Will Prettier Power Make a Difference?

Visually appealing or not, if it doesn't make economic sense WITHOUT subsidies, it's not worth the investment.

Adding features to make them "Pretty" will only ADD COST to the already economically failed wind turbine industry.

Yes, it's the owners of 5000 sq ft houses with a 300A service that complain the most.

We have a competition running at present, sponsored by the UK Department of Energy, to design a new electricity pylon. They have twigged that all our green wind and wave energy is generated in remote areas and will have to be transported long distances to users. The UK electricity power grid is expected to increase in size by 50% over the next 10 years. Their fear is that people will object to the new power lines so they want to make these both prettier, and using new materials, easier to maintain/recycle at the end of life. The competition is open to all but slanted towards architects.

The rules are so prescriptive that radical thinking is dismissed out of hand. When will they learn the good engineering design leads to simple practical, aesthetic structures.

Instead of power pylons and large EHV overhead power lines near cities or population centres,they should construct underground/road side covered trenches with live busbars insulated properly so that it won't ruin the aesthetic value of the environment.

The most visible and objectionable feature of a thermal power plant is the cooling tower, which is wasting 25 gallons of local fresh water into the atmosphere for each kWh of electricity. Legionnaire's Disease is spread out of cooling towers. Painting the cooling towers won't win public support of something that is stupid and dangerous.

Such large scale heat rejection (and water waste) is necessary because 65% of the fuel energy is useless waste heat. People think that the steam billowing from the cooling towers is smoke -- air pollution. Improved means for heat rejection and waste heat power harvesting could eliminate the need for cooling towers and make power plants net contributors to the local water supply. See http://www.freepatentsonline.com/7987677.pdf

I have some serious engineering doubts about the 25 gallons per KHW number.

First of to boil one gallon of water off at 212 F going from liquid to vapor phase change takes 7414 BTU or 2.17 KWH's of electrical energy.

At 25 gallons boiled off per KWH that would mean that roughly 54.3 KWH's of energy are wasted for every KWH, not including the initial temp increase from the watter source temp getting it up to boiling point, of energy that is produced giving a power plant a rough efficiency of less than 1.8% or less.

The typical coal fired or oil fired power plant has a average working efficiency of around 45 - 65 % efficiency depending on its age and load.

Once again its this crap math that shows why so few real engineers and scientists will back up any enviro nutters and their highly skewed logic or reasoning.

The National Energy Technologies Laboratory (NETL) report of 2003 authored by Feeley, et al. is my source for the 25 gallons/kWh figure. I too was surprised, but I presume the DOE knows the water cost of power generation. Where did you get your 45-65% efficiency figure for a typical coal plant?

Where I live coal fired power plants are common and a number of them offer free tours here so its not too hard to get the facts right from the source.

Also the Legionaries disease thing, WTF?

Power plant cooling towers work at temps far above that of what Legionella bacteria can live at plus they are typically some distance away from the public not directly located in the suburban centers of the world. Your central heating and air conditioning system or poorly ventilated public restroom is far more likely to give it to you.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001641/#adam_000616.disease.causes

the 25 gpm, is pass through, not evaporative.

if we used Carnot Cycle heat recovery, we could be much further ahead in energy reuse/recovery

tcmtech -- I stand corrected. I failed to account for the difference between water use (25 gallons/kWh) and water consumption (about half a gallon/kWh). Here is the reference for the consumption figure. http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/33905.pdf

It's good to talk.

A better solution. does not fix the H2O issue but a far better solution

Flibe and Thorium

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-uxvSVIGtU

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.(And it often follows function without trying to 'prettify' it)
Personally I like industrial landscape...
I expect when windmills like this were first built some people thought they were monstrosities...

Del

No matter how pretty they make the infrastructure, there will always be NIMBYs. It's mind set that's sometimes impossible to overcome sometimes.....

There, short and sweet......

Here! Here! tired of all the whining and stall attempts that gets us no closer to alternative source(s) of energy!

Do people want pretty or electricity? Which is it? Talk about "wind resistant" -

An idea: hire starving artists to paint the wind turbines, power plants and power poles! Happy now or do people object that it's not Van Gogh?

Perhaps -should have a national blackout day where these communities can't use any sources of energy other than "pretty" painted candles. And on that day, i will take all complaint via email from these stupid arses!

My guess is that this resulted from marketing campaigns by architectural firms seeking new business. The net result will be "prettier" equating to higher costs for end users.

Electricity is an essential need commodity just like food.Humanity is wisely tackling all its demands and manage for sustainability.

As time and situations change, it has always explored potential alternates successfully.

Sustainability in all our deeds is the order of the day. Few of such demands are

*Minimum land- maximum living space

*Should we depend on land surface for agriculutre?

*Can we generate abundant clean electricity without burning any matter?

*Should we use mineral resources for builings?

*How best plastics can be replacerd in materals without environmental consecuences?

*Can electricity be adapted for all energy uses including heat?

*Can road transport be electrified?

*Can we make the fossil organic reserves like petroleum & coal for non burning uses?

*If we recycle plastics what are the conversion & reuse articles?

*Do we depend on water for all end uses?

*Can steam energies be repalced by cleaner dry heat energies?

*Do we need water for toilets?

*Can our surface and ground water resources be saved from pollution?

*Can we restore green cover on the planet.

All questions end up in one fundamenatal route answer, that is " VIABILITY OF ABUNDANT CLEAN ELECTRICAL ENERGY"

Aestehetics & environmental consideratios are built in factors with environmental bearings being the most top priority.