Against the Wind

But you can use 98% of that 300 sq mi for farming or grazing - or you can site the wind farm offshore. A 1.5 MW wind turbine, which supplies about 350 households, is typically allocated 50 to 75 acres siting area, but its structure and foundation only take up 1/2 acre.

http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/WindyLandownersFS.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power

Let's do the math.... let's say there are approximately 10,000 power plants in the USA and just for the fun of it let's say they are all of typical size... if wind farms were to replace them, they would cover 3,000,000 square miles. The USA itself is 3,537,441 square miles. Boggles the mind doesn't it?

Awwww Monsieur Le Porcupine. Let's just call it satire :)

Magical, Have you ever built a house? If you did, you would know that the builder could care less about saving energy. I had to pay for extra insulation, better windows, and a energy-star furnace. The builder does not have anything to gain by makung a better building.

Bussiness is about profit. If doing something cuts into profits then you cut it out (cheap windows, thin insulation, inefficient furnace).

What I find funny is that people in my neighborhood knew about the cheap construction and did nothing about it. They did not upgrade their houses because, at the time of construction, it cost them money. Unfortunately people are short sighted. i.e., They buy SUVs thinking it won't use that much gas. Conservation will never work, people have no common sense when it comes to energy. The only time people care about saving energy is when it cost money.

All of the conservation efforts of the 70s went out the window in the 90s. We will be using a ton of energy over the next 10-20 years to support McMansions and SUVs. We need all the power we can get unfortunately.

I guess that is where "penny wise, pound foolish" comes in! No, I haven't built a house for people but I have built 2 8,000 square foot aviaries with 12 interconnected flights in them. Had to wear the contractors hat on those. But, I insisted on it being built well (had to be out there every day to make sure!) since I wanted it to be safe and to last! Yes it was more money up front but in the long run cost less than those who have to be constantly repaired. I don't agree that conservation won't work. It will. And it will have to no matter how much more power is added. Because as you say we will never have enough unless conservation efforts are put in place, mandated by the government and an enormous public campaign is begun to educate people.

M.E., I think you're right on about the inherent inefficiency of wind energy infrastructure but dead wrong on society's willingness to sacrifice for the greater good.

Clean energy, is the right way to go, both because global warming is a reality and because there were only so many dead dinosaurs. But even to get to modest national wind energy output (5-10%), these suckers would have to be planted just about everywhere you look - (think about maintaining all those windmills!)

As for people adjusting to use less fuel, they won't do it: a) because it cost more money and b) they don't (or won't) see the threat until it's smack dab in their face, so they don't feel the need to make sacrifices. People do what's cheap & easy.

Thankfully, there are other technologies coming into focus, such as fuel cells (and no, not just the hydrogen one's you hear about), biofuels, etc... that should provide viable, clean alternatives.

But until mankind knows that there's only a 1 yr. supply of go-go-juice in the ground, we won't be seeing any "Manhattan Project" pushes towards clean energy...

I would have to agree in part about society's unwillingness to sacrifice for the greater good. But the government knows better and laws can be passed regarding emissions and to some degree forcing conservation on the people for their own good. Right now there are incentives to do that, which is great but if needed things might just have to get a lot more pushy in that direction. These things need to be addressed at a local level... especially in the schools. My local level was my grandma. She survived the depression and we were all taught not to waste. But we spoiled our children... unfortunately and the hard lessons are going to come one way or another. We are all living way beyond our means in most every way possible in this great country of ours. But as we can see things are beginning to collapse. Education, to me, is the highest priority.

We did not learn from the oil embargo of the 1970s. We are never going to learn to conserve energy.

The only thing people know how to conserver is money. Did you notice that hybrid car sales went up as gas prices went up?

Conservation will come into play soon as China and India begin to use more fossil fuels. Their economies are growing at incredible rates.

I think wind power will slow down the price of energy now that peak oil has passed but, it's not a perm. solution. The only energy source that is going to solve our problems on a large scale is fusion power. You will never be able to run the world with 100% renewable power as we know it today. Renewable energy will extend the run of fossil fuels until Fusion power is developed.

james, what are your thoughts on hydrogen power?

ME et Al,

We will NEVER (as a nation) get serious about energy conservation until three things happen: we are forced to do so by unaffordably high costs for conventional energy (for our piggish consumption of same); we simply cannot acquire all the energy we desire/need due to shortages of fuel and/or conventional supply; and we gain access to reliable energy which is at least not outlandishly more expensive than conventionally generated energy. I omit government mandate because...well, just look at our energy history.

