My question comes back around for all those saying we shouldn't use wind or solar at all. Why not? No one has answered this yet, or even tried in this thread or a couple of others. Why not start making changes now, gradually, so that we can become less dependent on fossil fuels?
I've heard it's not perfect. OK. I will give you that but neither is our current power generating system as well as our use of cars, trucks and SUV's powered by gas/oil/coal. They're VERY inefficient. See the explanation in the link below. Basically from startup (generation) to the time it gets to our homes we are looking at 40%+ losses depending on where you live.
Even storing the energy from Solar leads to less loss than the creation and transmission we use currently (8 to 32% depending on the storage method) the same can be said with wind storage as well with no cost for the generation. https://phys.org/news/2017-01-solar-power-energy-consumption-emissions.html
I know people will say the cost of building turbines or adding solar is expensive. So was the cost of that generator sitting down at the local power plant (Current power plants run by coal generating 600 mW of power are being built at a cost of $2Billion for that plant. You can't tell me that's cheap.
@Blodyn And the dead birds at the bottom of the towers are just collateral damage. Sadly the burning of coal and natural gas provides plant food. The windmills just kill birds if they have enough wind to move.
@becca00f turns out they ARE reusable, I have seen them used to make pedestrian bridges. the can be used as truss structures,, just let some smart kid have at em do you SEE what India makes out of nearly nothing?
[quote]Made predominantly of steel, fiberglass, and resin or plastic, turbine blades are built to withstand hurricane-force winds, and can't easily be crushed, recycled, or repurposed.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the average life span of a turbine blade is about 20 years.
"These things are all true," Donoghue said, "but they should not detract first from the fact that these technologies are critical to combating climate change, and also second, there is a great opportunity for innovation."
That innovation is already underway. Last December, General Electric partnered with Veolia, a French waste management company, to do recycling work with such blades[/quote]
The stable genius must have thought that one up during 'Executive Time' in between watching reruns of all his World Famous speeches. I wouldn't count on him for any scientific knowledge. He never figured out how an umbrella works. Every kid in elementary school knew not to look at the total eclipse of the sun without eye protection but there he was, OUR POTUS, at the WH, for the entire planet to see. Must be from all the bats in his belfry from flapping there wings too loud.
@hippyjoe1955 Your quote "What strikes me funny is let us say the supply is limited. Should everyone limit its usage or should we simply use what we have and move on to something else?" That's what I'm trying to get you to see is that we need to START moving to something else. That way when the oil IS gone, we're not struggling for alternatives. If we're looking at this from a preppers standpoint then we are safeguarding against a known future problem. This is a disaster preparedness plan. So far I haven't seen you propose anything else other than keep doing what we're doing. To quote an old Chinese proverb "To keep doing what you've been doing and expecting different results is insanity". I don't want to be the fly tapping the window expecting to get out. I want to be the one opening the window. Which do you want to be? If you won't change or give any data to show why we shouldn't change the behavior seems like a fly.
@softspokenman Let's not resort to name calling. Let's keep to facts and data. If you want to win a discussion or debate then name calling has no place in it. While I might disagree with hippyjoe. I won't start name calling.
Windmill and wind turbine are interchangeable terms. They cause a lot of bird and bat death and do make people ill. A good friend of mine had to move because the windmill/turbine near his house was causing vertigo.
Once again where have I insulted you. I have asked for proof and you respond ded with insults. I've shown where youve slighted me. I will apologize If I see where I've called you stupid or uneducated. Until then the apology is waiting dir you to write it.
I think it's more about people believing him. He's doing everything he can to undermine alternative energy sources so that his friends in big oil and coal can make more profits. Watch the talking heads over the next couple of weeks and see if they start spouting this as well. Once again there will be no scientific basis but it will make anything that isn't oil or coal dangerous.
Funny thing is you don't hear him talking about black lung disease in the people busting their tails in coal mines or the people that are exposed to byproducts of oil which has several known carcinogens in their list.
@PhilK It is impossible for him to escape his idiotic, misinformed, deliberately misleading, and dangerous statements. They are preserved forever in writing, text, and video. He will be rightly mocked and laughed at for all time, around the world.
We should do a field test. Maybe we tie him to a windmill (!) and leave him there until next election. If he does not get cancer we know it’s not the same.
There is absolutely nothing he can say that his eager child-like fans won't believe. He could be critical of their families, their personal beliefs, and their lives and they would laugh, cheer, and applaud (in that order). It's not unique; it's a true cult mentality.
This is an interesting article: https://medium.com/@davidjhawke/do-wind-turbines-cause-cancer-trumps-idea-is-nothing-new-9c73b62bfeeb
Infra-sound is a hum that is beyond the range of most human hearing, but it is emitted by wind turbines. People who live within 5 miles of wind turbines often complain that they are stressed out by the sound, and can't sleep because of it.
And one thing that is provable is that humans who are constantly stressed sustain damage to their immune systems, and it is the immune system which fights off the production of cancer cells.
@4meAndyou This is an interesting read. I would like to see more studies around this but I still feel that the byproduct of coal (Black Lung disease) and oil (CO2 and other gases) are worse than what we get from even the mining of the rare earth metals used to build/sustain turbines.
👍️ Studies have been done on the 'Corona Effect' from the over head heavy cable transmission lines that cross the country and the effect it has had on people living near them. There are office and apartment buildings in NYC and other cities also with solar panels. I remember the power grid Blackout 1965 in Mass. and the East coast. There was another in 2003. @4meAndyou
@softspokenman Yes. There's been several studies regarding the overhead power lines. I wonder if a more efficient grid, such as one that was powered more locally, would be beneficial. We have a couple of nuclear power plants in IA and NE that are powering people in Ohio which I always thought was VERY inefficient as the lines give off a lot of energy around the lines and the energy it takes to push the power through. I know you can hear the lines when you walk near them at a couple of parks nearby.
150 decibels is usually considered enough to burst your eardrums, but the threshold for death is usually pegged at around 185-200 dB. A passenger car driving by at 25 feet is about 60 dB, being next to a jackhammer or lawn mower is around 100 dB, a nearby chainsaw is 120 dB.
Sound decreases 6 dB every time the distance is doubled. The Inverse Square Law states that as the distance doubles: The dispersing of a single source spreads over four times the area becoming only ¼ of its intensity. Each factor of two in distance from the source leads to a decrease in intensity by a factor of four.
@Greybare we in Germany do not know about this case. Maybe because we don’t have Fox News? Some wings broke, yes. But no one was injured. One death years ago: a worker fell off the top
@Greybare That's one person that died due 1 catastrophic failure. We see more people die due to car accidents and you don't see us banning those. Better yet, more people die in the US due to gun violence every year and we haven't banned those either. I can even narrow it down further. More people die of gun violence in Pick your US city of more than 100K people every year than have died due to wind turbines last year. Why not ban those?
Before anyone goes there I'm an avid hunter that believes in eating what I hunt. I just don't believe I need an AR whatever to bring down the deer I hunted this fall. So let's stay on topic and realize that there is NO scientific evidence that shows wind turbines cause cancer.
This is not a new claim. Trump is not the first to claim wind turbines cause cancer or other health issues. He is just using that claim to continue his agenda. He has done this with many issues. His mental health and his understanding of many many things is fucked up and entirely based on nothing...on what he has seen on TV or fox news. People do believe him. They already believed this in the first place now they just have a very public supporter for their entirely made up theories.
