Beam me to Planet Gore !
Kansas
Dust In The Wind lyrics
I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment’s gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind
Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind.
Oh________________
Don’t hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money won’t another minute buy
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind (everything is dust in the wind)
This is pretty much how I see it and explain it to non-tech friends. People aren’t convinced that costs=energy. That is a system costs more to build and maintain then it probably is consuming more energy than most think.
A lot of the studies on the cost of Wind power don’t include the additional distribution costs and losses, nor the true life cycle costs of the turbines. The blades are made mostly of petroleum..how long do they last? They consume power just to stand still.
The utilities just want to comply with the laws and get things in their rates and pass the costs along.
Thanks for taking the time to write this.
All too often the American public is sold a bill of goods and then regrets the purchase later.
Alternative energy sources all have their own problems and until we deal with those problems using sound economic principles, the money spent will be wasted.
Given the rocky economic times we find ourselves, wasting resources is not a good idea for our future financial health.
I am hopeful some entrepenurial folks would begin tackling the major issues you have presented and start to think outside the envelope for solutions that are economic solutions and not government subsidized solutions.
It seems we have become a society that wants to first look to government for a handout instead of using our God-given creative powers to find economic solutions to problems.
You expect politicians in California to tell you the truth? All they are interested in is getting elected. They really don’t care what happens. The only way I see out of this is for a small home electric generation system. Like small generators that are extremely efficient.
I understand the Germans and Danes, who were pioneers in windmill generating technology, have stopped building wind turbines for these very reasons. Wind turbines like corn ethanol plants are just feel good boondoggles that waste money and do not solve our energy needs. I fully expect that under President Obama we will be dealing with frequent brownouts and blackouts as well as skyrocketing electricity costs.
.......They break and cost a lot of money to fix .....
Thanks for this comprehensive piece.
In May 2007 I traveled north from Colorado into Wyoming thence west in to Idaho and onward to Oregon. Early on I ran into large wind farms of 25 or more wind mills. I counted them just to get a feel.
I noticed from the outset there were always some not working. I began to count them as well. In Idaho,on the Snake river plain, I got off the hiway and actually drove several miles to the farm and got a close up look of both working and non working units.
The bottom line is that averaged over numerous sites spread across hundreds of miles, about 10% of the units in each farm were inoperative. It seems to me that in addition to the numbers mentioned above for each unit, you can subtract an additional 10% or so from the aggregate farm number for inoperatve units.
The wind-generated electricity can be used to extract the CO2 from the air and make out of it some useful chemical substances (like trees do). In this cases the AC use peaks aren't important.
Just treat this process like usual garbage collection routinely performed in every community. In this case a similar financing of the process is rational. Now no-one is dumping steel shaving across the fence of a factory, why treat CO2 differently?.
And everyone thought the Marxist Dimocrats were not going to lie? Everything and everyone on the left lives and exists on a mountain of lies. They would not know the truth if you wrote the word TRUTH on a baseball bat and smacked them across the forehead with it. Everyone on the green side lies. Everyone on the socialist side lies. This bunch coming into Washington in January has its entire existence based upon lies, deceit and BS. Obama could be standing on the stage and showing us live moving pictures and I still would not believe it. I would be expecting it was all Wag The Dog type crap. I don’t believe them. I don’t trust them with my LIFE, My Country, or My Money!!! I do not like them. I will never like them. Simply, too this old soldier, THEY ARE THE ENEMY WITHIN. WE have been invaded within. And folks, thanks to our inept leadership on this side, we are losing. It is a guerrilla war now.
If Obama try even half of the hair brained stuff he promised in the campaign, the grid is going down.
Another cost that needs to be factored in is the “leasing” cost. I hear that each mill is bringing around $1,000 per year plus “royalties”! In west Texas I’ve heard that farmers are supplementing their income with mill farms. Driving through this summer it was interesting seeing the number of farms that have popped up in TWO years! Also, it was interesting to see miles of empty fields with windmills and oil pumps...and wondering if the poor farmers were also getting USDA farm subsidies.
Us: But Uncle, we’re already in a hole so deep we can’t climb out!
Uncle: Just shut up and keep diggin.
Plugging in the energy from wind farms into the existing power grid has the potential of forcing the BPA to look at curtailing hydroelectric power production which could seriously impact the survival of the salmon...twice now the BPA has had to issue cutback orders to wind farms because of too much power and with the Arlington Wind Farm due to be online next year the problem will get worse. I know it’s kinda trivial info, but, it’s all I had.
As a Mechanical Engineer who has 15 years of his 20 year career to date in Power Generation (coal and nuclear), I applaud your article.
Too many people are convinced "Green", "Sustainable", and "Renewable Energy" are silver bullet fixes that have been slighted for no good reason.
The fact is, these "solutions" would have been embraced to the fullest if they were economical and reliable. Does anyone really believe that a utility company would NOT build wind and solar power installation if they could make reliable power for cheaper and with less maintenance than coal or nuclear stations? Anyone who believes this has never worked in a coal or nuclear station. The amount of money and effort required to keep them running economically and reliably is staggering. If a windmill could do it better, they would build them and mothball the central generating facilities. The fact is, a windmill cannot do it and this is why things are the way they are.
Excellent. I think you are being generous about the cost of wind...but I understand where you are going.
You should write about solar and the cost of that nonsense. I think at best it can run at 15% capacity in most places.
Somewhere on my computer is stored a study of IIRC about 30,000 windmills, both over water and on land.
Again, IIRC correctly, the over-water mills produced about 30%+ their maximum stated capacity, the on-land about 29%, slightly higher than the numbers you used.
Freepmail me if you want the study and I’ll try to dig it up.