http://news.uk.msn.com/world/canada-...kyoto-protocol
wonder what the knock - on effect will be. Makes you wonder if the F gas regs are really beneficial to anyone.
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http://news.uk.msn.com/world/canada-...kyoto-protocol
wonder what the knock - on effect will be. Makes you wonder if the F gas regs are really beneficial to anyone.
I read that yesterday. Seems Canada is aiming at saving it's dollars first. Meanwhile, in Australia, we're about to be hit hard in the hip pocket with another tax on carbon emissions.
Wise people those Canadians, more countries should follow suit. The whole thing is a big tax grab by the Wall Street mob. Countries have spent more than 1000 billion dollars on alternative energy sources, result zip zero.
Sorry Magoo, results not zero. There is a lot of good industry being built around green technologies and because of Kyoto etc the cost of PV has been cut in half in the last 10 years. Wind power works well too but if you wan to find something as centralized as NUC, that's not the way of the future, Kyoto or no Kyoto.
Would you rather the trillions be spent on warfare (sorry... money spent on war trumps all other spending over the years) or something relatively benign.
BTW, we are out of it only because our esteemed PM has ties to big oil.
Hi Mike H.
your next door done the road people have got the warfare spending well covered to their demise in my opinion, to the detriment to there economy, with resultant global on going effects Wind power is not new. Replacement of reliance on oil is the critical thing. Result on hydrogen cars, nothing after spending squillions. Good for scientists though. Job security.
In NZ there was a guru scientist that had a car running on water, suddenly died suspiciously and all the technowledgy with him.
The global economy cannot stand the non use of oil products and on going research for finding more.
totally agree with you on that. We have our local "water as fuel" car genius as well and i know of one in Florida and one here that have met an untimely and suspicious end.
It is my belief that, as a race of people, we are pretty stupid, have no will power to do what is right for the whole world. We only focus on our immediate desires. Yet somehow, I still have faith in individuals despite my belief that we are all f**ked in the long run.
cannot believe the car running on water inventors being bumped off along with all the info,hydrogen cars are being tested now as for climate change if we all cut emissions the planet will last longer you do not need laws to save the planet just use your common sense, i am doing my bit for the sake of future generations.
Common sense means giving up a long established hugely profitable energy system controlled by the richest people in the world. Ain't gonna happen. They will milk this till the teat is dry, And to hell with the environment. Economics 101 says we are in business to make a profit and there are no ethics courses to get business degree (meaningful ones anyway)
I agree that federal government have connection with big oil and do nothing about global warming.
Ontario provincial government focused on green energy. It is very expensive approach. We have two options. To produce clean energy or to save energy.However, nobody focused on energy efficiency. In industrial refrigeration, a lot of energy can be saved by optimizing operation of the refrigeration plants. However, people are interested to buy something to save energy. This is not cost effective approach.
Finally,Quote:
Originally Posted by MikeHolm
My brothers from up north have woken up! It is all a scam until and unless the entire planet gets on the same page!!!! and unless or untill somone can establish a hugely profitable GREEN energy system! your right, aint gonna happen;). But can you blame the richest people in the world for staying the course, why would you leave a profitable system to loose all your money in a green energy farce? Look at Solyndra, my lovely government (OBAMA) guaranteed them 535 million tax payers dollars and now what do we have to show for it!!! Belly up in one year, pitiful risk to take with our money, you aint gonna scam the richest people on earth they have way to much invested in protecting their money to let some silly pie in the sky dream take it away from them.
Emmett, Solyndra was one out of hundreds that got loans and are profitable. I will admit that the owners of Solyndra swindled the govt by saying everything was great and closed up shop a month later taking the money with them.
But Kyoto is not a scam. What is has done, for those countries most affected by it (Europe, small island countries and some others with very low lying lands) is set a benchmark and having Kyoto talked about for the last 10+ years means that now fixing climate change actually is on the Chinese govts mind (and India to a lesser extent) partly because Europe was so insistent to the point where there may even be tariffs against polluting countries and China does not want that. Canada may be included in the tariff as well (with our oil it was considered).
