But you CAN say they are reusing parts.

From YouTube description..
" CDI’s crew felled the 90 Units in two (2) mobilizations to the site, permitting the Wind Farm Owner to complete salvage of blades and drive-train elements from some of the wind turbines to provide replacement parts for similar Units they operate at other wind farm locations."

@1:47 you can see some of the turbines in the background without blades.

(edit) random comment i found regarding this... "The wind farm was built in 2006 and had a total output of 90MW. The 90 units will be replaced with 86 General Electric Units with a total capacity 0f 235MW."

I always thought it was created by those turbines. That's why they call them wind farms.

No Netflix for me, and no luck on a quick search of torrents, but I'll keep my eye out for that show/series.

Many metrics to compare. Ecologically, that system sounds great for static locations with enough of an elevation gradient and reservoir areas to make it work. On the other hand it seems like the ecological damage done by constructing batteries, factories, and disposing of them is likely quite small compared to many other alternatives, particularly fossil fuels (which also have long-term scarcity concerns on top of plenty of other issues).

A major advantage of battery tech over hydro storage would be mobility. If the thing consuming energy doesn't sit in one place, hydro storage won't work. Another somewhat less significant advantage is the ability to install anywhere -- a battery farm recharged by mains and/or a solar/wind farm could be installed in places where hydro storage couldn't. And for one more item in favor of batteries, I'd wager that the land area footprint required for batteries is much smaller per kWH stored, although that might be wrong for extremely large reservoirs (ie. a hydroelectric dam, pretty much). But by the time you're getting to that large scale, the location requirements and ecological disruption are also much more extreme.

Anyway, I don't mean to pooh-pooh the idea of hydro storage -- it really does seem like a very good and ingenious idea where it would be applicable. But there's certainly room for improved battery tech, too. I don't think that we're going to get fully or even significantly weaned off of fossil fuels quite as fast as the video would have us hope for, either. Fossil fuels were the primary tool in our toolbox for a LONG time. And as the saying goes, since all we've had is that "hammer", we've started to think of everything as a nail.

What about reactors that can't melt down? What about Ford Pintos that exploded when you hit them from the rear, that isn't a story of why all cars are dangerous, only Ford Pintos. What about a plane lands on a city and kills thousands, or the super dome and 10s of thousands? What if what if what if. 50 million people is a little showing of being irrationality scared. Even in the worst designed reactor incident in history, it wasn't as bad as that. If you looked closely, as well, the chart shows that nuclear has historically been safer that solar and wind (and hydro if you include the Banqiao Dam incident).

With that said, I do wish to see old light water reactor technology phased out and new, walk away safe reactors phased in. Engineered safety is less preferred than intrinsic safety that many of the new reactors have. Also, lets not forget, most of the navy is nuclear...meaning they feel safe enough to be in war time situations with current reactors, so engineered safety can indeed be very safe.

I have irrational fears as well, I hate to fly even though I know statistically it is safer than driving. I would suggest that your fear of nuclear is of the same nature. The only way you can kill millions of people with current or future nuclear technology is with bombs, not reactors. The only way reactors can "explode" is from a steam explosion or a hydrogen explosion...so about as bad as a fuel plant exploding, most likely several orders of magnitude less. IE, reactors explode chemically, not via fission, making no more or less dangerous that that other kinds of tech, with the exception of the fission byproducts. The good thing about most of the new nuclear tech is the fuel burn up rates are very very high, meaning there is less fuel involved in most cases.

At any rate, don't take my word for it, there is lots of data out there to look over. For my part, I think nuclear is the cleanest, safest bet for energy needs. I submit that nuclear is only scary because of it was first developed as a fearsome weapon. But the even more fearsome weapon are thermonuclear weapons, which are actually fusion/fission hybrid bombs. I would imagine for whatever reason you aren't super scared of fusion, and would wager that if thermonuclear bombs were called fusion bombs, the world at large would have a different mindset towards it...irrationally.

But I leave you with the facts, nuclear has been the leading sources of clean power which has also caused the least amount of deaths than other technologies. There are many factors in that, including massively engineered safety that continues to improve, as well as highly trained crews that watch over them. Coal miners die all the time, pipelines explode, oil platforms explode, people fall off roofs, or fall off wind farm towers, or get electrocuted...but none of these deaths cause the downfall of those technologies. Nuclear still has more drama in our minds, so plays out much differently when something goes wrong, which isn't very often ( 6 fatal occurrences since 1961) .

>> ^Yogi:

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-source.html


I'm sorry are you comparing death rates between Coal and Nuclear Reactors? What if there's a meltdown or a terrorist attack and suddenly there's 50,000,000 people dead? It only takes one reactor outside of LA to do catastrophic damage you cannot compare the two NOW when we don't have a Fuckton of Reactors near population centers.
Comparing the two at this point in time is just ridiculous, the numbers are so skewed it's not even funny.

