The way forward?

I like the look of these:
http://www.newsweek.com/new-tree-shaped-wind-turbine-be-installed-streets-paris-296591

 

Gonna need an awful lot of them!!!

 

And tall enough that they don't get vandalised!

 

put a current thru' 'em .....

 

Sorry, I think they look awful. And symbolically I think its awful. That's the point mankind has reached is it? Trees of plastic and steel?

And it can generate a whopping 3.6kW can it? That's nothing. 3.6kW wont even power the MIG welding machine required to stick all the steel parts together. It makes me feel a bit sad that for as long as I've walked this earth of ours, we've known that we need to think more carefully about our energy use and production, yet we don't seem to have learned a thing. This 'renewable energy "tree"' will use more energy in its manufacture, shipping, installation, and ultimately (probably in no more than a couple of years or so) its disposal than it will ever generate during its 'useful' life, and once the sun's UV has got to the plastic 'leaves' and the pigeons have poo'ed all over it, it will look absolutely horrendous.

 

Government ignored my suggestion about renewables, probably thought they couldn't make any political capital from it.

 

What was your suggestion Zigs?

 

Put me down for six.

 

Quite simple really, we've already got an infrastructure that gets water up to a height to give mains pressure, in fact most of our houses you wouldn't want the mains on full pressure unless you wanted wet trousers every time you turn a tap on.

I suggested putting a turbine on every new build main just before it enters the house/street. It would generate electric just as the grid needs it, i.e. when you get up, switch the lights, kettle on and have a shower/ flush the loo.

It's clean water coming in so the turbines shouldn't need anything more than an annual service/ de calk.

No one is gonna loose out as the head of water is already there, but it doesn't look much from a poitical point of view, even if it did generate a 10th of the uk's energy needs

 

surely zigs it would only work if we kept out taps on all the time.

 

They don't look any where near as awful as a forest of the current turbine model

 

I don't mind the current design. They look quite artistic, and they don't look like they're lamely pretending to be something else.

Besides, the article is misleading. They talk about current design only outputting I think they said 4.6kW. That's either a typo, or it means a small one. The large turbines output is measured in megawatts, not kilowatts. A megawatt is 1000 kilowatts.

I'd rather have a few conventional turbines just off the coast than thousands of fake trees lining the streets.

I agree to some extent about them spoiling the countryside. They shouldn't be on land in my opinion. The wind is far more reliable at sea, and wind farms at sea are not an eyesore, and in fact they can create safe habitats for marine wildlife.

 

When I worked for the Property Services Agency, I was paying contractors for building experimental wave machines to harness energy. No wind required there - just the tide. Where did that idea go?
Jenny