We cannot drill our way out of this oil crisis. Since 2000, oil companies working in the U.S. have doubled the number of wells drilled per year.
Although increased drilling has added new oil to the nation's supply, it has not done so fast enough to offset the terminal decline of existing fields.
We are going to have to import more of our oil. Period.
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3277 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Tue Mar 11, 2008 6:33 am Post subject: Re: Copying Whales, 20% more efficient windmills?
JRP3 wrote:
Yeah, that's it. They are often used as self priming pumps, for example in boats.
Ah ok, those are a kind of centerfugal pumps which have contact between the blades and the housing. I agree for those applications this technology is probably a wash, the vanes undergo a lot of wear forces as is. A non-contact version is designed to last for decades between maintainence rebuilds like they do at the big hydroelectric plants. If you have to replace the pump every 5 years anyhow because one of the vanes breaks off or the set of vanes becomes too worn for solid contact then using Tubercles probably wouldn't do much for your application. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3277 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 6:25 am Post subject: Re: Copying Whales, 20% more efficient windmills?
For those interested in this topic the new issue of National Geographic has an article on Biomimetics, including wind turbines using whale style tubercles. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:24 am Post subject: Re: Copying Whales, 20% more efficient windmills?
Tanada wrote:
For those interested in this topic the new issue of National Geographic
has an article on Biomimetics, including wind turbines using whale style tubercles.
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 11:51 am Post subject: Re: Copying Whales, 20% more efficient windmills?
steam_cannon wrote:
The future?
Nah, more like:
_________________ “I'm completely in favor of the separation of Church and State. My idea is that these two institutions screw us up enough on their own, so both of them together is certain death.” George Carlin
Joined: Apr 28, 2005 Posts: 3277 Location: West shore Lake Eire, MI, USA
Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 4:39 pm Post subject: Re: Copying Whales, 20% more efficient windmills?
Oh I dunno, at this point I expect the USA taxpayer to be stuck subsidizing airlines for a few years until they cry foul to the Congressmen hard enough. _________________ Oxygen: - An intensely habit-forming accumulative toxic substance. As little
as one breath is known to produce a life-long addiction to the gas, which addiction invariably ends in death.--Isaac Asimov
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