Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: ridley1 on March 18, 2010, 06:19:43 AM
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There's a proposal to develop 3700 acres of farmland a couple of miles from here into a wind farm for electricity. The idea does not impress me. And it's not a case of NIMBY.
Anybody have any experience with these things?
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Where is "here" ??
Working on building a big one on the ND SD border. Talking about 700 of them from what I have heard.
I think the biggest problem at least in this area is that we just don't have the infrastructure to handle the flow.
If your in an area that seems fairly windy, or have a wind defining structure such as a long ridge, or geographical feature, they can pay for themselves in a relatively short period of time. Big investment, but once its paid for your basiclly getting power for nothing.
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Very impressive to look at. The problem with windmills is that they never recoup the energy used to build and erect them.
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There are a ton of them along the Columbia Gorge on both the Oregon and Washington sides. I find them oddly beautiful both in themselves and for what they prevent being there. I would rather have these giant turbines around, silently turning than something belching smoke.
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Agreed TinmanX, i like that drive on I-84, personally i think its a very viable solution and would like to see more models for homes also, i have a friend who runs windpower ( consistently windy here) and his initial cash outlay for the windpower system was around 30k, sure it sounds like alot but after 5 years hes paid it off, and the power company buys back his excess power, its a great system for certain areas, its just not for everywhere.
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Very impressive to look at. The problem with windmills is that they never recoup the energy used to build and erect them.
Now this I have a hard time believing.
http://www.windenergyplanning.com/wind-turbine-efficiency/
Surely, this site is going to skew the numbers a bit in favor of wind power, but let's still assume you are talking an average of 4,000 MWh/year. Without a doubt it takes a whopping amount of power to construct such a large piece of machinery. I'm not going to claim to be an expert in steel or concrete production, but I know both take a large amount of energy to create. However, with a turbine lifespan of 20-30 years I can't imagine you're anywhere near the neighborhood of 80,000 - 120,000 MWh of power, even factoring in repairs.
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Now this I have a hard time believing.
http://www.windenergyplanning.com/wind-turbine-efficiency/
Surely, this site is going to skew the numbers a bit in favor of wind power, but let's still assume you are talking an average of 4,000 MWh/year. Without a doubt it takes a whopping amount of power to construct such a large piece of machinery. I'm not going to claim to be an expert in steel or concrete production, but I know both take a large amount of energy to create. However, with a turbine lifespan of 20-30 years I can't imagine you're anywhere near the neighborhood of 80,000 - 120,000 MWh of power, even factoring in repairs.
No way you're going to get twenty years out of one before you have to replace the whole thing. I look at the whole thing as maybe a break-even proposal.
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No way you're going to get twenty years out of one before you have to replace the whole thing. I look at the whole thing as maybe a break-even proposal.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea//news/article/2005/04/assessing-the-life-cycle-of-wind-turbine-production-25113
This site claims the average modern (in 2005) windmill put out 35 times as much energy as it took to produce, install, and decommission it. Again, I'm sure these numbers are skewed in favor of wind power. However, I do not think they are off by a factor of a 35x multiplier. Do you work in the industry or are you taking a stab at it?
Edit: Also, they figured 7 months of power generation made up for it...if you don't want to read through the site.
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http://windconcernsontario.wordpress.com/
wind's working at 10% capacity right now. doesn't sound feasible, does it?
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http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea//news/article/2005/04/assessing-the-life-cycle-of-wind-turbine-production-25113
This site claims the average modern (in 2005) windmill put out 35 times as much energy as it took to produce, install, and decommission it. Again, I'm sure these numbers are skewed in favor of wind power. However, I do not think they are off by a factor of a 35x multiplier. Do you work in the industry or are you taking a stab at it?
They are not considering all the implications. The company that installs windmills. They have specific equipment that is only used for the installation of windmills. Not only do they use energy to do their jobs, but also used energy to be manufactured and delivered. The factories that build said equipment. They have specific machinery that only build the machines that put together the windmills. That equipment requires energy to be produced and delivered. And on down the line...
Like I said, when looking at the big picture, this is a break-even proposition at best. But hey! It creates jobs! And jobs are what matters, right?
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All these complaints.
One source of energy will run out and emits pollution and smog when burned.
The other is completely renewable, will never run out, and emits nothing.
And somehow there is an argument? :lol
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All these complaints.
One source of energy will run out and emits pollution and smog when burned.
The other is completely renewable, will never run out, and emits nothing.
And somehow there is an argument? :lol
Never runs out? What happens when the wind stops blowing? What about when the machines themselves fail? I'd hate to see the bill for the purchase and installation of a new gearbox on one of those things.
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Up by Lake Benton, Minnesota they had some on the hills around there. It was a pretty cool sight on the horizon.
(http://i666.photobucket.com/albums/vv23/Jayhawk1/Picture010.jpg)
I'm really surprised with the number of anti-wind power people. Not doubting you sluggish, but where are you getting your numbers from?
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There are a ton of them along the Columbia Gorge on both the Oregon and Washington sides. I find them oddly beautiful both in themselves and for what they prevent being there. I would rather have these giant turbines around, silently turning than something belching smoke.
Silent... Not hardly.
Ever stood under one, they are anything but silent, in fact they are very, very loud. Many cattlemen in eastern Montana allowed wind farms on their grazing land, hoping to get dual use out of the land. Turn out the cattle will not go near the things because the noise bothers them.
I'm all for alternative energy research and development, but just like anything wind power has a downside as well.
1- As others have mentioned they must operate for many years before they recoup the energy put into production and installation of them.
2- They don't run all the time and require just the right amount of wind, too little wind and they won't turn, too much wind and they won't turn (the blades feather in winds that are to high to prevent damage)
3- They kill bats and birds and mess up their migratory routes.
Having said that, I am not opposed to wind farms, if they prove to have a long lifespan they can be a valuable energy source. But even if we build wind farms everywhere we can it will not come close to replacing other energy sources.
I still say the best, cleanest energy technology we have is nuclear. It produces huge amounts of power from a small space, and emits zero pollution. (A 20 acre nuclear plant would produce more energy then 1,000s of acres of windmills) Plus we already have the Yucca Mtn. facility in NV, and companies like Energy Solutions in UT who are more then happy to make a huge profit disposing of the spend fuel rods. So many people are paranoid about nuclear radiation without any valid reason. Heck, the US Navy operates dozens of nuclear powered vessels with no problems, if nuclear is so bad how come all those sailors aren't impotent or having 2-headed babies, or have cancer? How come submarines and aircraft carriers aren't having meltdowns every week? And the casks they transport the depleted fuel rods in are the closest thing to indestructible man has ever built.
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Never runs out? What happens when the wind stops blowing? What about when the machines themselves fail? I'd hate to see the bill for the purchase and installation of a new gearbox on one of those things.
When the wind stops blowing. :huh Sure winds patterns can change, but usually over a long period of time, and don't ya think they look into these things when building these farms.
I'm sure they are expensive to repair, but I'm sure other sources are very expensive as well. As wind power becomes more prevalent, prices for replacement parts should drop.
Silent... Not hardly.
Ever stood under one, they are anything but silent, in fact they are very, very loud. Many cattlemen in eastern Montana allowed wind farms on their grazing land, hoping to get dual use out of the land. Turn out the cattle will not go near the things because the noise bothers them.
I'm all for alternative energy research and development, but just like anything wind power has a downside as well.
1- As others have mentioned they must operate for many years before they recoup the energy put into production and installation of them.
2- They don't run all the time and require just the right amount of wind, too little wind and they won't turn, too much wind and they won't turn (the blades feather in winds that are to high to prevent damage)
3- They kill bats and birds and mess up their migratory routes.
Having said that, I am not opposed to wind farms, if they prove to have a long lifespan they can be a valuable energy source. But even if we build wind farms everywhere we can it will not come close to replacing other energy sources.
I still say the best, cleanest energy technology we have is nuclear. It produces huge amounts of power from a small space, and emits zero pollution. (A 20 acre nuclear plant would produce more energy then 1,000s of acres of windmills) Plus we already have the Yucca Mtn. facility in NV, and companies like Energy Solutions in UT who are more then happy to make a huge profit disposing of the spend fuel rods. So many people are paranoid about nuclear radiation without any valid reason. Heck, the US Navy operates dozens of nuclear powered vessels with no problems, if nuclear is so bad how come all those sailors aren't impotent or having 2-headed babies, or have cancer? How come submarines and aircraft carriers aren't having meltdowns every week? And the casks they transport the depleted fuel rods in are the closest thing to indestructible man has ever built.
-Hm, the ones I remember were actually fairly quiet. Not completely silent, sounded like a humming to me, could be different models (or my ears are just that bad).
-You do bring up some very valid downfalls of wind energy.
- Though I'm not worried about nuclear radiation seeping out of nuclear plants, I think the concern about a meltdown is valid. It has happened before, yes they have very complex systems to prevent it, but a failure is always possible.
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Never runs out? What happens when the wind stops blowing? Or blows too hard? What about when the machines themselves fail? I'd hate to see the bill for the purchase and installation of a new gearbox on one of those things.
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Sure winds patterns can change, but usually over a long period of time, and don't ya think they look into these things when building these farms.
As wind power becomes more prevalent, prices for replacement parts should drop.
1st part = Yes, they do. My friend was a meteorology major and is now employed by a company outside of Albany, NY. Predicting viable wind farm locations and monitoring existing ones is her full time job.
2nd part = Absolutely, which is why while I understand Sluggish's point, I still don't think it is entirely valid. Once the machines are tooled, their "energy input" cost becomes lessened with every part they produce. (And yes sir, I understand how a value chain works...its kind of what I do :) )
Wind is still not my "favorite" type of power, which goes hands down to solar. I just don't think it is Satan incarnate as some seem to, nor a waste of our time and effort.
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When the wind stops blowing. :huh Sure winds patterns can change, but usually over a long period of time, and don't ya think they look into these things when building these farms.
I'm sure they are expensive to repair, but I'm sure other sources are very expensive as well. As wind power becomes more prevalent, prices for replacement parts should drop.
I drove past many a wind mill in central/eastern Montana just last week. Even up there the wind isn't blowing 24/7. And on one farm the windmills were all feathered and stopped because the wind was blowing too hard. It's not like the harder the wind blows the more energy they produce, those turbines are designed to be spun at a certain speed, and the blades feather in different wind to get to the right speed. But if it blows too hard they feather completely to stop turning and prevent damage.
Building wind farms is fine and dandy, just don't think it's the end-all and be-all to our energy needs.
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1st part = Yes, they do. My friend was a meteorology major and is now employed by a company outside of Albany, NY. Predicting viable wind farm locations and monitoring existing ones is her full time job.
