Alternative Energy Confusion

pcnetworx1 writes "New York State is starting to get crunched for electricity. While other states may just say 'pop a couple more coal/oil/natural gas/nuclear power plants down', NY has decided to take the green route. NY State wants to get more power by strategically placing windmill powerplants in upstate NY to help the grid. While getting a dedicated power plant placed on your property for FREE (and being paid $3,000 a year per tower) may sounds good to some Slashdotters, the citizens in upstate NY still need some education in the safety of alternative energy."

Confused about confusion?

[jollyroger1210 (933226)]

Where is the confusion in this article?

And, is there a limit to the numer of towers one can have (to prevent "tower-whoring")?

Confusion is normal during an alien invasion

[Tsar (536185)]

Ladies and gentlemen, er, we've just looked at the pictures, but, uh, what we've seen speaks for itself. New York State has been taken over - "conquered," if you will - by a master race of giant alien propellers. It's difficult to tell from this vantage point whether they will consume the captive townsfolk or merely enslave them.

One thing is for certain, there is no stopping them; the props will soon be here. And I, for one, welcome our new rotary overlords. I'd like to remind them that as a Slashdot poster with excellent karma, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground storage battery caves.
--
If giant alien robots invaded California, would they think the windfarms were just outdoor fitness classes?

Re:They seem to have a confused concept of aesthet

[Shakrai (717556)]

It is also very saddening to see all those already debunked myths about wind and solar energy pop up again and again and again. "It takes more energy to produce a wind mill | solar panel than they ever produce in their lifetime."

Replace "wind and solar" with "nuclear fission" and your argument is still valid.

In any case, I happen to live in upstate New York (outside of Binghamton for those with a map) and wish I had been online last night to see this discussion. Locally there seems to be two interests that are attempting to derail these projects. A) Bird Lovers, B) NIMBY.

I don't know if there is a solution to A. Has anybody ever done a real study to see how many birds these things kill? Or for that matter how many birds cell towers kill? We used to find dozens of dead birds and bats (presumably flew into the guy wires?) when I worked for a WISP and went up to the tower we were leasing. The solution to B is equally challenging. Property owners rights must be balanced with the rights of society as a whole. This is nothing new -- you'd be facing the same opposition to a cell tower, new transmission line, new gas pipeline or a prison (literally -- there's a big argument locally now about siting a juvvie prison).

For my part, as a New Yorker, I would like to see the New York State Power Authority (the same people that run the St. Lawrence Seaway and Niagara Falls) get a mandate to build and operate nuclear power plants and sell the resulting electricity to our utility companies in the same manner that the sell the power they get from hydro projects. They sell it at cost to the utilities who are not allowed to mark it up. Anybody who lives in New York State should see a "Hydroelectric cost savings" line item on their electric bill -- this is because of the power authority. Safety concerns with nuclear power could be addressed by recruiting the talent from the US Navy -- they've operated nuclear power for five decades without a problem.

New York also has limited natural gas resources. Our leaders in Albany are currently trying to get mineral rights from the property owners so they can bring in the out of state energy companies (the Enron's of the World) to exploit these resources. This is a mistake! If I had my way I'd see these natural gas resources exploited by the power authority (or a similar state agency with a mandate to serve the public) and used to supplement the HEAP program for low income families having problems meeting their heating bills.

Of course none of this will ever happen because we have the most dysfunctional State Government in the country :) It's nice to dream though! Maybe Spitzer will clean it up when he gets elected.

What "Safety Issues"?

[d474 (695126)]

I hope you aren't talking about birds. But then again, how would I know what you are talking about, you didn't mention it!

Use less energy

[by Anonymous Coward]

Why don't folks just use less energy? I mean, come on. Unneeded outside lighting, all the lights on inside, monitors left on all night long at work. People need to conserve energy a lot more than they need to start producing more of it.

Re:Use less energy

[CyricZ (887944)]

It's basically a tragedy of the commons situation. Even if it is metered, electricity is so widely available and so relatively cheap that the people there have very little incentive to make efficient use of it.

Of course, that situation may very well change, if they do not get their act together. Then, like any other scarce resource, electricity will become very wisely efficiently allocated by the market.