>> ^bcglorf:

>> ^Nebosuke:
Disagree. No vote. Fossil fuels need to be abandoned before nuclear. Nothing generates more power than a nuclear plant.

Nor does anything produce energy as cleanly as nuclear. It's shame the greens are so scared of the most promising clean energy alternative we currently have just waiting to be used.


So it's not just me...

I'd like to like environmental politics, but their approach to nuclear power is just so ignorant. Nuclear power is by far the best source we have for being clean, safe and effective. Yes, it has problems, but much fewer than any other source. It's cleaner than fossil fuel. Never mind the more obvious pollutants, nuclear plants release less radiation than coal plants.

Meanwhile, renewable sources like the wind farms that this video is pushing produce sod all. All the solar panels in Germany (one of the most solar-powered countries around) produce the same amount of power as Fukushima did, and that's only in the sort of ideal weather conditions that exist for a matter of hours a year.

As horrible as the Fukushima disaster was, this was about the worse case scenario. One of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded, striking near an old power plant and what happened? Zero deaths from radiation, with long term effects yet to be seen of course. Do we need land for agriculture? Yes, although it's debatable just how much as total food production isn't the problem. We also need electricity. We also need to cut pollution. If we invested in nuclear power, thorium in particular, we could achieve all these even before fusion is perfected. Also, we wouldn't need to have 40 year old power plants in earthquake regions if counter-productive environmentalists didn't try so hard to wreak the environment.

Care about the environment? Then support nuclear power!

ONN = Onion Network News = SATIRE>> ^Chimeling:

Seriously, SERIOUSLY?
I don't know if I should laugh or cry..

I think it was more of an illustrative example Think beyond your solution to potential drawbacks kind of thing. Judging by the fact I remember the lecture to this day his method worked!>> ^Asmo:

>> ^lampishthing:
In fairness, an (actually intelligent and successful) physics lecturer once warned our class to think of the consequences of tidal energy... are we going to make the moon crash into the earth?!?!?!

Please tell me he was joking...

>> ^lampishthing:

In fairness, an (actually intelligent and successful) physics lecturer once warned our class to think of the consequences of tidal energy... are we going to make the moon crash into the earth?!?!?!


Please tell me he was joking...

>> ^MarineGunrock:

I'm just scared that there are people out there that will see this and think it's real.


you mean its not?!?

Wait..So it's not real?

>> ^MarineGunrock:

I'm just scared that there are people out there that will see this and think it's real.

>> ^MarineGunrock:

I'm just scared that there are people out there that will see this and think it's real.


I have to admit when I read the title I face-palmed, and then I saw it was from the onion and felt much relief.

>> ^dag:

Darn. Do they have an "old embed" version, like Vimeo?


I tried to fake an old embed version, but it only makes it halfway through the submission process.


Coal Lobby Warns Wind Farms May Blow Earth Off Orbit

Frankly, I don't even see a need to move to nuclear - let alone solar/wind/tidal. The U.S. has enough oil and coal to supply its own energy needs for the next 40 to 60 years. We've got the technology to use fossil fuels cleanly and make very little mess when getting them. And it is far cheaper than any other form of energy. Why deny ourselves the use of this cheap, efficient, effective resource?

Nuclear is fine - but the environmental lobby doesn't want nuclear power plants and litigates the pants off anyone who tries to build one. Well - the same environuts don't want wind farms either. They don't want solar farms. They don't want tidal farms. They don't want anything at all. You name it. They oppose it.

Frankly it is time we stopped giving any degree of credibility or attention to environmentalist groups who object to energy policy. Their demands are unreasonable and unrealistic. Let's work on Solar/Wind/Tidal - but let's not go there until it is ready. And all objective analysis indicates that these 'green' energy forms are NOT ready to do squat. We need fossil, and we're going to need it big time for the next 50 years so let's go get it and stop listening to the dummies who don't like it.

Sadly - one of those dummies is Obama and he's shamelessly using the spill to try and shut down oil and coal right now. Hope you like $10 a gallon gas, 45% increases in your electrical bill, and 100% increases in your natural gas costs - because that's what Obama has planned for you with his dumb@$$ 'energy policy'. And get ready for business to pass the cost on to you for the increases in all their costs. Hooray for Democrat policy. "No taxes for the poor..." Yeah, right...

upvote for "jerking off a wind farm"

ahoy! i replied to your comment

In reply to this comment by dannym3141:
You of course understand the presence of the word "wind" in "wind farm"? As in, when there's wind, they "farm" it.

But anyway.. how is that new style friendlier to birds? It probably has more area in which to hit a bird, and if the bird goes through one side of the turbine it then has to go through the other side.