Frivolous

KAG

I this mournings Cape Cod Times (5/3) UMASS-Lowell wind turbines create 13% of university's electricity. They say it is enough renewale energy to power ALL 8 residence halls. Guess the wind was blowing just enough.

KAG

Just spent last few hours reading the wall about global warming and residential snow melts. I am the one that had the odasity to ask about solar snow melts! Well think of this! Why is it when global warming comes up we try to find ways to keep burning the fuel and save MONEY? I'll tell you, because we believe we can re-invent the wheel. NO not improve it but re-invent it. Let's look at basic high school econamices, supply and demand! If you lower the demand the price will follow, just ask the railroad owners from the turn of the century, 1900. You would think they would be the owners of the airlines today, or how about the local farmers and the super markets. They both tried to re-invent the wheel. While many of the replies were willing to point out the waste, some where monday mourning quarterbacking. Able to point out the faults, but have no solutions. I go back to the question, can solar (free energy source) be intergrated with snow melt? What I got was a pompus how can you think of that as a need. Well at least I asked the question, you just sat there and apoint yourselves king. The champ scores a first round T.K.O..

KAG

Just spent last few hours reading the wall about global warming and residential snow melts. I am the one that had the audacity to ask about solar snow melts! Well think of this! Why is it when global warming comes up we try to find ways to keep burning the fuel and save MONEY? I'll tell you, because we believe we can re-invent the wheel. NO not improve it but re-invent it. Let's look at basic high school econamices, supply and demand, Or to simlify it want and need. I want a million dollars, I need $1,000 to pay the rent. Has anyone gone in to a store that offered 0% financing with no payments for 12 months. This is not because they like you. It is designed to get you to spent more than you can. While many of the replies were willing to point out some options, some where monday mourning quarterbacking. Able to point out the faults, but have no solutions. I go back to the question, can solar (free energy source) be intergrated with snow melts? What I got was a pompous how can you think of that as a need at this time. Well at least I asked the question, you just sat there and apoint yourselves king. I know that maybe my friends money could be spent better elsewere, but that is not the question. Just like do you really need a plasma or a high def. T.V. do either improve your life, health or global warming. You may not have either but I'll bet you waste just as much natural resources as my friend with his snow melt. As I said I live on Cape Cod and we are being asked to have a giant wind farm for global warming issues, lower energy costs. It is a bad idear because it does not address the prolem, you could put 1000 giant windmills and as long as we over consume we will need 10000 more.

The champ has spoken

Brad White_63

Well, you did ask for opinions....

Your original question was:

I was talking to a friend about installing a snow melt in thier driveway of thier new home. But with the fuel cost increases I am reluctent to do so. My question is could a solar system be designed to lower costs? I haven't installed to many snow melts and do not know much about them. The system (if installed) would be located on Cape Cod MA. Would like too know what any of you think.

I think the responses are par for the course on The Wall, a stream of conciousness sometimes that meanders and circumnavigates a core question; it goes where the concensus takes it. Some technical, some philosophical some a mixture of both. Nothing I saw warrants inferring self-appointment as kings, Monday Morning Quarterbacking and being pompous. Far be it from me to attribute motives onto others. Some answers are not just yesses' and no's.

I see from the responses that the core question was answered, that integrating solar into snow melt is not tremendously practical because the sun and blizzards do not coincide and the storage to transfer that energy to the time of need would be quite large... beyond that, people have strong feelings, why might that upset you? (I say "upset" not to infer any motive on your part, but you did write the above for some reason.)

My $0.02

Brad

scott inM.E.

Solar and snowmelt..

Brad, I thought the same analogy with solar but just recently I came back from the viessmann product's training center in warwick and I have a new way of thinking. Europe winter's are far colder than newengland and their solar panel system's used as other option's with your fossil fuel system are proven. It may be newer to us but this will be a popular alternative in our near future.

Viessmann web site has great info, please check it out.