Re:Use less energy

[chiller2 (35804)]

That's so true. At my workplace all the lights are on regardless of the fact there's sun pouring through the windows. I've managed to ditch the CRTs for LCDs, and have powersaving on all the PCs. If I could get my boss to spring for a couple of well placed skylights we could go all day with no lights on. If I can get digital thermostats installed that might help too, but things like solar water heaters and rooftop cells will never happen. The problem really is down to cost, and that there are few bosses th

energy use and labelling

[j1m+5n0w (749199)]

I think one of the easier ways to reduce energy consumption is with labelling laws. Similar to food ingredient labelling, any electronic device sold should have a label that says:

This device uses a maximum of X watts when in use, and Y watts when idle.

This way consumers can make informed decisions when buying electronic equipment. Right now, it's hard to consider power consumption in purchasing decisions because the information is not readily available. Remember, information asymmetry [wikipedia.org] is a bad thing,

Re:Use less energy

[MikeFM (12491)]

I try to be thrifty of my energy use (to the point of annoying others) but I still think alternative energy is a good idea. Wind farms in rural areas is a good idea. They are not ugly if not packed to tightly but they are noisy which is why I think they should not be to close to homes. Solar coupled with the wind farms is an even better idea. If every home had solar panels just on the roof (grid tied) it could really help the problem by softening the problems associated with peak hour usage. Peak sunlight h

Re:Use less energy

[maarten_delft (66069)]

Of course it makes sense to reduce the " on time " of the small energy consuming devices.

If you bother listing all your devices in a spread sheet with their energy usage, you can easily calculate, for your situation, what types of devices are responsible for what share of electricity consumption in your home.

Of course, consumers are only a part of total energy consumption, but you can never say that reducing your own personal consumption doesn't do anything to improve the situation because the large other parties consuming too much energy, like it are only the industrial companies are too blame or that sort of thing.

Large industries typically provide their own power, for example through combined heat/power plants which are really efficient. Furthermore, because of their scale, large industries have really more incentives to reduce their energy consumption, even from a short term business perspective.

However if our consumption is to be more sustainable then we really have to look at ourselves and what we use. It is not business that drive the world's energy consumption, it is *us*, the consumers. The largest part of oil usage is for transportation, of us and our goods and consumables. Asides for the US military, which is (on a global scale) really a large consumer of fossil energy, all energy consumption is driven by you, me, we, consumers. So savings will have to start with ourselvs, not with "someone else"...

Going from where we are now to a more sustainable situation requires that we are all more willing to focus on the long term prospects of our energy usage, that we realize that what we use now is not without consequences for us a couple of years from now.
This thinking is difficult for most people, our economy is focussed on the present time, what things are worth to us now. At the moment, energy doesn't cost much, it is almost free, so we don't care.

I find out that around 25% of my personal electricity usage was lighting, 25% computers, 25% "silent energy consumption" (power adapters, little adapters, chargers, equipment on standby), 25% kitchen. Last year I thought a little about that and saw things I could improve. I installed some other types of lamps, cut back on computers and behaved differently myselves.

I just got the electricity bill for last year, I have saved around 20% in total, so I am really pleased that you can do that with small things. I imagine all people of New York could also easily save as much as I did. In that case an extra power plant easily is avoidable.

This is just like voting in a democracy: each individual's vote doesn't matter anything, but all worthless little votes combined, is a really powerful thing, the policies of a nation is decided by it.
Each individual energy consumption is nothing, but all those individuals combined, use a not sustainable amount of energy.

Re:Use less energy

[WhiteWolf666 (145211)]

Then you have a problem: the difference between what you want to have and going to get, will only increase in the decades to come, as prices will rise and supplies dwindle.

This is strictly a technological problem, and capitalism is VERY good at solving these kinds of problems.

Fusion is the answer. Maybe not local fusion; maybe we'll never be able to do small scale fusion.

Our planet, however, convieniently orbits a fusion reactor whose output the human mind cannot fathom. We call it the sun; it produces more energy than the species called "Man" knows what to do with.

The only question is how we can harness it. The sun isn't a dam; there isn't a theoretical limit on how much of its energy we can use. Not enough ground space? No problem; Solar Power Satellites [wikipedia.org] to the rescue.

Not enough orbital space? Put 'em in solar orbit, setup relay stations. Efficency isn't an issue; once again, the tap is SO large that the solution is merely a matter of scale, not efficency.

When we are utilizing a non-negligble portion of the sun's energy output, we can talk about energy scarcity. As it is, the only projects we can currently conceive of that would use a non-neglible portion of the sun's energy output would be stellar engineering, on a solar system level, and even then there's more energy than we could possible ever need. We're talking enough energy to literally synthesize vast amounts of matter from energy.

