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Questioning the conventional wisdom
Everything random... At 3am 😊
These are unedited versions of my thoughts straight from the mind, a relieve from the ‘pressure cooker’, snippets and flotsam of a mundane existence, collected over time, at the early morning hours at sunrise. I have no intensions to start a self-help group or a forum for complains!
Blossoming: A Story of Beauty, Pain, Struggle & Growth
The African Environmental Blog site
The world inside my head is beautiful 🌷🌷
Videos of feral cats on the streets, and my own four feral felines at home, feline humor, advice, and gifts for your cat.
My journey to finding love through the sea Fuckboys
A blog by the Global Governance Centre, Graduate Institute, Geneva
Nicole
Cogito Ergo Sum
Sustainable Living & Wildlife Conservation in Kenya Blog
Where The Eagles Fly . . . . Art Science Poetry Music & Ideas
One minute info blogs escaping the faith trap
Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t…
Mark and Abbie Jury
Life is intuition woven on fickleness.
Life is a journey. Let us meet at the intersection and share a story.
Random musings about everything.
With(out) Predicates
I call architecture frozen music. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
An online journal celebrating the joys of living bare with pride! This site usually publishes every Monday and Friday. I may be irreverent but I am no way irrelevant! My preferred personal pronouns are he, him, his.
Confessions Of A (former) Young Earth Creationist
An archive for my stuff
Like the great US president, Donald J Trump once said, “Dem der turbines is BAD cause dey kills da byrds! Dey should be taken down! Damn wibberal panzies ‘n der green energy crap! Deyz ruinin’ everyting!”
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(Great pics, BTW.)
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Thank you.
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No wonder there are no birds. It’s the turbines
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The tip speed is 160 to 200 mph. Birds can’t navigate that very well
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Those would be blades from toy turbines!
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Was he wrong?
https://www.fws.gov/birds/bird-enthusiasts/threats-to-birds/collisions/wind-turbines.php
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That’s interesting but at 7.86 birds/turbine/year that loss is minuscule compared to the benefits.
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But, Mak! Da byrds!!!! Da byrds iz dyin’, Mak!!! What about da byrds!!!??? AAAAAAAAA
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The birds will build homes on the turbines
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I like that, too!!! Imagine being a “Turbine repair person” and having to knock byrd’s nests offa da turbines cause they’re preventing da turbines from spinnin’. Man, you’d come home from work every night covered in byrd poop! If THAT won’t make ya hate doz der byrds, nuttin’ will!!
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That will make this the type of job that will be in high demand. It should pay well. Taking care of turbines and birds
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(This is fun! Thanks for playing, Mak) 🙂
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Miniscule, eh? Better not let Ark see that comment because your nonchalant disregard for the systemic speciesism and violence inflicted upon our Bird communities is shocking, to say the least. #BirdLivesMatter
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I will rub it out with whiteout
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For medication safety the standard is 1 death per million.
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Da BYRDSSSS!!!!! OMG!!!! Da BYRDS!!!! Da man iz a friggin’ genius!!!! He knew about…wait for it….wait….wait…it’s comin’…I promise, it’s comin’….DA BYRDS!!!!! AAAAAAAA!!!! Da
byrds!!!!! Da wibbs iz killin’ da byrds!!!! AAAAAAAAA!!!!! (Hitchcock is doing back flips in his grave, I bet!)
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Jeff go and sleep. The birds will find a new home or new route 🙂
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Hell, I just woke up! (Get it, WOKE up) and all I can think about iz DA BYRDS!!! and how cruelly dey iz bein’ treated!!!
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You have become woke!
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And I’ve just become “woke” to the plight of turtles in ‘Murica! Trump is woke ’bout byrds, and I’m woke about turtles!! Let the campaigns begin!
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I am not sure your campaign will go far. Are you sure Muricans know what turtles are? They know of birds because of that eagle or something.
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Well, the Evangelicals here know ’bout turtles. I think they believe the universe is being carried around on the back of a giant one, or some such nonsense. And if they don’t believe that, they will once my campaign gets going! “Vote for the fat little guy in the toga with the lightening bolt and save Christianity by saving the giant turtle the universe is being dragged around on!” Wadda ya think? You can be my campaign manager, Mak!
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This looks like it will get you votes. Many votes. You stand a chance of winning even before you declare your candidacy
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That’s how I won my two Academy Awards and 4 Noble Prizes!
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Well, if the former American idiotic-dictator hated them, then I automatically adore them all! A terrific way to improve our environment and allow fools to be even more foolish! 🙂 Naked hugs!
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Sadly these are large false ideas of propaganda! There is so much pollution in the manufacture of these items that they can NEVER make up for that amount of pollution they spew. Then even after they are installed they are extremely fragile and the cost of upkeep is astronomical and finally they, like nuclear power rods, are nearly impossible to dispose of. You have all been conned! Wind and solar have potential but in the present forms they are NOT what they are, what you think.they are. Please research what they actually are!
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Yes, Jeanne. The narrative rarely includes practicalities, that ‘green energy’ presently still relies on carbon energy and/or vastly mined resources to create the means to make it; or how these turbines and whatnot are disposed of once they wear out. I have a relative working in producing fusion energy – cutting edge science, but a long way off from replacing current energy sources. Said relative also pointed out that the sails on most turbines are highly inefficient; parabolic blades would be an improvement. But then I wonder what they would be made of!!!
