What you do is you take powerful fans, drawing their juice from the existing grid, and blow them over electricity-generating wind turbines, thereby converting the nasty coal- or oil-produced electricity into clean, environmentally-friendly wind power!
And the best part? Well, as Blackwing1 pointed out:
"[Y]ou can make a profit by utilizing the direct 1.5-cents per kW-Hr subsidy that wind-generated electricity gets. All you have to do is make sure that your fan/windmill combination has a higher combined efficiency than the difference in price between your wholesale electricity cost for fan power, and the price you get paid for the subsidized "green" power."Visualize a cleaner world!
This is the only way to minimize the environmental impact of wind turbines.
ReplyDeleteEveryone has conveniently ignored the fact that extracting energy from the wind will cause climate change. The wind moves weather systems. As you decrease the power available to move these systems, you affect the climate.
TINSTAAFL (There is no such thing as a free lunch.)
Our masters did not expect that we peons would know how to do arithmetic. Now that you have mentioned this, I'm afraid that Blackwing will need to be afraid, from now on, of a SWAT raid. You just have to spoil things, dontcha?
ReplyDeleteThis is almost as cool as whirled peas!
ReplyDeleteIt's easier with solar. Just shine arc lights at the panels during the night. Saves you the bother of trying to match fan speeds and that sort of thing.
ReplyDeleteBTW, you see exactly this sort of thing going on in Germany, so your suggestion sadly has already been overtaken by events.
This sounds frighteningly similar to how the Mob cleans money.
ReplyDeleteNo, no no no NO!
ReplyDeleteDon't use fans. Instead, install large, industrail vacuums on the downwind side of the windmills.
That way, the system would truly suck!
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
The Spanish were doing exactly that with solar panels...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/465409/spanish_nighttime_solar_energy_fraud_unlikely_in_uk.html
NateG
That is the "reverse John Galt" approach. Latch on, and suck and suck until the monster goes dry. Then during the chaos, you are better off than the competition because you start with your belly full.
ReplyDeleteWV: deudon, as I was under the cow and it deudon me.
I have a solution.
ReplyDeleteHerd up all the physically able greentard hippies, equip each of them with a Mosin, fifty rounds of ammo and a machete, and airdrop them all into the Amazon rainforest and other endangered ecosystems.
First of all, they'd get pissed off and would start shooting loggers.
Regular airdrops of milsurp ammo would ensure re-forestation, and greentard would finally be able to live in touch with nature.
Good idea? And we would be able to build these nuclear reactors without fear of protest and idiotic petitions..
Many would argue that such a system would exhibit a great loss. All you have to do is divide that loss into 1 and you have a gain! Yippee!
ReplyDeleteWell i dont know about all of you....but in MY house we Obey the laws of thermodynamics!!!!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:52 - When I don't obey the laws of thermodynamics I tend to catch a little heat.
ReplyDeleteThen you run afoul of the Lord, and Thermogoddamics takes over...
ReplyDeleteNah ... you just do what the power companies are doing now.
ReplyDeleteUse the federal money to put up the wind turbines ( pocketing the difference between the subsidy and the actual cost of erecting the turbine ).
And then let them slowly break down and stop running, because they do not earn enough money to pay for their own maintenance.
It's not waste, because somebody gets the money and someone gets the credit for giving it to them.
ReplyDeleteI think Jim wins, both for content and brevity. Elegant, in the engineering sense of the word.
ReplyDeleteThe Brits stopped subsidising windpower about 4 or 5 years ago, when they discovered that the payback time was 150 years. So there must be lots of cheap windmills for sale over there. Maybe the hippies could get them at surplus prices and set them up on their own property.
Oh wait, that violates the law. The NIMBY law, as the Kennedys proved a few years ago, when they had a bunch of sea anchored windmills quashed because it ruined their view from Cape Cod.
You know, even if it were possible to reconfigure the collapsing magnetic field or some crap like that, it would probably result in magically converting the copper windings into unicorn farts... or toxic plutonium. When science no longer matters, who is to say what will happen?
ReplyDeleteListen to this one then; you open a company called the Arse Tickler's Faggot Fan Club. You take an advert in the back page of some gay mag, advertising the latest in arse-intruding dildos, sell it a bit with, er... I dunno, "does what no other dildo can do until now", latest and greatest in sexual technology. Guaranteed results or money back, all that bollocks. These dills cost twenty-five each; a snip for all the pleasure they are going to give the recipients. They send a cheque to the company name, nothing offensive, er, Bobbie's Bits or something, for twenty-five. You put these in the bank for two weeks and let them clear. Now this is the clever bit. Then you send back the cheques for twenty-five pounds from the real company name, Arse Tickler's Faggot Fan Club, saying sorry, we couldn't get the supply from America, they have sold out. Now you see how many of the people cash those cheques; not a single soul, because who wants his bank manager to know he tickles arses when he is not paying in cheques!
ReplyDelete- Tom, from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
First thing I thought of reading this scheme, Tam.
gvi
The laws of thermodynamics diverge from the laws of econothermodynamics, it seems. Perpetual motion machines are possible, with enough federal funding!
ReplyDelete"And then we can use regenerative braking on the roller coaster to power the whole theme park..."
ReplyDeleteMy housemates know to cover their ears whenever that commercial comes on.
WV: bectie, neckwear that Glenn sells to cover the lost revenue from leaving Fox News.