On my house, we have Solar Tubes which heat the house and provide all hot water.
Guess how much it cost us to heat our house last winter?
$3.00
Guess how much it cost us to heat our house last winter?
$3.00
Fusion reactors very much do exist in real life, outside of stars.max wrote:
I'd rather have fusion reactors, but sadly they don't exist in real life.
Nuclear power plants are still a risky business, look at Chernobyl, and closer to home, Three Mile Island. I agree Nuclear power is at the very least one way, if not the primary way forward in electricity production from alternative energy, but it is stupid to not recognize its downfalls.max wrote:
of course they are. All you ever hear are horror stories. Add to this that people have no idea how nuclear fission works. It's natural to be scared of things you don't understand. Hardly anyone does what I do. I STFU if I don't know know how something works. That's why I'll never tell you how to knit properly...
yes i do, some are treated like pests, some arent. they eat farmers crops so we shoot them, but in other places theyre fine.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Kangaroos? Do you have any personal experience? They're treated like pests in Austrailia, there must be a reason why, not to mention the problems with moving species around to places they are not meant to be. As an an environmental advocate you must know that.
It can be sorta stringy in placesTimmmmaaaaH wrote:
Kangaroo isnt too bad, it is stragne at first cause it looks like beef but has a very differnt texture.
I found it eatable and I am the pickiest eater I know.
CapnNismo wrote:
3) Solar technology - it's becoming cheaper and cheaper. There is a cell phone coming out with built in panels to charge itself. You can buy various models of solar chargers that are portable and connect to mp3 players, phones, etc. Numerous governments are giving out subsidies to citizens that buy solar panels for their homes. The technology is only getting better.
Not nessicilarly, my dad has a friend who solar paneled his home and ends up selling energy back to the energy company for extra cash.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Solar panels on small gadgets aren't going to make a lick of difference on a large scale. Home solar systems are a little better, but the only time solar energy is really efficient enough is on solar farms.
Last edited by theit57 (2008-07-04 22:36:19)
Yeah people in AZ have their roofs covered in solar panels (always sunny, usually no clouds) and yes they put power ON the grid and the company PAYS themtheit57 wrote:
CapnNismo wrote:
3) Solar technology - it's becoming cheaper and cheaper. There is a cell phone coming out with built in panels to charge itself. You can buy various models of solar chargers that are portable and connect to mp3 players, phones, etc. Numerous governments are giving out subsidies to citizens that buy solar panels for their homes. The technology is only getting better.Not nessicilarly, my dad has a friend who solar paneled his home and ends up selling energy back to the energy company for extra cash.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Solar panels on small gadgets aren't going to make a lick of difference on a large scale. Home solar systems are a little better, but the only time solar energy is really efficient enough is on solar farms.
theit57 wrote:
CapnNismo wrote:
3) Solar technology - it's becoming cheaper and cheaper. There is a cell phone coming out with built in panels to charge itself. You can buy various models of solar chargers that are portable and connect to mp3 players, phones, etc. Numerous governments are giving out subsidies to citizens that buy solar panels for their homes. The technology is only getting better.Not nessicilarly, my dad has a friend who solar paneled his home and ends up selling energy back to the energy company for extra cash.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Solar panels on small gadgets aren't going to make a lick of difference on a large scale. Home solar systems are a little better, but the only time solar energy is really efficient enough is on solar farms.
woo readingFlaming_Maniac wrote:
First of all, the cost for a solar system is still very, very high, namely in the battery storage necessary. Second, though at peak production times you may be able to sell electricity back to the grid depending on your setup, you don't have any production at night or on poor weather days. Without government subsidies solar energy in the residential sector isn't feasible, and even with subsidies the cost is still high.
