Can Wind Power Get Up to Speed?

[Chuck]

Can we go from 3% renewables (less hydro) to 25% in 2025?

Brian Walsh - TIME - June 23, 2009

Put the exact CNN poll up --Ed.

Pop quiz: what source of power doesn't come out of the ground, doesn't burn and isn't radioactive? Hint: it contributed the most new electricity generation to the U.S. grid in 2008.

The answer is wind power, the technology that has become synonymous with going green. Companies that started out small, like Denmark's Vestas and India's Suzlon Energy, have become multinational giants selling steel and fiberglass wind turbines; even blue chippers like General Electric have identified wind power as a major revenue source for the future, while the construction and installation of wind turbines will employ workers here in the U.S. Investing in wind power, said President Barack Obama at a turbine factory in Iowa on Earth Day, "is a win-win. It's good for the environment; it's great for the economy." (See the top 10 green stories of 2008.)

But for all the green talk and growth in wind power — it accounted for 42% of all new electricity generation added to the U.S. grid last year — wind still makes up less than 3% of America's total electricity generation. Even at current rates of growth, that figure is unlikely to change soon. The question is, Will wind ever produce enough power to satisfy America's energy needs?... [Read More]

[alpha-dog]

Maybe when people start adding VAWT's on thier roofs

[Chuck]

What is VAWT?

[alpha-dog]

vertical axis wind turbine

[R.I.D.E.]

I had some different answers. Solar, Lunar, the Corelis effect. But then they are the source of wind energy and other recoverables.

Ocean currents
Tides
Solar

Many choices depending on your location.

regards
gary

[mparrish]

France can do it. We can't? Pfffft.

The key to going 25+% renewables is not primarily to increase supply. Start living, working, & moving efficiently, and start taking coal plants offline. Then you'll get your 25%.

[hobbit]

VAWTs have the disadvantage that they will shake supporting
building structures to pieces unless they're very carefully
designed [and I'm leaving that deliberately vague on whether
that means the building or the turbine]. Dedicated masts seem
to work out better long-term.
.
_H*

[Elixer]

One of the big problems with wind is that you tend to get lots of electricity exactly when you don't need it, and it's very intermittent. The article says that we can get around this problem by better power transmission. Yeah right.

"But both those hurdles can be sidestepped by building a more modern and supercharged electrical grid, one capable of funneling wind-generated electricity from the middle of the country to the coasts. A dense and more connected network can also compensate for intermittency, with wind turbines in one part of the country backing up those in another."

Transmitting power at 60Hz gets to be extremely difficult at more than 300 miles, and 500 miles is about the absolute limit, due to the inductance of the wires. You can do it greater distances with DC transmission lines but they're very expensive and add to power losses. Transmission lines are already wired across the US like a tangle of wires, our transmitting capacity is not bad at all considering the practical physical constraints. His idea of transmitting power from middle America to the coasts is far fetched without building multi-billion dollar DC transmission lines.

"The question is, Will wind ever produce enough power to satisfy America's energy needs?"
This is a big resounding No. I don't think wind power will ever make up more than 20% of our energy unless someone invents a very effecient and very cheap storage technology. Wind power is great if you can use it to keep you from having to fire up gas generators to meet the peak loads during the day, and to reduce the required power draw from other power plants. Wind is a intermittent power source and always will be, and the power supplied need to be constant, which is major reason why wind will never be the dominant energy source. Ask anyone in the power business and they will tell you the same thing, they'll probably be even less idea than me.

This article was written by someone who doesn't really understand the engineering involved in power. The fact that we have 50 times or whatever value he's stated more wind power than our current power use doesn't really tell us anything.

I definitely do believe that wind power is part of the solution, along with many other. I envision a world where we primarily use wind, solar, hydroelectric, and other renewables, with nuclear energy to back it up, as well as a microgrid of hybrids supply power to the city during peak usage. However wind power is far from a god-send and reports of how there's enough wind energy to power the US x number of times over is more or less a false line of reasoning due to wind power's intermittent nature.

[Gordon]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8058608.stm

Biggest on shore wind farm in Europe and I can see it from my front yard. If we can do it, then what the hell is taking America so long. T. Boone Pickens is the greatest pioneer right now in America for Wind and Solar energy. Amazingly enough since he made his name through oil!

[Taliesin]

I had to vote no, but he is doing slightly better than previous presidents (with Carter being the exception).

He may be doing more, but no one has done enough.