Other than common sense, there is nothing that prohibits investors from pumping cash into companies like Flower Turbines, that one day, owners claim, will build and sell devices that capture small amounts of wind energy.
In fact, until about a decade ago, there were completely legitimate attempts to commercialize what was called “small wind.” At that point, however, it was realized that the costs of building, installing, and maintaining systems like this would literally never be recouped by the owner, and that the entire enterprise was doomed, or, to put it more accurately, limited to a customer base that didn’t care about the economics.
People like these do exist, btw. There are luxury wristwatches that sell for six figures, that tell time no better than something you can buy in a drug store.
At right is a solar energy device that automatically folds up at night. Does that do anything of practical value? Of course not; in fact, it only adds moving parts that eventually fail. The price of electricity per kWh will be astronomical. Apparently, some people simply do not care.
Investors, however, want profits, and profits derived from high-volume sales of products with decent operating margins. In the case of the Flower Turbine, this is an improbable as the Earth’s getting hit by an asteroid the size of Utah.
Writing my recent post called “Educating for Peace” reminded of one of my first clients, a gentleman by the name of Dan McGee, who casually mentioned on day that he considered himself a “citizen of Earth,” as opposed to the United States.
We live in a country in which a huge number of residents will tell you with great authority (and not too much thought) that “America is the greatest country on Earth.” If I were to make such a statement, I’d first consider what this actually means, in terms of health, longevity, happiness, education, equality of justice, environmental responsibility, wealth distribution, capacity for kindness, and compassion for people who may not look or worship like we do.
I know that such thinking doesn’t hold much water among the Fox News devotees and MAGA folks, but somehow that’s OK with me.
There’s no question that something has gone incredibly wrong with the United States, and, as shown at left, you don’t have to be an American to see that.
The question is what to do about it. Trump is not a state representative from South Dakota, nor is he the mayor of Houston. He’s the U.S. President, and the majority of Congress do anything he asks as required not to earn his vengeance.
The article here describes a phenomenon that can occur to hurricanes: their wind-speed grows rapidly.
Hurricane Melissa underwent what meteorologists call “rapid intensification,” exploding from a 70-mph tropical storm Saturday morning Oct. 25 to a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds by 5 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 26. It has since reached Category 5 strength, with winds of 175 mph.
Rapid intensification is a process in which a storm undergoes accelerated growth: The phenomenon is typically defined to be a tropical cyclone (whether a tropical storm or hurricane) intensifying by at least 35 mph in a 24-hour period.
Questions (that our kids should be able to answer from their science classes):
#1 How is this intensification powered? Faster winds have more energy than slower winds, so where does this energy come from?
Answer: It’s by unusually warm sea water — in this case, in the Caribbean Sea.
#2: OK, but what provides the energy that warms the water?
Answer: The sun. What we’re experiencing right now on Earth is called “global warming,” meaning that our planet’s atmosphere is trapping more of the sun’s radiant energy, which is heating up our atmosphere, as well as our oceans.
My wife and I have a friend in Kingston, Jamaica’s largest city, which is in Melissa’s crosshairs. We’re rooting for you, Richard.
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