Oil Spill

I love birds and I live on the Gulf Coast. I am very concerned, as I'm sure many of you are, about the BP oil spill and the damage to the environment. This is very troubling;

Transcript of President Obama's oil spill remarks and news conference (today)
ABC News' Sr White House Correspondent
Jake Tapper.
Q Thanks, Mr. President. You say that everything that could be done is being done, but there are those in the region and those industry experts who say that’s not true. Governor Jindal obviously had this proposal for a barrier. They say that if that had been approved when they first asked for it, they would have 10 miles up already. There are fishermen down there who want to work, who want to help, haven’t been trained, haven’t been told to go do so. There are industry experts who say that they’re surprised that tankers haven’t been sent out there to vacuum, as was done in ’93 outside Saudi Arabia. And then, of course, there’s the fact that there are 17 countries that have offered to help and it’s only been accepted from two countries, Norway and Mexico. How can you say that everything that can be done is being done with all these experts and all these officials saying that’s not true?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let me distinguish between -- if the question is, Jake, are we doing everything perfectly out there, then the answer is absolutely not. We can always do better. If the question is, are we, each time there is an idea, evaluating it and making a decision, is this the best option that we have right now, based on how quickly we can stop this leak and how much damage can we mitigate -- then the answer is yes.

Any thoughts? regards~Bill

It's pathetic. When Apollo 13 had that explosion over 100K miles away from earth, those folks at NASA did not accept failure as an option and got the astronauts home safely. With the spill, it's been over 3 weeks and everyone has been dragging their feet on this making this the worst spill in US History. I'm just praying that slick spares the Florida coast.

I hear you about the wind power, the only negative I've heard has to do with birds? Seems like it does a number on the population, imagine selecting placement would take care of some of the problems .. but there is always a price. Personally I think nuclear is the way to go !

... btw check PM !!!

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Originally Posted by Alfred Forns

I hear you about the wind power, the only negative I've heard has to do with birds? Seems like it does a number on the population, imagine selecting placement would take care of some of the problems .. but there is always a price. Personally I think nuclear is the way to go !

... btw check PM !!!

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Haha, good points Al, but when something goes wrong with nuclear may be much worse than oil spill, radioactive waste is eternal and in case of a leak large areas might remain contaminated for hundreds of years (like the Chernobyl exclusion zone), thousands of birth defects, weird illnesses and nasty stuff, affects generations wildlife and humans alike,airborne particles can travel for thousands of miles and come down with rain, they don't decay like hydrocarbons. Was reading a book a while ago and had some figures showing Chernobyl alone was one of the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine and Belarus still suffering big time, kids are born with two heads and crazy stuff, but they are poor and don't get western media coverage. The Russians had low safety standards but looks like the standards in this country aren't any higher in practice after all!!! They have been shutting down NPPs all over Europe since Chernobyl except in France, hope they won't have an accident! National Geographic had a nice article on Chernobyl's 20th anniversary a while ago, it's a good read!

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Originally Posted by Alfred Forns

I hear you about the wind power, the only negative I've heard has to do with birds? Seems like it does a number on the population, imagine selecting placement would take care of some of the problems .. but there is always a price. Personally I think nuclear is the way to go !

... btw check PM !!!

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Wind has potential to only supplement other sources of electricity because it has limitations (i.e. only works when the wind is blowing enough). You need to have a base load that comes from one of our other sources to avoid shut downs.

The problem with wind and its effect on birds is not the collisions (new designs have helped with this), but the habitat that is destroyed or fragmented by a wind farm. These structures and the roads that connect them have a major impact on more than just the few acres around them. Many prairie obligate birds have a behavioral response to these structures causing them to avoid them. Research has shown the prairie chickens avoid the area around the turbines for more than a mile radius. That means for a single turbine, somewhere around 2000 acres becomes useless for them. You add that up for a 200 turbine wind farm and it's no small chunk of habitat. The theory os that these birds avoid tall structures (these turbines are 300+ feet tall with the diameter of the blades wider than the wing span of a 747) because they associate them with a roost for a predator, like a red-tailed hawk. So without proper siting, this "green" energy is not so green. :(

Thought has been given to energy storage. For example GE has a patent on storage of heat for solar power plants. In Israel solar ponds were in use several years ago. They used highly concentrated solutions of epson salts to concentrate heat to use for powering turbines. Wave energy is pretty constant. The final solution may be an aggregation of a number of disparate sources.

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Originally Posted by Mike Fuhr

Wind has potential to only supplement other sources of electricity because it has limitations (i.e. only works when the wind is blowing enough). You need to have a base load that comes from one of our other sources to avoid shut downs.

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As someone who has almost thirty years in the lead acid battery business I can tell you the storage issues are being addressed.

East Penn Battery Mfg. has started production of a battery called the Ultra Battery.
It is an AGM / SLA / VRLA battery with a carbon capacitor plate next to every positive and negative plate.

This is a battery that can be used at power plant substations. The batteries will store energy during off peak hours and discharge energy during peak times. This will allow the power plant run more evenly and that will translate into a more fuel efficient power plant, reducing green house gasses.

These same batteries can be used in wind, solar, thermal, hydro etc. storage applications.

AGM Adsorbed Glass Mat
SLA Sealed Lead Acid
VRLA Valve Regulated Lead Acid

I think Mike has given a compelling reason that wind farms, especially on land, are ecologically a bad idea. Also wind and solar, even with the best forecasts, will only supply a small percentage of energy requirements. Even solar requires substantial land use, which just adds to wildlife's most serious threat; loss of habitat.
I'm in the multi-source of energy camp, and nuclear has clear advantages. Accidents, other than Chernobyl of course, have been relatively rare, and do not in any way justify the fear that exists in public opinion. In my estimation, nuclear has far less of an environmental impact than any other energy source.
One needs to ask why deep water drilling and any offshore drilling is done in the first place(in the US), where it is much more likely to cause serious environmental damage with an accident, when it could be done on land where accidents have far less environmental impact, and are much easier to deal with if they occur. I think I know the answer, but will refrain from any political discussion. regards~Bill

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Originally Posted by WIlliam Maroldo

I think Mike has given a compelling reason that wind farms, especially on land, are ecologically a bad idea. Also wind and solar, even with the best forecasts, will only supply a small percentage of energy requirements. Even solar requires substantial land use, which just adds to wildlife's most serious threat; loss of habitat.
I'm in the multi-source of energy camp, and nuclear has clear advantages. Accidents, other than Chernobyl of course, have been relatively rare, and do not in any way justify the fear that exists in public opinion. In my estimation, nuclear has far less of an environmental impact than any other energy source.
One needs to ask why deep water drilling and any offshore drilling is done in the first place(in the US), where it is much more likely to cause serious environmental damage with an accident, when it could be done on land where accidents have far less environmental impact, and are much easier to deal with if they occur. I think I know the answer, but will refrain from any political discussion. regards~Bill

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Wind can be a valuable source of energy, it just needs to be sited correctly. There are millions of acres already converted to ag that lie in high wind zones that would be great for wind farms. Just keep them away from the the good habitat!!:)