Posted on 05/20/2015 4:34:27 AM PDT by thackney
A new government report finds that taller wind turbines could help the U.S. vastly expand its wind-generated electricity, throwing new weight behind a wind industry push to reach higher into the air.
The wind power market is dominated by a dozen states, with Texas in the lead as the nation’s top producer, but all 50 states have the capability to mine their gusts and breezes for electricity, the U.S. Department of Energy argues in a new report.
“This report is great news for consumers, job-seekers, rural communities and others in the states that have yet to fully benefit from American wind power,” Tom Kiernan, CEO of the American Wind Energy Association, an industry trade group, said in a statement. “Our domestic wind resource is massive — enough to meet our electricity needs 10 times over — but largely untapped.”
Advances in wind turbine technology, coupled with taller towers, have opened up twice amount of land where it’s feasible to generate wind electricity since 2008 , the wind association said.
Deploying turbines that are 100 to 200 feet taller than the ones primarily used in the U.S. would allow wind farms to expand into new regions, including the Southeast, as well as boost capacity in existing farms, according to the study. These taller turbines already are widely used in Europe, including Germany, where the average wind turbine hub stands at nearly 381 feet.
The report was welcome news to the wind industry.
“Europe has already demonstrated you can safely use significantly taller towers without compromising air traffic needs,” Patrick Woodson, Chairman of E.ON, a German-based power supplier said in a statement. “Heading down this path will open several new U.S. areas for development and will provide another means to bring jobs and investment to areas that simply are not economic without them.”
The U.S. has about 1,000 of these taller turbines, the association said, but the technology has not been widely embraced here due to “unfavorable economics,” underscoring a need for better manufacturing techniques to reduce their cost, the Department of Energy said.
The government has undertaken several initiatives to support more wind-generated electricity. The energy department recently announced plans to fund research aimed at developing taller towers and larger rotors, while the Federal Aviation Administration is developing lighting guidelines for turbines taller than 500 feet.
The U.S. has tripled its wind power generation in six years, with 4.5 percent of the nation’s power now coming from wind, the association said.
For all that the left wants to spend on glowbull warming, it would be much cheaper to just rebuild all our cities and all the areas where wind energy is to be harnessed such that they are 500 feet higher than now. Then, we just build all the wind turbines at "ground level", which is 500' higher.
Think of all the money we'd save!
If wind turbines could be used to generate a breeze on hot humid windless days then they might be useful.
Each year, wind turbines kill 500,000.
“I estimated 888,000 bat and 573,000 bird fatalities/year (including 83,000 raptor fatalities) at 51,630 megawatt (MW) of installed wind-energy capacity in the United States in 2012,” writes K. Shawn Smallwood, author of the study that was published in the Wildlife Society Bulletin.
Nearly all mechanical equipment eventually has failures.
Fire at coal- and natural gas-fired power plant injures one
http://www.power-eng.com/articles/2015/03/fire-at-coal-and-natural-gas-fired-power-plant-injures-one.html
Fire at Coal Power Plant Takes Facility Out of Service Indefinitely
http://www.powermag.com/fire-at-coal-power-plant-takes-facility-out-of-service-indefinitely/
We shouldn’t stop using coal or natural gas, or refineries for that matter, because of a few fires.
My local community college installed a turbine, and now they train folks how to service them. Any industry the government bets our money on is a ‘good’ growth industry...
The US DofEnergy is NOT an unbiased source of information. Along with the rest of this Administration, they are populated with the 'true believers' who have the inmate bias towards these 'alternative' energy sources.
While I am not innately against wind power, it is at best (current tech), a supplementary power source given the limitations of the local conditions and wind speed generator restrictions. Add to that the need for power lines to every turbine and the need for the utilities to placate government while still maintaining the essential base load service network, and you have a building logistical problem.
Bye-the-bye, add another willful indifference by government to the above mentioned bird-kill problems. The EPA has had noise pollution regulations for decades. The number of successful invocations of these regulations? Minimal!
we dont need government we need a FREE MARKETPLACE
that will bring ECONOMICAL products to consumers
not useless crap.......
you want one of these noise makers / eagle killers in your back yard
About the only thing windmills generate is liberal self-righteousness.
A taxpayer supported rope around the moon would probably do the same thing. These leftist idiots are insufferable.
Ban windows!
Really, I think the OP is just attempting to point out a conflict/hypocrisy of leftist ideology.
I’ve learned long ago that it may be self-satisfying to point out leftist hypocrisy,
but they are seldom phased by it.
Most people would not want any commercial power plant in their back yard, just reality.
LOLOL
We gonna kill all them birds,, damn birds..
and then we’re going after drones..
and if a tower or two topples and squashes somebody..
Hey, you want safe efficient cheap energy?
You got it.. rub your hands together ..real fast..
I feel a new fairytale coming out. “Jack and The Turbine”.
God those things are horrible. Lets make them a mile tall.
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