The scam of rooftop windpower generation

[Mary Fisher]

While there are limitations to wind power, this blanket condemnation
overstates the negatives. In very good sites, with large and advanced
turbines it is a commercially viable proposition. And it can also be a
practical energy source in remote locations, especially if reliable solar
energy is not available.

Yes. Good installers will tell city dwellers that, we were.

One promising form of wind power that is getting a more serious look now
is wave power.

I do agree, however, that nuclear needs to be considered more seriously.
Chernobyl and Three Mile Island are examples of how not to do nuclear, but
there are much better designs. And the waste problem can be managed.

Yes, but Three Mile Island isn't a good 'bad' example. Nobody died as a
result of that leak.

Far more people have died and are dying as a result of coal mining and
probably even oil excavation.

I support nuclear but that doesn't mean that I as an individual have no part
to play in the scheme of things.

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

I fully agree.

I should get electricity, but by nearest neighbours should be
turned off.

They are wankers, anyway.

Don't they turn off the light to do that?

 

[Mary Fisher]

On a positive note, for every purveyor of snake-oil, there are at least
two very good companies looking after their (and our) customers!

There might even be three - we had one!

I hope it won't be long before the media get their heads round the idea
that a roof-mounted wind turbine for every home is not the panacea for
climate change they currently think it is. There are plenty of other ways
to play your part in conserving energy.

Yes, and I think we should, but many seem opposed to it :-(

 

[Derek Broughton]

I love rockwool - very difficult to get in Nova Scotia, though.
LOL. What a fine example of different building techniques in the UK &
Canada. Here single glazed windows are almost always a major source of
heat loss.

But they are a source of discomfort which makes people turn up the heat.


Depends how you do it. We did ours ourselves, fitting factory made to
measure dg panes into existing wooden frames. The best of all worlds,
inexpensive, no ugly plastic, no cutting down of light ingress because of
wide frames and instant comfort.

Yes, we've done that very cheaply too. Actually buying single panes of
glass here is just not done. I don't know if I could get it from the local
hardware store, but it's a custom order from a glass shop.

 

[Mary Fisher]

I love rockwool - very difficult to get in Nova Scotia, though.

It's provided by the installers here

LOL. What a fine example of different building techniques in the UK &
Canada. Here single glazed windows are almost always a major source of
heat loss.

They are here too but the official line is that they're not. I have no idea
why that's said.

Yes, we've done that very cheaply too. Actually buying single panes of
glass here is just not done. I don't know if I could get it from the
local
hardware store, but it's a custom order from a glass shop.

There are other uses for glass though ... recently we've bought single glass
for the greenhouse, picture framing, shelf lining ... there must be other
applications.

Mary

 

[samuel chamberlain]

Well........

I had thought that instead of 10 householders buying doubtful rooftop turbines @
£1,600 ea they could club together to buy *one* decent one for £16,000.

Well.... It seems that would buy a 20kW turbine fom these guys, but not the
grid-tie inverter.
http://www.energyenv.co.uk/WindPowerKits.asp

Just a thought. You'd need to find somewhere to install it of course.


Graham

just to butt in : surely the real problem (in the uk) is bad planning
law that lets n.i.b.y-ism run the show . so when a wind farm is planned
it very rarely gets off the ground , this of cause drives people to try
to take matters into there own hands and you end up with turbines
strapped to buildings .

 

[Mary Fisher]

If only.
Unfortunately, it's quite a large job.

I think I must have misunderstood. You're not having your cavity walls
filled, sorry. That really is NOT a large job.

Not to mention a complete rewire at the same time, and all of the little
jobs that needed done at some point, which logically is at this time.

Those 'little jobs' can double the time and more than double the mess. I
vowed I'd never have re-wiring done again :-(

And I'm on a severe budget, so the simple quick solutions are often out
of my price range.

Aye, I'm glad I have Spouse ...

Mary

 

[Derek Broughton]

It's provided by the installers here

I talked to an executive at one of the big building supply companies and he
explained that he could ship twice as much Fiberglass insulation for the
same price as rockwool (it compresses better) and the shipping costs were
just too high from the nearest manufacturer (about 2000km).

They are here too but the official line is that they're not. I have no
idea why that's said.

Well, they're not that big a deal when, as I understand it, there's still a
lot of uninsulated homes in the UK. Once you have decent insulation in the
walls - and air flow barriers - then single glazed windows are a big deal.

There are other uses for glass though ... recently we've bought single
glass for the greenhouse, picture framing, shelf lining ... there must be
other applications.

There are - but I swear it's easier to get sealed double-glazed units at any
size than a single pane of glass around here.

 

[Robert McCall]

Pro nuclear..?? I must be in the 1950's. Umm.... maybe you forgot, there
is one important thing VERY wrong with nuclear power. Nuclear power looks
good on paper.. the science behind it idolizes it.. it appeals to our
techno-ego's... who can resist..?!! But life is about balances. Where
there's pro, there's con. And when I think con, I think of Hanford,
Washington. I'm downwind from there (and eventually everyone else is
too)... and sometimes I don't sleep too well at night.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/nuke27.shtml

 

[Mary Fisher]

I don't think so.
Angle grinding off 60cm*10cm*60cm of brick, while accidentally having
the extractor fan going backwards really produces quite a lot of mess

We've decided, in our dotage, that when we do anything from now on it will
be permanent, it will have to see us out. I'm fed up of living on a building
site/plumbers' warehouse/decorators' showroom.