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Carbon fiber maybe. I last saw China are developing a 100m tall turbine that should produce I think 5MW each. I should check what the turbines were to be made of
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But still carbon-based technology. On the other hand the earth does need CO2 to keep the plants and us alive. In fact plants thrive the more they have, as is well known by greenhouse plant and veg producers.
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Hopefully these concerns will be addressed to improve output, increase access and reduce other effects on the environment
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These are great photos, Mak, despite reservations re turbine efficiency or long term utility or ‘greenness’. Though that said I do like the idea of personal turbines that some Kenyans have invented/installed on their shambas to power their homes and farming activities. Nothing like being self-sufficient in domestic power. Are these turbines in the Ngong Hills?
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Yes, these are on Ngong hills. There is a larger wind farm in Turkana though I haven’t visited.
Because of unreliability of kplc, many people who can afford have installed solar systems to power their homes and there is quite a market for that now. There is need however to improve battery technology because that’s where the elephant is after you improve conversion.
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Batteries are the big rub. Lithium mining and competition for resources don’t seem like great improvements.
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Exactly.
I saw some research involving storage in brine but then get see water everywhere might be a challenge
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None of this is straight forward and far from being ‘settled’.
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Good photos!
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Thank you.
It gets chilly sometimes
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Yes, I can imagine.
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Funny how the negatives always seem to pop up in most every discussion related to preserving the environment.
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But, Nan, da Byrd’s! What about doze Byrd’s da ugly wibberals iz Killin?! What about da Byrd’s?!
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Yes indeed. The birds. Never mind the people! You know, the ones who are being affected by the many and varied pollution-producing industries.
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Hey! Of Donny boy is worried about da Byrd’s, den so is me! When, oh, when has Donny boy ever not been on top oh da pulse of all things that matter most.
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Hahaha.
This reminds me of the what about the children slogan
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I LOVE that idea! Donna Trump says, “What about da byrds!!!??” Christ, her whole 2024 comeback campaign can be based on “What about da byrds!!??” Can’t lose slogan there, my friend. Can’t lose slogan. For in reality, who, oh, who in ‘Murica isn’t DEEPLY concerned, and losing much sleep, over….DA BYRDS, Da turbines, and Da wibbs!!!??? 🙂
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The birds and the bees! That’s a whole campaign issue. Elections can ve won or lost on just those two themes
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Absolutely!!!! MY campaign is gonna be about da turtles! Not sure why yet, or what my slogan will be, but turtles, Mak! Turtles!! We gots ta do sum’tin’ bout doze damn turtles!!!
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There is already a campaign to save the turtles. I think some people have been eating the few remaining turtles
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THAT’S IT!!! The “Stop Eatni’ Turtles” campaign has just been launched!!!! Thanks, my friend. 🙂
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The negatives are important. To brush them aside would mean trying to solve a problem by creating others.
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Wind turbines are visible from our home and on a clear day I can count at least 100 of the 180 or so on the skyline. Sure, there’s no form of power generation that has absolutely no effect on the environment, but it’s a question of how much harm. It seems to me that no matter how you measure harm, burning fossil fuels is the most harmful.
I buy electricity from a supplier that generates 100% of its power from renewable resources (hydro, wind and geothermal), and our home has enough solar panels to provide at least 60% of our annual electricity needs, probably more as they were installed in May so they’ve been in use only over the winter/spring so far. In October they produced 90% of the electricity we consumed. Hopefully over summer we’ll be net exporters electricity.
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Do you have storage batteries for the solar and how long are they supposed to last?
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We don’t have storage batteries although the system is set up to use them if installed. At present the return on investment is longer than the life of the batteries so it doesn’t make sense to install them. However if the price comes down or batteries with a longer life become available then we will probably install them.
Perhaps when electric vehicles become more common, one option might be to install a bank of refurbished car batteries at a relatively low price. There’s one company doing this that I’m aware of but it’s a little too early to know the life expectancy of those batteries. They’d need to last at least 5 years to be worthwhile.
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I’m certain most Texans were thanking God Almighty for all that reliable wind power heating their homes during the cold spell back in February of this year. Absent that, they would have frozen to death.
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They don’t have wind in cold weather? Isn’t the grid combined with other sources of power?
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According to one report the grid failed because none of the power generating facilities within the state were properly winterized.
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That was a serious failure on many levels
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I guess with all the talk of global warming, no one ever expected a polar vortex to bring a deep freeze to the deep south.
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I think we should do a poll
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I think we should do a poll on how they feel about it
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I think they’re gorgeous!
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But what about da Byrd’s fer Christ sake?!
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And the cancer!
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Yep! Da wibberals gots it wigged soz da turbines gives da Byrd’s cancer n den dey all die!! Doze bastards!
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I was wondering when cancer would be mentioned
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Da byrds have been dyin’ of da cancer from da turbines fer centuries now! Not to mention da peoples dat da turbines give cancer to! Damn wibberals! Der woke about everythin’ ‘cept dis VERY important issue! I hates it!
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This is not right. Save the birds!
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That’s two of us
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