The good news about windfarms 3

[BigInch]

Yes I hear that they still use windmills for pumping water, when there is no other power source, when you can pump a little bit almost all the time and store it for when consumers are present, when solar isn't a good option, or when wind-electric is too expensive and when you don't have to move the water very far to use it.

But that doesn't answer the question now, "Is it good for large scale grid integration?"

In some places there are even children's merry-go-rounds that pump water, but I wouldn't suggest we try powering America with that either. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean its a good thing to try.



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"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[BigInch]

But maybe if these things don't work, we may have to think about it.

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"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[stevenal]

Solves energy needs and childhood obesity, a win-win. Chain em up.

 

[GTstartup]

The FERC Chairman said this recently (I think he is an attorney)

"I think baseload capacity is going to become an anachronism," he said. "Baseload capacity really used to only mean in an economic dispatch, which you dispatch first, what would be the cheapest thing to do. Well, ultimately wind's going to be the cheapest thing to do, so you'll dispatch that first."

Funnier than South Park

http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2009/04/fercs-chairman-jon-wellinghoff-on.html

 

[BigInch]

No worries! We'll just brown-out to match the dispatch and then watch the turbines spin backwards.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[dpc]

If we could get the windbag politicians closer to the wind turbines, they could keep them turning with hot air.

The ignorance level on how the electrical grid actually operates is disheartening.

As H.L. Mencken once said, "No one ever went broke by underestimating the intelligence of the American people."

Now I have to get back to "Dancing with the Stars".....

 

[mauricestoker]

Wind is definitely not cheap. While using politicians for a renewable unnatural energy supply may sound like a good thing, the cost of their wind is very high. If they could be trained to only partisan bickering instead of pork barreling it may work-otherwise its like running a boiler plant on ten dollar bills.

 

[GTstartup]

The sad thing is he is not technically a politician he is running FERC!

 

[BigInch]

Well... you can't have chickens in charge of the coop. I think there's a natural law about that.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[cranky108]

Lets repeal those nasty laws of physics, and common sence thinking.

It's just so sad that such important positions are viewed as honery. No wonder the infinstructure in this country is failing, with this kind of thinking.

However, those with the ability to make some murge of wind power and energy storage, mainly goverment entinity's, dosen't seem very interested.

 

[JLSeagull]

Other powerful people like TBP also push wind power. His agenda includes compressed natural gas to fuel our cars. I too advocate renewable sources such as wind and solar where practical. I see nuclear power as the prime source for electrical power generation and eliminating coal from this equation. Perhaps coal may be the building block for the next generation chemicals but not as a combustion fuel. Perhaps those knowledgeable about the wind power inefficiencies and related problems should be as vocal as the wind power advocates.

 

[BigInch]

I don't think I could work on a large scale wind project with a clear conscience. I've had to pass working on a petroleum development project here lately too.

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[dpc]

An old boss once told me - "If they insist on throwing money away on this project, they might as well throw it to us."

Just saying.....

 

[cranky108]

True it is very hard to work on a project you don't believe in. However, it is nice to take home money. So I won't say no.

 

[cranky108]

Has any one seen this?

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/12/officials_hope_to_learn_why_wi.html

 

[alehman]

Looks like the foundation failed.

Alan
“The engineer's first problem in any design situation is to discover what the problem really is.” Unk.

 

[BigInch]

More fuel on the fire... so to speak.

I just had a look at the Spanish electrical network operator, Red Electrica España, statistics issued for Nov including the yearly accumulated production values up to 30 Nov.

They have a catagory just for wind.

17739 MW of installed wind turbine capacity produced a total of 31525 GWh. I figure that's 22% of rated capacity when averaged over the 11 month period. If it is true that the electricity is measured going into the grid, and parasite loss producing uses are later drawn back from the grid, its surely pointing to 15% or perhaps even less.

http://www.ree.es/sistema_electrico/pdf/boletin_mensual/peninsular/nov2009.pdf

**********************
"Pumping accounts for 20% of the world’s energy used by electric motors and 25-50% of the total electrical energy usage in certain industrial facilities."-DOE statistic (Note: Make that 99% for pipeline companies)

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.live.com/

 

[jmw]

In the links above, there was one to the Cefn Croes wind farm which ought to have alerted people to the gross abuses of the environment that wind farming can frequently perpetrate.