I did just read an article that was saying the amount destruction to the environment due to nickel mining, exceeds the amount a normal gas car will produce in it's expected lifetime. Let me see if I can find it. I do know that nickel mining is really harsh and hard on the environment.Flaming_Maniac wrote:
Yeah, radiant barrier, that's what the stuff is called. We got that put in and additional foam insulation in our attics and it about halved our cooling costs I believe.Kmarion wrote:
I have radiant barrier + insulation (R-30 maybe). It makes a difference. The cost for cooling my 2k+ sqft house is the same as my old apt. It was half the size.Besides talking about a Hummer and not a Land Rover, your "source" is titled "Questionable report claims Hummer is greener than Prius". lolCapnNismo wrote:
Source for point #1: http://www.engadget.com/2007/03/24/ques … han-prius/
The Hummer will last longer than the Prius. Toyota says the Prius's battery will last 100k miles. Search around for more corroboration.So what makes them different from cattle? You have almost perfectly described cattle in the central U.S. Kangaroos still shit.CapnNismo wrote:
#2: Kangaroos are overpopulated in Australia. They can live just about anywhere and survive on just about any plant. Look at the Outback for crying out loud. When Australian farmers go out and shoot the Roos, they leave the bodies to just rot more often than not. That's perfectly good meat that could be put on the market and turn an easy profit. Kangaroo meat is almost 100% total "natural". There was one thing keeping them from that classification, but I can't remember what it was, but it was trivial. But the kangaroo is a free range animal and doesn't require much in the way of tending. Just a fence and enough grass and whatever to eat and water to drink.lolCapnNismo wrote:
#3: Maybe from person to person, but what if everything was moved to solar? Imagine the impact. In the personal home, you can take an electrical bill to almost NOTHING with solar cells.
First of all, the cost for a solar system is still very, very high, namely in the battery storage necessary. Second, though at peak production times you may be able to sell electricity back to the grid depending on your setup, you don't have any production at night or on poor weather days. Without government subsidies solar energy in the residential sector isn't feasible, and even with subsidies the cost is still high.So the people in an apartment are going to build a dam in their sink for their power? Stick a solar panel on the window? I'm going to build a line from my house to the nearby creek?CapnNismo wrote:
#4: Then use water energy or solar if you can't use wind.I would be interested in the performance in semi-extreme seasons.CapnNismo wrote:
#5: This house isn't even finished being built, yet. But he's moving in during the winter. Supposedly it harnesses all ambient heat and redirects it around the house. The guy runs a heating and cooling and plumbing business and he's self-installed everything. I know the man, he knows his shit.Is designed to look for very exotic particles that we have no expectation in the foreseeable future to have a practice purpose for. Putting our hope in advanced experimental physics to solve our energy problems later is irresponsible.CapnNismo wrote:
#7: It's in the future. LHC?
Hahahaha..... ahahahhahaa..Blehm98 wrote:
Energy goes in ---> moar energies come out, plus sum heliumsFlaming_Maniac wrote:
lolwutBlehm98 wrote:
positive net energy reaction...using dark energy would be nice
ZPM from stargate, that's dark energy i believe
edit: fusion reactors for the moment take more energy to run than they produce, resulting in a net energy production that is negative
tbh
yeah, we call them nukesFlaming_Maniac wrote:
Fusion reactors very much do exist in real life, outside of stars.max wrote:
I'd rather have fusion reactors, but sadly they don't exist in real life.
True. Since then reactor designs have evolved a lot. With modern reactors these accidents could be avoided. I'd certainly rather have the first world continue develop new designs instead of the Chinese, the north Koreans or the Iranians while we me futile efforts to set up a couple of windmills. In the end we need a something that can provide us with loads of reliable energy. With our technical knowledge you can either burn something or use nuclear power. All other sources won't solve our problem and themselves aren't without drawbacks. I would rather run the low risk of the Nuclear Plants than to burn coal with their huge environmental impact.Nuclear power plants are still a risky business, look at Chernobyl, and closer to home, Three Mile Island. I agree Nuclear power is at the very least one way, if not the primary way forward in electricity production from alternative energy, but it is stupid to not recognize its downfalls.max wrote:
of course they are. All you ever hear are horror stories. Add to this that people have no idea how nuclear fission works. It's natural to be scared of things you don't understand. Hardly anyone does what I do. I STFU if I don't know know how something works. That's why I'll never tell you how to knit properly...
daughters locked up in cellars. I like your thinkingPubic wrote:
Maybe we should put treadmill generators in our cellars, so that our daughters can do something productive during the day rather than just sitting round getting fat?
