Windmills in our mountains. What's so bad?

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C'mon people! Let's get excited to build the new infrastructure so the wealthy don't have to pay for it themselves. It worked for the railroad tycoons, why not our future Wind Lords?:)

$60,000,000,000.00? Not including power generation? On a sporadic power source, storage extra?

Tell me honestly, how much spare cash do you Yanks have. BTW, I know the answer. And lest I boast, we up here are in about the same boat. It's this type of spending mindset that scares me. "If we want it, we can have it. Just borrow the money."

Beware the ides of Greece
 
The real number for a smart grid comes in at around 1-3 trillion dollars over a couple decades, which I'm guessing will double by the time everyone gets their fingers in the pie ( "for the children"). That's not including power generation, just a new cart for whatever horse we choose.

Peanuts. Absolute peanuts if you count what we're already spending. Its one of those thing that looks like a lot of money until you realize how much you're wasting on inefficiencies. It could do for American industry the same thing that cheap NG is already doing.

When energy is cheap and plentiful again we could all go back to heating our houses with the windows open and leaving our lights on all the time.
 
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When energy is cheap and plentiful again we could all go back to heating our houses with the windows open and leaving our lights on all the time.

ah, paradise.....the good old days that actually were....,out of ignorance? yes, but lets not bicker and argue about who killed who, its supposed to be a happy occasion.
 
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MacMaine it's impractical to send DC great distances because it can't be transformed like AC this is why the transmission lines are AC. Edison thought DC was the way to go and why he failed and Tesla proved him wrong. The idea is you crank up the voltageto the transmission lines and this reduces the current so you can run small diameter wire. When this high voltage gets to a substation it is transformed to a various voltages and sent to the street to be used by home and industry.

Ray

Thanks Raybonz I know there is controversy on this.
I know I know There was a huge pissing match between Edison and Tesla
Interesting that this company wants to build a DC line, Ray you certainly have the background to question the practicalities of this method.
This company must know about losses, cost etc.

Canadians want to ship all sorts of things to our markets, if it is not expensive Tar Sands oil in the west it is cheap Hydro electrons in the east!
 
Peanuts. Absolute peanuts if you count what we're already spending. Its one of those thing that looks like a lot of money until you realize how much you're wasting on inefficiencies. It could do for American industry the same thing that cheap NG is already doing.


Thats the spirit.

IBM GE and others are leading the way in this new venture.

We spilled blood and a trillion dollars in the Middle East protecting Mobil Exxon assets.
Sounds like BTUSER can get her done with a measly 60 billion!!

Once a smart grid is built, with demand side management of grid and vehicle to grid technology,
(ie turning off 1 million water heater for 20 minutes, turning off most of So Cal pool cleaner for an hour, taking energy out of my Chevy volt back to the grid)
then the intermittent power sources really shine (sorry for the pun)
 
Yeah the Tesla/Edison story is fascinating...poor little doggies...but historical at this point. The technology for efficient DC-DC conversion both on the device scale and the grid scale hadn't been imagined back then. They were still novelties when I learned EE 20 yrs ago, and now they run every portable electronic device you find.
 
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Thanks Raybonz I know there is controversy on this.
I know I know There was a huge pissing match between Edison and Tesla
Interesting that this company wants to build a DC line, Ray you certainly have the background to question the practicalities of this method.
This company must know about losses, cost etc.

Canadians want to ship all sorts of things to our markets, if it is not expensive Tar Sands oil in the west it is cheap Hydro electrons in the east!
Oldspark posted this link which made me rethink what I thought I knew http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current .. Even an old dog can learn new tricks :) Tesla is my inventor hero it is amazing how far ahead of his time he was!

Ray
 
seems like a bunch are going up in Maine. Mars Hill has quite a few.
A friend of my actually replaced a few amateur bearings on some of those , a few years back. Lots of potato farms he said.
 
I think you meant armature bearings?

Ray
 
Canadians want to ship all sorts of things to our markets, if it is not expensive Tar Sands oil in the west it is cheap Hydro electrons in the east!

No actually we want to keep it all for ourselves, but the Free Trade Agreement states that we can't hold it until it is the last oil, and water left in NA!:mad:

China is the new maket for Canadian resources, as the US markets have slowed to much for Canadian companies.

We have a Provincial Wind Farm about 25km(15 miles) from here with another, going up about 16 km(10 miles) from me.
It is great, even though the power is being sold "Off Island" the profits go directly into the Provinces General Revenue for things like schools, roads, and free health care.

The first wind farm paid for itself in 5 yrs. We don't have Oil, Coal, or Hydro, but there is tons of wind energy.
If ya got it, ya might as well harness it!
 
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No actually we want to keep it all for ourselves, but the Free Trade Agreement states that we can't hold it until it is the last oil, and water left in NA!:mad:
I love it when an evil plan comes together.

Mwahahahha!
 
I love it when an evil plan comes together.

Mwahahahha!
Pinky: What we gonna do tonight Brain? Nark!
Brain: Tonight Pinky we are going to take over the world!

That was a great cartoon!

:cool:

Ray
 
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