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Pickens Plans On Wind Power
Posted by
samzenpus
on Thu Jul 10, 2008 12:33 AM
from the blowing-our-way-into-the-future dept.
from the blowing-our-way-into-the-future dept.
Hugh Pickens writes "T. Boone Pickens (no relation) has launched an energy plan and social-networking campaign that calls for replacing Middle Eastern oil with Midwestern wind. The Pickens Plan would exploit the country's 'wind corridor' from the Canadian border to West Texas to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity and provide an economic revival for rural America. Transmission lines would be built to transport the power where the demand is and natural gas, now used to fuel power plants, would instead be used as a transportation fuel, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is domestic. Pickens proposed that the private sector finance the investment, which would result in a one-third reduction, equal to $230 billion, in the U.S.' yearly payments to foreign countries. Pickens has already invested heavily in wind, notably a planned 4,000-megawatt wind farm in his native Texas. 'We've got to get renewable into the mix. The problem for this country is that we're paying $700 billion — you heard that — $700 billion a year,' Pickens says. 'We can't afford that. In 10 years we'll be broke if we continue that.'"
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Pickens Calls Off Massive Wind Farm In Texas 414 comments
schwit1 writes with this excerpt from an AP report:
"Plans for the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle have been scrapped, energy baron T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday, and he's looking for a home for 687 giant wind turbines. Pickens has already ordered the turbines, which can stand 400 feet tall — taller than most 30-story buildings. 'When I start receiving those turbines, I've got to ... like I said, my garage won't hold them,' the legendary Texas oilman said. 'They've got to go someplace.' Pickens' company Mesa Power ordered the turbines from General Electric Co. — a $2 billion investment — a little more than a year ago. Pickens said he has leases on about 200,000 acres in Texas that were planned for the project, and he might place some of the turbines there, but he's also looking for smaller wind projects to participate in."
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What about??? (Score:5, Interesting)
What about upright wind tunnels? They build a big structure a mile tall with plastic tarps 10ft above the surface for a few miles radius.
Air warms up under the tarp and goes up the tunnel. Estimates put power at around 500 MW. It was a project around Australia somewhere but it was cut to 1/2 mile for some reason (I dont know).
Re:What about??? (Score:5, Funny)
What about upright wind tunnels? They build a big structure a mile tall with plastic tarps 10ft above the surface for a few miles radius.
Air warms up under the tarp and goes up the tunnel. Estimates put power at around 500 MW. It was a project around Australia somewhere but it was cut to 1/2 mile for some reason (I dont know).
There was talk about building one over the Senate but it's believed the upward rushing hot air would cause a massive drop in air pressure for the surrounding neighborhoods endangering public health. The current system of not requiring Senators to attend most sessions seems to be working.
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Re:What about??? (Score:5, Informative)
I think you are referring to a solar tower [wikipedia.org]. They are neat, in that if built right, they could last damned near forever, potentially generating energy at very low operational cost.
Additionally, since they operate on top of a heat sink with several days of thermal mass, they could easily be used as a 24x7 "base load" alternative energy power plant.
However, they aren't particularly efficient, they haven't been well tested at larger scales, and present a number of fairly serious engineering challenges. The taller the central tower, the more efficient, but building a mile-high tower isn't cheap. And while the "several days" of base load could be turned into a week or more with the correct engineering, that raises construction costs significantly...
Before solar towers can reach the critical mass of economic viability, other technology that's more (downward) scalable will probably win out first. Quite easily, IMHO.
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Re:What about??? (Score:5, Funny)
Not that it really matters, but since you were being a semantic pedantic, I might as well be too.
You can't be a pedantic, because pedantic is an adjective. The noun form is pedant.
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I saw that commercial too (Score:5, Insightful)
In 10 years we'll be broke if we continue that.
There are some that would argue that the US is already broke. The creditors just hadn't started calling yet. But they are now. Take a look at the S&P 500 over the past couple months, then zoom out and compare it to 2001. Yes, friend, right here is the abyss. Not later - right now. 1250 is where it stopped a few months ago. 1250ish is where we are now. After that it's 800 and we're back to the low point of the dot-com crash, and after that there's only the floor. It goes all the way down.
No, America doesn't have 10 years. Oil is going to break America long before that. Europeans are paying $9 US or more per gallon of gas and although they don't like it, they manage. What happens to the US economy when gas doubles again? You're having trouble at $4/gallon.
Re:I saw that commercial too (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I saw that commercial too (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but America has been DESIGNED for the automobile. It's almost impossible to live in the US without a car - at least if you want any quality of life. The scale of the towns, the distances to supermarkets, restaurants, schools, workplaces boggle the mind. In Europe everything is fairly close unless you live way out in the country, public transport is, with few exceptions, excellent, etc. In the US you have to wait for buses that come every half hour instead of every 5 minutes, you have to walk 1km or so to the bus stop (unless you're lucky and live near a major route), and everything you need it at least 3 or 4 km away. It's amazing how you don't notice the distances in the US until you try to walk it.
