River turbines are not really new and innovative. Ameren, headquartered in St. Louis, has a river turbine plant that's been producing since 1913 (Keokuk). It uses a dam at a site surveyed by Robert E. Lee in 1836, but it's a river flow plant, meaning the full flow of the river passes through and no water is stored. If you're talking about the individual turbines emplaced on the river bed that turn in response to the natural current, then you're talking about new and innovative - but also not yet practical in quantity. Most of the pilot projects seem to have had problems - current variation is the biggest one.
My other worry with the various renewables is that we've not done any studies of the consequences of mass implementation. Windmill farms are still in the tens of turbines - what happens if we put up hundreds or thousands in the limited areas where wind surveys show them the most efficient? Will drawing energy from the flow of air have repercussions in the weather? Nothing is free - there's always consequences that we usually find out too late to change course. On Dec 8, 2011, at 9:32 AM, Paul Paryski wrote: If everything is taken into consideration, the carbon footprint of nukes is really very high, much higher than the alternate forms of energy such as wind, solar, hydroelectric and even some thermal sources. France is paying dearly for its nukes. One of the innovative sources of energy that is being installed in Europe is slow moving hydro-turbines placed in riverbeds. cheers, Paul -----Original Message----- From: Robert Holmes <rob...@holmesacosta.com<mailto:rob...@holmesacosta.com>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam@redfish.com<mailto:friam@redfish.com>> Sent: Wed, Dec 7, 2011 4:29 pm Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Gates discussing new nuclear reactor with China - Yahoo! News Yeah, greenest only if you ignore the environmental/human/dollar costs of getting the uranium out of the ground and then you forget about that whole messy decommissioning component (which usually relies on the assumption that national government must ultimately underwrite/pick up the tab and is therefore free)—R On Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 6:13 PM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net<mailto:o...@backspaces.net>> wrote: >From the "I Like Nukes" department we have new designs that look interesting: http://news.yahoo.com/gates-discussing-nuclear-reactor-china-124722465.html They run on depleted uranium and apparently are safer. Ironically, nukes are apparently the greenest critters around too. -- Owen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org<http://www.friam.org/> ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org<http://www.friam.org/> ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org Ray Parks Consilient Heuristician/IDART Program Manager V: 505-844-4024 M: 505-238-9359 P: 505-951-6084 NIPR: rcpa...@sandia.gov<mailto:rcpa...@sandia.gov> SIPR: rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov<mailto:rcpar...@sandia.doe.sgov.gov> (send NIPR reminder) JWICS: dopa...@doe.ic.gov<mailto:dopa...@doe.ic.gov> (send NIPR reminder)
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