2nd part = Absolutely, which is why while I understand Sluggish's point, I still don't think it is entirely valid. Once the machines are tooled, their "energy input" cost becomes lessened with every part they produce. (And yes sir, I understand how a value chain works...its kind of what I do :) )
Wind is still not my "favorite" type of power, which goes hands down to solar. I just don't think it is Satan incarnate as some seem to, nor a waste of our time and effort.
Well allrighty then. :aok
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Wind is still not my "favorite" type of power, which goes hands down to solar. I just don't think it is Satan incarnate as some seem to, nor a waste of our time and effort.
What kind or solar, when I studied this stuff 8 yrs ago in college, photovoltaic solar cells were still incredibly inefficient. I'm just curious if the technology has improved since then. Or are you talking about concentrated solar, or passive?
I remember learning about a power plant in France I think it was, which used giant parabolic mirrors to focus solar energy and super heat a natural spring to turn steam turbines, seemed like a neat idea. That is, untill the sun goes down.
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The other is completely renewable, will never run out, and emits nothing.
This windmill appears to be emitting something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKkTUY2slYQ&feature=related
I bet that smoke is far more toxic than anythig a coal burning power plant puts out.
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I'm really surprised with the number of anti-wind power people. Not doubting you sluggish, but where are you getting your numbers from?
I'm not a numbers guy; I'm an ideas guy. When thinking of things like this, it's better to stand back and take in everything. What are the motivations for things? If wind and solar are the answer why don't people take out loans and install systems to make themselves self sufficient? I don't think it's so much about energy conservation and looking to the next energy source as it is keeping people busy and moving money around. It's about jobs. If they just came out and said that it was about job creation and moving money around to give the impression of wealth creation and conservation (which is what it is) then I probably wouldn't be as skeptical about the motives. But to just say Hey! It's green and never gets depleted! It's free energy! Well... That's just a flat-out lie... I have to question the motivations.
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Uh, nuclear power plants produce plenty of extremely dangerous by-products. Those cooling rods have to be replaced periodically and they are very dangerous to deal with.
Nuclear power plants also have a shelf life. After they are shutdown, they are left to rot where they stand. They cannot be rebuilt or refurbished as the core materials have all started breaking down to thier elemental components.
Nuclear is not cheap. It is not free and no one has made any profit from them to date. If they were not government subsidized, they would bankrupt the companies that run them.
I am not saying wind power is a solution. The current implementations are poorly thought out. They could do much better.
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Yea it is its called a electrical fire, not as worse as say..... petroleum plants exploding spewing toxins, or railcars derailed and burning spewing chemical toxins, or coal driven powerplants having fires or the neighbors house burning, frankly i don't see your point, other than the electrical fire on a wind generator, that happens mostly due to poor maintenance, don't know where the video was filmed, i couldn't understand him.
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Yea it is its called a electrical fire, not as worse as say..... petroleum plants exploding spewing toxins, or railcars derailed and burning spewing chemical toxins, or coal driven powerplants having fires or the neighbors house burning, frankly i don't see your point, other than the electrical fire on a wind generator, that happens mostly due to poor maintenance, don't know where the video was filmed, i couldn't understand him.
It's in Spain. Do you think that turbine will ever reach the break-even point?
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I'm not a numbers guy; I'm an ideas guy.
Numbers > Ideas.. Period..
Personal feelings are irrelevant when you're trying to talk about something measurable..
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- Though I'm not worried about nuclear radiation seeping out of nuclear plants, I think the concern about a meltdown is valid. It has happened before, yes they have very complex systems to prevent it, but a failure is always possible.
how many nuclear plants are there in the world, how many years have they been operating, and how many have had a "melt down"?
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Solar and wind generation will not solve the world's energy production needs 100% by themselves. They do help lessening the strain from nuclear, coal, and hydro generation plants.
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It's in Spain. Do you think that turbine will ever reach the break-even point?
whether it makes a profit or not is determined by who's running the show, that one in that video is a total waste, not all of it is the base and blades could be used or saved, now theres no way of knowing if the cost has been recovered yet or not. theres nothing wrong with alternative ways of generating power, the only ones that don't like are the ones that monopolize it now and don't want to see there profits go down. :D
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What kind or solar, when I studied this stuff 8 yrs ago in college, photovoltaic solar cells were still incredibly inefficient. I'm just curious if the technology has improved since then. Or are you talking about concentrated solar, or passive?
I remember learning about a power plant in France I think it was, which used giant parabolic mirrors to focus solar energy and super heat a natural spring to turn steam turbines, seemed like a neat idea. That is, untill the sun goes down.
Not sure what it was at when you studied it saggs, but nowadays you can get expensive photovoltaic around 40% efficiency. A german company actually just created one that runs at 41.4% efficiency, but it is still prohibitively expensive. Standard home - mounted systems generally run closer to 20%. Also, they haven't quite locked this down yet, but this technology looks promising: http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1329/
Honestly though one of my favorite things about solar is that (unlike wind) it can be used in a residential context in a non-intrusive manor. (http://www.premierpower.com/solar_energy_residential/images/roof_mount_web.jpg)
Obviously this technology is not something that works in all places, but if you get enough sunlight hours it's a worthy investment. Consider this: (http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/sage/200909/solar/images/solar-sites.jpg)
I'm not saying we should depend on it entirely as a country, but as a supplemental power source I'd personally love to see more of it.
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They pollute the landscape.
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how many nuclear plants are there in the world, how many years have they been operating, and how many have had a "melt down"?
"A 2003 study commissioned by the European Commission remarked that "core damage frequencies of 5 × 10−5 [per reactor-year] are a common result" or in other words, one core damage incident in 20,000 reactor years.[3] A 2008 study performed by the Electric Power Research Institute, the estimated core damage frequency for the United States nuclear industry is estimated at once in 50,000 reactor years, or 2 × 10−5.[5]
Assuming there are 500 reactors in use in the world, the above numbers mean that, statistically, one core damage incident would be expected to occur somewhere in the world every 40 or 100 years, respectively."
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Diversity is the key to energy problems. In the end for our energy needs to be sustained it will have to come from multiple means. The thing here is many people seem to think in our search for alternative energy we need to find a solve all energy source. The thing is that would be a disaster in and of itself. What would happen is we would become too reliant on that source and when it causes problems humans would be saying "WTF are we going to do now".
Every energy source has it's downsides the reason for diversity is not to find a solve all solution but to use the advantages of one to cancel out or minimize the disadvantages of another.
example:
Wind does not blow all the time, but the sun shines quite a bit.
The sun goes down or hides behind the clouds, well the wind might still be blowing.
Both of thes take the drain off of oil and coal which can then in turn be used for something else and maybe even reduce the cost through reduction in demand, even if only by a small fraction.
The fossil fuel form of power generation will come to an end. The big question is when. There have been amny estimates and so far many of them have come and gone but should we wait until it becomes a real issue before we start working on alternatives. This where mankind as fallen on many things. We become too dependant on one thing until it runs out completely instead of thinking ahead and looking for a solution before it becomes a real problem.
Isy bring on the wind, solar, hydraulic, tides, geothermal, and whatever else they can think of, None of these systems will be anywhere near their peak performance if they are used for any real amount of time.
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They pollute the landscape.
no worse than cell towers, billboards, communications towers, coal plants, Dams with there massive power grids, the list could go on as to what pollutes the landscapes. :D we cant depend on what we've been using forever.
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no worse than cell towers, billboards, communications towers, coal plants, Dams with there massive power grids, the list could go on as to what pollutes the landscapes. :D we cant depend on what we've been using forever.
Yea, but it is one less object that we do not need.
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All these complaints.
One source of energy will run out and emits pollution and smog when burned.
The other is completely renewable, will never run out, and emits nothing.
And somehow there is an argument? :lol
You know they have diesel engines in them to get them spinning right?
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Firedrgn knows one of the dirtly little secrets of horizontal wind mills.
Payback is calculated at higher up time rates that they are currently getting with windmills. Some of the better up time rates are about 25% to 30% of the time with wind power right now.
Windmills can produce the power if the wind blows all the time.
I am currently in the middle of a 80 MW Vertical magnetically levetated hybrid system. And if our math if right the best we can do is 75% up time to produce energy. Right now that won't even sevice the debt to get the thing built.
Do a search on Maglev power generation. Speciffically MWTT srry will post link when I can.
Anyway I think it is one way to do it but from my research it will take a hybrid system no matter what to produce the energy needed.
The real Holy Grail of alternative energy is Storage. If someone figures out a better way to store the energy the problems would go away.
Right now we are thinking of Storing the energy in the from of HOt water underground. In insulated tanks. About 4 millions gallons is what we will need.
Anyway it is a sloppy way to do it right now but it is one of the better ways.
Another way is Sterling energy they use a Sterling engine to produce power. It has some real potential. Again it is all about storage so it can be used in peak energy loads, and when it is not actually making power. Like at night.
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Personally, I don't see them as a very "green" solution.
Sure, they have their good points, but they have their bad points too. I see them as a form of habitat destruction. And specifically, a destroyer of a habitat that's already under enough stress (prairies). Many prairie species avoid vertical structures, so spreading these wind turbines around renders the habitat useless for them...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srPoOU6_Z4&feature=player_embedded
Depending on the study you choose, I guess they're dangerous, or not dangerous to raptors and migrating birds.
Personally, I won't fly my birds around them. I've seen dead raptors near them, I've seen video of them killing birds, and I know of falconers who've had their birds killed by them. I've also noted the lack of wildlife around them.
On the other hand, I've seen studies that showed them to be only a minor cause of bird mortality (1-2 bird deaths of all species, per turbine). And, I doubt they're as dangerous to birds as power lines and methane-burners at landfills.
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Sonicblu, I should think a brine tank would be a better medium to store heat. It can carry higher thermal loads with lower pressures due to the higher boiling point. Run water pipes through the brine to convert the water to steam.
You can also store energy in a large flywheel. Take any excess energy to power a DC motor to spin the wheel. Multiple wheels if you have enough excess. They can be stacked. Or use the excess thermal energy to a turbine to spin the flywheel assembly.
Take a few 100 ton flywheels and they can generate quite a bit of energy for a while.
Some of the Sterling designs are pretty interesting as well.
It is a subject I find fascinating.
EDIT: Thinking a bit about this. What about taking the flywheels and submerge them in oil and pump them full of helium (or wrap them in a helium balloon structure). This would not reduce the mass, but would help to levitate the flywheels reducing the friction to a much smaller coefficient than suspending it in air. Hmm. Just thinking out loud.
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Firedrgn knows one of the dirtly little secrets of horizontal wind mills.
Payback is calculated at higher up time rates that they are currently getting with windmills. Some of the better up time rates are about 25% to 30% of the time with wind power right now.
Windmills can produce the power if the wind blows all the time.
