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369 Comments
- straylight08, on 05/19/2008, -6/+204I like how the guy only just avoided getting 666 of them.
- Smurph0404, on 05/19/2008, -1/+172You know a green technology has made it when people who aren't all that concerned with being green start using it because it makes economic sense. Economics, not altruism, will have to be what turns us into a green society.
- danwgre, on 05/19/2008, -2/+136Dugg for a Texas oilman named, "T. Boone Pickens"
classic. - unpolloloco, on 05/19/2008, -12/+127At the cost of 700 billion, we can power the entire US - isnt that about how much we're spending in Iraq (per year)?
- forcedfx, on 05/19/2008, -3/+86He's not really going to install them. He's going to pile them up in the center of town and set them on fire.
- uptwolait, on 05/19/2008, -0/+82As a salesman, all I can think about is if I sold him the deal on a 1% commission, I'd be rolling in $20M right now.
- Sail3, on 08/04/2009, -2/+76Because it's ***** enormous.
- pixelwerx, on 05/19/2008, -2/+57My friends and I have had this discussion many times. What is stopping the federal government from subsidizing wind farms and solar grids en-masse, thereby lowering the overall cost of green energy and reducing the demand for coal and oil?
We should be attacking the looming energy crisis as though we we were going to war. Can anyone give me a practical reason why the entire country isn't running on sustainable energy sources? No matter how much we use, we're never going to run out of wind and sunshine. - mfc5200, on 05/19/2008, -0/+46A lot of the money goes into R&D which has already been spent. GE usually doesn't make any money on their engine/turbine until 15-20 years after a product has been launched. They make all their profit on providing maintenance services and spare parts.
Also, in the case of the GE-90 when it first launched, each fan turbine blade cost about $100k. I'm not as familiar with wind turbines, but stuff like this isn't cheap. - cypriss9, on 05/19/2008, -0/+45Are you being sarcastic? I can't tell. In truth, this is very wise, any dollar we spend on renewable energy is a dollar we didn't spend on overseas oil. This project will strengthen the dollar.
- GeauxLSU, on 05/19/2008, -4/+48The Power of Green
The politician who actually proved just how effective this can be was a guy named George W. Bush, when he was governor of Texas. He pushed for and signed a renewable energy portfolio mandate in 1999. The mandate stipulated that Texas power companies had to produce 2,000 new megawatts of electricity from renewables, mostly wind, by 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green ... - hoispoer, on 05/19/2008, -0/+44Omg these pictures were taken right outside my town. My town is surrounded by these as far as the eye can see. They kinda take away from the view of the land but then again its so flat that in turn it is nice to at least see something in the distance. Plus these going up are providing a lot of jobs in my town and driving up the population which is also growing because oil industry around here is huge. Plus when these are put on farm lands it makes the farmers richer which is always good.
- vexingmodstwo, on 05/19/2008, -8/+51But.. but... Pickens is an oil man and therefore evil, right?
- funkytaco, on 05/19/2008, -0/+37We need to decrease our dependence on foreign wind.
- mark076h, on 05/19/2008, -2/+37http://www.metaefficient.com/wp-content/uploads/wi ... that is an awesome picture does anyone have a high-res ?
- jdames1980, on 05/19/2008, -25/+55Why do these things cost so much? $3 million for a turbine, it just seems ridiculous.
- forcedfx, on 05/19/2008, -4/+32Steel ain't cheap these days. Plus wind energy is still in it's infancy as far as its adoption. The early adopters are footing the bill for the R&D costs.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -1/+29Ah, but you see, here's the insidious part, the part that I notice they just happened to omit. Once he's installed these things, he's going to *gasp* charge people money and turn a profit!
- bumcheekcity, on 05/19/2008, -3/+30Oil companies.
- johnhummel, on 05/19/2008, -1/+28I'm sure you input that between wind farms, solar fields, we could then supplement the difference in nuclear and, if necessary, last holdouts of coal/oil/etc?
Nobody says we should just power the entire US through wind only - but between wind, solar, and nuclear, then working on shifting cars from gas to battery and increasing public transportation, we could become all but oil independent.