I've been in the energy efficiency business for 20+ years and one thing I can say for sure is that conservation is not sexy. It is really hard to get people to think that turning off a light bulb is great act. We are now conditioned to think that we have to buy things that are efficient rather than just not buy things.
The "green energy act" is the first of its kind in Canada and one of very few in North America. It is creating jobs and it costs a lot less than the detractors blab on about. It is a choice between coal plants and solar and i will stick a few extra bucks on the solar.
Hey mike, as far as I can see it, its the biggest fraud ever, Every time I hear the words, global warming, green, organic, etc. I look for those behind it that make billions from governments and silly people.
We Just happened to live in era of some minor weather changes that we can not help or change.
China is the biggest air polluter in the world and if they don't do anything [and they don't give a sh**t] then all our efforts are worthless.
I agree about not wasting energy and I have changed all the bulbs in my house to leds and PL and I can see the different in electric bill.
Take the cars industry for example, cant they make efficient cars? of course they can but if take a closer look, you will see that every car manufacturer is being held by the balls by some oil company.
by the way, did you know that in the 70's, scientists told the american administration that we are at the beginning of a new ice age!?! The same scientists are shouting now on every street corner that the sea will rise and temperature will soar, makes me wonder of how really intelligent are the world leaders.
Just reading this thread and I have decided to add my tuppence'a'penny to it.
I hate to see rivers, lakes, forests, countryside, and anywhere else polluted or littered with rubbish/trash and acid rain. The effects of it are obvious. But when we are told that toxin emmissions from industry, homes, and vehicles are damaging the environment and the air that we breath, further concerns me. But I still remain cynical to the actual amount of damage that it is claimed to do. Everytime I watch a documentary or read an article on the subject, the people conducting the scientific surveys seem to get their wires crossed and seem to conflict with one another. I honestly beleive that they are funded from agencies acting on behalf of the greenwash industries that claim this damage is actually going on. Where as there are other scientists that claim it isn't as bad as claimed but they are not funded by the same agencies.
I am actually shocked that governments are encouraging homes and industries to invest in solar and wind generation technologies. The size of the carbon footprint involved in manufacturing such technologies is much higher than the one that is being offset. These solar and wind generators will have dropped to bits before you have broken even with the cost. A guy that I know of who lives in Haworth Yorkshire, was one of the first people in the UK to purchase and use a wind turbine to help generate his own power. He had it errected back in 91 when the greenwash was starting to be implemented and it cost him £60000.00. He has his own quarry and he wanted to build a house in front of his quarry on the brow of the hill that overlooks Haworth, and some say it was a ploy getting the windmill so he could get planning permission to have his house built. And they gave him permission as there were nobody generating their own power especially by means of no emmisions, and that was the incentive that got him his planning permission to build his home. Where as other folk that I know are having to agree to a lot more terms and conditions to have homes built there, and they aren't having a wind turbine errected despite the building spec being much more thermally efficient. Also I have heard a rumour that the turbine developed a fault after 3 years that was going to cost more than £20000.00 to have it repaired. Whether or not he had saved that amount with generating some of his own power after 3 years. Or sold that amount back to the boards/power companies remains to be seen, as he would only consume power in his home and the plant on the quarry would have been mobile deisel plant.
Since then I have seen numerous turbines scattered around, and more recently the odd solar roof top unit on homes. And I have heard that the owners have been told they will be able to sell electricity back to the area boards/supply companies because they are such a good investment!? When in fact they are being sold nothing more than a prototype that should've remained in the science museum or the school science lab. The thing that really concerns me about these alternative renewable energy options, is that they are being sold to people in countries that exist in the real world and not in an empty fish tank in a science lab with no equivalent water, mineral, or leaf mass to absorb and cope with the proportional toxins where the wind and the sun can shine all day long. As can emmmisions from fuels and other chemicals that are claimed to cause the world to get warmer. Like it has been doing since it was first formed without the consumption of such fuels and chemicals. Along with the many natural phenominoms and disasters such as ice ages and other warm periods. That have been discovered and experienced in the hostile world we live in of volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados, floods, drowts, plagues, famines, diseases, meteorite impacts, methane pockets venting off, forest fires, etc.
