The Spirited Sixth Sense ...

[Gabe1]

The MK steam train issue goes all the way to the top ... Iger himself. Same rationale that has radically changed the product in RoE at EPCOT. The idiot (and I don't use that word lightly) wants the railway to be as green as possible. ... If he really gave a $hit about being green, then maybe he wouldn't be pushing to develop every square inch of WDW ... then maybe he wouldn't be clogging roads with buses ... then ... yeah, he doesn't.

Anyone man or woman enough here to say they won't visit a foreign Disney resort because they are afraid to leave the USofA?

If the excuse is a "green" WDW what will Iger do with the Liberty Belle? The steam train excuse carries the same weight as switching to chicken hot dogs for "healthier food offerings" and then changing up the menu and dumping high fat toppings on the Gourmet Chicken Dogs. Idiots indeed.

Any idea how long MM+ was down at the Studios yesterday?

 

[ScoutN]

. Going back to the watch if you have an expensive finely built watch and I have a digital and someone asks us what time it is, we will both have the same answer.

That backpedal kinda made it worse. That is the same as asking someone at both parks:

Did you ride a rollercoaster? Yes.

Did you eat food? Yes

Did you see a show or two? Yes.

Whether it is a finely tuned park or a cheap one, the answer is still yes.

 

[GoofGoof]

The waste is in terms of payback. MM+, a colossal misallocation of capital, will break even long before anything solar. Even if some third party fronts funds to build and operate a solar generator, WDW will pay more per MW than what is available from cheaper generating sources. Higher priced electricity increases costs for WDW which increases prices to the consumer. I would also note that the article fails to mention what the Eagles will be paying for the solar electricity.

The Eagles stadium is basically a generator for 355 - 357 days per year and only uses full load 8-10 days per year. Where as WDW monorail is full load 365 days per year. Entirely different model

You are missing the point. They would be doing it to "go green" not to save money. Nobody is saying they could use solar to save money. If that was true they would have already done it. If they are going to sell the change out from authentic steam trains to replicas as an attempt to "go green" then they should put their money where their mouth is and attempt it in other places as well. If it's just about saving money (which it is) then don't try to spin it with "going green".

The array built for the Eagles is not large enough to power the WDW monorail, but the concept is very much scalable and Disney certainly has the space to build out. The contract terms have not been released to the public and neither side is going to publicize what they are paying, it's a closely guarded secret. I can tell you from first hand knowledge it isn't as far as you might think from current retail rates and it's fixed so they would have the added benefit of knowing what they would be paying in advance.

 

[ford91exploder]

The scary part of it all is that so many so-called Disney fans have no clue anymore what true Disney Quality is all about ... they don't understand the history ... they don't understand what the Disney Details were (not Obvious Mickeys everywhere!) ... and many of them (Mongello, Brigante etc) are leading the charge that WDW has never been better (and except for say 1971-1996 or so, they're right!)

The question becomes how do we discredit Mongello and Brigante, It's necessary to attack DIS social media strategy.

 

[Nubs70]

The not saving money Is precisely the point. Solar initiatives are "green washing". In the case of WDW, if they were truly interested in being "green", they would build a biomass power plant and plant 3 trees for everyone they cut. Planting trees will replace what they use and extra to consume CO2. Additional asset income would be generated by the growth of the excess trees with minimal labor input.

 

[SJN1279]

Who really cares what type of train they use?

 

[ford91exploder]

That sucks. Why not just hook the train to a pickup and paint "TRAIN" on the side? After all, it will get oneself from a to b. And nobody cares about the engine.

Like one of THESE

 

[Nubs70]

Like one of THESE

Except in needs "TRAIN" in big letters down the passenger side. Oh and make sure the driver is wearing a conductors hat. Gotta keep the theming intact.

 

[ford91exploder]

Who really cares what type of train they use?

A LOT of us, Take the 'Real' train away and remove yet another reason to visit WDW for many of us who enjoy steam trains, Dollywood's is better than WDW for the die hard steam fan, And there are even some railroads where you can PAY to be the fireman on a steamer worth every penny.

http://www.essexsteamtrain.com/throttle.html

 

[ford91exploder]

Except in needs "TRAIN" in big letters down the passenger side. Oh and make sure the driver is wearing a conductors hat. Gotta keep the theming intact.

