Blowin’ in the Wind

No, if you stick enough of these up, weather patterns will change due to changes in wind speeds. Combination of things are necessary to address our energy needs with nuclear plants front and center.

I have only read the abstract but it seems there are some missing pieces in this article. How many wind turbines must there be in this network? How many acres of land will they cover? Since the land must be ice free, there is only a limited area where they can be located. Also the land must be nonforested. Are they going to clear cut the trees to make way for these turbines? It must also be nonurban, so it looks like the country (i.e. non city) dwellers will take the hit again. Also Teddy Kennedy has already vetoed any wind mills in the ocean near his home(s), so where will we find oceanfront property?

brian wrote: “this is pure bunk. CALTECH physicists say wind can only provide 8% of the energy needs if you put a windmill everyplace possible… go check out the CALTECH’s Dr. Nate Lewis website for a real technical analysis…”
Please check your info. A Caltech chemist, NOT physicist, who’s an expert on surface chemistry and photo chemistry, not wind, makes the unsubstantiated guess that 3 terawatts could be PRACTICALLY generated, NOT “if you put a windmill everyplace possible..” And even that would be 3/28 of the energy needed, nearly 11%, NOT 8%.
Lewis is a CHEMIST, not a physicist, and is an expert in surface chemistry and photochemistry, NOT wind energy. He has a vested interest in grant money for solar cells and doesn’t want to see wind get a piece of it. I am also a chemist and am an expert in physical organic chemistry. I’m not a wind expert either. So it’s not clear what the answer is from Caltech’s info.

if you want the “magic bullet” it should be in fusion, more research into this field is needed. For those who say “this cant be done its not feasable” look at the frekin sun thats all the proof you need that fusion works. Europe is already way ahead of us with the construction of the ITER facility and its purpose will give more “light” into the world of fusion. We should do the same.

Wind power is good but has a lot of downfalls. First they must be set where winds are consistent. Technology is improving to make them more efficient in other words provide more power with less wind. Another problem is how to deliver the power, the greater the distance more power is lost on the way. They still have a lot to come along before being classified as valuable, Another downfalls are the noise they produce and the threat they pose to wildlife such as migratory birds.

Wind energy is clean. Nature is trying to correct imbalances due to temperature rise. In a way, global warming fuels wind energy. Windmills are an interesting way to take some of the temperature rise and convert it into useful energy, while at the same time removing some of the harmful generation of greenhouse gases. Fusion and other ideas are great for far off in the very distant future, but wind energy is here now, and needed now.

The answer my friend is blowing in the wind…

a gal,
You are incorrect about the noise they produce. I work with wind turbines every day. They turn really slow and when the wind is blowing pretty hard… it is very difficult to hear them. As for them killing birds… more birds are killed by flying into glass and buildings or your outside house cat. They certainly don’t get chopped up as people would think… they die because they run into the darn blades or towers. dumb birds. most fly around them.

Brian,
Companies going out of business??? GE??? I don’t see them on any list. Gamesa? I don’t see them on any list. Siemens? I don’t see them on any list. Maybe crappy turbines like Dewind… yes… but certainly not the 1st tier manufacturers. Get your facts straight.

One of our neighbors has a huge windmill on his property. It sits idle most of the time because of inadequate wind. It’s also quite ugly and a blemish on the New England landscape. This is the frozen, snowbound Northeast, not the windy plains or the sun filled skies of Arizona. It has rained here 6 out of the last 7 days.

There is no magic bullet. We need wind, solar, atomic, hydro, and everything else we can think of. East and west coasts need to allow drilling off their shores. They use more petroleum than the rest of us. If they don’t want the wells, park the cars. I would like to see a way to use kudzu to produce alcohol. The stuff grows so fast is could be considered renewable and there’s no way to stop it. It has to good for something. … It really doesn’t matter. More people use more energy and other resources. As long as population continues to grow we will have an energy shortage and shortages of other things will soon be common.