I helped my Uncle build a small hydro generator at his farm a few years back out of ten old alternators that he had aquired over the years, that we reconditioned. They are driven by a water wheel that is over shot from the over flow from the spring well where he gets his water supply from. In turn they are constantly charging 10 x 12v 180-200 AH old marine batteries that can be stripped down and the plates scrubbed clean and refilled with new electrolyte and in turn the leads are configured so they can be connected in series by multi pole switches to give an output of 120 v. Then the output connected to an old 10 KW invertor, again reconditoned and modified to accept a 120 v input and give a 240 v output @50 hz. It was intended as a method of standby to drive a limited load such as a central heating pump, the TV, and lighting due to the remoteness of the farm and the overhead pole power failing in bad weather. It is set up for a mains failure change over, and not a parrallel load sharing set up like an online UPS. But he has since connected his immersion heater permantly to it which in turn acts as a heat exchanger that gives a small releif to his boiler. We haven't actually performed a full load test on the system to test its capacity yet, but it has run for a whole day and run the central heating pump, the immersion heater, the lights (low energy), and a TV. Without the voltage dropping below 210 v. Although there was some noticable flicker on the lights when it got dark with them all turned on, maybe due to the invertors components ageing or being mismatched for their application causing the frequency to drop lower than 45hz. Total load over 24 hours approximately 30 kw, up to a £3.00 per day saving, that makes my frugle famer of an Uncle very satisfied indeed.
Now that is what I would class as a renewable source of green energy that actually works and is built from recycled parts already having a carbon footprint long since spent years ago, and still offsetting itself. But my Uncle is like me, we built it for convenience to maintain a reduced standard of modern living during power cuts, and to save money. Not because that we worried about consuming electricity and increasing our carbon footprint and polluting the air. I know everyone doesn't have a source of constant flowing water in their back yard. And that being the case they also don't have constant source of sunshine or usable natural light levels or a constant wind blowing to produce practical cheap or green energy. I can't beleive the UK government haven't got a department that demands proof that these systems are actually practical and deliver their promise of cheap or green energy. Instead of just accepting it and pursuading the general public to invest hard earned money into feeding caviar to pig. Only to find the pig fetches a price much less than the cost of keeping it, or it dying before its ready for the butchers.
In my opinion there should be rewards for improving the efficiency of existing technologies that consume fossil fuels to generate practical usable energy. And if that efficiency can include using a green/free source of fuel to convert to practical usable energy, then even better. But the odds of getting something for nothing are very low. As the demand will be higher than the something gained and therefore the practicality of getting that something for nothing will be very expensive and discouraging to wise investment. The most efficient and practical form of generating electricity is nuclear power and always will be for the immedediate and the near future. But the cost of managing it can make it unnatractive to investment. So we have ended up with investment in too much wind and solar technologies that just aren't practical and very expensive overall. Leaving us with the option of using nuclear power as the only efficient and practical way of generating power, whether we like or not. The amount of advancements in technology in generating power using nuclear energy have, and are still coming on at a faster pace than wind or solar. Which haven't come on any further since their discovery and first use.
The only other way forward is to make more efficient or clean up tried and tested methods of generation and in the case of fossil fuels, install more desulpherisation and co2 extraction sytems regarding coal and oil. Back in the mid and late eighties, I worked on projects at power stations in Yorkshire that were having anti pollution systems installed such as precipitators installed in the flue chimneys. And they were loooking at installing a catalyst to neutralise the co2. But due to the politics involved with de nationalising the public owned industries. They said it was too expensive to carry out and would lower the share prices due to the investment needed. So again profit came before the greenwash. If the system were to increase efficiencies out of the anti pollution systems and greenwash, they would go for it due to the increase in profit. But as coal and oil fired are only around 40% efficient, they have a lot of pondering to do to make them better. But at least they will guarnatee your lights to be turned on more so than wind or solar would.
