Short form: from 1970 through 2010, nuclear power (provides 9% of US power needs) killed zero Americans; wind power (which provides 0.7% of US power needs) killed 35 Americans.
Thus, if we replaced nuclear with wind, we can expect 450 deaths over 40 years… 11.25 per year. If we go to 50% wind power (the other 50% being, of course, solar power), then we can expect 2500 deaths over 40 years… 62.5 per year.
Anyone who supports wind power therefore wants to kill more than sixty people per year. Would YOU trust someone who wants to kill sixty people per year? My god, how many puppies must they be willing to murder in a year to prop up their dangerous scheme of filling our skies with whirling blades of death?
Computer simulation of the inevitable result of letting Big Wind run rampant: fire-breathing blademonsters.
32 Responses to “We Need A Wind Power Moratorium”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
http://xkcd.com/556/
Colorado apparently has 10% of peak load powered by wind.
That blows.
-G.
Wind power kills people?…..poor Holland.
Speaking of moratoriums, how about a moratorium on Minimum Wage? I propose a ten-year moratorium.
I have nothing against wind or nuclear power. Both of them should be developed and utilized. But for return on investment, nuclear power is better. With nuclear power you get Gigawatts of power while with wind you get kilowatts of power.
Not just people, lots of birds too; Some of the exotic ones the tree huggers cry about, no doubt.
Jim
Wind power kills people? …Everybody knows people from L’Empordà are insane because of “Tramuntana” wind. They’re “tocats de l’ala”.
Thanks for that dose of humour!
the problems with the hype “wind power”
i see in germany, as the “Grünen” (tree-hugger) were in the Goverment
the country was paved with Wind power generator, wat literal form forest!
while the chairmans of “Grüne” praises this new clean energy
were the regional league of “Grüne” campaign agaist it !
the “opitcal pollution” by forest of wind power generator
the noise of blades, the bird kill by them and safety problems for airtrafic
becaues allot of wind power generator HAS NO RED WARING LIGHT
as i visit my oncle in Lower Saxony (North Germany), i was shocked:
the lovely contrysite spoil by scores and scores of wing power generator
Non of them have a waring light
in total only 5,2% of total german energy production is made by 21.607 wind mill
and there run out space to put more wing power generator
so there build a protoype offshore windpark in northsea…
Nothing to do with what I said earlier,but for the birds and aircraft maybe
they should either put warning lights or color the tips like they did on
the Corsairs and other propeller planes or both.
I don’t think a 2MW wind turbine is much of a collision hazard to small (low) aircraft. I never had a problem with radio towers. Power lines and tower guy lines can surprise you sometimes !
The biggest problem that I saw with wind power was the load leveling. You can’t quickly start up a coal plant because the wind dies, this pushes more use of natural gas (relatively fast spin up times). Denmark is supposed to have 100% of the electricity generated by renewables, but not at the correct times.
This is a bonus for Germany to buy low and sell back high !
(or so I am told)
-Gar.
I wonder about using wind power – now that the turbines are in – to power things like water desalinization or other loads that might be tolerant of fluctuating input. I could be completely out to lunch, but there might be a bit of practicality there.
Jim
More creative math…
Dare I ask why you didn’t include 1940 – 1970? Because Americans did die during that time interval.
> Dare I ask why you didn’t include 1940 – 1970?
Because the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum only listed worldwide accident and fatality data for bird mincers from 1970 to 2010.
>Because Americans did die during that time interval.
I’ve heard rumors to that effect, yes. I’ve even heard from reliable sources that Americans drowned in swimming pools during that period. Clearly, swimming pools need to be emptied, closed down and fenced off until they can prove that they are perfectly safe. Heck, how many fatalities per gigawatt-year of electricity produced is the swimming pool industry responsible for? I bet it’s even *worse* than nuclear power!
