effectiveness of solar & wind

[denby]

Originally Posted by xort

Sway will be looking for you

I think he already is.


Dennis

[Waterrat]

Hello

I must admit I have not read this entire post and I hope someone has not posted this yet but you should all take a look at this vidio on popular mechanics. I think this has very nice if not interesting applications on a sailboat. If homeshooling on a boat it may even be an interesting experiment with kids. The sound might be a little more then I would like on a larger device. It seems that this might be one of those great think outside the box moments. Since this is my first post I can't post a link so google search Shawn Frayne 2007 Breakthrough Awards

The first link should be the 2-3 min movie of Popular mechnics 2007 Breakthrough Awards

WR

[camaraderie]

WR...welcome and thanks for the "link". Most impressive thinking! We'll have to see if it converts into usable products down the road and wonder how noisy they might be when producing a usable # of watts.

[denby]

Cam, that would work well on your rv. No solar stick needed.


Dennis

[hellosailor]

Micropower would have limited uses on boats. A two foot long micropower stick (like the one shown) would barely power one masthead wind instrument or marker light. A nice concept but "not economically feasible" for most boating applications.

[wind_magic]

If only there was a device that could collect solar energy in a battery that could be purchased anywhere, was inexpensive, reliable, stored well, was non-hazardous, easy to transport, low tech, and was easy to use. While we're wishing it might as well be self-replicating, energy dense, and float too. Oh, wait, that's right .. they are called trees.

[xort]

Trees won't be the saviour of our energy needs, grasses will.
I talked with a phd chemist who is working on this stuff. He predicted that in 15 years, grasses will produce enough ethanol to supply all our fuel needs.

[hellosailor]

"If only there was a device that could collect solar energy in a battery that could be purchased anywhere, was inexpensive, reliable, stored well, was non-hazardous, easy to transport, low tech, and was easy to use. While we're wishing it might as well be self-replicating, energy dense, and float too. Oh, wait, that's right .. they are called trees"

Trees are not inexpensive, that's why most of Europe and the middle east will give you a book of waxed paper matches not the paper pulp or wood ones common in the US. (OK, they sell them these days, no one gives them away any more, wood and wax paper alike are too expensive.) And the Japanese have to import trees contracted below US subsidized market prices to make their own chop sticks at home, they've denuded their forests. As had the British, Italians, Greeks, Germans, French, and large sections of the US. As Brazil is going today.

Cheap? Only if you steal them or make no plans to replace them and let the eology go to hell after strip clearing them. Like cheap nuclear power--which ignores the last 50,000 years on the expense sheet.

Easy to transport? Not even if you can float them downhill, they are not energy-dense and you spend a lot of fuel moving them with a lot of lost stock on the way.

Oh, and if you'd seen or heard of any of the great municipal ash fills of the early 20th century (The entire 63-64 NY World's Fair was build on an ash filled swamp) you find wood has other drawbacks-lots of waste. Corrosive, bulky waste.

The smog and asthma deaths in London the 60's from massive chimney smokes are almost forgotten--but still on record.

Grasses have some advantages, after all Brazilian ethanol is produced from bagasse (sugar cane waste, essentially a grass like bamboo) with something like 12x the efficiency of tearing it out of corn.

But trees? If that technology was so good....we'd have never been forced to leave it.

[denby]

hellosailor, I believe the ash fills you speak of are from coal not trees. I could be wrong.


Dennis

[xort]

cellulosic ethanol can be made from trees. Michigan is building a processor that will use sustainable forestry to create ethanol. But grasses do have more potential.