I am currently in the middle of a 80 MW Vertical magnetically levetated hybrid system. And if our math if right the best we can do is 75% up time to produce energy. Right now that won't even sevice the debt to get the thing built.
Do a search on Maglev power generation. Speciffically MWTT srry will post link when I can.
Anyway I think it is one way to do it but from my research it will take a hybrid system no matter what to produce the energy needed.
The real Holy Grail of alternative energy is Storage. If someone figures out a better way to store the energy the problems would go away.
Right now we are thinking of Storing the energy in the from of HOt water underground. In insulated tanks. About 4 millions gallons is what we will need.
Anyway it is a sloppy way to do it right now but it is one of the better ways.
Another way is Sterling energy they use a Sterling engine to produce power. It has some real potential. Again it is all about storage so it can be used in peak energy loads, and when it is not actually making power. Like at night.
A proven example of storing excess base capacity, obviously could be used for storing peak as well.
https://www.consumersenergy.com/welcome.htm?/content/hiermenugrid.aspx?id=31
shamus
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The real Holy Grail of alternative energy is Storage. If someone figures out a better way to store the energy the problems would go away.
Funny you mention this I quite often wonder if one day the power companies main role won't switch over to power storage with the bulk of their power coming from their customers instead.
For instance:
With the almost inevitable reduction in the cost of solar cells, the homeowners and businesses start to install them more frequently on their already existing roofs, generating more power than they can use. The power company buys this power from them and in turn stores it up until night fall or days of less sun and then sells it back to the consumer.
This type of setup would of course work for any kind of power generation method.
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EDIT: Thinking a bit about this. What about taking the flywheels and submerge them in oil and pump them full of helium (or wrap them in a helium balloon structure). This would not reduce the mass, but would help to levitate the flywheels reducing the friction to a much smaller coefficient than suspending it in air. Hmm. Just thinking out loud.
Actually Skuzzy I think someone beat you to that idea!! I recall a linear electrical motor being tested and they used a helium envelope to reduce the friction.It may have been something to do with a railgun,I cant remember exactly,but I do recall the helium being used and a tent to contain it.
:salute
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why not instead of putting them on hills and letting wind drive them, put them in the water one the coast and let the tide/currents drive them. tide is more constant and predictable than wind, and tidal flow carries more energy than the wind..
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"A 2003 study commissioned by the European Commission remarked that "core damage frequencies of 5 × 10−5 [per reactor-year] are a common result" or in other words, one core damage incident in 20,000 reactor years.[3] A 2008 study performed by the Electric Power Research Institute, the estimated core damage frequency for the United States nuclear industry is estimated at once in 50,000 reactor years, or 2 × 10−5.[5]
Assuming there are 500 reactors in use in the world, the above numbers mean that, statistically, one core damage incident would be expected to occur somewhere in the world every 40 or 100 years, respectively."
the question was "how many have had a melt down"?
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Funny you mention this I quite often wonder if one day the power companies main role won't switch over to power storage with the bulk of their power coming from their customers instead.
For instance:
With the almost inevitable reduction in the cost of solar cells, the homeowners and businesses start to install them more frequently on their already existing roofs, generating more power than they can use. The power company buys this power from them and in turn stores it up until night fall or days of less sun and then sells it back to the consumer.
This type of setup would of course work for any kind of power generation method.
Depends on the spread between what they charge and what they pay, they make money by selling you power, not buying it from you.
They can currently generate power for a tiny fraction of what a point of use producer can on a base line basis.
shamus
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Depends on the spread between what they charge and what they pay, they make money by selling you power, not buying it from you.
They can currently generate power for a tiny fraction of what a point of use producer can on a base line basis.
shamus
residential solar is coming, but currently the components cost too much and the cells are not efficient enough to offset the cost. there are kits already available though, but its still a "novelty" at this point.
if the cost was much lower it would be a GO
if the cells were more efficient it would be a GO
if we get BOTH it will be a true revolution.
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Depends on the spread between what they charge and what they pay, they make money by selling you power, not buying it from you.
They can currently generate power for a tiny fraction of what a point of use producer can on a base line basis.
shamus
Your right when discussing the present. The thing is no one knows what the future will bring and if other means of production become more cost effective. The power company will have to reconfigure to stay alive and my staement was aimed at that time.
On a side note the power companies are already buying power from residences and businesses. Maybe they are already planning for the future in this respect.
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Actually Skuzzy I think someone beat you to that idea!! I recall a linear electrical motor being tested and they used a helium envelope to reduce the friction.It may have been something to do with a railgun,I cant remember exactly,but I do recall the helium being used and a tent to contain it.
:salute
Well, I'll be damn. I guess the idea has merit then. Who would have thought?
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Your right when discussing the present. The thing is no one knows what the future will bring and if other means of production become more cost effective. The power company will have to reconfigure to stay alive and my staement was aimed at that time.
On a side note the power companies are already buying power from residences and businesses. Maybe they are already planning for the future in this respect.
I understand where you are coming from and am aware that some utilities have been buying power from point of use sources for quit some time. I would not be too concerned about the utilities staying alive.
Don't get me wrong, I like your idea, makes sense logically....but politically it will never fly.
shamus
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I understand where you are coming from and am aware that some utilities have been buying power from point of use sources for quit some time. I would not be too concerned about the utilities staying alive.
Don't get me wrong, I like your idea, makes sense logically....but politically it will never fly.
shamus
Exactly.
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why not instead of putting them on hills and letting wind drive them, put them in the water one the coast and let the tide/currents drive them. tide is more constant and predictable than wind, and tidal flow carries more energy than the wind..
I think there trying that method on the new Narrows Bridge in Tacoma, at least that's what they were talking about doing during the construction of the bridge, the tidal flows thru the narrows are of epic perportion, its scary fishing the narrows during tide changes, i moved away almost 9 years ago so i hope they installed it, ill have to go look on the net see if they did.
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I did some consulting work for one of the big German electrical utilities about 5 years back. Their financial controller chappie was a very nice sort, took us out to dinner and such. He went through in minute detail how much of a tax scam the German wind farms were - subsidised building costs, utilities obliged by the Feds to buy power from them, at a higher price than the utilities charged their customers (!) with the shortfall being made up by, you guessed it, the Feds.
That and the fact the power generated wouldn't go very far through the grid.
Great work if you can get it.
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Some of the Sterling designs are pretty interesting as well.
It is a subject I find fascinating.
I listened to a NPR segment about the use of Sterling engines for this purpose, sounds promising, but I don't know that much about it.
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I understand where you are coming from and am aware that some utilities have been buying power from point of use sources for quit some time. I would not be too concerned about the utilities staying alive.
Don't get me wrong, I like your idea, makes sense logically....but politically it will never fly.
shamus
I'm not so much worried about them staying alive. I was just wondering if they may somewhere down the road whether it be in my lifetime or not shift their bread and butter from generation to energy storage. Every now and then something happens that causes businesses including power companies to go in directions that they never expected to go and systems that allow customers to produce their own power and are inexpensive enough could cause that to happen.
I don't think that either of us will be alive to say I told you so when this question is proved or disproved but I think it an interesting question none-the-less.
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why not instead of putting them on hills and letting wind drive them, put them in the water one the coast and let the tide/currents drive them. tide is more constant and predictable than wind, and tidal flow carries more energy than the wind..
Agreed + 1. There are plans for 130 or so 400' windmills to be placed in Nantucket Sound. Secretary Salazar must make a decision by the end of this month (I think) as a final step in the permitting process which has been going on for about ten years. Many are for it, many are against it. IMHO, hydroelectric generators are a more viable option because as Wingnutt states - tides are more predictable, "read absolutely predictable" and the velocities are as well known. This would be a much more reliable source of alternate energy. However, salt water is an environment that carries its own problems not the least of which is galvanic corrosion. If one were to google "Nantucket Sound windfarm" you will probably find enough about this project to satisfy anyone.
Personally, I hope they don't build the windfarm and turn their seemingly endless energies toward hydroelectric energy production - just seems to make more sense to me. Anyone can buy a copy of an Eldridge's Tide and Pilot Book which is published annually for around $12.00 and know (for a particular area) how fast the water flows in what direction and what time it will reverse and flow in the other direction. It's absolute, to the point tides can be predicted for any point in future time - you can't do that with wind..
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Sonicblu, I should think a brine tank would be a better medium to store heat. It can carry higher thermal loads with lower pressures due to the higher boiling point. Run water pipes through the brine to convert the water to steam.
You can also store energy in a large flywheel. Take any excess energy to power a DC motor to spin the wheel. Multiple wheels if you have enough excess. They can be stacked. Or use the excess thermal energy to a turbine to spin the flywheel assembly.
Take a few 100 ton flywheels and they can generate quite a bit of energy for a while.
Some of the Sterling designs are pretty interesting as well.
It is a subject I find fascinating.
EDIT: Thinking a bit about this. What about taking the flywheels and submerge them in oil and pump them full of helium (or wrap them in a helium balloon structure). This would not reduce the mass, but would help to levitate the flywheels reducing the friction to a much smaller coefficient than suspending it in air. Hmm. Just thinking out loud.
We have looked at several salt type storage systems. We had a proposal that would rival Nevada One solar park. It was a solar trough design with salt storage. 300 million to build and with out the generous support of the American public in the form of a grant would never pay for itself.
We are still looking at a hybrid system that may include salt. They are getting up to 600 degrees with salt.
Because we dont need the high temps the engineers are looking at water. We are trying to make the thing as passive as possible to help lower maintanence costs.
I think the maglev guys have already looked into magnetically levitateing horizontal flywheels. I will ask in depth next time we meet.
Im just a little guy hashing out the letter of intent for a power sales contract.
They are really into trying to get a maglev train in the U.S. for transport insted of diesel powered.
They have something to do with the Mach 10 project.
Interesting stuff for sure.
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I've been looking into installing one myself. It is a small one, but would deliver approx 25.000 KW-hours a year, which is all the hot water we use and some extra. That power costs me about 2.500 $. The machinery makes about 8000$, so there you go, all returned in some odd 4 years.
There have been som odd claims that the energy put into the mechanism will never be returned. It is complete rubbish, since it would mean that the manufacturer would be losing a lot of money on the selling :devil
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Uh, nuclear power plants produce plenty of extremely dangerous by-products. Those cooling rods have to be replaced periodically and they are very dangerous to deal with.
Nuclear power plants also have a shelf life. After they are shutdown, they are left to rot where they stand. They cannot be rebuilt or refurbished as the core materials have all started breaking down to thier elemental components.
Nuclear is not cheap. It is not free and no one has made any profit from them to date. If they were not government subsidized, they would bankrupt the companies that run them.
I am not saying wind power is a solution. The current implementations are poorly thought out. They could do much better.
