Texas will open land, sea for wind power

[charrison]

linkage

AUSTIN -- Officials at the state General Land Office are hoping winds from the Gulf Coast could soon supply a surge to light living rooms, run refrigerators and power personal computers in Texas.

Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson will announce today that his office will accept bids from companies that want to lease state lands to build and operate windmills to generate power. The lands are scattered throughout the state, including some in the Gulf of Mexico.

Through the General Land Office, Texas leases land it owns for oil drilling. The state then makes royalties, which are deposited into a school trust fund called the Permanent School Fund. The land office wants to apply that same program to leases for developing wind power.

"In five years, I think we are going to be doing a lot of wind business. But we can't wait for five years to start. We've got to start now," Patterson said.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Good stuff. Nice clean wind

CkG

 

[burnedout]

There is a fairly large windfarm up off I-20 near Abilene. Glad to see that some in government are pushing for this.

 

[Corn]

Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

Flies are considered migrating Birds in Texas?

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Red Dawn

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

Flies are considered migrating Birds in Texas?

have you seen the flies? they're *spreads hands* THIS BIG!

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

Too late - they've conducted studies on bird kills here in Iowa. People went out in the corn fields around these wind farms and counted the dead birds and charted their location. Must not have been much evidence - otherwise it'd be all over the news.

Boy I wish I would have gotten that grant to go count frickin dead birds

CkG

 

[outriding]

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

why dont you start by never turning your pc on again.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: outriding

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

why dont you start by never turning your pc on again.

You could probably start by turning on your sarcasm meter

CkG

 

[Corn]

why dont you start by never turning your pc on again.

Is this an example of the general quality I can expect of your posts?

So what's your problem with my post? Don't like the sarcasm aimed at the EnviroNazis or did you just not pick up on it at all and thought I was one of them? Do elaborate so I may file for future reference.

 

[Corn]

Is this an example of the general quality I can expect of your posts?

After a quick search of his posts, I can without hesitation say that yes indeed, that was about as good as it gets with outriding.

CkG, his sarcasm detector was working just fine, he's one of "them" and simply didn't like my tone. Typical liberal mentality: free speech is fine as long as he agree's with whatever it is you are saying. If not, shut up!

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Corn

why dont you start by never turning your pc on again.

Is this an example of the general quality I can expect of your posts?

So what's your problem with my post? Don't like the sarcasm aimed at the EnviroNazis or did you just not pick up on it at all and thought I was one of them? Do elaborate so I may file for future reference.

Ahaha. Like the rest of us he was probably puzzeled that you even brought it up as it had nothing to do with this topic. However it did make for some interesting Thread Hijacking fodder

 

[MonkeyK]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

Too late - they've conducted studies on bird kills here in Iowa. People went out in the corn fields around these wind farms and counted the dead birds and charted their location. Must not have been much evidence - otherwise it'd be all over the news.

Boy I wish I would have gotten that grant to go count frickin dead birds

CkG

As I recall, the problem was nobody counted how many dead birds there were before the wind farms...

Birds follow migration paths. We can learn if the proposed wind farm site is in one of them.

 

[Corn]

Like the rest of us he was probably puzzeled that you even brought it up as it had nothing to do with this topic.

What? C'mon Red, you being from California must know of the controversy regarding these wind farms and their unfortunate effect on various species of fowl. The most common complaint isn't the concept of wind farms themselves--just their placement. You know, in places where it's windy most of the time--costal areas and mountains.....places that birds tend to congregate.

Wind farms belong in the desert--away from the flocks, where the wind also doesn't blow......

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: MonkeyK

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: Corn
Oh yes, the wind is nice and clean......until migrating birds attempt to land on the windmills. Then the air will be polluted with blood and feathers--followed shortly by the cries of the Sierra Club or Audubon Society that we are barbarians for la machining our feathered friends simply for our own disgusting lust for energy.

Too late - they've conducted studies on bird kills here in Iowa. People went out in the corn fields around these wind farms and counted the dead birds and charted their location. Must not have been much evidence - otherwise it'd be all over the news.

Boy I wish I would have gotten that grant to go count frickin dead birds

CkG

As I recall, the problem was nobody counted how many dead birds there were before the wind farms...

Birds follow migration paths. We can learn if the proposed wind farm site is in one of them.

Or maybe it was because there weren't alot of dead birds

Migration paths? Sure - I don't have a problem keeping a their paths somewhat open.

CkG

 

[Red Dawn]

Originally posted by: Corn

Like the rest of us he was probably puzzeled that you even brought it up as it had nothing to do with this topic.

What? C'mon Red, you being from California must know of the controversy regarding these wind farms and their unfortunate effect on various species of fowl. The most common complaint isn't the concept of wind farms themselves--just their placement. You know, in places where it's windy most of the time--costal areas and mountains.....places that birds tend to congregate.

Wind farms belong in the desert--away from the flocks, where the wind also doesn't blow......