Brad White_63

Thanks, Scott

I was not dismissing the notion, just that for the average HO with concerns about cost as this seemed to be, it would not be a first choice, could be done but what would be the ramifications.

What northern Europe has is a nice angle to the sun (panels more vertical). One of the solar aspects most people do not think about is that the North Pole has the highest solar gain through vertical glass. (All windows face south and the sun hits them near to perpendicular).

I do want to attend more Viessmann training (solar among them) and their solar line, like the rest of their product line, is astounding.

Thanks for bringing it up!

Brad

scott inM.E.

Thanks for bring it up..

this is why I like this site, there are alot of idea's out there along with problem's and solution's. I just shut up and read on this site and can relate to some of the post's. This site has some good tech related info transfer, It's nice to be reminded we all have good and bad day's. Positive feed back get's us through troublshooting faster.

Brad White_63

Isn't this the way, Scott?

I have to thank Dan and company for creating such a forum, greater than the sum of it's parts. A Critical Mass of knowledge. And, might I add, of humanity.

Brad

joel_19

windfarm

While i whole heartedly agree that we must lower our consumption , i completely disagree with your notion about the wind farm. We must move away from dino power and wind and solar can help us do that. It is amazingly ironic that enviormentalist want to ban the wind farm and some even want to ban solar arays because they are "Ugly". Come on!
This is why main stream america will not and does not get behind the movement as a hole they find those notions extreemly hypocritical . Just like my clients who buy a Prius and live in Mcmansions that the wind blows through with 1000$ a month gas bills and every light and TV is on and they have 600-700$ electric bills.

We need a comprehensive plan to move away from dino power and need it now (should have started 20 years ago). i hope the goverment says too bad to you guys and puts up the wind farm without years of debate they should just get it done!

Where i live off Cape over the last 15 years we have had 8 yup 8 new power plants built .Alot of that goes to the Cape as your power plant can't keep up. So you don't want the wind farm ?? No problem we don't want 8 power plants. How about we turn a couple off. You want to somehow force people to conserve ? Admitadly a noble idea . How about we start by unplugging Cape Cod from our power plants up here until you guys say yes to the wind farm!

Tony Conner

Windmills

Here's a bit below from the article on the power supply in New England. The link is:

http://www.tradefairgroup.com/powermag/powernews.asp?d=042706&a=11

**If the region meets greenhouse gas emissions goals with wind power rather than nuclear generation, it will need to build large-scale wind projects, "with weather-dependent output, spread over some 650,000 acres of land or water at a cost of more than $10 billion," according to the report.**

You do see the two key words "weather dependent" right? No wind, no juice. Everybody is just sitting around on battery power until the wind picks up? I don't see that going over very well...particulary with institutional and industrial operations.

The other bit is the "floorspace" required. 650,000 acres. That's a lot of acres. Who's acres?

How many MW from the windmills in the sea? How hard does the wind have to blow to get that output? How many hours a month does it blow that hard? What's the installed cost?

8 new power plants. What fuels them? How many MW are they?

S Ebels

KAG

Short answer to your question on using solar to run or augment your snow melt. Yes it can be done. The issue becomes what are you willing to spend in order to make it work? A snow melt system that will keep up with snow fall rates in your area 85-90% of the time will eat btu's at the rate of 120-130 per sq ft............minimum. Total average radiation available in the Cape Cod area is 3-4kwh/square meter/day. So roughly speaking, (very roughly, I'm doing this from memory and sans calculator) you might look for an ouput of 25,000 btu's per day from a 2 meter solar panel. Do the math. As you can see from that, the sq ft of your solar array would be huge. Then, as said before you would have to install a storage tank for those btu's because the sun don't shine when it snows More fun! It's just not real practical.

BTW your question is a valid one, not frivolous at all. You have to ask questions like this in order to understand how stuff works. More people should be thinking along these lines.

