Posted on 04/24/2006 1:48:35 PM PDT by mission9
Now that oil is 75 dollars a barrel, and it costs fifty bucks to fuel the SUV, what about tapping the gulf stream for inexhaustable power? This nation's energy needs are growing, and national security demands that we free the electricity producers from the oil economy. Florida has ALL the free new energy it needs in the form of the Gulf Stream. This moving current of water is one thousand feet deep, twenty miles wide and three miles off Broward County. A moving current of water is 832 times more energy dense than wind. There is many times more energy in the Gulf Stream than there is found Colorado River when harvested by the Hoover Dam. Additional research is not needed; pilot programs have been tested and are viable. The state should establish a contract for an offshore energy development area then lease the zones at favorable rates. The income from the leases and electricity will help balance the national debt. The harvesting of tropical ocean heat could potentially help to reduce global warming and the intensity of hurricanes. Check out the link.
mega-bump!
Damn, Hoover, you're onto something!
Probably not, they will come up with some lower form of sealife that will be harmed by the turbines.
I'm sorry, but a manatee might be inconvienced so this is a non-starter. Sorry.
Gee.....what if it interferes with a seagull or a fish?
Just build nukes and drill......
There is no free lunch. The gulf stream is not free energy. In the first place, it would cost a great deal to harvest the energy. In the second, every erg withdrawn from the gulf stream off Florida is not available further downstream, e.g., in Northern Europe. Result: colder Europe and political opposition.
I live in Florida and I WANT OIL RIGS off the coast with AMERICAN flags, NOT CUBAN flags!!!
I am so angry with Jeb Bush and Mel Martinez about this issue I could spit nails!!!
The Cubans are going to put up the nastiest, leaking oil platforms that will get the oil up and out the fastest and don't give a hang about the enviroment!!! They will use old Russian designed rigs ( that were American designs of the '40's and '50's!!!) and will throw them up and down the Gulf, with the aid of Chavez!
I want oil rigs and refineries with American jobs, American workers and American citizens recieving the benifit of our natural resources!!!
Because, doncha know, diverting the atream will cause the UK to "freeze over." Lowering the temp of the revolving current will cause the 'far end' recipients of the stream to get COLD WATER!
Get it? The envirowhackos are right! LOL....
Because, doncha know, diverting the stream will cause the UK to "freeze over." Lowering the temp of the revolving current will cause the 'far end' recipients of the stream to get COLD WATER!
Get it? The envirowhackos are right! LOL....
Aerial spraying of black dust particles onto ice fields or glaciers will engineer the climates.
Some so-called experts claim soot from European industry has done that to the glaciers on that continent.
It will kill the fishies caught up in the turbines. Shame on you for putting our energy needs ahead of the fish!
/sarcasm/
I'm with you brother, let's lock arms and stage a Tallahassee sit-in.
Who do you think you are anyway?
Government doesn't give a damn about you unless you're a Mexican.
Real Americans would not want to work on an oil rig and get their hands dirty.....besides it's wet out there.
Perfect jobs for Cubans and Mexicans.
Can't wait for the first hurricane to take that sucker off line. It would of course happen during a republican administration if we ever have another.
Let's stop playing games here!!
The sun created all fuels...oil,gas, coal and wood from photosynthesis.
I say let's stop whining about who drills where and when.
Let's hire Burt Rutan and some Chinese and Russians to fly a ship to the sun and bring back a hunk of it.....go to the prime source!!
RRRRIGHT. AND all the windmills in Calif are causing the droughts in the midwest too. Silting of turbine blades probably the biggest problem - as in Bay of Fundy.
I remember seeing something about this in popular mechanics 20+ years ago. Something about using the temperature differential at varying depths to drive electric turbines.
Your speculation of opposition from luddites is credible, so are you saying that you oppose the project because somebody else somewhere might oppose the project too? You are making "Chicken Little" look brave. Next, I'll hear that the project is not viable because of its location in the "Bermuda Triangle."