BRB BASEMENTmax wrote:
daughters locked up in cellars. I like your thinkingPubic wrote:
Maybe we should put treadmill generators in our cellars, so that our daughters can do something productive during the day rather than just sitting round getting fat?
lolmax wrote:
yeah, we call them nukesFlaming_Maniac wrote:
Fusion reactors very much do exist in real life, outside of stars.max wrote:
I'd rather have fusion reactors, but sadly they don't exist in real life.
fuck yeah!SEREMAKER wrote:
http://zedomax.com/blog/wp-content/uplo … fusion.jpg
AOL is a stupid blogger?CapnNismo wrote:
That link for the cars was the only one I could find. The Hummer and the Discovery are both used interchangeably a lot with that discussion. Now that the Hummer H1 is no longer in production, the Discovery is Greenpeace's latest target. I wish I could find the original report that I found, because it is rather interesting. But comparing the actual operational lives of the two vehicles is what they did. It's not my fault that the blogger that wrote that summary is a fucking idiot.
I would like to see how little fat the kangaroo has and how much it farts when kept in a ranch. Big lifestyle difference.CapnNismo wrote:
Kangaroo meat is ten times healthier than beef. Like a member said, virtually no fat. They can be considered almost "100% Natural" under the various government regulations because they're a free roaming animal. They're not kept in barns and cages and whatnot. Just turn them loose onto the field and let them run around and just live. It's also not only manure where all the gases come from. Cattle fart a lot and they do produce more than your average animal.
A stamping method has gotten the efficiency to around ~40%, up from around 10% on a typical solar panel. That efficiency is still very low, and panels with higher efficiency usually have a prohibitively high production cost.CapnNismo wrote:
Solar is very feasible. There are more efficient nanotech models running through testing and advanced R&D at the moment. The CEO of Google (or maybe his 2nd, but pretty sure the CEO) is helping to fund a lot of it. That stuff is supposed to bring up the efficiency of the systems by a rather high number ... I really need to keep these magazines or sites where I am reading this crap ...
You have to have batteries in the system no matter what, I said that in this thread, but batteries are very expensive. Falling back on the grid is fine for what most people are looking for, but the new alternative source of energy can't just "fall back" on coal power plants.CapnNismo wrote:
Once again, when you don't have favorable weather, you have BATTERIES. Or you can fall back on a city grid if you can't meet your own energy requirements for a short time period. But the Sun is pretty much always there. And in the night, how much of those 12 hours are you really using electricity??? Come on, you may not be producing, but you're not using it, either.
I really, really doubt he is getting that much money back from the power company. Significantly less than $100. If not, he must have very sunny conditions and moderate weather so his heating/cooling isn't running very much.CapnNismo wrote:
And the fact that you can sell the energy back to the rest of the community alone is worth something, dude. That helps pad the expense of the solar panels. Not only do the subsidies help, but there are tax breaks along with it. Like when the various hybrids came out in the USA the US govt was handing out rather large tax breaks in the beginning to folks who bought them. But the cost of new technology is always high. Look how expensive a PC used to be back in the day. Now they're so cheap that if it breaks, just take it to the local recycling center and go buy a new one!
Good luck convincing the urbanized countries of the West to move people out into villages to "harness the power of a windmill or a river"CapnNismo wrote:
Why does it have to be a single apartment building to harness the power of a windmill or a river? You build one thing that a whole group of people can live off of. Most settlements are all built around running water, chief. Hell, it's not like the Dutch are really doing anything with theirs at the moment ...