Is not net the only figure that really matters?
Posted on 12/08/2009 7:47:25 AM PST by PilotDave
One of the projects touted as an example of green energy - supported by the purchase of carbon offsets from the Democratic National Convention - isn't working, according to an online report.
Face the State, a Web site that follows politics in Colorado, reported this week that a wind turbine in Wray has not been able to produce electricity since it was erected in February (2008) because of a faulty converter .
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
I thought that not too long ago, say late September or maybe October, he was on tv bemoaning problem with wind and was shelving his interest in the projects.
Perhaps not
Union made, Union maintained.
“Being far more easily started and stopped than steam boilers, they are used for peak delivery.”
Well... I guess as long as the peak happens to coincide with the wind.
but we remain a Nat Gas importer
Maybe net, but not entirely. I was recently surprised to learn a significant portion of Haynesville Shale gas is being exported by BG and has saved the Haynesville from shutting down due to low gas demand and low prices.
The exact same thing we do when the Duane Arnold Energy Center refuels for a while. Refueling takes about a month and costs about $20,000,000 by the way.
My question had a serious point to it. You can't store the power a wind generator makes, and you can't count on it actually being windy, so you need a back up.
In Denmark they have an entire power plant running full time to back up when their wind generators don't work. This back up plant has to run all the time, thereby saving nothing in fossil fuel consumption. They might as well not have the wind turbines to maintain. They're a gigantic waste.
Having wind turbines going makes them feel good though.........
“This is hardly typical.”
and
“In Iowa we use about 48,000,000 mwh/year. We have 3,000 mw worth of windpower which produces over 7,000,000 mwh of electricity/year and we are building lots more. Do the math.”
OK, let’s turn to the experts. I found the qoute below from a paper on the internet from 2002 (follow link). Bottom line is, wind energy is a crime against the planet...
http://www.mnforsustain.org/windpower_schleede_costs_of_electricity.htm
The small amount of electricity produced by wind turbines, particularly due to their inherently low capacity factors. If all the thousands of windmills in the US as of the end of 2002 operated with a 25% capacity factor, they would produce less electricity (10,260,150,000 kilowatt-hours – kWh) than two 750-megawatt (MW) gas-fired combined cycle generating plants operating in base load with an 80% capacity factor (10,512,000,000).2 The windmills are scattered over thousands acres in 27 states (90% in CA, TX, IA, MN, WA and OR), while the gas-fired plants would take up only a few acres. Also, they are available when needed (i.e., dispatchable), not just when the wind blows.
If we had a million wind turbines that number would be a lot better wouldn't it. That point is not relavent to the viability of windpower. TODAY in Iowa with 3,000 mw of wind at about a 30 percent cap factor we have the equivalent of 1.7ish of our nukes with more coming. Lots more. We could be at 5,000 mw in 18 months. Even more than I've been praying for. Sure we have good wind here, I think we are 12th in the nation. Other States will follow suit based on wind resource vs energy demand and availabity of other energy.
Sure.
But our ability to produce and transmit baseline power is becoming more limited when compared to increasing requirements. The enviro-wackos are offering ONLY wind or solar as solutions for this looming capacity gap.
We could build more coal plants, but, well ....
We could build more nuclear plants, but, well ...
We could build more hydro-electric dams, but well ...
And, wind isn’t that easily started if there’s no wind.
What if there’s no sun, either?
In certain areas, you get a higher reliability of wind and solar, but these are never going to supply any reliable quantities of power, even at peak.
They’re using wind and solar as a de facto replacement for baseline generation. They can’t be that stupid, so there must be another goal.
Even if demand is down, why would you voluntarily inhibit a windmill to burn coal or natural gas?
The advertising on mainstream has dropped, but his interest in the projects remain.
http://www.pickensplan.com/about/
He still is going around the country promoting it. But it has less attention than before and a bigger effort on the Nat Gas side of it.
http://primebuzz.kcstar.com/?q=node/13389
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2009/12/02/a-conversation-with-t-boone-pickens.aspx
The math was done and you will end up with higher bills.
Sure they can.
Is not net the only figure that really matters?
Also, some of the export issues is bottlenecking in the pipeline market. When the gas cannot be moved economically due to limitations in the delivery system, other sources become more economical.
Take a look at the following report. I know it is long and detailed but jump to page 14, Figure 6. This shows where the industry sees the most need to increase ability to move Natural Gas. The biggest expected growth is to get more capacity to move Nat Gas to the Northeast.
Expansion of the U.S. Natural Gas Pipeline Network:
Additions in 2008 and Projects through 2011
http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/natural_gas/feature_articles/2009/pipelinenetwork/pipelinenetwork.pdf
When the wind stops blowing in IOWA?
It sucks! Holding MinnySoder from flying away. Come to think of it, Iowa sucks WHEN the wind blows as well.
Pickens owns the mineral and water rights to vast areas of West Texas. He made a deal with the city of Dallas to supply it with water, 500,000 gals a day I think, but they had to build the pipeline from the water to Dallas. I think they agreed.
He abandoned his wind farm recently because no one would build the transmission lines for him.
He has been pushing natural gas for a long time because he has plenty of it. He has pushed municipalities to power their city and state vehicles on natural gas. He has pushed the public transit people to do the same.
Pickens is a shrewd business man. He saw the value of buying up all those mineral and water rights of the vast West Texas plains and now he is pushing to create markets for his products.
The oil and gas are already there and just need to be pumped and transported. So is the water. So is the wind. His raw materials are free, in a way, and he just needs to pay to collect and transport them.
I do not find fault with that. It is free enterprise. There is a need for all he does.
I have to respond to this statement first. Do you really think that the country does not have enough land mass to hold enough windmills to satisfy the country's electricity requirements? You can produce about 40,000 mwh per square mile with windpower in northwest Iowa. Each farmer that gets to lease land to a windmill gets $4000/year and loses 1-2 percent productivity. Again, given iowa's 48,000,000 mwh consumption we can produce the equivalent +/- demand mwh with the land mass of 2 counties out of 99 counties in Iowa.
The plant I told you about is a coal plant, it is mostly running one unit and at low load, lots of rain means hydro is the cheapest.
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