Timex
2018
In this case, at least in Massachusetts where i was doing research in wind power back in the day, the pushback was totally nonsensical.
The wind turbines would have been offshore far enough that they would have appeared like 1 centimeter tall on the horizon. They would have been unnoticeable.
Alstein
2019
They wonât switch to Republicans over it, and if they do, theyâre mostly in safe states, so screw them.
We need to stand up to NIMBYs at some point, why not now.
Sharpe
2020
If California is any guide, the NIMBYs will cause all sorts of other trouble, even though they mostly wonât defect to the Republicans. I hate NIMBYs.
Timex
2021
The big thing is that at the state and local level, they basically singlehandedly fund the campaigns of Democrats there, so they have huge power at a level that often can shut stuff like that down.
But at this point, you need to publicly shame them if they come out against it. You need to drag then out into the street and make them tell everyone how they donât want to disturb the view from their beach house. (Which it wonât anyway)
Alstein
2022
Hell, send the lefists after them. Theyâll go after these folks harder than they do Republicans.
And yeah, I do think the NIMBYs are why California isnât really all that leftist.
Houngan
2023
Why not on-shore, about neck height?
Canuck
2024
I think it would be really cool to see hundreds of wind turbines kilometres off in the horizon. I mean, otherwise itâs a pretty fucking boring view.
Have you never clasped your shawl around your shoulders while the waves lap at your feet, and been given the first line of that morningâs poem by the stark horizon?
Now the pushback is mostly the local fisherman. It sounds like it is going how happen now.
Nice in depth by the Newshour , last week.
RichVR
2027
Iâve seen things you people wouldnât believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
Hansey
2028
The house in Maine my parents sold several months back had this view off their back porch (this is a sunset shot, but it also looks stunning during the day). You can see off to the right a bunch of windmills on the horizon generating power⌠I think there were 12-13 of them in total if I recall correctly. My Dad really liked them.
Those modern windmills always have a very distinct âliving in the sci-fi futureâ vibe to me. I enjoy it.
Timex
2032
I wonder what kind of power output the skybrators have.
Enidigm
2033
My absolute favorite crazy green energy idea is storing power by lifting tons of heavy stuff in the air; basically, during the day, the green energy source (wind or solar or whatever sends excess electricity into a tower that does nothing but lift a giant amount of weight hundreds of feet in the air. At night or whenever, they lower the weight and use it as a source of energy to generate electricity that way.
I actually had a sub-Saharan African idea of a sand windmill, that uses the wind to lift sand (instead of water) into a higher mounted tank, and then lets the sand out to generate power that way. But while the idea does work, the amount of sand needed, the type of sand, and the size of the windmill are annoying. Not something that an individual farmer can use, basically.
Also, this same idea, but with pumped water. Pump the water uphill to a holding tank during the day, using excess capacity, then release the water during the night to drive a turbine.
Timex
2035
They actually have tiny versions of what you describe, where you basically just manually lift something yourself, and then as it descends slowly it generates small amounts of power, generally enough for a light bulb or something.
The issue with what you describe at scale, with something like sand, is that you would likely lose a significant amount of power to the efficiency loss of trying to lift sand via some kind of conveyance system. Also, youâd run into similar issues that pumped water solutions run into.
With pumped water solutions, which are essentially the same idea, the issue is generally that it requires an immense amount of water to generate large amounts of power. Pumped hydro is about 80% efficient, so youâre losing 20% off the top right there. But the bigger issue is that you can only really do it in a geographically compatible location, where you have a raised location for storing huge amounts of water, near a large water source.
Moving sand might eliminate the need for the water source, but I imagine that your efficiency would be far, far less than 80%.
That loss of efficiency means that you need to have really huge generation capacity during the day, in order to generate enough power not only for usage during the generating hours, but also to cover the usage in the off hours, plus everything you lose to inefficiency.
Yeah, friction is a bitch.
Djscman
2037
I read the transcript of the Newshour segment Strollen shared. One question and a follow-up, are the wind generators floating on the ocean waves or fixed to the sea floor? And how will rising ocean levels affect the generators, if at all?
