Remember this, wind is more efficient than solar, and water is 784 times more dense than air! Source: http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/216/
That means the same 5MPH wind vs 5MPH water current produces in theory 784 TIMES more power.
And we especially in NJ have a lot of WHAT? LAND? NOOOO that is expensive! Do we have a lot of bridges and water ways that we could drop turbines in? YES WE DO!
Do we have any turbines in our water ways harnessing this RENEWABLE CLEAN energy? Nope!
Think about this, what are the sewer run offs on roads? They lead to the oceans around these parts right? That is a HUGE amount of energy discharged into the ocean... And do we try to reclaim that? NOPE! What do we do? We instead try to put computer chips (solar panels) on homes to catch the 4 hours of light a day on average that shines on them to catch ~15% of the energy it even receives!
My Point is simple, while people argue about wind and solar, they fail to realize there are many technologies that are far superior especially for a given region that are not being used. Imagine if every bridge (which already has power lines on it) could be 4 times a day harnessing the tides in/out! A slow 5 mph current is remember in theory 784 TIMES more energy than a wind turbine of the same size moving at 5 MPH!
We need to begin thinking more about energy not as how we are taught to think about it, but how it is everywhere, and we just need to harness it! Energy is not lost, it is always with us, our job is to capture it for our use in our machines!
great point but i think the government love it bigdeej thank you
With love,
harj : ) xoxo
Abstract artist
(My latest artwork is "Government")
I guess it all comes down to the cost of producing said green technology, as long as it produces more energy than it took to build and fit the thing its all good:) I heard wind farms take more energy to make than they can produce in their lifetimes but i dont know how true that is.
Yes and those same wind turbines can be stuck with little modification under water to harness tidal/current energy. And remember with water being 784 TIMES more dense than air that would mean an average of 784 TIMES more energy for the same amount of "flow rate", IE MPH of the wind (air) vs current (water).
I have to agree to disagree with you. Before i got my solar panels i setup a small scale wind turbine . And a small scale solar setup. By far my solar setup beat the wind turbine now . If you go into a state that is more windy Your thoughts may possibly be right . But in Ms if you go wind . You will loose. But if you really want to think about it hard . Wind is technically solar also. Heat from the sun makes uneven pressures.
Do like your thoughts on water though. I do have a design i will be finishing in the future for a wave driven pump in the future i designed while in the pool.
The bridges. Yeah they could add a device to capture the energy from the water . But then they have a new problem to deal with is the added stress from holding back all of that energy to be able to harness it. Harnessing all this energy is the problem. For all alternative energy.
I agree with most of what you say, the only reason I just CAN NOT accept solar is the only reason it is "cost effective" is the subsidies that were available and now are drying up. The HUGE strip mines and processing to create these panels is just as bad as the mines we use for coal. BOTH produce about the same amount of pollution we just shift it to china with solar..
My point is really, we spend BILLIONs no TRILLIONs on 2 concepts and avoid the hundreds of potentials. As you pointed out, each region has it's own natural energy that could be harnessed. Wind doesn't work for a city, just like wave/water power probably won't work well in kansas! We have to be smarter about regional capture of local energy sources. My big issue with solar is you just get so little back for how much damage it causes the earth.
Our potential to harvest renewable energy from many already existing structures is certainly extremely high. Your idea is great, and I am sure there will come time, when we will change our mindset about this and try to utilize any suitable area for more clean energy generation.
I am just throwing out ideas, we spend so much money on solar yet almost nothing is done to capture the water. Remember earth is 70% water and most people live near water.. Why is that not the first option to look at?