If you have the time to investigate this topic here is a video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVr6bD-z9hM
Nuclear plants have caused thousands of deaths (the exact number is impossible to know because of the statistical nature of radiation caused cancer), many in children. Most of those deaths are the result of one single accident, and a lack of concern for the public – but it is unfair for you to say this is simply because the operators were communists.
That kind of “It can’t happen in a capitalist country” thinking is pretty much why Japan has done a piss poor job of preventing this last accident. No, when contracts are given out to the lowest bidder, you can count on industrial accidents. When regulators are basically old industry men, you can count on industrial accidents. Have we had any recently in this country?
I do not think we should ban nuclear plants, but I do think they should be made safer. And older plants should be removed once it is clear that they are 50 years old or so and show obvious flaws in design.
> Most of those deaths are the result of one single accident, and a lack of concern for the public – but it is unfair for you to say this is simply because the operators were communists.
Blaming “the operators were Commies” is of course insufficient. You have to add “the designers were also Commies.”
> That kind of “It can’t happen in a capitalist country” thinking is pretty much why Japan has done a piss poor job of preventing this last accident.
Ummm… no. The Chernobyl reactor went FLOOOM because it was a piss poor design that was being abused by the operators. The Japanese reactors went floom because they got hit with a magnitude 9 earthquake and a subsequent ten-meter tsunami. Even after all that, worst-case scenario at Fukushima, despite the greatest hopes of the news media and the anti-nuclear luddites, is nothing remotely like Chernobyl.
> I do not think we should ban nuclear plants, but I do think they should be made safer.
Gee, if we had had a thriving nuclear industry for the past 30 years, rather than the anemic, stifled *nothing* we’ve instead had… doncha think we might’ve produced an economical, improved reactor to replace the 44-year old Fukushima reactors by now?
But no. Since the 1970’s the US has been burdened with Soviet-backed environmentalist jackasses who have demanded that nuclear power be proven to be “perfectly safe,” when not even wind power is “perfectly safe.” So thanks to these useful idiots and the drooling morons who’ve done their bidding in government, the US nuclear industry was effectively strangled, and the repurcussions spread world-wide. Any deaths from Fukushima can be laid squarely at the feet of the anti-nuclear activists.
“Any deaths from Fukushima can be laid squarely at the feet of the anti-nuclear activists.”
That is the best statement I have seen in a while. Those protesting for safe nuclear power, or no nuclear power, somehow caused these accidents?
If the protestors ahd prevented nuclear power from coming into existence in the first place, that would be one thing. But them protesting the industry *after* it was in place would be akin to the lawyers who managed to effectively kill the US civil aviation industry because *old* planes were not perfectly safe. And since the industry got sued into stagnation, very few new light planes came on the market, and those that did were really expensive. And thus a private pilot had little choice but to fly *old* planes. It’s taken years for the US civil aviation industry to recover to the limited degree that it has since Congress surprisingly bitchslapped the lawyers.
So, yes. The anti-nuke activists managed to put conditions in place to *assure* that the Japanese would be stuck operating nuclear reactors built in the 1960’s… rather than replacing them with affordable, updated, more efficient, less costly and safer reactors.
The industry, and government regulators, have the sole responsibility to keep the public safe. If they are unable to do so because of a few thousand vocal hippies protesting and waving signs, they should say so and not build the plant in the first place. Your whole attempt to shift blame on liberals, and the claim that they were actually controlled by communists, is really a step too far.
How can you mix something as beautiful as rocketry with this over-the-top angry political sniping? It is really a painful contrast – and it feels beneath someone who is clearly smart enough to know that nothing is as simple as black and white, or communist and Sarah Palin.
What if the protesters were wrong, and the regulators corrupt, and the reactor designs were old, and there was a natural disaster? Or in other words OJ Simpson did it, and the LA police were racist.
> If they are unable to do so because of a few thousand vocal hippies protesting and waving signs, they should say so and not build the plant in the first place.
The vocal hippies only came on the scene *after* the plants were up and running.