Or, we should just stick our heads in the sand, go "I'm powerless to do anything about it", and just go on wasting our money on pointless things like - the war in Iraq. Much better idea.
Not. - ricksite, on 05/19/2008, -0/+24I think wind farms are great. I live in Iowa and we have some of the largest wind farms in the nation. In reply to your comment, I don't think we should power our nation with any one source. I think a good energy policy is a diverse energy policy. We should use wind, nuclear, coal, water and anything else we can come up with. Weather patterns can change and make wind farms less efficient. Lakes can dry up causing problems for hydroelectric. If a nuclear plant is having problems, it would be nice to know the coal plant down the road is still operational to take up the load.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -1/+25With a name like that, he had no choice but to go into oil.
- uptwolait, on 05/19/2008, -0/+23Just look at the picture, you'll understand ... http://metaefficient.com/wp-content/uploads/ge1.5- ...
- shaXian, on 05/19/2008, -3/+25Watch one being built in timelapse:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNZqNL4qZxY - inactive, on 05/19/2008, -11/+32The Power of Green
The politician who actually proved just how effective this can be was a guy named George W. Bush, when he was governor of Texas. He pushed for and signed a renewable energy portfolio mandate in 1999. The mandate stipulated that Texas power companies had to produce 2,000 new megawatts of electricity from renewables, mostly wind, by 2009.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green ... - turkeyssr, on 05/19/2008, -1/+20Yes, and if I spit in the Ocean it will flood in Asia somewhere.
- brjndr, on 05/19/2008, -1/+20The wind farms that kill birds use shorter windmills that spin at high speeds, the birds can't see the blades. The ones from the article are massive and use huge slow spinning blades, so bird hitting them are not a problem.
- notoneofus, on 05/19/2008, -2/+19He can't be truly evil, or he would have done as 955701 says, and ordered 666 of them.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -1/+17The building I work in is surrounded by dead birds in the summer because they see landing places reflected on the glass panels and fly right into them. I see a couple of roadkilled small animals everyday but your not suggesting banning cars are you?
STFU. - aflaks, on 05/19/2008, -8/+24its a huge freeken thing that converts wind power to energy... 3 mil is nothing for something like that.
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -2/+18according to the butterfly effect of chaos theory, everything that happens can eventually lead to some catastrophic event. typing that comment might have somehow killed a baby somewhere.
- jugglingjon, on 05/19/2008, -1/+16You are exactly right Spetz, but I think while the availability of pump storage systems in the US is probably sparse, the amount of wind farms large enough to justify one are pretty rare too. I think that when one of these larger, efficient wind farms are built (like this one in Texas), one of those pump systems will become necessary and a lot more of them will start springing up.
For anyone who hasn't heard of it, the pump hydro system that Spetz is talking about to store energy, uses the excess wind power to pump water into a tank at elevation, when the wind power would otherwise not be needed, like late at night. Then later on, water can be released from the tank and it naturally flows downward because of gravity (the tank is elevated). That running water can be run through a hydroelectric turbine to create electricity on demand, from the 'stored' wind power. So this technology allows wind power to be stored in the potential energy of water due to gravity. - rezonq3, on 05/19/2008, -0/+14Holy *****.
- shaXian, on 05/19/2008, -2/+16Buried for uninformed antiquated claim that wind turbines kill *thousands* of birds. Cars kill thousands more birds anually than wind turbines. Do some research before you spew.
- jefferygomer, on 05/19/2008, -0/+13$3 million/turbine is actually not that expensive. But one thing you guys seam to miss is that wind farms of this magnitude require some serious construction costs. Multiple large cranes, large crews working 60-70 hours a week (Major overtime costs), about seventy 30' steel bolts, blasting bed rock (Most likely), high voltage cable...
This list can go on and on. - altgeeky1, on 05/19/2008, -6/+19That's off by HALF, at LEAST half.
