Vulture + windmill = :(

[XemaSab]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srPoOU6_Z4

[NNadir]

1. Obviously photoshopped. We've had lots of wind advocates here explain to us that

the problem of bird kills by wind turbines is totally and completely prevented wholly and totally by slow moving vanes.

It's how we proved conclusively and irrefutably that we need lots of wind mills in the Sierra foothills near the Condor habitat and of course, because T. Boone Pickens is a billionaire oil and gas man and thus smarter than everyone else, along the migratory path of Whooping Crane.

We also need lots of transmission lines to our wind fields, including those the size of Connecticut, because history has shown that they are good for large birds, provided that you like your large birds either pureed or fried.

[joshcryer]

2. Birds cannot cope with many large manmade structures. 100 million die a year.

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=11027

I do hope you don't advocate the "GilderGuider"* approach and the rewilding of human populations.

(*not calling him out or even saying he is a primitivist as he has stated he wasn't in the past)

[GliderGuider]

7. If you're not calling me out or saying I believe in rewilding humanity

Why are you linking me to the stupid idea?

There are plenty of legitimate believers in the rewilding of humanity you could have named.

Saying you're not calling me out after you've already done it seems just a bit disingenuous...

[joshcryer]

20. You're the most prominent derider of tech here.

I can't think of someone more so. So it's easier to refer to this 'camp' as yours. Sorry if I offended you.

[GliderGuider]

22. I'm only now coming to understand my own position regarding technology.

I feel that those who seek solutions in technology have misunderstood the nature of problem. Of course technology is an inseparable aspect of the human experience, but to treat it as the primary determinant of humanity is to fundamentally misapprehed what it takes to be fully human. The problem of modern industrial society is one of imbalance: koyaanisqatsi. We do not suffer from a shortage of good technology -- we have plenty of that. What we lack are the balancing forces of the human spirit: wisdom, compassion, a recognition of oneness and interdependence. This situation cannot be rectified by developing ever more technology. Doing that will merely force us further and further out of balance.

Thinking of "human rewilding" as a solution results from a similarly mistaken understanding the problem. While there might be a greater possibility of encountering human spiritual values in a less technologically complex society, attempting to create that situation by truncating our technology will not work. Doing that will make humanity less rather than more, will reduce the possibilities available to our creative natures, and will prevent our situation from resolving properly.

If the problem is one of imbalance, it seems sensible to me that we try to redress the balance by building up the side that is light rather than lightening the side that is too heavy.

Of course, anyone who sees humanity and our contextual reality in materialistic terms will not see the problem as I do, and will have a different sense of what the solution ought to be. That's a good thing, the broader our probability envelope, the more chances we will have for a harmonious actuality when the wave function collapses.

[NNadir]

18. As I understand what you're saying, it is the equivalent of saying that

between 1.5 million and 2 million people die each year from air pollution, therefore air pollution is acceptable.

That's not consistent with my beliefs.

I do not, in general, believe in risk free anything. People who claim, for instance, that the toxic solar industry would be risk free are full of shit and in denial.

I do believe in risk minimization, however, which is best understood through experiment.

The entire last century was an energy experiment and much data was collected.

I am trying to appeal to reason to prevent the collapse of humanity and many other species in a catastrophic way. If I had my way, we would manage the decline of populations to a sustainable level through reductions in poverty and negative population growth through small families. That is not going to happen, though, and I fear what my boys will live through, if they in fact live.

I see our current situation to something like the early indication that the black plague was coming, to which the response was superstitious and ignorant, religious and therefore wholly ineffective.

The only person I know of from that time who took a systematic and scientific approach to understanding that tragedy was Guy de Chauliac.

[joshcryer]

21. I'm all for minimization, the point is that technology is going to encorach on the environment.

Be it by simple lighting in a skyscraper or a big rotating blade. You think that nuclear plants have *zero* environmental impact? Are you really going to go there?

[joshcryer]

3. Ahh, the info (different link) in post #2 was posted before here on DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1023350

[Fumesucker]

4. I wonder if kite based wind power would help cut down on this sort of unfortunate occurrence?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x214375

I'm positive that the high altitude flying wind generator in the jetstream would cut bird kills down to near zero, birds simply don't fly that high.



http://www.skywindpower.com/ww/index.htm

Funny how it's OK to put balloons carrying radar to watch drug smugglers up high in the sky but not generators to provide wind power that doesn't use up increasingly scarce consumable resources.

[Dead_Parrot]

5. They might cause others, though. Especially in large numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrage_balloon

[Fumesucker]

6. Kevlar is non conductive..

Judging by your link the big disadvantage of barrage balloons was the cables shorting out power lines, kevlar or other non conductive tethers would eliminate that particular problem.

Of course, barrage balloons were designed and placed to interfere with airplanes, power generating kites would be just the opposite.

[Dead_Parrot]

8. Well, yes and no

One side impact of barrage balloons was to destroy power and comms lines, and Kevlar would reduce that. However, the the barrage balloons raison d'être was to destroy aircraft, which might make placement difficult in a world where planes occasionally wander a little.

