One of my favorite campgrounds on the north shore of Lake Erie is literally surrounded by them in every direction.

A real blight on the landscape.

Even the old Loyalist family farmstead built by my great-great grandfather has one.

Maybe so, but we don't have that problem here. People come from all over the globe to see our views...






(And the Loch Ness Monster)

There is a lot of them out in the sea here. Even there they are often not spinning.

There is a simple solution to such problems, just evacuate the country, whereas with the windmills they are damn annoying :2 cents:

No this isn't how it works. Excess power cannot overload the grid. It is excess drain that causes problems. Adding wind power to the grid means there is more energy available to support peak usage times, reducing the possibility of blackouts or brownouts. Any extra energy can be sold or even stored.

Sea based windmills are a good idea. They can be made larger to capture more wind energy. Like all windmills they will spin when there's wind to capture and stop when there's no wind.


Ok, but isn't it nicer to have clean non polluting windmills than dirty, leaky oil drills (and the associated trucks and other transport driving through your family's property to unload the oil every day?

Wow, come on...

A single small wind farm's energy output may be variable sure, but the more windmills and the more win farms you have, the more redundancy you have, and the more energy you have too. Wind farms at this stage are designed to supplement existing energy sources such as hydro, and do so while creating the smallest environmental impact.

It surprises me to no end that people on GFY who invest in high speed computers, who demand reliable hosting, and expect high tech software from billers, webcam, cms and other providers, who love high tech gadgets like smartphones and 4K TV's, are so ass-backwards when it comes to energy. You would think that the Internet generation would be pushing hard for high tech solutions for clean / renewable energy instead of happily accepting oil as the only source.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

It looks to green like it

:thumbsup

You're so clueless it's making my head spin like a wind turbine. They cannot store the excess power. They have to get rid of it. And if they can't sell it at a loss for a ridiculous price of around 2.5 cents per kw, they literally have to pay the US or other provinces to take it from them.

In fact, they have started paying wind turbine owners to NOT produce energy at certain times. I wish I could find a job like that. Pay me to sit at home and do nothing.

And it's not just Ontario getting hit by this due to the incompetence of Wynne and McGuinty. They are also experiencing the same thing in other areas, which I guess should make us feel a little better.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/ene...ectricity.html

Fiddy !!

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpre...farm_noise.jpg

You could always sit in the dark...or move to WV where they strip mine the entire sides of moutians in search of coal. That tends to make a lovely view.

Most people around here are sitting in the dark already because no one wants to use any electricity.

I didn't think people were serious at first with what they were posting. They do not come close to comparing when you look at the bad side of having them and what oil does and has done

Very easy to say when you are not living in an area that has been affected first hand by their economic repercussions. Go get your last electric bill and double it and see how you like that. Now imagine you are operating a business that relies heavily on electricity to function. What do you do when you are operating in Ontario, that now has the HIGHEST INDUSTRIAL ELECTRICITY RATE in all of North America? You move somewhere else, and take all your jobs with you.

Send them to North Dakota!

NOTHING deserves a subsidy (IMO) If you can't stay in business without a handout (corn farming, US Sugar producers, wind etc) then you are in the wrong business. The ONLY way that wind, Solar etc etc will ever become a viable part of our long term energy strategy is if the technology is also profitable for the companies developing it. Top companies continue to work and make strides and at some point, clean green energy will be a profitable venture. Thats a win win, and its at that point it will take off and not a minute before. History shows this to be the pattern again and again and again.

I am 100% for developing clean efficient green energy, but I think the cost of developing it should be taken on by the companies that will secure the patents and ultimately make a real business out of it. Giving oversized, moronic subsidies does noting but SLOW innovation.....Why spend time and $ working to develop real, viable, cost effective green energy when I can just chug along at half speed and get a whopping check from tax payers? My profit is guaranteed. Not a lot of incentive left to innovate. :(

man, that was quite a rant, LOL

Now, that is energy effecient!

Would yo rather that or nuclear meltdowns, river dams or hydrofracking in your backyard?

Cant have it all, man.

Who's clueless? Excess energy, regardless of the source, can be stored in BATTERIES as well as other methods such as flywheels. I'm sure you've heard of Smart Grid technology? Wind Farms generate most of their energy at night, which also happens to be when energy is used the least. To be efficient, wind energy is stored and then distributed the next day to help balance the load. Companies like Beacon Power in Massachusetts are already doing this. They use hundreds of flywheels to store up to 20 Megawatts of electricity. http://www.beaconpower.com



If you're going to say things like this, at least say the entire thing. Ontario is paying some turbine owners not to produce electricity, at certain times of the day, because Ontario has a SURPLUS of energy and has had it since 2006. Because they have a surplus this makes them very self sufficient, which saves them over $200 Million a year. Would you like it if your state didn't have to buy electricity from elsewhere? Especially from a coal belching power plant?

River dams. Though they still have a big impact on the environment, it's probably the least problematic of the 3.

Hrydracking is killing animals, so says Cornell University:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/...posed-fracking

And of course there's also all the methane that is released into the air by tracking, and all the gas & oil based transport it takes to move it, refine it, etc.

Allow me to interject my new life philosophy upon you wee pricks.

The only things you need in life are:

1. Food.
2. Water.
3. Shelter.

All 3 are easily attainable by natural means, you don't need to slave away to earn enough money to buy that 5000 Sq Ft house with a pool, you just need enough land to grow some food, filter some water, and build a shelter and maintain it.

You don't need nothing else. Put your laptop down next time you feel the need to moan (like everyone does at some point or another on this hell hole of a place) and save some energy, take a deep breath and figure out how to better your life through simple methods.

If you sense any irony in my post, keep it to yourself, I haven't posted here for a long time because I've been busy sorting myself out and my attitude may come across as alien to those who remember me.

Something needed to be said.

Those are crazy to see on the highway when their rolling on a truck. Big Mofo's

Obviously you are clueless.

http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/blo...ing.asp?ID=881

Where is this big bank of batteries in Ontario? Do you think our government would be PAYING another country to take our excess electricity if they were able to store it? We're not talking about what some hippy built in his back yard with a shed full of car batteries here. Our power grid in Ontario currently has no way to store excess power which is why it has to be sold for a measly 2.5 cents per kw to other provinces, or who have to be paid to take it. Then those provinces end up selling it for 5 cents to someone else. Works out great for Ontario doesn't it?


LOL at this saving us $200 million a year. The only reason it saves money to pay them not to generate electricity (which they wouldn't have to do at all if they could store it like you said) is because they initially agreed to pay these wind farm and solar owners 8 times the market value of hydro. They quickly realized this was unsustainable and had to adjust the rates, and yet we are still left with one of the highest electricity rates in Canada and the highest industrial electricity rate in all of North America. This is obviously saving no one money. It's like saying you are saving money by only using $20 bills to light your cigars instead of hundreds.

4. GFY shirt

there is also the issue of stray voltage

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/features/extra-stories

oh yeah, and dave was actually killed by stray voltage last year...

Hold on a second fella... Your line of thought is extremely dangerous because if you own your home i.e. mortgage free, generate your own power/heating through solar, wind and geothermal energy and grow your own organic food through an aquaponics setup you'd end up with no stress in your life and could easily retire before you're 40!

What kind of life would that be! :pimp