Wind study blows nuke and coal out of the water

[Moonbeam]

A study published this week by the National Academy of Sciences says that wind power has a tremendous potential to solve our energy demands now and in the future, many times over, even if the wind turbines operate at just 20% of that capacity.

Link

Here is an abstract of the study:

The analysis indicates that a network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines
restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20%of their
rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption
of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms.
Resources in the contiguous United States, specifically in the central
plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current
demand for electricity in the United States.

One of the authors of the study talks about it on Science Friday.

If this is true, why wait 8,10,12 years for nuclear power? Or "clean" coal?

The above picked up from NPR's Science Friday and Ira Flatow.

We need to get moving on alternatives.

 

[spidey07]

That's pretty interesting but I always wonder if we're not screwing with weather or the climate by using wind energy. Something of this magnitude/scale would surely disrupt the global climate.

 

[extra]

Originally posted by: spidey07
That's pretty interesting but I always wonder if we're not screwing with weather or the climate by using wind energy. Something of this magnitude/scale would surely disrupt the global climate.

I really really doubt this. The volume of air in the atmosphere is so incredibly massive compared to the amount that would ever pass through these turbines.

 

[MotF Bane]

Cape Wind was proposed over seven years ago, and they still don't even have authorization to build it, let alone the actual building process. Wind is no faster to establish than nuclear.

 

[cubeless]

Originally posted by: extra

Originally posted by: spidey07
That's pretty interesting but I always wonder if we're not screwing with weather or the climate by using wind energy. Something of this magnitude/scale would surely disrupt the global climate.

I really really doubt this. The volume of air in the atmosphere is so incredibly massive compared to the amount that would ever pass through these turbines.

that's what everybody thought about cow farts and burps a few years back...

they planted some trees on a ridge on a hawiaan island and changed it's weather pattern...

wait until the low frequency waves being pumped into the ground make all the whales beach themselves...

nobody knows what the outcome of any of the things we do today will be...

but i say "go for it!!!"...

but all the windmills have to be american made... and they have to be apportioned in a ratio to the available wind in locations based on the energy per person use of the area... so the kennedy's get a few to look at up in hyanusport...

 

[dphantom]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A study published this week by the National Academy of Sciences says that wind power has a tremendous potential to solve our energy demands now and in the future, many times over, even if the wind turbines operate at just 20% of that capacity.

Link

Here is an abstract of the study:

The analysis indicates that a network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines
restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20%of their
rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption
of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms.
Resources in the contiguous United States, specifically in the central
plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current
demand for electricity in the United States.

One of the authors of the study talks about it on Science Friday.

If this is true, why wait 8,10,12 years for nuclear power? Or "clean" coal?

The above picked up from NPR's Science Friday and Ira Flatow.

We need to get moving on alternatives.

And the same could be said for solar, geothermal and tidal. All can provide more energy than currently consumed. The right argument is what energy is available, transportable and cost competitive. Solar and wind have a ways to go but are getting there fast. Coal, gas and nuclear are the best today.

Plus, we will have consequences the greenies are ignoring right now.
Noise from wind farms
Environemental disruption from millions of acres of solar panels
Drilling for geothermal in environmentally sensitive areas

There is no panacea. The market will bring us the energy we demand at a price we will pay.

 

[CPA]

Originally posted by: MotF Bane
Cape Wind was proposed over seven years ago, and they still don't even have authorization to build it, let alone the actual building process. Wind is no faster to establish than nuclear.

And do you know why that is? I'll give you a hint: The Kennedy Compound is in eyesight of the proposed turbines.

 

[imported_inspire]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
A study published this week by the National Academy of Sciences says that wind power has a tremendous potential to solve our energy demands now and in the future, many times over, even if the wind turbines operate at just 20% of that capacity.

Link

Here is an abstract of the study:

The analysis indicates that a network of land-based 2.5-megawatt (MW) turbines
restricted to nonforested, ice-free, nonurban areas operating at as little as 20%of their
rated capacity could supply >40 times current worldwide consumption
of electricity, >5 times total global use of energy in all forms.
Resources in the contiguous United States, specifically in the central
plain states, could accommodate as much as 16 times total current
demand for electricity in the United States.

One of the authors of the study talks about it on Science Friday.

If this is true, why wait 8,10,12 years for nuclear power? Or "clean" coal?

The above picked up from NPR's Science Friday and Ira Flatow.

We need to get moving on alternatives.

I'll have to put my NPR Science podcast on and have a listen. All good figures, but as someone pointed out, the execution of all this is going to take money, and it may not be economically palatable.

