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79 Comments
- louiebaur, on 07/07/2008, -3/+54I did not know there was such a thing as to much wind power
- auntvonna, on 07/07/2008, -4/+46I'm sorry, but some eyesores are worse than others. I'd much rather see wind turbines than all the cell phone towers, power lines, parking lots, etc...Some eyesores just have much more merit than others, IMO.
- AmyVernon, on 07/07/2008, -2/+37imagine how much wind power there is in Congress.
- obliviousfool, on 07/07/2008, -3/+36FTA:
"For electricity companies, predicting wind patterns is a new art.
The wind blows hardest before the sun comes up, when people aren't using much power. It tends to die down during the afternoon – especially in the summer – just when people demand more juice.
Solving each issue will cost money."
Let's see, the wind dies down in the afternoon when it's ...sunny. Yeah. That's a huge problem. I don't see how you could compensate for that.
/s - SheilaNoya, on 07/07/2008, -1/+26California has a bunch of wind turbines installed in the mountain pass near Palm Springs. The wind hits the mountains and has nowhere to go but through the pass, so it's a perfect location for strong, steady winds. They don't look like an eyesore to me. They're more like a work of abstract art popping up off the desert landscape.
I actually enjoy seeing them, especially since I know that they are providing a cheap, reliable source of energy and they aren't polluting. I also agree with "obliviousfool" - They look much better than smokestacks and cooling towers. - obliviousfool, on 07/07/2008, -0/+19I tend to think smokestacks and cooling towers are eyesores, but that's just me.
- lisaawesome, on 07/07/2008, -0/+17Been to Abilene and I think the turbines are badass! Maybe it's just me but I find them fascinating and like to watch them turn and think of Don Quixote.
- Buelldozer, on 07/07/2008, -1/+13The problem, as outlined by the article, is that wind power can be unpredictable and when a big chunk, say 15%, of your power generation suddenly drops offline you have to have some stable and quickly available source to replace it.
- doctechnical, on 07/07/2008, -1/+13If you've got the geography to do it you could use the excess power from the turbines to pump water uphill into a reservoir. Then when the wind dies down and you need that juice you let the water flow back downhill through power turbines. A water-battery of sorts.
- inactive, on 07/07/2008, -1/+13I say make the oil companies put wind turbines on top of every tower they own!
- eirek, on 07/08/2008, -0/+9You put them underground as alot of cities are now doing.
- Sanduu, on 07/07/2008, -2/+11Why invest in Wind Power, when they can invest in their pockets ?
- diggB, on 07/08/2008, -2/+11I'm sure the whole debate will blow over soon enough ...
- inactive, on 07/08/2008, -3/+12So Texas, which is the subject of mockery on digg for it's backwards and anti-progressive nature, is actually the biggest pusher of wind power? That's surprising. What is stranger is that the "progressive north" won't utilize the wind that is everywhere in the Cape Cod area because the Kennedys and other elitists, many of them claiming to be environmental warriors, think that windmills are an unpleasant sight to behold.
- EatingPie, on 07/07/2008, -3/+11" The wind blows hardest before the sun comes up, when people aren't using much power. It tends to die down during the afternoon..."
This is a regional trend. In Coastal Southern California, it's exactly the opposite. Wind is lightest in the morning, increases throughout the day, and dies down again in the early evening prior to sunset. Also, in general we have a slight offshore trend in the morning, with the onshore flow taking over once the sun rises.
Wind, wave and solar power all suffers from these fluctuations. Compensation must be built into the system from the get-go.
But as the article points out, the bigger issue for Texas is the infrastructure: they don't want to spend the billion or so dollars it'll take to run new power lines. Money. Same reason congress killed funding for the ITER fusion reactor project. Same reason alternative energy seems like a constantly losing battle... *Sigh*
-Pie - qetuo, on 07/07/2008, -0/+7Clever, but there is never such a thing as producing excess power when connected to the national grid.
- Modiga, on 07/08/2008, -0/+7One solution involves building two resivoirs, one slightly higher than the other. When you have surplus energy you pump water from the lower resivoir to the upper one. When there's a shortage you let the water flow back into the lower one, turning turbines. Obviously there'll be some loss, but if you know the average amount of wind energy available, you should be able to cover any calm periods. Of course, easier said than done, these things still cost money.
- Brainmodder, on 07/08/2008, -0/+7What do you mean eyesore? Seeing thousands of huge turbines spinning is actually sorta cool.
- inactive, on 07/07/2008, -2/+8Or my hometown of Sweetwater just to the west of Abilene.
- Buelldozer, on 07/07/2008, -2/+7How do you propose to get rid of POWER LINES? :::boggle:::
- brad3378, on 07/08/2008, -0/+5It would take too many to handle that much energy and wouldn't be cost effective.
The whole point of using wind power (as opposed to other sources) is that it is very cheap.
(roughly costs about 5 cents a kilowatt hour) - swrostmore, on 07/07/2008, -1/+5Another day, another mind-numbingly obvious yet subtly misinformed comment from EatingPie, appended as always with a reduntant signature.
- redcolumbine, on 07/07/2008, -1/+5FTA: " Major generation companies in Texas that operate coal and natural gas plants say 10 to 15 percent is about all the state could handle."
- Lane, on 07/07/2008, -4/+8you could use these new fangled invention things called capacitors to store the energy in....
- Brainmodder, on 07/08/2008, -0/+4Why protest against it? The turbines in Abilene brought in lots of money and really made the town a great place to live, increasing property values by quite a bit. Now Abilene has one of the best schools in Texas(which is quite notable for a small town like Abilene).
