Now he is tilting at windmills

[Solitaire]

Windmills probably need to be a part of any long-term energy solution, but
they are poorly suited for many places, are generally considered aesthetically
unpleasant, and are as reliable as the wind. They are nowhere as near as good
a solution as nuclear, and the cost is not dropping nearly as fast as solar.

Have a look at this.

 

[skyeagle409]

Maybe Trump can build an aesthetically pleasing coal plant next to his golf course. That's a win-win for him.

I am sure the coal dust will add some class to Trump's golf course sand traps.

 

[skyeagle409]

.
I wonder what presidential candidate Iowa went for.

Trump's putdown of wind energy whips up a backlash in Iowa

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) - President Trump's putdown of wind energy at his Iowa rally was denounced Thursday across the state, which takes pride in its position as a national leader in wind generation.

Iowa's senior Republican senator, U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, who is considered the father of the federal wind production tax credit that has subsidized the expansion of the industry since the 1990s, again vowed to oppose any anti-wind policies Trump may pursue.

Through a spokesman, Grassley reiterated his year-old pledge that Trump would succeed in ending the production tax credit in Congress "over my dead body."
http://www.msnewsnow.com/story/35729190/trumps-putdown-of-wind-energy-whips-up-a-backlash-in-iowa

 

[apathoid]

Have a look at this.

That's pretty cool. Kinda looks like a modern art exhibit though, so we still gotta work on aesthetics. A for effort though.

 

[Foolmewunz]

That's pretty cool. Kinda looks like a modern art exhibit though, so we still gotta work on aesthetics. A for effort though.

China is testing individual solar paneled street lights. Very unobtrusive but they're testing them in occluded cities. I would imagine if they could supplement the solar with a small vertical wind turbine, the possibilities to run lighting out along roads in rural areas would be awesome. Sure the individual costs of the entire units are going to be more expensive but not having to worry about hooking them to the power grid is a real boon, and I'm sure would offset the higher initial cost.

The alternative in some developing countries is the notorious poles of spaghetti we have in Thailand. They are only now doing something about them - not because it's practical but because the world's richest man criticized the aesthetics. We'd settle for some of that "modern art".

 

[apathoid]

China is testing individual solar paneled street lights. Very unobtrusive but they're testing them in occluded cities. I would imagine if they could supplement the solar with a small vertical wind turbine, the possibilities to run lighting out along roads in rural areas would be awesome. Sure the individual costs of the entire units are going to be more expensive but not having to worry about hooking them to the power grid is a real boon, and I'm sure would offset the higher initial cost.

The alternative in some developing countries is the notorious poles of spaghetti we have in Thailand. They are only now doing something about them - not because it's practical but because the world's richest man criticized the aesthetics. We'd settle for some of that "modern art".

My comment was in jest. I just want something that works and can easily scale. I know in aviation, quite a few taxiway lights and such are being converted to LED/solar. Its not much, but its a start.

 

[GlennB]

Wind power once crossed him. Now, when encountered, wind power must always be punished.

Also, he doesn't believe in global warming; except when he does ...

Trump acknowledges climate change — at his golf course

 

[Upchurch]

Windmills probably need to be a part of any long-term energy solution, but they are poorly suited for many places, are generally considered aesthetically unpleasant, and are as reliable as the wind. They are nowhere as near as good a solution as nuclear, and the cost is not dropping nearly as fast as solar.

Anecdote: My father and I own a small farm in Illinois. We were approached by a company that wanted to set up a wind farm on land in that area. We would have been renting out small plots for up to three turbines. The closest town ultimately put an end to the deal out of concerns, I kid you not, that the wind turbines would cause cancer.

That county went 71% for Trump in the general election.

 

[Modified]

China is testing individual solar paneled street lights.

We have some here in parks, where light is not needed all night, only from sundown until park closing, so the solar panels are quite small. Also the local flood control system (which is also a park) uses them to power the locks, which are infrequently used, so the panels are also small but I suppose they have large batteries. The latter saved probably ten miles of wiring.

 

[CORed]

Actually, I think he more resemble's Sancho's mount.

The back end of Sancho's mount.

 

[quadraginta]

Yep, the people in Iowa should be realizing they were sold a con-job. Trump tried to sell himself as a "man of the people", and his commitment to the coal miners was supposedly the example of that. Folks in Iowa saw that and thought, hey, he cares about people like me! He'll care for us like he cares for the coal miners.

Now they are realizing that, no, he didn't care about them. He is so committed to pleasing the coal miners that he just threw everyone else under the bus. He doesn't care about "people like the coal miners" it is only about the coal miners.

