Posted on 01/21/2010 11:31:01 AM PST by Cheap_Hessian
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Wind energy could generate 20 percent of the electricity needed by households and businesses in the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but it would require up to $90 billion in investment, according to a government report released on Wednesday.
For the 20 percent wind scenario to work, billions must be spent on installing wind towers on land and sea and about 22,000 miles of new high-tech power lines to carry the electricity to cities, according to the study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
"Twenty percent wind is an ambitious goal," said David Corbus, the project manager for the study. "We can bring more wind power online, but if we don't have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it's like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,"
The private sector cannot fund all the needed spending, so a big chunk would have to come from the federal government through programs such as loan guarantees, Corbus said.
The Obama administration is already dedicating billions of dollars to double the amount of electricity produced by wind and other renewables energy sources by January 2012.
The Interior Department will decide this spring whether to approve the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That project, long delayed because of local opposition, would provide electricity to about 400,000 homes.
The amount of U.S. electricity generated by wind was up 29 percent during January-October of last year compared to the same period is 2008, according to the Energy Department.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
yeah. and monkeys could fly out of my butt.
If they surrounded Washington D.C. with “wind farms”, they could run that up to 120%.
Installing wind turbines inside the House and Senate chambers could probably power the entire East Coast.
that is all bull sh.t... Texas has a lot of wind power(figuratively and literally) on the hills in the southern tier but they require a place that does not have any population. they very noisy....
Texas is second to wind power and will be number one soon. However it is not for everyone and you have to have a large... large... area... and you have to have price supports it still does not compete on an even basis... it is out of bed by 15 to 20% to coal. given all trades. it is a loser the epa drives the use.
Meanwhile, we have proven nuclear power technology that could provide even more electricity more quickly and at about half the cost.
Wind farms do absolutely nothing at all to reduce our dependency on imported fuel.
All they do is replace coal and natural gas, two fuels in which we are already independent. Spending untold billions to replace fuel we have lots of, while not reducing our oil costs one thin dime, is tragic stupidity.
I’m sure it could ...
...If you can afford it.
"Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone)."
Yes, you are exactly right. They spoil thousands of acres to replace the power a natgas plant can produce on 40 acres.
“The Interior Department will decide this spring whether to approve the Cape Wind project off Cape Cod, Massachusetts. That project, long delayed because of local opposition, would provide electricity to about 400,000 homes.”
A large tonnage of the “local opposition” is dead and has since been replaced in The Senate.
I drove by a huge wind farm on the border of Colorado and Wyoming the other day, obviously millions of dollars invested with 100s of very big windmills. A single windmill was turning and it was turning at a pretty good clip. All the rest were still, not generating a single watt. Wind is not the answer.
More like 5% to 10%; we should stick with more nuclear and natural gas rather than depend too much on wind. I read some towns in Europe oversold wind and solar and are now suffering the consequences. T. Boone Pickens tried to sell wind back in 2008; now he’s opting for natural gas. BTW, he will be on Stoessel on Fox Business tonight (Thursday, 8PM Eastern). Should be interesting.
Rubbish!
Solar farms are similar eco disasters. A solar farm near me is going to take up 9000 acres to produce the power, again, you could produce with a natgas plant on 40 acres.
"And they are LOUD."Not really. We have quite a few (hundreds, if not thousands in Tehachapi) and I can't hear them.
"They kill a lot of birds." Proof please. Environmentalists claim this, but these blades move relatively slowly. If a bird can avoid a car moving at 60+ mph, it can avoid one of these things. I've looked around the base of multiple wind turbines in Tehachapi and I have yet to see a mountain of bird remains.
"Nobody is going to want them in their backyard."Yes, here in the AV, a lot of people want them, but the county and city "leaders" won't allow them. We have an abundance of wind here and would love to get "off the grid" so to speak.
SZ
Leave it to the devotees of the 19th Century ideology of Marxism to advocate the 12th Century technology of windmills.
Avian Slap-Chops.
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