"It will kill the fishies caught up in the turbines." /sarc/
I see a two-fold benefit here. Harvest the energy and the poor dead fish to feed the crews working on the rigs. Or build a floating cannery next to the rigs, can the fish and send them to welfare recipents instead of handing out foodstamps that they use to buy Twinkies and Soda with.
Problem solved.
WOW!!!
I've heard vague references to this kind of technology for several years, but I had no idea that a proven design existed. This looks like it is worthy project.
At one time wind turbines were scoffed as being impractical, but there are thousands of them all over the place, and they are putting a lot of power into the grid.
I hope someone gets behind this one and soon...
I rather doubt it.
It works. The Hawaii Energy Lab on the Big Island did it, though I think the program is dormant now. Mondo pipes about 10' in diameter, routed way the hell down to very deep water.
Read the link. Plant cost would be less than that for coal or nuclear. The kinetic energy of ocean currents is free.
That's the problem--projects like Hoover Dam are nearly impossible to initiate these days. You've got environmental red tape (and environazis), NIMBY-ism, etc. Heck, we can't even build new oil refineries to meet demand.
http://money.cnn.com/2006/04/24/news/newsmakers/gates_ethanol/index.htm
"The investment vehicle for the world's richest man, Cascade Investment, has acquired a 25.5 percent stake in Pacific Ethanol, a Fresno, Calif., based outfit that distributes ethanol throughout California, Nevada, Arizona and Oregon."
You heard it here first ;)
Got to get to my stock broker.
They are putting unreliable power into the grid which must still be backed up with expensive power plants to cover the times when the wind doesn't blow. Windfarms are another feelgood environmentally correct (unless Teddy Kennedy can see them from his front porch) form of energy. They might actually contribute if they can find more efficient batteries to store excess energy.
Your speculation on downstream climate effects is not informed by the math. It would take sapping hundreds of gigawatts of power to even begin to make a climate effect. In any event, Iceland and the British Isles don't vote in USA elections.
Read the link, the plant is submarine.
This could be done. How many joules, ergs, Btus, kWhr do you need, and which $ trillion lottery did you win?
Bobby Kennedy Jr. doesn't even want an above-water wind farm near his Nantucket Mansion: http://www.capewind.org
Nope---that's a different process. Called OTEC (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). This "Gulf Stream" is essentially to put large "windmill" style structures into the moving current, and is actually more practical than OTEC.
So you are not going to take any positive action, like writing your congressman, because the environmentalists might object?
Source for that estimate? Not saying you are wrong, but I'd like to read the actual report. And given the inefficency of a lot of power conversion schemes, you may be up to gigawatts consumed before you are in the range of megawatts produced to be on par with a conventional power plant.
Thank God, somebody knows something, and contributes to the disscussion in a positive way.
read the posted link to presentation.
New concept: the energy grid is the storage mechanism because somebody somewhere is always tapping into it, other more expensive electricity sources can be throttled back in times of less demand, so that batteries need not be included.
I rather doubt it.
Well doubt it all you like, but it's still true, at least for the fuels he lists. Nuclear power on the other hand wasn't "energized" by our Sun like the others -- it was made by *other* stars.
Put a submersible vane on a tether, ballast to sink it and let it play out the rope dragging it downstream until the rope plays out and pump the hollow vane back out into the sea and allow the float to sail back to the starting point to begin again all the while providing impetus to a huge flywheel driving a turbine generator.
It would be an underwater waterwheel, not a stinking emergency brake.
We all win the "trillion dollar lottery" if we embrace this plan with the same gusto that our Grandfathers harnessed the Colorado River. This project would pay for itself within Five years, because the technology is so benign and scalable. After five years, it is money in the bank.
"Next, I'll hear".Eggszakly!....The Thetans hiding there,with Ron, will not permit it....
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