Posted on 08/14/2008 2:11:35 PM PDT by Bill Dupray
Usually when you argue with liberals, you can start winning right off the bat by denying the premise of their argument. On energy, their premise is that wind power is pure, clean energy, harnessing mother nature with no downside at all. After all it is just a breeze, which we like on hot summer days, and other than lifting loosely glued toupees and bad comb-overs, it is harmless. Right?
Well we don't get wind power from pin-wheels. We get it from thousands of huge, industrial grade wind turbines, which, for the dim bulbs on the left, are machines.
(Excerpt) Read more at patriotroom.com ...
What really makes wind mills turn is the $100,000 tax credit the Govt gives for them. Let’s criticize the oil companies who earn a 7%-9% profit.
Wind turbines can generate considerable power. There are several projects already producing over 100 MW across the globe. The real comparison is the cost to kw or cost efficiency, not that total MW power production.
I would love to have a windmill on my property to generate electricity.
big ones can be even taller
http://www.macalester.edu/maccares/Images/Turbine%20Scale%20-%20Windustry.jpg
http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/index.htm
No, kW just gives you capacity. Cost per kWH, energy produced, is the comparison that counts. Then factor in reliability and the cost to store power when it's generated off-peak to demand on-peak.
You can’t afford it.
BTTT
It’s in the linked blog.
“Many modern turbines are 400 feet tall and carry 130-foot-long, 7-ton blades”
They are building them all over eastern Oregon where I live also.
According to a Forbes article in its June 16 edition,
“Two of the biggest wind farms in Europe have 159 turbines and cover thousands of acres between the, but together take a year to produce less than four days output from a single conventional power station.”
In the book “Gusher of Lies” by Robert Bryce (great book),
“In July 2006, wind turbines in CA produced power at only about 10% of their capacity; in Texas, one of the most promising states for wind energy, the windmills produced electricity at about 17% of their rated capacity”
I noticed this effect while working on skyscrapers inspecting welds and bolt connections. There would be little wind at ground level yet 20 MPH winds 30 stories up.
According to another Forbes article in its June 16 edition, per H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.....
“One notorious example is a wind farm in Altamont Pass, CA. In their 27 year lifetime, these wind turbines have dealt a grizzly end to upward of 130,000 birds. And these aren’t just plain everyday birds. For example between 75 and 116 golden eagles are sliced to death each year.”
“Solar? Chews up a lot of land, expensive, and PV cell production uses lots of icky chemicals”
not really
about 1/2 of one house roof produces 100% of the kWh
10 W / SF ; 1 MW = 100,000 SF = 1800 MWh / yr in CA
PV is SILCON mostly, with Aluminum and Boron dopants- all NON toxic chemicals, along with glass and aluminum
the ONLY argument against solar is “its too expensive” - and it IS expensive- but it DOES work ANYWHERE (except AK in the wintertime)
Wind Power does only work large scale- but is cheap , and who cares about the stupid birds?
Nukes are ESSENTIAL ASAP for 24 hr power - Boone P is right - natural gas should NOT be used for electric prod.
Hydrogen is a good renewable fuel that noone is talking about, can be mixed into gasoline, biofuels, nat gas and others at stoichiometric ratios- that is coming down the pike soon with gas @ 4$
We need to :
(1) DRILL DRILL DRILL our own resources
(2) BUILD NUKES NOW at least 100 new plants
(3) switch to hythane (hydrogen - natural gas)combustion / electric hybrid vehicles over the next 25 years
(4) start to convert to liquid H2 for airplanes
(5) incentivize PV with a SREC program like New Jersey , where you get ca$h for your clean energy, that the utilities must purchase to do business in the state
(6) put wind in where it makes sense and improve transmission lines to support the sparse areas
(7) increase energy efficiency and power quality - without FORCING ANYONE TO switch to those stupid CFs
(8) persue ANY other energy technology that makes sense
(9) ELIMINATE EtOH and other STUPID programs
and
TELL THE DEMOCRATS TO SHUT THE H*LL UP AND GO AWAY
The ones in my back yard have the 100ft props...problem is the poles are only 110ft. They ran out of funding.
No one is talking about it, because it is not a fuel --unless you consider hydrogen bound to carbon -- which everyone has been talking about for a very long time. There is no free hydrogen anywhere on earth, so it must be reduced from somewhere else. Since it must be reduced before it can be oxidized, it is not a fuel; just a storage medium. As a storage medium it is problematic: it's far more dangerous than gasoline or diesel, and since it is an oxidizer itself, it presents serious problems with most metal uses. Unless you're burning uranium to produce hydrogen by electrolysis, it makes more sense to just oxidize hydrogen from hydrocarbons at the point of generation in the first place.
“I might be able to understand your ire over how liberals hate everything nuclear or fossil fuel. However I recall watching a live interview in which T Boone himself admitted wind is only a part of the solution.”
Yeah, but T Boone is anything but a liberal airhead. He’s a smart businessman and is riding the wind gravy train.
“He mentioned natural gas, clean coal, nuclear, ocs drilling etc. I believe he has a horse in this race but the magical fantasies the liberals are looking at to solve this problems astounds me.”
Tell me about it. $2.3 billion for a 100MW plant to burn wood chips - its ‘green’ energy so a plant that cost half as much to produce 10X the power is offlimits. the mind boggles- but this is Austin...
http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/08/up-in-smoke-austins-biofuel-boondoggle.html
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