> they were actually controlled by communists,
Not so much “controlled” as “influenced, inspired and in part funded” by Communists. Stifling the American nuclear weapons industry was a goal of the KGB, throuygh shell organizations like the World Peace Council and similar, they riled up the useful idiots to protest all forms of nuclear power. By killing off commercial nuclear power, much damage was done to military nuclear power. Universities long ago began shuttering their Nuke E programs due to a lack of jobs for the graduates, leading to a lack of interest among potential students. When I was in Aero E at Iowa State, there was a stink raised when someone realized that when ISU shuttered their Nuke E program, they left the reactor behind. Nobody was left who knew what the hell to do with the thing.
> How can you mix something as beautiful as rocketry with this over-the-top angry political sniping?
Everything is politics. How can you not realize that the US could have men on friggen *Ganymede* now were it not for political opposition to manned spaceflight by those who’d rather we wasted *trillions* on massively flawed and failed social programs? How can we conquer the damned universe without nuclear power? Hell, these protesting luddite jackasses almost got Cassini shut down because of a meager RTG. How are we going to build and sustain a space tourism industry when there are “Atlas Shrugged”-level bureaucrats just *waiting* to regulate the industry into oblivion?
If your interest is solely in thought experiments with rockets that are never going to fly, then politics is irrelevant. If you want to actually get somewhere, then politics is vital.
> nothing is as simple as black and white, or communist and Sarah Palin.
Yeah, yeah, and I’m sure John Wayne Gacy made a great party clown. Sorry, but sometimes some things *are* just plain evil. Nazis, Commies and anti-nuclear activism are intellectually and ethically vacant ideologies all deserving of scorn and contempt.
Bullies should not be appeased or placated, but rathe3r called out and on occasion beaten senseless. This applies just as equally to those bastards who have virtually murdered the American nuclear industry, ensuring a future enthralled to overseas oil. Things are now moving again to build new reactors in the US, but it’ll be *years* before the first of ’em come online. And the total installed power is a miniscule fraction of Americas total energy need. The price of oil goes up much more and our economy could stagger or collapse. With poverty and economic depression comes lower quality of life, reduced healthcare quality, shorter lifespans. Generally increased misery. Those whose opposition to reasonable nuclear power would be in part to blame for this.
So Nazis and Americans protesting nuclear power are the same thing to you. There is no legitimate reason why people would question the ability of our government to protect the public against radiation?
I suggest you read http://www.amazon.com/Under-Cloud-Decades-Nuclear-Testing/dp/1881043053 and http://www.amazon.com/Plutonium-Files-Americas-Medical-Experiments/dp/0385319541/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300835567&sr=1-1
Not because nuclear power is automatically deadly, but because there is also reason to suspect that the government is unable to protect us sufficiently from the dangers of nuclear power. Or unwilling to even admit that Americans have been exposed by the millions, resulting in hundreds of cancer deaths, since the 1940s.
I still am not convinced that, assuming your claim that protesting made nuclear power unsafe, the operators of the plants should not have shut them down. If they ran out of money, or were sad about the picket lines, they should have shut the plants down. If a bus driver is being distracted by some hippies on his bus, and the bus crashes… is that not his fault? He should have stopped the bus if he was unable to drive properly. (BTW blaming hippies went out of fashion in the 1970s, now we are on to terrorists and east coast liberal elites. Also gay people. Get with the Rush Limbaugh program.)
I agree that nuclear power in space is useful and in some cases, essential (power for deep space missions) in others. Nuclear pulse propulsion, like Orion, is also a viable option for manned exploration. The people who protest RTGs are wrong, and they fall among a very large group of liberal nuts (with what I can assure you is an equally large counterpart centered around the Tea Party) who are anti-vaccine and new age nutjobs. They are scientifically illiterate and they bother me as much as the racists, homophobes, and NRA members who have a meeting right after the Columbine shooting do.