Yes it makes for nice, clean, tidy towns, with beautiful roads, ample living space, etc. But take away the automobiles and people are screwed.
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Re:I saw that commercial too (Score:5, Insightful)
Stocks are cyclical [yahoo.com].
1974 brought the S&P down to 1962 values - off 25% in less than a year too - and it was back up 25% in 18 months.
The fun part is that at any point in time, no one really knows where the top and bottom of the market will actually be. Sure, you can cry wolf, and once in a while you might actually be right, but to come out ahead in such a situation you not only need to know that it's inevitable but know when. For example, many saw the dot-com bubble popping years before it did - but those who sold right then missed out on a lot of market gain.
I think it's far more likely that our inability /unwillingness to pay off our national debt will cause further devaluation of the dollar (or increased inflation, however you want to look at it) over a long period of time - decades perhaps. I don't think anyone will call it hyperinflation, but it will be a period of relative economic stagnation. This devaluation will discourage foreign investors from using dollars or buying US bonds, which will eventually forcefully curb federal spending.
It won't be a good time to sock away dollars under the bed, but it will be a good time to have a fixed-rate mortgage.
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Re:I saw that commercial too (Score:5, Informative)
As a percentage of GDP, the U.S. debt situation [nationmaster.com] is about the same as Germany, France, and Canada, and is considerably better than Japan and Italy's. It's a common misconception that the U.S. is badly in debt. For some reason people keep looking at the raw dollar values. In raw dollars, the U.S. has huge economic figures because its population is significantly larger than all the other G8 nations, and its per worker productivity is the highest in the world. Once you account for this (by dividing by GDP), its debt load is pretty much in the middle of the other G8 nations.
While you're doing that, you might want to look at the FTSE 100 (UK) [yahoo.com], the DAX (Germany) [yahoo.com], and the CAC 40 (France) [yahoo.com]. They all do pretty much the same thing as the S&P 500.
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Do It. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really simple. Build windmill farms. Build solar collecting power plants. Build the variety of hydro electric generators.
Run everything from electricity including water heaters, building heaters, and cars.
Stop sending money to the other side of the world.
Before the FUD hits the fan. (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/12/doe_study_offpe.html [greencarcongress.com]
Someone, somewhere, will claim that this does not help solve the gasoline problem. Please read the above link, which states that current off-peak electricity could power nearly 200 million PHEVs, according to the DOE. Adding green energy sources will greatly reduce pollution in urban areas when combined with ultra low or zero emission transit.
We'd still have somewhat of an oil problem, but commuting can be covered by existing electric infrastructure.
20% wind is about right. (Score:5, Insightful)
20% wind is about right. More than that, and there are problems during periods of no wind. There's a study on wide area wind averaging (need source) which has a table of percent of installed wind capacity vs. percentage of time available. Even averaging over the entire midwestern US only gets something like 80-90% uptime.
Base load should be nuclear, since that's all fixed cost. Peak air conditioning load should be solar. In between, whatever works.
California needs a major effort to install enough solar panels to power the Southern California air conditioning load. The numbers actually work for this. The nice thing about solar is that you get the power during peak hours. You're guaranteed that bright sun and peak air conditioning load come at the same time. Wind is somewhat random on an hourly scale, and hydro is somewhat random on a seasonal scale.
Alternative Energy... hmm... (Score:5, Informative)
Generating electricity isn't that difficult. Generating enough electricity to keep an average american home electric-bill free is. I started looking into solar and found it was too expensive for too little of a return. Maybe a few years down the road it will be better.
I'm sure a lot of people have done the same, and I'm sure a lot of people have also taken the next step as well and started looking into less expensive ways to generate energy. It seems odd, but very little attention has been paid to the home-electricity arena and there are huge opportunities for engineers and innovators. Building a radial flux generator is well within the capabilities of most do-it-your-selfers for less then a few hundred dollars and the only problem is how to turn it.
Should it really have taken until 2007 before flutter belts came along? Is it really that hard to engineer a device that would take advantage of rooftop wind energy? I bet some products hit the market soon and some DIY projects start showing up online as well.
But wind energy isn't the only thing out there. PV isn't the only way to extract energy from the sun. Gravity can be harnessed pretty easily. And there are plenty of other sources as well.
If there's one good thing to come out of the gas price situation we are dealing with, it's that a lot of smart people will be looking at energy generation all over again.
Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Interesting)
A few years ago, I worked for the Evil Empire (ExxonMobil) as a summer intern. At that time, engineering students nearing graduation were a little nervous about working in the oil industry. What would happen to us if we spent most of our careers in oil, and then suddenly alternative energy sources took off? (It was kind of a dumb thing to worry about in retrospect. Major career changes are the norm.)
To convince us to stick with the company, a senior engineer gave us a presentation. He said first of all that our fears weren't unfounded. All the oil majors anticipate major technology changes to occur during our lifetimes. We will have to totally change gears and move to oil sand, oil shale, nuclear, or whatever.
The second thing he said was more interesting. ExxonMobil doesn't consider itself to be an oil company. As the parent suggests, ExxonMobil is in the energy business.
That's not just bluster, either. I haven't tried to independently verify this, but the presenter claimed that ExxonMobil is the second largest holder of mineral rights to uranium ore in the world. The largest is the Russian government.
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ExxonMobil as an "energy company" (Score:5, Informative)
ExxonMobil doesn't consider itself to be an oil company. As the parent suggests, ExxonMobil is in the energy business.
All the major oil companies started giving lip service to this about 20 years ago in response to a fairly famous critique of the industry. It's mostly talk however. If you look at ExxonMobil's last annual statement on page 19 it says "Fossil fuels are expected to continue to provide about 80% of energy in 2030". That does not sound much like a company that expects to be a big player in any other kind of energy any time soon.
...but the presenter claimed that ExxonMobil is the second largest holder of mineral rights to uranium ore in the world.
I'm deeply dubious of this claim. One would expect to find some mention of it in the footnotes of their financial statements as it would be a material asset. While it's possible I've overlooked something I can find no mention of such mineral rights in their 2007 financial statements or annual report.
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Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Insightful)
Incorrect. A silver bullet is exactly what we need.
The problem at the moment (i.e. timescales of at least 10,000 years) is NOT a lack of energy sources. We've got the means to tap the water cycle, air currents, hot rocks, fissionable metals, trapped hydrocarbons, coal, extra-planetary radiation, ocean currents, angular momentum, and probably a dozen things I can't think of off the top of my head.
The problem is that nearly every time we try to exploit one of those resources, the project is stymied by bureaucratic regulators more concerned with placating NIMBYs and BANANAs than facilitating a responsible plan to supply our nation's ever-growing need for energy.
The silver bullet is not technological. It's political. We need only one thing: the will to start new energy projects. Nearly ANY new energy projects at the moment are an improvement.
Let me be the first to say, "Yes, I do want a Nuclear Power plant in my back yard. Or a wind farm. Or a solar farm. Or a deep hole. or a Dam. Or even a coal plant (I'm not real keen on the coal plant, for aesthetic reasons but if we must, we must). And turn those ugly condos that replaced the tank farm into a refinery."
Conservation is good too. It's just another angle, but it's not sufficient on it's own.
Re: motorcycle parking, you don't even need to subsidize it, just splitting some spaces to allow more motorcycle parking closer to places is probably enough. But ban "cruisers" from the spaces. No bike that weighs as much as, costs more than, and gets worse gas mileage than a jeep wrangler ought to be treated like a bike.
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Re:Get off his nuts (Score:5, Funny)
I am amazed that you missed out public transport. One day, the people of the USA are going to have to get used to sitting next to strangers again.
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"only people with enough money... " (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that Firefox, for example, is a pretty ambitious project, as is SETI@home. Or, for that matter, the content aggregation that takes place at any big BitTorrent site.
To assume that "somebody big" needs to carry out the work of giving this country more power generation is like asking "who's in charge of this 'internet' thing?"
You want to see us have more power? Superinsulate a frackin' building with some friends. Earthberm one. Go on Craigslist for a few weeks, accumulate some surplus foam and other materials, and build a greenroof. Or put in your own solar panels. Or buy a surplus Whisper, put it on a tall post (height is good), and get more watts per dollar than PV. Plenty of biodiesel coops out there, both for refining fuel and converting vehicles. Join one.
We don't need no stickin' megacorps. We really don't. Most forms of renewable power just don't have that serious a set of economies of scale. Think about it. Me? I'm workin' on a few fronts, most notably getting local zoning codes changed to better accomodate this sort of thing and helping to optimize a 26,000 square foot building that's been converted into workspaces for things like bikemaking, vehicle conversions, and people like me who run small manufacturing businesses and such. Hopefully we'll have our first PV up this year. We've already got a guy making hydrogen and a project to build a pretty serious wind turbine.
Don't bitch. Build. Or, as a bumper sticker I sell says, Don't fight the system; replace it.
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Re:Um (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Um (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Good to see (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Good to see (Score:5, Insightful)
He is already a rich hedge-fund manager. He wants recognition for philanthropy, not money.
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