Talk:Electricity generation

message: I have replaced the link from co-generation to combined heat and power as a page co-generation does not exist. --OnUrb 08:03, 2 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Co-generation

message: Daniel.Cardenas 16:16, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: What is the point of making the pie chart so small?

message: It's a very high-resolution image of a bunch of very blurry lights at night.  Really, what was the point of adding that image to the article? KyuzoGator 00:14, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Image of the Combined Cycle Gas Plant 

message: what is the efficiency of each of the methoods of producing electricity? (what precentage of the power source in mentioned is converted to elecrical power?)--217.132.238.135 (talk) 12:25, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Possibly a good addition to the article but is it meaningful to compare efficiencies between disparate sources?  And what do you mean by "efficiency"? What are you wanting to learn from the answer?  Saying that a solar panel is about 11% efficient at converting sunlight to electricity and a combined-cycle gas-turbine plant is 59% efficient at converting natural gas to electricity looks like information, but what really does it tell you? A hydro turbine may be 95% efficent at converting energy of falling water to electricity. I think it's only useful to compare efficiencies for the same primary energy source; then there's a correlation between efficiency and capital and operating costs. But you shouldn't compare apples and oranges, let alone apples and shiny round rocks. --Wtshymanski (talk) 14:50, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  method efficiency 

message: In October 2007, the National Security Space Office, part of the Department of Defense, and ShareSpace Foundation and former astronaut Buzz Aldrin issued a report which said that the price of oil was now high enough for us to study putting solar panels in orbit around the Earth to collect solar energy and beam it down to earth.  Shouldn't this article have a section on this or some mention of this?
rumjal 20:46, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Someone is going to study something is encyclopedic?  I don't think so.  Perhaps the results of the study might be notable. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

text: Attoman (talk) 01:57, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia already has a Solar power satellite article. The  article cannot cover every possible technology for generating electricity. Even the individual sub-articles such as Solar energy and Wind power get so long that we have to split them up too. However,  could use a navigation template which would direct the reader to more details on the various technologies for generating electricity. The main drawback of solar power satellite technology is the enormous time and investment necessary before it could yield any power, when we already have plenty of unused desert land and rooftops on which to install solar collectors much more quickly, and above all incrementally, with proven technology. There is almost always a huge difference between proven and unproven technologies. With a proven technology, the costs and time requirements are knowable with high confidence. With unproven technologies, the actual costs and time requirements may differ enormously from preliminary estimates. That's why private investors greatly prefer proven technologies, whereas only governments are typically able to gamble large sums on unproven technologies. Time may become extremely important if the dire predictions of peak oil proponents bear out (see for example the Hirsch report) - e.g., once the full scale of the liquid fuel shortage becomes clear (in the worst-case scenario of petroleum depletion), civilization may lack the time and fossil energy resources necessary to mount a huge program of space power development. Only options with rapid short-term energy payback will be feasible in such a scenario. --Teratornis (talk) 20:16, 29 August 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Orbiting Solar Panels

message: I agree with the recent deletion of a statement from a caption, together with the citation, because the citation did not say anything about coal being clean and cheap. User:Daniel.Cardenas claimed in an edit summary that citations should go in the text, not the caption. I disagree with that, and if it had been the only reason for removing the statement, it would have been insufficient. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:56, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The statement seemed to me to be not NPOV and a promo for coal.  I understand why you deleted it.  There might be some truth in it, though, that might be worth of preserving.  If coal is a cheap source (or cheapest) it would be worth putting that back in the caption.  But I'd like to see a citation for it.  I never really thought about references in captions.  Thinking about it now, it seems to me something to avoid if possible, but tolerable. Diderot's dreams (talk) 15:47, 26 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Reference in caption

message: It is reported that much of Tesla's research centered around the generation or "capture" of electricity from sources existing naturally around us.  Should these be added to the article? - KitchM (talk) 19:49, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It didn't, so please cite your sources. Tesla claimed a lot about transmission, relatively little about generation. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:17, 4 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tesla's Methods 

message: The article uses the multiplier "billion". Unfortunately this is not a standard multiplier and may be confusing since the US and the UK have used different values for the multiplier billion. It would be good if the multipliers were replaced with unambiguous SI multipliers such as Giga or Tera.
Worryingly the article seems to be using the old British value of 10^12 for Billion and not the currently accepted 10^9 which has I understand always been used in the US and is now I believe the most widely accepted in the UK.
I would  change it myself however the figures that use the Billion multiplier are not sourced and I cannot be sure what the true values are and I am not a subject expert.
Threebs (talk) 22:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Billion - replace with SI multiplier. 

message: hi,
If we agree that the low of conservation of energy is correct then the terminology of 'generation' for energy might be misleading. After all nobody generates energy, only changes its form from one type to another.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tzachi Bar (talk • contribs) 09:44, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: If you want to create a campaign to make the English language consistent with the theories of physics, go ahead. Once you have accomplished your goal, report back here and we will edit our articles to reflect the new version of English. But Wikipedia follows the existing English language, it doesn't try to change it. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:16, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  energy production 

message: I propose merging Centralised generation into Electricity generation because then it will be less work to keep them up to date as there will be less duplication. Chidgk1 (talk) 16:24, 25 November 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Merged - will do some basic tidying but leave plenty for you guys Chidgk1 (talk) 16:14, 26 November 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger proposal 

message: I added the following sentence to lead, mostly as an audition: 
There are also exotic and speculative methods to recover energy, such as proposed fusion reactor designs which aim to directly extract energy from intense magnetic fields generated by fast-moving charged particles generated by the fusion reaction (see magnetohydrodynamics).
Given the global stakes involved for the current and future generation, I don't think this is a lead that should ruthlessly prioritize thinking inside the box, solely in terms of long established technologies. 
There's a certain innate tendency of encyclopedias to be backward looking (all the better to cite you with) and this form of authority is often warranted. 
However, in this case, the future mode of electric power generation on planet Earth is the Wild West right now (or should be), and so perhaps we should keep the open box front and center, even if it's so far but a tender, unlikely shoot sired by a DeLorean and raisin-eating porcupines.  
Just a thought. — MaxEnt 14:42, 4 October 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Audition