Wind power, the great boondoggle.

[gsvol]

'Best Article on Wind Farms You Will Ever Read' [Michigan Capitol Confidential]

Russia's main gas company, Gazprom, was unable to meet demand last weekend as blizzards swept across Europe, and over three hundred people died. Did anyone even think of deploying our wind turbines to make good the energy shortfall from Russia?

Of course not. We all know that windmills are a self-indulgent and sanctimonious luxury whose purpose is to make us feel good. Had Europe genuinely depended on green energy on Friday, by Sunday thousands would be dead from frostbite and exposure, and the EU would have suffered an economic body blow to match that of Japan's tsunami a year ago. No electricity means no water, no trams, no trains, no airports, no traffic lights, no phone systems, no sewerage, no factories, no service stations, no office lifts, no central heating and even no hospitals, once their generators run out of fuel.
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Why does the entire green spectrum, which now incorporates most conventional parties across Europe, deny the most obvious of truths? To play lethal games with our energy systems in order to honour the whimsical god of climate change is as intelligent and scientific as the Aztec sacrifice of their young.

Actually, it is far more frivolous, because at least the Aztecs knew how many people they were sacrificing: no one has the least idea of the loss of life that might result from the EU embracing "green" energy policies.

 

[Nerd-Vol]

Hey, why wont you respond in your Nazi thread?

 

[YorkVol]

Climate change aside, we know fossil fuels have a finite supply that will run out within the next few generations. So, my question, at great psychotic risk, if we found viable alternatives wouldn't we want to develop them?

 

[VOLatile]

Climate change aside, we know fossil fuels have a finite supply that will run out within the next few generations. So, my question, at great psychotic risk, if we found viable alternatives wouldn't we want to develop them?

Yes, but gs won't live to see the day so he doesn't care.

 

[volinbham]

Fossil fuel replacements (e.g. algae, grasses, etc.) are an alternative worth developing.

Hydrogen and fusion are worth developing.

Solar is worth developing.

Geothermal is worth developing.

Nuclear is worth developing.

Wave generation is worth developing.

Wind power is pretty much at the bottom of the list with regards to potential IMHO.

 

[VOLatile]

Totally agree with you, bham. Wind is not my favorite renewable energy source.

 

[YorkVol]

Fossil fuel replacements (e.g. algae, grasses, etc.) are an alternative worth developing.

Hydrogen and fusion are worth developing.

Solar is worth developing.

Geothermal is worth developing.

Nuclear is worth developing.

Wave generation is worth developing.

Wind power is pretty much at the bottom of the list with regards to potential IMHO.

I think with current knowledge/technology, this is all true, but we have enough resources to try them all, who knows what we might learn.

I think big oil companies would do well to rebrand themselves as energy companies and invest/develop new energy technologies, rather than continue to hunt for more oil.

 

[Nerd-Vol]

If it is such a farce why have so many European nations invested heavily in wind power?

 

[milohimself]

Fossil fuel replacements (e.g. algae, grasses, etc.) are an alternative worth developing.

Hydrogen and fusion are worth developing.

Solar is worth developing.

Geothermal is worth developing.

Nuclear is worth developing.

Wave generation is worth developing.

Wind power is pretty much at the bottom of the list with regards to potential IMHO.

It still blows my mind to see people talk about the sources without first discussing the piss poor efficiency we have in this country.

That said, for fossil alternatives, different things make sense based on different locations. In windy places like Oklahoma and out here in the Columbia River Gorge, wind farms make sense. They're already all out there, and the one I've read on generates 450 megawatts.

 

[Orangeslice13]

Wind seems the most unreliable to me. If power is generated as needed then you have to back wind up with something like hydro. When the wind doesn't blow we turn on the hydro which in itself isn't to bad but you've just doubled your infrastructure. Why not just stick with hydro.

 

[Weezy]

The point of the story is that you need enough baseload power (coal, natural gas, nuclear) to meet the minimum requirements, which in cold European countries, I assume is pretty much all your energy. That's why Germany shutting down nuclear isn't really feasible (especially if they have to pay a premium for France's nuclear).