Alas, this article shows that the money makers are carrying on regardless:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/gr...rms-could-blight-one-in-six-beauty-spots.html

Areas of Natural Beauty and Special Scientific Interest Areas are all grist to their mill. Not just one but a substantial proportion are being targeted for wind farms.

Money talks.

Ironic is that among those who are now vocal in opposition are the RSPB and Friends of the Earth who bear a great responsibility for these abuses, the one through negligent regard for its avowed interest in protecting birds and the other as a forum for radical "eco" activism.

As ever, the road to hell may be paved with good intentions but I am not convinced of the good intentions of organisations such as FOE. They are the masters of propaganda, quick to provoke a gullible public through the use and abuse of misinformation and the emotive phrase, eager to feed the sympathetic politicians with dubious data and interpretations, some among them now appear to recognise some of the folly that results, not just with regard to windfarms but also bio-fuels, for example.

The WWF ought also to be crying out against these shameful developments but when their Chariman has moved to the MET office as a dedicated AGW supporter, I think we can see how these organisations are vulnerable to busy activists who can, however few they are, exert a tremendous influence over the lives of the rest of us.

The damage these people have done, the huge amounts of money wasted and, above all, the probable harm inflicted on some of the poorest people in the world where there policies are forcing up food prices and diverting food producing land and resources into bio-fuels and where some suggest there are millions of lives at risk or already forfeit, is a crime against humanity as much as any totalitarian leader.

One of the most illuminating presentations by Borjn Blomberg is that in which he asks people to rank problems according to importance, where he correlates the amount of money required to the benefits delivered and where climate change is way down the list (but where our resources are being spent) while others, such as aid prevention, malaria etc. receive little support and thus necessarily condemn many people who could have been saved to death or a short life.
Malaria is a case in point.
I remember reading Silent Spring at the time it was published. I soaked it all in (I was more trusting and gullible then) but the the advocacy of banning DDT, for example, has indeed resulted in millions of lives lost that otherwise could have been saved.

But in all these cases it is doubtful any of those responsible for falsifying data, or alarmism will ever lose a single nights sleep over it - perhaps because they are too busy counting the money they have scammed.

Goodness knows, it is easy enough to make mistakes that cost lives, honest well meaning mistakes, but to knowingly and cynically advocate policies that are founded on very dubious or even outright false science is something that needs addressing.

I count FOE and their ilk in amongst these because I doubt their honesty and integrity and I doubt their motives.

I feel sorry for those well meaning people who continue to support these organisations long after they have been subverted, but they must recognise the truth and also take responsibility.

We know it was convenient for the advocates of global warming to propagandise the "summer heat deaths" warming would cause and of course, this too is an example of manipulating the truth to tell a lie. What they neglected, deliberately, was to also account for those who would die in colder winters - many more, as history shows us and which will become amplified by policies that cause fuel prices to "skyrocket" as Obama expects and welcomes as a means to help encourage economies. Of course it is as usual the old and the poor who suffer the most, the ones most at risk and the least able to afford green "taxation" and wind farm subsidies.

It isn't just about despoiling the landscape, it is about the real misery these policies will result in. Real people who will die in countless and probably uncounted numbers.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

This was touted on the same page:

http://www.greenchipstocks.com/aqx_p/18012?gclid=CKSR_LPXq58CFY6X2Aod1i6z1Q

with the heading:
How to get rich from wind farming
(or something like that - when I went back the adverts had cycled- probably because I clicked on it).
Anyway, it is all about how you too can get wealthy from wind energy.


JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[jmw]

Seems some people think President Obama has beeen fiddling the stats.
The claim that wind energy will create jobs has been disputed, again; for every green energy job 2.2 jobs are lost elsewhere.
Starting with this report in the Telegraph:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/j...reen-energy/comment-page-7/#comment-100199171

the links to follow are:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaki...sts-to-sell-bogus-green-jobs/?singlepage=true

and this one:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6954565.ece

and be sure to read the reports from the Spanish University;

http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf

and this one:

http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf

This last is a rather more recent study than the one this thread opewned with.

Basically it seems the wind farm enthusiast Pres Obama, has been using the SPanish and Danish cases as examples of all that is good about wind farms while ignoring the real truth about the experinces of these countries.

Why aree politicians so addicted to policy that is unpopular and proped up by a tissue of lies?
What's in it for them?
Note the involvement of AL Gore and his accolytes.
Lastly, will Obama serve a second term? and how can the UK avoid the same trap since all the major parties seem hooked on the same b***s**t?

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com