Some Wind Power Calculations

[RDasher]

I was just looking at the task of providing wind power to according to T Boone Pickens Plan. It is not a pretty picture. But here is a try at it.

TX power Requirement (MW)	104,754	        MW
Amount of Wind Power Desired	20.00%
MW of Wind	                20950.8	        MW
Area per Megawatt	        0.02	        MW/Acre
Efficiency	                35.00%	        percent
Sq Miles Wind Power	        2992971.4	Acres
Acres / Sq MIle	                640	        SqMi/A
Actual Sq Miles Req	        4676.52	sq miles
Distance from Minot ND
to Big Bend TX	                1300	        miles
Width of Corridor	        3.60	        miles
Watts per Tower	                1.5	        MW
Quantity towers	                13,967	        units
Cost per tower	             $  5,000,000	each
Tower Cost	             $  69,836	        million
Transmission Lines	     $  10,000	        million
Total Cost	             $  79,836	        million

So it isn't too bad about $80 Billion to provide 20 percent of Texas's power requirements. Oh wait, TB Pickens was talking 20 percent for the whole US.. Well that will take a little more work.

[RDasher]

Hopefully I don't have any math errors. The assumptions are that you need 50 A per tower, and that typical efficiency of the generators is about 35 percent, meaning you get usable power from them 35 percent of the time.

The wind corridor would be 1300 miles long, extend from Northern N Dakota to Big Bend TX, and be about 4 miles wide. It would require nearly 14,000 1.5 MW wind towers, at $5 million each and $10 B in transmission lines. At a cost of $80 Billion give or take a few Billion. Not counting the cost of land or royalties. Now the big question is what is the cost to the consumer?

[flyfree]

Width of Corridor 3.60 miles

That small?

[RDasher]

My intention was to have a corridor that extended from ND to TX and this is the width that I came up with. If you want more power to provide power to more states it would get proportionally wider.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Wind is a lousy resource in Texas because ERCOT is an island. Wind stops, you can’t ramp enough base load fast enough and, boom, down you go.

So double your capital cost for an energy storage plan, probably compressed energy, to make the energy from wind dispatchable.

[QBFimi]

ping

[Wiseghy]

And guess what? This thing with windmills killing raptors is, ummm, “turning” into a big deal with enviros. Actually, no one likes killing owls, eagles and hawks.

Turns out that one way wind corridors are almost always bird migration routes. Wind is dead.

Too bad, since I think they are not the eye sore that others say.

[aquila48]

You forgot one minor detail...

I’m sure there are days when the wind doesn’t blow. What do you do then?

[RDasher]

I am not against wind, Just pointing out some details about it. I also saw something that there are much more birds killed by other means than by wind farms.

[RDasher]

Plan B is turn the Natural Gas generators back on :-)

One the other hand, over a 1300 mile route, I think somewhere the wind is blowing

[aquila48]

“Plan B is turn the Natural Gas generators back on :-)
One the other hand, over a 1300 mile route, I think somewhere the wind is blowing”

That’s one of the big problems with wind and solar - because they’re intermittent you need a lot of backup generation and/or storage capacity.

http://www.aweo.org/LowBenefit.pdf

[spokeshave]

"The wind corridor would be 1300 miles long, extend from Northern N Dakota to Big Bend TX, and be about 4 miles wide"

Great...then they can build a honking big pipeline to bring all that new oil from N. Dakota to Texas refineries.

[Ingtar]

Then you have to account for the power lost in transmission from start to finish... I don’t think I saw that in there.

[SFConservative]

Hey, it's a good starting model that we cal all tweak and refine.

One assumption that you make early on is 0.02 MW/acre. Together with your 1.5 MW per turbine that says 1 tower per 75 acres or ~8.5 towers per square mile. I see them way closer together in the windfarms here in Kahlifornia, but they are probably a lot less than 1.5 MW each. Can you say more about your 0.02 MW/acre assumption?

[RDasher]

Yep.. You're right there. This was just a rough calculation to try and get a look at the big picture of the expanse and cost of such a project.

Doing it for the whole country would be a monumental task.

The cost of wind towers was also an estimate. I should be able to get a better price on a Wind Tower/Generator tomorrow maybe

[MediaMole]

I’m sure there are days when the wind doesn’t blow. What do you do then?

Next, we replace all office chairs with exercycles hooked up to generators. It solves the electricity problem and the obesity problem.

[NonValueAdded]

Yep, I figured there'd be enough towers needed that we'd be talking about slowing down the erf's rotation or something. Also, with 20% of the nations' capacity at the whim of the wind, the need for backup capacity would be enormous unless we'd be willing to absorb the occasional brown or blackout. Unless, of course, the whole thing is pointed at Congress.

There was a recent case where hydro operators were being sued because of an unplanned water release (hurt the fishies) when they had to jump back online when the wind forecast was wrong and the hydro capacity was needed.

I'd like to hear T-Boone disclose his financial stake in this when he advocates the policy.

[RDasher]

The 0.02 MW/A assumption came from a web site on wind power. I will have to re-google I didn't save the site.

The spacing of them is dependent on preventing interference between each other and so forth. You may be surprised on how much space they really take up. A 2.5 MW tower is 400 ft high from the tip of the blade to the ground. Those things are huge. A single blade may weigh 100,000 pounds

[Lawgvr1955]

Whatever happened with harnessing the tides or wave action? Unlike wind, they are happening all the time.

[DTogo]

Many errors in your calculations:
1) 1.5MW turbines only cost $3~3.5M each “all in” and installed (there are also a variety of MW sizes/prices of other turbines)
2) Net capacity factors for turbines from TX to ND would likely be 45%+ especially in TX and ND
3) 3.5 mile wide transmission corridor ... why 3.5 miles?
4) Transmission lines cost roughly $1M per mile, but perhaps for higher voltage lines it might run $2M/mile x 1300 miles = $2.6Bn
5) Most utility scale wind turbines only occupy a 50ft x 50ft foot print, most of which is the subsurface foundation, and allow for farming and/or cattle grazing in between.

[LibWhacker]

Never mentioned, of course, by envirowhackos is what might it do to the world’s weather to divert a significant portion of the world’s wind to drive generators? What if the entire world decided to get 20% or 30% of its energy from wind power? Should we do that experiment? No thanks! Let’s stick with nuclear, coal, and other tried and true sources.