That's like going into debt, hoping that you'll get a better job later to pay it off later. It is rarely a good decision.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Rarely but not always.

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A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes toward the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda," he says at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

I'm glad you're not claiming to be a structural engineer. In all cases you've neglected the internal pressure under the roof. That’s the force that causes roofs to blow off in a wind storm.

1. See above.
2. All these “micro” power plants displace farm land and wildlife habitat. Here’s a 2400 acre boondoggle going up near me. It will produce less than 1/100 of a nuclear power plant, and that’s at peak sunlight capacity. It will be the largest in the US. Davidson Goes Solar
3. It would take a while to build 400 new nuke plants, probably ten years, if environmental whackos could be shut up. If we had started 30 years ago, they’d be in operation right now and we wouldn’t be having a problem.
4. It is a reason not to make algae tanks, because the gas that’s being wasted now isn’t be used.
5. Time to cut to the chase here. Environmentalists dream up all these pie-in-sky methods to produce energy, and they full of technical errors and problems. All the while they fight nukes, natural gas, clean coal, and even windmills that aren’t invisible, all proven technologies that profit seekers are willing to invest in, build and operate.

If you look at the picture on the right on the lower picture, you'll see the diagram with the markings of "L" and "H" to represent high and low pressures. When low pressure is on both sides of an object, the net force on that object (by the air pressure) is minimal or zero, so the force is exactly the same as if there is no wind. If you want, I can draw another one to illustrate this point better, in regards to just air pressure.


Wrong, a 2400 acre solar power plant (9.6 sq km) would generate 1,920 MW, or 9,600 MWhr (depending on where in the south you are, you get 5-6 full hours a day, I went with 5 for this). That would be the same as a 400 MW powerplant (one that runs all day, like nuclear). Most nuclear plants are about 1,000 MW, so this solar field will be about 40% of the average nuclear power plant, not 1% like you suggested.

10 years?! It's going to take China 15 years to build 30 of them! If we built them at that reckless speed, Wile E Coyote would be scare of their safety.


Those are two seperate sources, we can use both.

pie-in-sky methods are cold fusion and perpetual motion and the burning of salt water under radio waves. What enviromentalists do, is not really a part of this topic. Just because enviromentalists are for or against something has no scientific effect on that thing's effectiveness.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Solar Power and Wind Power aren't very efficient. Even if the benefit is underrated in the case above, the reality isn't that appealing either. I'd rather have the Nuke Plant.

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1. Again, I’m glad you’re not a structural engineer. These things would be flying like birds. People would get killed, and property destroyed.
2. Read the article. It is 2.1 or so MW. Since it doesn’t specify “average” and the paper is a liberal rag, touting the benefits of the government regulations that are causing the plant to be built, I have to assume that is peak, as in July between noon and 2. Most nukes are 200MW, and run 24/7/365.
3. It will take China 30 because they don’t need them all yet. The new dam that are building (destroying huge areas of wildlife habitat) will generate the same power as 16 nukes. The Empire State Building was built in under a year with 1930 technology- is that safe?
4. I tell you what. I'll buy the gas that comes out of the ground fro free, and you buy the gas that is manufactured in this high tech plant with tanks and stuff.
5. What environmentalists do is entirely the topic. They refuse to support clean energy that is economically viable and proven- pointing to a hidden, sinister agenda.

I like your lack of science and use of fear. Again, they won't fly off, they've been used for over 30 years by the public and there are no cases of people gettting killed by flying solar panels. They will not fly away as there is no pressure difference between the top of the panels and the underside of the panels.

The article does not say how powerful it will be. I shouldn't have taken you word for this, and I should have just from the begining researched it myself.

Bright Future? New N.C. Utilities Law Generates Proposal for Solar-Energy Farm in Davidson County - Business - redOrbit

It's not 2.1 MW, it's 21.5 MW, and it's not 2,400 acres, it's 190 acres. The 21.5 MW is going to be built on the 190 acres, and their ultimate goal is 3 sites with one as a 2,400 acre "megasite."

