Comment by Scoundreller
5 years ago
> residential wind turbines
Wind has a scalability problem. Residentially, it's only a good sell as a backup supply for when solar isn't cutting it to hopefully prevent generator use. And even that's a tough economic argument.
Towers have huge economies of scale, both in total size and height. So the turbines just keep getting bigger and bigger because it's more and more cost effective.
If my understanding is correct there is curious difference in perceived scale with kinetic vs thermal energy. Based on a a rowing machine's advertised metrics, I calculated you could row across the English channel on half a packet of chocolate biscuits.
I'm not sure if this impacts your scenario, but the "calorie" commonly used in nutrition is actually a "kcal", or a thousand calories as used by physicists. Most confusing term for units ever.
Put another way: I’ll have to spend an hour on the treadmill to work off the calories in this burger.
This sounds interesting but I don't really understand, could you elaborate?
1 biscuit = 85 cal
1000m rowing = 60 cal [1]
English Channel = 35km (narrowest point)
35 * 60 / 85 = 24.7 biscuits!
[1] https://darkhorserowing.com/how-to-translate-calories-to-met...
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