I came across a rather caustic opinion about wind turbine “syndrome” the other day. The author claims wind turbine syndrome reports are almost all bunk – a position that has some truth to it. In case you are unaware, there is some resistance to wind turbines in a few corners of the world based upon health reasons. There is a growing list of disorders people are claiming. Many of them do sound outlandish and many are probably related to placebo-like effects or mass hysteria.

Some of the groups protesting wind turbine installations and filing health related lawsuits could be backed by interest groups and corporations in favor of fossil fuels, but this is not a reason to ignore and/or deride EVERY claim of ill-health. It is well known in the medical literature that repetitive visual and auditory signals (such as that coming from wind turbines) can cause serious ill-health effects. If these problems (however small the number of people with the real health issues) occurred with nuclear power or fossil fuels there would be hell (and a lot of money) to pay. There would be major lawsuits. There would be pontificating politicians. There would be new laws and regulations. New punitive taxes. You name it. Since it is wind turbines, apparently we should  just call most of the people crazy and tell them to move, I guess, according to some.

And remember, I am not anti-wind turbine. I am well aware of the positive aspects of their use. However, I am not a big proponent of increasingly more wind turbine usage in the future either. The “small” problems with wind turbines are numerous. Numerous enough that I would rather throw more of my support behind solar panels (that do not cause noise or flicker), geo-thermal, thorium nuclear power, 0r nuclear fusion. The money that might be spent putting up millions of more wind turbines around the world, would be better used in other alternatives and to pay for energy conservation and efficiency efforts.

Speaking of solar panels, I did get a call back from the city arborist who did not sound too positive about cutting down a couple of boulevard trees in order to make some “sunny” room for future solar panels. We are going to meet today to discuss it further. I’ll let you know how it goes. If I can’t cut down the front yard trees, maybe I will cut down the one’s in the back yard. I don’t really want to cut down the one’s in back because a couple of them are very old. They survived the massive logging in Wisconsin’s history. They are the biggest I have seen in the city. So it would be sad to cut them down. On the plus side, maybe the lumber within them would be valuable enough to help pay for a solar panel installation. There would also be more light in my back yard for a bigger garden. If all else fails, I might end up moving into a house with more available sunlight for solar panels (and a bigger garden), or maybe move out into the country.

Have a fine Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy

I don’t claim to be psychic but just yesterday I was wondering why deep mines are not used for producing some type of geothermal energy and then today an article arrives describing how University of Purdue scientists are looking at abandoned Indiana coal mines to produce geothermal power. The article does not go into great detail about the process that will be used, and there are a lot of hurdles they will need to overcome, but it is interesting that they might put old mines to good use.

And since I started out with an alternative energy story, I might as well continue.

In the electric car market there is news about the Think City mini-electric. The model that will soon be built at a factory in Indiana will charge up to 80 percent of battery capacity in just 15 minutes. That is a nice improvement. The car can travel at speeds up to 70 mph and can drive up to 100 miles without needing to be recharged. It sounds like a good car for the urban market. As you could have guessed, the only drawback is the price – estimated to be $30,000. That is a lot of money for such a small car. Think expects the price will drop to the low $20,000s as volume ramps up in coming years. Unfortunately, even the low 20s is too expensive for me. So far, the only car in my price range is the Tata Nano. I guess I’ll have to buy used if and when I need a car (at least for the next couple of years).

If you want a “vehicle” with more cool factor for $30,000, maybe you should look at the new double-motor Roehr electric racing superbike. Not sure if it is street legal.

Despite the high cost of hybrids and electrics, at least one study predicts that nearly 20% of the car market will be cars with cords by 2030. I think it will be a little higher than that, as I expect the price of oil to keep climbing while the price of batteries declines. The low maintenance cost of low pollution of electric cars are also great selling points. The price is the main drawback and the batteries are the most expensive part. With regards to the price of batteries, Boston Consulting Group claims the price of batteries will not be coming down anytime soon unless there is a major technological breakthrough. Thus they say, electric cars will not become more than a tiny niche market. I agree that there have not been any major breakthroughs in batteries recently, but if you read the blog you know that I have covered many incremental improvements. GM says they are going to build their own batteries and motors. GM engineers do not expect to improve the efficiency of the motors, only the size and power density. They claim they can make a smaller electric motor with the same power and this will give them more design flexibility in the electric cars they produce. I am not so sure that building everything “in house” is the best way to go – seems like that was a good strategy a few decades ago. Nowadays most companies outsource and are more profitable that way (and outsourcing goes both ways across the oceans nowadays, so it isn’t all bad for workers).

Of course Project Better Place has a different idea of dealing with batteries. They plan to install battery changing stations around the country. Instead of charging the battery in your car, you would just swap in a new one at the “gas” station. Here is an update on their efforts. They were able to raise 350 million in new financing. Their proposal is not without criticism though. Many people wonder how their battery swap stations will be able to handle all the different types of batteries and car models.

In any case the dream of having a car that runs completely off of solar panels still seems a long way off, in fact it seems more likely that successful mass transit will be built in the U.S. before solar panel driven cars (although not all mass transit is created equal, some of it is not as “green” as the lowly gasoline car). Still, similar to battery technology, solar panels continue on an incremental path to improved efficiency and lower cost. Using micro solar “flakes”‘ could cut the cost of solar cells dramatically while maintaining similar efficiency as traditional solar cells. The quality and price of anti-reflective coatings continues to improve as well.