But how did protesters against nuclear power alter the procedures or design at Three Mile Island? Having read about that incident, I see no indication that anything other than technological hubris caused that problem. No lack of money, no picket lines that prevented proper cooling… The same for Chernobyl with the addition of incompetence among the night staff that took over the experiment. The plants were designed poorly, with very limited safety margins (to save money obviously.) Even considering that, neither accident would not have occurred without human error. When you look for communists to blame (or commi-nazis perhaps) I look no further than human error. It can be found in every nation with every type of government. No one to blame but the industry and governments that are supposed to regulate them.
> So Nazis and Americans protesting nuclear power are the same thing to you.
Insofar as both groups are evil and set back the cause of human progress and freedom, yes.
> There is no legitimate reason why people would question the ability of our government to protect the public against radiation?
An irrelevant strawman. “I want nukes to be reasonably safe” is one thing. “I want nukes to be *perfectly* safe” (a statement I’ve heard a lot recently) is quite another. And “No Nukes!” is quite different still.
The “perfectly safe” crowd are, in the end, arguing for a nuclear-free world, just like the “no nukes” crowd.
> If a bus driver is being distracted by some hippies on his bus, and the bus crashes… is that not his fault?
Not quite the right analogy. The right analogy would be a bus driver driving a bus made in 1970. No newer buses have been made because, due to the “No Buses!” crowd, the bus industry essentially closed its doors about 1980. The bus has been poorly maintained, because since about 1980, the Bus Engineering programs at schools across the land have shut down because of a lack of interest. The bus hasn’t been repalced with a better bus because there are no new buses. The bus has not been simply shut down and shoved into a landfill because environmental regulations prevent that. The bus has not been shut down and recycled, because government regulations, based on treaties signed with the Soviet Union to help prevent Militarized Bus Proliferation, prevent recycling of the bus components (and there are no breeder buses anyway). And the bus has not been replaced with other technologies, because the coal burning taxies have proved almost equally unpopular with the regulators. And the solar and wind powered rickshaws have proven to be difficult, expensive and low power. Society needs the transportation that the buses provide.
So what you wind up with are antiquated buses that have not been legally alowed to be either shut down or replaced, so they keep chugging along, maintained by a dwindling staff of increasingly older technicians. Then when one of these buses blows a tire and goes off the road, the same assholes who prevented the bus from being replaced in the first place stand up and start yapping about how unsafe they are.
> They are scientifically illiterate and they bother me as much as the… NRA members who have a meeting right after the Columbine shooting do.
So… you are bothered by a non-profit organization that is *legally* *required* to hold a type of meeting, that has scheduled the meeting for more than a year in advance and spent a *lot* of money on it, going ahead with the meeting because something entirely unrelated to them happened? How does that work, exactly?
http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
At Denver, the NRA cancelled all events (normally several days of committee meetings, sporting events, dinners, and rallies) save the annual members’ voting meeting — that could not be cancelled because the state law governing nonprofits required that it be held. [No way to change location, since under NY law you have to give 10 days’ advance notice of that to the members, there were upwards of 4,000,000 members — and Columbine happened 11 days before the scheduled meeting.]
The NRA would have been in violation of the law had they cancelled, unless this big organization had somehow been on the phone with 4 million member cancelling the meeting *as* *Columbine* *was* *happening.*
By coincidence, I happen to be a certified CDL BP endorsed truck driver. That means I can drive buses with passengers. Certainly most drivers don’t give a damn anymore… but a big part of that process is learning how to inspect a school bus every time you use it. It is a 30 or so point test. If anything is wrong, you do not drive that day. So most people who do things that risk lives actually are supposed to stop if they are unable to be safe. Would a pilot fly in a jet that he knows is not safe? I doubt that very much. And a good bus driver (not a lazy union slob who doesn’t care anymore) would do the same. Certainly nuclear regulators, who are protecting the thousands near the plant not to mention workers at the plant, can do the same.
Oh and btw, how many NRA members still went to that meeting? Sure it was their right to do so, but it is exactly the kind of thing your hated hippies would do. There are jerks all around, maybe some are too close to you to even been in focus.
> how many NRA members still went to that meeting?
