Beware the wind energy hot air

The Roanoke Times ^ | August 14, 2008 | Rick Webb

[thackney]

I wish Pickens great success with his wind and natural gas projects.

I hope he fails miserably in getting Tax Payer money for those projects.

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

“build the vast array of new transmission lines required to get the electricity where it’s needed. “
He needs to figure out Tesla’s system for energy distribution. Sending energy through the earth. Ya just go down to your basement, drive a stake into the ground, and hook your house up to the stake! :)
I don’t trust T-bone as far as I can throw him!

[adm5]

When I hear T. Boob on the radio, I immediately think that Al Gore wrote his script.

T. Boob is trying to sell out America; financed, of course, by America.

[xsmommy]

yet, my husband said he’d heard that Pickens will not permit the windmills on HIS property, bc they are ugly. has anyone else heard this?

[muawiyah]

Whether or not Pickens gets a government subsidy the hit piece you posted is the purest propaganda.

The writer claims that ".... he is just one among many who have tried to convince the public and policymakers that there is a connection between wind-generated electricity and oil, which is hardly used for electricity."

Turns out that "oil" is frequently used for "electricity" ~ mostly in "standby" generators that kick in when electric demand exceeds the capacity of base load systems (hydro, coalfired and nuclear power plants).

Oil is also used to power diesel engines on locomotives. Not a big deal I suppose but we can replace "diesel" with electricity on many thousands of miles of rail line.

BTW, that's without thinking about the problem very much ~ and it looks like the writer didn't think about it at all.

Oil is primarily used in transportation, manifest as gasoline and diesel fuel, but it's also used to heat homes in the Northeast. There are a myriad of electrically powered systems available to replace the oil fired furnaces for a quarter of the homes in this country.

Modern technology makes electricity "fungible" and readily substituted for oil in many applications.

[bmwcyle]

T. Boone Pickens and his back door dealings for Right of Emanate Domain in Texas needs to be watched. There is dirty dealings going on here. T. Boone is dealing from the bottom of the deck.

[dirtboy]

Turns out that "oil" is frequently used for "electricity" ~ mostly in "standby" generators that kick in when electric demand exceeds the capacity of base load systems (hydro, coalfired and nuclear power plants).

And what do you think will be kicking in when the wind isn't blowing?

[Don Corleone]

I wish Pickens great success with his wind and natural gas projects.

I hope he fails miserably in getting Tax Payer money for those projects.

San Fran Nan is one of his investors. Think about it.

[gridlock]

We experimented with natural gas vehicles a few years back. In order to have any range at all, you have to have extreme pressures in the tank. Even with the highly pressurized tanks, you are looking at a 100-120 mile range, which is unacceptable for most folks.

We had a slow-fill system at our site, and would refill the vehicles overnight. For some applications, such as parts running and maintenance, the vehicles worked fairly well. But I would not want to deal with that for a daily driver.

[gridlock]

San Fran Nan is one of his investors. Think about it.

The fact that the Congressional hogs are putting up their own money to eat from this trough makes me think that the fix is probably in. We need to be rational about energy policy. This program looks like just one more way for private individuals to enrich themselves from the treasury.

It would be cheaper and less damaging to our economy to just ask these people how much it would take them to go away and cut them a check.

[muawiyah]

Yes, let's replace the

TURBANS

with the

TURBINES

 

 

 

[Joyell]

I’m having a hard time understanding something......the environmentalists don’t have a problem with gigantic windmills lined up from Texas to N. Dakota, but they fight to stop oil wells from being built in ANWR, which is in the middle of nowhere, where no one ever goes, or ever will?

[muawiyah]

Since the windpower has already been converted to "electricity" it can be "stored" for later use in a variety of simple but effective ways. For instance you build two small lakes, one at a higher elevation than the other. You use windpower electricity to pump the water from the lower lake to the higher lake.

You set a water powered turbine between the two lakes. You can run it quite effectively at a consant rate.

We have an operation like that in Virginia for use with an atomic power plant. The plant runs at a constant rate. The lake is used to adjust load so that the atomic power plant does not need to be "adjusted" ~ (SEE: Chernobyl).

Recent announcements concerning breakthroughs in large scale battery systems indicate that the problem of storing electricity for use in high demand situations is not insurmountable.

Remember, just because something isn't there today doesn't mean it can't be there tomorrow.

[muawiyah]

So he’s a crook. Doesn’t mean he’s not got a good idea. Without a lot of folks like T. Boone Pickens you’d be shoveling horse manure off the street out front everyday, like it or not.

[muawiyah]

Nobody likes the transmission lines. Montgomery County MD just over the way succeeded in keeping those nasty things OUT of their county. Then the storms came, and the one and only primary power system in the county was put out of business and vast numbers of high ranking government bureaucrats, foreign diplomats, millionaires and Leftwingtard lobbyists ended up without electricity for periods of up to 3 months.

They fought redundancy to a standstill and suffered on account of it.

I like redundancy! We have underground wiring in this area ~ two sets of it in fact. Wires are good!

[dirtboy]

Since the windpower has already been converted to "electricity" it can be "stored" for later use in a variety of simple but effective ways. For instance you build two small lakes, one at a higher elevation than the other. You use windpower electricity to pump the water from the lower lake to the higher lake.

Ever been out to the Texas Panhandle? There isn't enough elevation gain for that to be practical.

We've got coal out the wazoo. Natural gas. Oil Shale. And we're finding more oil all the time. We don't need to have massive subsidies for wind power that is intermittent.

[muawiyah]

The environmentalists see the entire system they've erected crumbling before them. They figure that if we can get ANWR we can get Central Park.

Of course, they are right, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't go after underground minerals.

[DungeonMaster]

In other words, the trade-off involves much of our remaining wild landscape.

Pure BS!!

[muawiyah]

Alas, I've only flown over the Western Panhandle unless you count Odessa-Midland.

It looks pretty level, but it's not as flat as Illinois and they are already well into building some pretty massive windfarms.

Fortunately electric wires work. So you can "ship the potential" somewhere else to run the pumps to move the water.

[Ditto]

Turns out that "oil" is frequently used for "electricity" ~ mostly in "standby" generators that kick in when electric demand exceeds the capacity of base load systems (hydro, coalfired and nuclear power plants).

Less than 3% of the electricity generated in this country is via oil. Much of that is in remote locations such as small Alaskan villages. Conventional coal-fired plants will also burn some oil when starting up a 'cold' boiler because you have to get the temperature up before you begin feeding coal into the burners. But overall, nothing in Pickens' plan would change the amount of oil we use to generate electricity.