DISQUS

I think by doing what your are doing, you are defending New Hampshire, just in a different way. As ex-Navy, I appreciate and thank you for your service to the country.

I have a lot of Asimov's science books and pick one up every now and then. Even when science has better data and theories now, his lucent explainations are still valuable.

Fat Spaniel display?

Several years ago I worked for Hollis Observatory in Nashua, We built solar instrumentation that used a photocell as the sensor. We had a couple of different readouts including Rustrak recorders made in Manchester and a digital display for accumulated solar radiation. We sent these out all over the world. I hope some of the data is still being used for historical trends.

Earle Rich Mont Vernon

The wind farms I worked on in California were certainly tourist destinations. We hosted many tour groups including bicycle club rides and senior citizen groups. I was usually the designated tour guide.

There are motorcycles. . .

and donorcycles.

Interpreting the anemometer data takes some skill. Having adequate wind, at least a 12 MPG average isn't enough as demonstrated by their experience. Recording wind speed along with wind direction with a high sampling rate is needed to really find out what is going on. If the site was looked at by a wind installer, it would have been obvious that a higher tower might be necessary. Power generation is always improved by just going higher. That's usually a cheap way to get more power rather than going to larger diameter props.

Earle Rich
Mont Vernon, NH

I'm sure you are right in that USB power at 5 volts is less efficient than a higher voltage fan driven from the line.
But, the USB connection is not only convenient but also allows the fans use when the laptop computer is running from internal battery alone. I should measure the current drain, but I was more interested in the temperature reduction.
There has been some speculation that men who often use a laptop computer have degraded sperm because of the higher temperature. I already have all the kids I want so comfort is my main goal.

Earle

I can see I'm going to have to start signing my posts. The Photo Tip #1 is my me, Earle Rich. As Bob Hammerstrom can probably comment, David Brooks is not a photographer. He is, however, a very good word person.

Earle Rich
Mont Vernon, NH
www.flickr.com/photos/mvfotog/sets

The first show was pretty good, in my opinion. I liked the practical discussions of the limitations of photovoltaic systems and how their use isn't for everyone. I believe that it will make a difference but for some, it makes a lot of sense. I can see private companies leasing industrial rooftops and sharing the proceeds with the owners.

As in all of these alternatives though, they aren't the final answer but just a piece of the overall picture. I get annoyed with people who see the storage issue as the reason to kill research and investment on solar and wind. Anytime we can offset coal or oil generated power, we are going to be ahead of the game.

My hot water solar collectors have been up and running for 21 years now with yearly energy costs to run the pump about $20 a year. That's a lot of oil that hasn't been burned.

Good article and exactly right on the scale-up potential of simply making these machines bigger. Back in the days when I was involved, we would poke fun at the government programs that would fund one-off machines far larger than anything we could attempt. The consensus then was that lots of small machines would be more cost effective than single large ones.

Now though, we are talking about lots of BIG machines and the economies of mass production are relevant again. I would assume these 300 foot blades would be used only on off shore machines since the logistics of transportation and delivery by rail or truck add considerably to the cost.

The photo you point to has an 'x' in the corner, so didn't get included.

Right. The idea of a small and therefore manageable windmill on your property that ends your dependence on the evil electric utility appeals to a lot of people. The cruel reality is that to produce the amount of power so easily available with the flip of a switch, can't be done without an extreme investment of money and labor.

In engineering terms, its called the economy of scale. Thats why windfarms use very large machines rather than a lot of little ones. The same principle applies to many other fields as well including oil tankers, airplanes, companies and even countries.

People don't have an intuitive feel for power. An effictive demonstration of just how much energy is required to light an ordinary bulb is to have someone mount a pedal powered generator for an hour. It's about all most people can manage just to keep that 100 watt lamp glowing.

Most wind companies are more than happy to interact with the public, mostly at the level of providing informational pamphlets and scheduling infrequent tours for schools and public groups. I've led a lot of these myself in the past.

However, three kiosks and a visitors center? That seems over the top to me. The visitor center would have to be staffed and maintained. Possibly it could be part of the maintenance building, but it would still be quite a financial drag. The decommissioning bond wouldn't be too bad. I would assume that the money for this could be stretch over several years during the windfarms production of power.

We regularly had fire equipment on hand, mostly because of the danger of grass fires during the hot, dry and very windy summer months. When the alarms went off, everyone dropped everything and responded. The farmers depended on their grasslands to feed their cattle. We had problems with automotive catalytic converters starting fires. Those things run hot and if the car was parked over tall grass, it could start a fire.

