[MPlayer-dev-eng] [sidetracking] energy

[Attila Kinali]

On Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:16:32 +0200
Michael Niedermayer <michaelni at gmx.at> wrote:

> That of course doesnt mean wind energy isnt usefull, just that its a
> little tricky if theres no wind in the whole contry for a week and you
> happen to have some political problems with your neighbors.

It doesn't need to be political problems. Communication problems
are enough... as has been seen with Italy in 2003.
 
> Besides according to wiki wind provides a mere 1% of power currently.
> We would need 100 times more of these wind mills to just cover the average
> but thats the average not the actual need each day.

And lots of hydroelectric and pumped storage power plants to cover
the peaks.

Unlike common believe there is an upper limit on how much electricity
can be generated with wind and nuclear plants, because they
cannot be controled as quickly and precisely as hydroelectric plants.
Guess why Switzerland imports lots of electric energy during the night
and exports it again during daytime.

> So while wind surely could provide more than 1% i really doubt it would
> be economic to provide the majority of power.

It would be even technically impossible to cover with it more
than half of the energy needs.

					Attila Kinali

-- 
The true CS students do not need to know how to program.
They learn how to abstract the process of programming to
the point of making programmers obsolete.
		-- Jabber in #holo