Add up all the power and btu's required for our present life style here in the US and you begin to see the validity of what Tony is saying in regards to alternatives being able to make a dent in our fossil fuel use.
The GW threads make for some interesting reading

Tony Conner

You'll Notice...

... the wording from the article:

**If the region meets greenhouse gas emissions goals with wind power rather than nuclear generation, it will need to build large-scale wind projects, "with weather-dependent output, spread over some 650,000 acres of land or water at a cost of more than $10 billion," according to the report.**

It talks about "meeting greenhouse gas emissions goals..." My understanding of how these goals are set are that the gov't abritrarily says to the utilities "you have to have XX% of your new generating capacity as *renewable*. So what the utilites are left with is constructing solar/windpower installations for purely political reasons - they know they aren't going to get enough power out of these things to do - well, anything really. The utilities are being legislated into constructing do-nothing facilities so the politicians can get a photo-op. The utilities then have to construct the REAL power station somewhere else, to keep the lights on when the wind isn't blowing, and yes, even when the wind IS blowing.

Ron Schroeder

Just a thought, not a sujestion

Would it be prctical to make a tank that was under driveway say as an air matres disign that got heated by the blacktop directly and would radiate at night and when it was snowing.

joel_19

wind

On the Mass southeast cost the wind is almost always blowing and that's on land. our familly has a place on the water so i grew up on boats . i can only remeber a few days in my entire life when the wind wasn't whipping right along off the coast. my only concern would be our noreasters and huricanes . The noreaster that sunk the Andrea Gail (Perfect Storm movie) Did really trip the wave buoys at 100ft . Granted that was further off shore but still makes you wonder what would happen....

joel_19

good thought

I saw an experimental road in europe someplace where they where absorbing sun light all summer in huge tanks and pumping it back out in the winter to melt snow. It probably wouldn't work in winter on a day/night basis . I know my drive way is frozen zolid the ice won't melt off so no way is it absorbing much sun.

Tony Conner

How...

... many hours a day does the wind blow like that? Do the math for the power output. Then look at what the power demand is, for your jurisdiction. The amount of juice you get from the windmills won't even be a blip on the chart. Do the math on the installed cost, as well. All will be revealed. I've done the math. It was VERY disappointing. A whole lotta money for a whole lotta nuthin'.

"Perfect storm" - gotta watch stuff like that. They can be too much of a good thing. Even the little old jobs who's skeletal remains dot farm country had an overspeed mechanism on them. It would flip them out of the wind so they didn't necessarily destroy themselves. I'm sure the new ones also have that feature, but what about hurricanes? Will they stand up - literally? Solar panels in a hurricane or tornado ... THAT should be spectacular.

S Ebels

Is it any wonder

Quote from the article as follows:

"Energy planners have been warning that New England needs more fuel diversity. About 60% of New England's 350 generation plants rely on gas and oil. Natural gas, alone, is the primary fuel for 40% of the region's total generating capacity, and sets the price for wholesale electricity about 85% of the time. High natural gas prices this winter caused retail rates to rise as much as 100% for some large customers."

Wow! Is it any wonder that natural gas rates are going up almost monthly? NO

Does it take an MIT grad to figure out that as long as this practice continues, gas rates will continue to soar? NO

Isn't it obvious that KW generating capacity from different sources has to be brought on line? YES

I suspect the same scenario can be transplanted to about any geographic location in the US.

Constantin

I didn't think it was that bad...

... I thought the installed cost per MW of juice compared quite nicely to extant power supplies. Trouble is, typically both plants need to be built, to keep the folk energized when father wind does not blow. That said, a few miles offshore there is almost always a good breeze to be head.

As for standing up in a storm, I doubt most of our homes would survive a direct hit by a tornado. That is, unless you live in an earth ship or reinforced concrete structure with a solid roof. The stirred-up debris alone will make your windows blow out, and then the real fun begins.

Tony Conner

Here's A Link...