I work in the Nuclear Industry Skuzzy.
There is great care taken in the very few reactors that have been shut down, they are very far from being left to rot where they stand.
Nuclear fuel actually is very cheap, considering a typical reactor has 3 sections of fuel, each section lasts for 6 years. We buy a lot of fuel from old Soviet nuclear weapons as well, on the cheap. To say that no one has made money on them is absolutely positively wrong. In fact, the nuclear plant I worked at, made around $2 million dollars a day while running, we lost close to $1 million a day when we shut down to refuel, but refueling outages these days take on average under 28 days, and those only happen once every two years. For a plant with a dual reactor setup, they lose even less, as they can keep one reactor running while the other is refueled.
We are using 1950s, and 1960s technology. Even to this day, quite a bit of the plants' systems have yet to be digitized. My plant was the last licensed nuclear power plant in the country, also, the largest one to date. When I came in around 2003, we were putting out around 1200 megawatts, in 2007, we had upgraded enough to be able to start putting out close to 1600 megawatts. Almost every plant in the country was undergoing the same upgrades, so 100 or 101 civilian nuclear plants all adding around 200-400 megawatts to their output, not bad considering the typical coal plant puts out around 600-800. The newest designs being built in Japan and elsewhere in the world are even more efficient, even more inherently safe, as well.
And, we produce no greenhouse gases. The water we return to the atmosphere, or lakes\rivers\oceans is cleaner than when we took it in.
Every amount of nuclear fuel we have EVER spent in our reactor, is sitting in a containment pool on site. No nuclear plants in this country have yet to run out of room on their premises to store spent fuel. This is why Yucca Mountain is a must, we need a single secure location to start storing this stuff.
Nuclear power is the most logical, profitable source of energy we have. Nothing else out there currently can even come close to the raw power it can create, and minus wind\water\solar, nothing is as clean or safe.
Wind Energy just does not hold up to what a single nuclear power plant can produce. To equal one single nuclear plant with a wind farm, you're talking a farm the size of a state. Now imagine trying to hook that mega wind farm up to the grid, we just don't have the infrastructure to properly use wind\water\solar in a capacity to solve our energy crisis.
What we currently need is a nationwide Grid Upgrade. Plants are selling energy over thousands of miles these days, money is being lost in the transmission, and as we get closer and closer to the day when we take in more than we put out (estimated from 10-25 years), we are going to start having regular massive scale black outs. Even if we do starting building new nuclear plants, there is a limit to what the grid is going to be able to take. This is not theory, it is fact. Building wind farms and other renewable resource power plants is not going to solve that. We need more power, and a new grid to handle it.
Once we can get started on that, I would be a huge proponent of using wind\water\solar plants to start getting rid of coal plants.
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Personally, I don't see them as a very "green" solution.
Sure, they have their good points, but they have their bad points too. I see them as a form of habitat destruction. And specifically, a destroyer of a habitat that's already under enough stress (prairies). Many prairie species avoid vertical structures, so spreading these wind turbines around renders the habitat useless for them...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9srPoOU6_Z4&feature=player_embedded
Depending on the study you choose, I guess they're dangerous, or not dangerous to raptors and migrating birds.
Personally, I won't fly my birds around them. I've seen dead raptors near them, I've seen video of them killing birds, and I know of falconers who've had their birds killed by them. I've also noted the lack of wildlife around them.
On the other hand, I've seen studies that showed them to be only a minor cause of bird mortality (1-2 bird deaths of all species, per turbine). And, I doubt they're as dangerous to birds as power lines and methane-burners at landfills.
I am with you 100% MtnMan. We have four areas that have them and i am sicken seeing the landscap look like crap with them there. On one area, there are over 200 put in the Tall Grass Prairie. They really killed the native grass ecosystem. A state Rep tried to convince me that the land was in poor shape from grazing, but i fire back asking him how having these invasive man-made object is to help the land. He try to feed me a load of crap that the company in working on conservation practices by remove the grazing and letting the land go back to nature. I straight out told him the removing any grazing will not solved the issue and all the equipment, digging and roads they put in just encourage more weeds and other invasive plant to move in, dis-place a lot of grassland birds, especially the Greater Prairie Chicken, and the blades will likely kill a lot of hawks, falcons, and eagles the fly around them. Well, the argument kept going back and forth till somebody had to step in and pull that state rep away for the fact i provided more facts then what he could.
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Yes warhed, I was exaggerating about the "rot" comment. The point being, they are dead and nothing else can be built there. They are no longer making power. Has anyone re-built a nuclear power plant to replace one of the many that have been shut down? How many more are going to be shutdown in the next 50 years?
Cost per watt, nuclear is the most expensive solution available. Again, if it were not for government subsidies, the companies running the plants would go bankrupt. Even then, we have seen substantial increases in the cost of electricity, which have all been cited due to the cost of the nuclear plant we have here.
I am not advocating abandoning nuclear, nor am I against it, but I also do not see it as a panacea to the problems involved with supplying electricity to the masses. It has its own downsides. The spent fuel rods are a huge downside as far as I am concerned. The cost per watt, to maintain the plants, seem to be out of control as well.
Whether it is true or not, it is the excuse most used when the electric company here applies for rate increases to the PUC.
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I work in the Nuclear Industry Skuzzy.
There is great care taken in the very few reactors that have been shut down, they are very far from being left to rot where they stand.
I didn't realize that nuclear reactors only had a limited life.
Why can't they just remove any contaminated material and refurbish the reactors?
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I didn't realize that nuclear reactors only had a limited life.
Why can't they just remove any contaminated material and refurbish the reactors?
As of now, they do not have a limited life. Licenses for most plants are coming up on expiration, but they keep getting extended. There's no real reason other than cost to shut down a plant. All of them were built pre-1970. We can fix, maintain, and build to keep the current plants running, but that is no cheap task. Off the top of my head, there have only been two, maybe three civilian power plants to ever have been shut down.
As the plants age however, reliability starts becoming an issue. The companies have to keep putting more and more money into the plants to keep them efficient.
We need to start building newer, more efficient, smaller and cheaper nuclear plants (like the rest of the world).
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They do have a limited life. There is absolutely no way you can maintain them for an indefinite period of time. They do reach a point where they cannot be maintained with any degree of safety. The materials simply start breaking down due to the caustic environment they endure.
Today's estimated cost for shutting down/decommisioning a plant is around $300M U.S. Plant owners are required to keep that money set aside in order to get a license to build/maintain a nuclear facility. They are allowed up to 60 years to dismantle, store, and entomb the remains of the plant.
There have been 17 civilian nuclear plants decommisioned, so far. There are 3 more currently closed and scheduled for decommissioning. Of course, there are many others, but those are the civilian numbers that are currently published.
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Yes warhed, I was exaggerating about the "rot" comment. The point being, they are dead and nothing else can be built there. They are no longer making power. Has anyone re-built a nuclear power plant to replace one of the many that have been shut down? How many more are going to be shutdown in the next 50 years?
Cost per watt, nuclear is the most expensive solution available. Again, if it were not for government subsidies, the companies running the plants would go bankrupt. Even then, we have seen substantial increases in the cost of electricity, which have all been cited due to the cost of the nuclear plant we have here.
I am not advocating abandoning nuclear, nor am I against it, but I also do not see it as a panacea to the problems involved with supplying electricity to the masses. It has its own downsides. The spent fuel and fuel rods are a huge downside as far as I am concerned. The cost per watt, to maintain the plants, seem to be out of control as well.
Because of airtight government regulations (we have two resident NRC inspectors at every plant 365 days a year), aging plants, an aging grid, and an aging nuclear workforce, the cost for nuclear is going up. This is rather easily solved however by the government signing off on new licenses for smaller, cheaper, more efficient nuclear plants. Companies have funds and workers all ready to go to work building, and have for the last decade.
Three Mile Island really ruined the American nuclear industry, especially in the public's eye. Politicians used it to practically kill the industry. We are now far more self-regulated than government-regulated. The safety around operation and protection of the plants now is absolutely amazing. But the nuclear industry has not reached out to the public, I have been a little angry with that fact for the last 10 years. After 9/11, security around plants was increased tenfold, unfortunately that has now completely shut out the public to what we do and how we do it.
Yucca Mountain is a must, at least the idea of it is a must. Not for immediate public safety, for the simple fact that right now we have over 100 sites in this country with spent fuel on their premises. As I mentioned earlier, all of out plants have ALL the spent fuel they have EVER produced still within the plant. There are a few plants who were forced to construct new spent fuel containment pools to accommodate the growing inventory. The problem with all this is security, whether by terrorism or natural disaster, it just sounds like a bad idea to have all this spread out over the entire nation. Whether or not you agree with nuclear power, this is a problem that needs to be solved. Even if we never build a nuclear plant again, we still have this issue to deal with. Yucca Mountain has become the lightning rod for anti-nuclear sentiment, irony if you ask me.
I am pro wind\solar\water power, I would love to start shutting down coal plants. The problem is, the size of wind and solar farms would need to be so large, they would need a mini-grid just to connect them to the main grid. Our current grid just cannot take it.
Even today if our grid was magically rebuilt to today's needs, our current energy situation is basically this, an hour glass running out of sand. Wind\solar\hydro-power plants would be like taking a pinch of sand, and tossing in the hourglass one pinch at a time. You're still going to run out of sand. If we could approve the pending licenses for new plants, we could start refilling the hourglass. Renewable power sources just is not going to keep up with our increasing demand.
What's the cheap and easy option? Coal and gas. Monetarily.
Do we want clean and safe energy and that can keep up with our demands? Or do we just want to keep mining coal and keep building those dirty plants?
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They do have a limited life. There is absolutely no way you can maintain them for an indefinite period of time. They do reach a point where they cannot be maintained with any degree of safety. The materials simply start breaking down due to the caustic environment they endure.
Today's estimated cost for shutting down/decommisioning a plant is around $300M U.S. Plant owners are required to keep that money set aside in order to get a license to build/maintain a nuclear facility. They are allowed up to 60 years to dismantle, store, and entomb the remains of the plant.
There have been 17 civilian nuclear plants decommisioned, so far. There are 3 more currently closed and scheduled for decommissioning.
So, in order to keep power flowing to the grid as nuclear plants would shut down, you would have us mine more coal and build more coal plants? It only costs money to keep a nuclear plant running, it costs health and lives AND money to keep the coal industry alive.
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I did not say that. I am not against nuclear energy, but its current incarnation lacks a lot to be desired. Smaller plants just spread the problem out. Logically, anytime you have that caustic of an environment to deal with it is going to be expensive to maintain the safety of the operation for an indefinite period of time.
I have no issue with the Yucca burial site. It has to be put somewhere.
No offense warhed, I am only playing the devil's advocate here because nuclear is not as rosy a solution as some would paint it to be.
