MidAmerican plans world's largest wind farm in Iowa

Quad City Times ^ | March 25, 2003 | Kathie Obradovich

[newgeezer]

DES MOINES — MidAmerican Energy Co. announced plans Tuesday to build the largest wind farm in the world at a site in northwest or north-central Iowa to be selected in the next few months.

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The company, which supplies electricity to 41 percent of Iowans and serves the Illinois and Iowa Quad-Cities, said it also would seek to freeze electric rates to customers until 2010, a move that needs approval of the Iowa Utilities Board.

“It is indeed a brighter day for the state today,” Gov. Tom Vilsack said. “This will clearly put Iowa on the renewable energy map. We will then of course be the leader in the Midwest and one of the leaders nationally.”

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The proposed wind farm would include 180 to 200 wind turbines that would generate a total of 310 megawatts of wind energy, enough to power 85,000 homes. The first units would come on line by the end of 2004, with the project to be completed by late 2006, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. President Greg Abel said.

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The next-largest wind farm is a 300-megawatt facility in the Pacific Northwest.

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Vilsack said the plant would accomplish 75 percent of his goal of having 1,000 megawatts of renewable energy generated in Iowa by 2010. However, environmental advocates said Tuesday the actual output of the project is likely to be far less that its maximum capacity.

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Elizabeth Horton Plasket of the Iowa Environmental Council said because the wind doesn’t blow 24 hours a day, the industry typically estimates that actual generation will be about 30 percent of “nameplate” capacity. In the case of the MidAmerican plant, that would be 93 megawatts, she said.

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The company would not seek state funds for the $323 million needed to build the facility, Abel said. Instead, MidAmerican is seeking legislation that would allow the wind energy it generates to be allowed as credit toward the state’s renewable energy standard for utility companies.

Abel said the proposed rate freeze would extend for five years the current rate agreement with the state. “It effectively means there will be no increase for our customers through 2010 and it means 15 years of stable rates to MidAmerican’s electricity customers,” he said.

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Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller, whose office’s Consumer Advocate division represents customers in utility rate cases, said the proposed rate agreement means the state also could not seek a rate decrease before 2010.

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However, he said, the agreement includes a revenue-sharing agreement for customers that kicks in if MidAmerican’s rate of return on investment exceeds 11.75 percent. It also includes the opportunity for the company to seek a rate increase if its rate of return falls below 10 percent or if environmental investments exceed expectations. “There is just a little wiggle room for them,” Miller said.

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Abel said the facility would create jobs for construction and operation, as well as income for farmers, who would be paid for easements to have wind turbines on their land.

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John Sayler, whose consulting company, Sayler & Associates, has been working on wind-energy projects in Iowa and other states for 30 years, said he is happy to see MidAmerican end its past resistance to efforts to require utilities to purchase renewable energy.

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Abel said advances in technology have improved the efficiency of wind generation, allowing the project to move forward.

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In the 1980s, the cost of wind-generated energy was about 25 cents per kilowatt hour, according to Sayler. The cost of generating wind energy at the new facility will be about 6 cents per kilowatt hour, a cost that a federal production tax credit will reduce to 4.2 cents, Jack Alexander, MidAmerican’s senior vice president for supply and marketing, said.

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Electricity generated by a coal-fired plant like the one being developed in Council Bluffs costs about 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour, he said.

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The project makes a total of $1.4 billion in investment in new generating facilities for MidAmerican, including new coal-fired plants under development in Council Bluffs and the Des Moines area.

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Meanwhile, Iowa’s municipal utilities likely will decide in July whether to proceed with an electric generating plant near Fort Dodge that combines wind energy with an underground, compressed-air system that can store energy.

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Bob Haug of the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities said cities in Iowa and Minnesota are awaiting the results of geological and economic studies before deciding whether to invest in a $215 million plant.

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The 300-megawatt-capacity plant would be the first of its kind in the world, Haug said, because it would combine wind energy with a system that would store compressed air in an underground aquifer.

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“The problem with wind is it doesn’t blow when you need it the most,” Haug said. The proposed plant solves that problem by allowing energy to be stored in the form of compressed air, which serves as a “big battery” to run the turbines when the wind isn’t blowing.

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The compressed-air system would still need natural gas, but two-thirds less than a coal-fired facility, Haug said. And even that might be replaced by renewable sources such as burning shelled corn, which could be substituted during times of high natural gas prices, he said.

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Kathie Obradovich can be contacted at (515) 243-0138 or kathie.obradovich@lee.net.

[newgeezer]

The Communist State of Minnesota is becoming more conservative than us.

Ain't that the truth! With the People's Republic of Minnesota replacing Wellstone with a Republican, and about to pass a shall-issue concealed carry bill, something's not right with the world.

Meanwhile, we have a second-term Democrat governor challenging the Dungheap for the title of Iowa's Biggest Embarassment.

