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0 pointsthewhitetulip9y ago0 comments

I am not a fan of Wind energy because of location and the fact that windmills have reportedly killed a lot of birds, sames goes for the underwater windmills.

I love solar though, and yes, storage dependency is there, but then, we have done no research on it. the main problem is the will to do research.

I'll give you an analogy, for pumping water to x height, we use an electric water pump. As you might be aware trees are the best water pumps available, with 0 noise they pump water all the way upto their top, some trees are just crazily huge, so if we are to harness the tech in trees to figure out how the heck are they able to move water from roots to the top, we'll have a revolution on our hands, but in the words of Henry Ford, "If I asked what people wanted they'd have said faster horses" :-)

I want to see the entire world powered by solar with microscopic solar panels which are stuck to things like walls and stuff sending electricity wirelessly (invented by Tesla) to the home/office/car etc

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7 comments · 6 top-level

ccozan9y ago· 1 in thread

Actually, this pumping water idea is considered in solar.

During the day, energy is used also to pump water behind a dam. At night, when the solar output is null, the water is released and produces power via normal hydro turbines.

For example in Romania, which produces exces power [1] almost all the time, there is a plan to build a huge reservoir in mountains to use this power to pump water from the major rivers into it, thus building a reserve energy store.[2]

[1] http://www.transelectrica.ro/widget/web/tel/sen-harta/-/hart...

[2] http://www.hidrotarnita.ro/en/despre-proiect/

madaxe_again9y ago

This is why a majority of power production in the U.K. is in and around north Wales - excess power is used for pumped hydro storage - mountains and deep lakes.

pjc509y ago

> [turbines] have reportedly killed a lot of birds, sames goes for the underwater [turbines]

I hear this argument a lot, but it's not usually connected with concern for birds in any other context. No concern for habitat depletion from oil sands extraction, nor from acid rain, nor domestic cats, nor windows (which kill a much larger number of birds), nor global warming itself.

The effect of tidal turbines on marine life seems to be basically .. unknown. Probably dwarfed by the known impacts from fisheries and pollution. The continued existence of fish depends on putting fishermen out of business, which is politically fraught.

> harness the tech in trees to figure out how the heck are they able to move water from roots to the top

Evaporation. You can demo this on your desk with a piece of rolled up paper in a glass of water. It takes energy from the sun and air and you can't use it to pump water into a reservoir.

> microscopic solar panels

.. produce microscopic amounts of energy, although you can run a calculator or watch from that.

mcv9y ago

> windmills have reportedly killed a lot of birds

From what I understand, far less birds are killed by windmills than by flying into windows and power lines, yet nobody is arguing to ban those.

According to [0], windows are even worse than cats.

(I still prefer solar, though. It just feels like free energy that we're wasting by not making use of it.)

[0] http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mort...

adamjc9y ago

Hi, just fyi, the Royal Society's position on wind farms are positive.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/our-work/our-positions-and-campaigns...

glaberficken9y ago

>"so if we are to harness the tech in trees to figure out how the heck are they able to move water from roots to the top, we'll have a revolution on our hands"

I guess the problem is not one of replication (see [1]) but of throughput. A pump that replicates the tree transpiration process would be too slow for any real energy application.

[1] https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410833/synthetic-tree-hau...

hx879y ago

The water pumps in trees are solar-powered, and not efficient ones at that.

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