Ronnie Hilton will be turning in his grave if he knew his mice were not wearing Clegg's, sorry I mean cloggs in his old windmill in old AmsterDam.

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-12854...ns-irate-letter.html

Clip cliperty clop, on the stairs of old Westminster, comes to mind.

The Apprentice wrote:
To rescue my post from the no reply listing I will talk to myself then, I thought it was kind of funny, anyway I don't mind talking to myself, lol.

I didn't reply because it's out here in the badlands of the forum ( ) which I'm trying to avoid App. I may have to slightly rethink that approach
For all it's vociferous detractors and the corporate croneyism that blights the whole issue of wind power, I am yet to see any actual evidence that harnessing the wind as a part of the process of outgrowing fossil fuels is not a sensible option.
Perhaps the current model isn't the best way to employ wind power but that of itself doesn't make wind power a daft idea does it.

dubmeup wrote:
As it is within the known realm of physics, at the two mins & max of the seasons, IE, on a cold starless night and the height of summer, when the two load periods are needed the most, IE air conditioning and winter heating are required, the wind simply never blows.
Then there is the max safety wind speed of 20 meters a second when the mills shut off and stop, the result is, one very expensive ornament indeed.

I'm not suggesting that wind is THE answer, rather that it's harnessing could be a part of the whole. Not every old flour mill relied on the flow of rivers....
Equally, as I said, I'm not suggesting the current model of use is the way to go. As ever I am an advocate of localization. Out on the moors of Cornwall, to this day there are homes that are not connected to the grid. Invariably you will see some form of wind turbine...

On a local scale, the issues of storage of the generated elastictrickery diminish. To the point that a few deep cycle batteries are sufficient for the average home. That is of course if you aren't trying to pull kilowatt after kilowatt.
Similar applies to solar. My old bus did pretty well in supplying me with a DVD player, fridge, stereo and lighting off the back of one small panel and a single leisure battery...I know a traveller chap who makes a living from his wood skills. His entire operation is powered from wind and solar.

To me the issue with this sort of approach is the same issue that plagues most aspects of our lives. Things are centralized and controlled by the profit motive. Decentralized community energy production would be a big step. Wind could be a big part of that.

Heating is better served by things like geothermal, the tech for which has been around for quite some while now, the employment of which is still negligible. Again, there's very little profit in it...

dubmeup wrote:

Hot water solar if it could be made cheaper is one of my choices for making savings, and wood burning with a thermo siphoning set up for both heat and water.
Many smaller units far out perform a few larger systems for the individual, this is the way to go me thinks. There is today hundreds upon hundreds of mill blades past their best being stired in warehouses, these carbon fibre giants are a huge waste which are very difficult to dispose of.
Today German is stock pilling glass in huge spent open cast coal pits, and the tech is already there for a dual pannel, sporting water and PV, to run a standard sized home, the pannels become the roof itself and can be replaced like tiles.

The tech is also here now to run devices on lower amperages, to make windows more efficient all we need to do is fit wooden pannels like yesteryear, there is so many past technologies that can make savings.

ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/WindmillFormula.htm

More smaller units keeping the energy for themselves is the way to go.

That formula highlights a crucial aspect of the whole subject of energy 'generation'. That being the inherent inefficiency of the processes of converting energy from one form to another. This is something which the technicians have and are improving as they go in respect that less friction etc in systems 'wastes' less for example. Similar improvements have and are being made in areas like solar.
What we tend to forget though is that once generated we tend to pipe the energy down incredibly inefficient systems, over vast distances, necessitating the need for stepping up voltages incredibly (inefficiency) then stepping them down (inefficiency) before then piping that energy into yet more inefficient tools in our homes and workplaces. I'd love to see the formula for that sort of thing.
Just what percentage of the initial energy converted actually does work at the end of the chain? I'll wager the figures aren't too great.

dubmeup wrote:
Tessla and many others already worked out what was to be the laws of conservation were telling them before many of our Grandfathers were born, but were not allowed to tell it how it was and still is.

Lovelock is his wisdom has already said it how it could be, that if the electricity was cut to most major cities in the uk, over half the population would probably die within a week, now reverse that model and how soon would they listen if the people spoke wbout the seasoning robbery taking place on a regular basis.

The way I see things tiday is this, the road to get where everything we know as nature got here on earth time and light, it will again, and many use this technology to their benefit, if that makes any scense.

It does make sense App and it reminds me of part of Harramein's thoughts. That being that ALL the energy we have ever used and ever will, is provided us by nature, for free