It is an endless font so large that it does NOT fit within the human mind. It's project we can only talk about in engineering terms; its just to big for us to conceive.

Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[CyricZ (887944)]

I noticed this gem in the article:

"So I guess my final question is: Who do I sue if I have any health problems or my property value decreases because of this project?" asked Patricia Oakes, a Hartsville, New York, resident at a recent meeting.

Innovation and a solid legal system were some of the key ingredients that allowed America to become the most powerful nation on earth during the past half-century or so. Unfortunately, innovation is often at odds with tort law, as shown perfectly by the comment above.

With increasing competition from Europe, Japan, China, India, and other areas and nations, America will have to make a choice. They can choose to continue innovating, and perhaps maintain a lead over other nations. Otherwise, they can choose to let legalities unnecessarily interfere with progress, and they will fall behind those countries who aren't bogged down with pointless and greed-driven lawsuits.

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[dbIII (701233)]

America will have to make a choice. They can choose to continue innovating, and perhaps maintain a lead over other nations.

The choice was made some time ago - look at the state of the patent system and the decline in private and government research.

One example I saw a few years ago when I still did things in materials science was presentations from researchers from the USA and Japan in the lucrative feild of artificial body joints. The Japanese reasearcher had decent funding in a project with limited chance of a financial payoff (remember that the Japanese are supposed to only copy and not innovate) while the US researcher with a proven background couldn't get the funding for a single person to develop better designs of a flawed product that makes millions per year but would sell more if it was improved. If your design has made billions for the company due to solid research you would normally expect the company to put a bit more money in for billions in the future instead of sitting on their patents.

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[NitsujTPU (19263)]

Well, to be honest, we should be using nuclear power anyway. It's very clean by relation to most currently available solutions. An interesting advocate of this, simply because, well, I like his computer science work, is Professor John McCarthy [stanford.edu]. Opponents of nuclear power would do well to read it.

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[nmos (25822)]

Well, to be honest, we should be using nuclear power anyway. It's very clean by relation to most currently available solutions.

It's certainly possible that nuclear power could be clean with adequate plans for reprocessing and disposal of waste but thats not the current situation. Currently nuclear is only "clean" in the sense that we've managed to sweep the problem under the rug by cramming tin sheds (er on-site temporary storage facilities) with far more waste than they were designed to handle for far lon

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[NitsujTPU (19263)]

It's political BS that makes the situation difficult, not any technical difficulty. People who believe that nuclear power is a problem are creating the problem of nuclear power.

Swimming pool storage is just fine, it works, it's safe. The waste doesn't last for thousands of years, in 500 years, it's less radioactive than the ore it came from. Reprocessing is perfectly safe, and should be done, but the US cut it out in hopes that other countries wouldn't build reprocessing facilities, since the material could be used in weapons. Of course, North Korea and Iran have proved that countries that want weapons will get them, and most of the industrialized world that uses nuclear power reprocesses their material somewhere.

What you are citing isn't a problem with nuclear power, it's a political problem that was created, mostly, but nuclear power's opponents. These arguments don't even make sense, since for them to be a problem, you have to do something wrong, and the reason that we have difficult times doing the right thing, is because we want to satisfy nuclear power's opponents (who wouldn't you can't appease by doing it right, since they want it gone altogether).

If wind power is super-cheap, maintanence free, and inexpensive, hey, go for it. Most of the people whose views aren't backed by some strawman argument seem to go for nuclear power though.

Here's a bit of trivia. Because we don't use nuclear power (which upsets its detractors), a large portion of the US power is provided by coal (we don't build so many plants). Burning coal puts more uranium into the atmosphere than nuclear power does. So, instead of storing uranium safely, we blast it into the atmosphere.

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[nmos (25822)]

It's political BS that makes the situation difficult, not any technical difficulty.

Agreed, but until we at least get the political will to deal with the existing waste we should be cautious about creating more.

Swimming pool storage is just fine, it works, it's safe. The waste doesn't last for thousands of years, in 500 years, it's less radioactive than the ore it came from.

