wind power

[EddieWalker]

Read a story a few months ago about T. Boone Pickens building wind power farms... seems the real reason was for below ground rites and govt money!

mark

He also owns allot of natural gas wells. I mean ALLOT!!!!

He doesn't care about oil or any of that, he wants to get us to use more natural gas so that he can sell more of it.

Just another example of the energy crises that doesn't exist and instead of using what's plentiful, we keep it off limits and pretend there's a shortage.

There is no shortage of oil, never has been.

Eddie

 

[mjarrels]

Eddie, Best part is T. Boone Pickens is so old that his life on this earth is almost over! His heirs can that take over and I'm sure they will want to spend, spend, spend!

mark

 

[dmccarty]

And for another view:

http://greenfyre.wordpress.com/2009/01/07/twits-and-***-at-the-daily-dreckdaily-dreck/

Chuck

Link did not work.

Later,
Dan

 

[rox]

just found information where they are going to try a large scale wind farm storage method in the Bakken fringes of ND
they are mining salt and I think some other mineral with if I remember right a drilling and fluid system
then fill the cavern voids with compressed air powered by the wind generated electricity and use the compresssed air to spin a turbine when there is a lack of wind
I guess this is going on now in parts of Germany and Norway
having lived in ND for 50 yrs the wind here does blow all but a few day of the year
problem being the days it does not blow are the coldest and the hottest also the days when we need the most electricity.
Having been inside a power station working I have seen how much power comes from a big commercial wind farm on a hot still summer day that day alone proves wind power does not work in one of the windyst parts of the world.
jury is out on weather or not its possible to store enough to make it worth while.
Till then coal is king here

My thought are that if the wind isn't blowing in North Dakota perhaps it is blowing in Massachutses and that is why you develop a grid system to move the electicity around.

 

[gordyy]

I am with you on the idea of a grid here we have utilities from minnesota building wind farms
and other people in minnesota fighting in our courts about allowing generation towers to get the energy to the grid so they can use it
but there is a finite limit to how far it is concievable to transfer the energy as there is a loss as it is flowing thru the lines its possible but all you have to do is stand under one of the large high voltage transmission lines around here to realize how much it does loose
not sure what it is but there is substancial loss

 

[Steve_Miller]

I am with you on the idea of a grid here we have utilities from minnesota building wind farms
and other people in minnesota fighting in our courts about allowing generation towers to get the energy to the grid so they can use it
but there is a finite limit to how far it is concievable to transfer the energy as there is a loss as it is flowing thru the lines its possible but all you have to do is stand under one of the large high voltage transmission lines around here to realize how much it does loose
not sure what it is but there is substancial loss

I too would love to know how much power is actually lost in transmission as well. It would probably be scary.

Steve

 

[Egon]

but there is a finite limit to how far it is concievable to transfer the energy as there is a loss as it is flowing thru the lines its possible but all you have to do is stand under one of the large high voltage transmission lines around here to realize how much it does loose
not sure what it is but there is substancial loss

Some of them power grids would encompass the entire Eastern Seaboard Or the Western States or the Midwest.

You may even find some of them starting in Labrador and Norther Quebec which is some distance from from the Eastern Sea board.

State Energy Program: Is Our Power Grid More Reliable One Year After the Blackout?

 

[turbo36]

I too would love to know how much power is actually lost in transmission as well. It would probably be scary.

Steve

According to Wiki - approximately 7% total loss over the whole US power grid. They also talk about the maximum distance to be economically feasible is 4,000 miles!!! So a wind mill in North Dakota could provide power economically to almost anywhere in the US, Canada and parts of Mexico.

This is another good source .
Electric power transmission: Facts, Discussion Forum, and Encyclopedia Article

 

[Chuck52]

Link did not work.

Later,
Dan

Sorry about that. I did the usual cut-and-paste, but I guess it went awry. I just looked again, and found a better site for this topic anyway, since it is from the same people cited in the original blog by Michael Asher. Try this:

http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/global.sea.ice.area.pdf

Note the source.

Chuck

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I too would love to know how much power is actually lost in transmission as well. It would probably be scary.

Steve

The higher the voltage, the less the losses, because of lower current and Ohms law. With everything there are cost tradeoffs. A lot of the older transmission lines are 345KV to 500KV. These have more losses than the newer 750KV lines. I think there might even be some 1MV lines now. Upgrading isn't cost effective, it's an entire rebuild and it's next to impossible to take a transmission line out of service. Unfortunately the area's using the power don't want the generation in their back yards, so that means you need transmission from areas that have surplus generation. However, people also don't want transmission across their back yard, or within eyesight, so overall reliablility and availablility keeps decreasing every day. Couple all that with the deregulation of utilities, where companies just don't spend money on maintenance like they used to, and you have more frequent failures. Everybody points fingers at everyone else, but in the end the system will keep getting worse.