Direct appropriations for the war total 1.5 trillion from 2001-2008 so far... and the latest budget buster by Bush has the war UNDERFUNDED for the fiscal year: by underfunded I mean the money will intentionally run out in January. The cynical inspiration for this budget is to destabilize the next US administration by making the first job one of settling an additional budget expenditure for the war, instead of it being funded through the fiscal year in April (like everything else).
The 1.5 trillion figure does NOT count additional expenditures paid by departments other than the Pentagon (not insubstantial Blackwater contracts from the State Dept., the 1 BILLION dollar embassy, etc).
This is kind of expensive given the US public was told the "war would pay for itself" in Iraqi money. The American public was told a lot of things...
The cynic in me thinks this was cooked up with no further goal than to bankrupt the Federal Government... the whole ultra-right slogan of "weakening the government `till you could drown it in a bathtub" quote (and killing off any dreams of 'socialized medicine').
sources:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic ...
(you can get the other 200 billion from more recent articles... the point is you are wrong to say it's 100bil/year. If you voted for Bush twice, you might not care what the facts are.) - burketo, on 05/19/2008, -0/+12there are, but because of the physics of wind power, it is the square of the size of the rotors that determins how much power you will get from wind... i.e. if you make a turbine's blades twice as big, you will generate 4 times as much power.
thus it is in the designer's interest to make them as big as they possibly can because it is cheaper, more efficient and uses less space to make one wind turbine that has 80 metre diameter then 4 turbines with 40 metre diameter. - vexingmodstwo, on 05/19/2008, -1/+13That BASTARD!
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -3/+15You may think he's being eco-friendly, but he's actually planning on using these turbines to speed up cattle-slaughter and flinging his oil onto unborn gay seals..
- inactive, on 05/19/2008, -0/+12It's his damn money, he can invest it in any way he sees fit.
- aflaks, on 05/19/2008, -3/+14The US is huge space wise, I dont know how effective wind power is but i'm sure it will make life easier if the scarcely populated portions of the country are covered with these
- jugglingjon, on 05/19/2008, -0/+11Modern GE wind turbines are specifically designed to be less complicated, easier to maintain, and less prone to failure.
As for the bird thing, that is a myth. You're referring to Altamont pass, where a bunch of birds were killed at a wind farm. They built that windfarm in such a way that when they dug up the earth to plant the turbines, they created a habitat for rodents. Raptor birds were attracted to the rodents, and naturally came to the area to hunt. But because small turbines were used, many were placed close together, creating a dangerous environment for flying birds who are diving for prey. Most of the birds weren't even killed by spinning blades, but rather by running into the towers themselves.
The fact that wind turbines were placed there was irrelevant, they could have installed a field of telephone poles there and it would have had the same result. - Smurph0404, on 05/19/2008, -16/+27No, it's currently costing about 100 billion a year.
- chanop, on 05/19/2008, -2/+12I'm scared of heights, and that picture alone gives me the creeps
- Zera, on 05/19/2008, -1/+11Remember, when one of these turbines is generating 1.5 MegaWatt of power, that means it is resisting 1.5+ megawatt of WIND at a very high altitude. Without the ability to use support cables (windmill blades would hit them) they have to make the cylinder that supports the windmill fully strong enough to stand up to that force.
The great majority of the expense is #1) the tower itself, and #2 the re-enforcing of the foundation underground to resist that kind of leverage the wind has.
However, if done well, that base is reusable over and over for hundreds of years. Wind Power is ALL sunk cost. - davidg11, on 05/19/2008, -0/+10Why wind or solar people?
Why not harness energy from Ocean waves?
Ocean wave systems have a higher load factor because guess what?
It's not always windy and its not always sunny.
Take a look:
http://www.oceanpowertechnologies.com/ - warriorscot, on 05/19/2008, -5/+15The funny thing is that while the US starts wars for more oil the middle east uses the money spent on oil to make sure they themselves won't depend on it in the future.
- sentinel106, on 05/19/2008, -2/+11clean, renewable energy FTW!
- Amcd33, on 05/19/2008, -1/+10I'm sure you have a better idea about how to invest your billions into renewable energy.
- boxxa, on 05/19/2008, -1/+10Hes sick of paying himself $4.50 a gallon for gas
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