Somehow I don't find that reassuring considering the fact that yesterdays uranium mines tend to become tommorows Superfund sites. In any event, everything I've read suggests that high level waste from spent fuel rods needs to be contained for thousands of years, not hundereds. From the nrc.gov site:

Some of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have short half-lives (for example, iodine-131 has an 8-day half-life) and therefore their radioactivity decreases rapidly. However, many of the radioactive elements in spent fuel have long half-lives. For example, plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, and plutonium-240 has a half-life of 6,800 years. Because it contains these long half-lived radioactive elements, spent fuel must be isolated and controlled for thousands of years.

Even low level waste can be dangerous if it gets into the air or water. Are you really sure that none of those pools is ever going to leak or that the operators wouldn't cover it up if it did? It happens with all sorts of other toxic wastes and it's happened with uranium mines and processing facilities.

One other quote from the NRC re. wet storage:

Most pools were originally designed to store several years worth of spent fuel. Due to delays in developing disposal facilities for the spent fuel, licensees have redesigned and rebuilt equipment in the pools over the years to allow a greater number of spent fuel rods to be stored. However, this storage option is limited by the size of the spent fuel pool and the need to keep individual fuel rods from getting too close to other rods and initiating a criticality or nuclear reaction.

Does that sound like a 500+ year solution to you?

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[killjoe (766577)]

"Here's a bit of trivia. Because we don't use nuclear power (which upsets its detractors), a large portion of the US power is provided by coal (we don't build so many plants). Burning coal puts more uranium into the atmosphere than nuclear power does. So, instead of storing uranium safely, we blast it into the atmosphere."

The real problem with nuclear power is that it's cheaper, faster and easier to build coal power plants. Sure coal pollutes more and generates CO2 but the only people that have to pay for that are your grandchildren. Pollution and CO2 are officially somebody elses problem.

Corporations and governments are faced with two choices. Choice 1 is to spend a buttload of money and take 15 years to build a nuke or spend 100 times less money and build a coal plant in half the time. The choice is a no brainer.

Until somebody is charged for polluting and generating CO2 the cost benefit analysis won't change.

Re:Legalities will be the downfall of America?

[moonbender (547943)]

Burning coal puts more uranium into the atmosphere than nuclear power does.

Here's a bit of trivia. "These studies concluded that the maximum radiation dose to an individual living within 1 km of a modern power plant is equivalent to a minor, perhaps 1 to 5 percent, increase above the radiation from the natural environment. For the average citizen, the radiation dose from coal burning is considerably less." "On this plot, the average population dose attributed to coal burning is included under the consumer products category and is much less than 1 percent of the total dose." "Radioactive elements in coal and fly ash should not be sources of alarm." ( Radioactive Elements in Coal and Fly Ash: Abundance, Forms, and Environmental Significance [usgs.gov])

I do agree that this is somewhat of an issue, though, in that essay [ornl.gov] that pops up everywhere now (even though it's really old), Gabbard does raise some points, especially with respect to long term accumulation of hazardous materials. But I'm not a chemist, this might be a non-issue. I've briefly searched for more recent material, but so far haven't come up with anything.

Things change

[ThatGeek (874983)]

When the Eiffel Tower first went up [wikipedia.org], people said it was an eyesore and demanded that it be removed. Who wanted to live near a bunch of scaffolding? No doubt, they argued, it would destroy the character of the city and destroy property values. Now we can't imagine the city without it.

I think that once this farm is built, people will discover they like lower taxes and cleaner air. I suspect that the "science" mentioned in the article is mere pseudo-science anyway. I have no idea how a bunch of rotating blades could do as much damage to the human body as the fumes from coal and oil burning. (Note: I assume the human body does not actually come into contact with the blades)

not a very good analogy

[Trepidity (597)]

If there were 500 Eiffel towers dotting Paris, people might be less happy about them than they are about the one.

Re:Things change

[pnewhook (788591)]

Why not nuclear? Half the cost per megawatt than wind, doesn't kill any birds, and doesn't pollute like coal and natural gas.

Re:Why Not Nuclear?

[NoMoreNicksLeft (516230)]

It pollutes in its own unique radiant style

Hardly unique, coal releases quite a bit of radioactivity too. Scared of things you can't see, but that new-fangled science tells you must be there? Well, develop an irrational fear of radiation then, and ignore innovations like pebble bed reactors!

that will keep an area aglow for millennia.

We are talking nuclear power plants, not detonating cobalt bombs. But I guess we should just ignore that, because NUCULAR IS T3H EV1L!

