Posted on 06/12/2010 6:10:31 AM PDT by Stoutcat
I (we) ask that you consider what has happened in the last 53 days. The most recent government estimate suggests that the Gulf oil disaster is spewing the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez every 5 to 12 days with no definite end in sight. You do the math. Our country is facing an environmental disaster of unknown proportions and characteristics. And no, a wind farm couldn’t have prevented that. But at least it will take a tiny step or two in the right direction.
(Excerpt) Read more at grandrants.wordpress.com ...
Wow, people have very short memories if they think this is the biggest oil spill ever. Or even the biggest oil spill in the gulf of mexico.
I support this wind farm, btw. The structure and constant shredding of birds will help make for some outstanding fishing in the area. Well, that is if the harmonic hum doesn’t drive them away.
Yee haw lets take this opportunity to scam the taxpayers some more.
a wind farm couldn’t have prevented that. But at least it will take a tiny step or two in the right direction.
Hmmmm? Tiny indeed, so tiny it shouldn’t be taken in the first place. Farm indicates produce or product to sustain the farm activity. When you need a microscope to see the product, it isn’t worth it, unless you are producing life saving legal drugs.
Keep in mind that sometimes the wind blows slowly or not at all, and windmills don't produce any power until the wind reaches about 8 MPH. A location for a windmill is not considered viable unless wind speeds average 14 MPH.
The percentage of its rated power that a windmill can actually produce, given the variation of wind speeds at the installation site, is called its capacity factor. A realistic capacity factor is 25%. That means that over time, the windmill actually delivers 25% of its rated power.
(Electrical energy is measured in units called watts. A kilowatt (KW) is 1,000 watts, a megawatt (MW) is a million watts. )
A typical large wind-driven turbine is rated at about 1,500 kilowatts. It's 350 feet tall and has a fan blade of about 240 feet in diameter. It will actually deliver about 375 kilowatts. It can power about 375 microwave ovens, or 6250 60-watt light bulbs simultaneously (only when the wind is blowing at about 25 miles per hour, which is a very strong wind). An average (1 gigawatt) power plant can power nearly a million microwaves, or 16 million light bulbs at the same time.
A power plant near me produces 1,100,000 kilowatts (1.1 gigawatts) of power. At a 25% capacity factor it would take nearly 2600 large wind turbines to produce the same power as this nuclear power plant. And this is not a particularly large plant.
If you placed these 2600 wind turbines the recommended 5 rotor-blade diameters apart, they would stretch for 600 miles. That's as far as the distance from Michigan to Georgia. In practice wind turbines are not placed single file, they are placed in several rows, like crops, in what are called wind farms, but you get the idea.
The amount of electricity generated by a wind turbine is proportional to the wind speed to the 3rd power (a 20 MPH wind will produce 8 times as much energy as a 10 MPH wind). Therefore wind turbines often produce energy in bursts; when the wind gusts, the energy output spikes, when the wind dies down, energy output dips.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to store these bursts of energy for later use. There are no batteries large enough that are also practical, and pumped-storage systems, which use unwanted energy to pump water into an aboveground reservoir for later use in turning a water-driven generator, require a large body of water.
And when there is no wind, windmills produce no power, so a traditional power plant must be operational at all times to provide power during those in-between times.
In Michigan we’re denying permits to coal fired plants because of a lack of demand (Never mind the legislature forcing production cuts). Then we’re allowing permits for wind farms despite the lack of demand.
By any means necessary, its the marxist way.
Can you eat the shredded birds? So what cost per KWH does your windfarm, which obscures the pristine views in ways no power plant could possibly do, cost us?
The illiterate gibberish from the eco-nuts is getting really funny.
All the Gulf oil spill proves is what happens when eco-nuts set policy and when massive regulatory failure occurs what happens. Ask yourselves why they were drilling at 5000 feet underwater, when you could sit on land and drill in ANWR. And well fires, leaks and other hazards, did you see how it was done in Kuwait?
But don’t worry, we assigned the Katrina recovery experts to your healthcare. Afterall, all nuts are interchangeable in the magic world of gubbermint.
Read Wind Energy’s Ghosts By Andrew Walden. Wind is not the answer. Europe’s wind power failed why would we want to follow. The wind farm in Hawaii failed. Wind is not the answer.
Thanks for that post. It still amazes me that people are daft enough to fall for this scam.
There are devices that can be mounted on the mills to solve the bird problem.
As far as the noise, I’ve been near a few, didn’t really hear anything.
I think this wind farm would have been built if Ted Kennedy didn’t tie it up in courts for so long.
Magical choo choos and windmills use the same arguments and overlook the same problems.
They’re money toilets and nobody wants them.
It’s not the entire answer, but in many parts of the country it can be succesfully utilized.
We also have plenty of other resources for creating energy, plenty of natural gas, but the libs and eco-nuts keep preventing us form accessing it.
They didn’t report that Cape Wind is going to
cost twice electricity watt/hr!
And that’s going to be mandated.
Thus customers are subsidizing this whole thing forcefully.
Just another “green jobs” scam.
Twice as much? How do they justify that?
Read that the windmills harm dolphins, etc. when in the ocean, BUT! I know this lady down the street who talks a lot, could she suppy the wind mills with the air they need?
Dolphins fly?
Nancy Pelosi could supply the wind.
Wind Farms are a waste of time and money.
They are ineffecient as demonstrated by the lack ROI data that never includes the subsidies.
In Michigan the wind farm promoters want a pass when it comes to penalties imposed on other forms of production that result from down time. They claim that their down time is because they’re at the mercy of nature.
Basically they don’t want to lose money even though they’ll be failing from the start.
Ben Lieberman, a senior policy analyst focusing on energy and environmental issues for the Heritage Foundation, is not surprised. He asks:
“If wind power made sense, why would it need a government subsidy in the first place? It’s a bubble which bursts as soon as the government subsidies end.”
After the collapse, wind promoters had a solution to their public image problem. Hide the derelict turbines. Gipe in 1993 wrote for the American Wind Energy Association:
Currently most of the older, less productive wind turbines are located within sight of major travel corridors such as I-580 and I-10. Many first generation turbines and some of the second generation designs are inoperative, and all turbines of these generations are more prone to mechanical failure than contemporary designs. Public opinion surveys have consistently found that inoperative wind turbines tarnish the public’s perception of wind energy’s efficacy.”
Gipe then quotes a 1991 UC Davis study, which explains:
“Our research and that of others show that turbines’ non-operation and public fear of wind farm abandonment is still a critical issue, and it therefore behooves the wind industry to return to the ‘big three’ wind farm sites (Altamont, San Gorgonio, and Tehachapi) and to ensure that these areas are operating as efficiently as possible, and all turbine arrays which do not contribute significantly and conspicuously to power production are either replaced or, if necessary, removed.”
The wake up to the sleeping politicians is going to be the wake up of the millennium, if they ever wake up, and God help us if they don’t.
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