April 17, 2005 at 11:25 am
Power is on my mind, especially when it snows 🙂
But more than that, I make my living using computers and without power they're not much more than large paperweights. Even better, I love the time I get surfing the web, playing games, and learning things about the world. Much like flipping through an encyclopedia, something I used to do at the public library, it's a great way to pass a few minutes and grow your world.
Getting off the grid, or at least having alternative methods of generating power is important. The past couple years have seen gas prices in the US approaching those in Europe. Which is good and bad. My wallet isn't thrilled, but I'm hopeful that it will spur some development of fuel cells, alternative power transportation, and other methods of keeping my PC going that don't do so much damage to the environment.
I've looked at a few of these, solar power, wind power, even in combination with some sort of flywheel battery that could provide some power when I was without wind or sun.
Living in Colorado, wind power is something to consider. We get lots of wind. Not steady, but every little bit helps. However, I've been nervous about deploying any sort of windmill as I'm concerned about one of the blades snapping in a big windstorm and flying about. However any little blade that I might snap would be nothing compared to one of these. GE is developing a 70 meter blade and there are a few 120+m blades in prototype.
70 meters!!
Wow! I assume they'll be in lightly populated or traveled areas, but can you imagine one of these snapping off? It would make for an interesting video, probably like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster.
Steve Jones
April 18, 2005 at 7:15 am
Check out http://www.homepower.com/ magazine. I picked up a copy last year while on vacation, read the whole thing. Lots of great ideas for getting off the grid, or at least reducing dependence.
Joe
April 18, 2005 at 8:20 am
Funny to read about this in our primary SQL Server reference.
While it is still in "governmental usage" mode, we have built a .NET (SQL2000) based energy and emissions calculator that includes wind, solar, and other community / building energy savings models at http://ecalc.tamu.edu.
We are feverishly working on a version for the average person to use, one with built in graphics and text.... And it is being built in VS2005/Yukon....
Don
April 18, 2005 at 8:35 am
I agree Steve, alternative power should get a higher priority here.
But there are a couple of points to consider.
Solar, somewhere I read/heard (Although I don't believe it, but it was a knowledgable/trustworthy source) that a solar cell requires more energy to create than it will ever produce ??
Wind power, the issue of the thing falling apart is minor. There are issue's with things like birds, noise they create quite a wooshing sound, and even blocking sun light.
The was something in the paper a while back about the neighbors of a farmer who rented space to the local power company to put up a bunch. One family complained that at the right time of day they had to close their drapes etc as it strobed so bad it was annoying. And all complained about the noise.
KlK
April 18, 2005 at 11:57 am
This obsession with alternative power really sounds like someone is getting hassled from the wife about the hydro bills from all the computer equipment in the basement. =) Albeit that the stove and the other appliances are really the blame, the stove and dryer especially. But can you play homeworld2 http://www.d7.ca/fleet on them I tell you... where are the priorities. =) I've looked at the stove and blowdryer power usage and it would cheaper for the governments to deliver everyone food from a centralised food prep place and take away stoves / ovens to offset the power everyone uses with them and have everyone go with unstyled hair to boot.
On another note, After discussions with american friends comparing hydro rates to my canadian ones, its about 10-20% cheaper up here on average. As I've said before in previous posts, the best long term solution for the consumer to lower the rates are geo-thermal in origin.
But again you on any of these require a captial investment and periodic service. So either you pay up front with chances of breakdown on a personal level (ie.: access2k on client pcs) or you have central network of mass power generators ( mmmmmmm clustered win2k ent with sql2k ent mmmmmmm)
Cheers
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