- jarjarbinx, on 07/08/2008, -0/+4I wonder if they can use underground compressed air storage to store all the excess energy....
- swiftheart, on 07/08/2008, -0/+4High energy capacitors (in development) may also be a solution. They can store large quantities of electricity easily, and then discharge the power quickly and more reliably than batteries.
A few years ago, there was also talk of using flywheels. That's still a possibility, but I hear more about capacitors than flywheels these days. - yaddayaddayoda, on 07/07/2008, -2/+5Cell phone towers don't have merit? But you want to make cell phone calls everywhere, don't you?
- inactive, on 07/07/2008, -0/+3people are starting to put those giant turbines in their backyards in residential districts
- Buelldozer, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Sure, as long as the city doesn't have high groundwater, or flooding problems.
- Barackalypse, on 07/08/2008, -3/+6The most important line in the article, " In February, wind in West Texas died unexpectedly, leaving ERCOT scrambling to get backup natural gas plants online to meet power demand."
The power system isn't something that only has to reliably work "most of the time". Its unacceptable for the power to go out because it isn't windy enough, or it isn't sunny enough. As you saw already, they needed conventional backup power plants to step in because the wind died. Why bother spending billions on transmission lines from the rural windy areas and then have to build backup capacity for when the wind dies when you can just go nuclear from the get go? - jarjarbinx, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3the part of Texas where they have the wind turbines is dry. Getting water in those areas and have them as a storage system for potential energy is not viable because evaporation loss will be high and the storage required to store 1000MW will be similar to the size of a small dam.
- Barackalypse, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3You did read the part about the wind being unexpectedly dead and them having to fire up natural gas generating plants right? What happens if the wind dies on a hazy or overcast day and your solar power is also down? You get to enjoy rolling brownouts unless they built enough backup capacity to deal with it, meanwhile I enjoy all the comforts of electricity because my state built coal plants and kept their nuclear ones operating.
- jason0802, on 07/08/2008, -2/+5I'm glad you added "IMO" at the end of that. For a second there I thought it was someone else's opinion!
- proton, on 07/08/2008, -1/+4If you RTFA you would see that "eyesores" has nothing at all to do with the topic.
- obliviousfool, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3If it's overcast, people won't need as much electricity. They won't be running their air conditioners as hard. Solar is perfect for that particular quirk of our electricity usage.
So, base the system around solar, wind, increased efficiency in the home, geothermal, hydroelectric, etc.
Use the coal and nuclear to fill in what can't be produced by everything else. The smaller the amount you need, the easier it is to utilize small generators which can come online more quickly.
You write as though the grid is perfect the way it is, and it isn't. It is a dinosaur. There is no part of it which couldn't be upgraded. Every single piece of it could be improved. - BradMajors, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3.... Natural gas power plants are complaining about unfair wind power lowering electricity prices?
- nonymous666, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Who said anything about eyesores? The article sure didn't.
- meeks82, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3I don't know how true the statement that wind is on again and off again. In my town in the Texas hill country, the wind is always blowing pretty good and I have yet to see one turbine here. I have a hard time believing it would cost billions to bring the energy from here to Austin or San Antonio as they're both within an hour of the hill country. Maybe that's true of deep west Texas, where most of the turbines I have seen are located. Even if it does cost billions, I'd say the potential of the industry is worth the investment.
- Barackalypse, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3You know one liter of water raised 100 meters has a gravitational potential energy of 981 Joules, or 0.0002725 kilowatt hours. One million liters is 272.5 kilowatt hours. You realize these turbines are rated for 2-3 Megawatts right? You would need to store obscene amounts of water to make this workable on any level that has any impact. To say nothing of the losses, from pump inefficiency, pipe friction, and turbine inefficiencies.
- ZxEfR, on 07/08/2008, -0/+3Abilene is the eyesore...the wind farms actually help.
- savagesteve13, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2I don't get it. In my state the wind blows hardest in the morning and afternoon, and dies down at night. Thats the complete opposite of what they are claiming. Perhaps they are just lying because they don't like wind power.
The sun is responsible for the wind currents, to the logic that wind blows hard at night is well...illogical. - yaddayaddayoda, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2Sorry, nope. Most microwave towers are used for line-of-sight communications (40 to 100 miles) and deal in power levels from 0.05 watts to 100 watts.
- Fordi, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2Yeah. I never quite get the point of storing electricity in mechanical form when there are perfectly serviceable electrical methods of storing electricity.
I guess some people just want to see ***** spin. - rheaume, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2Maybe that ranch they bought to 'get away from it all' is starting to .. suck? or blow?
http://www.gasdetection.com/news2/wind_farm_4_hnd. ... - edwartica, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2Power lines give the squirrels and the birds a place to play.
- h3lx, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2A friend of mine put one on his Dairy farm just south of Anna, the state gave him a large sum to quantify the expense. He then had to sue Reliant Energy to get them to buy back energy he was returning to the grid... he's retired now at the ripe old age of 42. He plans on putting up 3 more. More power to him, the bastard. Now he's all up his own ass about the environment and his operation is no more organic than the Jiffy Lube we fought tooth and nail with the TC of C over... it's all about money and nobody wants you to get any of it.
- yaddayaddayoda, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2What is the cost per mile to put power lines underground, vs. putting them up in the air? (Especially high tension lines.) I'll wager it's 10X to 100X the cost, paid for by the people who buy power (us).
- dcmjzero, on 07/08/2008, -0/+2the sun... hmm... i can't think of any way to produce power via some sort of solar process either.
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