Dear EEVBees:
--Poptones has said "The only way this makes sense is with wind."
--Now, we all know that the need for energy storage, predates the existence of Wind Farms by decades. The reason it only make sense with wind is because, Wind is the one and only thing that make sense. Oil companies are evil capitalists who make less on a dollar invested than the largest company in the World, Apple, and oil contributes to CO2. Coal uses strip mining in some locations and so must be equally bad in all locations, and it also produces CO2, but only half as much as Gas. Now Gas does not have to be strip mined or transported from Saudi Arabia, but Gas is even worse, read on. According to Pop Gas pollutes the ground water in 1 of 5 cases, a figure overstated by 5 or 6 orders of magnitude. Gas according to the Agitprop Video provided even injures helpless children, what vicious bastard these energy capitalists are. No doubt Pop believes these ridiculous assertions, and he probably believes that the conservative media, I.E. everything to the right of Mother Jones and the Daily Worker, have been covering up these completely amazing and astounding facts. I am surprised he did not try to ring in the flaming faucet again, perhaps he missed it.
--Wind has none of these drawbacks, and other than the inconvenient fact that it is going to nearly double Electricity Bills by 2030, it is the perfect power source. We should not worry about the cost of transmission lines as transmission lines are going to be needed in any system. True, but without Wind Farms there is really no need to run tons of copper to east Poppington Diddly. And Wind Power Companies are paid for turning them off in bad weather, see the below link, to an article in the Daily Mail (no doubt, also a shill for the evil capitalist Oil Companies).
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2210986/Wind-farms-given-34m-switch-bad-weather-Households-stung-secretive-payments.html"On Monday and Tuesday last week, when it was exceptionally windy, the National Grid said it paid £16,118 in compensation.
But only when prompted by the Mail did it admit the true figure – including forward trades – was £387,000."
"Up to 32,000 wind turbines could be built in England and Wales over the next 40 years to meet government targets. Many of the existing sites are owned by foreign firms which have made record profits in recent years."
--We already know that Wind is raising the power bill, what with many of the true costs being concealed, rather that lowering it, and any CO2 savings are likely to be marginal at best. So Oil companies have nothing to fear from Wind Power in the foreseeable future. An what is worse the damn things use unmetered power when not generating.
http://www.aweo.org/windconsumption.html"Large wind turbines require a large amount of energy to operate. Other electricity plants generally use their own electricity, and the difference between the amount they generate and the amount delivered to the grid is readily determined. Wind plants, however, use electricity from the grid, which does not appear to be accounted for in their output figures. At the facility in Searsburg, Vermont, for example, it is apparently not even metered and is completely unknown [click here].* The manufacturers of large turbines -- for example, Vestas, GE, and NEG Micon -- do not include electricity consumption in the specifications they provide.
Among the wind turbine functions that use electricity are the following:†
- yaw mechanism (to keep the blade assembly perpendicular to the wind; also to untwist the electrical cables in the tower when necessary) -- the nacelle (turbine housing) and blades together weigh 92 tons on a GE 1.5-MW turbine
- blade-pitch control (to keep the rotors spinning at a regular rate)
lights, controllers, communication, sensors, metering, data collection, etc.
- heating the blades -- this may require 10%-20% of the turbine's nominal (rated) power
- heating and dehumidifying the nacelle -- according to Danish manufacturer Vestas, "power consumption for heating and dehumidification of the nacelle must be expected during periods with increased humidity, low temperatures and low wind speeds"
- oil heater, pump, cooler, and filtering system in gearbox
- hydraulic brake (to lock the blades in very high wind)
- thyristors (to graduate the connection and disconnection between generator and grid) -- 1%-2% of the energy passing through is lost
- magnetizing the stator -- the induction generators used in most large grid-connected turbines require a "large" amount of continuous electricity from the grid to actively power the magnetic coils around the asynchronous "cage rotor" that encloses the generator shaft; at the rated wind speeds, it helps keep the rotor speed constant, and as the wind starts blowing it helps start the rotor turning (see next item); in the rated wind speeds, the stator may use power equal to 10% of the turbine's rated capacity, in slower winds possibly much more
- using the generator as a motor (to help the blades start to turn when the wind speed is low or, as many suspect, to maintain the illusion that the facility is producing electricity when it is not,‡ particularly during important site tours) -- it seems possible that the grid-magnetized stator must work to help keep the 40-ton blade assembly spinning, along with the gears that increase the blade rpm some 50 times for the generator, not just at cut-in (or for show in even less wind) but at least some of the way up towards the full rated wind speed; it may also be spinning the blades and rotor shaft to prevent warping when there is no wind§
Could it be that at times each turbine consumes more than 50% of its rated capacity in its own operation?! If so, the plant as a whole -- which may produce only 25% [a very generous estimate at best]of its rated capacity annually -- would be using (for free!) twice as much electricity as it produces and sells. An unlikely situation perhaps, but the industry doesn't publicize any data that proves otherwise; incoming power is apparently not normally recorded."