Nothing fashionable, everything easily livable-with - but it has to work as
well. So far it's working. We only have three bedrooms, the dining room, the
hall, stairs and landing, paving the garden paths and terrace, re-roofing
the big shed - then we can sit back and enjoy.

Or enjoy the long rest in our boxes

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

Though considerably younger, I'm heading the same way.
For example, I'm considering leading the gable, to fix that for the long
term, rather than re-rendering.

Oh bugger! I'd forgotten the flaunching :-( And some pointing on the ridge
tiles ...

At the moment being annoyed at the price of lead roofing material, and
wondering if scrappies have suitable non-antimony contaminated lead, to
do the lead sheet casting thing.

You'd probably have to catch 'em quick ...

Mary

 

[Mary Fisher]

That's because your fear is irrational. The most dangerous form of power
generation that we know of is hydroelectric. Dams don't fail often, but
when they do...

Coal mining is very dangerous too, it and its by-products have probably
killed more people over the years than burst dams.

I say "that we know of" because we don't even know the NAMES of all the
stuff that comes out of the stack of a coal-fired power plant.

As for radiation, there are three and only three problems associated with
radiation: Radiation posioning, cancer, and genetic mutation. With
radiation posioning, you either get over it or you die. We know more about
cancer than almost any other disease. There has never been a case of a
genetically mutated fetus being born. The problems, then, with nuclear
power are known and manageable.

You speak of balances. If you are willing to accept the death rate
associated with the mining of coal to power electric plants and if the
death rate attributable to nuclear power can be shown to be far, far less,
would you then accept nuclear power as acceptable?

No, I didn't think so.

The French seem to be quite happy with it.

Mary

 

[Robert McCall]

There has never been a case of a genetically mutated fetus being born.

Google "chernobyl mutations".

The problems, then, with nuclear power are known and manageable.

"Bury and forget" is not managing.

You speak of balances. If you are willing to accept the death rate
associated with the mining of coal to power electric plants and if the
death rate attributable to nuclear power can be shown to be far, far less,
would you then accept nuclear power as acceptable?

No, I didn't think so.

Nope, I wouldn't. Read this: ". . . the number of children and
grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or
with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in
comparison with natural health hazards, but this is not a natural health
hazard--and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life,
or the malformation of even one baby--who may be born long after we are
gone--should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not
merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."

-- President Kennedy, June, 1963

 

[Eeyore]

Google "chernobyl mutations".

I saw a documentary about Prypiat ( the town that housed the Chernobyl workers )
recently.

Apparently the local wildlife is thriving and there's no evidence of mutations.

Graham

 

[Eeyore]

Google "chernobyl mutations".


"Bury and forget" is not managing.


Nope, I wouldn't. Read this: ". . . the number of children and
grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or
with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in
comparison with natural health hazards, but this is not a natural health
hazard--and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life,
or the malformation of even one baby--who may be born long after we are
gone--should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not
merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."

How many ppls lives are blighted by coal fired power generation ?

Graham

 

[Derek Broughton]

That's because your fear is irrational. The most dangerous form of power
generation that we know of is hydroelectric. Dams don't fail often, but
when they do...

I say "that we know of" because we don't even know the NAMES of all the
stuff that comes out of the stack of a coal-fired power plant.

As for radiation, there are three and only three problems associated with
radiation: Radiation posioning, cancer, and genetic mutation. With
radiation posioning, you either get over it or you die. We know more about
cancer than almost any other disease. There has never been a case of a
genetically mutated fetus being born.

You mean, as above, "that we know of". Genetic mutations happen _all_ the
time, but first you need to look for them, then you need to know what
caused them and you're probably right that nobody ever proved a that
mutation was caused by nuclear power plants.

The problems, then, with nuclear
power are known and manageable.

The problems are known and _probably_ manageable. If only someone would
step up to the plate and accept responsibility for managing the waste...

 

[Derek Broughton]

I saw a documentary about Prypiat ( the town that housed the Chernobyl
workers ) recently.

Apparently the local wildlife is thriving and there's no evidence of
mutations.

And it's not to be expected either. Almost all serious mutations will
result in aborted fetuses, or babies born seriously enough deformed that
they are killed or abandoned to die. The wildlife thrives because there is
very little competition from humans (though there is some "wild" human life
in the red zone, too).

 

[rick]

Hi Graham:
The turbines on the link you provided would be great if you
were to us them for off-grid application, but if you were to
go with the co-op idea, the co-op would be the one to tie
into the grid, and that cost would come out of the maintenance
cost of the turbine that you invested in. The co-op should
use turbines of 500 kw or larger because of the efficiency, and
it will make better use of the land, and less likely to kill raptors
because the blades turn slower. Here is a link to a turbine that
is 450 kw, and it is going for $208,450.00 U.S..
http://www.windturbinewarehouse.com/Bonus 450 kW Refurbished Specs..pdf

I believe that would work out to be $463.00 per kw, so you might buy
10 kw, $4630.00, worth of shares in the turbine. Not bad, and a small percentage
would go to maintenance, and all other b.s..

All this BS about wind power.... but all i hear is not in my back
yard. Nuclear power... same BS.
Enough ranting. I haven't seen the spoken about kit turbine but I
did (as a couple weekend project) coupled a home made windmill
(plywood, etc...) to a ford alternator to charge batteries to run a
inverter in my garage. Nice toy though... worked pretty good. why
something similar could not be done on a larger scale ???? I got the
idea from a boat my friend had with a wind generator mounted on the
transom. worked the same way. and did surprisingly well... but back
to the ranting. shit piss or get off the pot.

Rick