JosephThePoet's Blog

In other words, write your Congressman, Senator, President, Dogcatcher and anyone else who is an elected official. Tell them your concerns, how you would fix them, and tell them that you vote. You do realize that only about half the qualified voters in America bother to even cast a ballot, don`t you? You also have to understand that over one half of the donations used by the two parties to conduct their campaigns comes from lobbyists and corporate donations. They don`t give that money away because they like the person, they expect something in return. The sooner we force election reform on our government, the sooner these other things will fix themselves.

Seventh: “Wind generators aren’t predictable enough to spend what it would cost to install them and make a profit”. Did spending $1 trillion in Iraq give us any security? What would you say is a good way to get security? I’d say having non oil sourced power so no one could cut off your power is the biggest security we need today. Without power we’re toast. Wind turbines could be made to sell in ranges from $500.00 to millions per unit. I think Americans would like to have more predictable power than imported oil. Add solar collectors and how much less oil would we need to burn, and how much greater will be our local safety?

“Compact fluorescent bulbs use 13% of the energy that an incandescent bulb does, but LEDs use about 3% and don’t present a danger to landfills that the mercury in compact fluorescent bulbs do”. That is where our leaders are supposed to govern responsibly. Immediately upon becoming aware of a threat to the people, our leaders should act. They can demand rules to protect their greatest asset, us. If all the businesses are on the same footing then there is no conflict, and if a business turns out dangerous to us then it deserves to be ended.

Further to the mercury bulbs versus the LEDs: If the luminescence required can be achieved by LED collections than it is foolish for us to allow a mercury threat to us and our future. We have removed mercury from other aspects of our lives because of the threat it poses. Creating more energy will make it easier for us to make the right choices. An example would be putting a wind and solar collector on each of the many light poles we have will make more power available for other uses then homeowners switching to the mercury bulbs will. Adding a wind generator or two to a home, and solar panels too if wanted, is far superior than the home owner changing to mercury laden light bulbs. And if efficiency is important, and LEDs are more energy efficient for an equal luminescence, then it makes more sense to promote LED lighting in our homes and businesses. And there are many aristic business opportunities in providing new LED lighting systems to us.

An additional side about oil companies: Oil companies spend $billions on finding and drilling for oil, and have been receiving record profits to invest. They could choose to spend some of those $billions on equipment to become energy producers and suppliers and save the oil for other uses instead of burning it up. I’m not against oil, just how it is currently being wasted and how it is poisoning our world by our sloppy use of it.

If the government required oil companies to store and distribute hydrogen the oil companies would have to be compensated for their time and trouble. Since I already mentioned that most oil companies have plenty of politicians in their back pockets, you already know that this would be a lucrative business venture for any oil company that installed tanks. The most intelligent use of wind power is to build a wind farm, a place with lots of wind generators all in a single location. Putting them in many locations means that the maintenance costs would be much higher than to inspect several in one location. A lack of inspections would create an unnecessary danger to the public. We could manufacture methane gas by composting leaves and grass clippings in a controlled environment if we wanted to. That methane could be used as fuel for a large electrical generator. Wood waste can be used to make bio-diesel also, instead of using corn to make ethanol, damaged trees or logging waste can be run through chippers and transported to refineries very easily. But all this doesn`t mean a thing unless we can convince our politicians that we will not stand for business as usual. Every voter in every precinct needs to tell their elected officials about their concerns and demand changes to solve these problems.

The idea of climbing to someone’s roof, or to the top of poles to get the little copper in the units is beyond what most thieves would attempt. It is easier to steal a car, or do a smash and grab.

Hydrogen refuelling stations must be in place or manufacturers will not try to sell hydrogen powered vehicles that people know they cannot conveniently use. The government incentive package could refund a percentage of the costs for people and businesses to install wind/solar power generating packages, and anyone setting up a standardized hydrogen fuelling station could get an additional tax reduction as well.

Wind farms have to be carefully placed to, at the least, not threaten migrating or local flyers. As far as maintenance costs being too high if the wind mills are not packed together, I believe having thousands in a city is packing them together. If a small farm business agrees to have a large wind mill placed on his farm then part of the agreement may include his maintaining the unit.

