World: r3wp
[Tech News] Interesting technology
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GrahamC 23-Apr-2011 [6003] | well, because they spin so fast |
Kaj 23-Apr-2011 [6004x2] | That's the case with CPU fans, as well |
Size matters. The bigger the better | |
GrahamC 23-Apr-2011 [6006x4] | to shed energy ( so that they blades don't fall apart ), they undergo fibroelastic shudder |
which creates vortices and lots of noise | |
flutter | |
here's a picture from the roof .... http://www.compkarori.com/images/karori403.jpg | |
Kaj 23-Apr-2011 [6010] | I've been riding my bicycle under those really big ones in a big storm. Pretty impressive |
GrahamC 23-Apr-2011 [6011] | I thought I would be far away from the neighbours .. but clearly I was not |
Kaj 23-Apr-2011 [6012] | It looks quite close. The noise of small fans is very high pitched. It annoys the hell out of me, too |
GrahamC 23-Apr-2011 [6013x3] | I was going to short it during the night which basically puts a break on the whole thing. And leave it going during the day |
Even with the turbine shorted .. it still spun quite fast in a strong wind | |
One of these days I'm going to cover my roof in Photovoltaic panels | |
Kaj 23-Apr-2011 [6016] | The longer you wait, the more efficient they become :-) |
GrahamC 23-Apr-2011 [6017x3] | True ... there's a lot of research in this area |
I think you can even create tiles of the PV panels and use them to cover the roof | |
And I think I've seen flexible ones that can wrap around objects | |
Kaj 23-Apr-2011 [6020] | You could have clothed you wind sculpture with them ;-) |
GrahamC 23-Apr-2011 [6021x4] | To maximize the benefits from PV panels you need to track the sun and not the wind! |
Most passive sun trackers use an inert gas which vapourises and condenses elsewhere changing the balance so that the whole thing pivots with the change in weight redistribution | |
A bit like a sun flower I guess | |
or a tulip? | |
Reichart 23-Apr-2011 [6025] | I'm planning on VAWTs. Make little to no noticible noise. Work from any direction, so less parts. |
GrahamC 24-Apr-2011 [6026x2] | And sadly the Savonius design is very inefficient. I helped my child build one for her science fare though .. still got it. |
I looked at these years ago http://www.windside.com/technical.html#WS-4C but deemed them to be too expensive | |
Reichart 24-Apr-2011 [6028] | Electricity in Maui is .33 per kw... All alternative power options are "worth it". |
Maxim 24-Apr-2011 [6029] | ouch... here its .075/kwh |
GrahamC 24-Apr-2011 [6030x2] | With all that sun .. I'd go for PV panels |
Pity we can't harness the power of tsunamis | |
Geomol 25-Apr-2011 [6032] | It could be interesting to compare prices of electricity around the world. Also the prices, Reichart and Max give, are they total prices incl. all vat, tax and distribution? In Denmark, where I live, we pay around DKK 2.00 in total per kWh, that's USD 0.39 per kWh. 1/5 of that is vat (danish: "moms"), almost half is a special tax on electricity, and the rest is split in actual price of electricity and its distribution. See pie diagram here: http://www.dongenergy.dk/privat/El/omelprisen/Pages/om elprisen.aspx In Denmark 25% of our electricity comes from wind mills, many located in the ocean. If some of you pay 0.075/kWh, that seems very cheap. |
Henrik 25-Apr-2011 [6033] | Geomol, you have perhaps noticed, there is a discussion of the merit of the wind mills, due to the enormous expense on building and maintaining them. |
Geomol 25-Apr-2011 [6034x2] | I haven't really ... well, I remember hearing something from time to time in the news. I just pointed it out, because that might be valid information when comparing the prices. |
Is the price, I gave, about the same in your area, Henrik? (I had no idea of the price here actually, so had to look it up.) | |
Henrik 25-Apr-2011 [6036x2] | I think ours is perhaps 1.50 to 2 kr per kWh. Perhaps lower. |
The brilliance of the electricity tax, is that it doesn't make economical sense to switch to solar or wind, since it's not a tax on the source, but on electricity in general. The best way is probably to have your own solar installation and use the government's program for allowing you to sell electricity back to the power plant by having it hooked up to the grid instead of using it to supply your own house. Each user is allowed up to a 6 kW installation. | |
Geomol 25-Apr-2011 [6038x2] | I just noticed, we also have to pay subscriptions, DKK 12.50/month for el, DKK 67.50/month network (electricity network, I guess). That USD 15.57 per month in subscriptions. So to get full price, I should figure out, how many kWh, I use for a whole year, times price per kWh, add subscriptions and divide by kWh, then I have full price per kWh. |
Thinking pure economy, it pretty much sucks to live here, don't you think, Henrik? ;-) | |
Henrik 25-Apr-2011 [6040] | Geomol, I always have thought that in 30 years, when our tax rate is 80-90%, we are the ones who will need food aid from Africa, once they launch a resource based economy. |
Geomol 25-Apr-2011 [6041] | That may very well happen. |
Gabriele 25-Apr-2011 [6042] | For those interested into energy policy: http://www.withouthotair.com/ |
Maxim 25-Apr-2011 [6043x2] | the cost of windmills energy depends on the quality of the winds. they can be amongst the most efficient power sources because the very low initial cost and upgrade costs. ultimately, when we'll know how to harvest the sun properly, probably through chemical photosyntesis(nature is rarely wrong) every other energy source will seem "dum", a part from fusion when we find a cost-effective way to do it. |
efficient should have been... cost-effective | |
Kaj 25-Apr-2011 [6045] | First you'll have to find a way to do fusion in the first place - apart from bombs |
Gabriele 26-Apr-2011 [6046] | Max, cost can only be a concern if you have enough of the energy. If not, then no matter how cost effective it can be, you also need to add other sources... |
Cyphre 26-Apr-2011 [6047x2] | Geomol, I tried to calculate prices(incl. all taxes, distirbution etc.) from last year payments of our house consumption, here are the numbers: electricity $0.314(EUR 0.216) per kWh natural gas $0.072(EUR 0.050) per kWh drinking water $3.817(EUR 2.629) per 1000 litres |
so it looks we are close to Maui regarding the electricity :-) | |
Geomol 26-Apr-2011 [6049] | Good info, thanks! |
AdrianS 26-Apr-2011 [6050] | I'm curious how many here are following the Andrea Rossi LENR/cold fusion news. |
Henrik 26-Apr-2011 [6051] | I'm following Polywell, although there has not been much news lately. |
AdrianS 26-Apr-2011 [6052] | The biggest news, and most promising, seems to be around the Rossi process. It's amazing how something of this magnitude is not covered by popular press. Not surprising, because of the bad rap the field got at its start, but the lack of coverage says a lot about how the scientific establishment operates. |
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