The ones I am familiar with in California are in Livermore where the hills are so sparse and barren due to the windy conditions that I don't believe that migrating birds would even stop to roost. I know that I wouldn't stop there an my way to greener pastures

 

[sandorski]

re dead birds: Why don't they just put a grill of some sort on the windmills?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: sandorski
re dead birds: Why don't they just put a grill of some sort on the windmills?

Have you seen the size of these Windmills?
IMO a grill would possibly kill more birds due to entaglement than birds getting chopped up by the 2-3 blades these things have.

CkG

 

[illustri]

i cant believe the windmills move fast enough to kill a bird, the ones on i-10 here near palm springs, which is supposedly one of the windiest (SP?) parts of cali are huge, lumbering things that a bi plane could do tricks through

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: sandorski
re dead birds: Why don't they just put a grill of some sort on the windmills?

Have you seen the size of these Windmills?
IMO a grill would possibly kill more birds due to entaglement than birds getting chopped up by the 2-3 blades these things have.

CkG

Not in RL, just pics. I'd imagine that birds are getting killed mainly because they can't see the blades, so if a "grill" was addrd they could see where not to fly and hence not become entangled either.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: CADkindaGUY

Originally posted by: sandorski
re dead birds: Why don't they just put a grill of some sort on the windmills?

Have you seen the size of these Windmills?
IMO a grill would possibly kill more birds due to entaglement than birds getting chopped up by the 2-3 blades these things have.

CkG

Not in RL, just pics. I'd imagine that birds are getting killed mainly because they can't see the blades, so if a "grill" was addrd they could see where not to fly and hence not become entangled either.

These thing can border on monsterous. Here is a page that talks about the size. Now keep in mind that these "blades" don't rotate all that fast. You can see them turn and even when it is windy they are adjustible(the new ones) so they don't spin too fast Alta, Iowa Windfarm

Edit - more pics

Edit 2look at the pickup

CkG

 

[CaptnKirk]

"Wind farms belong in the desert--away from the flocks, where the wind also doesn't blow......"

Ever lived in the Lancaster or Palmdale area ? Antelope valley, just over the hill from Burbank.
Trees grow at a 45 degree angle to the ground - perdominant wind eastboud from the costal mountains.
Seems that since the sun rises over the East coast the inland ground temperature make the air rise
over the middle of the continent, and the cool pacific air mass rises over the mountain range and then
spills down the eastern slope as it rushes in to fill the lowered pressure gradient from the solar heat engine.

Cajon Pass on I-15 is where the northern ridge heads west - San Andres Fault. The eastern bound air flow
runs the ridge and is funneled through an area where it is not uncommon to stop Trucks, Busses, flat side vehicles
as the Huricane Canyon effect will produce wind velocities near 100 MPH.

Good place for a windfarm - the birds have to crawl on the ground to get around, to be safe.
Here's Tehachapi
Mojave

Now considering how huge these things are, if you use a grill for the birds - it better be a Weber Cooker.
They are just too big to cover, so we might as well just tail-gate.

 

[rahvin]

AFAIK wind turbines have almost no recorded incidents of any birds ever being harmed by them. Birds aren't so stupid that they land on the blades. Wind power now costs almost the same to generate as fossil fuel generated power. Expect to see huge growth in the number of wind farms in this country over the next decade, especially since the rise in oil prices and rise in expenses related to coal.

 

[CADsortaGUY]

Originally posted by: CaptnKirk
<STRONG>"Wind farms belong in the desert--away from the flocks, where the wind also doesn't blow......"</STRONG>

Ever lived in the Lancaster or Palmdale area ? Antelope valley, just over the hill from Burbank.
Trees grow at a 45 degree angle to the ground - perdominant wind eastboud from the costal mountains.
Seems that since the sun rises over the East coast the inland ground temperature make the air rise
over the middle of the continent, and the cool pacific air mass rises over the mountain range and then
spills down the eastern slope as it rushes in to fill the lowered pressure gradient from the solar heat engine.

Cajon Pass on I-15 is where the northern ridge heads west - San Andres Fault. The eastern bound air flow
runs the ridge and is funneled through an area where it is not uncommon to stop Trucks, Busses, flat side vehicles
as the Huricane Canyon effect will produce wind velocities near 100 MPH.

Good place for a windfarm - the birds have to crawl on the ground to get around, to be safe.
Here's Tehachapi
Mojave

Now considering how huge these things are, if you use a grill for the birds - it better be a Weber Cooker.
They are just too big to cover, so we might as well just tail-gate.

Windy is good but from what I've read 8-15Mph of relatively consistant wind is the best. Anything that gets too much faster or gusty causes structural problems and higher maintenance and repair costs. I'm sure they are geared lower and the "wing" angle is adjusted appropriately though.

It's good to see that we seem to have quite a consensus here in the forum. Good to have a "bi-partisan" topic every once in a while

CkG