--And, lastly that Well Known Oil Company Shill - Norway commissioned a study of the Denmark Wind Catastrophe, which revealed some disturbing facts, see link below.
http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html"In 1998, Norway commissioned a study of wind power in Denmark and concluded that it has "serious environmental effects, insufficient production, and high production costs.
Denmark (population 5.3 million) has over 6,000 turbines that produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used in 2002. Yet no conventional power plant has been shut down. Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants must be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity. Most cannot simply be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises, and the quick ramping up and down of those that can be would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide (the primary "greenhouse" gas). So when the wind is blowing just right for the turbines, the power they generate is usually a surplus and sold to other countries at an extremely discounted price, or the turbines are simply shut off."
"A writer in The Utilities Journal (David J. White, "Danish Wind: Too Good To Be True?," July 2004) found that 84% of western Denmark's wind-generated electricity was exported (at a revenue loss) in 2003, i.e., Denmark's glut of wind towers provided only 3.3% of the nation's electricity. According to The Wall Street Journal Europe, the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken reported that wind actually met only 1.7% of Denmark's total demand in 1999. (Besides the amount exported, this low figure may also reflect the actual net contribution. The large amount of electricity used by the turbines themselves is typically not accounted for in the usually cited output figures. Click here for information about electricity use in wind turbines.) In Weekendavisen (Nov. 4, 2005), Frede Vestergaard reported that Denmark as a whole exported 70.3% of its wind production in 2004."
"Denmark is just dependent enough on wind power that when the wind is not blowing right they must import electricity. In 2000 they imported more electricity than they exported. And added to the Danish electric bill are the subsidies that support the private companies building the wind towers. Danish electricity costs for the consumer are the highest in Europe. [Click here for a detailed and well referenced examination by Vic Mason.]"
"The head of Xcel Energy in the U.S., Wayne Brunetti, has said, "We're a big supporter of wind, but at the time when customers have the greatest needs, it's typically not available." Throughout Europe, wind turbines produced on average less than 20% of their theoretical (or rated) capacity. Yet both the British and the American Wind Energy Associations (BWEA and AWEA) plan for 30%. The figure in Denmark was 16.8% in 2002 and 19% in 2003 (in February 2003, the output of the more than 6,000 turbines in Denmark was 0!). On-shore turbines in the U.K. produced at 24.1% of their capacity in 2003. The average in Germany for 1998-2003 was 14.7%. In the U.S., usable output (representing wind power's contribution to consumption, according to the Energy Information Agency) in 2002 was 12.7% of capacity (using the average between the AWEA's figures for installed capacity at the end of 2001 and 2002). In California, the average is 20%. The Searsburg plant in Vermont averages 21%, declining every year. This percentage is called the load factor or capacity factor. The rated generating capacity only occurs during 100% ideal conditions, typically a sustained wind speed over 30 mph. As the wind slows, electricity output falls off exponentially. [Click here for more about the technicalities of wind as a power source, as well as energy consumption data. Click here for conversions between and explanations of energy units.]"
--Stand by for more hostile abuse from you know who, instead of links to articles supported by government data.
"Facts are stubborn things."
Ronald Reagan 1911 - 2004
Best Regards
Clear Ether
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