Is green energy going to bring about our doom?

[Canon Fodder]

I'll start by saying this is firmly tongue in cheek but a couple of drunken ideas that stayed in head the next day:

1) Generating power by wind turbine: I thought winds were fairly important for moving weather systems about, so if we slow the wind down to extract energy are we going to end up with a "day after tomorrow" scenario?

2) Generating power from tides: the moon pulls the sea about, so in accordance with the laws of physics the sea pulls on the moon, if we hold the sea back to generate power will the moon crash into the earth?

seems nuclear is the only safe way forward

 

[Liam92]

haha very nice! i've not even got any real qualification in this other than a SQA Higher in physics but the way i'd look at it is even if we somehow held the entire ocean in place so it couldn't move, the only reason the sea moves is because of the gravity of the moon is just enough to offset it against the gravity of our own planet to make it wiggle a little. So much in the same way if you put a paperclip inside a glass and then put a magnet on the outside of the glass, sure if you keep the magnet close enough you can move the paperclip around but as you move it away, the magnet simply stops attracting the paperclip. much the same, the ocean isn't attracting the moon in any way its the opposite way about.

 

[strafingrun]

1) planes speed it up again so its fine

2) id argue the "force" the sea exerts is negligible being it occupies less than a thousandth of the earths volume. I think you'd only notice a little impact on the moon if the sea vanished..... maybe.

 

[Tom]

Not for the reasons you haev given, but nuclear energy is the cleanest & most efficient.

Most wind turbines are financially viable only because of subsidies (therefore not viable because you pay the tax to fund the subsidy) and also have savings predicted on rising energy costs, and require constant winds to generate energy in such a way to be viable against the energy used to create them before their workable life ends.
Note that the majority of householders who are selling more energy then they use are the green types who are not using energy in the first place

Solar energy works but needs to be a combination system that heats water directy from the sun. If you generate electricity alone you use more electricity to produce heating.

My mad uncle is a 'pioneer' of 'green energy' and feaures every now & then on Scottish TV.
He's been doing it for many decades, nothing about being green, totaly about being on an island with plenty of wind and having no mains energy

 

[Cook$]

Should get Tony Stark on the case. That is, if he's not too busy dismantling the weapons arm of his company so he can build weaponsuits.

 

[Tony Harrison]

Is green energy going to bring about our doom?

No.

But fracking in Blackpool will.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/8864669/Cuadrilla-admits-drilling-caused-Blackpool-earthquakes.html

 

[strafingrun]

The earths been threatening to open up and swallow blackpool for years though, i think replacing it with a cavernous maw would probable do the NW a lot of good.

 

[Canon Fodder]

Isn't Blackpool already the 5th circle of hell?

 

[TheDestinyPB]

I'll start by saying this is firmly tongue in cheek but a couple of drunken ideas that stayed in head the next day:

1) Generating power by wind turbine: I thought winds were fairly important for moving weather systems about, so if we slow the wind down to extract energy are we going to end up with a "day after tomorrow" scenario?

2) Generating power from tides: the moon pulls the sea about, so in accordance with the laws of physics the sea pulls on the moon, if we hold the sea back to generate power will the moon crash into the earth?

seems nuclear is the only safe way forward

1) Little bit out of scale The wind would only loose kinetic energy in the small part they are there, and the wind that turbines touch is way below the height that effects cloud formation etc.

2) The moon exerts a force on the earth, the earth exerts an equal but opposite force on the moon. The sea is just stuck in the middle, just a seconadry factor effected by gravity, like us!

 

[strafingrun]

^ Definitely not equal, for that the moon would have to be equal in mass to the earth. Then they'd be binary planets orbiting about an equidistant point.