If the governments sincerely do beleive that toxin emmisions are a huge problem in general, they would make it law that the power companies install such systems despite the cost of it. After all they have made it law for everyone to have a working catalyst on their car exhaust, despite it causing a noticeable increase in fuel consumption and thus increase your carbon footprint and cost of getting about with no concessions on fuel duty to compensate for it. At least the power companies can offset the cost against their tax return unlike the general public. And the amount of money that they charge for it in this country, it should be peanuts to them. They could even encourage more investment for the furhter develpment of co2 to be used as the only refrigerant to be used in our industry due to the low impact that they claim to effect the environment. Then we wouldn't need to waste money on F gas/EPA licences, the money could go towards a maintaining your old van.
First, the changes in the climate were never as fast as they are now. I really thing we underestimate (perhaps willfully) our own ability to influence what fores on on the planet. Part of it is that we, as individuals, live in our own little microcosm and do the things we need to live day to day. It is really hard to put our influence as a species into a global perspective the same way it is really difficult t immagine how big the universe is. It is just too big.Quote:
Originally Posted by chemi-cool
Second, the amount of knowledge we gain year after year puts our knowledge during the the 70s to shame. They saw the changes that were happening but didn't have the tools to project properly. We are much better at it now, not perfect, but better.
It is not a fraud. You must remember that the people who started ringing the bells years ago had nothing financial to gain. after all, what business would go to all the trouble to MAYBE make a profit 30 years later on a technology that hasn't been developed yet.
Oh boy, where do i start. First, as i said above, there were no green industries back when this was started. It was just people who saw their kids increases in asthma and other ailments, who saw sulfur dioxide killing off the rivers an many many other problems and wanted to know what was happening. There was no money in them.Quote:
Originally Posted by chilliwilly
It is not good practice to use anecdotal evidence to prove a general concept. That windmill that didn';t work properly could have been a piece of c**p. But there are 1000s of early generation windmills in Denmark and Germany that are still working well.
Just so you know, the solar hot water panels I sold in the past made as much energy in 8 months as it took to build them. True, PV panels take a lot longer to produce that power but it is less than 10 years and they will last 30+ years. Also they are 99% recyclable. Try that with a nuc plant which never last as long as they plan and is too toxic to recycle.
Koodos to you uncle but most people cannot do what he did, they haven't got the technical knowledge.
Increasingly, the fossil fuels we use are more and more harder to get at or cause greater environmental destruction (tar sands and fracking to name a couple of technologies) and this will only continue as more and more of us (China, India) want fridges and cars. While they have become the worlds largest polluter, we can blame ourselves too because we exported our most polluting industries to them.
About the cleaning up of coal plants, we have to remember that governments don't do anything that will harm the profitability of their industries and they listen to them way more than they listen to the scientists that warn us about some problem that is 10-20 years down the line. Only when we get to that point do thy say "why didn't you tell us"....
Humans are not planners, we are crisis managers.
Mike if my post sounds callous or offensive to you, forgive me because it isn't intended to do so. Can you tell me Mike how the wind turbines regulate the required rpm to maintain a 50 or 60 hz output frequency so they can safely connect to the grid without causing damage to the distribution network apparatus. Or the grid causing damage to the turbine generators when they are virtually standing still which they seem to do most of the time?
The wind turbine that mr Gilson had installed was made by Ventix or Vento or something, a Danish make I was led to beleive, rated with a 500 kva output. Infact the same make as the ones that they installed on Withins Top Moor wind farm on the outskirts of Halifax Yorkshire. I will admit that I don't know much about the way that the turbines actually turn the generators.
But if they can maintain a steady output at a low rpm, they are either a parrallel system charging batteries then feeding an invertor maintaining a steady output, or the shaft is driving an hydraulic pump that is regulated to maintain a specific rpm and in turn coupled to a clutch driving a generator that will disengage when the rpm gets too low. I can't begin to imagine how they would work in an efficient manner without the latter thoughts. As its something I've steered clear of due to my cynicalism towards the reliabillity of the wind blowing or the sun shining in the case of the PV or hot water systems. And the overall cost outweighing their claims to saving money in the name of renewable energy.
Also the claim of durabillity of up to 30+ years I just can't swallow. You have only got to look at any manufacture of any device supporting modern technology, it lasts a much less time than it used to in the days when the same items could be repaired, making them even more recyclable than they are today. Today the term recyclable means disposable and not repairable.
