Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 04/06/2011 6:31:11 PM PDT by smokingfrog
First, the 'steaming kettles" is kind of Brit slang for delivering power. Kind of like "keeping the lights on" here.
Understand the difference between 20 MW of name plate capacity, and 20 MWh (Megawatt hours) of actual production. In other words, 20 MW of wind farm capacity operating at full power for one hour will produce 20 MWh -- Megawatt hours.
Problem is, they seldom operate at full capacity because the wind is not blowing at speeds to allow that. Mostly, they operate below their capacity because the wind is not strong enough. Wind comes, and it goes. And there are some stretches of time when they can not operate at all because because their is not sufficent wind and others where they have to lock them down to protect them because the wind it too strong. It is just the fickle nature of wind that they can never produce anywhere near the theoritical capacity.
Wind farms generally have a capacity factor (energy produced vs theoretical production operating at 100% or name plate capacity, 24/7/365) of less than 30% over the course of a year.
Large coal plants average 70-80% per year. In the US, nuclear plants average over 90% in capacity factor per year.
So if it were a 1000 MW plant, it would have averaged 900 MW delivered to the grid each hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Crank up the windmill,lass,I want another cup of tea.
Number 1 wind turbine company in the US is GE, so that explain’s the Obama administration’s support...number 1 globally is Vestas (Denmark)...between the two, they are 25% if the world market...
okay as in okay. The problem with solar is that it has been oversold and most designers are not familiar with design limitations. For example, shade will ruin a solar collector, therefore you need more than one inverter which adds cost.
There is nothing dumber than believing windmills will ever be the answer to anything. They are worse than worthless for electrical generation and always will be. It's just physics.
The fact that people can't face up to that obvious truth is just a case study in the human capacity for denial.
Isn't wind generally much lighter at night, without the sun to effect air mass pressure differentials?
While those plants were operating, they probably dwarfed the useful output of every windmill on the planet; and did so 24/7/365. I'm sure they are greatly missed. Nobody would have missed windmills that got washed away.
The fact that they were, for some reason, designed poorly and dependent on external power when internal power was plentiful, doesn't change the fact that nuclear power works and wind power doesn't, and never will.
Here, let me fix that:
While the naysayers criticize, the smart money is using government subsidies to building bigger and better windmills, where ever governments are stupid enough to screw their own taxpayers, in the name of "going green" all over the world.
Its even worse than this story makes out. Not only are the windmills producing power at a small fraction of what was promised, this past winter was so cold in the British Isles that the power companies had to use electricity, from coal, or nuclear, to heat some of these wind turbines, to keep the generators from being damaged by the cold.
Key findings:
This analysis uses publicly available data for a 26 month period between November 2008 and December 2010 and the facts in respect of the above assertions are:
What business man in his right mind would invest in an asset with a capacity factor of ~22%? Coal fired powerplants regularly hit 75% to 80%. Because of the low overall capacity factor and the irregularity of wind, you have to effectively build twice the capacity or put the extra investment into storage like pumped hydro. Either way, you are going to pay far more than double to have a reliable source of energy. And the ugliness of large-scale windfarms is an evil blight on any land where they are installed. They have permanently despoiled the Diablo Range in California, one of the prettiest places in the entire country. Now it is nothing but wind machines, as far as the eye can see.
My guess it would take about 4500 wind turbines to replace one of the nuclear reactors in Japan. And..you would still need to back them up with other power plants when the wind doesn’t blow. That is a line of wind turbines about 500 miles long. At that is just a start.
Wind power is a complete waste of money.
People who want wind power should be allowed to buy it.
But they have to pay the true, unsubsidized cost.
And, if they don't want to suffer any outages, they should also have to pay for the back-up generation facilities.
Then, we'll know how many people really want wind power.
By the way, a progress report:
Driving back to Texas from Arizona, my route is from El Paso to Carlsbad -- right past Mt. Guadalupe and El Capitan, the highest points in Texas. On the ridge immediately south of the mountain, which stretches to the horizon, there was a string of wind turbines that stretched as far as the eye could see.
All gone now.
What do you mean “all gone now”? They tore them down?
All gone. They're no longer in evidence on the crest.
Removed.
throughout Europe, windfarms have been duds
so they exported the technology to the stupid greenie Americans
and that’s how they made money on windfarming
depends on your definition of okay. If you mean oost effective then I must continue to disagree. If you mean non-polluting then I must also disagree. If you mean works in remote areas where it is not feasible to run a power line, then sure, it’s ok. If you mean powers satellites where it is not desirable to use radiothermionic generators, then yes, it’s ok.
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