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- kowgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16That same study also says:
"Overall global temperature would barely change, but polar regions would be cooler and equatorial regions warmer. That might counteract CO2-related global warming, which is expected to heat the poles more. Plus, Keith adds, replacing fossil fuel electricity with wind power would have the beneficial effect of reducing CO2 levels."
(via http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_47/c3909123_mz019.htm#ZZZD78V4E1E )
Another thing to note is that that study looks at the effects of replacing ALL electricity production with wind power. I don't think anyone seriously expects ALL power generation to switch to wind power. More realistic wind power production models show no ill effect on climate change, and their replacement of CO2 emitting sources is indeed beneficial.
That said, there are drawbacks. The biggest detriment to wind power is it's effect on migratory bird airlanes and the fact that -- frankly -- wind farms are ugly. No one wants them in their backyard, or in their places of recreation. But with proper planning wind farms do not need to be placed in bird routes, and with the use of offshore, shorter and vertical turbines, we can hopefully get around some of the more personal objections to wind power.
But in the end, it's all about power diversification. Nuclear, clean(er) coal, hydro, solar and wind... they're all better than most of what we have now. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Wind power scales pretty well. Denmark already produces over 20% of its electricity from wind power and is thinking about pushing that up to 50% by 2025 after a report saying that it is technically and economically feasible.
See: http://www.thewatt.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=758&mode=nested&order=0&thold=0 - nickaster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I love to hear this news!
- Tetra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7There's talk of putting wind generators in the Gulf of Mexico. I don't see why they can't generate tons of power this way. We need to write to our elected leaders and demand that they support alternative energy sources, otherwise they will continue to pander to the big oil companies.
http://bsalert.com/ - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Eh? The U.S. has many windy regions.
- deepsub, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I suppose it depends on what you consider large.
from this link: http://www.texascenter.org/almanac/Energy/ENERGYCH7P5.HTML
"Wind farms in California have proven wind can be a reliable energy source. California now gets 1,600 megawatts of power from 17,000 wind turbines and the state is developing 1,500 megawatts of new wind power.(103) Although California leads the world in wind-energy production, Texas has almost 20 times more wind-energy potential than California. (104)" - Tetra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6A great alternative is sea-based wind farms:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/wind/landvssea.html - silkworm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Personally, I think that wind turbines look pretty cool.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Yes, this is good news, I wish it was available in my area (Virginia).
- tdiddy54, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Thats one thing we have plenty of here in colorado. Wind. Might as well use it up.
- mongoos150, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5How great would this be - I just hope it can produce enough power that it would be a viable replacement for traditional power sources - only thing is that it'd require lots of empty land space for the wind fans (and they're not that great looking, visually).
- Gargot, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Yep, it starts in a few places and then spread all around. Especially with the price of fossil fuels rising..
- Godric, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7I wish I had a wind farm. I'd over-sell my wind power credits and make a fortune. Businesses get a tax break, enviromentalists feel good about themselves and I get rich. And politicians have no reason to look too carefully because it makes them and their corporate masters look good too.
- kowgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Something tells me that the added weight of solar collectors would kill the efficiency of the turbine.
But maybe look at it another way. In a wind farm, there is a lot of empt space on the ground between each turbine. Maybe place solar collectors on the ground to better utilize the space needed for a wind farm. - kowgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Actually, there is a 2 year study going on investigating just this proposal. If you go to the Field Museum on Chicago's lakefront, there is a wind turbine there. It is not only a tourist attraction at the museum, but is actually being used to test the viability of offshore wind farms on Lake Michigan, and other great lakes. In fact, something like 2% of the museum's electricity is generated by the turbine right now.
And aside from that, it is also a special, newer design wind turbine which is supposed to be more efficient, quieter and cheaper to produce than most current turbines.
So, who knows, maybe someday we will see towers out in the lake! - shadedream, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I used to live in Denver and payed a little extra on my bill monthly to have them provide a portion of my power through wind. It only bumped my bill up a couple of dollars a month at the time (about a year ago now). Good to hear that they are diversifying power production. It only bumped my bill up a couple of dollars a month.
Now in Houston wishing I was living in Austin. - ZapWizard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Heck, ya I live in Austin.
Although the only wind farms I have seen around here are near El Paso - Ianmacisaac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Theres a guy outside of my town that has his own wind mill. He pays for everything with it! Its sweet.
- breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4"Save the environment one way, mess it up another."
But you do have to choose one. Which is the lesser of two evils?