Solar has a chance to be baseload (I think) if they can store the energy in an oil or molten salt (an efficiency issue).

 

[volved]

The bird whackers are a boondoggle but not as great as ethanol:

The Ethanol Catastrophe

Biofuels aggravate global warming and cause hunger. Why won't the U.S. stop subsidizing them?
...
Today, it is difficult to find a single environmentalist who still backs the policy. Even former U.S. Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore—who once boasted of casting the deciding vote for ethanol support—calls the policy "a mistake." He now admits that he supported it because he "had a certain fondness for the [corn] farmers in the state of Iowa"—who, not coincidentally, were crucial to his 2000 presidential bid.

It is refreshing that Gore has now changed his view in line with the evidence. But there is a wider lesson. A chorus of voices from the left and right argue against continued government support for biofuel. The problem, as Gore has put it, is that "it's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.
....
At least one group is already sold: presidential contenders. In Iowa last month, possible Republican candidate Newt Gingrich derided "big-city attacks" on ethanol subsidies. And, in what must be music to the industry's ears, an Obama administration official declared that even amid the highest food prices the world has seen, there is "no reason to take the foot off the gas" on biofuel.
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Not mentioned in the article is that a lot of land formerly used for soy bean production in the US was converted to growing corn to make subsidized ethanol. This lost soy bean production was replaced in the world market by Brazil which is clearing rainforest to gain more farm land to meet the demand.

 

[YorkVol]

The point of the story is that you need enough baseload power (coal, natural gas, nuclear) to meet the minimum requirements, which in cold European countries, I assume is pretty much all your energy. That's why Germany shutting down nuclear isn't really feasible (especially if they have to pay a premium for France's nuclear).

Solar has a chance to be baseload (I think) if they can store the energy in an oil or molten salt (an efficiency issue).

I think storage is the key.

 

[gsvol]

Climate change aside, we know fossil fuels have a finite supply that will run out within the next few generations. So, my question, at great psychotic risk, if we found viable alternatives wouldn't we want to develop them?

We have enough coal to last 2 or 300 years and over a centuries worth of petroleum.

Research of alternative fuels is fine but we don't need to go trillions in debt to do so nor is there the need to pursue alternatives as if we should be in panic mode.

Likewise it maks no sense at all to be shutting down coal fired plants at breakneck speed, meanwhile shipping our coal to China.

We have a very good alternative now, namely nuclear, but we aren't building nuclear facilities because of the econazis.

We have torn down nonpolluting hydroelectric facilities to satisfy environazis so that salmon may migrate farther upriver to spawn but all that was needed to accomplish that was the installation of fish ladders.

BTW, tearing down those dams also ended water being used for irrigation for very productive land.

Fossil fuel replacements (e.g. algae, grasses, etc.) are an alternative worth developing.

Hydrogen and fusion are worth developing.

Solar is worth developing.

Geothermal is worth developing.

Nuclear is worth developing.

Wave generation is worth developing.

Wind power is pretty much at the bottom of the list with regards to potential IMHO.

Solar has two main problems, at present it is too expensive and another is that it takes up large land spaces.

Wind power is a boondoggle and other than in a few locations is a waste of money, as is mandating the TVA use x% of wind power that isn't available in the area served by them and will mean hundreds of billions be spent constructing transmission lines from other areas, notably the plains states.

If it is such a farce why have so many European nations invested heavily in wind power?

More importantly, have not their wind investments proven to be a major boondoggle?

The point of the story is that you need enough baseload power (coal, natural gas, nuclear) to meet the minimum requirements, which in cold European countries, I assume is pretty much all your energy. That's why Germany shutting down nuclear isn't really feasible (especially if they have to pay a premium for France's nuclear).

Solar has a chance to be baseload (I think) if they can store the energy in an oil or molten salt (an efficiency issue).

Well Germany was restricted after WWII from having nuclear plants, that may have eased since then.

France on the other hand gets 80% of it's electricity from nuclear.

