Conquer Club

thegreekdog wrote:

BigBallinStalin wrote:Seems interesting, but "Some species lost their habitat due to La Rance’s construction, but other species colonized the abandoned space, which caused a shift in diversity. Also as a result of the construction, sandbanks disappeared, the beach of St. Servan was badly damaged and high-speed currents have developed near sluices, which are water channels controlled by gates" (same link), but if that's true, then forget about placing those near places prone to hurricanes.

You'd think that if this was such a great idea, it would be in full-production by now. This is probably due to the many possible environmental problems associated with it and also due to the energy output not greatly outweighing these disadvantages (possibly).

Under the economic factors, they included a brief discussion that these types of systems are expensive to invest in and provide return only after a long time (which may also contribute to the low amount of investment).

Know a bit about this (not a lot, but a bit).

The environmental impacts are pretty huge. A lot of people advise caution because we know that tides have HUGE impacts on human life -- directly and indirectly (many of the prime fisheries species, for example spend critical life stages in tidal marshes, etc.) and even the best engineers right now can only guess at the full impacts.

A lot of mistakes have been made in the past by rushing forward with technologies that seemed "free", only to find that the real costs (enviromentally, etc.) are many magnitudes more than was initially thought.

Even so, many areas are seriously considering the possibilities. I suspect it will happen eventually, but whether the impact is less or greater than nuclear power... I cannot say.

Ironically, people who want to use tidal energy are the same people who want to save the environment.

You'd be surprised at how many self-professed environmentalists care less about the environment and more about their own wallets. But, I digress.

Player, are there any lengthy discussions on tidal energy? Do you know of any companies that do this? I want to self-educate here. Maybe I'll invest.

thegreekdog wrote:....
You'd be surprised at how many self-professed environmentalists care less about the environment and more about their own wallets. But, I digress...

Of course, there's money to be made by greedy individuals or particular groups anywhere.

What group or which environmentalists would you say are a shining example of this?

thegreekdog wrote:Ironically, people who want to use tidal energy are the same people who want to save the environment.

You'd be surprised at how many self-professed environmentalists care less about the environment and more about their own wallets. But, I digress.

Of course this is always true, though I think the truly long term fixes need to take incomes into account. People's sense of altruism tends to go down concurrent with their inability to pay their own bills. A big mistake of past environmentalists was to see money as some kind of "enemy". Making money off truly green technology is not bad. They key is to look for sustainability -- economic AND environmental sustainability. Not an easy task, but possible (I believe).

As I have said before, if you look past the "instant bang for the buck" and into truly long term effects and incomes, usually the environmental choice is the better choice. Ironically enough, the National Parks are a good example of this even though some folks like to point to all the land that is "locked up" in these parks. If you take into account potential biological value, the benefit of having those lands set aside is phenomenally high, but even just looking at the "tourism" value and indirect economic values to nearby areas shows a consistant income, rather than the "boom and bust" economies of mining or short term timber, etc. (note.. I mean short term timber harvesting, not true forestry)

thegreekdog wrote:Player, are there any lengthy discussions on tidal energy? Do you know of any companies that do this? I want to self-educate here. Maybe I'll invest.

I am afraid anything I know would be well out of date or just what I got off "Google". I remember hearing that the Netherlands was investing in it, but that was some time ago.

Last I heard, hydrogen technology had more potential, though probably more for vehicles and stymied by lack of funding. Geothermal has definite potential for home heating and cooling. If I were building a house now, I would definitely go there, particularly here in PA. If I had money to invest, that would be my pick right now, because it has definitely immediate return potential. However, I am not by any means an expert in any of this. I just know a few things I have heard. I know more of geothermal because we seriously looked into installing a system here when our boiler blew. Unfortunately, the initial outlay ($10-15,000) was prohibitive for us, even though it would have meant essentially free heat and cooling for the long term (the systems use a small amount of electricity and that is it). Also, our boiler broke rather suddenly in the winter, which did not give us much flexibility. We needed an immediate fix.

There are better options than nuclear power to create energy but it would take a lot of effort for me to translate my knowledge into english. I have writen an essay on this topic but conquer club isn't a good place to discuss it on!

Pretty good article right here about the effects of nuclear testing. Obviously a different debate than nuclear power, but still eye-opening.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/21/cold-war-remnant-cancer-for-baby-boomers/

Gillipig, do tell, or post a link to this forum; what you've said is very interesting...