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| Installed Wind Power now exceeds 10 Gigawatts |
| 2006-08-18 |
| U.S. wind energy installations now exceed 10,000 megawatts (MW) in generating capacity... [if President Bush's PR people were smart he would be making trips to wind farms and citing the fact that capacity has increased several hundred percent in his administration] The first commercial wind farms were constructed in California in the early 1980s, and after reaching 1,000 MW in 1985, it took more than a decade for wind to reach the 2,000-MW mark, in 1999. Since then, however, installed capacity has grown fivefold (for a chart showing historical cumulative capacity, see http://www.awea.org/faq/instcap.html). Today, the industry is installing more wind power in a single year (3,000 MW expected in 2006) than the amount operating in the entire country in 2000 (2,500 MW). As the U.S. wind energy industry sails past the 10,000-megawatt mark, AWEA released the following figures and statistics to illustrate some of the economic, environmental, and energy security benefits of wind power development. |
| Posted by:mhw |
| #40 LOL. He was a certifiable genius - and nutjob, LOL. Sometimes hard to separate the wheat from the chaff with such characters. :) |
| Posted by: Flogum Clavitch3333 2006-08-18 23:48 |
| #39 Nikola was a great prototype for hollyweed b-grade flicks... But we wouldn't have AC or lots of other goodies without him. (mumble mumble --- broadcast power.... one world brains mumble....) |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-08-18 23:44 |
| #38 Or lost, with the secretive Nikola's death. |
| Posted by: Flogum Clavitch3333 2006-08-18 23:40 |
| #37 lighting is just power we have not learned to control yet. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-08-18 23:36 |
| #36 Nikola would know what to do, Grid Willing. |
| Posted by: Flogum Clavitch3333 2006-08-18 23:36 |
| #35 Evilist Extraordinaires! Dear lotp and Barb, very glad you are on »:-) |
| Posted by: RD 2006-08-18 23:28 |
| #34 3dc, won't work. It would be a big lightning rod. |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-08-18 23:19 |
| #33 Its like the space elevator idea. We don't have the tech or money to do it on earth yet but FOR THE MOON ITS A GREAT IDEA doable in one or two freight flights. Much better to fly to L3 and get on an elevator with a KEVLAR line then to re-invent stuff like the LEM. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-08-18 22:50 |
| #32 in the Sept 2006 special Scientific American (not on the net or in the store yet but in your mail box if you subscribe) there are some really interesting windmills that place themselves in the jet stream! A horz. cyc. inflatable hellium ballon windmill tethered to the ground, an autogyro based oned, a parafoil ladder to the sky one and a few more. All of these would be in rather steady high speed winds. Same for other tech. Lots of really interesting ideas I don't see people considering... Let's think out of the box for a change and try some really radical ideas. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2006-08-18 22:47 |
| #31 Actually, wind farms make you sick (because of the sonic vibrations) and they make livestock sick, so don't live or farm anywhere near them. It also is a problem for migrating birds and a problem for wildlife in general. I'm probably more "green" than anyone here, but I think wind farms are a really bad idea that sounds like a really good idea. |
| Posted by: ex-lib 2006-08-18 22:13 |
| #30 you do not use a straigt stream, they capture and store the energy for dispersal |
| Posted by: Dan 2006-08-18 21:11 |
| #29 oh man, RD. Am I an 'evilist'? wow. Unless you mean what I'd like to do to Islamacist, honor-killing, IED planting SOBs. Then yeah, I aspire to being an Evilist Extraordinaire. Not likely to get the chance, tho, so I'll do what I can other ways, at the 'Burg and elsewhere. ;-) |
| Posted by: lotp 2006-08-18 21:08 |
| #28 Installed Wind Power now exceeds 10 Gigawatts fools, don't they realize that wind is not a renewable resourse. |
| Posted by: Kool Breeze 2006-08-18 20:35 |
| #27 Thanks, #25! ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-08-18 19:53 |
| #26 she is an evilist twobyfour, Ima skeered of her and lotp. |
| Posted by: RD 2006-08-18 19:49 |
| #25 Barb, you're the evilest! :-) |
| Posted by: twobyfour 2006-08-18 16:57 |
| #24 #23 UT - looks like we're even. I want them to freeze in the dark. Soonest. (In fact, I don't even care if it's dark.) |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2006-08-18 16:44 |
| #23 "worry about the fledgling baby ducks being chewed up in the blades" No joke. There's a mountain ridge top windmill farm planned for the Maine foothills. All the usual "anti" groups are lining up against it just like you would expect if it were a nuke or coal plant. geez. It's not just the vistas of the rich and famous that should be off limits to wind power, even the Maine wilderness should be of limits (if you choose to believe these "activists") They really do want us to freeze in the dark. |
| Posted by: Ulerenter Thrineper5769 2006-08-18 15:47 |
| #22 Yesterday I saw a new meme floating around in its trial balloon...Katrina diaspora as "Climate refugees". I s'pose they'll need their own UN Commission soon. |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2006-08-18 15:25 |
| #21 We screwing up Ghias natural energy by stealing her wind. Global warming and no cool breeze. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-08-18 15:00 |
| #20 Installed Wind Power now exceeds 10 Gigawatts We could probably double these numbers if only there was some way of harnessing all the hot air from our politicians. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-08-18 14:48 |
| #19 I worry about the fledgling baby ducks being chewed up in the blades. *sniff* |
