Wray wind generator fails to produce juice (update)

Rocky Mountain News ^ | July 30, 2008 | Tillie Fong

[PilotDave]

One of the projects touted as an example of green energy - supported by the purchase of carbon offsets from the Democratic National Convention - isn't working, according to an online report.

Face the State, a Web site that follows politics in Colorado, reported this week that a wind turbine in Wray has not been able to produce electricity since it was erected in February (2008) because of a faulty converter .

[thackney]

He abandoned his wind farm recently because no one would build the transmission lines for him.

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I believe you are mistaken.

Texas Approves Wind Power Transmission Lines
http://cbs11tv.com/greenlife/texas.wind.power.2.773457.html

LCRA TSC Files Application with PUC to Build New 345-kV Transmission Line
http://tdworld.com/overhead_transmission/lcra-transmission-application-1109/index.html
LCRA Transmission Services Corp. last month filed with the Public Utility Commission of Texas an application to build a new 345-kV transmission line in Gillespie, Llano, San Saba, Burnet, and Lampasas counties in Texas.

NACEL Energy Passes Milestone for Connecting Blue Creek Texas Wind Project to Grid
http://tdworld.com/overhead_transmission/nacel-energy-transmission-wind-1009/index.html

Southwest Power Pool Approves EHV Transmission Projects
http://tdworld.com/overhead_transmission/spp-ehv-transmission-projects-0509/index.html

There are multiple West Texas related transmission line projects ongoing at various stages of progress.

[dearolddad]

Some part of Europe (can’t remember where) gave up on their wind energy because it took so much energy to manufacture the spinning of the turbine compared to the needed supplementing of other electricity sources, it became unsustainable.

Spain.

[thackney]

He abandoned his wind farm...

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I believe over the next two years, we will find that his time table changed, not the project.

Pickens Calls Off Plans For Vast Texas Wind Farm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/07/AR2009070702455.html?hpid=sec-business

Rosser said Mesa Power was also unable to borrow $2 billion for transmission lines to link the wind farm to the Texas grid. “Now we’re going to wait for the state to put the transmission [lines] in, which will invariably be slower than what we were planning,” Rosser said.

[PilotDave]

“TODAY in Iowa with 3,000 mw of wind at about a 30 percent cap factor we have the equivalent of 1.7ish of our nukes with more coming.”

Time for some math. 3000 MW is the peak output of the wind farms in IA now. Of course wind power typically operates at 25% or less of peak power. So figure 1000mw per year total output to be safe.

A typical nuke plant generates 1 gigawatt of power per year. That is 1000 times the amount of real power Iowa is producing today in wind power. Iowa’s wind farms have NOT replaced the equivelant of 1.7ish nuke power plants. They are about 1/1000th of one nuke plant. And for every windmill you build you must have a real power plant up and running to be able to jump in when the windmill isn’t turning. Imagine what 1,000,000 of the bird killing fans would be like?

[DungeonMaster]

Time for some math. 3000 MW is the peak output of the wind farms in IA now. Of course wind power typically operates at 25% or less of peak power. So figure 1000mw per year total output to be safe.

A typical nuke plant generates 1 gigawatt of power per year. That is 1000 times the amount of real power Iowa is producing today in wind power. Iowa’s wind farms have NOT replaced the equivelant of 1.7ish nuke power plants. They are about 1/1000th of one nuke plant. And for every windmill you build you must have a real power plant up and running to be able to jump in when the windmill isn’t turning. Imagine what 1,000,000 of the bird killing fans would be like?

HOLD IT! You've made an error by a factor of 1000 against Wind power. 3000 mw of windpower at 33 percent power factor makes an instantanious power of "about" 1000mw which is EXACTLY THE SAME as a 1,000 mw nuke.

[penowa]

Wind energy is a costly fraudulent joke

Not for Boone Pickens as long as he can get the gov't (us, poor serf taxpayers) to foot the bill so he can reap the profits. "He has abandoned his lofty wind power scheme" only because of his failure to get Congress to dump the costs of it on the taxpayer.

[PLMerite]

bump to follow the debate.

[dusttoyou]

Will check later, link has some glitch.

