Quote from: Solar on November 10, 2011, 05:42:28 AM
There is a good reason for that, they don't need them, they have a shit load of hydro in the West coast.
Then there is the issue of lack of wind when they do need them, like hot dry Summer days, when the wind isn't blowing.

What is funny to me is that they go past us in truck after truck with them.  But the parts are not painted.  Yet when you see them all put upright, there all painted white.  Now they must be paying big money, having union people go all the way out there just so they can paint them.

Quote from: walkstall on November 10, 2011, 05:28:05 AM
I would think like wind turbines you could control the flow of water (speed) some way.  But like win turbines they would not last long.   There must be about 300 wind turbines with in 75 mile of me in Washington and Oregon and I only see about 5 to 10 of them working at once 75 % of the time.  I have yet to see all of them in one of the areas working all at once.  Why have 15 or 20 of then in one area and only have 4 or 5 running. 

Control the flow of water? How? It's a sort of underwater wind turbine so controlling the flow of water to one of those tidal turbine's as possible as controlling the flow of wind to a wind turbine. Can't be done.

All you can do is feather the blades to a certain extent but the efficiency falls off so drastically that much outside the turbine's core speed range they have to be stopped and the blades fully-feathered, i.e. they stop turning.

Basically, it's all bullshit and without massive government spending the entire alternative energy industry, with very few exceptions, would be gone in a heart beat.

Quote from: arpad on November 10, 2011, 06:32:09 AM
Control the flow of water? How? It's a sort of underwater wind turbine so controlling the flow of water to one of those tidal turbine's as possible as controlling the flow of wind to a wind turbine. Can't be done.

All you can do is feather the blades to a certain extent but the efficiency falls off so drastically that much outside the turbine's core speed range they have to be stopped and the blades fully-feathered, i.e. they stop turning.

Basically, it's all bullshit and without massive government spending the entire alternative energy industry, with very few exceptions, would be gone in a heart beat.

And I'm counting on it so the price and demand will fall to real world mkt demand price structure.
I have many colleagues still trying to make their business work, but under the meddling of the gov, they are unable to to use basic business formulas to function properly, which is why I bailed on the field.
I knew what was about to happen and wanted no part of it.
Now they are seeing light at the end of the tunnel, problem is, its still a long way till they exit.
There is still a glut of product, subsidies are coming to an end, then there is still all that competition that has yet to file bankruptcy.

This industry was all but murdered by the left.

Quote from: arpad on November 10, 2011, 06:32:09 AM
Control the flow of water? How? It's a sort of underwater wind turbine so controlling the flow of water to one of those tidal turbine's as possible as controlling the flow of wind to a wind turbine. Can't be done.

All you can do is feather the blades to a certain extent but the efficiency falls off so drastically that much outside the turbine's core speed range they have to be stopped and the blades fully-feathered, i.e. they stop turning.

Basically, it's all bullshit and without massive government spending the entire alternative energy industry, with very few exceptions, would be gone in a heart beat.

"Can't be done".....I see them control water all the time where I live.  For power two dam on the Columbia each with in 60 miles of me and water canals farming all around me.  No we can not control water 100% of the time year around. 

Yeah, you can control the flow of water and a dam's the way to do it. But these turbines sit in the flow of the river which means when the river's flowing fast there's a lot of power, when the river's flowing slow there's not much power. There's no means of regulating the flow as there would be with a dam.

You can compensate to a certain extent but at the cost of greater complexity, less efficiency or both. But the nature of turbines is that they're most efficient when they're designed to handle flow at a given speed.

The underlying question is "does it make economic sense?" and greenie-weenies don't care. They got a bug up their asses about energy and, being the spoiled snots they are, they want what they want and they want it their way. They don't care how much it costs or how tough it is or even if it's doable. They want it.

For those who aren't that self-obsessed the underlying question has to be answered, not ignored, and the answer is that all these alternative energy forms make no economic sense. Building them will mean people will get poorer because we'll have to spend more of our income on energy then we otherwise would have.

The greenie-weenies respond with a hearty "so what?" because they've got their reasons why everyone should be poorer and they're satisfied with those reasons whether the reasons are bullshit or not. They want what they want.

I've got a different take on the matter and that's that the reasons people should be poorer have to be very, very good reasons and there really can't be any doubt about how good the reason is or how credible. It's got to be dead-bang right because impoverishing people means you're consigning some percentage of them to death and while greenie-weenies are indifferent to the suffering and death their ideas cause I can't be.