| Posted by: flyover 2006-08-18 14:39 |
| #18 The generating capacity quoted for wind turbines is always the theoretical maximum. Actual generating capacity is around 10% of the number quoted. And as JFM points out electricity distribution is a demand driven system and you need just as much conventional supply to satisfy that demand with or without wind turbines because of the inherent unreliability of wind. Unused electricity supply just dissapears. Hydrogen production and distribution is greenie fantasy and will never happen for reasons we have discussed at length. There are only two types of applications for wind power that make sense. One is where the electricity is used in a system that can be supply driven. Desalination is the main example. The other is where you can realistically store wind generated electricity such that it can be used in the supply driven grid. Massive systems of batteries are a hugely expensive environmental nightmare and for that reason have never been tried. Pumping water uphill in a hydroelectric system is really the only way to store unused electricity (although it wastes 75%+ of the electricity). |
| Posted by: phil_b 2006-08-18 14:35 |
| #17 Reduce the wind and I will have to close all my windows and use air conditioning.On the other hand, I won't have to fight headwinds with my brick of an SUV so I will use less gas. No more flags. |
| Posted by: john 2006-08-18 14:33 |
| #16 lets not be too negative on this 1. yes, wind power is less than 0.5% of electricity but it is increasing faster (as a percentage of installed) than any of the other sources; and the potential is that it for the next decade it could add 5 GW per year 2. the latest wind power stations are in windy locations that the design puts the blades quite high where the wind is more constant than it is at the surface; some of the stations produce peak power well over 50% of the time and much of the rest of the time they are processing at 60% or more 3. with the power sharing systems currently in place very little voltage is wasted; when the wind stations are going full out, the natural gas powered plants are tuned down 4. this has an economic component too (the windsmiths that do O&M) |
| Posted by: mhw 2006-08-18 14:32 |
| #15 Oh, and I forgot, there won't be any wind to blow clouds around, so there won't be any more rain! |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-08-18 13:38 |
| #14 I wonder who will be first to convince the eco-freaks that wind turbines will cause a "wind shortage" "...and without wind, plants won't be able to spread their pollen and WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-08-18 13:37 |
| #13 IMHO Wind power should be used to split water to make hydrogen for vehicles. Domestic power should come from nuclear. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2006-08-18 12:55 |
| #12 Steve Den Beste covers this issue very well. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2006-08-18 12:53 |
| #11 Should have also mentioned voltage regulators (maybe w/ capacitor banks) to filter the fluctuations. I don't know how the real world world filters wind turbine variability, but it may one of the two. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-08-18 12:48 |
| #10 gb, the power fluctuations from wind turbine variabililty is registered as voltage fluctuations. The power does not disappear. When the voltage rises, appliances use more power. The problem is that as wind power proportion increases, the power fluctuation increases unless it is buffered, such as with batteries like a huge UPS (which also uses part of the generated power). |
| Posted by: ed 2006-08-18 12:39 |
| #9 gb506--If the power isn't getting used as it's generated, it does actually go away. Unfortunately there are no giant batteries or other repositories where it can get stored or cached for later use. Use it now or lose it. |
| Posted by: Dar 2006-08-18 12:36 |
| #8 Gee, only 35 Gigawatts to go before California is totally wind-powered! Max one-day load in CA was around 45-46 GW during the last heat wave. |
| Posted by: mojo 2006-08-18 12:29 |
| #7 10,000 MW wind is like 3000 MW conventional, or the electrical output of 3 nuclear plants. Worse, since wind is not dependable, thermal plants have to be ready (and built, staffed and maintained) to take over much of the load. |
| Posted by: ed 2006-08-18 12:28 |
| #6 I simply don't believe you, JFM. The power doesn't just dissipate into nothingness. |
| Posted by: gb506 2006-08-18 12:28 |
| #5 First Google hit on search for "total US electric generating capacity" - The US electric power industry's total installed generating capacity was 1051247 megawatts as of December 31, 2004, an increase of 1.9 percent over 2003... 10 GW don't seem like such a big number alla sudden... |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2006-08-18 12:18 |
| #4 You know, it occurs to me that someone must be using it. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-18 12:17 |
| #3 10 Gigawatts of unusable power. Wind power fluctuates from second to second, it also has no correlation to peaks of consumption and there is no way to store 10 Gigawatts of power. So there is no way you can use those 10 GWs of power (hint: you can't vary fast enough the output of other types of powser plants to compensate, or more exactly you can vary the output who goes into the grid but not the output produced and the amounts of fuel/coal/uranium who is being burned and this has to be at peek ie as if there was zero output from the wind farm). |
| Posted by: JFM 2006-08-18 12:07 |
| #2 I'd like to know what happened to the ones in HYANISPORT???????????? FAT BOY TEDDY STRIKES AGAIN!! |
| Posted by: ARMYGUY 2006-08-18 11:41 |
| #1 Damn Halliburton and Chainey, with their pinwheels from heck! |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2006-08-18 11:26 |