Quote from Jembei
First of all I want to say sorry in advance because some of the things I'm going to say is going to sound offensive.
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Anyone who thinks wind and solar power could cover humanities energy need are very naive. Here is why. First of all windmills are not efficient at all modern mills today can only muster 20 - 25 % efficiency, sometimes they go down to 1 - 5 % I have even heard of some windmills who use more energy then they create (In winter mills in some areas use energy in order stay operational, because they need external heating devises in order not to freeze over and brake)
It's ambitious, but not naive. At the very least our household demands should be able to be met by renewable energy. I do think NPP is going to be the short-term solution until we can find something better.
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Are you ready to put your money where your mouth is? Because the power generated from these so called renewable energies are very expensive and they have to be subsidized( the tax payers have to pay yet again) to even have a slight chance against Npp, coal and gas.
So called renewable... Great way to show your prejudice. Anyway price should not be a problem, all new techniques require a large sum of investment. If you think our current power infrastructure didn't require a sacrifice from the tax payers you're just being plain ignorant. Furthermore you may want to look into the increase in efficiency in renewables from the last 50 years and how we are still in the process of using power itself more efficiently as well.
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Windmills are made out of materials too you know xD From what I know in each windmill there is more than 100 kg worth's of rare earths (rare earths are also used in batteries and other high-tech things) and these are not environment friendly to mine if not handled properly (things released are led, mercury and other heavy metals) , and guess where 95 % of the stuff comes from, China and over there they aren't known for being all that high on the environment. Not to mention the mills themselves are made of epoxy and that's got to go somewhere when the mills are scraped
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The average life of a windmill is around 15 - 20 years and that's not a lot compared to nuclear, coal and gas plants. That's quite a lot of waste.
It's hard to find information on this subject and I have to admit I should ask my professor about it. But I don't think any materials are actually lost in the building of a windmill. I mean It's not like it takes millions of years for nature to recreate the resources needed and you don't get the waste NPP's produce.
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life around the windmill may suffer a lot as well. Birds being killed and the noise generate that may scare animals away well that can't be good.
Ok, this is just stupid. You sound like a farmer complaining about trains when they first arrived. The windmill parks at sea are actually helping the fish population, because you aren't allowed to fish near windmills. Furthermore our European studies surrounding the subject of windmill killing birds seem to suggest that the Americans are once again grossly exaggerating the problems.
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Now I am going to stop bashing for now because I could go on and on forever.
So far I'm concerned the future lies in Nuclear and Fusion energy. In France there are attempting to build the first ever Fusion power plant that creates more energy then it consumes, it should be done in 2013 -2014 from what I know. The point I'm trying to make its that Nuclear and Fusion have way more potential then windmills and solar will ever have and I think we would be fools not to explore them even though they might have some dangers to them.
Our sun is the biggest Fusion power plant in our solar system. How can one state the desire to create our own plant without the desire to harness the one we already have?
@BoxBox, sorry made an error on the quoting.
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