OT Windmills OT

[ldj]

Yesterday while driving along I-20 between Abilene and Big Spring TX There was hundreds of windmills you could see from the road. No telling how many just a few miles off the road I couldn't see. There was about 10% mot working. Questions: How much electricity do these make? Probably not much. When I pass by electric plants powered by coal, neucular (SP) , gas or what ever I see power lines leaving the plant in all directions to deliver the current. Yesterday I didn't see any power lines leaving the area to deliver the current. Do they make such a small amount it is carried away on the smaller wires?. How expensive are the windmills? Whatever, multiply that by the number I saw and I'm sure you could build a electric plant that would make more current than these windmills. At least they would need big power lines to take the current away. Got me to thinking about this. The government subsidizes these windmills because they can't pay for them salves. Government is trying to prevent coal by putting so many regulations on them and they still make current at a profit.

Someone tell me anything good about these windmills
 

[Hotflashjr]

It's not just that easy to say what they generate. It could be a hundred killowatts all the way up to a few megewatts. The last project I took part in was going to be a 3 megawatt turbine at a cost of about $300,000 up front including all permits and site work. After grants and tax credits actual amount spent by the owner was going to be around $180,000 with an anticipated payback of 7-9 years. The wires all run down inside the turbine and into a box or small building at the base of the turbine. From there it goes into the grid. Lots of places the current power lines cannot take large solar panel projects of wind turbines because the wires at the street cannot handle the current generated. Solar panels on a building roof unless it is real small need phase 3 equipment all the way down the road so there are ways that solar or wind has its drawbacks.

A plus, it cost nothing to obtain wind or sunshine which should help lower elec costs. The minus is the loss of jobs in other areas. I personally like wind and solar and the fact is that the current grid can only handle 18% of total elec production from wind and solar sources. Last stat I heard was the country was at like 3%. Even at 18% that leaves 82% that needs to be generated by other sources. I think there is plenty of room for everyone. I do think they should become clean burning because I would like my little girl to live in a cleaner environment than we do. I am not by any means a hippie or environmentalist so please don't flame me as such.
 

[big fred]

Something good about wind power? Well, it can reduce (by a small amount) the amount of oil we import from the middle east, but of course, they are built with large amounts of rare earth materials, which we have to import from China (China controls something like 97% of rare earth materials production).
 

[David G]

The good news is that after 7-9 years the only cost is maintenance, no raw material are needed. I believe we are looking at wind for about 10% of our energy. They do create a LOT of jobs building and erecting them.
 

[JMS/.MN]

When you see some not working- they are unwinding. The control computer makes them follow the wind. They can make 4 turns in one direction before they need to unwind the cables that bring the electricity to the ground. Stop and watch them for awhile. You"ll see them unwind.
 

[Earl Gray]

The power lines are underground. The fuel is free. They are low maintenance. They don't pollute, how many more reasons do you need!
 

[jackinok]

went to the annual meeting of the coop here a few weeks ago.they supply power to a large percentage of oklahoma and a large part of texas. according to the lastest numbers the electricity we use,comes 1/3 from fuel type sources,1/3 from windpower,and 1/3 from hydro electric. so they do produce a significant amount of power. lines are all around here underground, allowing folks to farm etc around towers more conveniently. the MAIN problem with them is there is not any real convenient way of storing the power they produce,so they operate more or less on a demand type deal. most of our electric plants, here any way , now burn natural gas as fuel. and all their plants will be converted to natural gas by 2020 if i recall correctly. no way is wind going to eliminate coal,or natural gas generating plants, simply because theres lots of days the wind simply isnt there. the priority goes like this basicaly,when you turn on a switch or demand increases, call goes to the wind system,if the demand cannot be met in full there, it switches to hydro,if the demand still cannot be met it goes to the fuel fired plants. overall its a good idea,and so far pretty reliable,theres been very few catastrophic failures of the wind generators themselves. but they are mechanical systems that require upkeep,trained technicians etc,and its very expensive to put these up,running into the millions each in lots of cases.add in also that that the land is normaly leased and that runs the cost up even further. wind power does make sense,but like all things "green" its expensive.my own electric bill has gone up nearly double from 20- 35$ on just the basic charge, in the last year and i expect it to increase more as more and more wind generation fields come on line.
 

