Wind Power

[Al]

I am actually optimistic about Electricity generated by windmills. The recent article on T. Boone Pickens 10 Billion wind farm is probably our last chance to make a dent in our Energy Debacle.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24242972/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States#Proposed_wind_farms

It seems that in the future 25% of our energy could be generated by wind. GE makes Turbines up to 1.5 MW and Siemens I believe goes as high as 2.3 MW. 10,000 Wind Turbines in this country can't be a bad thing. It could be possible but we don't have much time.

 

[Warlord]

Plenty of people build their own out of dryer motors and the like. Canadian tire also sells wind generation kits. I was thinking of building one. It sounds like a neat little project.

 

[Steve S]

Just 1 many options. And only good when it is windy. As solar is only good when sunny .

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
Just 1 many options. And only good when it is windy. As solar is only good when sunny .

Not sure how many we have other than conservation, which is the only one that can really be effective in the coming couple of years.

 

[Kestas]

Our company is excited over this trend. This opens up a new and lucrative market for our bearings. A big challenge for this technology is lubrication maintenance. Some can only be serviced by helicopter.

Technology aside, this opens up a lot of work for the legal community. Not everyone wants to see windmills in every back yard, or have windmills willy-nilly dotting the landscape, and there may be infringement issues. We'll have to sort out what is appropriate and create codes in each community.

For Michigan, discussion is about building windmills one or two miles offshore into Lake Michigan. They would be mostly out of sight and in a location that sees lots of wind.

 

[JHZR2]

I was just looking at a $500, 400We 12V wind generator, to use in my notional home grid tie in system, consisting of everything from solar cells to bicycle generators.

JMH

 

[Jett Rink]

Personally, I always enjoyed looking at windmills. From the kinds out on the prairies, to the kinds in Holland, to the new high tech ones. It wouldn't bother me at all seeing them around.

I don't get the "it can't fulfill 100% of our energy needs, so it is a bad idea" position. Neither do dams, but I like them, too. Frankly, any energy source that doesn't require forever wars in middle eastern chaos zones has something going for it.

 

[eljefino]

I figure they'll be like cellphone towers and soon become ubiquitous to the eye.

On a windy day, a hydro dam could start storing water for a calm day.

I like the idea of running devices like well pumps that can store the energy locally without batteries, and handle intermittent service.

 

[ryansride2017]

They built a whole series of them on the ridge behind my house. I think each ridgetop should be filled with them to get us out of this situation.

 

[MarkC]

Originally Posted By: Steve S
Just 1 many options. And only good when it is windy. As solar is only good when sunny .


Not exactly true, energy generated can be stored for a while

 

[Pat in Speedway]

There was an article just yesterday about a wind farm going up 90-some miles northwest of Indianapolis in Benton County, Indiana. On a trip a few years ago, I stumbled upon a farm in Gray County, Kansas. First time I'd seen anything of that magnitude and was quite impressive.

Indy's power supplier gives customers an option to have their energy generated by "green" sources such as wind at an increased rate, which amounts to just a few dollars a month for the average household: Green Power Option

 

[Gary Allan]

Quote:
10,000 Wind Turbines in this country can't be a bad thing.


So, you think that $$ will quiet the Swishers, huh? There's a windmill abandoned since the late 70's somewhere up near Bernville. The locals successfully ended this project at a loss of a whole bunch of money. (you know the type - whether it's a landfill or a quary ..whatever - they mount a savage defense against anything). They claimed low frequency vibration was annoying.

We have a group called ACE (alliance for a Clean Environment). They blocked a trash to steam plant that would have extended the landfill usage within its existing confines for several lifetimes. They than blocked the expansion of the landfill ..and when the landfill wanted to pipe combustible gas to the local resin plant for their gas fired boilers, they managed to block that too saying it was unsafe ..so the landfill burns it on site 3.5miles away

Now the landfill is closed and we pay twice as much to truck our trash away. I thanked them in the op-ed section of the paper. I wanted to thank each and every one of them ..and send them the bill.

NIMBY's -

 

[Papa Bear]

Trucks are going by our house here every day taking HUGE propellers and towers to The Port Alma wind farm just down the road about 10 miles East of here. All the parts are from overseas and even the truck trailers have German warning signs on them.
Someone in the world got a nice contract....

 

[moribundman]

ENERCON is the largest German wind turbine manufacturer. They probably export worldwide. Offshore wind farms are now the latest. When I was a kid the GROWIAN was the world's largest experimental wind turbine and had an output of 3 Mega Watt.

http://images.google.com/images?q=growian&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Check out the funny sign: "Watch out for falling ice -- even if the device is off!"

http://www.sagen.at/doku/fo_fotos/Schild_Growian.JPG

 

[Papa Bear]

Yes, they are trying to put 166 turbines off the shore of leamington 8 miles West of here but the local residents filed a petition to delay it.
Looks like it will come to pass though ...

 

[benjamming]

Originally Posted By: Kestas
[snip] Not everyone wants to see windmills in every back yard, or have windmills willy-nilly dotting the landscape, [snip]


You will never please everyone & that's ok.

 

[Gary Allan]

Lots of organized NIMBY's The greenies even got in on it

We'll teach 'em to propose green energy on our mountain!!

 

[simple_gifts]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TmM3KQnFmXs

Lot of energy there.....


As mentioned by ryan... big windfarm around Scranton/W-B PA. CT energy buyers actually have an option of buying clean energy from this effort; a surcharge is put on your regular bill and paid to the windfarm to encourage growth.

 

[Al]

I believe the Wind Farms are gathering momentum. Yes there will be challenges but the areas just East of the Rockies offers huge potentials. Farmers/Land owners stand to make huge dollars. Ultimately the misguided nuts will be swept away..hopefully. 90%+ of even American JoeSixpacs like the idea. I think there is only so much money available to fight it and more money looking to get it going.

 

[Gary Allan]

I don't care if they litter the horizon. Show me the avoided cost!!

Now, knowing how our system works ..I'm waiting for some person to tell us that we need to finance this expansion of wind power ..and that eventually we'll all be down to pure maintenance costs and plugging in for next to nothing. That's what Dwight told us about nukes. He was sorta right in his imagination. Like Han said when Luke said the reward would be more than he could imagine, "I can imagine quite a bit" (in terms of what constitutes "maintenance costs").