The windmill industry in Iowa creates a lot of jobs. From the manufacturing in Newton, to transport, to construction, to operation (we used to see pieces being shipped on the road all the time - an individual blade is an oversized load on a flatbed trailer; it was impressive). But he's happy for them to go out of business to save the coal miners in West Virginia.

I hope they wake up and smell the manure he's shoveling.

Trump doesn't care any more about the coal miners than he does about the people in Iowa.

That was just convenient campaign moments.

He has done nothing to increase the number of coal mining jobs to any significant degree, and shows no signs of ever intending to do anything.

Not that he could, anyway. Those jobs were never coming back. They still aren't.

Trump can't change that.

 

[Oystein]

China is testing individual solar paneled street lights. Very unobtrusive but they're testing them in occluded cities. I would imagine if they could supplement the solar with a small vertical wind turbine, the possibilities to run lighting out along roads in rural areas would be awesome. Sure the individual costs of the entire units are going to be more expensive but not having to worry about hooking them to the power grid is a real boon, and I'm sure would offset the higher initial cost.

The alternative in some developing countries is the notorious poles of spaghetti we have in Thailand. They are only now doing something about them - not because it's practical but because the world's richest man criticized the aesthetics. We'd settle for some of that "modern art".

In the future, all those decentralized power producing units (wind, solar, ...) will be hooked up to both power and data grids, as to make optimal use of combined capacity.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Anecdote:...

The closest town ultimately put an end to the deal out of concerns, I kid you not, that the wind turbines would cause cancer.

That county went 71% for Trump in the general election.

That's only anecdote - it doesn't mean that rural people are stupid...


BTW 'wind turbine cancer' is a real thing:-

Wind turbine syndrome

 

[Trebuchet]

BTW 'wind turbine cancer' is a real thing:-

Wind turbine syndrome

Here is the very first sentence of that article:

Wind turbine syndrome or wind farm syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder primarily caused by anxiety generated by heightened awareness of turbines[1] – the "nocebo effect"[2] – prompted by proponents of the idea that wind turbines have adverse health effects.

In other words, fake. Woo. Nonsense.

 

[Garrison]

Here is the very first sentence of that article:


In other words, fake. Woo. Nonsense.

A few years ago the BBC was looking in the claims that cell phone towers caused various ill effects. They set one up in a locale that didn't have one and lo and behold after several weeks the locals were complaining of various ailments. Slight snag was that the tower was never actually switched on...

 

[Oystein]

Here is the very first sentence of that article:


In other words, fake. Woo. Nonsense.

Nocebo is not generally fake or woo.
I suspect though that to no small extent, such syndroms are diagnosed as a result of confirmation bias on the part of the physician (i.e.
Observer-expectancy effect) or the patient (Subject-expectancy effect): People, or their doctors, observe more keenly than they normally do, and ascribe whatever previously unnoticed deviation from perfect they find, to the new "cause". Perhaps you have lost hair for a while now, but only now noticed? Correlate it with whatever new device you spot in your vicinity, et voilà!

Since "Wind turbine syndrome" is correlated with news about Wind turbine syndrome, Trump may soon be responsible for more case of Wind turbine cancer!

 

[theprestige]

Nocebo is not generally fake or woo.
I suspect though that to no small extent, such syndroms are diagnosed as a result of confirmation bias on the part of the physician (i.e.
Observer-expectancy effect) or the patient (Subject-expectancy effect): People, or their doctors, observe more keenly than they normally do, and ascribe whatever previously unnoticed deviation from perfect they find, to the new "cause". Perhaps you have lost hair for a while now, but only now noticed? Correlate it with whatever new device you spot in your vicinity, et voilà!

Since "Wind turbine syndrome" is correlated with news about Wind turbine syndrome, Trump may soon be responsible for more case of Wind turbine cancer!

One can only hope.

 

[quadraginta]

That's only anecdote - it doesn't mean that rural people are stupid...


BTW 'wind turbine cancer' is a real thing:-

Wind turbine syndrome

From the article;

Wind turbine syndrome or wind farm syndrome is a psychosomatic disorder primarily caused by anxiety generated by heightened awareness of turbines[1] – the "nocebo effect"[2] – prompted by proponents of the idea that wind turbines have adverse health effects. While proponents claim that a number of effects including death, cancer and congenital abnormality have been caused by wind farms, the distribution of recorded events correlates with media coverage of wind farm syndrome itself, and not with the presence or absence of wind farms.[3]

Also;

"Annoyance is not a disease."

​

(And don't worry. I saw your old style smilie.)

 

[Roger Ramjets]

In other words, fake.

People with psychosomatic disorders are faking it?

 

[Upchurch]

People with psychosomatic disorders are faking it?

Not necessarily, but neither do wind turbines cause it