AC vs DC: Alternating Current or Direct Current – Which is Better?
Energy
NPR
How to Make Wind Power Sustainable Again – Resilience
For more than two thousand years, windmills were built from recyclable or reusable materials: wood, stone, brick, canvas, metal. When – electricity producing – wind turbines appeared in the 1880s, the materials didn’t change.
It’s only since the arrival of plastic composite blades in the 1980s that wind power has become the source of a toxic waste product that ends up in landfills.
New wood production technology and design makes it possible to build larger wind turbines almost entirely out of wood again – not just the blades, but also the rest of the structure. This would solve the waste issue and make the manufacturing of wind turbines largely independent of fossil fuels and mined materials. A forest planted in between the wind turbines could provide the wood for the next generation of wind turbines.
Old Sylvania 300watt Clear Incandescent Light Bulb
I remember at Plattsburgh State that some of the campus meeting rooms had these massive light fixtures with 300 watt bulbs. Each campus meeting room had two of these bulbs for lighting -- while bright, they sucked down 600 watts per hour, or a kilowatt hour every hour and a half in relatively small rooms. But they were getting a lot of cheap Canadian hydropower on the campus, so replacing these luminaries with modern energy saving fixtures probably wasn't worth the cost.
How One Billionaire Could Keep Three Countries Hooked on Coal for Decades – The New York Times
Three-Phase Power Explained
This video will take a close look at three-phase power and explain how it works. Three-phase power can be defined as the common method of alternating current power generation, transmission, and distribution. It is a type of polyphase system, and is the most common method used by electric grids worldwide to transfer power.
Disposing Of The Turbines : NPR
While most of a turbine can be recycled or find a second life on another wind farm, researchers estimate the U.S. will have more than 720,000 tons of blade material to dispose of over the next 20 years, a figure that doesn't include newer, taller higher-capacity versions.
There aren't many options to recycle or trash turbine blades, and what options do exist are expensive, partly because the U.S. wind industry is so young. It's a waste problem that runs counter to what the industry is held up to be: a perfect solution for environmentalists looking to combat climate change, an attractive investment for companies such as Budweiser and Hormel Foods, and a job creator across the Midwest and Great Plains.