Windfarm from the air

Just messing around with Google Local and looking at some places I've been when I was young. I somewhat remembered a trip my Aunt and Grandmother took me on when I was 7 years old to Palm Springs and we went past some windfarms. They didn't look that big from the bus.

http://local.google.com/local?q=Pal...5,-116.595315&spn=0.003730,0.010274&t=h&hl=en
(Drag the map around)

Anyway, I took a closer look and those were just the shadows of the turbines but still pretty impressive.

Thanks for posting this!

Very inspiring!

We were showing Google maps and Google Earth to some friends and family at different times this summer and they all wanted to take turns running out side while the rest of us would "watch on the screen"... (Where is the rolling eyes smiley?)

I mean, besides the complete incomprehension of the technical limitations which would make a live picture like that impossible for all but .gov spysats in very limited circumstances, we were looking at the website, at night, and under an overcast sky, with Google showing nearby bodies of water covered in ice, and trees with no leaves....

Critical thinking skills are rarer than I thought… You'd need Death-Star sized geostationary satellites covered in Hubble-space teloscopes to provide a real-time service like that.

Pretty funny. Although it does say something about "future shock". I'm not sure it's ever going to be a problem for our socieity.

If the ignorant people who one would think are most likely to suffer "future shock" actualy let their ignorance lead them to expect tech magnatudes higher than the latest thing that blows, we the supposed technorati, away, I don't know what will.

Teloportaton? Space colonies? Home test-tube baby kits?

Dude, we go right by that thing on our way to the Parker strip!
Pretty impressive to see all those turbines going. They turn very slow by comparison, but the gearbox spins the generator at a much higher speed.

Here's another wind farm near Livermore, Ca. Zoom in on the thin white lines that go north and south

http://local.google.com/local?q=Pal...5,-116.595315&spn=0.003730,0.010274&t=h&hl=en


Here's one already zoomed..

http://local.google.com/local?q=Pal...5,-116.595315&spn=0.003730,0.010274&t=h&hl=en


As far as how recent the pictures? Not very in some cases. We did the "look up the house" game, and then we tried to figure out when the picture was taken. We could tell from the landscaping what year it was. That was confirmed by the combination of cars in the driveway. The fully grown vegetable garden gave us a window between June and September. The leaves were still on the trees, which confirmed that it was not winter.

We knew the height of the tree in the yard, and could tell from the angle and length of it's shadow what time of day it was. Our best guess based on the angle of the sun was that it was taken sometime in September two years ago.

It's a fun game!

I've passed by those plenty of times. They are a lot bigger than it seems like when you drive by them.

Really kewl! I followed 62 up through Morongo valley and into Yucca Valley where I turned left on 247/Old Woman Springs Rd. Out past the Landers turnoff, I hung a right on Ghost Rd, and two miles later, turned left on TVOD Rd. My shack is clearly visable at the end of it. linkie.
(Its 1/3 from the top and 1/3 from the right border.)

Larry

I always loved going by that spot back when I was traveling to SoCal often.

The creativity of humanity;
utilizing a natural force that is irritating at best
(unless you are a plant requiring pollinization without a bee being handy);
Creating USEFUL energy
in an otherwise
barren, ugly, useless and sere desert.

(I never could figure out why all those rich folks wanted to hang out in a hellhole like Palm Springs.)

I stopped over my High School (Chino Hills High) and you can see the area behind the school (where there are vollyball/tennis courts) and the north side entrance facing the main parking lot are still dirt. My guess is that it was taken during 2002-2003 during my Sophmore year. Most likely in early 2003 as Pomona Rincon has been repaved.

http://local.google.com/local?q=Chi...8,-117.687553&spn=0.003990,0.010274&t=h&hl=en

Back home (My neighborhood)

http://local.google.com/local?q=Chi...2,-117.738934&spn=0.003990,0.010274&t=h&hl=en

My neighbors at the Cul-De-Sac on the east end of Crape Myrtle installed a swimming pool but it is not shown here. Also, the house on the south corner of Tall Oak and Fallen Oak hasen't burned down yet (There was a house fire in Feb of 2003) so I could say this was taken around October 2002-January 2003.

(They are still waiting for permits to finish rebuilding that house)

Another fun one is
http://imageatlas.globexplorer.com/ImageAtlas/view.do



I found our house, and it is less than three years old, more than 2 years old.

