Wind energy fails

[Old Rocks]

A little on how Wind Energy is integrated into the grid.

Imagine you need to fill up your car with fuel, and that fuel comes from wind, when do you think you might be able to fill up your wind powered car, would you look to a weather forecast to see when they are predicting the wind to blow. I guess you would need five cars, one will be outside when no clouds are out, for its solar powered, the others will be placed in windy areas, waiting to be fueled by wind.

Wind is about the stupidest idea on the planet, using the most resources, for the smallest return, at the greatest expense.

National Wind Watch | The Grid and Industrial Wind Power

How does wind power affect peak load?
Unlike conventional power plants, wind turbines cannot be "dispatched" in response to fluctuating demand needs. Wind turbines respond only to the wind, so their contribution to supply is essentially random. The wind may be high when demand is low, or vice versa. If there is sufficient demand when the wind rises, wind power may reduce the need for other plants to supply power. On the other hand, if the wind drops when there is still demand, other plants must quickly jump in to cover the loss. The more frequent ramping or switching of these other plants raises costs and may lower their efficiency and increase their emissions.

Of course, were we to build a real national grid, we could have enough wind, solar, nuclear, geo-thermal, and other clean sources of power in place to ship power wherever needed. As it is, often the windmills in Texas stand idle, their potential power going nowhere, even as the East Coast is short on power.

Roger Anderson: Making a Smarter Power Grid | The Fu Foundation School of Engineering & Applied Science - Columbia University

 

[editec]

I think wind energy will be part of the energy mix for the rest of our lifetimes.

I doubt anybody imagines that windpower is the final solution.

 

[Care4all]

Can't imagine what the oil and gas energy source would be or look like IF THE GOVERNMENT and our tax dollars hadn't invested in promoting it as an energy source....from what I've read, we have spent hundreds of billions if not trillions in tax funds, promoting those energy sources.
So please don't fool yourselves in to thinking that our government and our tax dollars were not involved... (pipelines, oil leases at bargains, research and development, infra structure investments, tax credits...)

And truthfully, if you just honestly analyze the wars in the middle east that we have been in and the money spent on them, all to protect our private industry oil interests....you are talking in the multi trillions of dollars.

We have to do something to get off the middle eastern oil tit....if we could, then it will save us trillions of dollars in the long run, and countless lives of our Military imo.

 

[mdn2000]

Ha, ha.

Trillions in tax dollars developing oil, not a chance. Not even remotely true, billions, again, false.

We don't know how long it will take to build nuclear plants

True, we do not know how long our lawyers, politicians, self-righteous judges, and environmentalist will litigate nuclear power in the courts.

Of course, were we to build a real national grid

It is not economical to move electrical energy thousands of miles across the grid, never has been, never will, so now we must invent a magic grid that can accommodate unpredictable, intermittent sources of energy located hundreds of miles from where they are needed.

Once upon a time people built Power Plants where they were needed, the reason being it was economical, meaning its the best solution.

Every city could save the earth by locating power plants close, of course the Democrats do not like that idea, Democrats have regulated and passed laws that allow for Wall Street players to treat electricity like a commodity, such as corn.

Our grid is fine, it would be better if we built a feasible power plant close to where its needed.

Its like housing in California, so expensive people drive over a hundred miles a day to and from work, I would prefer a fifty story apartment building in downtown Los Angeles where I could be within walking distance of work. Think of all the energy saved.

Power close to where its needed, great housing on top of the jobs, that is a reasonable solution. Not a Wind Mill hundreds of miles away waiting for the wind to blow.

 

[mdn2000]

we could have enough wind, solar, nuclear, geo-thermal,

Geothermal again, geothermal is complete waste of energy and time, I guess we need a new thread on Geothermal, I can cut and paste all the facts I have posted which prove the failure of Geothermal.

Geothermal is the most expensive power source. Geothermal uses more resources than any other form of energy.

Using the most resources results in the largest release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

It is that simple.

 

[Old Rocks]

It is that simple that mdn lies a lot.


http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/geothermal.html
A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth's hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.

An 18-member panel led by MIT prepared the 400-plus page study, titled "The Future of Geothermal Energy" (PDF, 14.1 MB). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, it is the first study in some 30 years to take a new look at geothermal, an energy resource that has been largely ignored.

 

[mdn2000]

It is that simple that mdn lies a lot.


MIT-led panel backs 'heat mining' as key U.S. energy source
A comprehensive new MIT-led study of the potential for geothermal energy within the United States has found that mining the huge amounts of heat that reside as stored thermal energy in the Earth's hard rock crust could supply a substantial portion of the electricity the United States will need in the future, probably at competitive prices and with minimal environmental impact.

An 18-member panel led by MIT prepared the 400-plus page study, titled "The Future of Geothermal Energy" (PDF, 14.1 MB). Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, it is the first study in some 30 years to take a new look at geothermal, an energy resource that has been largely ignored.

We have a geothermal thread, old crock.

 

[Old Rocks]

You lie there, also

 

[mdn2000]

You lie there, also

Go point out the lie

 

[Old Rocks]

we could have enough wind, solar, nuclear, geo-thermal,

Geothermal again, geothermal is complete waste of energy and time, I guess we need a new thread on Geothermal, I can cut and paste all the facts I have posted which prove the failure of Geothermal.

Geothermal is the most expensive power source. Geothermal uses more resources than any other form of energy.

Using the most resources results in the largest release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

It is that simple.

Geothermal Energy in California

Because of its location on the Pacific's "ring of fire" and because of tectonic plate conjunctions, California contains the largest amount of geothermal generating capacity in the United States.

In 2007, geothermal energy in our state produced 13,000 gigawatt-hours of electricity. Combined with another 440 GWh of imported geothermal electricity, then geothermal energy produced 4.5 percent of the state's total system power. A total of 43 operating geothermal power plants with an installed capacity of nearly 1,800 megawatts are in California, about two-thirds of the total United States' geothermal generation.

The largest concentration of geothermal plants is located north of San Francisco in the Geysers Geothermal Resource Area in Napa and Sonoma Counties. This location has been producing electricity since the 1960s. It uses dry steam; one of only two places in the world for this resource (the other being in Larderello, Italy).