User 229640

Breaking Down PowerShares' New Pure Play Wind ETF

"Great article" ?

Sorry, this guy apparently doesn't even know the basics. For example, AMSC's HTS wire is not relevant to wind power. AMSC has some control electronics that are moderately relevant to wind power, but its HTS wire isn't.

I could go on, but do you get the point?

'Pickens Plan' Comes in the Nick of Time

Chris1,

Almost every statement in your post is provably false.

5 Key Quotes from US Airways on the Airline Industry

"have added wing widths to all long-haul 757 aircraft"

That makes no sense as written. Probably a transcription error. Given the context is fuel economy, it probably should have been "winglets", which are small extensions which curve up from the wingtips and reduce energy lost in vortexes created as air slides sideways off the end of the wing.

Lithium-Ion Batteries and Centerfolds, Part II

(1) Large static power storage (ie. to buffer utility-sized wind and solar) will be done by flow batteries, because they scale up so well. Look 'em up.

(2) There is no such thing as "clean coal". It is non-existent technology, nothing but a phrase invented by Big Coal to prevent development of alternatives to filthy coal.

Oil Sands: Will the 'Greens' Cause Us to Miss Out?

Jim,

One can ignore the carbon and more general environmental impacts, until legislation changes the rules. But one cannot ignore the fact that in addition to the oil sands themselves, two other resources are required to produce syncrude from bitumen: water and natural gas. There is an unlimited supply of neither. Have you done the math to project the total amounts of those resources required to produce the syncrude supposedly available in Alberta's oil sands?

I suspect the financial viability of the oil sands resource will be limited by the cost to procure water, rather than oil sand. When transport and desalination of seawater are eventually required, it may be impossible to produce syncrude at a net energy gain. (I know that isn't stopping the corn-to-ethanol business - but absent subsidies it would, and in the meantime few involved are making money at it). And good luck maintaining water pipelines that cross the thawing tundra...