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RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Jim/Ga — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 16:57:00 GMT

I read an article recently about experiments using tide flow and wave action to generate power. Looked like it had a lot of promise.I did some research on residential wind turbies,but most of the SE didn't have consistent average winds needed to power the turbines.A system to run the average ousw would cost about 12-15 K to install.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

kingfisher222 — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 01:25:17 GMT

[quote][b]kristopherrimes (7/17/2008)[/b][hr]I read a couple of interesting articles on using algae to produce bio diesel. The article talked about piping the CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants into these sleeves where algae would grow. Sounded like a win win situation to me. Produce fuel off of something that absorbs CO2. The article also talked about the fact that it could be grown using saltwater in the desert. It said that enough bio diesel could be produced off of as little as 14 million acres of desert to fuel the entire shipping industry in the states. What ever winds up happening I sure do hope it happens fast.[/quote]

Now that sounds good!

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

kristopherrimes — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 21:00:35 GMT

I read a couple of interesting articles on using algae to produce bio diesel. The article talked about piping the CO2 emissions from coal fired power plants into these sleeves where algae would grow. Sounded like a win win situation to me. Produce fuel off of something that absorbs CO2. The article also talked about the fact that it could be grown using saltwater in the desert. It said that enough bio diesel could be produced off of as little as 14 million acres of desert to fuel the entire shipping industry in the states. What ever winds up happening I sure do hope it happens fast.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Bowed Up — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:29:57 GMT

Convection is awsome and works great: I give you the solar tower, problem solved!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tWlP0knKQU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCGVTYtJEFk&feature=related

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25499047/

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2002/09/54917

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Xanadu — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 16:11:29 GMT

[quote][b]38bat (7/17/2008)[/b][hr]Interesting topic. Where we hunt in Montana there is a windfarm. I don't think it is particularly unsightly. No noise unless you are right on top of them. They are Massive though. You really can't tell how big they are until you stand next to one. The one I am familiar with is on desolate land and generates enough power in a year to fully power 200,000 homes.

As far as making and storing energy it is very possible. Large yachts do this on a regular basis. It is not unusual for a 60+' yacht, when properly equipped to only run a generator for a few hours every 4 days. I had a cabin in Washington that was "off the grid" so got looking into alternative energy. Easy to do. A neighbor of mine built a 3,000+ sf home that was fully powered by the sun and wind. He had a generator as a backup but rarely used it. His home looked and functioned just like any house in town. Big batteries for storage and big inverters. Cost was not small but pretty cool to not pay any bills at the house![/quote]

Container ships are turning to diesel electric where the diesels push generators and batteries store power to drive electric motors pushing the wheels.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

jamesm1976 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:18:30 GMT

Concerning the blades stacked up at the Port, I think they are coming in from Europe and being sent by rail to a project in Illinois. At least thats what I remember the PNJ saying a week or so ago.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Rammer Jammer — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:13:31 GMT

[quote][b]Xanadu (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]Rammer Jammer (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]H2OMARK (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote]
The best thing about those turbines you see on the site adn on tv is that they're made right here in Pensacola and shipped out of the port. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GE making those?[/quote]

You are correct. I worked all summer there a couple of years ago designing a control system for the GE plant in Burkville AL. Not sure if they are shipped out of the port or not but I saw hundreds of them leave on flatbed trailers. The housings are close to 40 feet long and the blades are just absolutely huge.[/quote]

Yeah, I believe the ones GE makes are sent out directly on rail from the GE plant. A friend of mine works at GE and I think he told me the blades at the port are made somewhere else and sent to the port by rail for shipping.[/quote]

If you head down to Palafox Pier or whatever they call that new park and look to the left, you'll see them stacked like cord wood on ships ready to leave.[/quote]

Yeah, I saw them the other day. From what I was told, the blades aren't made by GE in P'cola, only the generators. Those blades are coming into the port by ship and being offloaded onto rail car headed to Indiana.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Xanadu — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:09:55 GMT

[quote][b]Rammer Jammer (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]H2OMARK (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote]
The best thing about those turbines you see on the site adn on tv is that they're made right here in Pensacola and shipped out of the port. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GE making those?[/quote]