... how many people do you know that would actually buy & install one of these?

http://www.deanbennett.com/windmills.htm

You can buy the pump separately, but there would be no reason folks couldn't rig a generator to run off it. By the way, look at the GPM, even at "0" PSIG discharge pressure. All you can really do, is fill an open to atmosphere grade level tank. It is free to operate though.

Mind the "flicker factor" in your neighbour's windows For those who don't know what "flicker factor" is, it's the strobe light effect you get with the sun shining through the rotating windmill blades. It's particularly apparent at sunup & sundown.

Tony Conner

Here's Another

http://www.lindsaybks.com/bks3/wmotor/index.html

Folks, so inclined, can build their own. With a 16 MPH wind, you can generate 75% of the power required to light up a 40 watt bulb

Generators are better now, so if the output has doubled for the same wind conditions, we can go all the way to full power on a single 60 watt bulb. (When the wind is blowing hard enough.)

People will simply NOT be able to run the electric can opener with the light bulb on, though. Sacrifices, sacrifices... "Kill the light, I have open this can of chicken noodle soup." Better be quick, if the wind drops, they'll be in the dark with nothing to eat How much power does it take to microwave soup, anyway? Uh-oh...

Unknown

C'mon Tony

Did you read the whole article ?

" These mills may not be as hot as modern designs, but building one of these babies should be relatively easy and low-cost. Great designs from a simpler time with simpler materials. Low cost. Get a copy. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 softcover 88 pages well-illustrated "

Seems more geared toward hobby enthusaiasts than people who want to produce their own power , don't you think ? Or are you suggesting even newer designs have this type of output ?

I just watched Bill Maher and Ian Mckellan stated every new home in England has solar electric roofs . Don't know how true that is , but what if most homes in the US had solar roofs ? Of course it won't satisfy our needs totally , there is no one cure-all for our energy problems .

Tony Conner

Do You...

... really figure that the eff has more than doubled? Hey, quadruple it...and scale it up. Look at what you get for what you pay. And you only get even THAT when the wind is blowing.

Unknown

Yeah

I know , I know . You only get THAT when the wind is blowing . You've said it more than once .

What about battery storage ? Couldn't a bank of batteries conceivably carry a home overnight ( when the demand is lower ) , or carry the home when the wind isn't blowing - coupled with a small windmill ?

I don't know how the efficiency has increased , but I will do some research . But look where you're getting your facts - a glorified online pamphlet . Who knows how old this design is ? It's more of a novelty item than a true electric generator .

My question to you Tony is should we abandon the idea of using wind and solar to supplement our energy needs just because they cannot cover the whole need ?

Tony Conner

What...

... I was actually trying to do, was give people without a lot of technical background in this kind of thing, something on a scale they can relate to - their house & light bulbs. You can look up lots of info and output tables in the old Audels books - The Millwrights & Mechanics Guide, Pumps Hydraulics & Compressors, and the Plumbers & Steamfitters Guide all have a section on windmills. A lot of the info is overlap, but they've each got some stuff the other two don't. Granted, they're old books, but the main thing I've noticed with respect to most of the info in publications like this, is how LITTLE things have really changed.

What I object to, regarding solar & windmill power, is how it's being used by politicians & the media. It's being held out as some kind of real alternative to the problems at hand. In fact, this technology is little more than a "virtual" power supply. It's like being on a sinking cruise ship, with a set of PICTURES of lifeboats & lifejackets, as opposed to anything that'll really do much good when you find yourself in the water. Maybe if we duct tape all of the pictures of the lifeboats together, we can build something that floats?

Politicians get elected by telling people what they want to hear, not the truth. Tell 'em the truth, and you'll be rewarded by being voted out of office. I'm not running for any office, and I don't work in the power generation biz anymore. But I am telling people what I believe to be the truth about this technology. There's a reason all of those old windmills on farms are just sitting there, unused & rusting away.