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I did not say that. I am not against nuclear energy, but its current incarnation lacks a lot to be desired. Smaller plants just spread the problem out. Logically, anytime you have that caustic of an environment to deal with it is going to be expensive to maintain the safety of the operation for an indefinite period of time.
I have no issue with the Yucca burial site. It has to be put somewhere.
No offense warhed, I am only playing the devil's advocate here because nuclear is not as rosy a solution as some would paint it to be.
No offense taken sir, there is not enough real discussion going on with the public about nuclear. As I alluded to, I place almost all of the blame on the nuclear industry for that. They have not done enough to make their case.
As far as new plants and safety...We are running huge plants right now with technology developed in the 1950s and 60s. The designs for the new plants (being built all over the world) is like comparing a F1 racecar to a Model-T.
Right now, at least at my plant, we run between 30-40% efficient, almost 60% of the heat we create is wasted. The newer designs are around 80%. The newer plants are also much much smaller than the beasts we have now. Smaller, more efficient, cheaper.
A nuclear plant in operation, even with our current plants, basically runs itself. A control room is manned, most of their work is constant checking of safety and proper running. All other systems and employees are for efficiency and security. A new plant would be even more automated, even more clean (in the radiation sense of the word). No American employee has ever died due to radiation. We are the safest form of energy to human health at this time.
Shutting down a nuclear plant is expensive because of regulations (not a bad thing.) If we had a central site to start sending our spent fuel to, a nuclear plant could be shut down and brought to a completely safe state as far as public health goes.
I understand the concern about spent fuel being with us for so long, but we already have it and have had it for 40 years. We need Yucca.
I honestly do not believe this country is ever going to have a strong nuclear industry again, it's just not in our blood anymore. The rest of the industrialized world is far ahead of us already. I can't see anything other than the status-quo for the next few decades: Costly repair to a failing grid, mining more coal, building more coal plants, and talk of free\clean energy that is never going to replace coal.
Nuclear Power these days has a lot of hurdles to overcome, and I just don't think the powers that be or the American people are going to invest in it.
Imagine a country with a new high tech grid, small efficient nuclear plants supported by clean renewable power plants, with a small number of coal and natural gas. That would be something to be proud of. Our current situation is a failing grid soon to be drawing more energy than is being put in (put in by a majority of polluting power plants, with almost Zero renewable resource plants.)
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I've been looking into installing one myself. It is a small one, but would deliver approx 25.000 KW-hours a year, which is all the hot water we use and some extra. That power costs me about 2.500 $. The machinery makes about 8000$, so there you go, all returned in some odd 4 years.
There have been som odd claims that the energy put into the mechanism will never be returned. It is complete rubbish, since it would mean that the manufacturer would be losing a lot of money on the selling :devil
Only one thing makes it viable at this time : government subsidization.
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A little windmill in your backyard is a different thing. Charge up your battery, then run your dryer off of it when you need it.
But, the industrial farms don't make sense. check out http://windpowerfacts.info/
As alluded to earlier, the aging grid is a problem: the losses in transmission is huge. Imagine what could be done if they're able to produce superconductors?
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the Japanese and Europeans can/are recycling spent fuel rods into new fuel rods.
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They do have a limited life. There is absolutely no way you can maintain them for an indefinite period of time. They do reach a point where they cannot be maintained with any degree of safety. The materials simply start breaking down due to the caustic environment they endure.
Are you sure there isn't a way for them to remove the Materials and replace it?
I didn't realize thiis was the case with nuclear reactors....
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Imagine a country with a new high tech grid, small efficient nuclear plants supported by clean renewable power plants, with a small number of coal and natural gas. That would be something to be proud of. Our current situation is a failing grid soon to be drawing more energy than is being put in (put in by a majority of polluting power plants, with almost Zero renewable resource plants.)
Good timing on an interesting article in the NYT this morning. What are your thoughts on this one war? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/business/energy-environment/19minireactor.html?ref=business (please read the article, not just the title :) )
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the Japanese and Europeans can/are recycling spent fuel rods into new fuel rods.
Not that I'm against nuclear (personally, I see it as the only viable long term solution), but this is a joke, the recycling process used creates more radiactive/toxic waste than just storing the spent rods in the first place. It's merely a political stunt that basically does more harm than good for the sake fooling uninformed into thinking it's better because it involves *recycling*.
Social and political pressures are what drove nuclear into the ground more than anything. The reason we have all this aging nuclear tech is that newer designs won't get government approval in the first place. It all overlooks the simple reality of the situation. In terms environmental damage, public health, and deaths caused nuclear power beats out coal/gas in every category by a wide margin. But as it stands, we're stuck with it.
What's the bright side? The advantage of coal is it's cheap and plentiful, and this will be true *well* into the future. US coal reserves won't tap out any time soon (easily over a hundred years), and hopefully in that time new power generation technologies will have time to mature and take root.
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Are you sure there isn't a way for them to remove the Materials and replace it?
I didn't realize thiis was the case with nuclear reactors....
soda, you are talking about tearing down the containment vessel and rebuilding it. After a nuclear facility is shut down, it can take the rods about 2 years to cool down enough to open the vessel. During that time, you are offline. It simply is not practical to try and rebuild a nuclear reactor and maintain the degree of safety required to operate one.
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in regards to coal, what's the technological stand on 'scrubber'? i.e. post combustion treatment of the exhaust gases? Isn't there some way to run it through a catalyitic converter much the same way as cars?
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I've been looking into installing one myself. It is a small one, but would deliver approx 25.000 KW-hours a year, which is all the hot water we use and some extra. That power costs me about 2.500 $. The machinery makes about 8000$, so there you go, all returned in some odd 4 years.
There have been som odd claims that the energy put into the mechanism will never be returned. It is complete rubbish, since it would mean that the manufacturer would be losing a lot of money on the selling :devil
Angus this is if you get 100% up time, most wind generators only get 25 to 30 % up time at best.. Redue the math at 25%.......
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soda, you are talking about tearing down the containment vessel and rebuilding it. After a nuclear facility is shut down, it can take the rods about 2 years to cool down enough to open the vessel. During that time, you are offline. It simply is not practical to try and rebuild a nuclear reactor and maintain the degree of safety required to operate one.
We open our reactor vessel every 2 years to refuel. I've even had the chance to stick my head out over the pool inside the vessel and get to see a fuel rod, glowing a bright blue just like a light saber. I've also had the "luck" to work beneath the reactor. :D
The old spent fuel comes out of the vessel, it is moved to the spent fuel pool. New fuel is brought in, looks like the salt water pellets you put in your water softeners, that is stuffed inside tubes. Put enough of the stuff close to each other and it starts to heat up (once you withdraw the control rods). Throw some chemicals in the reactor to help kick-start a sustainable reaction, and boom, you have a very efficient way to boil water, and that fuel is going to last for 6 years.
Nowadays, it takes less than 24 hours to shut down a reactor. There are fuel transfer tubes from the reactor to the spent fuel pool. If moved properly, no one receives any excess dose from refueling the reactor. Our plant in Toledo within the last 5 years or so changed out the head to their reactor vessel. The hardest part was having it shipped from Europe, the size of the reactor vessels is absolutely awe inspiring.
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in regards to coal, what's the technological stand on 'scrubber'? i.e. post combustion treatment of the exhaust gases? Isn't there some way to run it through a catalyitic converter much the same way as cars?
You can make a coal plant rather clean, but you can't make the mining of coal clean. There is no clean coal.
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You can make a coal plant rather clean, but you can't make the mining of coal clean. There is no clean coal.
True enough, I live near a ton of old abandon and running coal mines(some within walking distance) and this is more then true. The sulfur run off is terrible and has every river and creek around here stained orange.
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True enough, I live near a ton of old abandon and running coal mines(some within walking distance) and this is more then true. The sulfur run off is terrible and has every river and creek around here stained orange.
And it seems the older coal mining gets, the more destructive it becomes.
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Uh, nuclear power plants produce plenty of extremely dangerous by-products. Those cooling rods have to be replaced periodically and they are very dangerous to deal with.
Nuclear power plants also have a shelf life. After they are shutdown, they are left to rot where they stand. They cannot be rebuilt or refurbished as the core materials have all started breaking down to thier elemental components.
Nuclear is not cheap. It is not free and no one has made any profit from them to date. If they were not government subsidized, they would bankrupt the companies that run them.
Sorry Skuzzy, but I think the last line there is incorrect........My company is about to build another nuke plant here in SC. The tree-huggers cant stand the idea, but each and everyone of them flip on their lights at night and are happy to have them......
Tree hugging/Ocean loving/Eco-terrorists are the ultimate hypocrites.....They preach against everything that is done today, but contribute to it all as much as anyone else!
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Ain't no tree-hugger, but you don't have to be one to have open eyes for alternative energy sources. As for now, wind power is cheaper than nuclear.
I'm not that keen on those big ones though (BTW, the biggest areas now in expansion are in China AFAIK). I'd rather see many more smaller ones for private use, like in rural areas & suburbs. It only takes a small one on your roof to keep your boiler stocked with hot water, and that sums up to an impressive amount of energy.
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Sorry Skuzzy, but I think the last line there is incorrect........My company is about to build another nuke plant here in SC. The tree-huggers cant stand the idea, but each and everyone of them flip on their lights at night and are happy to have them......
Tree hugging/Ocean loving/Eco-terrorists are the ultimate hypocrites.....They preach against everything that is done today, but contribute to it all as much as anyone else!
Federal subsidies total around $13 billion dollars U.S. for each nuclear plant. In the last 50 years the subsidies paid to power companies have exceeded $100 billion dollars U.S.
The actual costs to run the plants are slightly more efficient than a coal plant, with a caveat in the form of tax credits and subsidies. However, the initial build costs, and inevitable decommissioning costs end up driving the actual overall costs to a substantially higher figure. Without the subsidies and tax credits there is no way a power company could ever recoup the initial investment and decommissiong costs associated with nuclear.
Without fail, every place a nuclear plant has been added to the grid, the local customers have had to pay higher rates. Whether this is just a move by greedy power corporations who see an oppertunity to increase thier profits or due to actual costs associated with a nuclear plant is something I cannot answer. I can say, it has left a bad taste in the mouths of the customers who have to bear those costs increases.
I am one of those customers and our rates have increased 140%, with each increase being blamed on the costs associated with the nuclear power plant.
That has nothing to do with "tree huggers".
More subsidies are on the way. A tax credit of $0.018 cents per kilowatt/hour was allocated to nuclear in 2005. The tax credit assures nuclear will continue to be cheaper than coal, even though it is artificial. The latest offering will assure billions of dollars in additional subsidies to power companies who want to build nuclear plants. Apparently, the cost to build a plant has tripled, in the last decade, so the power companies need more money before considering deploying a nuclear based option. That passed in 12/2009. Merry Christmas.