The bird whackers are a boondoggle but not as great as ethanol:

The Ethanol Catastrophe

Biofuels aggravate global warming and cause hunger. Why won't the U.S. stop subsidizing them?
...
Today, it is difficult to find a single environmentalist who still backs the policy. Even former U.S. Vice President and Nobel laureate Al Gore—who once boasted of casting the deciding vote for ethanol support—calls the policy "a mistake." He now admits that he supported it because he "had a certain fondness for the [corn] farmers in the state of Iowa"—who, not coincidentally, were crucial to his 2000 presidential bid.

It is refreshing that Gore has now changed his view in line with the evidence. But there is a wider lesson. A chorus of voices from the left and right argue against continued government support for biofuel. The problem, as Gore has put it, is that "it's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.
....
At least one group is already sold: presidential contenders. In Iowa last month, possible Republican candidate Newt Gingrich derided "big-city attacks" on ethanol subsidies. And, in what must be music to the industry's ears, an Obama administration official declared that even amid the highest food prices the world has seen, there is "no reason to take the foot off the gas" on biofuel.
---------------
---------------

Not mentioned in the article is that a lot of land formerly used for soy bean production in the US was converted to growing corn to make subsidized ethanol. This lost soy bean production was replaced in the world market by Brazil which is clearing rainforest to gain more farm land to meet the demand.

I agree, ethanol mandates should be repealed.

Since you mentioned birds, the EPA put 2,000 workers out because they observed six migrating geese flying over a refinery and shut it down and that isn't the only instance of them stopping work because of migrating birds.

On paper the EPA is a good thing, in practice though it has been taken over by a bunch of loonie toon characters.

 

[MG1968]

If it is such a farce why have so many European nations invested heavily in wind power?

how's that working for them?

 

[gsvol]

how's that working for them?

Nerd wants his issues adressed immediately but ask him a question and he gets lockjaw. :crazy:

Fossil fuel replacements (e.g. algae, grasses, etc.) are an alternative worth developing.

Hydrogen and fusion are worth developing.

Solar is worth developing.

Geothermal is worth developing.

Nuclear is worth developing.

Wave generation is worth developing.

Wind power is pretty much at the bottom of the list with regards to potential IMHO.

I've always thought that trying to gather electrical power from lightening had definite possibilites.

If it were possible to drain off just a little of the energy from one lightening bolt, then that could be stored in batteries and used as needed.

Tesla meant to furnish everyone with free electricity, evidently he meant to gather this from naturally occuring electromagnetic fields.

Ever see a picture of the Tesla tower that still exists?

 

[VOLatile]

Nerd wants his issues adressed immediately but ask him a question and he gets lockjaw. :crazy:







I've always thought that trying to gather electrical power from lightening had definite possibilites.

If it were possible to drain off just a little of the energy from one lightening bolt, then that could be stored in batteries and used as needed.

Tesla meant to furnish everyone with free electricity, evidently he meant to gather this from naturally occuring electromagnetic fields.

Ever see a picture of the Tesla tower that still exists?

Lightning is extremely unpredictable and inconsistent. Do you even understand electricity? Tidal waves, wind, and sun are always present.

 

[WA_Vol]

Boon Pickens invested millions into wind power at one time.
There are quite a few wind farms in the USA already.
I've seen them in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas.

 

[gsvol]

Lightning is extremely unpredictable and inconsistent. Do you even understand electricity? Tidal waves, wind, and sun are always present.

Obviously I understand a lot more about electrical teory than you.

Up your solarium rectifier, and I mean that in the nicest way.

It has been estimated that one bolt of lightening contains enough electricity to power a city of 100,000 for over a year.

One would not need a steady supply of lightening, one would only need to be able to collect and store that energy or at least enough of it to make it worth your while.

Harnessing the naturally occuring power of lightening isn't a new idea, it's just an idea that hasn't been accomplished.

