Wind Turbines.

[Mojo]

Most of Texas's electricity is from natural gas. Yes many turbines have stopped working in the cold. But the gas freezing up is a much larger issue for them.
Texas largely relies on natural gas for power. It wasn’t ready for the extreme cold.

My general view is that wind and solar (and other green energy) as they exist today are completely inadequate to deal with cities and areas of large populations..and throw a 100 million electric cars in over the next xx decade then this energy mix clearly on show via Texas is not going to save them...not even close.
The carbon footprint of wind and solar is hard to refute..yet Nuclear power has proven itself overwhelmingly safe, clean, economical, ultra low co2 emissions and in fact the only alternative to fossil fuels that can successfully and economically replace it and result in co2 emission from making electricity so low its in the range of what is needed-look at Sweden, France and Ottawa.
Granted treating HLW needs a global solution..but if we can land a car sized rover on Mars..surely we can deal with radioactive waste.
And finally yes the elephant in the living room is not energy. Its 7 billion people who think they are entitled to more.

 

[Shayne]

Leverage is the most powerful force known to man because it is infinite , a simple see-saw effect known for thousands of years .

I reckon where windfarms fail to get support is they are in themselves inadequate , a bit like painting over rust hoping it will go away . Tide driven turbines are much the same .
The first hydroelectric dam was built in 1882 so theory , principal and practice are all well and truly tested and the only downside as far as i know is the vast area of natural habitat that must be sacrificed/drowned .

To stop the tide is to deny gravity which is beyond the scope of mankind , unless maybe if we fire all our nukes at the moon .

Its not about cost or else there would be no money for windfarms but rather about cost and return , and those who choose to harness the tide with the commitment needed will be dead and buried decades before the returns roll in .

Salisbury Cathedral took 38 years to build , can you imagine anybody who might commit to such a thing nowadays ?

 

[Jake the Peg]

The next batch destined for Moray Firth farm! Disgraceful we import all the structures and windmills for these projects

 

[goodoldboy]

mate, it breaks my heart it really does. year after year yet more of the country side is eaten away. there is next to zero wilderness in england. iirc your never more than two miles from a road.
its not that we dont have enough houses, its we have too many people, and thats now, that was twenty years ago. i dread to think what will be left for my little boys kids.
we dont even build in a sensible way, we should be building up rather than out.

governments love young population increases by whatever means, its good for economic growth. a world where one species can only thrive by constant, and ever

other than a nuclear war or deadly pandemic i see only two ways this can change;

the rise of AI and near fully automated labour. both nearer than many may think.
huge progress in space exploration.

if we do manage to colonise another planet. hopefully it will be some where like mars where theres nothing to uck up.
most of the planets population should then be shipped out, leaving earth as a "nature planet"

The village that i was born in went under to a sprawl of lego land houses in the 80s .Good arable land that farmers in my part of Spain would give their right arm for. Yes the UK has enough houses ,270 000 are "long term empty " according to one source. Lots of brownfield sites as well. The sprawl is about the bottom line not about need .
"increasing growth on a small planet with finite resources and space is doomed to fail. more to the point we will bring everything else down with us." agree with that.
"the rise of AI and near fully automated labour. both nearer than many may think"yep fully automated luxury communism i'm up for some of that ! seriously an economist in the 1940s accurately predicted the rise in productivity through technology that we achieved in the 2000s and said that the working week would be 15 hours ! what went wrong ? productivity and wages were rising at the same rate until the mid 60s and then the wage line on the graph flatlined as productivith continued to rise . this graph form the not exactly Marxist publication Bloomberg gives an explanation .
As for moving to Mars if Musk , Jeff Bezos & Bill Gates want to get off i'll light the fuse

 

[chapel gate]

In the next 20 years population in England is predicted to grow by 15%.

In the same period 65-84 yr old numbers are predicted to grow by 39%.
Over 85s will grow by 106%

Population growth definitely is a challenge. It's not "young population" that is driving growth though.

Demography: future trends

Changes in the size and make-up of the English population, as well as trends in life expectancy, changing households and health inequalities, over the next 20 years.

www.kingsfund.org.uk

.

ok. the "young" part may have confused my point. 65-85 yr olds are already here, have been for a long time , they are not adding to the population as such, they are living longer. which, yes increases the size of the population overall long term.

increase in young as in working and paying taxes, having children, buying houses etc.