Do any of you actually pay attention to what goes on with bills and such things? It is all public information.
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How fortuitous. I just read an article regarding GE's new wind generator design.
1) It uses permanent magnets instead of electromagnets, so it does not need to draw power from the grid, nor does it need a starter motor.
2) The blade diameter is 376 feet. Carbon fiber with computer driven servo controls to vary pitch based on wind speed.
3) It does not have a gear case. This eliminates one of the major maintenance issues with a wind generator. This means it is direct drive.
4) The generator is a new design. 20 feet in diameter and weighing in at 90 tons. At 8 RPM is deliver 1.6MW. 8 RPM is reached with 7MPH winds. It produces a maximum of 4MW at 20 RPM. 4MW should cover about 3,000 homes.
5) Self-contained electronics condition the power to match the grid.
Sounds like a step forward. They are undergoing testing in the Netherlands right now.
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Federal subsidies total around $13 billion dollars U.S. for each nuclear plant. In the last 50 years the subsidies paid to power companies have exceeded $100 billion dollars U.S.
Admittedly, I'm not that knowledgeable regarding energy producers. However, I'd much rather spend $50 inside the US than spend $1 that is sent overseas, particularly to the Middle East.
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Up by Lake Benton, Minnesota they had some on the hills around there. It was a pretty cool sight on the horizon.
(http://i666.photobucket.com/albums/vv23/Jayhawk1/Picture010.jpg)
I'm really surprised with the number of anti-wind power people. Not doubting you sluggish, but where are you getting your numbers from?
Aren't they the ones that quit working when it got too cold? :D
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Federal subsidies total around $13 billion dollars U.S. for each nuclear plant. In the last 50 years the subsidies paid to power companies have exceeded $100 billion dollars U.S.
The actual costs to run the plants are slightly more efficient than a coal plant, with a caveat in the form of tax credits and subsidies. However, the initial build costs, and inevitable decommissioning costs end up driving the actual overall costs to a substantially higher figure. Without the subsidies and tax credits there is no way a power company could ever recoup the initial investment and decommissiong costs associated with nuclear.
Without fail, every place a nuclear plant has been added to the grid, the local customers have had to pay higher rates. Whether this is just a move by greedy power corporations who see an oppertunity to increase thier profits or due to actual costs associated with a nuclear plant is something I cannot answer. I can say, it has left a bad taste in the mouths of the customers who have to bear those costs increases.
I am one of those customers and our rates have increased 140%, with each increase being blamed on the costs associated with the nuclear power plant.
That has nothing to do with "tree huggers".
More subsidies are on the way. A tax credit of $0.018 cents per kilowatt/hour was allocated to nuclear in 2005. The tax credit assures nuclear will continue to be cheaper than coal, even though it is artificial. The latest offering will assure billions of dollars in additional subsidies to power companies who want to build nuclear plants. Apparently, the cost to build a plant has tripled, in the last decade, so the power companies need more money before considering deploying a nuclear based option. That passed in 12/2009. Merry Christmas.
Do any of you actually pay attention to what goes on with bills and such things? It is all public information.
This is true all utilities are governed by a State corp commission. The only reason they build a nuclear plant right now
is they are guaranteed to make a profit by law.
Everything your utility does goes on their cost of doing business sheet then they go to the corp commission and say look our cost of doing business is 3 billion a year we want our profit. That is how they justify rate increases.
We had a nuclear power plant here in AZ that got build and sat in the desert for years not producing power. But the utility say hey we spent all this money to build it we need to re coupe cost so they got a rate hike.
If you are guaranteed a profit why not spend as much money as you can 2% on 3 billion is much better that 2% on 100 million.
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I have no qualms about companies making a profit. I cannot claim they are making excess profit either. My main beef is this. While we are asked to pay higher rates to cover the costs of the nuclear power plants, we are also paying the taxes to cover the subsidies they are paid. They are draining the barrel at both ends.
Of course, they are also subsidizing wind power as well. I hove no personal experience with what a wind farm does to the rates of the customers, so I am not going to address it. I leave it to those who are feeding those farms.
At the end of the day, what is true cost per MW of power generated by any of these measures? Add in all the susidies and what it takes to run and maintain any of them over a 25 year (arbitrary number) period of time and what do we have?
The numbers exist, but they are a bear to dig out of all the chaff.
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If you ever fly into the DFW airport take a look out the window during the landing approach. There are several large wind mills that have been put up recently, that are quite large.
University of California Television, had a lecture on youtube about wind power that was interesting..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_YtsF02viM
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I have seen those wind farms, but I have no idea who is using them. What company owns them? Are they just testing, or are they actually being used to generate power?
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Are there ANY commercial wind farms that survive sans millions of tax dollars?
http://hawaiifreepress.com/main/ArticlesMain/tabid/56/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/1698/Wind-Energys-Ghosts.aspx
The voices of Kamaoa cry out their warning as a new batch of colonists, having looted the taxpayers of Spain, Portugal, and Greece, seeks to expand upon their multi-billion-dollar foothold half a world away on the shores of the distant Potomac River. European wind developers are fleeing the EU's expiring wind subsidies, shuttering factories, laying off workers, and leaving billions of Euros of sovereign debt and a continent-wide financial crisis in their wake. But their game is not over. Already they are tapping a new vein of lucre from the taxpayers and ratepayers of the United States.
The Waxman-Markey Cap-and-Trade Bill appears to be politically dead since Republican Scott Brown's paradigm-shattering Massachusetts Senate victory. But alternative proposals being floated by Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and others still promise billions of dollars to wind developers and commit the United States to generate as much as 20% of its electricity from so-called "renewable" sources.
The ghosts of Kamaoa are not alone in warning us. Five other abandoned wind sites dot the Hawaiian Isles -- but it is in California where the impact of past mandates and subsidies is felt most strongly. Thousands of abandoned wind turbines littered the landscape of wind energy's California "big three" locations -- Altamont Pass, Tehachapi, and San Gorgonio -- considered among the world's best wind sites.
Built in 1985, at the end of the boom, Kamaoa soon suffered from lack of maintenance. In 1994, the site lease was purchased by Redwood City, CA-based Apollo Energy.
Cannibalizing parts from the original 37 turbines, Apollo personnel kept the declining facility going with outdated equipment. But even in a place where wind-shaped trees grow sideways, maintenance issues were overwhelming. By 2004 Kamaoa accounts began to show up on a Hawaii State Department of Finance list of unclaimed properties. In 2006, transmission was finally cut off by Hawaii Electric Company.
California's wind farms -- then comprising about 80% of the world's wind generation capacity -- ceased to generate much more quickly than Kamaoa. In the best wind spots on earth, over 14,000 turbines were simply abandoned. Spinning, post-industrial junk which generates nothing but bird kills.
The City of Palm Springs was forced to enact an ordinance requiring their removal from San Gorgonio. But California's Kern County, encompassing the Tehachapi area, has no such law. Wind Power advocate Paul Gipe, who got his start as an early 1970s environmental activist at Indiana's Ball State University, describes a 1998 Tehachapi tour thusly:
"Our bus drove directly through the Tehachapi Gorge passing the abandoned Airtricity site with its derelict Storm Master and Wind-Matic turbines and the deserted Wind Source site with its defunct Aeroman machines. We also got a freeway-close glimpse of Zond's wind wall with its 400 Vestas V15 turbines, the former Arbutus site on rugged Pajuela Peak where only the Bonus turbines are still in service, and steep-sided Cameron Ridge topped with FloWind's few remaining Darrieus turbines before reaching SeaWest, our first stop.
"As we approached SeaWest from the desert town of Mojave, the old Micon 108s were spinning merrily, but the Mitsubishis with their higher start-up speed were just coming to life. SeaWest and Fluidyne had done a commendable job of cleaning the Mitsubishis of their infamous oil leaks for the tour's arrival."
(http://www.americanthinker.com/tehachapi-wind-turbines-p1.jpg)dead soldiers
But addressing a Heritage Foundation seminar last May, Dr. Gabriel Calzada, Professor of King Juan Carlos University in Madrid explained what Feed In Tariffs and other wind subsidies did to Spain (as well as Portugal and Greece) got into debt:
"The feed-in tariff... would make (utility) companies go bankrupt eventually. So...the government guarantees...to give back the money in the future -- when (they) are not going to be in the office any more. Slowly the market does not want to have these securities that they are selling. Right now there is a debt related to these renewable energies that nobody knows how it is going to be paid -- of 16 Billion Euros."
In early 2009 the Socialist government of Spain reduced alternative energy subsidies by 30%. Calzada continues:
"At that point the whole pyramid collapsed. They are firing thousands of people. BP closed down the two largest solar production plants in Europe. They are firing between 25,000 and 40,000 people...."
"What do we do with all this industry that we have been creating with subsidies that now is collapsing? The bubble is too big. We cannot continue pumping enough money. ...The President of the Renewable Industry in Spain (wrote a column arguing that) ...the only way is finding other countries that will give taxpayers' money away to our industry to take it and continue maintaining these jobs."
That "other country" is the United States of America.
Waxman-Markey seems dead, and Europe's southern periphery is bankrupt. But the wind-subsidy proposals being floated in Congress suggest that American political leaders have yet to understand that "green power" means generating electricity by burning dollars.
Maybe if someone invents the perfect, maint-free turbine, will these things be effective at a large scale level...but even if they ARE, the tax dollars that buy them seem to be going to
China
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According the pro-wind sites, wind energy costs about $0.5 per kilowatt hour. That is more than double the costs over nuclear power. They also get a $0.15 per kilowatt hour tax credit.
They also fully acknowledge the customer costs for power will increase as well. As to how much depends on the location.
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I think the plan is to make coal cost-prohibitive via endlessly increasing regulation, that nuke and wind won't seem so bad by comparison. I live in the coal-capital of the world. and my cost per kwatt has increased 25% in the last 3 years
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Good timing on an interesting article in the NYT this morning. What are your thoughts on this one war? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/business/energy-environment/19minireactor.html?ref=business (please read the article, not just the title :) )
Spent nuclear fuel is a problem, but it's a problem we already have, and have had since the 1950s. If the nuclear power programs ended today, we still have 50 some years worth of spent fuel that needs a safe depository. Some European country (cannot recall at the moment) is storing it under the ocean in I believe salt deposits. We have a mountain that is all ready to go, just need to hear the yes word, and we have a safe place to store it for the next few thousand years. Within that time the waste will of reached the same radioactive levels of topsoil.
There is even bacteria that eats through nuclear waste, and basically defecates concentrated radioactive material. So you could greatly shrink the size of the waste itself. We still have at least a decade, more if we expand our spent fuel pools, before we would be in a drastic-no-more-room to store it on site situation. But how safe do you feel in this day and age with 100 separate locations across the country storing spent fuel?
