dallasnews.com — Sure, wind is among the cheapest, cleanest fuels generating the power Texans increasingly demand. But as officials brag about the state's status as the No. 1 wind producer in the country, they're also debating how much is too much.
Jul 7, 2008 View in Crawl 4
louiebaurJul 7, 2008
I did not know there was such a thing as to much wind power
eatingpieJul 7, 2008
" 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
lisaawesomeJul 7, 2008
Been 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.
barackalypseJul 8, 2008
The 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?
xptoastJul 8, 2008
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savagesteve13Jul 8, 2008
I 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.
malevolentdustJul 8, 2008
Actually there is a ton of new natural gas drilling going on in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The Barnett Shales is making this area look like the stereotypical images of Texas and an oil boom. New Riggs are on about an 18 month back order. The neighborhood I live in is collectively bargaining for a drilling agreement at the moment, and it'd be about 2 years before we even see anything beyond the signing bonus.
Closed AccountJul 8, 2008
you are so wrong it hurts. there is new drilling going up everywhere in texas. and you could use the wind turbines to power the oil pumps.
fordiJul 8, 2008
I agree, but add that it would be rather cost effective to add vertical turbines to almost any structure higher than five stories.
diggimatorJul 9, 2008
Wind power plants already have a solution: backup fossil fuel plants. As long as we make sure we have enough backup (either fossil fuel plants or energy stored in capacitors or flywheels during excess production), there's little reason not to go 100% renewable energy.The more wind farms there are, instances of wind stopping in every single location at once will be rarer.
obliviousfoolJul 9, 2008
@ dcmjzero,The ideal solution for Texas, and indeed the entire region, would be to emulate the homes used by the indigenous population. They build homes there just like anywhere else, but they would be better off with heavy earthen, stone, or adobe houses with a great deal of thermal mass to even out the temperatures though the day. Of course, people love their McMansions and their big air conditioners.