The Bush administration has cut funding to many educational facilities that did research on energy needs. We`re at the point where we could have a paint that would generate electricity just like the expensive solar panels do at less than one hundredth the cost. But that research isn`t being funded by government grants any more and you don`t hear much about it any more. A farmer doesn`t have the training to maintain a wind generator, that will have to be done by trained technicians. If wind generators were built in the quantities you suggest, the quantity of the copper needed for the windings would drive the cost to levels that would make their construction unprofitable. Copper theft has already included electrical transmission lines, what makes you think that theives wouldn`t steal the copper that`s used to make the connection to powerlines or the device that switches from the grid to the generator? We need technology, funded by either private enterprise or the government. In the last few years we went from having the best educational system on the planet to ninth place. Part of this is caused by the loss of funding by the government. The Annual Cost of Living is used to calculate how much is spent on education. That Cost of Living is calculated by the rise in price of goods EXCLUDING...gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, electricity, fresh produce(including milk,eggs, and meat)and prescription drugs. That means that every year those costs rise above the average of other products we lose ground.

The farmer doesn’t have to personally do the maintenance, if that is part of the contract, only ensure that it gets done. But a lot of farmers already have experience keeping their equipment running, so it wouldn’t take a lot of additional training for them to be able to maintain the units or become service contractors themselves.

Not making things because thieves may steal them makes no sense. Thieves will steal anything.

And what will be the real cost if we do nothing? You can forget about education, healthcare, and all other programs in the entire country if we don’t act now to protect our energy requirements. Just take a few minutes to think about what will happen to our society if energy suddenly becomes scarce. Our society will collapse and civil unrest will help speed up the destruction of our structures and systems.

While I haven`t looked recently, almost all the wind powered generators available on the market are made in foreign countries. The largest number come from China. The bulk of our copper comes from the Democratic nation of the Congo, where there is a civil war going on where about five point four million people have been killed in the last decade. I`m a farmer, I can repair a tractor and I have excellant mechanical ability, but I do not have training to work on high tension power lines nor do I own the equipment to do that type of work, no farmer does. Many states already have programs that give you rebates if you insulate your home, install energy saving devices like tankless water heaters or solar panels, or install generators that are hooked up to backfeed into the "grid" when you aren`t using all the power you`re generating. Most people don`t have the money to install solar panels or generators. You`re talking about a substantial amount of money. I`ll tell you what, you buy and pay to install as many wind generators as you can afford and I`ll lease you the land to install them. I`ll lease you the land to install one wind turbine for a dollar a year and you keep the profits from all energy generated. Every turbine you install will cost you one dollar a year, but you have to install and maintain them. I have room for at least six hundred turbines.

Try to get past your continued thinking about only large generators. I stated “all sizes”, and even mentioned the use of our street lighting poles for holding many of these units. That is a lot of units of this size for companies gearing up for mass production, and cities use most of our power so using our in-place structures to help create power makes sense. Think about the top of skyscrapers also for different sized units that building owners could install to reduce their future energy purchasing needs. Add the homeowner who could buy a package that includes x number of wind units with or without solar panels as well. Legislators may also wish to prevent large wind farm businesses from cashing in and taking more then their fair share of assistance, after all this is supposed to stimulate the economy not just help a few businesses with their costs. There are many manufacturing companies losing their current sales and in need of other products to make and sell.

You keep mentioning the high price of copper as a disincentive but fail to realize that, with China and India coming on line, all resources will continue to become more expensive. And $100 billion plus will buy a lot.

Light poles wouldn`t be capable of carrying the weight and stress of a wind turbine. Skyscrapers aren`t designed to carry the weight and vibration of a wind generator. To mount a wind turbine you need a very strong structure, a firm footing, access to high tension power lines, and a converter to switch from personal use to sending power back into the grid. Then you have the liability to people doing maintenance on power lines. If you had multiple sources of electric you would need to shut down all of them to repair a downed power line because backfeeding could electrocute the person doing that repair. Let`s try to stick with everyone changing their habits to start using less energy. That could happen immediately, not next year, and wouldn`t take government intervention.