Personally, I favor switching everything to

Re:Things change

[phayes (202222)]

Having grown up in upstate NY, there's also a knee jerk reaction to having to contribute anything which would help New York City more than it would the locals. Over the past 50 years, NTC has usually recieved much more in benefits than it has paid back in taxes to the rest of the state. Upstate NY has been shafted many times and lots of people feel resentment.

Much of upstate NY is really rural and many people can still remember how difficult it was to get on the grid and some people still aren't. When the e

Re:Pseudoscience

[dbIII (701233)]

With a few simple calculations, he demonstrated that the magnetic field strength at a point directly underneath an average high-voltage transmission line was less than that of the Earth's magnetic field.

If you actually measure the feild strength under a 33kV line carrying a lot of load it is a lot higher, but drops off very rapidly. A portion of my workplace is under such a line - so that's where we park the cars.

Getting too close to intense electromagnetic feilds for too long is a problem. The birth defe

WTF

[Dark Paladin (116525)]

Oh. My. Goodness. I have not read about stupidity on such a level since my 7th grade algebra teacher. I read through the issues. Sunlight reflecting? Pulling out a Godwin to compare windmills to Nazi torture tactics? Women having extra periods?

What the hell kind of stupidity is going on here? I used to think that all of the inbreeding was occuring in rural states - but this has got to be the biggest level of stupidity ever. And like my daddy used to say, I can abide a dumb person - that's just an ignorant one.

These people are stupid - which means the inability to learn.

(Sigh.) So, uh, any space up in Canada?

To be fair...

[YrWrstNtmr (564987)]

Town board members surveyed the population and found that only 5.5 percent of townspeople are against the wind farm, while 58 percent are for it.

Of COURSE the news outlets are going to interview the squeaky wheels. Sells more copies.

I imagine in any population, you can find 5% who are against something, no matter how good an idea it may be.
That 5% will get pushed aside, so that the rest of us can get on with things.

Education in the safety of alternative energy

[by Anonymous Coward]

Windmill safety warnings:

Do not place windmill into eye.
Never use windmill chop vegetables.
Windmill cannot be used for personal hygiene.
Tilting windmill may result in cliché.

Intriguing...

[melvin xavier (942849)]

So, all I have to do is buy some small plot of rural land in upstate NY, then lease it to the government to get 3K a year in rent? Awesome! If I can rent out 34 of these plots, I'm a millionare without any effort on my part!

Re:Intriguing...

[melvin xavier (942849)]

Yes, yes. My post was absurdly wrong. This is why rum and slashdot should never mix. Just remember, friends don't let friends drink & post.

Re:Intriguing...

[bxbaser (252102)]

everyone has one of those doooh moments.
Its just sucks harder when its on slashdot.

*Scratches Head*

[maynard (3337)]

"[...]the citizens in upstate NY still need some education in the safety of alternative energy."

Uhhh, ok... so, I'm all for wind farming. It's cheap and competitive and safe. The NIMBYers (including those in my home state of Massachusetts) need to start considering their alternatives WRT coal, gas, and nuclear. Which would *you* prefer nearby, and how much do you want to pay for electricity? But when I read the term "education" used in this context, it just drives me up the wall. It's as if by being "educated" I would -- of course -- agree with the proposition at hand. IOW: The reframe of using the term "education" in the context of whatever agenda happens to be yours has now become cliché. *shrug*

People can't have their cake and eat it too!

[grqb (410789)]

I have to be a bit skeptical about some of these claims about wind turbines:

1. Wind turbines make the same noises as Nazi troops torturing Jews? WTF??
2. Wind turbines causing women to have multiple menstrual cycles a month?

Come on. The real issue is that these people think wind turbines will decrease their property value. They don't have to make up shit like this. Especially if you compare the health effects of what would be built instead of wind turbines...probably coal power plants, which would be far worse health wise.

That being said, wind power is definitely inconsistent. From what I've heard about Denmark, which has the most wind power per capita in the world, most Danes are so untrusting of the quality of their electricity that they wouldn't even think about powering something without a UPS, otherwise they'd fry their electronics. Can any Danes back that up?

Re:People can't have their cake and eat it too!

[scarlac (768893)]

Yes, Denmark is one of leading countries when it comes to windmills. I don't know about how many we have, but you do them every once in a while when driving around in the country. We are getting more and more, but there are, like many others pointed out, other alternatives.