Here are a couple of items you might enjoy reading:

PBS: Tesla - Master of Lightning: Tower of Dreams

Tesla's Tower of Power • Damn Interesting

 

[MG1968]

*lightning

 

[gsvol]

The following isn't strictly about wind but green energy in general and the crony capitalism that goes hand in hand with all these programs:

Surprise! Another DOE Solar 'Bet' Produces Green Job Losses | National Legal and Policy Center

Yet another solar company that received loan guarantees from the Department of Energy has dismissed factory workers, lopping off 70 percent of its U.S. employees. Loveland, Colo.-based Abound Solar announced Tuesday it would lay off 280 workers at its production plant near Longmont, leaving 120 still employed.
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News Web site The Complete Colorado revealed “fingerprints” of a “pay-to-play agenda” when Abound received its conditional approval in September 2010. Wealthy philanthropist Pat Stryker, whose Bohemian Companies has significant investment in Abound, donated $475,599 to federal Democrat candidates and causes over the 2008 to 2012 election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Included in that amount is $11,900 in maximum contributions to President Obama’s two campaigns for the White House. Stryker also was an $87,500 bundler for the president’s Inaugural Committee, the People’s Press Collective discovered, and donated $50,000 herself. The Sunlight Foundation reported that she gave $35,800 to the 2012 Obama Victory Fund. In October 2009 Stryker also visited a former assistant to the deputy chief of staff at the White House, Kristin Sheehy, who also hosted several visits from SEIU president Andy Stern. The purpose of Stryker’s visits is undisclosed.

Stryker is known to have contributed millions of dollars to Democrat candidates for state and federal office in her lifetime. Among those are gifts to former U.S. Rep. Betsy Markey, whose district includes the Abound facility – $9,400 made up of max contributions for her 2008 and 2010 successful runs for office. Abound helped pay for ads in 2009 that thanked Markey for voting for the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House that year, which would have benefited renewable energy companies.
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But its recent woes didn’t stop the company from making a sudden foray into K Street influence peddling, spending $70,000 in the 4th quarter last year to lobby the House, Senate and Department of Energy solely about the Loan Guarantee program.
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That electric vehicle company, backed by wealthy venture capitalists (including Al Gore) that contributed big dollars to President Obama and Democrats, was also granted favor when DOE awarded loans in 2009 and 2010. And Smith Electric Vehicles, which manufactures delivery trucks, was given $32 million in grants to help it buy out its failing parent company in the United Kingdom. Even Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn has said, in essence, that the only reason he’s in the electric vehicle business is for the government subsidies. Nissan received $1.45 billion in loans from DOE to retrofit a plant in Tennessee to build the electric Leaf.

Between the loan programs and stimulus grants, DOE is compiling a lousy track record of placing “bets” on “clean” energy for President Obama.
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But it’s just another day at the office for DOE and the affluent who skim billions of dollars from taxpayers for alternative energy schemes that can’t survive without government mandates and subsidies.

 

[Danl]

the following isn't strictly about wind but green energy in general and the crony capitalism that goes hand in hand with all these programs:

surprise! Another doe solar 'bet' produces green job losses | national legal and policy center

 

[gsvol]

 

[gsvol]

Wind energy to the rescue. Well, not exactly… - Orange Punch : The Orange County Register

“To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero,” says Matt Ridley at the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
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“Despite the regressive subsidy (pushing pensioners into fuel poverty while improving the wine cellars of grand estates), despite tearing rural communities apart, killing jobs, despoiling views, erecting pylons, felling forests, killing bats and eagles, causing industrial accidents, clogging motorways, polluting lakes in Inner Mongolia with the toxic and radioactive tailings from refining neodymium, a ton of which is in the average turbine—despite all this, the total energy generated each day by wind has yet to reach half a per cent worldwide.”

Check out this site which has a lot of smart guys who study this at length.... Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling (Part I: A Framework and Calculator) — MasterResource You don't have to read the whole article as here is one small paragraph near the bottom that clearly makes the point:

In November 2009, Kent Hawkins, a Canadian electrical engineer, published a detailed analysis on the frequency with which gas-fired generators must be cycled on and off in order to back up wind power. Hawkins findings: the frequent switching on and off results in more gas consumption than if there were no wind turbines at all. His analysis suggests that it would be more efficient in terms of carbon dioxide emissions to simply run combined-cycle gas turbines on a continuous basis rather than use wind turbines backed up by gas-fired generators that are constantly being turned on and off. Hawkins concludes that wind power is not an “effective CO2 mitigation” strategy “because of inefficiencies introduced by fast-ramping (inefficient) operation of gas turbines.”

 

[gsvol]