You are correct. I worked all summer there a couple of years ago designing a control system for the GE plant in Burkville AL. Not sure if they are shipped out of the port or not but I saw hundreds of them leave on flatbed trailers. The housings are close to 40 feet long and the blades are just absolutely huge.[/quote]

Yeah, I believe the ones GE makes are sent out directly on rail from the GE plant. A friend of mine works at GE and I think he told me the blades at the port are made somewhere else and sent to the port by rail for shipping.[/quote]

If you head down to Palafox Pier or whatever they call that new park and look to the left, you'll see them stacked like cord wood on ships ready to leave.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

welldoya — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:23:53 GMT

The best solution I've seen came from Walter Williams, the columnist who's an economist and a professor at George Mason University :

What would lower the long-term price of oil is for Congress to permit exploration for the estimated billions upon billions of barrels of oil domestically available, not to mention the estimated trillion-plus barrels of shale oil in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. Some politicians pooh-pooh calls for drilling, saying it would take five or 10 years to recover the oil. I guarantee you we would begin to see a reduction in today's prices even if it took five to 10 years for us to get the first barrel. Put yourself in the place of an OPEC member knowing there would be a greater supply of U.S. oil five or 10 years, hence maybe driving oil prices lower to say $40 a barrel. What will you want to do now while oil is $130 a barrel? You would want to sell as much oil now and OPEC's collective efforts to do so would put downward pressures on current oil prices. Right now the U.S. Congress is OPEC's staunchest ally.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

seminolewind — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:23:24 GMT

ESPN did a report on Pickens apparently he has donated a ton of money to Oklahoma State he built their sports complex and donated millions to their geology program he seems to have some good ideas.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Rammer Jammer — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:17:51 GMT

[quote][b]H2OMARK (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote]
The best thing about those turbines you see on the site adn on tv is that they're made right here in Pensacola and shipped out of the port. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GE making those?[/quote]

You are correct. I worked all summer there a couple of years ago designing a control system for the GE plant in Burkville AL. Not sure if they are shipped out of the port or not but I saw hundreds of them leave on flatbed trailers. The housings are close to 40 feet long and the blades are just absolutely huge.[/quote]

Yeah, I believe the ones GE makes are sent out directly on rail from the GE plant. A friend of mine works at GE and I think he told me the blades at the port are made somewhere else and sent to the port by rail for shipping.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

alanbarck — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 13:04:35 GMT

[quote]They are now putting up their own turbines and expect to recoup a huge capital expenditure ( and I mean huge ) within 20 years. [/quote]

That is a major downside to wind power. It takes a long time (currently) for the value of the energy generated to off-set the cost of the equipment. Will the turbine last for 20 years? How much maintenace will be required over this period? How long will they be profitable to operate after the 20 year pay-off.

My brother lives in Abilene, TX and wind turbines are going up everywhere. I admit they look impressive and it is good to see something being attempted to off-set out fossil fuel dependancy. But the economics as stated above make it difficult to get excited about.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

H2OMARK — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:28:41 GMT

[quote]
The best thing about those turbines you see on the site adn on tv is that they're made right here in Pensacola and shipped out of the port. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GE making those?[/quote]

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

38bat — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:01:49 GMT

Interesting topic. Where we hunt in Montana there is a windfarm. I don't think it is particularly unsightly. No noise unless you are right on top of them. They are Massive though. You really can't tell how big they are until you stand next to one. The one I am familiar with is on desolate land and generates enough power in a year to fully power 200,000 homes.

As far as making and storing energy it is very possible. Large yachts do this on a regular basis. It is not unusual for a 60+' yacht, when properly equipped to only run a generator for a few hours every 4 days. I had a cabin in Washington that was "off the grid" so got looking into alternative energy. Easy to do. A neighbor of mine built a 3,000+ sf home that was fully powered by the sun and wind. He had a generator as a backup but rarely used it. His home looked and functioned just like any house in town. Big batteries for storage and big inverters. Cost was not small but pretty cool to not pay any bills at the house!