Wind power is great, and there are really no known sideeffects of them, besides a nice view. Wind power has been around for a long time, so other alternative energy methods are not as widespread. Each year we hear of windmill companies expanding and increasing sales, and I'm very satisfied with that "on behalf of the environment".

Our electricity over here is very stable compared to other contries, _afaik_. I don't know of _anyone_ who would complain of more windmills. When mother nature does her thing sneezing (yes, I know - it's usually very quiet over here) on the trees making them fall on power lines, there aren't much we can do, but actually NESA is putting power lines into the ground, so that's less to worry about.
In short: No we are not paranoid about electricity, and yes - I personally do fine without an UPS. I bet our electronics are just as sensitive as any other electronics from Taiwan ;)

However, like i said: Alternative methods are approaching, but far from popular.
Amongst other methods are "wave-farms" (I don't know the formal term). Swedish scientists and Danish scientists recently improved this technology to such a point that... well i don't know any numbers, but I remember it being more promising/effective per square mile and cheaper set-up than windmills.

Importance of Land.

[jellomizer (103300)]

While I am sure most slash-dotters are based in Urban areas, Or in other countries. Where while land prices are expensive they are not always considered as valuable. In the more Rural areas of New York, (NY is one of the larger States in the North East and most of it is NOT New York City). A lot of the people in Upstate want to live the Anti-NYC life. Where they can get up in the morning and look out the window and not see signs of Human Life, there are also many who bought this land for investment, where they can one day sell it for millions from their $50,000 investment. Things like Windmills, and other things make the land seem less pure and polluted. There was an argument about a year ago where a Cell company wanted to put a tower on top of a mountain and there ware many problems with it making it look ugly. So what the Cell company agreed to was to make it look like all the other trees, Just slightly taller. Many Upstate NYers want a life without much changes. If I had a house with like 20 achers I probably allow some windmills but I would want them away from the view from my house, and If they are in the way of my Neighbors view then Ill have some other problems.

Re:Importance of Land.

[Belseth (835595)]

How about the importance of afordable power? I'm far less worried about land speculators hoping to get rich than people that very soon aren't going to be able to aford to heat their homes in the winter. We're freezing our asses off but boy is it pretty. I'm a fanatic about land preservation but people need to be practical. It's easy to say put it somewhere else but it needs to be done. You're worried about eye polution. Well I used to live in LA and I'll a tiny amount of eye polution over air polution any d

How to avoid bird deaths

[Belseth (835595)]

I say paint a swirl pattern on the blades of the windmills so they look like the old hyponosis wheels. The birds will be too dizzy to fly near the windmills. If the birds are forced to walk they can't hit the blades. Better to have staggering birds with bad headaches than dead ones.

Makes sense for a few MW in a hurry

[dbIII (701233)]

Wind power has a really big advantage in the short term over any sort of thermal plant - the lead time is short due to the small unit size.

If you want a big steam turbine or several of them you have to order it years before you need it, and then it takes a long time to build all of the other infrastructure that turns it into a power station. If you go nuclear you have a choice between an expensive white elephant or becoming a pioneer with a full scale version of one of the more promising prototypes out there - so unless you have many years (more than a term of government certainly) you can forget about it.

There are several downsides of wind. With that small unit size the price per MW is high. Maintainance shedules are short (around 1 year vs 5 years for thermal plants) - but once again if you have a lot of small units you can afford to have a few down at any time. Wind isn't reliable, but paired with a thermal or hydro station that can do reasonably quick changes to load (sorry nuclear guys - this is your weak point) and control system like we've had for decades that isn't really a problem. Compare it to a solar water heater - it had a secondary heat source for those times when there isn't enough sun - so you have wind to save on oil or coal fuel costs.

Another quick fix solution is gas turbines. These are usually similar to jet engines driving generators and they aren't much cheaper than wind. Wind scales a bit (you can make big windmills and bring the price per MW down a bit) while photovoltaics don't - double the area of photovoltaics and you only get twice the power - which is why the nuclear crowd like to use it as a comparison because anything else built big enough is going to outstrip it at some point.

All of the above ignores CO2 - and if you consider it then that makes gas turbines less of an option. Nuclear in the short term would only work if someone parks a submarine nearby - everything that uses a large scale to get the efficiency up will require a lot of planning and constuction time.