 

[goodoldboy]

And finally yes the elephant in the living room is not energy. Its 7 billion people who think they are entitled to more.

it's the wealthiest 1% who produce twice as much carbon as the bottom 50 %. As you have more than 85 %of the worlds population do you think your'e entitled to it ?

 

[hopeless wanderer]

Really interesting points,
We also need to deal with the consumption of energy as this is a key factor. In the UK we build "Lego" houses to basically the same design as we did decades ago.
Imagine laying out 50k for a car today and it having basically the same features as a Ford Anglia. You wouldn't put up with it.
The best the government manage to actually cut energy usage is stick a couple of inches more insulation in the loft or start some bullshit campaign to put polystyrene beads in your walls. Where is the requirements for passive house construction ? Where's the rainwater recycling ? They're only just going to ground source heating. My friend has just bought a house near the Hague from plan. It's amazingly energy efficient it'll cost nothing to heat. His lighting circuits are fed by panels on the roof and the mains is only to power high draw appliances, Triple glazed nitrogen filled glazing. Meanwhile in Britain … There you go Mr. Jones here's a shitty timber framed house exactly like we were building in the 60's. That'll be 300k please.
Wind turbines are unsightly but then so are coal mines, cooling towers , oil platforms and power stations.

 

[goodoldboy]

Agree with that .We designed and built out own house and though we are not experts the tech is fairly cheap and accessible and doable for a self build. Passive cooling and good insulation makes the high 30s summer temps comfortable. We have solar and so are acutely aware that a a 1000 W microwave isn't worth it for convenience. Appliances are designed in a way that just assumes electricity is limitless and cheap.

 

[hopeless wanderer]

Looking forward to building my own house soon. Off grid living being the plan.

The issue with planning and house construction in the UK is it's essentially a profit making exercise. The developers throw up some cheap houses and sell them for massively inflated prices compared to the build cost. what we have is urban sprawl, huge estates of houses that have a long commute to get to the workplace.
I'm not a huge fan of the windmills but I understand the need for them to be there, if they pop them over the horizon at sea then great.
The first three months of last year almost half the UK's energy was produced by renewables. 30% from wind turbines the remainder was burning waste/woodchips for energy. That's a lot of coal and gas we aren't burning. Once that figure increases then the electric car becomes far less polluting but I'd favour Toyota's Hydrogen fuel cell … But then again i'm biased.

I've been looking at the terrible stories coming out of Texas and the usual suspects are pinning it on the green new deal and posting pictures of wind turbines.
We all need to get used to the idea of extreme weather events becoming more frequent. Worst wildfires on record in Australia and California.
More frequent hurricanes and typhoons of higher intensity. Monsoon delayed and crop failures & famines. Its the world our grandchildren may inherit.
On a far more positive note though, if you have Netflix id recommend a documentary called "Kiss the ground" , It's very interesting and somewhat hopeful.

 

[goodoldboy]

The issue with planning and house construction in the UK is it's essentially a profit making exercise

The same in Spain & i imagine all over the developed world. I've worked in construction here and the design of most homes is woefully inadequate. In our region sub zero night time temps can start in late octubre and last until Mid April .Late may until late august can see maximums in the high 30s.The basic issue of energy saving needs to be addressed urgently .

 

[frank rabbets]

I had an experience inspecting some new detached houses near us. I went there at 9.30 a.m. in mid summer. All the windows were open because the heat caused by sunshine could not get out.

 

[Grimbo]

I had an experience inspecting some new detached houses near us. I went there at 9.30 a.m. in mid summer. All the windows were open because the heat caused by sunshine could not get out.

We live in a house built 200 odd years ago , or at least most of it was .
3 ft thick sandstone walls , horse hair plaster on the walls and lath and plaster ceilings , the newer part built 25 years ago by us had to conform to building regs so no 3ft thick walls but built as closely to the original as poss .
The older and biggest part of the house is warm in winter and cool in summer , never gets cracks if we have a drought ...as it's lime motar and can move with the ground and the footings are 2- 3ft at best . 20 years ago we put a conservatory on one part and they demanded footings of 1.5 meters because we are of a sandy soil ...
The upshot is the conservatory is now on a solid pad that can't move so is always getting hair line cracks in the plaster where it joins the house .
We would never buy a new built house because in the UK the silly building regs stop you from building one properly

 

[goodoldboy]

3 ft thick sandstone walls , horse hair plaster on the walls and lath and plaster ceilings

With the right heating and ventilation these houses are great places to live in the UK climate. We used to live in a granite house , 3ft walls , heated with a Rayburn .EU money came to the village to "modernise" the housing & we politely declined .uPVC windows , insulation without breathability & pointing & rendering "leaky" walls with cement was a disaster for out neighbors who started to suffer mold , damp & condensation problems.But hey everyone got paid & plenty of brand new Audis & Mercs rocked up in the driveways of the bosses who didn't live in the village.

