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Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electricity

D

DumbDumb2007

Commander
Can Windmills be built just off all US seashores to generate Electricty ?
East and West coasts and Gulf of Mexico mounted windmills like in Europe could generate great amounts of of electricity . The result would be new jobs, construction equipment sold,built,etc. Fuels sold to pwer the construction equipment and it would gear the country away from foreign oil.
The oil co's like Exxon,would profit by buying in to the massive project. It would be a WPA for our time.
The extra electric could be used any which way.
My one fantasy is to have the main highways have heating elements installed under the roadbed so in winter when snow, ice andfreezing rain comedown the roads would all melt and we can all avoid hopefully crashes.
Federal,state and local bonds could finance the project. Massive hydro electric dams could be built to help out with the country extra energy needs. some of the extar electricty could be used to power people's electric cars parked at the parking lots along teh beach and at civic centers. etc.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

Relatively small offshore "wind farms" have already faced opposition from environmentalists for the possibility that migrating birds will be injured by the rotating blades. Marine shipping interests and US Navy are concerned that the equipment would be hazards to navigation. Beach front resort operators and wealthy beach front residents object to the towering windmills spoiling their view.
 
DumbDumb2007 said:
Can Windmills be built just off all US seashores to generate Electricty ?
...
My one fantasy is to have the main highways have heating elements installed under the roadbed so in winter when snow, ice andfreezing rain comedown the roads would all melt and we can all avoid hopefully crashes.
Click to expand...

Here's a better idea: build lots of small windmills alongside/above the highways to generate power from the wind of cars and trucks roaring past. Some proposals:

http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/04/30/student-designs-highway-power/
http://www.inhabitat.com/2007/04/30/highway-wind-power/

With all the gazillions of cars roaring along American roads, this is potentially an enormous untapped resource.

And how about a piezoelectric layer under the roads that generates electricity from the compression of cars and trucks driving over it?
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

If you're going to go that far, put magnets in cars and induce voltage in coils under the road. ;)
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

Actually micro windmills make a lot of sense. As for the coast line another option are the buoy types that bob up and down in the water and then create electrictiy
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

I've already mentioned thermal solar (concentrated with parabolic mirrors, which is happening in Algeria, Morrocco, Neveda, etc.), but another thing that looks very promising and is getting funding now from the National Science Foundation is called JTEC, which is a solid-state heat engine that converts heat from sunlight to electricity at 60% efficiency.

http://www.johnsonems.com/jhtec.html
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

How about building a factory full of exercise bikes each one capable of generating electricity and take all the unemployed people in the country and have them sit on the bikes and pedal to generate electricity for the rest of the country, the amount of money they get paid would be dependent on how much electricity they generated.

If they start getting really tired pedaling then they can get off their bikes and start spinning a circular crank with a handle on to keep generating power until their legs recover.

Not only is it a clean way of producing electricity it also lowers unemployment to zero!!! Wicked stuff!!!
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

Don't forget to get the kids in there as well, oh, and seperate the parents so they cannot breed, we can't have the feckless unemployed reproducing.

I have to admit, the idea of re-introducing workhouses to solve global warming does have an element of genius to it.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

USS KG5 said:
Don't forget to get the kids in there as well, oh, and seperate the parents so they cannot breed, we can't have the feckless unemployed reproducing.
Click to expand...

Are you crazy! we want them to breed! the more workers we have the more power can be generated!
;)

I have another idea, imagine a MASSIVE wind turbine with just a single blade, on the end of this blade is a small weight, start the blade facing upwards and let it drop, the blade thanks to gravity will fall towards the ground spinning a generator thus producing power, as the blade begins to lose momentum a small amount of power being generated by the pedalers could be used to push the blade back to its upright position and then it can be allowed to drop again thus producing even more power!!!!!!

I'M A GENIUS!

Another idea is to have a wall mounted generator in everyones house, the generater will be within the wall and a handle on the outside, everytime someone wants to boil the kettle the person could spin this huge handle and charge a big battery allowing several uses of the kettle.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

Heck, why not just harness the power of masturbation - find a way to use all that endless supply of energy and good bye global warming.

The problem though is that everyone would have to put money into a fund for planting forests to offset their "tissue footprint".
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

heres an idea why dont we ignor the enviromentalist, resort operators and as hard as it is for me to say this cause iam navy, the navy and build them anyway...this is one of those cases where the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few also geo-thermal boring and orbital solar power stations would be good thing also
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

There has to be a way to compromise between all of the varying interests on this, doesn't there? Look at the wind farms in the Mojave, for instance. Why not put solar stations there as well? We know the winds are there to generate the electricity, and would do a fair job of keeping the solar cells clean. Servicing could be done to coincide with both forms of generator. :vulcan:

I love the idea of orbital solar power stations, but how would you get the energy back to Earth? And then figure in servicing missions, possibly an on-station crew, and I've got to wonder about the cost/benefit ratio there.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

TerriO said:
I love the idea of orbital solar power stations, but how would you get the energy back to Earth?
Click to expand...

Microwave beams or low-power lasers. They'd have to be low enough in power to be non-ionizing, so as not to cause environmental damage, but lower frequencies require larger antenna farms on the surface. The usual proposal is to build large collector grids in desert areas.

And then figure in servicing missions, possibly an on-station crew, and I've got to wonder about the cost/benefit ratio there.
Click to expand...

We're talking about a fairly simple kind of satellite here -- all you need is solar collectors, converters, a microwave antenna, and some kind of attitude control to keep the station pointed the right way. It's a lot simpler than a lot of the satellites we already have in orbit, so there's no need for a permanent crew.

As for servicing, the main thing that makes that costly is the high expense of launching spacecraft from Earth, and that's also one of the main obstacles to developing the technology in the first place. If we can develop some kind of economical "space highway" mechanism, like a space elevator, skyhook, or laser launch system, then we make both the establishment and the maintenance of these stations economical at the same time.

The only other major obstacle is the expense of building solar cells, but I think there are some new types of solar cells being developed that could solve that problem.


EDIT: Oh, and there already are a number of solar power stations in the Mojave:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_plants_in_the_Mojave_Desert
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

If you read the Book The High Frontier it goes into detail about the Solar power stations these things would be huge. Another part of the plan would also to be to get a sizeable portion of man into space.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

^^I've read the book. I own the book.

But just because they're big doesn't mean they aren't simple. They're just arrays of collectors and transmitters; the only reason they're huge is that there are many of each.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

The big killer that no one talks about: MAINTENANCE.

These things do not run forever (or long) with no one taking care of them.

And just talk to any homeowner here in Florida what any good hurricane will do to ANY structure here on the coastline. You going to replace thousands of windmills every year that you lose from storms and hurricanes.

.....wind power proponents don't want you to think about these things.....
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

how about wave power they are subsurface structers
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

Actually, the worst places to put wind farms are places prone to really powerful winds. You want to put them in places that have fairly consistent strong winds that don't tend to go hurricane or tornado force.
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

what about wave power that would be a good solution
 
Re: Windmills built along all Americ Coasts to make electri

My question on wave power would be how to do it without disrupting shipping or boating lanes?
 
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