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Wind - Facts or blowing hot air?
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." - Herbert Spencer
"Renewable" energy, particularly wind power, is a highly problematic, ill-understood and expensive technology. The popularly held idea that government can mandate "green" energy and that wind generators can just be 'hooked up' to the grid, thus providing reliable, inexpensive, extra capacity to meet demand, or as a substitute for other fuels, is a foolish notion, as simplistic as it is false.
I will have a hard time reading this one after reading that quote above since, and as a matter of fact, I know someone with a Wind Generator and he gains power. This is as simple as it gets. He spent power. He gained the power back and now he gains power; or so the story goes.
I was not present when he paid for the Wind Generator. I don't know the date the Wind Generator paid for itself and there is a possibility that my information is wrong. I drive by his house now and again and I see more Wind Generators popping up here and there around rual areas.
They turn. They generate electricity. Every kilowatt generated is another kilowatt paying for the Wind Generator. At some point the cost/benefit analysis measures either a net loss or a net gain. Why not publish the net cost, then publish the net rate of production rate, and then publish a pay off date based upon known prices?
Why not spell it out with facts?
The system has evolved into three major power grids which also include smaller power pools. They are the Eastern Interconnected System, consisting of the eastern two-thirds of the United States; the Western Interconnected System, consisting primarily of the Southwest and areas west of the Rocky Mountains; and the Texas Interconnected System consisting mainly of Texas. The interconnected utilities within each power grid coordinate operations and buy and sell power among themselves.
I'm keen on one thing and if that one thing is not published in this report, then, I am still keen on that one thing.
How much does the resitance in the wires cost? If you do not know why this question is important, then, let me explain.
Each mile of wire from the central power plant going out to the end points of consumption is a consumption just like adding a string of light bulbs on a christmas tree. The light consume power and the wire connecting the lights consume power. One light bulb consumes more power than all the wire combined on the christmas tree. How many miles of wire from the power plant to the house is equal to on house worth of power? Next time the reader is driving around think. Look at the power lines going out of sight in the distance and count the houses per mile.
Having a home that generates power at the point of consumption saves cost and there is no way to make words falsify that fact. If a person were to purchase an electric car, solar panels, and wind generator, then, the question becomes, again, how long before the cost of those purchases are paid off in time?
Add the monthy electric bill and the monthy gasoline bill up for on year.
Example:
100 dollars per month electric bill times 12 equals 1200 per year.
400 dollars per month gasoline bill times 12 equals 4800 per year
6000 per year.
Now consider the life span of a Solar Panel, Wind Generator, and Electric Car.
The Solar Panel Systems I've seen are guaranteed for 25 years. Why would a Wind Generator not last as long or longer and an Electric Car requires less moving parts than a gasoline car (less wear) so how about using 25 years?
6000 times 25 equals 150,000
The Electric cars (not mass produced by a Toyota company yet) are going for 30 and Solar Panel Systems are about 30 too which leaves 90 thousand to pay for the Wind Mill or pocket or buy more and better Solar Panels instead of a Wind Mill.
How about a price on a Wind Mill today?
http://www.solardyne.com/vesv27ratat2.html
Sale Price: $168,350.00
Estimated annual production: Average wind speed of 13 mph produces 458,000 Kwh/year. Average wind speed of 15.4 mph proudces 636,000 Kwh/year. Average wind speed of 17.6 mph produces 795,000 Kwh/year.
How about an average anual rate of consumption for one house?
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/Web_sites/01-02/RE_info/hec.htm
Approximate annual household energy consumption for three bedroom house = 4200kWh
So...how many households are supplied with one Wind Mill at 13 mph average?
458,000 divided by 4200 equals 115
Now divide the cost of the one Wind Generator by 115?
168,350.00 divided by 115 equals 1,464 dollars per family.
Back at the orignial link:
In 1992, the economic rules governing the grid began to change with passage of the Energy Policy Act. This act empowered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) to separate electric power generation from transmission and distribution. Power "deregulation" - in reality, a change in regulations - went slowly at first. Not until 1998 were utilities, beginning in California, compelled to sell off their generating capacity to independent power producers, such as Enron and Dynergy.
Enron?
"Under the new system, the financial incentive was to run things up to the limit of capacity," explained Carreras. In fact, energy companies did more: they 'gamed' the system. Federal investigations showed that employees of Enron and other energy traders "knowingly and intentionally" filed transmission schedules designed to block competitors' access to the grid and to drive up prices by creating artificial shortages. In California, this behavior resulted in widespread blackouts, the doubling and tripling of retail rates, and eventual costs to ratepayers and taxpayers of more than $30 billion. In the more tightly regulated Eastern Interconnect, retail prices rose less dramatically.
Gas-fired generators, unlike wind generators, are able to "lock in" the price of gas (energy) supplies with long-term contracts and through futures markets to remove price risk and ensure a price saving over 'renewable-energy' projects with relatively high capital costs.
How about the Power of knowledge?
If you have the Wind Generator on your retirement home out in the country, then, you get what you pay for - no? The same cannot be said for banking on a "lock in" of gas (energy) supplies.
Who wrote this article?
It is important to understand the AC (alternating current) grid system does not have 'storage' capacity.
How about a brain?
If the electricity is not used, then, it is lost. So use it.
Electricity can pump water when the wind is blowing and the energy is then stored in water tanks placed up hill.
Electricity can be used to convert water into hydrogen gas and oxygen to be another store of electricity.
Electricity can be used to fill all the batteries in all the electric cars; another way of storing the electric energy.
When the wind isn't blowing fast, then, the water can flow back down hill and turn a water turbine, the hydrogen gas can power a hydrogen cell generator, and the cars can move from place to place because all those batteries are full of power.
To claim that oil and Natural Gas (or coal) is the only solution, the most economical solution, and the most profitable solution sounds like a dictate coming from an Oil Baron or paid parrot of the industry.
Enron became a more direct beneficiary of the administration's alternative energy program and the tax money funding it, developing wind turbines in cooperation with the Department of Energy (DOE). Then-Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson announced the administration was "excited that Enron developed this technology with technical contributions made by the department, and we look forward to continuing our collaboration with Enron for the development of their next generation wind turbine."
And Enron has ties with the oil companys - or so the story goes - see - if you can count on the wind (driven by the Sun) then you don't have to even know how to read.
The wind power 'movement', supported by certain 'environmental' activists, the wind industry and government, to establish large-scale wind-generated electricity production is misconceived for two simple reasons. They believe wind power is exempt from immutable economic principles, and the laws of sound engineering and science.
No amount of political meddling, government mandates, corporate profiteering or misguided good intentions and 'environmental responsibility' will change or negate those principles or laws.
This is ironic? A Power Company Solution (collectivism) is being championed compared to an Individual Solution on the basis of a misaplication of power?
The article does not specifically quantify the loss (heat is one loss) of power through the grid as, for example, a cost per mile (or I missed that measure) and here is another cost. Who owns the grid now? Who owns the grid 100 years from now? How much does it cost to purchase the grid from the owner - per mile?
Last edited on Sun Nov 25th, 2007 02:31 pm by Joe Kelley