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We could easily lower the cost on Nuclear Power. Step 1 is upgrading the grid, this will also open the door for new renewable resource power production technologies. Without a new grid, you can throw a clean power producing future out the window. Build all the nuclear and wind farms you want, without a modern grid capable of reliably and cheaply handling the power, you will never bring cost down enough for the industry to take off.
Within 25 years, this country will be wanting more power than the grid is putting out. That means forced blackouts, and also accidental blackouts. Once the blackouts start occurring, they are going to get worse. If we wait until then it is going to be too late.
Wind/solar/hydro is great, nuclear is clean, natural gas is plentiful. But with an outdated grid, these technologies will remain expensive.
There is simply no other source of power that has been developed that is even close to the output nuclear can provide. A coal plant requires constant inflow of coal, to keep boiling water. Wind farms need to be absolutely massive (State size) to produce the same amount as a single Nuke. An existing nuclear plant only needs to be refueled every 2-6 years. About 10 train cars worth for that long ain't bad, look up how much coal gets burned in the same time to really see the difference.
We either need more coal plants, or more nuclear. Wind is never going to be an equal, it will only supplement gross output in small fractions.
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I have seen those wind farms, but I have no idea who is using them. What company owns them? Are they just testing, or are they actually being used to generate power?
I don't know who owns them. I suppose it's T. Boone Pickens...
It's amazing how large they are..
There is a highway from Thistle Cannon to Salt Lake City where there are three or four of them. They are so large you can see them from miles away. I didn't realize how large they were until we started getting closer. By the time we were right next to them to where we could see them in full scale it was just mind blowing how large they are. The blades alone look like they were as big as a football field. I don't know if the ones around DFW are as large but they looked like they were pretty good size too.
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That new wind generator GE is testing uses a prop that is 376 feet in diameter. That's another 25 yards larger than a football field. Being attached to 90 tons worth of generator, it needs to be pretty good size.
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This windmill appears to be emitting something.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKkTUY2slYQ&feature=related
I bet that smoke is far more toxic than anythig a coal burning power plant puts out.
Occam's razor applies here: don't you think that it's more probable that the windmill caught on fire?
(Not so)common sense does too: why aren't the rest of them emitting that?
Come on man, think about what you're saying first!
-Penguin
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Solar cells are a good way to go. With current state and federal grants they will pay for themselves in 10-15 years, possibly sooner if the price of electric goes up, my guess is a 200% price increase in 5-10 years. Solar cells require very little maintenance and last 30+ years. The key importance with solar energy is supplying power at the peak time which happens about the same time the sun is at its strongest. The peak power demands are 4-5 times during weekday afternoons than at 3:00am in the morning. This peak demand is the reason why blackouts occur on hot summer afternoons when the A/C's are cranking. We really need more solar and wind power.
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Solar and wind are nice, but they are the amperage equivalent of rolling a bb down the middle of a 6 lane highway. The lawyers who run our country are very idealistic, but certainly NOT electrical engineers
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According the pro-wind sites, wind energy costs about $0.5 per kilowatt hour. That is more than double the costs over nuclear power. They also get a $0.15 per kilowatt hour tax credit.
They also fully acknowledge the customer costs for power will increase as well. As to how much depends on the location.
In that case, small windfarms make much cheaper energy. Odd.....
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Solar cells are a good way to go. With current state and federal grants they will pay for themselves in 10-15 years, possibly sooner if the price of electric goes up, my guess is a 200% price increase in 5-10 years. Solar cells require very little maintenance and last 30+ years. The key importance with solar energy is supplying power at the peak time which happens about the same time the sun is at its strongest. The peak power demands are 4-5 times during weekday afternoons than at 3:00am in the morning. This peak demand is the reason why blackouts occur on hot summer afternoons when the A/C's are cranking. We really need more solar and wind power.
Odd little tidbit here, our nuke plant turns on it's diesel generators (2 very, very large ones) during spiking demand. We were doing that all the way back in 2003. Do you honestly think wind and solar will be able to increase the supply, to keep it larger than our demand in the next 20 years?
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Solar cells are a good way to go. With current state and federal grants they will pay for themselves in 10-15 years, possibly sooner if the price of electric goes up, my guess is a 200% price increase in 5-10 years. Solar cells require very little maintenance and last 30+ years. The key importance with solar energy is supplying power at the peak time which happens about the same time the sun is at its strongest. The peak power demands are 4-5 times during weekday afternoons than at 3:00am in the morning. This peak demand is the reason why blackouts occur on hot summer afternoons when the A/C's are cranking. We really need more solar and wind power.
Where do you think those grants come from?
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Solar cells are a good way to go. With current state and federal grants they will pay for themselves in 10-15 years, possibly sooner if the price of electric goes up, my guess is a 200% price increase in 5-10 years. Solar cells require very little maintenance and last 30+ years. The key importance with solar energy is supplying power at the peak time which happens about the same time the sun is at its strongest. The peak power demands are 4-5 times during weekday afternoons than at 3:00am in the morning. This peak demand is the reason why blackouts occur on hot summer afternoons when the A/C's are cranking. We really need more solar and wind power.
What if you live in a northern climate and have trees?
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In northern climates, electricity is often used for heating. There you can power your boiler on a wind-generator, using heated water as a "battery" for windstill days.
Another way of saving power for heating air would be visible here:
http://www.varmadaela.is/varmadaelur.html
These little devils use only a friction of the power that a normal heater does. About 1/5th I think.
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Unless you can put them at 36,000 feet windfarms are completely ridiculous and useless for many reasons.
The only options on the horizon for energy is fusion nuclear power and/or solid oxide fuel cells. Ceramic fuel cells possibly the best as they would do away with
the national power grids and networks.
<S>...-Gixer
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I work as a wind turbine technician at an industrial windfarm in northen Iowa. Our site has over 230 wind turbines installed on approximately 180 square miles of Iowa prime farmland. I don't particularly like the sight of 260' wind turbines stretching to the horizon, but that is the American model of development. I've also worked on them in Ireland and England and their sites tended to be in remote locations (like on mountains or highlands) with typically less than a dozen machines. I prefer that model of development but differences in land ownership complications and expectations of corporate profits give rise to these mega projects. It does cast an industrial aura to a rural landscape, but in all honesty northern Iowa already is industrial - industrial agriculture. The creeks have been straightened; trees and brush removed from their banks, virtually every bit of arable land is plowed. Hog confinement buildings are numerous and the concentrated odor from the excrement of hundreds of pigs carries on the breeze.
I have worked at the Iowa site more than a year and have seen only one animal obivously killed by the turbine and that was a bat. Most people assume the spinning blades confuse the bat's echolocation abilities and they fly into the blades, but there is a recent study that indicated it was the difference in air pressure between the front and back side of the blades that ruptures the bat's lungs.
I've been exposed to several designs of turbines and have never seen one with a diesel engine in it to get it started spinning. I would like to know more about that model. In my experience the wind is usually sufficient to get them turning. Our model begins producing at wind speeds of 4 m/s, and cuts out if the wind exceeds 25 m/s for ten minutes. So that's a pretty fair operating range.
Gixer's idea to install them at 36,000 feet would handicap their production a great deal, owing to the much less dense air at that altitude. I do like his suggestion to do away with the national grid in favor of decentralization (the way it was when I grew up). Interconnecting regional grids, privatizing producers and turning electricity into a commodity to be traded has put alot of pressure on our grid, and also allowed for price manipulation schemes like the one that caused the California energy crisis in 2000-2001.
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The issue with the wind turbine is the environmental effects (short and long term). Yea, they are a clean way of producing energy but their presents will cause other land environmental problems. As oboe said, the blades will kill the bats as studies showed. It will not be long before you see migratory birds that are killed by the blades. Many land owners will give up their land for the money or at least that is the case in Kansas. They are neat to see once but after that they pollute the land scape.
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There's a proposal to develop 3700 acres of farmland a couple of miles from here into a wind farm for electricity. The idea does not impress me. And it's not a case of NIMBY.
Anybody have any experience with these things?
It's better than having your water, land, forests and mountains ruined by strip mining for coal.
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Wind is still not my "favorite" type of power, which goes hands down to solar.
What? :O But what happens at night or when there is an eclipse or . . . .
Coal is the solution! Burn baby burn :rofl
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There are more ways to generate power today, than ever before.
1) Micky D's has been experimenting with in ground generators driven by cars that drive through the drive-thourgh window. It operates as a car rolls over a bump its weight presses down driving a flywheel which operates a generator. They have reported a 38% reduction in power used off the grid with the system.
2) In road power generation. Experiments underway that use the vibrations of vehicles driving over the freeways to create electricity.
3) Elevators that regenerate power as they are operating.
4) Trains using regenerative braking systems to feed power back into the grid as they stop.
There are many others. These are all supplemental systems designed to ease the load on the grid by providing localized power. I really think these are outstanding solutions and a good goal to shoot for.
De-centralizing the grid should help reduce the costs of maintaining it. It would also be less likely to potentially cascade fail and take out whole sections of the country if a problem did arise.
My opinion.
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solar makes great sense to me in one respect......
when the sun is shining, and it damn hot out, that's when you use it to run your a/c
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The issue with the wind turbine is the environmental effects (short and long term). Yea, they are a clean way of producing energy but their presents will cause other land environmental problems. As oboe said, the blades will kill the bats as studies showed. It will not be long before you see migratory birds that are killed by the blades. Many land owners will give up their land for the money or at least that is the case in Kansas. They are neat to see once but after that they pollute the land scape.
I'm saying for the amount of electricity produced at our site over a year, one bat death doesn't seem that significant. All forms of energy production will surely have some drawbacks. Bat mortality does appear to be an issue with wind turbines and needs to be studied to find the cause and minimize the effect on bat populations. Could be as simple as increasing the setback from known bat roosting areas, or prohibiting the construction of large windfarms near sizeable bat populations. I think if the farms posed a danger to migratory birds I would've seen some dead birds on site by now - there is a wetland area within the site that would attract waterfowl. Also all the pheasants around here don't seem to have a problem.
Wind has a place in the energy production mix for sure, I'm just in favor of smart siting and less dense developments.
Also, the turbines run quietly. They should be no louder than the sound of the wind through the corn leaves in summer. They can be very loud however if the yaw brake system is malfunctioning and the yaw brakes drag. That noise can range from a loud hammering sound to something that sounds like a dinosaur mating call. Definitely an indication the turbine needs service.
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interesting article from the financial post here:
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2009/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster.aspx
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If the cost of energy keeps increasing continuously, how about reducing the amount of energy spent?
Camo
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OI am thinking out loud here, so here goes.