The latest issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact has a good positive article by Jeffery D. Kooistra

www.analogsf.com

that covers the history of the bad treatment of the work done on cold fusion. I'm still a skeptic, but willing to accept positive and independant research. There is good work being done that is being repeated and confirmed by several labs. Even if it doesn't work in large scale systems, it may give us small power supplies that would still be useful.

dudior = Think 'boudior' but with the groom as the subject

It seems that whenever I give a talk on alternative energy, I can depend on someone asking why we don't see windmills on roofs. After all, the wind blows all the time at their house, the roof is way up there in the air and why not take advantage of all that 'free' energy?

I discuss all the reasons why this isn't a good idea, but some are never convinced.

The story states that there are more than 12,000 windmills operating throughout the world. With all those machines, there are certain to be a few failures. Sometimes it's as simple as a mechanic improperly servicing the machine or as complex as metal fatigue due to notch failure. Every time there is a failure, there is a thorough failure analysis to prevent that particular failure from happening again.
These few failures are a consequence of large numbers of machines operating. High visibility and journalism stories make for an easy blame game. At least in the Altamont, with thousands of machines operating, a failure out of sight of the highway didn't make much of a stir.

Instant hot waters were considered for the last place I stayed and were brought up as a possible change for here. BUT, and it's a big but, the larger sized units might require wiring for as much as 80 amps each. It takes a lot of power to bring gallons of water up to 120 degrees even though the input water temperature might be 75 degrees in the summer. Rewiring and replumbing even one building puts the cost out of range. And we are still left with that huge spike in power demand when everyone comes back to the dorms after a strenuous day of activity.

As in most hot water heaters, the thermostats only turn the elements on when the temperature drops below the setpoints. Most of the time the heaters are off, only being used when the occupants are using the showers. The tanks are insulated, they lose very little heat during the times the buildings aren't used. The temperature of the space is quite high, especially during the summer so the heat lose is even less.
The last place we stayed tried timers on the tanks but found that it made almost zero difference. Even after a hurricane where they lost power for several days, they still had hot water.

It's really $9.00 a KWH. I was astounded when I saw the records.

One of the problems here is that some of the buildings are 30 years old and difficult to retrofit with any sort of upgrade. I haven't looked at insulation or leaks yet, just having arrived on Monday. All these are certainly on my list to look at.

My first thoughts are to have solar panels, properly mounted to resist hurricane damage, feeding a 500 to 1000 gallon tank on the outside of the buildings and feeding the present tanks from that. I want to reduce plumbing changes as much as possible. We have a minimal budget so first costs are as important as payback time.

I'll keep the blog informed of progress.

Usenet was the thing that got me really hooked on the potential of the internet. I used to monitor and contribute to 20 or so groups, mostly technical, photographic, woodworking and others. Now, the many blogs take their place. I do receive a couple of Yahoo digests, HowThingsWork and cad/cam/edm/dro that come close to the discussions we used to have.

howthingswork@yahoogroups.com

CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com

The howthingswork group is especially friendly with nothing being off-topic except for some political discussions that are referred to another group devoted to that.

That sounds about right. Sometimes a company will have a great product, but until it achieves what I call critical mass, it can stumble along for several years and then be overcome by another company with a similar product. The second company won't have the same entrenched ideas and obsolete production equipment.
Sometimes a company is out of business and not even know it. It's a sad sight to watch a business circling around the drain but bravely hanging on til the inevitable end.
Having been involved in a few of these, I have some sympathy. I sure hope E-Ink proves to be a success.

The transition down here in the Fort Myers area of Florida has, I think, gone pretty smoothly. They had several tests before the changeover where they turned off the analog channels for 30 seconds to display "Digital Ready" or, if you weren't ready, "Not Digital Ready".
After the permanent switchoff of analog, they kept the analog channel running with instructions in english and spanish showing how to upgrade your system. That lasted about a week and now analog is completely off.
The FCC mandated that one channel remains analog. In this area, the ABC channel still broadcasts both.

What a wonderful way to start a Monday morning while eating breakfast.

Time to upgrade to a thin screen LCD monitor with two advantages. #1, a lot less energy required over a CRT monitor and, #2, no way that the cat can sit on top. I know you like the company, but it's time to make a sacrifice.

This is a double mistake where you only caught one of them.

Corrected =

'Then the inverter takes the DC from the solar module and converts it from DC to AC power.'

I enjoy doing various versions of sudoku. If you buy the books at a bookstore, they can be quite expensive. The dollar stores (and variations) have puzzle books in the childrens toy sections and charge only $1.00 per book. One I found published by Kappa called Sudoku Variety has 13 types of puzzle including basic sudoku. My favorites are Loco Sudoku and Sudoku Tens.
The regular Kappa Sudoku Puzzles books have difficulty levels from 1 to 4. I take a knife to the spine and discard the first three levels