Don’t know. Does it matter?
> Sure it was their right to do so…
It was their legal *responsibility* to do so.
Imagine if Jared Loughner had decided to go shoot a politician not on some random day, but a week before major elections. Would you say that anyone who voted was a dick?
> Would a pilot fly in a jet that he knows is not safe?
Many have. Rescue flights, military operations, etc.
> Certainly nuclear regulators, who are protecting the thousands near the plant not to mention workers at the plant, can do the same.
*Really.*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/germany-weaning-itself-from-nuclear-power-for-good-in-the-wake-of-japans-disaster/2011/03/23/ABTfFCIB_story.html
Germany stands alone among the world’s leading industrialized nations in its determination to abandon nuclear energy for good because of the technology’s inherent risk. …
The transition was supposed to happen slowly over the next 25 years, but is now being accelerated in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant disaster, which Chancellor Angela Merkel has called a “catastrophe of apocalyptic dimensions.”
So, clearly, the thing to do if you have a bus with a busted tire is… to abandon the use of buses altogether. Wind powered rickshaws it is!
If Fukushima’s problems are “apocalyptic,” one wonders what she’d call a major blizzard striking Europe that snows over the PV arrays, takes out the wind turbines and freezes a few tens of thousands of Germans to death.
*THIS* is the result of the anti-nuke protestors. Not “improved regulation/safety,” but abandonment. They will not be happy until nuclear power is completely abandoned in the western world, leaving the west unable to expand into space (and likely unable to even provide a decent standard of living). And leaving the future in the hands of crapholes like China and Iran, apparently.
I support nuclear power, if it is safe. Not 100% safe, that is impossible, but certainly we should have less than one meltdown per decade. I think that is possible. Or what is the right threshold?
If the bus is too old, or flawed in design, you do scrap that one bus. You can build new ones. No matter what the political environment, if the plant is known to be flawed and dangerous, vulnerable to a generator failure for example if (shockingly) Japan has a tsunami. Like I said before, there is a reason why we use the Japanese word when we describe this kind of wave. They get them all the time, many times per century. If the plant design cannot handle it, the plant should not be there.
One thing is certain; these 3 or 4 meltdowns will do more damage to the nuclear industry than anything else since Chernobyl. Japan is not going to be able to export the technology anymore, and as you said Europe may start to abandon nuclear power. I agree that this is an overreaction. It would be like closing down all banks after the recent recession. But just as some banks had to go, some plants should also go. Start with ones next to, say, the largest cities on Earth?
> I support nuclear power, if it is safe.
How safe is wind power?
> Or what is the right threshold?
According to the anti-nuclear activists, not one atom should ever fission.
> If the bus is too old, or flawed in design, you do scrap that one bus. You can build new ones.
Not if the bus is regualted like nuclear reactors you can’t. Which is the point. Do you think that the Japanese *wouldn’t* have replaced these obsolete reactors with newer, better, more efficient ones long ago had the option been available?
> If the plant design cannot handle it, the plant should not be there.
Neither should there be *cities* near tsunami zones. What do you want to bet that more people die of building/structure collapses due to this earthquake and tsunami than die of radiation poisoning from Fukushima?
Good luck convincing the hippies of San Fran that they need to pack up and leave the earthquake zone.
> Europe may start to abandon nuclear power.
It’s not “may.” It’s a done deal, at least in Germany. Shocking to say, but the French don’t seem to have surrendered on this one, while the German government seems to whimper like a little bitch.
> But just as some banks had to go, some plants should also go. Start with ones next to, say, the largest cities on Earth?
Sure. I’d buy that. Just as soon as the reactor vessels can be removed, and the fuel reprocessed into the breeder reactors of greater power that you will install in the same facilities.
Wind power is very safe. There is no scenario where wind power is going to injure thousands of people. It is never going to cause cancer. And if it stops working, it is easy to recycle or dispose of the parts. Is wind power good enough to supply our needs? I have doubts. I also find it rather ugly and wouldn’t want huge farms near me for that reason.