No the engineer wears a hat like THIS for steam operations

Diesel operators wear a conventional hardhat and safety glasses, Yes I've done both and steam is a lot more FUN

 

[Animaniac93-98]

The question becomes how do we discredit Mongello and Brigante, It's necessary to attack DIS social media strategy.

The best way to "attack" Disney's social media strategy is to get into the "battlefield", so to speak, and use the tool against them. The last thing anybody who's paid to run a social media channel wants to do is to spend 90% of their day deleting, or worse, responding to negative comments and posts. You can't use Hootsuite for that stuff.

The #disneyside is the perfect thing for this, as Disney themselves encourage the use of it. The number of views/fans certain pages have (the WDW facebook page has over 13 million likes), is even better for getting a message out.

Posting here, on Miceage or wherever else, is largely preaching to the choir.

 

[alissafalco]

And that says it all ... if you lower quality and your audience is no longer discerning enough to get it, did you just get away with more Walmarting? As my beloved Sarah would say ''You Betcha!''

Would it have killed them to put up some memorabilia and theming on this wall at Casey's? (pics from da mouse)

 

[ford91exploder]

View attachment 46788 View attachment 46789

Would it have killed them to put up some memorabilia and theming on this wall at Casey's? (pics from da mouse)

Even some Baseball FATHEAD's would have looked better than the blank walls, My local SUBWAY has better theming (look closely at wallpaper next visit)

 

[Nubs70]

You are missing the point. They would be doing it to "go green" not to save money. Nobody is saying they could use solar to save money. If that was true they would have already done it. If they are going to sell the change out from authentic steam trains to replicas as an attempt to "go green" then they should put their money where their mouth is and attempt it in other places as well. If it's just about saving money (which it is) then don't try to spin it with "going green."

The array built for the Eagles is not large enough to power the WDW monorail, but the concept is very much scalable and Disney certainly has the space to build out. The contract terms have not been released to the public and neither side is going to publicize what they are paying, it's a closely guarded secret. I can tell you from first hand knowledge it isn't as far as you might think from current retail rates and it's fixed so they would have the added benefit of knowing what they would be paying in advance.

Just for giggles, let's try to scale up the array to account for difference in full load operating days.

Stadium:
$30MM project cost
11,000 panels
14 turbines
10 full load operating days.

WDW full load operating days are 36.5x

WDW
401,500 panels
511 turbines
$1.095 Billion

Now if WDW monorail full load demand is 2x that of the stadium, it could approach MM+. Even if full load demand is 1/2 of the stadium, it would still represent a $500 million investment in the monorail.

 

[GoofGoof]

The not saving money Is precisely the point. Solar initiatives are "green washing". In the case of WDW, if they were truly interested in being "green", they would build a biomass power plant and plant 3 trees for everyone they cut. Planting trees will replace what they use and extra to consume CO2. Additional asset income would be generated by the growth of the excess trees with minimal labor input.

My point is they are not really interested in being green. They are interested in saving money on operating the steam trains. Whether they invested in solar or biomass that would be a real attempt at going green.

Biomass is fine, but building and operating a biomass power plant has significant upfront costs and operating costs as well as risks. It's also not pollution free. Assuming you would be burning wood and agricultural waste you still have NOX emissions. The carbon released is neutral since you would be planting new trees. I'm not sure that economically it would be any less expensive than solar long term and may actually cost more depending on how far they would need to go to get fuel stock. I'm not sure they could just cut down a bunch of trees on property to use for fuel. Some of that land is protected wetlands. Converting the existing gas power plant they have to a cogen plant that can also burn biomass is a possible way to save some money, but it's still likely to be more expensive than buying from the grid and in line with solar.

 

[maxairmike]

The best way to "attack" Disney's social media strategy is to get into the "battlefield", so to speak, and use the tool against them. The last thing anybody who's paid to run a social media channel wants to do is to spend 90% of their day deleting, or worse, responding to negative comments and posts. You can't use Hootsuite for that stuff.

The #disneyside is the perfect thing for this, as Disney themselves encourage the use of it. The number of views/fans certain pages have (the WDW facebook page has over 13 million likes), is even better for getting a message out.

Posting here, on Miceage or wherever else, is largely preaching to the choir.