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Tuna Man — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:27:41 GMT

[quote][b]AUradar (7/17/2008)[/b][hr][quote][b]Tuna Man (7/17/2008)[/b][hr]I don't see where storage is a problem, we don't store it, at this time you can't store AC. With the power grid system we have in the U.S. First you come on line with wind/solar, then either hydro or nuclear, and lastly with fossil fuel..as needed. Here in Alabama on the Cosa river we have numerous power generating dams. Each dam has about 4 generators. During peak power needs 2 or 3 may run. At night I'd bet they run maybe 1 at each location, and not at full speed.[/quote]

wind doesn't blow 24/7, so you either have to produce a tremoundous amount of power when it does blow and store it (which is pretty impractical) or have back-ups. Your back-up has to be pretty stable, hydro, nucleur, coal, etc. Those back-ups can't just be turned on and off at a moments notice, so they have to be constantly running.

I recently priced out a solar panel for the house. A 1KW system would cost $9K (I can't remember if it had a battery or not). We get about 4 hours of sun time a day, on average, at our location. That's 4kWH a day you could get (if it runs 100% effecientcy). Thats a saving of about 44 cents a day. At $9K investment you are talking about a repayment schedule of 60 years (if its 100% effecience with no maintance cost for that time period).[/quote]

I'm not talking about every area, you have to use what is best for the area you happen to be in. Wind here wouldn't be good either, but the hydro is. I'm on even pay with my electric, would you believe that my power bill dropped $5.00/mo. Now that is not much but a drop?????

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

ElJay — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 10:27:40 GMT

The lead time in getting backup power going is often an issue with 'alternative' fuels. Wind is not 24/7 yet needs are. Sun is not 24/7 either and batteries just don't do it all or cleanly. You can use pumpback tech where water is pumped up to the top of a hill during excess power times, then fed back down to generate at other times. But its limited to where you have generators next to places you can store water uphill.

Personally I like the hydrogen power option. Use wind, sun etc to generate electricty which is used to split water up into O2 and H. Store H to burn and vent off excess O2. The H can be burnt in cars as gasoline replacement(with mods of course), power stations for regular electric production. Gets us out of the carbon and CO2 release problems of fossil fuels and uses existing gas stations with modifications for start of hydrogen delivery.

I also think geothermal has massive possibilties.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

AUradar — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:11:20 GMT

[quote][b]Tuna Man (7/17/2008)[/b][hr]I don't see where storage is a problem, we don't store it, at this time you can't store AC. With the power grid system we have in the U.S. First you come on line with wind/solar, then either hydro or nuclear, and lastly with fossil fuel..as needed. Here in Alabama on the Cosa river we have numerous power generating dams. Each dam has about 4 generators. During peak power needs 2 or 3 may run. At night I'd bet they run maybe 1 at each location, and not at full speed.[/quote]

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

WW2 — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:42:58 GMT

Wind is bad in Florida, sun is not....

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Tuna Man — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 01:15:17 GMT

I don't see where storage is a problem, we don't store it, at this time you can't store AC. With the power grid system we have in the U.S. First you come on line with wind/solar, then either hydro or nuclear, and lastly with fossil fuel..as needed. Here in Alabama on the Cosa river we have numerous power generating dams. Each dam has about 4 generators. During peak power needs 2 or 3 may run. At night I'd bet they run maybe 1 at each location, and not at full speed.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

David Ridenour — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 00:12:36 GMT

Wind power is worth using but the problem with wind power is we can't store it. We have several HUGE windmills (TVA green power) on Windrock Mountain. You actually have to check on your utility bill and pay more if you want to use green power. Until the technology to store huge amounts of power is perfected (battery technology) it is required to have a full traditional grid system running full time to back up wind, solar, and any other alternative power source that isn't consistent. We need some serious tax credits as we had in the 70's to stimulate private industry to invest the huge amount of money and time required to develop these invaluable alternative energy sources.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Xanadu — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:56:15 GMT

[quote][b]Tuna Man (7/16/2008)[/b][hr]One problem with wind trubines........That problem is the same as those that don't support oil platforms off the coast of Florida. They don't want them in their "BACKYARD"

They are quiet, and don't look bad. Wouldn't bother me to have them in "my" backyard.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who would be able to see the wind farm on the horizon from his family's Hyannis compound, and former governor Mitt Romney maneuvered to kill the project on several occasions because of fears that the turbines would be unsightly, hurting tourism and property values.