On the flip side, of the United States' great natural resources, water and wind rank towards the top. We have a natural wind corridor that runs through some of the most sparsely populated land in the country. To not leverage that seems a bit silly.

That being said, I'd rather not make T. Boone Pickens a mega-gajillionaire through gov't. subsidies for a wind power infrastructure. That's not a categorical feeling - just my druthers.

 

[soccerballtux]

Originally posted by: extra

Originally posted by: spidey07
That's pretty interesting but I always wonder if we're not screwing with weather or the climate by using wind energy. Something of this magnitude/scale would surely disrupt the global climate.

I really really doubt this. The volume of air in the atmosphere is so incredibly massive compared to the amount that would ever pass through these turbines.

That's what we said about CO2 and look where it got us.

 

[PokerGuy]

Solar, geothermal etc all have the same massive potential for gathering energy, but each has problems that make massive adoption undesirable.

For example, wind energy is fine, you can caputure lots of energy -- while the wind is blowing. When it dies down, you get nothing. That means you need to somehow capture and store the energy, which (with present technology) is extremely inefficient.

Nuclear, on the other hand, can produce a constant amount of power, theoretically you should not have to save or store it somewhere.

Plus, do you really think you could just say "yeah, just go ahead and build 50,000 windmills in Nebraska, they won't mind". It just doesn't work that way.

 

[nullzero]

Wind is horrible on a large scale; It disrupts migratory birds (kills them as well), screws up wind pollination, creates micro climates (with the potential for regional climate change), turbulence for airplanes, causes dust storms and strong gusts of wind.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: CPA
And do you know why that is? I'll give you a hint: The Kennedy Compound is in eyesight of the proposed turbines.

wind power, but only where poor people can see it!


frankly i think seeing neat rows of wind turbines offshore would be neat. then again, our water is brown with nutrients.

 

[K1052]

Still substantially more expensive per kWh.

Wind power will have it's place but will never be a replacement for fixed base load generation. I'd much prefer we phase out our coal plants for the new generation(s) of nuclear plants which are more efficient, even safer, and would enable us to start practically considering a hydrogen economy.

 

[shrumpage]

Our town is putting in three wind turbines on a local mountain, should be active this summer. They are being built to suplement the hydro power and lower our use on diesel generation.

If you have never been up close to one, they are huge. Seeing them set atop a mountain in a wilderness area is a little odd, but it isn't that big of a deal. The only concern that I've heard people voice is the noise potential and access to the mountain being limited.

I'm all for it.

 

[miketheidiot]

i built wind turbines blades 2 summers ago, and i can confirm they are fucking enormous and also shoddily made. Also, by the sounds of this article they are saying you would have to cover roughly 2.5% of non-forest/non-ice land surface?

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Solar, geothermal etc all have the same massive potential for gathering energy, but each has problems that make massive adoption undesirable.

For example, wind energy is fine, you can caputure lots of energy -- while the wind is blowing. When it dies down, you get nothing. That means you need to somehow capture and store the energy, which (with present technology) is extremely inefficient.

Nuclear, on the other hand, can produce a constant amount of power, theoretically you should not have to save or store it somewhere.

Plus, do you really think you could just say "yeah, just go ahead and build 50,000 windmills in Nebraska, they won't mind". It just doesn't work that way.

with a national grid, it has to be blowing somewhere at any given point, so there would be electrical generation at a fairly constant rate on a national scale. sure, this won't work if you only try to do it on a local/regional scale.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Solar, geothermal etc all have the same massive potential for gathering energy, but each has problems that make massive adoption undesirable.

For example, wind energy is fine, you can caputure lots of energy -- while the wind is blowing. When it dies down, you get nothing. That means you need to somehow capture and store the energy, which (with present technology) is extremely inefficient.

Nuclear, on the other hand, can produce a constant amount of power, theoretically you should not have to save or store it somewhere.

Plus, do you really think you could just say "yeah, just go ahead and build 50,000 windmills in Nebraska, they won't mind". It just doesn't work that way.

No, it's cool, I don't mind. We're already working on a bunch of them. I see the blades for them on big rigs on the highway on a semi-regular basis. Hardly anybody lives in Western Nebraska where most of them are going anyway. I don't mind seeing any of the wind farms I drive past in any case.
We also have nuclear power here, BTW

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: soccerballtux

Originally posted by: extra

Originally posted by: spidey07
That's pretty interesting but I always wonder if we're not screwing with weather or the climate by using wind energy. Something of this magnitude/scale would surely disrupt the global climate.

I really really doubt this. The volume of air in the atmosphere is so incredibly massive compared to the amount that would ever pass through these turbines.

That's what we said about CO2 and look where it got us.