“Just as soon as the reactor vessels can be removed, and the fuel reprocessed into the breeder reactors of greater power that you will install in the same facilities.”
So you support having a reactor within 50 miles of New York City…
> There is no scenario where wind power is going to injure thousands of people.
A reliance upon wind & solar could easily kill tens of thousands in a sufficiently badass blizzard.
> I also find it rather ugly and wouldn’t want huge farms near me for that reason.
A common scenario. People, like the Kennedys, bleat about the need for wind farms; but then they bitch and moan if someone dares to suggest putting one within their field of view. And then you get this:
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=42473
Oopsie. I guess it’s a good thing that wind speeds never get above 30 mph during blizzards…
Additionally, the claim is made by someone actually living next to a wind turbine that it causes physical pain and damage. So much for “very safe.”
> So you support having a reactor within 50 miles of New York City…
I support having multiple reactors *in* New York City. Gas burners, coal burners and wind turbines are right out for safety reasons. PV arrays might be doable on a small scale, but could hardly supply the whole cities power needs. A few dozen small, encapsulated neighborhood nuclear power stations could do the job nicely.
You keep coming back to the blizzard example. No one is ever going to supply power to a population on wind power alone. Wind power is spotty, even in windy places. It will never be used as a steady source of power. It is far better for adding to a more reliable power source, or for certain tasks like hydrolysis. Furthermore, even if somehow a large population lived on only wind power (not going to happen because of the above reason), a blizzard will not just kill them. They have homes, and most heating is still not electronic anyway but rather based on oil. Even if the heat goes out for a few days, in this now unrealistic by 3 degrees scenario, people in homes do not just die by the thousands. They put on a coat and use an extra blanket at night. Scare tactics based on unrealistic scenarios to fight something as silly as wind power; I wonder why you even care so much in the first place.
Solar will not be used as anything more than an extra supplement in areas that get blizzards. It is not reliable enough in places where you have cloudy days and winter. If you spent the time to actually study these two methods of power generation, you would know that no serious expert plans on using them alone in all areas. Solar will work well, perhaps even providing a large fraction of our total national power, in certain places like Nevada. The big question is how does this power get distributed. Hydrogen is good for little things like cars. But a better power grid is needed if we want to share solar power – transmission over great distances will be needed. One method to do this would be a superconducting grid, contained within a liquid hydrogen pipeline. Both carry product from solar, wind, and nuclear plants in ideal or safe locations for the latter, to the urban areas where most Americans will live. Those in the country, who consume two or three times as many resources as the rest of us, and an order of magnitude more resources than the average human, will also benefit. They can burn hydrogen in cars as they drive 20 miles to Walmart.
I like that you are also on the 1960s hatred of the Kennedys. As if they are really such a threat to you or America. They are now what, the 5th generation of people tangentially connected to politics, and only 1/8th or 1/16th related to Joseph P. Kennedy? Are you talking about Ted Kennedy Jr. who founded some kind of financial services firm? Scary liberal stuff this…
I like how you ignore the fact that we can create wind turbines that can feather in strong winds, or do a dozen other things to make wind turbines safe even in hurricane force winds. We send people to the moon, and create massive and complex nuclear reactors, but you think we can’t combine middle ages technology with late 1800s motor technology and make it work in high speed wind? That is silly. You seem to think Project Pluto is more realistic than a turbine able to survive a storm. If the funding is there, and the research and experience, I have no doubt that we can make it work. Have you even looked into vertical wind turbines?
“I support having multiple reactors *in* New York City.”
Just to ask, do you live in New York? It is very easy to suggest something totally insane like this for others to live around.
Tiny generation IV plants are made to work under these conditions, but it will take more than a few dozen of these to power the largest (by far) city in the country. The small automatic IV plants that I have seen would maybe power a single block in NYC (of which we have thousands.) In Manhattan, a single large skyscraper uses an exceptionally large amount of power.