Bingo. If you start using that hashtag in conjunction with pics of, say, the filthy and falling apart interiors of monorails, or comments about "wal-marting" and people retweet/fav at a high enough level then when someone clicks on or searches that tag, those negative tweets are going to show up right along with promoted tweets. Disney can't do anything about that without it being obvious to those who can tell when tweets are being paid for or suppression is happening (see the 2012 filtering of the #NBCsucks or whatever it was that NBC somehow managed to get "scrubbed" and kept from showing as a trending tag during the London Olympics when folks weren't happy with how they were cutting and cobbling together events instead of showing full things live). That leaves them with two options; hope that the negative stuff doesn't last long/people ignore it, or they have to respond in some way/shape/form. Of course, in order for something like that to work, you have to be vocal, persistent, and have a large enough or very influential group using that method, but it is very doable.

 

[ford91exploder]

Bingo. If you start using that hashtag in conjunction with pics of, say, the filthy and falling apart interiors of monorails, or comments about "wal-marting" and people retweet/fav at a high enough level then when someone clicks on or searches that tag, those negative tweets are going to show up right along with promoted tweets. Disney can't do anything about that without it being obvious to those who can tell when tweets are being paid for or suppression is happening (see the 2012 filtering of the #NBCsucks or whatever it was that NBC somehow managed to get "scrubbed" and kept from showing as a trending tag during the London Olympics when folks weren't happy with how they were cutting and cobbling together events instead of showing full things live). That leaves them with two options; hope that the negative stuff doesn't last long/people ignore it, or they have to respond in some way/shape/form. Of course, in order for something like that to work, you have to be vocal, persistent, and have a large enough or very influential group using that method, but it is very doable.

True, It would be more effective if we could somehow 'break' the so called insiders like RIcky etc

 

[Soarin' Over Pgh]

Just for giggles, let's try to scale up the array to account for difference in full load operating days.

Stadium:
$30MM project cost
11,000 panels
14 turbines
10 full load operating days.

WDW full load operating days are 36.5x

WDW
401,500 panels
511 turbines
$1.095 Billion

Now if WDW monorail full load demand is 2x that of the stadium, it could approach MM+. Even if full load demand is 1/2 of the stadium, it would still represent a $500 million investment in the monorail.

But at least it would be an investment well spent, compared to MM+.

 

[Nubs70]

No the engineer wears a hat like THIS for steam operations

Diesel operators wear a conventional hardhat and safety glasses, Yes I've done both and steam is a lot more FUN

Thanks for the clarification. The driver would wear the engineers hat while the conductor would sit in the truck bed wearing the aforementioned conductors hat.

 

[ford91exploder]

Thanks for the clarification. The driver would wear the engineers hat while the conductor would sit in the truck bed wearing the aforementioned conductors hat.

Yes that would work, Perhaps with a PA playing a recorded choo-choo noise...

 

[GoofGoof]

Just for giggles, let's try to scale up the array to account for difference in full load operating days.

Stadium:
$30MM project cost
11,000 panels
14 turbines
10 full load operating days.

WDW full load operating days are 36.5x

WDW
401
,500 panels
511 turbines
$1.095 Billion

Now if WDW monorail full load demand is 2x that of the stadium, it could approach MM+. Even if full load demand is 1/2 of the stadium, it would still represent a $500 million investment in the monorail.

I'm not sure about the numbers. The Eagles project is a 3 MW array. 3 MWs is enough to power about 3,000 average sized homes. Converted to kilowatts that's 3,000 kilowatts per hour. You are talking about over 100 MWs which would be massive.

I have no idea how much power the WDW monorail consumes in an hour. Maybe @PeterAlt knows. According to this site each train consumes 137 KWs per hour:
http://thedisneydrivenlife.com/2011/04/11/monorail-by-the-numb3rs/
If that number is right (who knows) and they run 12 trains they would need 1,644 KWs per hour. That's just to operate the trains and doesn't include the power at the stations. It also doesn't include the cloudy days or nighttime hours when the sun doesn't shine. My point is you could calculate how much power the monorail needs in a year and then build a solar array that produces enough power during sunny times to cover that energy used. During mid-day sun you would be dumping power on to the grid and pulling power down during off peak times, but the net energy produced/consumed would be zero or close to it. The array would probably need to be more than 3MWs but not over 100MWs. I read somewhere online that all of WDW consumes 190 MWs per hour of electricity during the peak summer AC season including all of the resorts, parks and office buildings. I don't think its likely the monorail consumes over half the electricity.