From the sun-kissed islands of Hawaii (known to anyone who's been there for more than a year as the Rock) comes this tale of eco-pointlessness. Hawaii imports a large amount of crude oil, which it refines in-state. This is needed mainly to a) run the electrics and b) provide aviation fuel. These two needs are so dominant that if Hawaii were a closed economy, the oil companies could literally give away the petrol produced as a by product. It's a recycling dream; use the leftovers from oil refining to run cars. Also, the islands are blessed with an open-plan geography and constant trade winds that waft away any pollutant like half-forgotten dreams upon waking, so exhaust fumes are never a problem.
So, with this marvelous confluence of good fortune, what is Hawaii up to? Why, promoting electric cars in a major push that, if by some bizarre black miracle is effective, will cripple the electricity industry and leave the oil companies wondering what the blazes to do with all that petrol?
I guess Hawaii doesn't believe in recycling.
3 comments:
So, Hawaii has enough "excess" electrical generating capacity that they can go "all green" in twenty years without rolling blackouts- or just blackouts, period?
My SWAG is that their petroleum use will increase, as they need more and more for powerplants. And those trade winds aren't going to supply all the kWh they'll need, even with Holy Sun backing up Holy Wind. (12 hours a day, assuming it isn't raining, which it does- a lot.)
The 50th State is about to receive an object lesson in the inviolability of the TANSTAAFL Rule. And it is going to hurt.
cheers
eon
Powering cars by burning things hurts like, some kind of bears or badgers or something, doesn't it? Much better to dump the plusungood stuff into the ocean and power cars by electricity. Which is made by magic pixies and comes out of holes in the walls.
Actually the tradewind is a constant wind, blowing all year long with approximately the same strength. The tradewind is not caused by weather phenomena, but because of the atmospheric macro-phenomena (the cold air of the upper atmosphere going down at horse latitudes high pressures and causing a constant air stream to the doldrums at Equator, where a constant low pressure prevails). The tradewind blows both night and day.
The wind velocity of the tradewind is some 10 to 20 kn, and they are even today important for sailing. Circumnavigating the world by following the tradewind is known as "Coconut Milk Run".
The big question is: is the wind velocity enough to revolve the wind turbines for production use? Yes, we do have a wind turbine at our yacht and not a nuclear reactor, but the scalability is a true issue with wind power.
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