The picture was taken monday morning before noon. The garbage cans are still at the curb and (according to the shadows) the sun was not quite overhead.

globexplorer lets you get real close. A meter or less resolution (guessing).

Closer to where I live and (and still on the topic of grid power)

http://www.google.com/maps?q=Chino,CA&ll=33.997876,-117.679356&spn=0.003760,0.010274&t=h&hl=en

This is a switch-yard/substation in Chino about 10-15mins from my house. It was also the site of the world's largest battery from 1988 up until 1997. You can search google for "Chino Battery Energy Storage Plant" or "World's Largest Battery"

40 megawatts/hour from a bank of several hundred Exide lead acid batteries. They also didn't name that street "Edison" for nothing (The switchyard is owned by So. Cal Edison and high voltage transmission lines run next to it.)


Other places close to my location

http://www.google.com/maps?q=Chino,CA&ll=33.998499,-117.716371&spn=0.015041,0.041096&t=h&hl=en

The Spectrum Shopping center (bordered by Schaefer, Pipeline, and the 71 Expressway) with Grand Ave running right down the middle. Walmart, Sam's Club, Nordstorm Rack, and Border Books on the south side of Grand and on the North side; Comp USA, Old Navy, Target, TJ Max, Chick's, and Pep-Boys are some of the major stores.

A few blocks east of Pipeline where Grand becomes Edison, there is a technical center owned by Kia and Hyundai where they recently built a hydrogen refueling station. It's not an electrolysis station using water though, it's a re-former station that uses the same gas going to my range and furnace.

http://www.hyundainews.com/hyundainews/corporate60.htm


Try guessing what this factory in Ontario is
(Hint: A very popular flashlight)

http://www.google.com/maps?q=Ontario,CA&ll=34.038942,-117.580329&spn=0.003758,0.010274&t=h&hl=en

Why would you paint your name on the roof ?
http://www.google.com/maps?q=Ontario,CA&ll=34.073209,-117.551780&spn=0.003985,0.010274&t=h&hl=en
(Go south on Miliken Ave as well and look for the Toyota building and two other buildings with J.W. Mitchell and ProLogis on top.)

I also went north on the 15 freeway to Foothill Blvd where they just recently built the Victoria Gardens shopping center but it's not yet in the map.

Back to the topic of power. I looked around for the "Solar 2" plant in Daggett (about ten miles east of Barstow) I couldn't get too close but I think it is that white circle in the middle of the map near the "lake". Too bad it is no longer used for generating electricity. At least having a solar plant in the middle of the desert makes sense.

http://local.google.com/local?q=Daggett,CA&ll=34.872271,-116.836596&spn=0.031575,0.082191&t=h&hl=en

The way it works is intresting; instead of photovoltic panels, it uses mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a tower at the focal point to heat a molten salt to over 1000 F. The fluid is then used to heat water for steam and the rest is similar to a coal, gas, or nuclear plant. Since the molten salt stores heat, it will also produce solar electricity at nightime

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_One
http://ucdcms.ucdavis.edu/solar2/

(I wonder what would happen if I put paper or someting flammable at the focal point of the mirrors)

yuandrew said:

This is a switch-yard/substation in Chino about 10-15mins from my house. It was also the site of the world's largest battery from 1988 up until 1997. You can search google for "Chino Battery Energy Storage Plant" or "World's Largest Battery"

40 megawatts/hour from a bank of several hundred Exide lead acid batteries. They also didn't name that street "Edison" for nothing (The switchyard is owned by So. Cal Edison and high voltage transmission lines run next to it.)

Click to expand...

Several hundred? The link says :
8256 lead-acid cells which are connected in eight parallel strings, each consisting of 1032 cells in series. The capacity and the nominal 2000-volt operating voltage make it the largest battery in the world.

I've seen battery rooms with hundreds of these Exide Lead acid batteries at the Phone company. I can't imagine 8 thousand at 3 foot tall by 3 foot wide by two foot across. Dimensions from memory.

WOW,


The original post was via Google maps. Here is the map from globalexplorer for the same shot.
http://imageatlas.globexplorer.com/...ageAtlas&lat=33.914&lon=-116.595&zoom_level=9




I wonder how many arial photos we can find for the lat/long 33.913645 / -116.595315 ?