Power?
Here’s a pretty cool presentation on steam power… sort of. The idea is to use low temperatures (160o F) to generate steam that runs a turbine. This way you can use the hot temperatures outside to run AC inside, or use the slightly warm exhausts from factories or geothermal energy to generate power. An idea that could get traction as it could save factories money, and help limit rolling blackout caused by people and businesses who crank their AC to ridiculous levels during heat waves (why can’t people turn the AC to 75o instead of 70o? Do they know how much money they would save?!)
In the future we’ll have to make use of a lot of different energy sources. This could be a major one (at least for those not in the cold, cold north) and could go with the tidal power generators that the scientist pointed out, wind, water, solar, coal, oil and gas (until they run out).
Tidal power just makes so much sense. I saw another article that showed an experimental generator that looks like a big cylinder that gets anchored in deeper water. As it moves up and down with the waves it generates power. With enough of those, it seems like a relatively unlimited, and renewable, power source (at least for costal areas). I wish I could find the link…
Why doesn’t stuff like this exist NOW!!!?!
Comment by xumbi — Tuesday, July 25, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
Wait a minute… maybe that article, and the one that I saw, were referring to the same technology. Looking at the “wave buoy” prototype, it appears to be similar.
Comment by xumbi — Tuesday, July 25, 2006 @ 4:30 pm
Which article? Where? Link damn you! Liiinnnnnkkkk!
Comment by Z.Monkey — Tuesday, July 25, 2006 @ 4:41 pm
What about sweet sweet nuclear reactors? Why are we keeping them to ourselves if we’re not going to power everything with the energy of tomorrow? In fact, I think cars should be equipped with small fusion cores. And the resulting helium could be used to blow up balloons. Fun times for all.
Comment by doomface — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 12:07 am
Nucular power?
Comment by Z.Monkey — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 8:16 am
Maine. Why doesn’t Maine, with one of the largest tidal surges in the world (And New Brunswick/Nova Scotia with the largest!) just DO IT. I’m pretty sure we have the technology. Even if we don’t have the technology to make it a streamlined system we could probbaly still stamp out the project with brute force. WHYYYYYYYYYYYY DAMNIT??? Because it’s not the hot-topic for decision makers and the peeps at CMP are still making money burning fossil fuels/nice stuff.
Doesn’t it seem at this point that energy needs to be provided as a government service? SHEEEEIIITTTT. The Gov’t could probably even make money off it so they can stop charging smokers so much tax on butts.
So my question of the day. Given the law of conservation of energy, and that tides are caused by gravitational pull/Earth’s rotation, would the work we pull out of the system eventually force Earth to slow down?
Comment by tizzom — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 11:36 am
Mike, I hate your comment system.
I wrote a big comment and I still had your page up and for whatever reason I hit refresh. Well, the comment field was now BLANK and it DELETED my comment from your post.
I don’t feel like typing my world saving comment again.
T
Comment by tizzom — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 11:47 am
[…] Don’t they get it, finding more oil is not the solution! We are running out of oil; let’s not ruining our few remaining unpolluted (minimally polluted) natural environments searching for a few more drops. G.W. and his cronies are rich enough, let us stop supporting them and start supporting inventors and business using creative, cost-efficient, energy-efficient, environmentally sound means to create power! […]
Pingback by Ponderings of a Scientist » Boo, Boo on You — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 12:12 pm
OK. I will reiterate.
Why hasn’t the Northeast U.S. and Canada jumped on the tidal power thing? Maine has one of the largest tides in the world, and the largest is just up the coast a little ways in the Bay of Fundy.
Every day, there is an area of water about the size of Texas that goes up and down nearly 30′!!!!!!!! Nothing can stop it short of the moon disintegrating and the Earth stopping spinning.
It just seems so logical to me that the technology is in place to do this. Maybe it would be a little rough on the edges, but damnit it’s there! Why aren’t the Northeast states jumping on this? Maybe Maine doesn’t have the bling, but if they borrowed the money say from New England, NY, and the Eastern Canadian Provinces they probably could. Cripe, they gov’t could probably even make $ off of it and they can quit taxing cigarettes.
Also, I’m starting to think that providing energy should be done by the gov’t. Something that directly effects so many people, and at least indirectly effects EVERYONE, should be owned and operated by the people.
Comment by tizzom — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
Is it just me, or is your bad grammar and conugation beginning to bleed over to the people around you?
Also, I think there needs to be more research done on durability and feasibility of the tidal generators before they are jumped into. It’s an awesome idea, but it would suck to have a generator out there that would have difficulty generting power after a few weeks or months because THE ANCIENT POWERS OF THE MIGHTY SEA were too great, or the shells couldn’t withstand THE ABRASIVE POWERS OF SALTY WATER, or if the POTENTIALLY HIGH TEMPERATURES OF A DYNAMO would effect a negative change in the local wildlife.
Also, also, I also think that energy should be run by the government. Along with health care. Things that people need to survive should not be in the hands of people who just want to make money. However, the likelihood of developing new forms of energy production are increased when companies realize that more efficient ways of producing energy are out there, and they can charge just as much to provide people with that cheaper power.
Also, also, also, look at your energy bill (I know I live in a hippy state but) in our bill was a little form that says “if you pay x amount in addition to your bill, we guarantee that x% of the power to your home will be provided by alternative energy sources, and x% of your bill will be devoted to researching and improving alternate forms of power.
Comment by doomface — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 11:46 pm
I forgot add your poor spelling at the beginning of that last one
Comment by doomface — Wednesday, July 26, 2006 @ 11:52 pm
I would not say that providing energy is the governments job. I think providing infrastructure to get said energy to the people should be. That’s what government does pretty well (though usually to support the military, which I could argued is the main purpose of having a government)! Look at our interstate system, our railroad system (non-existant/private), our information superhighway (private… soon to be discriminatory), our power grid and our education system (underfunded and sabotaged by NCLB). Crap, maybe we do need privization? Haha. Fuck that! Maybe we need a congress and president who are will spend money on important things, like the American ‘people’ and not Halliburton.
On a side note, apparently the US uses a very sizable chunk of its electricity on AC. If we could increase the efficiency of AC units (read ‘regulations’) by 30% I wonder how much energy we could save… Oh, apparently they did!
Comment by Z.Monkey — Thursday, July 27, 2006 @ 8:13 am
That’s why I tried to add a spellchecker. Too bad it wont work! I wonder if they make a grammar checker for this thing…
Comment by Z.Monkey — Thursday, July 27, 2006 @ 8:18 am
sorry for the multiple posts… I didn’t see that mike is comment moderating. I saw the comment go up, and then i saw it disappear.
now i know, and knowing is half the bloggle
who cares about grammar anyways? it’s just a peer reviewed blog.
Comment by tizzom — Friday, July 28, 2006 @ 7:32 am