Posted on 08/27/2008 6:41:23 AM PDT by reaganaut1
Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore’s hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.
The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.
The grid today, according to experts, is a system conceived 100 years ago to let utilities prop each other up, reducing blackouts and sharing power in small regions. It resembles a network of streets, avenues and country roads.
“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
While the United States today gets barely 1 percent of its electricity from wind turbines, many experts are starting to think that figure could hit 20 percent.
Achieving that would require moving large amounts of power over long distances, from the windy, lightly populated plains in the middle of the country to the coasts where many people live. Builders are also contemplating immense solar-power stations in the nation’s deserts that would pose the same transmission problems.
...
A handful of states like California that have set aggressive goals for renewable energy are being forced to deal with the issue, since the goals cannot be met without additional power lines.
But Bill Richardson, the governor of New Mexico and a former energy secretary under President Bill Clinton, contends that these piecemeal efforts are not enough to tap the nation’s potential for renewable energy.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Even with this significant limitation, wind power might still be ideal as a supplemental power source for smaller rural communities where the power would simply stay local.
According to the article, the issue is not production but getting it to market, and those improvements need to happen regardless of the way power is generated.
Wind energy requires about 95% backup power generation, because ... listen carefully libtards ... the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Not to mention that people that live around these friggin wind turbines are being driven crazy by low level vibrations.
Wind turbine power is a scam and is not practical, but libs never let facts get in the way of implementing their idiotic ideas.
Let me rephrase that minus the effects of the NYT's patented cause-effect inversion trick:
Wind Energy's Shortcomings Bump Into Reality
Technically, by the conservation of energy, when the windmill’s blades are turned by the wind, the wind is reduced, thereby lessening the cooling effects of the wind.
I suspect one could calculate the amount of heat generated by the conversion process and reduction of cooling thereby showing wind power to actually increase global warming trends.
I think the way people are approaching wind/solar is all wrong. As it stands now, it would not be technically feasible to try to power large tracks of homes with renewable methods (as far as I can tell), but you could augment their usage and reduce their demands on the grid. Major appliances would be tricky, but lighting and small electronics could be done this way. Maybe large reductions of grid usage could be to convert street lighting to some kind of solar/battery option. I’m not an engineer, but it seems to me renewables have their place, just not currently on the scale libs are talking.
Your comment is insightful.
My personal opinion is that wind power should be “stored” by using it to produce liquid hydrogen, but I’m sure more knowledgeable persons than me have looked at this and found that it doesn’t work out economically.
My congress critter, Frank Wolfe R, VA is helping the greens block a power line from PA to Northern VA. He is a RINO and a shining example of what happens to representatives when they are in Washington too long.
Because of wind power? Is this true?
Oh. Is it because predicted climate changes (global warming, in other words) have not come to pass?
Have nothing against wind/solar, but it’s not a cure all.
We need oil....and we need to seriously look at nuclear. Contact your senator. The gang of 10 (now 16) has a deal which will undermine the hard work of our congressmen. It’s unacceptable.
We need a vote
Nazi Pelosi AmericanVoices@mail.house.gov
202-425-4965
We need emergency session
President Bush comments@whitehouse.gov
202-456-1111
John Boehner invited McCain to join them
McCain needs to get his a$$ to Washington where he belongs
It will bring the much needed media attention
http://www.johnmccain.com/Contact/
I’m guessing its a combination of more efficiency in AC, fewer 90 degree days and some nat gas peak shaving. One of the big coops in Arkansas usualy buys a big batch of residual oil each spring but that hasn’t happened for three or four years.
An “electricity interstate highway” would seem to be a prime terrorist target for both the eco terrorists and the jihadists.
Not if the nukes are built where the energy is needed - that is, on the coasts where the users are.
Seems to me that decentralizing power production would be preferable to building an “electricity interstate”.
Sure, big installations have efficiencies over smaller ones, but pumping power all over the place isn’t exactly lossless and there are other considerations, such as security, when you centralize.
Perhaps we, as individuals and communities, need to start taking more responsibility for our own power needs and relying less on large corporations facilitated by the feds.
The “community-sized nuke” concepts are a great example of how decentralizing power would lessen the need for a national grid. In addition, it would keep jobs local, and would make it very difficult to take out power over vast sections of the country. I’m not saying that concept is “the solution”, but I think that philosophy makes more sense than what we’ve been doing for years.
During the times of Columbus when the wind was the only way to provide power for large scale Sea travel, countless sailors nearly died because the wind left them stranded out in the middle of the Oceans.
Even with the help of the limited currents, they would watch helplessly as a Typhoon came bearing down on them from the East and they were helpless to outrun it or steer out of it’s path. By the time they had enough wind to get moving again, they were in a fully blown crisis.
But the Democrats still believe that this is some new and amazing kind of energy. When it was gladly abandoned by those who relied on it centuries ago, for several reasons.
This explains why the Democrats are so prone to flirt with Communism and Socialism. They believe that even though it has failed repeatedly through out history, it won’t for them. Because they are so much smarter and gifted than their ancestors were because of technology.
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