Seeing as CO2 is released as a result of temperature and not the other way around - I have to conclude that unfounded concerns are still just that.

Let the wind farms rip, and let Darwinism resolve all the birds who dare to fly into them.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: PokerGuy
Solar, geothermal etc all have the same massive potential for gathering energy, but each has problems that make massive adoption undesirable.

For example, wind energy is fine, you can caputure lots of energy -- while the wind is blowing. When it dies down, you get nothing. That means you need to somehow capture and store the energy, which (with present technology) is extremely inefficient.

Nuclear, on the other hand, can produce a constant amount of power, theoretically you should not have to save or store it somewhere.

Plus, do you really think you could just say "yeah, just go ahead and build 50,000 windmills in Nebraska, they won't mind". It just doesn't work that way.

Huh? You can store energy easily and relatively efficiently. All you need to do is convert it to heat.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: ElFenix

Originally posted by: CPA
And do you know why that is? I'll give you a hint: The Kennedy Compound is in eyesight of the proposed turbines.

wind power, but only where poor people can see it!


frankly i think seeing neat rows of wind turbines offshore would be neat. then again, our water is brown with nutrients.

Everyone who takes welfare should be forced to install one of these things outside their windows

 

[zephyrprime]

This isn't news. It's already well known that there's a lot of potential wind power to be had; more than is needed to satisfy current usage.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: miketheidiot
i built wind turbines blades 2 summers ago, and i can confirm they are fucking enormous and also shoddily made. Also, by the sounds of this article they are saying you would have to cover roughly 2.5% of non-forest/non-ice land surface?

Butte Colorado?

 

[Modelworks]

A big problem with wind power is people.
There was a couple in NC that wanted to put up a wind turbine, but could not because people living about 1 mile away complained it would hurt their property value. That and they didn't want to have to look at it.

I could see every house having a vertical sail design generator to at least offset some of the cost of electricity, but it will not happen because people will complain about how it looks. So that leaves it with only being used in wind farms or out in rural areas .


here is the story
http://www.windaction.org/news/13985

There may be gold blowing in the wind if a Raleigh couple succeeds in building a wind farm in Carteret County to help meet North Carolina's need for renewable energy.

Nelson and Dianna Paul are seeking permission from the N.C. Utilities Commission to build three windmills in coastal Carteret County that would generate 4.5 megawatts of electricity -- enough to provide power for about 900 homes. By far the state's largest commercial-scale wind farm to date, it would sell power to Progress Energy to help the utility provide more green energy.

The Golden Wind Farm is small as wind projects go, but the Pauls may be the first of a wave of green energy entrepreneurs seeking to fill the need for alternative energy. North Carolina leaders passed a law last year requiring utilities to meet 12.5 percent of energy demand by 2020 with cleaner energy sources such as wind and solar power.

"The project is needed because wind power is a renewable resource," Paul told the State Utilities Commission during a hearing Tuesday. The commission made no immediate decision on the proposal.

Though most support the need for cleaner energy, neighbors in Bettie, a rural community about seven miles northeast of Beaufort, objected to the project. They contend that the towering wind turbines would be noisy and unattractive, and would spoil the enjoyment of their property. The turbines, including the blades, could stand up to 464 feet high -- more than twice the height of the Cape Lookout lighthouse, the familiar sentinel on the Outer Banks, and taller even than the 30-story Wachovia Capitol Center in downtown Raleigh.

"You're going to be able to see it from Beaufort and Morehead City," said Brady Golden, who lives across from the property. "Highway 70 is a scenic highway. There are a lot of questions the people of Bettie have."

Ernest Filep of Gloucester, who owns property next to the site, said he hoped the Utilities Commission would consider the residents when it makes a decision. The neighbors expressed concern that if the project is permitted, more entrepreneurs would seek to build windmills on the coast.

The residents' concerns prompted Carteret County commissioners to call a special meeting today to discuss a moratorium to halt new towers, electricity-generating windmills and similar tall structures from going up in the county.

 

[cubeless]

i think the moonster got it's goal satisfied: enuf hot air gets created in p&n to power our little corner of the internet...

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: extra

Originally posted by: spidey07
That's pretty interesting but I always wonder if we're not screwing with weather or the climate by using wind energy. Something of this magnitude/scale would surely disrupt the global climate.

I really really doubt this. The volume of air in the atmosphere is so incredibly massive compared to the amount that would ever pass through these turbines.

But humans also have a very narrow comfort/tolerance zone for weather. Hell, we have to build artificial shelters or we can die of exposure.


Solar panels on rooftops would be nice. They of course have the same problem of intermittent output though, and they're still expensive, as are grid-tie inverters.