Comments on: The Largest Wind Farm In The World: Horse Hollow

By: DarkMan

DarkMan — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 22:51:52 +0000

I’m well aware of Thorium / LFTR, having seen several presentations on the subject by Kirk Sorenson and others. I’ve also check his Energy from Thorium blog regularly. China has only recently decided to go the MSR route but notice that the timeline is 20 yrs. Do you think they’ll not build another wind turbine, coal plant, conventional nuke plant or solar farm for the next 2 decades?
NO! They’ll build some of everything – as should we, except for coal. I do agree that more advanced nuke plants should be built and the US has to start reprocessing. Using only a tiny %age of the uranium potential is blindingly STUPID.

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Sat, 30 Jul 2011 13:45:20 +0000

Google LFTR reactors. you will find I am not alone in my Thorium/LFTR obsession. China has already ran CANDU reactors on Thorium. Google Tsinghua University, China pebble bed gas reactor – see how far they have come in only decades in reactor technologies. Be reminded that U.S.S.R. nuclear technologies migrated freely to communist China. Realize that China selects the very brightest of an immense Asian gene pool, educates them and sets them to the task of developing Thorium fueled, LIFTR reactors, this is something the U.S. cannot do. They have a smaller gene pool to work with, they are broke, and come “hat in hand” for loans from China as it is.
Faulty American designs are so dated! Even France has made advances in reactor designs, over and above the 1950′s styled American systems.

By: DarkMan

DarkMan — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:33:09 +0000

Please loosen your tinfoil hat – it’s too tightly wrapped. LFTR is still pretty much an experimental reactor; even the one small built at ORNL never actually ran on thorium.
It has potential but it’ll 10 years before ( if ever) it gets out of the experimental stage and another 10-15 yrs before mass deployment can begin. If it works out AND if it lives up to the hype, it’ll be 30 years before it starts to become commonplace anywhere INCL China.
Do you want us to run on nothing but coal until then?

By: Uncle B

Uncle B — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 15:34:53 +0000

Chinese designed, Thorium fueled LFTR reactors will become the ultimate electrical power source for the Pan-Eur-Asian Empire, now spreading by highways, by electric bullet train networks daisy-chained Pan-Eurasia as we speak. Fact: LFTR reactors cost X 10 less than American designs to build. Thorium fuel is much more plentiful, much cheaper, much easier to mine, process, than Uranium fuel for American designed reactors. LFTR reactor waste products safe, benign after only 300 years of storage. LFTR reactors produce no humanocidal plutonium. LFTR reactors operate at low pressures, temperatures – require no pressure dome at all. Google LFTR reactors, see for yourself! Also: Google Tsinghua University, China, pebble bed, gas reactors – see how far ahead they really are! American designed reactors responsible for Fuckoshima, even at this late date, meat there has been declared unsafe for human consumption due to radio-active contamination still leaking from the disabled reactors. Even Nissan motors moves to China as we speak. nuclear disaster not over, in fact, just starting. Fish from nearby oceans also inedible, not exportable. Canada plans Chinese LFTR reactors for Tar Sands Oil extraction as we speak.

By: DarkMan

DarkMan — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 01:49:23 +0000

Your billions of tax dollars have been given away to profitable oil companies, spent on wars to keep the oil flowing and to subsidize coal mining that’s destroying landscape and mountains and poisoning rivers.

By: MorinMoss

MorinMoss — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 00:14:25 +0000

The plus for wind farms is that when to come to end of life the decomm should be fairly easy. The concrete base can be left in the ground, most of the tower is recyclable as is the motor and (probably) the blades.
I don’t think they should be left to rust once their useful life is past – that’s easily changed by legislation.

By: Joe

Joe — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 19:57:01 +0000

NDK,
The actual amount of output at the wind sites in Wyoming which is one of the best wind resource areas is 42%. This means that even where the wind is more constant than most places, the output is below what the promoters of wind energy will tell you. Also the only reason that most power companies are building wind turbines are because there are a lot of subsities coming from the government( AKA you and I) to try and make them feasible. Otherwise, there would be no development. Another thing to think about is that every one of the turbines you see also use electricty when the wind is not blowing. Most people do not realize this. They must keep the lubricants heated and the computer systems that control the yaw etc. running. The ones in our area use on average, as much as an average household does. Think about where that power comes from. Yep, a coal fired power plant. You need to keep digging and finding out the real truth. Don’t alow yourself to be fooled.

By: Thomas | Electric Car

Thomas | Electric Car — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 17:06:01 +0000

Renewable energy sources are the future. Therefore every windmill, PV panel or biogas plant is a step into the right direction!

By: Petey

Petey — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 16:11:22 +0000

Yes, power companies will build these turbines, despite their inefficiency, if someone else (read: the public sector) subsidizes the revenue that goes unrecognized because of that inefficiency. But power companies are not building wind turbines -and will not build them- if such revenue is not present or compensated through subsidy.

If these turbines can be made efficient, I am all for them (although IMHO they could be a lot more picturesque). But the folks advocating the construction of these turbines appear to want to have their rhetorical cake and eat it, too. They want to argue on the one hand that these windmills should be built and subsidized despite their inefficiency so that the technology to make them more efficient will be more easily attained. Then when the things are built, they want to ignore the subsidy and argue that the turbines’ mere presence is proof of efficiency and therefore justification for building more. This is the grossest rhetorical disingenuity.

By: aaron

aaron — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 18:52:07 +0000

i like that