Wind turbine falls over.
The Energy Collective – a pro-renewable energy web site has just published a positive article about the need for a massive collection of batteries as a backup system to wind farms.
The article unintentionally makes a strong argument AGAINST wind farms as inherently unreliable and a poor source of our future energy needs.
The author notes:
Wind energy has come a long way in the United States. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry that employs 75,000 people in 42 states and generates about 2 percent of the nation’s electricity. And, the Department of Energy says that number could grow to 20 percent of America’s electricity by 2030.
That potential is far from reality though, mainly because of wind’s intermittent nature. In order to reach 20 percent, one in five new turbines will have to be built offshore where the wind is faster and more consistent, and offshore wind is stalled in this country. But intermittency is only a problem because the energy industry hasn’t come up with an efficient way to store electricity on a large scale – until now.
The writer describes a wind farm of 60 turbines in West Virginia. These 60 turbines provide only enough power for 20,000 homes. So what’s the great solution to providing a backup system for these turbines? Why, a mere 1.3 million lithium ion batteries the size of a typical C or D battery you use for your flashlights.
And how effective are these 1.3 million batteries in providing needed backup power for the 60 turbines? According to the author, they only hold enough energy to power 5,000 homes for 15 minutes.
Who is behind this brilliant green boondoggle? — The AES Corporation, a “global power project developer,” which is planning a similar project in West Texas. General Electric, run by Obama’s close friend Jeff Immelt, has constructed these wind turbines for AES. Immelt runs Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. In addition, AES Wind Generation official Michael Azeka, serves on the Wind Turbine Guidelines Advisory Committee for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This all sounds like cozy corporate “green” welfare.
And what do the 20,000 poor citizens of West Virginia get? They get unreliable electricity with a 15 minute backup system for one quarter of them. Only someone who is suffering from a green delusion could think this is a positive thing and is the future of energy in America.
Read More and Comment: Wind Farm Follies
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I thought I smelled obama on this.
The only way solar and wind can be viable or functionally/operationally & financially practical, are if the costs for coal, gas, oil or other large generation means, are driven into the sky. Even Obama said costs for electricity would 'necessarily skyrocket' to make his green energy initiative work. Problem is, solar & wind cannot provide a consistent, reliable, functional/operational & financially practical solution so long as there are no reasonable means of storage, and no reasonable plan to deal with the intermittent nature of current green methods.
Solar & wind (S/W), are not functionally/operationally, or financially practical so long as S/W energy generation is intermittent & there is no practical & financially reasonable method of energy storage. In short, S/W is an idea whose time has not yet come. Mass distribution of S/W electrical generation on a house by house basis has merit. But, the government wants to massively subsidize huge solar & wind farm operations (using massive amounts of land to do so I might add {where are the greenies on this point??}), rather than provide huge subsidies to average taxpaying citizens to place such systems on or at their own homes.
That distributed generation system would greatly reduce problems during anticipated brown/black out situations, and, average consumers would get the direct benefit of any energy generated since it would be free to them. During electrical demand cycles, all those homes will probably generate more than they need at those time of the day, so consumers could just sell off their excess generation to utility companies & reduce the strain on the current grids. But, that would not fit the crony capitalism theme we seem to be hung up on. Such an idea would actually help average people & that is definitely NOT on the government bureaucrat agenda, is it?! (Imagine 100 million homes across the entire nation, supplying kilo-watts to the local utility companies, after the needs of the homeowners have been met?)