Always naysayers

[Belseth (835595)]

How anyone can claim health problems from windmills is beyond me. People are calling them an eyesore but would they be happier with a coal burning plant next door? More of that anywhere but here BS. Tell you what. Communities that say yes to them get their power for half and your power bills are going to double. Not fair? Wait'll oil starts running out and everyone is paying 4X the current rate. I don't get the eyesore part myself. I lived in Wellington NZ where there was a massive one and it was a tourist attraction and I can't remember anyone complaining about it. Personally I love the ones between LA and Phoenix. The drive is boring and they are a lot more interesting to look at than desert scrub. The placement may not have been ideal but what birds are dying pale to what encrochment and polution cause. Not a perfect solution? Welcome to the real woirld where there are none. It's simply one of the best solutions. Third world countries are embracing the technology. It's sad that we in the oil whoring US of A are whining about asthetics.

Ugh.

[velocipenguin (416139)]

Upstate New York is full of short-sighted, selfish idiots. These people will continue to be militantly stupid until something impedes their access to cable TV; once that happens, they'll be fighting tooth-and-nail to get wind turbines installed. After that, they'll cover the turbines in bright yellow "Support Our Troops" magnets and sit down in front of the TV until another opportunity to delay technological progress appears.

Upstate NY

[NitsujTPU (19263)]

I'm in upstate NY.

Politics are on the lips of just about every person residing in upstate, as far as I can see. I couldn't go down from my office to get a coffee in Collegetown without overhearing at least 2 or 3 townies discussing politics if I wanted to.

It's also a fertile breeding ground for rather furious debate about such things. The Socialist party has a strong presence here (seriously, and they're proud to be Socialist). The town prints 2 forms of currency to be used in addition to US currency, City Bucks and Ithaca Hours.

So, to hear people talking about building wind farms in upstate is unsurprising. People have been talking about that for quite a while.

The flip side, however, is that you can always hear opponents of such actions. For instance, Cornell University does its cooling with water from the Cayuga River. We're not talking about dumping hot water into the river. Cold water from the Cayuga is pumped through campus buildings to cool them, reducing the amount of energy required by the campus. As far as sustainable, environmentally sound solutions are concenred, it's probably one of the cleanest ways to do it. It's definately pushing the curve a bit and showing that such solutions are viable.

This solution has vocal opponents as well.

To be brief, you can find just about any statement, as long as it's left-wing, that you want in upstate, and, according to people who've lived her longer than I, quite a few right wing ones too if you look hard enough. It's just the nature of upstate. People like politics.

windmills are beautiful

[John Nowak (872479)]

They're a symbol of "green" energy and sanity. I couldn't give a fuck if it is blocking someone's view of some hill across yonder. I... I don't even have any coherent words to say about this. Since when is your "view" more important than the environment and public health!? I'm sucking on pollution and being irradiated due to coal plants because of these idiots! Fuck your view! Bring on the windmills!

Windmill hell, or, now that they work...

[Animats (122034)]

At long last, big megawatt-sized windmills work. They don't throw blades, they survive storms, they produce power under low wind conditions, they play nice with the power grid, and they don't take excessive maintenance. They're available from GE, Vesta, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. Thousands of wind machines in the 1 MW to 3MW range are running today. After decades of work, these things are big enough to be useful.

And that's the problem. These things are big. 400 feet high [gepower.com], the size of a 40 story building. And that's the old 1MW model. The new 3MW units are even bigger, with a 341 foot blade diameter.

But that's only 3MW. These things need to installed in large numbers to generate enough power to drive whole cities. So thousands of these huge towers have to be built. This is happening. And, let's face it, the result looks like an industrial park. [friendsofbruce.ca] We're not talking about those little hippie windmills from the 1970s. This is serious machinery.

Upstate New York people are bitching about this, as mentioned in the original article. The Cape Cod and Nantucket people are furious. [capewind.org] The plan there is to build a wind farm six miles offshore, with 130 turbines. This seems huge, but it will only provide about a quarter of Cape Cod's electricity. Residents are upset about how it will "ruin the ocean view". Six miles offshore.

Actually, the Cape Cod site probably should be about 10x bigger. Someday it will be.

Austin's Green Choice program

[imuffin (196159)]

Here in Austin, we've had the Green Choice Program [austinenergy.com] available for a while. There's a huge farm of windmills out in west Texas by El Paso. I've driven past them--it's really amazing how many there are. I remember last summer getting a flier in the mail touting this program. They said that for a typical household that used 1000 kilowatt hours/month, it would cost about an additional $5 to know that all of your power came from these sustainable sources. I kept meaning to sign up but never got around to it.