[Fumesucker]

9. Eh, we had nearly 40,000 traffic deaths in the US last year..

http://www.autoblog.com/2009/02/05/national-safety-council-says-2008-traffic-deaths-hit-record-low/

Coal fired power plants cause quite a few deaths from various forms of pollution each year.

It's strange how we accept some risks without even thinking about them and yet other risks get far more attention.

There is no technology which does not entail some risk, particularly so for something as ubiquitous and necessary as power generation, the risks to aircraft from something like kite based wind generators are becoming lower all the time as GPS navigation gets ever more sophisticated.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. careful...

...you're starting to sound like NNadir...

:)

[Fumesucker]

11. In what respect, Charlie?

:)

[Dead_Parrot]

12. That whole "there is no such thing as risk free energy" brouhaha

If you point out that US nuclear waste has killed nobody, unlike wind or solar, you'll get burned as a witch.

Of course, coal is still in a league of its own.

[Fumesucker]

13. I don't think nuclear is "risk free"..

Chernobyl pretty much put a stop to thinking that nuclear power was risk free.

And before you start, I know that plant was very unlike designs in the US.

I think your careful limiting of the issue to people killed by "nuclear waste" shows that you know there are other risks involved with nuclear power.

Then there are the decomissioning issues for nuclear power plants in addition to storing some of the longer lived radioactive wastes for longer than modern humans have been on Earth yet.

My personal opinion is that when it's all said and done nuclear fission power is going to end up being very expensive indeed.

Unfortunately we have been "ten years away" from controlled nuclear fusion power for about forty years now.

[Dead_Parrot]

14. Hence the "No such thing" part

My picking of nuclear waste was just down to it being the most common objection - "But what about the waste!?" people scream, regardless of the facts that a) it's relativley harmless and b) it already exists, so even if we pulled the plugs tomorrow we'd still have to work out a way of dealing with it that is satisfactory to everyone.

Chernobyl killed less people than the Piper Alpha disaster, but nobody argues against cars. Well, almost nobody.

After that, you get into a problem of defining metrics. There are problems you can lay at the doorsteps of specific energy ventures - Chernobyl, Piper Alpha, Banqiao, Aberfan - and vague ones like mountaintop removal (covers coal, wind, nuclear, solar) deforestation (covers steel melting - google "brazil charcoal imports" - and silicon - google "Simcoa deforestation") mining deaths (coal, uranium including weapons and power) cement works accidents...

It gets picky, basically.

Personally, my preference is for hydro. Sure, it fucks wherever we put it but it's our choice where. It's also the cause of the largest energy disaster in the history of mankind, 3-4 orders of magnitude over Chernobyl but hey. Small potatoes, globally.

Stretch the hydro out with wind. Wind is very intermittent, but hydro can be built on a short response basis - Dinorwig in Wales can go from 0-1.8GW in 75 seconds. That's huge.

Solar is good for some peak - A/C in hot climates. It's stupidly expensive, but it works.

Geothermal where you can get it.

Nuclear for the rest.

People mistake me for a "nuclear above all" person. I'm not, but I am "anti-fossil-fuel by any means". There's a subtle difference.

As for stuff like fusion (or space based solar) - bugger it. We don't have time.

[Fumesucker]

15. Most of the places where hydro is reasonably possible already have hydro..

You have to have a largish body of water and a relatively close place to drop it, there just aren't that many places that have that particular combination.

I'm far too familiar with the dangers associated with oil and gas drilling, I nearly jumped off a gas platform in the Gulf once due to a gas leak catching fire, we were a long way up and I'm not sure I would have survived impacting the water. Luckily it was only a small gas line that ruptured and the pressure was low so evacuation was not necessary, we just turned off the valve for that particular line.

We really do have to do some serious calculation as a society as to what we are going to do for energy supplies, unfortunately our political process is all but completely broken and under the control of some of the least imaginative elements in our culture.

I have grandchildren and I'm seriously concerned about what sort of world they are going to be growing into, the relative near term future looks remarkably foreboding now and my vision certainly isn't clear enough to see a likely way out of our current predicament.

To me, high altitude flying wind generators in the jet stream make a great deal of sense for the temperate regions that have those powerful winds at altitude. Tropical regions don't have that but often have lower altitude winds that could yield significant energy nonetheless.

It's quite obvious that no single technology is going to meet our energy needs over the next half century or so, barring some totally unforeseen scientific or technological breakthrough.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Yeah, I'm probably being harsh

The kites might have a role to fill. I just don't trust stuff we can't roll out tomorrow.

My daughter's five. I want to be be able to look her in the eye when I'm an old man.

If we live that long.

[Fumesucker]

17. The political barriers to nuclear fission mean it can't be "rolled out tomorrow"..

There are just too many people who are irrationally terrified of nuclear power, it may happen but it's not going to happen quickly.

Just about everyone has flown a kite though, not much in the way of irrational fear there.

My youngest grandkid is about the age of your daughter, I remember thinking about this stuff back when my daughter was that age, nothing much seems to have really changed for the better in the meantime.

I too want my descendants to think well of me, I fear they won't.

[petronius]

19. Is that a bearded vulture? They are incredibly rare, right?

:(

[XemaSab]

23. I think it's a Griffon Vulture

:(

[Dead_Parrot]

24. Not any more it isn't

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