Tony_23

I checked out

Windmill setups about a year ago. The avg windspeed on "the hill" is 12 MPH. At 10 MPH, a 5KW set would provide 1/3 of our needs per month. We use about 500KWH/mo. A KWH w/ taxes is 15.5 cents. The equipment w/o leads to the house was $4500. I would need to install it or pay someone to. The mast would be 40 ft tall. It would be 3-400 ft from the house.

It would take 15 years to pay for just the windmill and generator and tower. I'm betting it would need repair before then.

If the huge systems they are proposing for public consumption pay back like this, they're nuts. And, government subsidies shouldn't be given, period. That's MY MONEY. If I wanted it frittered away, I'd do it myself, thank you. See how many get built w/o subsidies

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David_5

Wind

I guess the what your saying is we should just burn oil till it's gone and then give up. When I read the Audel books I see people must have used windmills to solve a local problem. They were widely used to pump water. Since they are repeatedly mentioned in the books, there must have been many winmills doing alot of work. I too looked into a windmill for my house. It won't work, the cost is way to high. A generator, burning gas or oil, also won't work, that cost is also too high. If a power plant is scaled up then the costs come down. Wind, petro, or solar. The government as wasted plenty on other fuel sources so it is ok to spend or waste some on wind and solar.

David

Tony Conner

There..

... certainly were a very large number of windmills on farms. They date from a time before electrical power was widely available, particularly in rural areas. Having a windmill meant you didn't have to hand-pump water for livestock. As long as the wind blew hard enough for maybe 15 or 20 hours a week to keep the water trough full enough, then you were all set. If you could avoid spending that many hours on the end of a pump handle - wow, that was a good thing. More than enough manual labour anyway.

However, as soon as power arrived, people soon discovered that for 5 - 10% of the cost of a windmill pump, I can buy an electrically driven one that will just plug into the wall outlet. For a few cents in operating costs, I can get way more GPM, at a pressure that I can actually use to send this water somewhere (possibly to even to the house), and I can do this anytime I want - I don't have to wait for the wind to pick-up.

A windmill won't have enough output to power your house. You CAN power your house with an engine driven generator. That's the big difference. If you could burn coal for this, the operating costs would just plummet. And that, you CAN scale up, very nicely. When you scale up windmills, you spend a ton of cash on them, and you still don't have enough power, even when the wind is up. And you have to spend a ton more cash installing duplicate generating plants so the power stays on all the time, to places like hospitals, factories, and even your house when the wind isn't blowing. Coal or nuke is really the only way to cost effectively generate large amounts of power, unless you live somewhere where there's enough falling water to keep things juiced-up. Most people don't live in places like that, though.

Tony_23

Your words, not mine

I didn't even mention oil. I did the research and the math on a windmill project for my home. If it won't do one house how's more and bigger going to do it more economically ?

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Tony_23

Falling water

Unfortunately people don't live near it, but snail darters do

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Larry Weingarten

If a house...

... is designed to be ultra efficient, it falls within the range of wind or photovoltaics to power it. The house I'm just finishing is off-grid and needs only 630 watts of panel to power it. Because it's efficient, all the power stuff added up didn't run over $6000. I'll add that there is a 200 gallon propane tank, which hopefully will only need yearly filling.

I'm fairly certain that you would find the house no different to live in than most, except that it's quieter and possibly a bit warmer ;~)

Yours, Larry

Tony Conner_2

Do...

... you have a house full of kids, Larry? I suspect not:) What's the climate like where you live?

David_5

wind

Actually I can buy a windmill that would provide all the power for my house. It would be part of a system that would also have to store the power. It is too expensive to do, as you know. I can burn coal to generate electrcity for my house. That would also be too expensive. Wind and solar power can only be supplemental sources. The benefits of no emmsions for even a portion of our demand should not be dismissed. We will end up going back to nuclear energy becuase of the potential. We will continue to burn coal, but I doubt we'll ever see it burn clean.