I have a lot of other news to get to but I am running out of time. I am heading to a local school this morning to hand out $300 in our Tools-for-Schools” program. Check in on the morning show Tuesday February 2nd to find out who won.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy

I see Ray left a comment yesterday about this cool July as compared to recent summers – wondering if there was a link between the drier weather and the colder weather. Actually, the conditions have been drier than normal for the last 7 years and 4 out of the 7 years had above normal summer temps (not just July). 2005 and 2006 were scorching by Wisconsin standards and the heat definitely enhanced the drought. Summer in 2003 was slightly below normal (although August was hot). In 2004 and in 2008 we did not hit 90 which was kind-of odd, however, there were plenty of days with high temps in the 80s in those years. 2004 was well below normal, but last year was only slightly below normal. For this decade, up until November of 2007, most months were above normal. The winters and summers were mostly above normal with a few cool spells. Since November of 2007 we have had more colder-than-normal months. The last 2 winter’s plus the last two summers (including this one) have been below normal. So the gist is that our colder trend has only occurred over the last 20 months or so.

This year, the drier weather can certainly be blamed on the cool weather pattern. We have had a persistent north to northwest wind flow which is keeping any Gulf moisture out of the area. It is also bringing in the cooler air from Canada. This is not always the case. Some years it is colder than precisely because of more clouds and ABOVE normal rainfall (sunny days tend to be warmer).

Speaking of clouds and rain, we will have some off-and-on chances for rain over the next few days. A few scattered showers should develop late this afternoon and evening and continue through the day on Wednesday. Scattered is the key word. It still doesn’t look like many people will get hit with substantial rain. A few spots could pick-up a quarter to half inch, but most will be left wanting more. On Friday and Saturday there could be more widespread and heavier rain in the area. If you have some outdoor plans on either of those days you will want to start preparing and thinking of a plan B. Slight chance of showers or isolated thunderstorms will persist on Thursday, Sunday, and next Monday as well. Hopefully, with all these chances, eventually, everyone will see a little rain.

Speaking of drought, here is an article claiming a 50% chance that all Colorado River Reserviors could go dry by 2050. (on a side note, it is nice to see a “good” title on this article, implying that the reservoirs “could” dry up. Most AGW articles proclaim everything as if it is fact). Of course there is some blame placed on AGW, but I am glad to see someone finally mention that 30 million people are using the Colorado River resource, and that this is the main problem (not AGW). This of course means the best solution is better water management. One sure way to preserve the water is to make it more expensive. Nothing forces people to conserve like high prices. For example, U.S. energy usage declined in 2008(a good thing), primarily due to the high price of oil and gas. I like to see less use of fossil fuels because they pollute. What would be nice is to see solar, nuclear, and geothermal being used in greater proportion in coming years. While less energy use is a good thing for the environment (because it means less pollution when primarily using fossil fuels), it is usually not a good sign for an economy. Energy usage is often a proxy for progress and growth.

I mentioned geothermal energy briefly above and there is some good news on that front. The addition of nano-engieered metal particles could make geothermal energy plants much more efficient. It will be exciting to see if this development gets off the lab bench later this year.

Space News:

I see Brian beat me to mentioning the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. The neat thing is that the current LRO orbiting the moon has snapped some high resolution photos of prior moon landings. Take a look here. No doubt the moon landing conspiracy theorists are claiming the photos are doctored. Brian mentioned the hoax theories in his update yesterday. I am willing to give nearly every conspiracy theory at least a brief hearing, after all, people do conspire to do nefarious things. It is a fact of life. However, in this case, the evidence that there was not a conspiracy is overwhelming and damning. The odds of a hoax are so remote that it doesn’t pay to dwell on it, but if you would like to, there are a few websites dedicated to debunking the moon landing hoax theories. You can find a couple links in this article. Most of the hoax theories have evolved based on lack of scientific understanding of the moon environment. The famous photograph of the flag in which it appears to be waving is such a case. It is just wrinkled and not moving because there is no wind on the moon. You can see this clearly in the video of Buzz Aldrin planting the flag. The only way the video could have been created is if the “soundstage” that NASA created in order to fake the moon landings was completely removed of air. The video of the lunar rover shows the same effect. The dust kicked up by the tires does not float up into the air because there is no air on the moon. If a soundstage was created to fake this event, it would have needed to exist in a enormous vacuum chamber. There are many other simple scientific misunderstandings that have led to the persistence of the hoax theories, which you can read about elsewhere, but the main crux of the conspiracy theory that does not stand up to the common sense smell test is it’s sheer size. Not only would it have taken many thousands of people to create the hoax, it would have to still be in effect today. The newest astronauts, engineers, and leaders in the military and NASA would all have to be in on it and they would all have to be spreading mis-information and helping to doctor the newest LRO photographs. I wonder what the hoax people will say when someone outside of government wins the Lunar X-prize and their robotic explorer returns pictures of Apollo equipment left on the moon. Some might be swayed, but don’t bet on most of them giving up. Some of these people have dedicated their entire lives to promoting the hoax theories. Once you invest most of your life in something, it is extremely hard to give it up, no matter what the evidence. One sad part about the hoax theorists, is that some of them have badgered, confronted, and impuned former astronauts. Buzz Aldrin was once compelled to punch one of them in the face because the hoaxer was being so aggressive – calling him a liar and a coward (there is a video on you-tube). These men risked their lives in order to fulfill the dreams and exploratory nature of human society and advance scientific understanding. They deserve respect, not derision.

One side benefit of reading up on the past manned lunar missions is that I found out about the multitude of robotic missions that preceded humans. I had no idea how many robotic explorers had gone before humans. Take a look here for a neat multimedia presentation.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Drought, Space