The solar panels that you refer to only seem to raise the water temperature a few degrees to save on a small amount of calorific value to heat the water to a desired temperature. When I was in Greece a few years back, I had a shower that was supplied by one of them and the shower was only luke warm for about 5 minutes then went cold, infact all the other people in the other appartments said the same. The air temperature was about 40 deg c from about 10:30 till about 18:00 and it had a 36 gallon tank supplying my appartment.
If that had been in England it would have only have raised the temperature above room temperature and would've definately needed a 3 kw heater to be on for about an hour to get somewhere up to 80 deg c. And if you live in a leafy area the green coating would eventually build up masking the greenhouse effect of the panel. Rendering it further useless or adding to another bill to maintain it by a specialist cleaner.
All power stations cost a fortune to build and maintain, the cheapest and quickest being gas turbine and they don't need to be built near a river or a water supply, just a gas supply. Nuclear power stations are the most efficient form of generating power, its just the management of them that costs a fortune. And without them, the whole of the UK would have to take it in turns at having power supplied to certain areas at certain times of day. As for recycling the fuel rods, that technology is coming closer and the advancement in the technology has come on more so than wind or solar. And is getting more investment than green energy due to the confidence of its future to supply constant electricity 24,7,365.
The wind farms that are increasing across the UK won't be the answer to the ever increasing demand for electricity, it will be nuclear and fossil fuel. If any practical quantities of power do get generated from these PV and wind turbines, it will only be a token green gesture to keep environmentalists happy. If they close down the nuclear and fossil plants, and rely soley on these green energy generators. Then the UK will come to a standstill, and will become the greenest country in the world. But will have to start polluting the air with coal fires and oil lamps, and go back to using horse and carts and carrier pigeons.
Sense and sensibility has to be factored into the whole global warming debate, there is not a lot of it so far.
Mother nature has alot to do with the subject as well, with volcanoes belching out thousands of tonnes of CO2 annually, how are they going to tax that.
The wind turbines were probably from Vestas which, last time I checked, was still the largest wind company in the world and generally make really good stuff. The standard rated output these days is 3-5Mw but 20 years ago it was 150kw. There is a lot that goes into making a turbine work long term, some of which is proper siting conditions. we know a lot more now than we did then.Quote:
Originally Posted by chilliwilly
A lot of the turbines do use AC/DC/AC inverters and some have constant speed generators which feather the blades to maintain close speeds. The utilities were always afraid that we in the the solar and wind industry would "dirty up" they grid but we have shown them that our tolerances are tighter than theirs. My PV inverter is putting out 59.9- 60.1 hz constant.
The world is going towards distributed generation and away from the big plant alone, partly for environmental reasons but also partly because the grid becomes more stable. One small producer goes down and it doesn't affect the whole grid. Think of the 100kva lines that have to travel 300miles to get to the Toronto consumer from a 5000Mw Nuc plant and you will see why it is nice to produce closer to home. In cost per watt over 20 years, the PV or wind system is much less costly than the Nuc plant. It is not just initial cost.
The solar systems I put in raise 300L of 6c water to 60C in about 4-5 hours. This is with 5-6m2 of flat panels. I have almost no gas bill for 6 months of the year and in the winter the bill is cut by maybe 30%. Solar is so site specific and there are crappy solar systems and good ones so it is hard to generalize. I don't like tubes much and i have put in a lot of them and a lot of systems are undersized and give disappointing results or oversized and wear out the components too quickly.
I have never said that wind/PV is the only way but it has to be the priority. Nuc will be here for a while as will coal and gas but if you put PV and Thermal on every home, where warranted, there would be much less need for the other stuff. The Germans had this idea (called PassivHaus) when determining which technologies to use in a house in terms of the most benign: first use passive solar, then use solar hot water and PV, then use a heat pump, and only then, if you cannot meet the energy needs, put in a fossil fuel boiler. I think it is a good way to think.
I was at a factory one time near Hamburg and the owners took me to lunch. We had local fish from the river. I was told that 5 years before the Nuc plant was operating on the river and the fish was unsafe to eat. Solar hot water, wind and PV allowed the plant to be mothballed and the river was productive again. That says a lot to me.