[sourgum]

Trip to Penfield, IL this summer, came across a wind farm under construction 10 miles south of there. Counted 55 towers what I could see from the highway. The distribution lines were underground, no overhead. Lots of jobs created, people working on them. Truckers bringing in parts of towers. Someone making tower parts at a factory got a job. Probably some gov't incentive to do that but lots of tax breaks are given to big oil also. Those towers would be owned by private energy corporations and probably leasing the land from willing farmers. Wind power is coming in the future maybe 1-2% or more of total.
 

[JMOR]

Well,.........sometimes they smoke less than coal fired plants...sometimes..
https://www.google.com/search?q=wind+turbine+fire&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Roq&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=ZrRQUKeTFcPQ2AWdr4G4BQ&ved=0CCAQsAQ&biw=853&bih=469
 

[jon f mn]

Well, other than the electricity from wind costs the consumers twice what others do you mean? We are already seeing the increase, but that will get worse once the tax breaks are done.
 

[Old Iowa]

I say send all those that like them to their own state/place and let them have all of it they want buttt when it is zero and the winds is still don't let them use any of the
unclean" coal,nature gas or nuclear generated energy.

Here is some things to think about. Wind generated electric costs 2-3 times as much as the other sources. It is not available 100% of the time. The current technology does not make it competitive. It may never be.

I think it is a total waste of resources. It makes people "feel" good. Let the electric go off for a few days and see if they will still be happy with wind mills???? So we still have to have real sources that can provide 100% of the electric needs for the no wind days.

Hydro power is a much better way to go as far as reliability. It costs less than wind but still double coal or natural gas.

We need to use what resources we "really" have. Just because some power on high says this is how it is going to be does not make it so. Just think about the fuel average just announced. How do you think it is going to be met??? We don't have the technology to do it but the powers that be says we can do it.

It is kind of like working on something with a person looking over your shoulder that has zero knowledge. They are full of reasons why you are not doing the repair correctly but have NO real experience doing it.

To the guy below that stated his OK coop was a 1/3 wind. That is a number I find hard to believe. In Iowa it is about 5-7% on windy days.

Also the guy stating we only use 18% of the wind power. That is not a real number either. It has been disproved in several studies as a number just thrown out in a Congressional committee meeting. The Press took it and ran it as gospel.
 

[JF in CT]

How do you define low maintainence? Talking to some of the people who install them they say they don't pay for themselves because they are finding the transmissions last only about 5 years.
 

[Ken Macfarlane]

Why the anger against them? I don't get it. Conventional plants cost a fortune to build and maintain, especially the small ones on a $/mW generating capacity. Most of them have subsidies in one form or another too.

There's a place for almost all kinds of generation. Locally the oil fired plants are just giant sitting emergency generators. The 1300 mW one isn't run but 2 days a year due to oil costs. Got 100 guys paid to be there every day, million bucks of fuel in the tanks, have to heat the building all winter, taxes etc.
 

[Russ from MN]

You must be talking about North Star Electric, and Minnkota, they are blaming their high prices on wind power when it is really poor management making bad decisions!
 

[Old Iowa]

Then anger is because my electric bill is going up because of the wind power. Mandated quotas for renewable energy. Never mind that the technology does not exist to product it at any ways near a competitive price.

I am paying again in my taxes through all the "renewable energy" subsidies. So I get to pay double and triple for an inferior product. That is what is causing the anger.

Also cooking the books to make the renewable energy look better makes me mad. People talk about how a wind mill will pay back in 8-10 years. Well the first lie is that pay back number is AFTER huge government subsidies. Plus they never mention that the wind mills working life is just about the pay back time. So we pay subsidies and I do mean direct subsidies. Not the new tax deduction called subsidy.

What do I mean by that??? Well an oil company spends 100 million of is own money(or investor money. Key being ZERO government money) drilling a new well. Then it depreciates the expense against any current profit it has. The current crowd in DC is calling that a Government subsidy because of the "lost" tax money. They think that money earned is all theirs. Even before you pay anything.

That would be like me buying a yard full of feeder steers. Then the government calling me taking that as an expense a tax sudsidy. It is what the current crowd is doing.

If you think I am lying. Find where the government pays any oil company a subsidy for drilling oil. Brazil does not count as we all know that we gave them money to drill but shut down drilling here on Government land.

Much of this renewable energy hog wash is just crony capitalism at its worst. Can any one say Solyndra??? Nearly 500 million dollars of tax dollars GONE!!!! Then you ask why we are mad??? LMAO