I also think that putting them in the middle of population centers is asking for trouble. I won’t even get into the risk posed by terrorist attack, which you seem to ignore despite being so fixated on other dubious exogenous threats like communism. But I guess the chance of terrorist attacks in New York are pretty slim. Particularly from the air or truck bomb. I would also like to see the water source for these plants in the heart of a city, but that is a minor concern compared to the above issues which are categorically show stoppers. I don’t even have to get into the political and popular opinion issues which I agree should not be the primary concern, but will be anyway. So now that your idea is unworkable on several levels, we know that power generation of any type will occur mostly outside of a city.
Some things belong outside of the city anyway. An ideal location is Nevada, as I keep saying. Canada in general would be a good place for nuclear power, just as it is good for hydro.
> No one is ever going to supply power to a population on wind power alone.
If the luddites and nannystaters get their way, there soon will be no coal, oil or gas energy production, and as Germany has shown, they are doing a great job of suckering people into giving up nuclear. Hydroelectric has not only no real growth potential, it actually has decrease-potential as dams are torn down for environmental reasons. Which leaves… wind and solar. Which don’t work that great.
> Scare tactics based on unrealistic scenarios to fight something as silly as wind power;
Now where oh where might I have learned such tactics? Mayhaps from those who have fought nuclear power to a decades-old standstill?
> One method to do this would be a superconducting grid, contained within a liquid hydrogen pipeline.
Now *that* would be a juicy target!
> I like that you are also on the 1960s hatred of the Kennedys.
I like that you’re so far behind on the news. Here, from the long-ago era called “2008:” http://www.projo.com/business/content/bz_kennedy_heating16_01-16-08_BK8KHEM_v10.1b9c840.html
>I like how you ignore the fact that we can create wind turbines that can feather in strong winds, or do a dozen other things to make wind turbines safe even in hurricane force winds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KshskEi1XFo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbMO7ufATBc
SAFE!
> We send people to the moon
Do we? When?
> Just to ask, do you live in New York? It is very easy to suggest something totally insane like this for others to live around.
It’s even easier for you to call somethign insane than for you to actually think about it. Distributed power is better than having a few bigger failure nodes. Not a reason in the world why New York City – or *any* city – couldn’t host some smaller reactors.
> it will take more than a few dozen of these to power the largest (by far) city in the country.
Great! The more, the merrier! Betterto have a larger number than a smaller number… mass production is better than a few art projects.
> An ideal location is Nevada, as I keep saying.
Sure. Then when the East Coast and California get *really* uppity, Nevada can simply cut ’em off and plunge them into darkness.
Actually, that ain’t bad. Turn the mountain west, from Texas to Nevada to Montana and the Dakotas, into the Nuclear Generation Hub of America. Crank out so many gigawatts that other power systems cannot compete. Form something of a power monopoly. Then, next time Pelosi or Schumer trots of more of their dumbass “gun control” regulations… simply cut ’em off. People that want to be unarmed slaves deserve no watts.
“Now where oh where might I have learned such tactics? Mayhaps from those who have fought nuclear power to a decades-old standstill?”
That was my hope, that you are just being sarcastic to show how silly it is to stop nuclear power based on a few deaths.
“SAFE!”
Have you seen a plane crash? We should stop flying then. Remind me, have you looked into vertical wind turbines yet?
“We send people to the moon
Do we? When?”
Good to see that you also think that the Moon landing was a hoax – not shocking at this point.
“t’s even easier for you to call somethign insane than for you to actually think about it. Distributed power is better than having a few bigger failure nodes. Not a reason in the world why New York City – or *any* city – couldn’t host some smaller reactors.”
Economy of scale. You are ignoring the risk of nuclear accidents and terrorist attacks. I have been thinking about it quite a bit. Also reading about it. I gave a list of deal-breakers including nuclear accidents and terrorism, and let the social aspect slide (which is automatically a deal breaker). Can you refute any of them?