There would seem to be a potential downside to reducing our electrical usage. Bear with me.
When we reduce our usage, the income for the power companies is also reduced. Keep in mind their long term maintenance goals requires X amount of money, regardless of usage patterns. If there is a substantial drop in demand for any period of time, would the power companies have to request rate hikes to cover the shortfall in projected maintenance costs?
Long term reduced demand would seem to need to be scheduled and coordinated with the utility in order for them to get rid of or shut down equipment no longer needed.
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i dont know bout the lack of usage for me on this skuzzy, my kids NEVER like to shut anything off when they are supposed to, so I think my bill alone is pretty close to many in this world if they have kids also. I think together we all can keep the electric companies up and running just fine hehe.
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Gixer's idea to install them at 36,000 feet would handicap their production a great deal, owing to the much less dense air at that altitude.
Less dense air is outweighed by the fact it blows constantly at 70 to 150mph obviously you wouldn't have a mill of the same design at those altitudes, it possibly wouldn't even be a mill at all. But any sort of wind power is next to useless ground level or even by running cables to 30,000 feet. It's just another industry that's riding the back of the greenies carbon con wave at the moment and milking it for all it's worth as long as they can..
Wind turbines are more about politics then actual significant alternative energy production.
The only real future energy sources that can completely change the worlds energy generation and distriubution are fusion and/or fuel cells. Windfarms just add a few watts to the grid that's powered by the coal station down the road and through the exisiting highly inefficent grid.
<S>...-Gixer
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a little off topic,
But how many here have tried the ecosmart light bulbs?
I bought a 100 watt equilvlant that is only suppose to use 27 watts for my home office..
They are suppose to last twice as long as an "incandescent light bulb"..
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I'm saying for the amount of electricity produced at our site over a year, one bat death doesn't seem that significant. All forms of energy production will surely have some drawbacks. Bat mortality does appear to be an issue with wind turbines and needs to be studied to find the cause and minimize the effect on bat populations. Could be as simple as increasing the setback from known bat roosting areas, or prohibiting the construction of large windfarms near sizeable bat populations. I think if the farms posed a danger to migratory birds I would've seen some dead birds on site by now - there is a wetland area within the site that would attract waterfowl. Also all the pheasants around here don't seem to have a problem.
Wind has a place in the energy production mix for sure, I'm just in favor of smart siting and less dense developments.
Also, the turbines run quietly. They should be no louder than the sound of the wind through the corn leaves in summer. They can be very loud however if the yaw brake system is malfunctioning and the yaw brakes drag. That noise can range from a loud hammering sound to something that sounds like a dinosaur mating call. Definitely an indication the turbine needs service.
I really do not know what the mortality rate is on bats. But i do know that it has to be at a certain levels for scientist to study on why it is at that level. As for migratory birds or any birds, I have not yet heard any cases. I am sure there is a mortality rate at low levels to be as common as to being hit by cars or air planes.
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oboe, quick question for ya...if you had 1,000 of your wind turbines, how many MW is that, roughly?
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a little off topic,
But how many here have tried the ecosmart light bulbs?
I bought a 100 watt equilvlant that is only suppose to use 27 watts for my home office..
They are suppose to last twice as long as an "incandescent light bulb"..
I have had them in my house for the last 5 years. I think I have replaced one of them. Australia banned the use of incandescent light bulbs in 2007.
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solar makes great sense to me in one respect......
when the sun is shining, and it damn hot out, that's when you use it to run your a/c
You can use energy from air-cooling/condition to heat up your boiler. Unless you live in a place hot enough to require only cooling and cold showers ;)
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oboe, quick question for ya...if you had 1,000 of your wind turbines, how many MW is that, roughly?
I am not oboe, but 1,000 of the GE design would be 4,000MW.
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I hope this image works, anyway, our (Iceland) biggest hydro-powerstation only performs 690 MW. It's a monstrosity, but nothing close to the total of the hoover dam's 2080 MW.
Here it is:
(http://www.bb.is/lisalib/getfile.aspx?itemid=41163)
So, the wind-complex is much bigger. Not as big as this though, whooping 14.000 MW. Link here.
http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/hybiggest.html
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oboe, quick question for ya...if you had 1,000 of your wind turbines, how many MW is that, roughly?
Nameplate capacity on my company's wind turbine is 2.5MW, so 1000 would 2500 MW. Not as big as the new GEs, but they have a 10MW model in development. Always a race to make the biggest. GEs are very well-designed machines. There are 144 of their 1.5MW model installed at the site I work at.
National Geographic has a simple but kind of cool interactive graphic whichs demonstrates the relationship between energy output and blade diameter, wind speed, and altitude. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/wind-power-interactive/ (http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/wind-power-interactive/)
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Angus, how is the geo-thermal project coming along?
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Skuzzy about the downside of electricity demand what you talk about happened here in Florida.
Basically everybody started to conserve / use less electricty by various means. FP&L reacted by raising everybody's rates since there was less demand.
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Speaking of mini- nuc reactors... looks like Bill Gates has taken an interest...
Mini-reactors could last up to 100 years without refuelling, unlike today's units which need replenishing every few years.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8582692.stm
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Angus, how is the geo-thermal project coming along?
Good....and bad.
Lots of energy can be tapped off as steam energy, with or without pumping water into deep layers of lava rock. However there is some concern about whether Pandora's box is being opened, since some nasty side effects are encountered, - i.e. poisonus gases and such. As well as the stink of fart or rotten eggs :D
Here is one, 213 MW:
http://www.or.is/UmOR/Veiturogveitusvaedi/Virkjanir/Hellisheidarvirkjun/
Link to areal pictures:
http://fraedsla.or.is/raforka/?v=2jardvarmavirkjanir/2hellisheidi
With deep drillings, new areas worldwide would be opened up for this kind of electrical production. Costs are going rapidly down, as the techniques involved get steadily more refined.
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There was also that one company that had to shut down its geo-thermal operations due to it causing earthquakes. Seems the steam was finding its way inbetween plates, acting like a lubricant, making it easier for the plates to slide around.
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There was also that one company that had to shut down its geo-thermal operations due to it causing earthquakes. Seems the steam was finding its way inbetween plates, acting like a lubricant, making it easier for the plates to slide around.
I wonder if this company hit upon a way to prevent mega-quakes?
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a little off topic,
But how many here have tried the ecosmart light bulbs?
I bought a 100 watt equilvlant that is only suppose to use 27 watts for my home office..
They are suppose to last twice as long as an "incandescent light bulb"..
If I wanted my effing light to turn on 2 minutes from now I'd have turned it on 2 minutes aGO :furious
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If I wanted my effing light to turn on 2 minutes from now I'd have turned it on 2 minutes aGO :furious
Many of them come on just as fast as the incandescent bulbs do. I have been using CFL's for several years now and have no issues with them and the only one I have replaced was the one I broke in my basement.
My advice is don't buy the cheapest ones you can find. Those are usually the ones that take a few seconds to come on after throwing the switch.
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The CFL's in my home turn on instantly. Been using them for years. I have never seen one that took any time at all to come on.
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I run a power plant for the FAA,
I hate wind mills. every time the wind picks up a knot or two we get a power surge, when the wind drops a knot or two we get a power sag. This affect the power grid like some one pounding on the grid with a nuke, I spend enormous amounts of time compensating for power fluctuations. The wind farms are unwilling to spend the billions needed to smooth out the power, putting that onus on the grid, but the grid is just wires hooking up power systems. Switching farms cause problems power fluctuations make it worse.
Perhaps the best wind system is the solar tower http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower)
And for nukes, the pebble bed reactor, like the ones being shipped to Finland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor)
Yeah I know they are "Wikis" but the supporting links are interesting.
Regards,
Kevin
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For the same reason, I'd use my own wind mill to heat the boiler. Basically my theory that wind mills could contribute the most (for the beginning) by lifting some weight from the grid instead of adding to it. The fluctuations are too great. However, the equipment to level out the "swings" has been getting better.
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Unfortunately that equipment is expensive, in my plant it runs about two million a megawatt. No one wants to pay that bill, which leaves the grid unstable. I see it every day.
Regards,
Kevin
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Let's see....wind power capacity in Ontario is 1,100 Mw.
right now It's producing 56Mw. that's 5.1% capacity.
Am I the only one that thinks this technology is retarded?
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Let's see....wind power capacity in Ontario is 1,100 Mw.
right now It's producing 56Mw. that's 5.1% capacity.
Am I the only one that thinks this technology is retarded?
Depends what technology are you talking about.
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Let's see....wind power capacity in Ontario is 1,100 Mw.
right now It's producing 56Mw. that's 5.1% capacity.
Am I the only one that thinks this technology is retarded?
I think you need more datapoints before condemning an entire technology. There can be reasons for the discrepancy that you're unaware of.
For example, sometimes on windy days, our turbines are shut down remotely by the wind farm owners(production curtailment). It has nothing to do with the machines ability to produce power that day but is a ownership decision based on spot-pricing of power and grid management issues. It irks me alot, because it skews our production numbers and will cause people to draw incorrect conclusions from the numbers.
We've also been down on windy days due to work on the grid substations. Same idea, not the turbine's fault at all. It makes me doubt the saying "numbers don't lie".
Just saying its complicated.
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How much does a home owner in the USA have to pay for a KWh ?
Roughly?
Very interested in suburbs and rural.
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How much does a home owner in the USA have to pay for a KWh ?
Roughly?
Very interested in suburbs and rural.
Handy table of info you requested...
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
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Everythings big in Texas...
Texas 11.81 13.15 9.47 10.66 6.82 8.21 9.93 9.89 9.64 10.85
:cry
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Wholy cow, this is more expensive than in Iceland rural! (We pay a lot more than the people in the capital, however they are more numerous and decide the price :mad:). My bill is about 9 cents per KW.
In my case, we have our hot water via a boiler. Takes 2KW and contains 300 liters. Since we run a guesthouse, and normally have a reasonably big household, the boiler is practically always on for a good part of the day, then it rests a bit. ( avg 17 showers taken each day, + dish-washing etc) .So, I have a good reason to belive, that if the boiler was bigger, or just 2 of them, I could heat it with a windmill. Lookie here:
(http://www.kleinwindanlagen.de/assets/images/Inclin_3000.jpg)
This little cutie (link http://www.kleinwindanlagen.de/html/inclin_3000.html) will give me a KW at only 5 m/s which is the average wind where I live. It might do and the price is 5.000 Euros (6666 $ today). Avg. performance would be 24x365=8460, in my price close to 800 USD (in your price more), so almost 1/8 of the investment in one year.
Actually our average wind is not the best figure, it's more shifting between calm and breezy, which indicates according to the power curve, that the output could be slightly more.
The only problem remaining is interest rates, since they would suck up the profit. Evil, aren't they....