The sun tends to shine in Canada even when its -40, but over here it only shines in the summer and that isn't guaranteed. And that kind of claim to heat 300l of water from 6-60 deg would be a very ambitious sales pitch to be swallowed over here. In fact thats roughly over 10 kw over 5 hours or 2kw in 1 hour with only 6m2 of pv panel, how many volts/va per cell does your panel produce then?
The 175kva+ super grid is already in place in the UK and has been since the war. This is why power over here is produced due to the locality of the mines and rivers and the demand being beyond the mines. Although most of the coal is imported now, the interest in British coal is raising an eyebrow as the cost is almost on par with imported coal. And there are many new gas fired stations sited simply where the main gas grid runs.
If I ever get chance to buy shares in BNFL, I will jump at the chance as they will never go down and only up due to the increase in demand in the future for nuclear power. Like you say siting is critical for solar power, and in the UK people have been led up the garden path after investing in a white elephant. The next generation of nuclear plants will probably be sited out at sea and an off shore grid will probably exist, that will in turn connect the wind turbines. But the nuclear stations will allways maintain a power supply when the coal and gas has run out and the wind isn't blowing, and the sun isn't shining.
Which river in Germany only took 5 years to clean up after being polluted by radiation? Surely the river would have flown into the North Sea and would have had an environmental impact on it. And everyone associated with the North Sea would have been aware of it, and to be honest its the first that I have heard of it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chilliwilly
Does your grid run 300miles with no customer between generation and consumer? Ours is pretty close to that and the distance for 10,000MW from Churchill Falls in Labrador to the USA is 1500miles+ and think about the line losses.
I don't know figures for uranium production but it is also a declining resource. I should look at it further.
The company i went to see was Interpane glass in Lauenforde on the Weser river. I think it was the Wurgassen plant but I'm not sure. I was told this by the plant managers back in 2006 when i went there. Our NUC plants are said to have no effect on Lake Ontario but there are higher rates of certain cancers for those living close to them and the fish have, anecdotally, had some issues.
NUC plants are base load plants and cannot keep up with the ups and downs of the grid so we need to have other technologies. I like the wave generation going on in Scotland and off wales. That shows a lot of promise.
The panels for making hot water are not PV. It is a sheet of copper or aluminum coated with a highly selective absorber which 96% efficient it only lets 4% of the energy re-emit to the atmosphere. In toronto, our sunny summer days have about 1300w/m2 of energy and realistically I can put 50-60% of that into a tank so @ 5m2 it equals 3.2kw. on a not so great day we might get half that. i was generalising about the temp rise but i am not far off. Our household load is about 120L/day@50C for 2 people and 2 dogs. i have way more energy in the summer than I need.
Speaking about volcanoes. My step father is from Montserrat in the west indies. His brilliant friend (real genius) was watching when the French did a nuc test in pacific and within a short time there was a volcano erupt on montserrat. He got to thinking and told some people that after the next test a few weeks later, there would be another eruption of the volcano. They laughed at him but he was right and it happened. call it a coincidence or fluke but if his hypothesis is right something humans did had an effect on a massive scale. I was told this by my step father and he is not prone to tall tales.Quote:
Originally Posted by Magoo
Hi Mike H.
your step father is/was a wise man. The is a bit like a football kick one side and you get a reaction somewhere else.
NZ got seriously pizzzd off with the French Nuc testing down the road so-to-speak, and subsequent bombing of a boat in our harbour and one dead person. Both culprates got slapped with a wet bus ticket, they thought we were a dumb bunch of idiots, we had them in jail within a week.
A video worth watching. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0dhw...eature=related
Some people think China is the biggest problem, and they aren't doing anything so the rest of the world shouldn't do anything?
If that way of thinking isn't ignorance, then I don't know what is!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/china-business/8904733/China-unveils-1-trillion-green-technology-programme.html
Well, once you post a hyperlink in a reply on this forum, everything has to be a damn hyperlink after if you come back to edit it. I've tried and tried, nothing cancels the URL tag in this stupid text editor here. So THIS IS NOT A LINK, the software just sucks!
Hydrogen fuel cells was brought to us by Oil companies, because they wanted us to run out of stuff htat they could sell at a service station like they sell fuel to us now, so that was always a scam.