Do you want a kick in the balls or a pinch on your elbow? - breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Could New York place enough turbines on top of sky scrapers to be useful? The noise wouldn't be a factor up there and the winds that high are generally very strong.
- aembleton, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4You develop technology to use less of it. Reducing demand through more efficient electrical appliances should help a long way.
One gripe of mine is that when my PC is switched "off" it is actually consuming 17W of electricity, all thanks to ATX! - jschrab, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wisconsin has a fair bit of wind power - and growing. WE Energies has an Energy for Tomorrow program where you can *choose* to pay more for renewable energy sources. Sounds strange, in light of this article, but the fact is that the rate of electricity cost increases for EFT members has been *slower* than for traditional electricity service, even though we still pay more. I do have to wonder if it will hit an inflection point for us one day.
http://www.we-energies.com/residential/acctoptions/eft.htm
(FYI, I am not a WE Energies employee) - lunalaguna, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Luckily, I got in on the GreenChoice program in 2002. My electricity rates have held steady for the past four years. It's awesome!
- CoffeeCup, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You can get your power from Green Mountain Energy in Houston. It is the same price or cheaper than Reliant.
- MattH, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Wind power may be good in thoery but I live in an ski area in Vermont that was slated to have a windfarm and the electriity that was to be generated from the windfarm was going to be used in exchage for Green credits for out of state electritity companies that pollute .
- stan205, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7If the energy isn't black (oil or coal) then any person with a Republican agenda will not see it as being feasible. What a surprise, right? As many of you know, politicians have oil and coal lobbyist "preaching" all the fearful things that could happen if we happened to stopped depending on these non-sustainable resources. Don't you get it, the idea is to make people afraid to try something new; i.e. sustainable energy.
Hopefully, this is the start of a break through this country needs. - TopherT, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I actually quite like the look of wind farms. I'd rather see wind farms than refineries or oil pumps. To me they look rather magnificent. So sign me up for one in my backyard, especially if I get some % of the profit from it.
- zbeast, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You can only have so many wind turbines.
A set of wind turbines not only disturb the air, they also slow the air.
So the towers much be placed carefully around the site to minimize the interference between different turbine towers.
Wind turbines are also not all that quite. The howl, grind and pop when in operation.
you would not like one on your back yard. - Shazam999, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3There's a pretty big wind farm by Pincher Creek, Alberta, Canda. It's an incredibly windy area so it works quite well.
- Schwecke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We have some an hour away from my house. Farmers were payed money to put them on their land, but the price of electricity didn't fall any because it was all being used in Pennsylvania. There was and still is a lot of debate going on now about that because some farmers believe that the EMFs are effecting their cows.
- MindTrigger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3We have large fields of windmills here in Southern Cali too. A bunch of them are right here were I live in the Coachella Valley. Here is a blurb from the Palm Springs website:
----
http://www.palmsprings.com/services/wind.html
A quote for those of you who don't want to hit the site:
"This wind farm on the San Gorgonio Mountain Pass in the San Bernadino Mountains contains more than 4000 separate windmills and provides enough electricity to power Palm Springs and the entire Coachella Valley. "
----
I'm always proud to see these when I drive down I-10 around here. With all the open land out here, it blows me away that we don't have a lot more of these, and solar clusters. I'm looking into something for home, because we do get quite a bit of wind around here most of the year. I would love to just have something small that would reduce my footprint on the grid. Run my computers, TVs, and stuff. - Shazam999, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'll add to your comment by saying that there's literally thousands of years' worth of uranium in the ground. Building nuclear reactors would go a long way in reducing oil dependency for countries.
In fact, many of the "Peak Oil" pundits state nuclear energy is a very viable, and probably only, way to truly reduce oil usage. - garraeth, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I remember seeing a debate about this on the news. The "Green" was talking in circles because of the issue of green energy vs/ killing birds...*whap!*
hehe...I'm all for wind power, screw the occassional pidgeon...collect 'em and sell 'em as Phesant Under Glass... - rileyjt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The report says 4-6 cent per kilowatt, which is about average for this country I think. Its nice to see another option become competitive in price. I do wonder how high they can scale the production of it though, I imagine there are only certain geographies that allow for that kind of efficiency so we won't be seeing a lot of these pop up everywhere. Of course, Nuclear power is still cheaper than all those other sources in most situations - your chances of seeing a nuclear power plant in your neighborhood are probably higher than seeing a windmill ;)
- sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I am waiting to see a real alternative... Consider this: A wind farm with solar panels on the arms and trunk of the windmill. I imagine a lot of energy could be gathered by combining the two, especially with 400' per windmill, eh'?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Check this personal turbine:
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/03/personal_wind_t.php - breakneckridge, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3You need to back a lot of your claims up. I'm not minus digging your comment yet because if these items are a real (not just theoretical) concern then your points are valid.