Son-in-law is involved with pipelines coming out of the Haynesville. They have bottlenecks in both gathering system and mainline pipeline capacity, but are hard working to improve ASAP.

[PilotDave]

“HOLD IT! You’ve made an error by a factor of 1000 against Wind power.”
I stand corrected. Sorry, my head is smoking. kilowatt is 1,000 watts. Megawatt is million watts. Gigawatt is billion watts. Iowa’s wind turbines now roughly equal 1 nuke power plant or 2 conventional plants. BTW- those plants still have to be built, and up and running, if we want reliable power because wind is so unreliable... You can’t just fire up that kind of capacity like it’s a Honda generator.

[DungeonMaster]

I stand corrected. Sorry, my head is smoking. kilowatt is 1,000 watts. Megawatt is million watts. Gigawatt is billion watts. Iowa’s wind turbines now roughly equal 1 nuke power plant or 2 conventional plants. BTW- those plants still have to be built, and up and running, if we want reliable power because wind is so unreliable... You can’t just fire up that kind of capacity like it’s a Honda generator.

No problem, I'm glad that's ironed out. Wind plant output is actually becoming more and more predictable. I notice the wind is often very calm at night when demand is low and it picks up during the day when demand is great. Weather models for wind speed are surprisingly accurate 24 and 48 hours out. Kind of like the blizzard that we are about to get hit by, the models show what it's going to be doing hour by hour.

[MileHi]

Same story with the photovoltaic array at the Denver History Museum that obozo and Tax Ritter used as a prop. The museum declined to fund it so a gov grant was used. The payback time is like 80 years but the life of the cells is about half that.

New energy economy my a$$

[SJSAMPLE]

Sure.
Let’s cover every square inch of the planet with windmills.
They’re inefficient compared on almost any other energy source, but what the hell.

You keep using Iowa.
What about New York City? You couldn’t get nearly enough windmills throughout the entire state just to supply that one city.

More of a bad idea doesn’t mean that it becomes a good idea at some point. Sacraficing farm land for windmills is almost as bad as turning those crops into ethanol.

[SJSAMPLE]

Sure, but I was talking about the windmills.
They’re there, the fixed cost is sunk and the variable costs are minimal.

Why aren’t those mills running, supplanting coal and gas fired plants? I don’t know that the midwest generates or uses a lot of hydro power.

[thackney]

When you talk about energy per year, you need to measure in kWH or some multiplier. Watts is a measure of power without time. Watthour is a measurement of energy.

It may sound like simple semantics. But if this were automobiles, you would be measuring horsepower when you are talking about gallons of gasoline.

Watts and Watthour are not interchangeable.

All types of power plants have different capacity factors and must be included in comparisons.

[discostu]

Not in places that have consistent enough wind to be useful. Down here in the southwest we’re boom or bust on wind, the air is either dead still or gusting high enough that it wouldn’t be safe to operate the windmill. Wind power is simply inefficient, takes too much money an land. It’s a cute novelty but it will never become a viable primary energy source.

[org.whodat]

Same reason, they don't need the production. The other factor is maintenance, they run the equipment nearest to scheduled maintenance, so they have good equipment to run while they rebuild the older.

[SJSAMPLE]

Sounds logical.
But, if I EVER see these windmills actually running, I’m gonna send you an IM ;)

[Mind-numbed Robot]

Thanks for the additional information. I knew what I posted was accurate as to what I read. Perhaps I got the abbreviated version.

[DungeonMaster]

Not in places that have consistent enough wind to be useful. Down here in the southwest we’re boom or bust on wind, the air is either dead still or gusting high enough that it wouldn’t be safe to operate the windmill. Wind power is simply inefficient, takes too much money an land. It’s a cute novelty but it will never become a viable primary energy source.

They became more than a cute novelty when they started producing 1,000,000 mhw/year in the US.

[discostu]

No they didn’t. That just meant they were a cute novelty item that had been built way more times than they deserved. If you used the same amount of money on nuke plants you’d get 10 to 20 times the output, if you used the same amount of real estate you’d get 200 times the output. Windmills are inefficient in every possible way.