeah, I get ya man.Fast Food Thread? I have no clue what you're talking about....?..... Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #25 – July 17, 2008, 07:20:39 AM No hard feelings here either. There were none to begin with. I must be getting you mixed up with someone else. Oh, old paint (waiting for the manager in the parking lot with a bat). My mistake.So, about that topic... Whilst driving this weekend, Angela asked if you could use the dead trees as a fuel. I thought about it, and said "Probably, but I don't see why anyone with a harvester or power saw would bother cutting down dead trees when he could be harvesting healthy lumber."What did we see on the news two days later but a new push to harvest these dying or dead spruce and convert them to a liquid fuel. We have a big problem around here with our spruce. It looks like a parasite (DNR claims it's windburn every time a stand dies :rolleyes: ) because it can be one tree in a stand, or a good 50 trees in a strip or clump, all dead and ready to fall. Cutting the dead and dying out could stop or slow the 'bug', make room for new growth, and prevent a massive fuel load on the forest floor that will just be a raging fire if left alone.This is the second plan for wood chip -> Ethanol I've seen in the Maritimes in less than a month. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #26 – July 17, 2008, 04:05:03 PM Quote from: Thunder Chicken;227513They'll only remember Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Actually, it goes beyond NIMBY to CAVE - Citizens Against Virtually Everything. The same people whining about nuke plants whine about "Bird blenders", I remember watching something on the History Channel with my dad when I was like 14 about Three Mile Island. At the time I thought this and I still do now.....it melted down.....it spilled into the CONTAINMENT CHAMBER built underneath the plant. It went no further. Again it was contained by the..........containment chamber that was built.....to.....contain accidents. LOL So.....basically....a problem occurred...and the safety measures installed to combat that very problem worked EXACTLY as they should have. People remember Three Mile Island as a blunder, but it was an engineering SUCCESS! Jeez! The sense and logic is overpowering, I think I might pass out! Chernobyl....different story. Ya wanna know what my view on that is? Freakin russians who didnt know their ass from a hole in the ground, just tryin to one-up us because, of course, it's the 80s. So they rushed and messed up and blew theirs to bits and harmed many....whereas ours stood strong and did just what it should have in that situation. In America we build stuff RIGHT dammit. And oh yeah we got environmentalists who want us to use things like wind energy....and then some of them oppose the others because the birds will get chopped up!!! It's hilarious and surpemely aggravating at the same time. They don't even turn like...fast or anything. They'll fly the hell around them don't worry. Why are we still driving cars? Plenty of people hit deer all the time. I love the wind turbines too. I think it's just how *&(^ing BIG they are. I've read that they don't even make a ton of noise anyway. That would be cool though if they had a noisy gear drive like 1WLDBIRD's car :hick: Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #27 – July 17, 2008, 06:51:43 PM i've seen a couple of very large windmills on my way out to Wyoming a couple of times. It almost boggles the mind the first time I saw them Each blade was prolly 100 ft or more! The blades were also well over 50 feet off of the ground, and I'm not sure how fast it was really spinning, but ever if it was only 12 rpm, it is still fairly cool. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #28 – July 17, 2008, 07:35:44 PM The IBEW headquarters in Boston, which is located right on the windy bay south of Boston has a windmill to power their headquarters. It's impressive when it's windy and you realize just how much energy it takes to spin something with those length radial arms @ the speeds I've seen on some windy days (I'd guess 60 RPM). I know they have to be careful (at least with the largest units) and limit the speed (by turning them perpendicular to the wind) as they can self-distruct (mechanically & the generators) if allowed to spin too fast.As I work for a power (supplies, distribution & control - we don't generate it) company, we're very interested in being in the emerging solar and wind markets with inverters, generators and other control & power routing equipment. We're currently looking at making it easier for individuals to set up solar power generation & conversion. We believe that someday there will be 1000's of distributed power sources that will minimize the transmission losses (as was described above). This seems like (at least partially - battery technology is the other big element) the most practical and reliable solution to eliminating our reliance on ignorant dictators halfway around the world. Quote Selected
My thoughts on Alternative Energy Reply #29 – July 17, 2008, 09:52:16 PM I priced out a solar system from solarfind.com and my ROI was ~17-24 years - even with a $2000 Federal tax credit, a $500 TVA credit, and getting paid .015 per kWh (double what TVA charges). That pretty much makes it a no-go for me. It will change one day after the $/kWh comes down enough to make it economical. I also looked at wind power. The average area wind speed is 7.9mph. Most micro/mini turbines cut in ~8mph. Using those numbers, a roof mounted turbine makes sense. However, several articles I read found that rooftop wind speeds were about .5X of free speeds. Using 4 mph as the average wind speed dropped the monthly kWh produced (from an Air-X turbine) by an order of magnitude (162 kWh to 10 kWh)- making wind a no-go for me also. If only I lived in a neighborhood where a 50-ft tower wouldn't be an eyesore. Wind power calculatorWind power map Quote Selected
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