So what does it take to call it an advanced idea?
Advanced BS?
Start with the typical Hydro storage Idea, add countless numbers of expensive generators with bearings and other parts to maintain. Add rails, Cars, Articulation, Wheels, wheel bearings, dangerous voltages you’ll need to keep the wild life and public out of, and every sort of maintenance one could imagine!
In the minds eye, we add up the losses, our brains strain to comprehend the amount of maintenance required, We think it’s just a good joke… and we expect everyone else to see it the same way. But those who target Green Energy Funds know how easy it is to get money out of the purse. You don’t need a good story, as so few will ever care to remove the lid and look inside the idea box.
The Gang Greenies look no deeper than the headline, if it says it’s advanced.. well then.. it’s got to be!
This idea is like Kiss turned upside down, in hydro, moving parts are kept to a minimum, and those that do move are made best, and designed to maintain, it’s expensive to maintain moving parts, so KISS design dictates you have only the parts required.
We need ask, wouldn’t it be cheaper to build a reservoir high and low, to truck or pipe in the water, and put an evaporation control cap over both reservoirs? All we need do is use their mass figures, and know how few acre feet of water we need to equal their storage mass, it won’t be much!
In this scheme designed to attract investor’s money, we need only think of the head, Mass, and the velocity the car will travel, please pass the glue pot, the investor needs another sniff.
For those who have time, it might be fun to check out what the folks on this project did last? We should expect a TED talk? An endorsement by Harry Reid? And endorsement by the NREL? Perhaps a person working for the NREL will be lured to the test model, and they can make it appear as an endorsement? It’s all my muse, it’s what I think, and it’s all legal for me to do at the moment… perhaps not in France or Italy. I do know that scams of the past have angered Socialists, Communists, and Even Capitalists alike. it’s amazing we find ourselves so united on a single thing… (that be there’s too much fraud going on) and now it’s your job to evaluate this idea.. Is it just another scam? I think so.
It was just the other day, a person attempted to take me to task on an AE site, I had applauded a post about what the CEO of leading solar manufacturing company said, he was talking about KISS, about trackers, about complexity, about how much harder it is to make it all pay WHEN you stray from the KISS model. I know he’s a hands on man, I can tell by his words.. and along comes a reply to my post.. to paraphrase, if you don’t believe in magic, you’ll never find it! And in his post is the heavy use of the ‘EYE’ word “I always tell engineers this or that.. and of course his posts are void of any numbers or facts other than gang greenies quote. I’m sure he lives with his parents, and the closest he ever gets to electricity is when he uses a fork to fish the heel of bread stuck in the toaster.
GB
Thanks for sharing this golden nugget Keef. I like Willem’s Idea better 🙂
Wow, this scheme is the most ridiculous one yet. Aside from energy efficiency issues, the energy developers can barely permit the wind and solar farms currently designed because of environmental impacts (displaced torties, leopard lizards…). How would ever permit tearing up all that real estate near the facilities? The whole pitch would have been much more credible if they had taken an Apple lesson in marketing – use someone with a British accent.
Yes Jack, a Willem Squared..
Oh the British Accent! That do it all!
I’d say, they best engineer a fence no snake can slither through. Imagine all the snakes smashed in half, snake guts everywhere, and what lizard wouldn’t crawl up on that rail to soak up the heat as the winter sun drops, and then….. the ARES system drops a car, and that pour little lizard with a family of four dies the most horrible death, and the baby lizards all starve.
But! All we need do is add the “Air is Free Utterpower Protect a lizard system. Free air pumped into an Advanced air tank on each advanced car. An Advanced lizard detector, a blast of air to blow said lizard off the track ahead of the wheel (gently and safely done) It’s efficient, it’s the right thing to do!
Do expect an utterpower demo soon. We need demonstrate how to blow a lizard off………. the track gently. Maybe a lass with a British accent could do it best?
Interesting bollocks, if it were “Advanced” they would use maglev trains, or air suspended trains to reduce the friction…
It would appear to me, Newtons second law would be omit in this boondoggle
Sam, @samotage
In this day and age, no one needs a good idea, just an idea! The prey is far too easy, and the reward massive! Beth Buck Naked, has she covered ARES yet?
Kejserens nye Klæder
A vain Emperor who cares about nothing except wearing and displaying clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest, best suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position or “hopelessly stupid”. The Emperor’s ministers cannot see the clothing themselves, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions and the Emperor does the same. Finally the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him and the Emperor marches in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk play along with the pretense not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, blurts out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but continues the procession.
Hello………..your green clothes are see through……… I can see yer BOLLOCKS!
Ask Beth Buck Naked. She’d likely tell you that just pretend Green is way better than Coal… even if your Bollocks dangle and bounce off that electrified rail.
Actually the ARSE scheme looks pretty good compared to the Bill Gross/Bill Gates gravel transporter http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=pvCc_9vEj70
Comments are disabled.
That’s a shame, I’d really like to comment!
Hooley freaking Dooley, what an IDIOTIC idea!
As an outsider looking in, it seems the US is in some sort of Grid paranoia ATM.
It seems every 2nd forum or website I look at has people carrying on about ” The Grid”.
Maybe I’m just looking at sites with a lot of paranoid people on them but is sure seems to be flavour of the month. A while back it was running out of oil but now it seems the Boogeyman is threatening the grid.
My wife and I went for a drive today through a new housing estate. The houses were all stacked in there and you could stretch your arms out to the side and go down whole streets and be able to touch all the neighbouring houses.
I noticed all the solar panels and my wife who works for a local council says that installing them is part of a mandated package of energy option that applies to all new homes.
It seemed about 70% of the houses had an array of panels on the roof.
This seems to be a decent thing. I thought of how much energy would be saved and not have to be drawn into that estate. Then I thought that when the most energy was being produced, most people wouldn’t be at home to use it. Perhaps this estate is energy positive during the day and the power can be pumped into the lines and across the highway to the industrial estate and they would make use of it and it would take some pressure off the power station.
I really don’t know what really happens and where the efficiencies are or are not.
I also don’t really know the Condition of the US grid. Many seem to make out it could fall over at the drop of a hat. I suppose fearmongering is a great way to sell stuff people really don’t need and to extract money from people and governments as well.
Seems to me “The Grid” is the flavour of the month pet paranoia atm.
Should be good for generator salesmen and well as Kook’s and con men.
I choose to seek the opinions of power producers I respect. I read the newsletter of a certain CEO who has invested in CAES, a rare move.. I think if you want the better opinion, you seek one from a man with years in the power business. As for the health of the grid, it’s designed around power plants that make power on demand.. the forced consumption of intermittent power will create the need to make changes, and >YOU< will pay for that one way or the other and with a good mark up I think. Solar panels on houses? Why not let consumers choose?
George
the government figures we are too stupid to make the right choice on healthcare, so what makes you think that the government would trust us to determine what is best for us when it comes to power production?
😉
bob g
Well, storaging energy using water as potential energy in a reservoir at a higher elevation is a good idea. Actually good enough that it was done I think in 1961 at the Lewiston Pump-Generator plant nera Niagra Falls. Still in use today.