P.S. In my Audel book it descibes a doemestic water system, under pressure, powered by a windmill. They weren't just for the livestock.

David

Brad White_9

Who need the wind farm when our Sheenya Shenatah

Ted Kennedy, can still bellow from his front porch

Tony Conner_2

So...

... the windmill domestic water system would incorporate the storage tank? You do realize how high you'll need to put that tank to provide any kind of pressure, right? The output of those pumps is based on "0" psi discharge. As the discharge pressure increases, the GPM just plummets, as you have limited horsepower to deploy. It's kind of like the large scale wind farms. Yes, it's technically possible to do it. Unfortunately, it makes no sense in practical terms. It's a huge amount of resources put into something with very little return. It's like a lot of the more marginal safety initiatives "If we save just one life..." If they'd spent the same money fixing a bad curve on a nasty chunk of road, they'd save a dozen lives a year from people not getting killed in car accidents. But that's not "sexy" and it doesn't make the news. Take the billions of dollars being put into VERY marginal output windfarms and spend it on clean coal research, or at least build a plant that generates some useful amount of power without burning natural gas or #2 oil.

ScottMP

So ...

Just so I understand Tony .... All these people in Europe are wrong ??

I saw these all over the place.

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Tony Conner_2

The Gov't...

...subsidies for this stuff is huge. You also need to look at the populations & industrial bases for some of these countries. In 1999 there were 5.3 million people in Denmark. Wow... What's the manufacturing/industrial output of Denmark? And it's not nearly like all of the Danes are behind this power source either. Lots of controversy about people farming subsidies rather than the wind, and having to build duplicate power plants for - Ron Jr. doesn't like it when I keep repeating it - times when the wind isn't blowing.

Look at the power demand for the jurisdiction where you live. Now look at what you can realistically get out of wind power. It's like somebody saying that they're going to fill-in the Grand Canyon with a round-mouth shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Larry Weingarten

Your suspicions...

... are accurate. No human kids. Climate is generally mild with highs up to 105 and lows into the teens. Perhaps we need to design differently for households with out kids. My house couldn't take a lot of plug loads without added electrical input, but that would be easy to add. Heating system wouldn't care. Refrigerator is gas. Plenty of solar hot water. I don't think it would be too hard to ramp up to "kid enabled".

Yours, Larry

Tony Conner_2

You're...

... running a washing machine for a family with 3 kids aged 4, 2 and a newborn - off solar panels? Really? The hot water and the machine itself?

My kids are grown now, but my wife made the effort not to use disposable diapers. The kids were spread out like the ages above. When the kids were little, she did 5 loads of laundry a DAY. She figures that there's a forest somewhere that she personally saved

joel_19

tony

You keep coming back to the money side of it and how much power demand we have . My take is the money should not and does not matter. We have to face reality of shrinking energy in the face of global demand . It's like winning WW2 loosing is not an option. We must drastically reduce the amount of power that we use and must begin to incorporate other sources and encourage their development .We can spend it now or fight a war in the very not too distant future with China for control of what remains and what's THAT gonna cost .

Tony Conner

You Know...

... that there's another "Tony", right? We're not the same guy.

As long as I'm here, I have a question. What is the peak load for the utility the supplies your power? I think it's the "New England Power Alliance" -

http://www.newenglandenergyalliance.org/

Looks like the peak is just under 30,000 MW. Figure out how many windmills that is.

The article out of Power Magazine is here -

http://www.tradefairgroup.com/powermag/powernews.asp?d=042706&a=11

Ed_26

consumtion

exactly right! we MUST reduce our consumtion. this is the fact of the matter. why do 2 people need 3000 sq.ft. to live in? especially when the building eff. is poor (our codes suck!) what we need is for our gov't(s) to suck it up & tell the mfg's to build only high e equipment & if subsidizing is going to happen, it must be for the best available. I cannot understand why a domestic water heater that is 70%eff. is still being installed when "we have the technology" to improve!