Posted on 10/24/2010 10:12:38 AM PDT by epithermal
European wind developers are fleeing the EU's expiring wind subsidies, shuttering factories, laying off workers, and leaving billions of Euros of sovereign debt and a continent-wide financial crisis in their wake. But their game is not over. Already they are tapping a new vein of lucre from the taxpayers and ratepayers of the United States.
-snip-
In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Come visit some of the windfarms around here. You get a combination of a low-frequency whirring combined with a “whoosh” from the blades. Also, there have been farms and ranches that have had the joy of fires from the transmission lines when they have been snapped in wind storms.
I am no fan of wind energy, but if, and only if, it is economically feasible would I consider it. As for batteries, I agree they may not be the answer. But, maybe compressed air storage would work. It appears Texas is playing with it because of all the old salt dome mines there:
http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind-reserve.htm
Speaking of Austin, I read an interesting discussion in the book “Gusher of Lies” that said the nuke plant nearby was even cheaper than natural gas when we had that gas price spike a few years back. I would bank on nuclear before wind.
Our local Natural Gas powerplants are quiter.
Our local Natural Gas powerplants are quieter.
That is the problem, it is not feasible for commercial grade power needs in a free market system. If you live in a rural area and wish to generate your own power, then it can play a role. Our cities and industries need constant, reliable baseload capacity. Also, most wind farms are far, far away from the final customer, so you lose a lot of generated power from source to customer. Let us not even get into security issues related to windfarms.
I, too, would place my bets on nuclear power before commercial wind and solar.
bump
Actually the correct word is is misinformation or mythology.
Altamont Pass windmills kill about 5000 birds per year.
550 million birds are killed each year by buildings
130 million birds are killed each year by powerlines
80 million birds are killed each year by cars
67 million birds are killed each year by pesticides
nobody knows how many are killed by feral cats.
How do you know all of this?
However, the utilities folks in the Smart Grid development effort (the one directed by NIST under the auspices of the White House per the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007) are looking at electric vehicle batteries to bridge the relatively short gap between a sudden reduction of wind/solar and when they can get other generation spun up and online.
It is not a storage problem so much as it is a transportation problem. After they build them they need to connect them to the regular electric grid. Most of the time that is expensive. Ask T. Boone Pickens who owns the largest wind farm in the country. I wouldn’t be surprised if his don’t go silent if he can’t get someone else to lay the lines for him.
Easy, look it up on the internet.
Do a search using the key words birds killed by windmills cars buildings power transmission lines pesticides cats
“ERCOT reported that wind power production plummeted Tuesday evening from about 1,700 megawatts to about 300 megawatts.”
About the same as a nuclear power plant tripping off-line.
The collection portion moves among and around the CREZs collecting the power generated by the windfarms that will be located within the numerous CREZs. Pickins' wind farm was or is to be located in the Roberts County CREZ.
The cross state portion are two lines, one to DFW, and the other to San Antonio Austin.
The distribution portion would be those lines that split off the main trunk lines that distribute the power to various areas around DFW and SAA.
Currently the project is in site approval with the PUC and the projected completion date is in 2013.
Thanks for the excellent information. That caused me to do a little research on my own. It seems that things are moving along pretty well and, as you said, have been in the works for several years. It seems the only possible speed bumps ahead are any actions by environmental groups to impede the progress.
The only thing that might appease them is to put the windmills themselves underground. :-)
Wind power juts like ethonal production is probably workable on a small scale right at the location, such as out on a large corn farm etc where you dont have to transport the silage and the power can be used right there. But these sort of technologies just dont scale up up and the greeneies dont seem to be able to get their minds around that.
There is simply no way wind or solar could ever supply reliably or not, all of our energy needs.
How about giving some reference sites to check out?
Go ahead
I've said for years the shredded poultry downstream should be gathered as food for the victims of the Baraqqi depression.
Go ahead
Go ahead and what?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.