And for nuclear power plants (of course excluding those that are used by universities for studing), the average is over 500 MW.

Wikimedia Error

This is a list of all of the Nuclear plants in the US. I went through the first 10 locations (by passing the decommisioned ones), and there were 16 generators, of these 16, 9 are between 500-1000 MW, and 7 are better than above 1000 MW. So that was 16 of the 104 that we have.

The Empire state building is not filled with radio active material, and does not have the same requirements, they are not comparible.


Deal, so far the oil "that comes out of the ground fro free" is running at record highs, for something that is free.

What they do is irrelevent to the topic between us.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

1. Fear is the motivation that makes structural engineers design safe structures. Building Codes require him to design for all possible load combinations. A flat panel angled off a roof is basically a “wing” with its own set of loads that must be added to the normal roof loads, Then you’ve got that nasty snow build-up that has to be considered.
2. The article that was published in my delivered newspaper said 2.1 MW. I remember because my son and talked about how it was less 1/100 of the nuke that powers us, McGuire Nuclear Station, 2,200 megawatts, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. It must have been a typo. In any event, that is likely the peak capacity, and when compared to the 24/7/365 capacity of the nuke, is a very small number indeed. “In 2007, Duke Energy supported the development of the new Renewable and Energy Efficiency Portfolio Standard (REPS) in North Carolina. ….. By 2018, at least two-tenths of one percent of total retail sales must come from solar energy.” Duke Energy Announces Deal to Harness the Power of the Sun - Duke Energy This “mega-farm” is anticipated to make about ½ of that.
3. 1000MW is the average of US plants, built with old technology. New plants are 2000MW minimum.
4. The Empire State Building was new technology on a grand scale. Same with the Apollo program. The major delay of energy projects is political.
5. If Congress allows drilling along US coasts, the costs for natural gas will plummet, and you will be left holding an expensive bag.
6. Environmentalists are entirely relevant, as politics is the #1 issue with energy production. To ignore that is to ignore reality.

2 and 3)

That is actually the converted capasity (to make it easier to compare to 24 hour power plants), meaning that if it ran all day 24/7/365, the average would be 21.5 MW. It's just a conversion to make things easier to compare (so it is will provide about 1/100th the total power of your powerplants). Just FYI, the McGuire is 2 powerplants (each at about 1,100 MW), even with modern tech, the average would still only be about 1,200 per power plant, they'll just put multiple reactors on a site.

5)
$$$ = a lot of money
$ = very little money

Not really, if congress allows them to drill off the coast (or anywhere) they are going to have to spend money to build the facilities to do it (costing $$$), than they just gather the fuel, either natural gas or oil, (costing $). In the case where they just add algea tanks to exsisting refineries to recycle the CO2 emited by them, they are going to have to build the facilities (costing $$$), than they just gather the fuel, (costing $). So if congress passes and allows drilling, we are in the same boat. But if congress doesn't pass and does not allow drilling, I come out ahead. That's why I want both to happen, it provides the most fuel, thus resulting in the lowest cost for everyone.

__________________
Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

1. Ahh, yes. It looks like I made a reciprocation error, with decimal points on both sides. But the basis of my argument is still true, that the solar “farm” delivers 1/100 the energy of the nuclear “farm”, while consuming a greater amount of farmland and wildlife habitat. So if environmentalists cared about those things, they would support nuclear.
2. Natural gas is collected as part of oil drilling and recovery. Therefore the cost is very low. Most of the infrastructure (pipelines) already exists along the east coast, in the heavily metro areas especially, so deliver costs to the consumer from east coast wells is very low.
3. Bottom line is that Congress, along with whacky environmentalists, are standing in the way for energy production. They need to step away so profit seeking individuals can do what the market needs. If its algae or PV, so be it, but I doubt it, because as I’ve demonstrated each has its own set of issues. The fact that enviros ignore these issues for technologies that they see as “green” while digging their heels in on proven technologies that are in fact more “green” points to a hidden, sinister agenda.