"nuclear..., it's still the safest form of energy" - Based on what criteria and what evidence?
"wind power advocates don't do enough research"
"we fail to get crops planted in the path of huge windmill farms."
"it causes extreme topsoil erosion"
"a 'meltdown proof' reactor" - ZapWizard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Ya, I noticed the latest raffel was held last week.
But I will keep watch. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Indeed the use of the right renewable technology is important. Since renewables are not going to be replace conventional sources overnight, I'm sure there would be an appropriate restructuring the grid, so that demand is met strategically. Germany and Spain are already doing this, to accommodate reliance on solar and wind energy.
- sofong, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2In Utah we can pay a small premium on our electric bill and buy wind power instead of coal fired turbine power. Our house currently gets 50% of our power from wind. I know that it helps keep some CO_2 out of the air and hope that it will make wind power cheaper for all.
- JasonPrini, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2A crazy guy named Donny Q keeps busting up my wind turbine.
- CJHtxGeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I'd welcome a nuclear reactor over wind anyday; when will people learn its our best bet...after they've spent millions upon (billions?) of dollars making wind cheaper, when we've had nuclear power for how long... for how cheap... so frustrating.... even the french get it; the most nuclear powered nation on earth (or atleast in top 3 as i recall).
- nugget, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2There are three windmill things at a town near by here and that town has very low cost of electricity. I want to know why we can't have it in our town. I dont care about them being around my house. there are also lots of feilds around to put them up out of everyone's way.
- zerozero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The article referenced - unfortunately - is very poorly written, it confuses cost to produce energy with the price customers pay for it. Today there are subsudies in a number of States for renewable energy sources - price floors for wind power, for example. I'm all for alternative to hydrocarbons but he 'easiest', most eco-friendly solution gets few mention on the press - nuclear power. The US has not invested in new reactors for a couple of decades... plenty of power, tiny footprint and biggest pollutant is warm water. Europeans are far more dependant on nuclear power than us, the hypocrical germans froze nuclear plant construction years ago so the french built a string of them along the border to sell power... talk about not in my backyard!
- kowgod, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, here is a better link directly to the researcher who conducted these simulations:
PDF link to research paper: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~keith/papers/66.Keith.2004.WindAndClimate.e.pdf
Link to his website, and other research: http://www.ucalgary.ca/~keith/
Sorry I didn't get my above post edited in the allotted time :( - tony23, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"But you do have to choose one. Which is the lesser of two evils?"
Good point. Have you SEEN the huge wind farms I'm referring to?
And in this case, it's not a lesser of two evils - there are many more options. Too bad nuclear was sidelined as a viable source so long ago. We're way behind where we could have been there... - geomon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I was puzzled but your continual insistence that the wind doesn't always blow...i.e. that this was somehow a significant factor."
It is significant in calculating the actual power delivery capability. Solar cells, as you noted in your quip, are poor generators without Sol itself. Wind turbines are equally unable to generate power without wind.
Constructing a solar power generation station in an area where the low conversion efficiency of solar cells is at a disadvantage is lousy public policy. Constructing wind power stations where wind speeds are lower than 7 mph is also lousy public policy. And an optimal placement of either technology means that electricity capacity will not meet demand 100% of the time. That is a fact and one that is glossed over in the original article.
Other power sources are generally used to provide the balance of the approximately 14 trillion kWh of electrical demand world-wide. Now that the price of fossil fuels have jumped again, it is possible to begin seriously discussing the economics of alternative energy supplies without having to resort to subsidies. Subsidies often fail and are poor predictors of what technologies will best supply needs in the future. Now that oil prices reflect 2006-reality, investment in alternatives should begin to reap benefits.
How much of that shift from fossil fuels will be provided by wind, solar, or other renewables like tidal will depend on the market and the ability to cut transmission losses. The one *other* problem with renewable energies are their lack of portability. Which is why we should continue to consider nuclear energy as an interim non-greenhouse substitute for electrical power generation. Nothing I'm reading from the mainstream eco-news makes that reality clear. - appleswitch, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@ osbjmg
Its better than dead seals and such in every oil spill, at least my dog likes bird carcasses :P -
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