Wind power isn’t reliable – wind blows intermittently, so a wind farm needs energy storage. That’s why Denmark, with the capacity to produce 20% of their power by wind, only gets about 6% of their power from wind. Much of Denmark’s wind capacity is actually sold to Norway and Sweden. Why? Because Norway and Sweden run on hydropower that can be brought up quickly when the wind isn’t blowing and can be throttled down when the wind is blowing. The US is tapped-out on hydropower and our baseline coal and nuclear plants can’t be throttled quickly enough. So to use windpower, we need more natural gas turbines to even out wind’s intermittent production. That’s why gas company executives favor windpower.
Wind power isn’t cheap – the federal subsidy for wind is $23.37 per megawatt-hour, compared with $1.59 for nuclear. This simple fact is understood by anyone who reads Car and Driver – see Patrick Bedard’s June column, it’s sad when we get better information from Car and Driver than we’re getting out of Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy.
Wind power doesn’t create useful jobs – Obama’s plan to create jobs by devoting more federal subsidies to windpower makes about as much sense as creating agricultural jobs by banning the modern tractor. Think of all the jobs that would be created by government subsidies for the horse-drawn plow. Windmills will no more make the US energy independent than horse-drawn plows would make us “food independent” or would make us more competetive in selling agricultural products.
Wind power isn’t “green” – the single wind farm at the Altamont Pass kills about 5000 birds per year – including hundreds of golden eagles and bald eagles. To those that point out that more birds are killed by windows – three years ago, this one wind farm killed 39 of the 500 nesting bald eagles in the area, no bald eagles were killed by windows. The windfarm has been under a court order to reduce the number of birds killed, but they have not leading to the likelihood that the court will order the windfarm to shut down for two months per year.

Wow, seems I triple posted it. This new posting system isn’t very good. I’m using Internet explorer 8, and having trouble. Never had this trouble before.

Clint H
No single energy source will provide enough energy for the future. We need wind generation, solar, nuclear, hydro, oil, natural gas, clean coal or as John McCain put it “all of the above”.
Wind generators can be used in many areas of the US as long as they don’t affect the view from Ted Kennedy’s place. He had that project scrapped before it got finished. Either his party opposes wind power or they believe in elitism. Take your pick.
Zero population growth is only solution but no politician from either party has the guts to address that subject.

Nice but debatable. There is another technology that is totally clean, is everywhere and has enough energy reserves to last literally forever. Geo thermal is what we would be doing if we had any common sense. Unfortunately common sense is almost totally lacking in every person that seeks leadership. Geothermal is everywhere, it is clean and it is limitless yet we aren’t doing anything with it. We have this energy source literally at our feet, it could make us energy independent, it has zero pollution yet we will allow climate change to overtake us before we make a serious attempt at stopping it. We will look back at this time as an opportunity lost, we will wring our hands and wonder why we let it happen. We will let it happen because we have allowed a pandemic of stupidity to spread. We let stupid people elect stupid people to lead us. We are doomed to repeat the past and that is ALWAYS wait until disaster happens before reacting. Climate change may not be fixable when the stupid people, who shouldn’t have a say in anything, finally realize the truth.

Hm. According to one person here, we’re playing with fire if we interrupt Nature trying to correct imbalances. Think about the size of the planet. Then think about, say, a wind farm with 10,000 turbines. Then think about maybe 1,000 identical farms around the world. Does anyone really think all these together would alter the world’s weather (or whatever)? Local effects? – a VERY qualified (and hesitant) “maybe.” I have no idea how big a percentage of our energy needs wind can provide, though I think it will be substantial if it ever is built up in a serious way. Ditto solar (and perhaps more so). Nuclear? Well, yes, but it takes a long time to build a nuclear plant, and we’re still stuck with the radioactive waste. But back to wind. What about high-altitude wind? There is research going on into having airborne turbines, supported aloft by balloons or dirigibles, something like that. For those unfamiliar with this, I’m talking about MILES up in the air, up in the jetstream region, not a few hundred feet over your house. No birds, and, high enough, few if any planes to worry about. And all you have to do to convince yourself that the wind “upstairs” is far more constant than on the ground, go on top of the highest building around and check it out: almost constant breezes. I have a second apartment in a ten-storey building, with no other building anywhere near as tall for upwards of a mile. There’s virtually *always* a reasonably stiff breeze, maybe at least 8-10mph. (That’s on the top floor, where my apt. is.) Wind may not be the end-all, but it sure holds great promise. We had an effective old-fashioned windmill on the farm when I was growing up – gave us some electricity, and pumped spring water.

Too expensive.
Thank you,
Robert