After Katrina and Rita, I heard predictions that the price of natural gas (which is what most of the electricity is made with around here) was going to skyrocket. I figured that I'd better sign up for Green Choice immediately, because if the predictions were true, then Green Choice would be cheaper than regular energy. Plus, the Green Choice program locks in a 10 or 15 year contract with the energy providers, so the price doesn't go up.

I wish I had signed up, becuase come October it was too late and the program was full. Now if you look at the Green Choice site [austinenergy.com] you'll see that Green Choice energy is in fact cheaper than regular energy, and they're having a drawing to sign up a relatively small number of additional customers.

I think this is fantastic--it's bound to cause expansion of wind and other sustainable energy production methods.

---
watch funny commercials. [tubespot.com]

Re:Wind energy is great, but ...

[MikeURL (890801)]

Personally I think wind farms look really cool and if the noise level were not unbearable I would not mind living near one. However, it always helps to offer people SOMEthing for this. I suspect a lot of the complaining would die down if anyone within 1 mile of a wind farm would get free power for life; within 2-5 miles a 40% discount and within 5-7 miles a 10% discount.

Re:Wind energy is great, but ...

[nathanh (1214)]

If I recall correctly, as of 3 years ago when I was a junior in college, one windmill could power one house. A small house, at that. I don't think technology has improved substantially in the three years since.

It would have been helpful if you'd spent a few minutes with Google before posting. Wind turbines range in production capacity between 500kW and 6MW. For comparison, a 5MW wind turbine produces enough electric power for 1000 homes [msn.com] and that's after taking into account fluctuating wind conditions.

I suppose a 5kW wind turbine would be enough for one house. That's the eletrical production capacity of wind turbines back from 1890 [wikipedia.org]. That's right; wind turbines have been used to produce electricity since the late 1800s. They produced enough power back in 1890 to power a single house today.

Re:Wind energy is great, but ...

[Stregone (618612)]

It will practicaly never run out. The waste can be reprocessed, and newer designs can actualy run on the waste of normal reactors. And there is all sorts of fissionable stuff in the ground(thorium) and sea water(more uranium). Hell, most coal has enough trace amounts of uranium in it to produce more power in a nuclear plant than being burnt in a coal plant(and guess where it goes when it IS burnt?). Right now its just too expensive to bother getting fuel from these other sources when you can just dig it out of the ground. Though, when crunch time comes it won't be too expensive anymore.

Unless you want to cover an entire state in solar cells or wind turbines. Solar cells require alot of energy just to make. It takes 10-20-ish years of continuous operation to 'pay back' the energy required to manufacture it, and only then are you actualy making any 'new' energy. Up untill that point they are just really expensive batteries. And wind turbines are complex machines, a whole state filled with then is never going to have them all operational at the same time. How much energy will be spent even just driving around and maintaining them all?

Kyoto

[InfiniteWisdom (530090)]

That's precisely the idea behind the system of pollution credits in the Kyoto treaty. Companies get some number of tradable pollution credits. That way companies have an economic incentive to curb emissions so that they can sell off their credits to other companies who pay real dollars to keep on polluting. Regulating the supply of pollution credits allows one to curb the total amount of pollution going into the atmosphere.

Re:Nobody does the math on alternative energy...

[toddestan (632714)]

The average aluminum smelting plant uses 300mw of electricity or 250,000 times as much Link.

Holy cow, that's a lot of electricity. It seems from scanning that article that the majority of that electricity is used to create heat for use in their smelters. Anyone know why they don't just burn natural gas or coal at the plants for heat instead? It would seem to me that would be a heck of a lot cheaper, not to mention a more efficient use of limited resources than buying electricity from coal and gas power p

Re:Nobody does the math on alternative energy...

[TheNarrator (200498)]

Let's do some numbers!
Denmark Energy Statistics [www.ens.dk]

Looks like they are generating 3.1 Gigawatts total. Not bad but not a whole lot. They are adding about 300mw a year. I'll leave out oil from the energy statistics because liquid fuels is a whole nother' ball of yarn that I'll let slide. However, If you look at total natural gas usage up at the top of the spread sheet it's 15 times their wind power. This natural gas could be replaced by electricity for heating so I would say that electricity meets about 5%