Wind Farms, Sage Grouse, And Loopholes.

[NNadir]

It seems that there are some people who are environmentalists who question the rote assumption that wind power is the bestest greaterestic most fabulacious perfectivistically form of energy ever discovered anywhere at any time.

I guess very little respect is paid to Archimedes, who toyed with this business more than 2,000 years somehow never causing people not to dig coal.

http://www.naturaloregon.org/2010/03/12/wind-farms-sage-grouse-and-loopholes/">Wind Farms, Sage Grouse, And Loopholes.

Bob Sallinger with the Portland Audubon Society told the council that changing the rule is necessary to protect the environment of Eastern Oregon from expansive wind farm development. “These projects are rapidly changing our landscape. We’re developing wind energy projects at a rate that’s unprecedented and in places where we never anticipated they would go,” he says. “They’re probably going to change our landscape more than any other development aspect over the next 20 or 30 years.”

The environmental groups are particularly concerned about the Greater Sage Grouse. Recently, the Interior Department said the sage grouse is in so much trouble, it deserves the protection of the Endangered Species Act. But it put off listing the bird because there are so many other species of wildlife that are in worse shape.

The projects are "changing our landscape?"

No? You're kidding?

Recently I've been hearing in this space from a rote dogmatic anti-nuke who claims that nuclear power is endangering species, although anyone with a mind or a brain, can tell you that another way in which nuclear power is vastly superior than everything else - although hardly perfect in every way - is that its land use profile derives from it's enormously high energy density.

The low energy density of so called "renewable" energy is, conversely the reason that it was abandoned in the early 19th century and people began to use the extremely dangerous practice of digging coal and is why its land use profile, well, sucks.

Digging coal has destroyed lots of species of course, but now we have the dangerous fossil fuel apologists trying to finish off what's left, at least among birds and bats, with wind plant development "in places we never anticipated they would go?"

All the wind and solar facilities on the entire West Coast have not been able to produce as much energy as the Palo Verde nuclear plant, which operates in a surface area that can be captured in a single camera lens.



Oh, by the way. You see that body of water in front of the nuclear plant? It consists entirely of water recovered from Arizona sewage treatment plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Verde_Nuclear_Generating_Station

It's um, cleaner than a lot of water in the Appalachians running off the abandoned coal pits our anti-nukes couldn't care less about.

Unlike a single wind facility in all of the west, Palo Verde generated in 2007, 29,223 million kwh, 0.105 exajoules, again, all within the focusing power of a single camera lens.

By contrast, all of the wind plants in the entire state of California - allegedly a renewable energy paradise, but really just another dangerous natural gas waste dumping ground - was 5,606 million kwh, or 0.020 exajoules.

http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/ELECTRICITY_GEN_1997-2008.XLS

Note too, that the alleged growth of wind energy in California was a startling 0% from 2007 to 2008.

So much for the contention that California has any intention whatsoever to phase out dangerous natural gas.

Of course, we are about to hear from delusional anti-nuke that the operational cost of delivered power from Palo Verde is not cheaper than coal, not cheaper than gas.

[truedelphi]

1. K & R. You know NNadir - something that truly disturbs me,

now that we are so firmly inside the new, Corporate-owned era of "Environmentalism' is that one of the one of the primary principles behind a true Environmental platform has been side stepped. And that sidestep takes the "environmentalism"
out of "environmentalism."

the early environmentalists held as sacred the notion that for any energy source to be truly considered environmental, then the energy not only needed to come come from renewable sources, but that it had to be extremely localized in terms of how it fits into the power grid.

I have been told again and again that this is not possible in terms of wind generating energy - that you have to have these monstrously huge windmills, churning through our skies, defacing the landscape, with roads that lead to each wind mill because of the work that is needed for maintenance on them.

but the thing is, in several journals, I have read about little tiny wind turbines that can be simply attached to the top of one's house. Inside their housing (needed, I guess to protect them from the wetness of elements) they resemble the cute little rounded mini minarets that usually are seen housing attic fans (Dimensions - maybe around three feet square, by 20 inches high)

Having these installations up and running on houses where there is a decent wind current, would be a boon to energy and to an individual's electric bill, this would be REAL AND TRUE ENVIRONMENTAL ENERGY.