Some of his figures are flawed, but wind turbines are up and coming. Saw 100's of them last year out west.

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/wind-power/wind-farms/[/quote]

Ted Kennedy will be dead inside a year and screw the birds.

The best thing about those turbines you see on the site adn on tv is that they're made right here in Pensacola and shipped out of the port. Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't GE making those?

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Mellow Yellow — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:31:50 GMT

We deer hunt in Mclean which is about 30 miles from Pampa where Pickens is building his windfarm. The locals seem to like him and his plan will definitely help their economy. The wind blows there like a mo fo so I can see why he's doing it there. My buddy that owns the ranch we hunt on owns a natural gas production company and they had their property "measured" for wind velocity, direction, and duration about 4 years ago. They are now putting up their own turbines and expect to recoup a huge capital expenditure ( and I mean huge ) within 20 years. As for NIMBY (not in my back yard), I think the turbines look pretty cool and they make an awesome sound.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

P-cola_Native — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:03:48 GMT

[quote][b]Xanadu (7/16/2008)[/b][hr]You guys have never heard of T Boone Pickens? Well, he used to be an oil man. He's been rich as rich can be for a long time and he's an old line Texan from the Texas Panhandle. He's been in the energy business forever and at some point got more into buying and disposing of corporations - like the Wall Street movie as I recall.

.[/quote]

I'm pretty young, and honestly a subject such as oil tycoons would not have warrated my attention in the recent past. I'm just saying, that as a 22 year old college student, I've just recently started hearing about this guy and his wind power investments. I do think we need smart people looking to get rich off of alternative energy. They are more effective than the government in accomplishing a goal.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Tuna Man — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 23:00:01 GMT

One problem with wind trubines........That problem is the same as those that don't support oil platforms off the coast of Florida. They don't want them in their "BACKYARD"

They are quiet, and don't look bad. Wouldn't bother me to have them in "my" backyard.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who would be able to see the wind farm on the horizon from his family's Hyannis compound, and former governor Mitt Romney maneuvered to kill the project on several occasions because of fears that the turbines would be unsightly, hurting tourism and property values.

Some of his figures are flawed, but wind turbines are up and coming. Saw 100's of them last year out west.

http://www.alternative-energy-news.info/technology/wind-power/wind-farms/

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Xanadu — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:53:49 GMT

You guys have never heard of T Boone Pickens? Well, he used to be an oil man. He's been rich as rich can be for a long time and he's an old line Texan from the Texas Panhandle. He's been in the energy business forever and at some point got more into buying and disposing of corporations - like the Wall Street movie as I recall.

Before all you Republicans get all happy and supportive of this guy, realize he believes taxes should be progressive and paid by the rich. He thinks people like him who make their money from investments should pay the same rate on income as anyone else. One of his well known stories is how he pays less as a percentage of his income (which is staggering) than his secretary.

Anyway, he's heavily invested in wind technology and he has enough money to do what he wants whether it makes him anything or not, but he's not doing this as charity. it's my opinion he's building a legacy and looking to make a ton of money while taking the lead in getting us off the oil problem.

It's the best attempt I've ever seen at addressing this situation in a comprehensive manner and it pains me to no end that Cheney's secret energy meetings didn't take these tactics 7 years ago.

RE: A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

P-cola_Native — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:00:03 GMT

I've just started to hear about this guy. It is probably good that he isn't a politician, because politicians are all worthless. Our countries needs innovative entrepeneurs to like this guy to help solve our energy problems.

The port of Pensacola has been off loading wind turbine parts, pretty cool to see them coming through here. I've seen them out west, I think it is a great idea.

A plan to reduce our dependance on oil.

Marktheshark — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:50:41 GMT

Has anyone heard of this guy. I wish our elected officials would at least consider something like this.

http://www.pickensplan.com/theplan/