“Actually, that ain’t bad. Turn the mountain west, from Texas to Nevada to Montana and the Dakotas, into the Nuclear Generation Hub of America. Crank out so many gigawatts that other power systems cannot compete. Form something of a power monopoly. Then, next time Pelosi or Schumer trots of more of their dumbass “gun control” regulations… simply cut ‘em off. People that want to be unarmed slaves deserve no watts.”
Actually I was thinking that parts of the country good at one thing or another will share with other parts of the country. The way I eat food from CA, or the way “fly over states” burn through the money generated in a select few cities that they love to hate? But maybe that is too much like socialism. “People that want to be unarmed slaves deserve no watts.” Who exactly is a slave? And slave to whom? You do know that the government is run by people just like us, right?
Just for the sake of honesty, where do you live? Do you have gun crime near you? Do you have a nuclear power plant near you?
> That was my hope, that you are just being sarcastic to show how silly it is to stop nuclear power based on a few deaths.
It took you *THAT* long to figure it out????
>>“We send people to the moon
Do we? When?”
>Good to see that you also think that the Moon landing was a hoax – not shocking at this point.
Wow, really? You don’t understand the difference between “do” and “did?” Not shocking at this point. If it took you this long to comprehend the concept of “sarcasm,” I guess you having some difficulty with the concept of linear time shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
> You are ignoring the risk of nuclear accidents and terrorist attacks.
Nope. But nice try on that whole “telepathy” thing, though. But before you devote too much more effort at trying to read the minds of others, I’d heartily recommend you get a better grasp of such concepts as “sarcasm” and “past/future.” Without a proper understanding of those, your mind reading efforts are pretty well doomed to confusing failure.
> Who exactly is a slave?
Anyone who turns their self defense over to distant others.
> You do know that the government is run by people just like us, right?
Now you’re just being nasty.
> where do you live
Really? *REALLY?*
> Do you have gun crime near you?
Not of any great consequence. Lots and lots of guns in the area, of course. The weekends echo with the sound of gunshots… bird hunting during the right seasons, target practice otherwise. Lots of guns in the hands of lots of law abiding gun owners = less gun crime.
> Do you have a nuclear power plant near you?
Sadly, no. I’ve got enough acreage for a small self-contained unit out back, though. I know the Japanese were trying to interest some Alaskan villages in such reactors; I’d certainly welcome one if it came with free power. I’d certainly welcome one more than a wind turbine, that’s for bird-mincing, thop-thopping, sun-blinking sure.
“> Do you have gun crime near you?
Not of any great consequence. Lots and lots of guns in the area, of course. The weekends echo with the sound of gunshots… bird hunting during the right seasons, target practice otherwise. Lots of guns in the hands of lots of law abiding gun owners = less gun crime.”
I can live in Florida and blame the lack of snow on plenty of guns. That correlation does not prove your boilerplate NRA excuse for a hobby that hurts so many people.
You have no gun crime because you live in the country. If the guns were gone, suddenly criminals would start falling out of the trees?
Just for my education, how many violent crimes are prevented every year by gun owners? The NRA must have a number. I have seen a few isolated articles here and there, but what is the total number?
> That correlation does not prove your boilerplate NRA excuse for a hobby that hurts so many people.
So now you’re bitching about *cars?* Or is it tobacco? or alcohol? Or bicycles? Or taking baths or showers or swimming or prescription drugs or kitchen knives or spray paint?
> If the guns were gone, suddenly criminals would start falling out of the trees?
If the guns were gone, the criminals would realize that the citizens are substantially more vulnerable.
> how many violent crimes are prevented every year by gun owners?
Somewhere in the neighborhood of 800,000 to 2,500,000 per year (Kleck). The thing anti-gun fanatics refuse to acknowledge is that a person can prevent a crime with a gun and not only not kill someone, not only not wound someone… but not even pull the trigger. Just as a mugger brandishing a knife or a gun can cause some people to start throwing cash and jewelry at them, an armed citizen brandishing a firearm often causes criminals to decide to go do something else.