 

[frank rabbets]

Ventilation is a key, otherwise it's like living in a test tube with a rubber cork in.

 

[SteveJB]

Do not posses un iron have to borrow one for births deaths and marriages and as for Farmers being the Guardians of the land i really do mean it cause if they don't who will some have had generations in farming and know what they are doing a few are entering the industry and will learn from their mistakes its a 25 hour day 365 days a year and 366 on a leap year and its heads or tails when they decide to sale at market the farms don't get shut down when it snowing they don't get weekends off or bank holidays Farmers will more than likely die with their boots on after fighting everyday to keep their families safe and warm and keep their animals healthy Farmers should get bloody Combat pay Kin LEGENDRY

 

[hopeless wanderer]

Do not posses un iron have to borrow one for births deaths and marriages and as for Farmers being the Guardians of the land i really do mean it cause if they don't who will some have had generations in farming and know what they are doing a few are entering the industry and will learn from their mistakes its a 25 hour day 365 days a year and 366 on a leap year and its heads or tails when they decide to sale at market the farms don't get shut down when it snowing they don't get weekends off or bank holidays Farmers will more than likely die with their boots on after fighting everyday to keep their families safe and warm and keep their animals healthy Farmers should get bloody Combat pay Kin LEGENDRY

As we started on wind turbines and the basic need to reduce Co2 emissions. There's a great documentary called "kiss the ground" on Netflix.
I'd heard of this guy who was reversing desertification using farming many years ago. It's really fascinating stuff and the results are clear as day. The problem is famers world wide are getting fucked over by diminishing returns and massive corporate organizations like Monsanto. We've gpt Tesco paying dairy farmers 2p Litre for milk in the UK, Indian farmers getting raped by their government, butter mountains and food lakes and starving children. None of it needs to be the case.
Another great documentary worth watching is food inc.
I'm a long way from being a tree hugger with a love of large displacement engines and a career in oil & gas. The myth of Veganism saving the world is laughable when they're ripping out trees to grow soya as fast as they are corn... There is a better way, it used to be the only way and now it's referred to as the "old way"

 

[chapel gate]

As we started on wind turbines and the basic need to reduce Co2 emissions. There's a great documentary called "kiss the ground" on Netflix.
I'd heard of this guy who was reversing desertification using farming many years ago. It's really fascinating stuff and the results are clear as day. The problem is famers world wide are getting fucked over by diminishing returns and massive corporate organizations like Monsanto. We've gpt Tesco paying dairy farmers 2p Litre for milk in the UK, Indian farmers getting raped by their government, butter mountains and food lakes and starving children. None of it needs to be the case.
Another great documentary worth watching is food inc.
I'm a long way from being a tree hugger with a love of large displacement engines and a career in oil & gas. The myth of Veganism saving the world is laughable when they're ripping out trees to grow soya as fast as they are corn... There is a better way, it used to be the only way and now it's referred to as the "old way"

quite right, but traditional farming methods along with its relative respect for the rural environment and animal welfare, simple cant provide enough "product" for the bloated and ever increasing world population.

hence the mass industrialization of farming. living creatures are merely parts and the countryside merely the factory floor..

 

[SteveJB]

It was reckoned that the WW2 diet was healthy ok lots of rationing and the black market if I'm allowed to use that word for the general public whilst the government of the time had cheese biscuits port and a fat cigar me I eat one meal a day at tea time either chicken fish or pork occasional beef i eats me roast spuds and veg and end up giving the dog half the meat and talking of dogs why are dogs fascinated by watching humans eating Ah well

 

[Shayne]

One meal a day here to meat chips and peas or beans for most of my life until the mrs decided chips ain't good for me , gotta keep swambo happy so i deep fry them in olive oil now - healthy chips

 

[Shayne]

hence the mass industrialization of farming. living creatures are merely parts and the countryside merely the factory floor..

Mass industrialization omits to even consider the third party consequence in relation to farming , fishing , mining , forestry , whatever salt of the earth trade you can think of . How many jobs are created outside the industry to sustain the industry ? and what happens to them when the industry is exported .

In my utopia the country produces all it needs and exports the excess .