[Mamzelle]

This week there was also news about a major step forward in using ethanol, chemically, to charge batteries--I'll see if I can find it. Didn't make much of a media stir, but it sounded exciting. I was thinking, "Take *that*, sand fleas!"

[nightdriver]

"The problem with wind mills as electric generators is the wind doesn't always blow when you need the electricity."

Very true. So when the wind comes up, the utility has to make a decision whether to dispach the windmills or not. Coal-fired plants, especially large ones, aren't all that throttleable (?) to accomodate the vagaries of the wind.

In short, wind power is mostly a pain in the butt, still it generates SOME power, just don't expect it to deliver the rated output 24/7.

[Mamzelle]

Here 'tis, save your flat beer, it could air condition your house!

[biblewonk]

I love the way you think! We could produce the equivalent of all the power we use in Iowa, plus or minus windless times, and you'd be hard pressed to even find the windmills. People out there that criticize wind power as not being dense enough have no clue how big the country is.

[newgeezer]

Thanks!

---

Researchers finding alcohol can give batteries an extra buzz

By LEE BOWMAN
Scripps Howard News Service
March 24, 2003

- Alcohol is delivering a different sort of jolt for chemists at St. Louis University.

They've developed a new type of biofuel cell - a battery that can be recharged instantly by adding a few milliliters of alcohol.

They've charged cells able to run everything from cell phones to laptops with vodka, gin, white wine and flat beer so far.

The power is actually produced by enzymes, molecules found in all living things that carry out various chemical processes essential to life.

"The only items consumed in a biofuel cell are the fuel and oxygen from the air," said Shelley Minteer, an assistant professor of chemistry who presented the research Monday during a national meeting of the American Chemical Society, in New Orleans. "We think our work moves this from a purely academic endeavor to a more practical technology.

"Given the proper environment, an enzyme should last for long periods of time. It is creating this environment in a fuel cell that researchers have struggled with for years."

Even slight departures from ideal temperature and acidic conditions can inactivate the enzymes, and earlier attempts to buffer them by attaching them to electrodes inside the cells were not as successful.

Minteer and her colleagues coated the electrodes with a special polymer that has pores that offer an ideal environment for enzymes. "The enzyme has everything it needs to function for a very long period of time," Minteer said.

While other experimental cells have had lifetimes of a few days, "our technique allows for enzyme activity over several weeks with no significant power decay. With proper optimization, the cells could last up to a month without recharging," Minteer said.

Most other biofuel cells have used methanol for fuel, but the St. Louis researchers choose ethanol because it supports more enzyme activity, and is abundant and cheap to make.

The new fuel cells so far are small - no bigger than five square centimeters, or about the size of a postage stamp.

"We've tested between 30 and 50 of the ethanol cells using all sorts of alcohol," Minteer said. The only problem with the fuel has been that the beer had to be flat, "because the cell didn't like the carbonation," the scientist said.

On the Net: www.acs.org

www.slu.edu

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[taxed2death]

Ever been to Curacao?

The wind farms there are pretty impressive.

They seem to work just fine. The western hemisphere's biggest oil refinery is located in Curacao....You'd think if oil was so cheap, they wouldn't bother with wind farms.

I guess they figure it's cheaper / cleaner than burning oil.

[bucephalus]

I was thinking of hydrogen cells. The answer is probably not blowing in the wind.

Other note: There is no oil crisis, nor has there been one. The amount of reserves has been going up for years. The so-called oil crisis of the 1970's was more a technology crisis, i.e. the drilling technology hadn't been updated. These days oilmen can use (I'm no expert, so my terminology may be inexact) sonar to find underground pockets and with a good idea of how much oil there is down there. There are even instances of "empty" oil wells being returned to and found to be magically replenished. This, in turn, has caused some scholars to question the received view that oil is actually formed by the detritus of dead dinosaurs, plants and so on. Some (Thomas Gold is one name. Cornell U) have suggested that oil is some kind of product of the earth's core.

My basic point was that we needn't be forever left hanging over a barrel of mideast oil. You obviously concur.

[Mamzelle]

You're right about oil and there being more than we need...but...this is still kewl. Did you read about the enzyme batteries? This rang my bell because it's not all that different from how the body uses fuel. Why should the devil (enviro-nuts) get the credit for these potential energy alternatives ? What if we really could turn corn into air conditioning without too much fuss? Sounds easier, cheaper, and cleaner than that glop we buy from the Arabs.

[ken5050]

When I read the headline, I thought it was a parody of the upcoming Dem caucuses...

[TomHarkinIsNotFromIowa]

I don't know. It's like our politico's here are afraid of causing a rukus at the old folks home. They might not get their pudding for desert.