The whole reason that these small structures are not being promoted and then propagated throughout our society (most people do not even know about them) is that the Corporations want their ever lasting control and their ability to continue fleecing our pockets.

[Beartracks]

2. Good points, Delphi. n/t

[kristopher]

3. power =1/2 pAV^3

Where p is the air density (just like any other density -- how much a given volume of wind weighs), A is the swept area of the blades (how much surface area of the turbine actually catchs wind) and V is the velocity of wind usually measured in mph. Notice that the velocity of wind is raised to the power of 3.

What this means is that a small turbine (A) close to the ground where there are lots of things to slow down the wind (V^3) will not deliver very much power.

The reason they build large turbines is to get them high and to engage the wind over a large swept area.

The small turbine will produce electricity for probably between $0.40 - $0.70 per kilowatt and the large ones between $0.04 - $0.12 per kilowatt.

Also there is universal endorsement of wind energy by every mainstream environmental organization out there - including the Audubon Society.

Of course, the environmentalists at the Nuclear Energy Institute and Koch Industries have a different version of environmentalism, perhaps that is the one you subscribe to?

[truedelphi]

4. I do understand all that. I mean,

It does make a certain amount of sense to have some windmill farms.

However, we have in California a PG & E totally committed to centralization. That is easy to see once you see a them running endless commercials about the need for each household to turn off the little flicker lights on all appliances. (Even if someone does that faithfully for a year, it amounts to about $ 10 annually.)

However, PG & E does not get so communicative about having people generate their own electricity. Every step of the way, there are excuses. And PG & E seems quite pleased when neighborhoods in tonier sections of L.A. OUTLAW the use of clotheslines. (A household dryer that is never used saves a LOT MORE than $ 10 per utility customer, and also conserve a lot more energy. But we wouldn't want to affect P G & & E's bottom line, now would we?) You have to figure that P G & E has enough clout to make it illegal to have clotheslines' banned. (PG & E here is an -Enron style organization.)

But if everyone in Lake County near Mt Konocti had one of the small turbine adjusted on their roof, and set up to maximize the power that is available when the wind kicks in at 4:30 Pm, that overall effect would be wonderful.

Same sort of wind energy exists in Mill Valley, Sausalito area of San Francisco Bay.
This statement of yours that I will put in bold runs absolutely OPPOSITE to what I was saying:
Of course, the environmentalists at the Nuclear Energy Institute and Koch Industries have a different version of environmentalism, perhaps that is the one you subscribe to?

I want energy decentralization, and it will simply not come about if people who attempt to do that through technology are talked out of doing it in the only means now available - incrementally.

[kristopher]

5. Actually the regulations do incentivize PG&E to reduce consumption

And to promote distributed generation. And I can't for the life of me understand the connection between PG&E and community ordinances that prohibit clothes lines - unless you are saying that the utility has salted the thousands of neighborhood association boards with their employees. You aren't saying that are you?

I applaud your desire to move to distributed generation, but there are a lot of major changes that need to be accomplished to get us to that goal. We need to build out a smart grid and switch our personal transportation sector to electric drive. We need to build large scale wind (which is considered to be distributed generation in spite of your belief to the contrary0 and we need to enhance our transmission capability. We need to promote the use of commercial solar as much as possible so that so build up the manufacturing capacity catering to the deep pockets that can make the large investments after looking at the long term financial benefit from going with solar. The inflow of capital into these sectors will provide a very firm foundation for a home system that will be primarily based on solar PV and has a dedicated storage capacity (the equivalent of a 150 mile battery pack would be great). A smart grid is still needed to manage all of the home systems and the distributed wind, wave/current/tidal, and geothermal resources that backup your home system.

In the immediate future you will contribute most effectively to advancing the cause of distributed generation by either buying a home solar PV system and encouraging that industry, or if it is too expensive (and it is for most even with subsidies) then you might want to consider contacting that evil utility and contracting for wind energy from them. That will encourage large scale wind - the main thrust of renewable development right now.

I'd strongly suggest that if you are set on a home wind system, that you at least accomplish a GOOD resource assessment of where you plan to mount the turbine. I'll wager that if you monitor production from real wind measurements for one year you will change you mind unless you have a front row house right on the beach.