Is Wind Power Worth It?

Of course they have, the polls make it clear that they must.

Some lobbyists are, some are paid for by various business associations and some by individual large companies.

Or simply get out of hand in magnitude.

Only in the sense that they watch the TV coverage of such.

You can't even assume that the watch the TV coverage. In the same way that people tune out the advertising, they also may tune out the reporting on issues. They may even be changing the channel. Political issues rarely make good video footage and there may be naked people or folks getting hit in the crotch on the other channels.

The link below seems to work if you copy and past it. They found the people in it on the street.

mpm asked:

Greens argue that the initial (MagNox) reactors were only ever a cover for generating lots of weapons grade Pu, and damn the cost! In reality - the government of the day decided we needed nuclear power, and I get the impression politicians in the 1950's had a different attitude to truth because they weren't generally called out on their facts by disrespectful interviewers. Which may be why they're so vague about anything at all today 8)

Like, I think, most other people on this thread, I don't believe in One Solution but rather that a bit of everything is needed; particularly, in the UK, more nuclear and quickly despite its downsides. The main problem of course is that we use a lot, some would say too much, energy. It's interesting how in radio reports etc the "man in the street" is very angry about fuel prices right now but the option of using less doesn't seem to occur to him, whereas most engineers I know consider how to use energy efficiently around the home and for travel. Guess they are more used to thinking about "how can things go wrong". Supply lines, in this case. Security of supply is the big issue for a country's energy.

According to the last Private Eye I bought, Wind is currently receiving massive subsidies from the UK government even though it's relatively uneconomic thus the utility companies "can't lose" by investing in land based wind; the main problem is finding sites they can erect it at. The UK government really wants to meet those Kyoto targets (or maybe is just v. scared about energy supply vulnerability after the gas shortages a year or so ago courtesy of Mr Putin and the gas we bought somehow not getting through the pipelines across France etc).

Martin Brown mentioned: > 2 out of 3 big wind turbines I pass regularly are out of commission on any given day,

That matches observations by our American friends on this newsgroup a couple of months ago

I wonder if they got screwed by a trawler. The fishing boats in the north sea are notorious for scraping nets and stuff along the bottom.

The energy debate is generally obscured by a lack of hard numbers. See this article for a smattering of facts on what we'd REALLY need to do if we wanted to power the UK by wind:

One thing NOT to do is buy one of those tiny traditional windmills (maybe 7 foot long blades) that mounts on your house. Houses are not very high so normally the blades get little wind. Remember the 3rd power law. And houses in cities get less wind. And houses aren't built with the idea of putting a vibrating monster on a wall for a few years - very expensive repair bills. Also try sleeping with the house humming with low freq vibration! I'd often wondered why no one made the blades spin horizontally so birds saw them, and I'm glad to see the Pacwind link from Kris Kreiger, it looks like it deserves further study - probably not available for the UK yet. Thanks for that Kris.

Uh, I know it's traditional to put in some obscenities about politics here so let me just say - raised eyebrow - know what I mean?

Well if you interview enough individuals you can easily make such a composition. But what was the goal of making such a clip? I will make you a deal, let me interview the interviewer and all of the production personnel with the same questions. Let's see how well they do.

east

One of them was right on though when she said that Saudi Arabia was the=20 home of Al Qaeda.=20

That's something that most Americans and apparently most Aussies don't=20 know.=20

Remember that 17 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi.=20

T wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.east.cox.net:

ALso, the reactionary segment of Islam (Wahhabism) that teaches violence against "unbeelivers" (who can even be Muslims, since the Wahhabists see themselves as having some ultimate authority to efine what does or doesn't constiture "true belief/true believer"), and formed the foundation of Al Qaeda's doctrine, is still active in Saudi Arabia, and continues to fund the construction of, and 'encourages' parents to send their children to, madrassas teaching that doctrine.

I don't know who funds this site, so I'm not "endorsing" the funders, but ti does summarize what I've read and heard over the years:

HTH

You really need to hone your typing skills ;-)

...Jim Thompson

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Indeed, Wahhabism is one of the more extreme sects of Islam. It makes=20 the division between Sunni and Shi'a look ridiculous.=20

And who was that fellow from I think it was Egypt, Qutb. He did an=20 internship in the U.S. and was disgusted by the things he saw around=20 him. Imagine if you transported Qutb to 2000 or so. His head would have=20 exploded.=20

But he's the one who started the Muslim Brotherhood which is partially=20 responsible for the Al Qaeda doctrine too.=20

T wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.east.cox.net:

Yup.

But, you know what, there are a lot of things I see in America today (that I didn't see 30 or even 20 yrs ago) which *I* don't like. DOesnt' mean I'm going to go do all that crazy violent stuff. I still believe that rational discussion, comprimise, and the Constitution, will win the day.

If that is the best response you have, why did you embarrass yourself by posting it?

JosephKK wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Heh.

Especially since I *know* my typing sucks - and that was one of my celan" posts =:-o For one thing, I use a primitive newsreader (too much disk space and RAM devoted to 3D Graphics software ), so no spellchecking, and half the time, when I proofread, it looks fine to me (mild dyslexia); then too, sometimes my fingers hurt like heck (arthritis) which also makes typing difficult. Life is hard, then you die, eh? Makes me wonder, wonder, tho', how awful it must be to have a speech impediment - IOW, instead of one's typing being bad, one cannot, for some neurological and/or anatomical reason, speak fluently. I can only imaging the mockery such folks must get :(

And then there are people like Tartaglia.

JosephKK wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

DO you mean the Mathematician?

And did some other interesting things. Check it out.

JosephKK wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I looked through teh Wikipedia article. Some people do just *insist* upon overcoming adversity ;)

Yup.