[Ditto]

The quicker we move beyond the oil paradigm and get into feasible alternative energy sources, the sooner the Saddamites and scabs of the House of Saud will be screwed.

Less than 5% on electricity in the US is generated with oil, and that is mostly crappy "bunker oil" that has no other use. The irony is to replace that 5% with wind energy, we would have to carpet Iowa with wind farms.

You saw the figures in the article. Even though they advertise this as a 310MW project (very small by utility standards), it's effective capacity is only 93MW and at a cost of over $324 Million! That $324 million could build a 1000 MW gas fired combined cycle plant that could run 24 x 7 x 365.

Follow the tax breaks!

[Young Werther]

Imagine, instead of farm subsidies the wind power produced on a particular farm might exceed the crop revenue. Farmers in Iowa would be reaping the rewards of their wind farms during the winter when the land is unusable till spring. Electrical COOPs would gather and distribute the energy.

Fund this project? Use excess Social Security funds to loan to indusry for these windmills. Then the utilities would pay off the bonds and a real cash flow would finance the Social Security fund. Imagine real dollars instead to Tax Bonds, (the way the Feds "borrow" the current SSI surplus for General Fund programs like PBS and all those other wasteful, unprofitable Govt programs), funding the Social security of our country. Every time you paid you electircal bill you would be improving your retirement since all Social Security recipients would be investing in their retirement.

Other wind usage. Desalinate Gulf Water to ship to water hungry Plains States.For every cubic mile of water desalinated there's plenty of dissolved minerals which can be feed stocks to industry. Bromine, chlorine and in every cubic mile of seawater there's a TON OF GOLD!

Yes there's need of oil for aircraft propulsion but everything can be electrical powered. It's a solution and America's ingenuity can change the world. The windmills will revive our aerospace industry, (those millions of blade set) and steel industry, (those towers) and high tech skilled jobs to manufacture the turbines themselves. and we'll export this technology around the world as growing economies in China, India and Africa look for cheap energy. Heck will even put a turbine on the Eiffel Tower to show the frogs how it's done!!!

[biblewonk]

Less than 5% on electricity in the US is generated with oil, and that is mostly crappy "bunker oil" that has no other use. The irony is to replace that 5% with wind energy, we would have to carpet Iowa with wind farms.

Why Iowa only? Each state has it's own wind resource. N Dakota could produce 20 times what it needs.

You saw the figures in the article. Even though they advertise this as a 310MW project (very small by utility standards), it's effective capacity is only 93MW and at a cost of over $324 Million! That $324 million could build a 1000 MW gas fired combined cycle plant that could run 24 x 7 x 365.

So. 93 MW of clean energy is good and the wind plants pay for themselves even without the subsidy. Nuke plants don't even have to insure themselves incase of an accident. You don't call that a subsidy? And where do you get your nuke plant pricing?

[ken5050]

What do you expect from a state that elects both Harkin AND Grassley to the Senate. I'll never understand how that is possible...is the Iowa electorate schizophrenic? Can YOU explain it?

[boris]

"I was thinking of hydrogen cells."

Hydrogen is just a storage medium. Making H2 requires energy input. Electrolysis, for example. You'd need a nuclear generator--for example--to convert water into LH2 and oxygen. The electrolyzer will be ~70% efficient.

Hydrogen cannot be a primary source of energy; it can only be a fancy storage battery.

Liquid hydrogen is a deep cryogen at about -420F. Its density is 11 times LESS than gasoline. Although it releases about 3.5x more energy per pound than gasoline, it releases 11/3.5 = 3.14 times LESS per gallon. A hydrogen-fuelled car would need a "gas tank" 3 times larger than a gasoline-fuelled one--assuming liquid hydrogen, which is probably not feasible [boil off, insulation, infrastructure]. Using hydrogen gas--even at 10,000 psia--is much worse on a volumetric basis.

--Boris

[boris]

"No it couldn't."

Yes it could--if you could get rid of the 'intervenors', lawsuits, and multiple cycles of environmental impact statements.

[newgeezer]

And where do you get your nuke plant pricing?

Actually, Ditto was talking gas-fired plant, not a nuke.

It was boris who said they could build a 1 GW nuke for the price of this wind farm. I see his is fantasy-world pricing. ;-)

[boris]

"Scientific American Sept 1990 was titled "Energy for Planet Earth." The statistics for windmills were awesome. 13 years later it's only better. Build 2,000,000 windmills, (in 1990 which is now less because of generator improvements), from North Dakota to Texas, (the Plains States!) and you could generate ALL of the electrical needs for the US."

Sigh.

The economics will kill you. The reason is that wind is dilute. Intensity is the key to economies of scale. They (windmills) are simply a bad capital investment; you need to invest huge amounts for piddling amounts of power. A perfectly disinterested accountant would slay you for selecting wind over, say, nuclear. This is elementary economics.

--Boris