Just a thought: if it is true that Cape Wind will generate up to 75% of the Cape's electric needs, the 80% + increase in our electric bills this year would be cut substantially by the wind farm. But...Cape Wind is not bragging about this. I think there is a message here. Does it not seem that Cape Wind is missing a huge opportunity to advance their cause here on Cape Cod? Perhaps we should ask El Greco, if we can find him.
I'll check the library, again.

If Cape Wind is telling the truth, they could save $37.50 out of every $50.00 increase in a bill! IF...IF!

Isn't it ironic Great Gadfly that we really think of our government as something totally seperate from us!

Magical, hydrogen power is a nice clean fuel. The source of hydrogen is currently only available, in large quantities, from fossil fuels. You can use electricty to create hydrogen by electrolysis. The only down side is how the electicty was made.

I am all for conservation and renewables but, I am also a realist. I think we need to make some sacrifices to extend the run of fossil fuels. The world unfortunatle is hooked on fossil fuels. The modern economies will collapse without cheap clean fuel. I only hope the fusion power project in France is a sucess for all our sakes.

I beleive the best approach is to start from scratch and go back to the drawing board to re-think technology. One promising alternative is a shell-design structure with enormous wind-power capabilities. It can be viewed over here. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6790007.html

M.E.

How right you are. What did happen to government of, by and for? Perhaps viewing our government as separate from us is just an exrcise in denial...no one wants to take the blame for those people.

I hear you Great Gadfly.

Maybe we should all forget about renewables. In a hundred years or 2 when the oil and gas run out our great grand children can just go back to caves

as the renewable energy industry moves forward they will develop new technology's
that will make things smaller and more powerful

remember cell phones 12 years ago ??

Tommy... wind power is not the only renewable.

Here's a novel idea - let's put into place real conservation programs AND build wind farms, and huge solar arrays, and invest to the bejeesus in these types of clean, sustainable technologies. Reducing our reliance on fossil fuels is not an either-or proposition - we'll need dozens of alternatives if not more. Conservation and wind are but two.

James, you may be right that fusion (and fission for that matter) will play a large part, but we STILL haven't figured out where to put the boatloads of radioactive waste we already have burning holes (literally!) in temporary holding bins at nuclear plants across the country, with no place to go because people don't want a long-term storage facility in their backyard threatening them and their descendants for thousands of years.

Which of course is why wind is such an attractive alternative - it doesn't pollute our planet in profound ways as all the other main souces of energy do. I'll take 400-foot wind turbines across the land over radioactive dumps, or decapitated mountaintops, or festering oil spills every day.

From what I understand the nuclear plant across the bay has a spent fuel pool that is full to the brim, They have 3 times as much high level waste as they were designed for. Now they are getting permits to make another 600 tons of the stuff with no place to put it.

don't confuse fusion and fission. Fusion produces no radiation, just helium.

now that's funny!

hey stupid, read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusion_power
It's about fusion. Your name fits you

hmmmm, still creates radiation.
just helium, is funny. I'm still laughing. Your statement 'fusion produces no radiation', is not funny, it's just false
Obviously it creates less, which is great. However, fusion is still a dream, fission still a nightmare.
So I guess you are in middle school?

When you force two hydrogen atoms together you get an atom of helium and a lot of energy. There is no radioactive waste. Please explain where the radioactive waste comes from stupid.

I think your are talking about the spent rods that come with fission.

not quite what you said, dear.
'fusion produces no radiation'. the statement is false.

Fusion is like a chemical reaction in that one needs energy to 'get over the hump' and start the reaction, except with fusion we need massive amounts of energy. Presently (and for the forseeable future) that is done with fission. So fusion will actually create radioactive waste which will need to be stored somewhere.

ITER has run a fusion reaction started with a laser pulse for 210 second.
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2637
no fission required ;)

another greal like about how fusion reactors work. The last post was for a plasma reactor not a laser reactor. sorry about that. I will say no more about fusion. This is a blog about wind turbines... we are off subject.

http://science.howstuffworks.com/fusion-reactor1.htm

im doing a project on alternative energy sources so if any body could leave a comment with the facts and figures of wind/solar energy and their efficiency that would be good

Capri...great synopsis.

I can't figure out why so many on Cape Cod don,t understand this. They think it is either/or.

Wind power,as you suggest and as proposed, will do nothing except destroy Nantucket Sound.

And make Mr. Jim even richer.

Thank god for the Van Allen Belt which protects earth from the radiation produced by the large fusion reactor located nearby "The Sun". Its true that fusion at its simplest is the joining together of Hydrogen to make Helium however it continues up the periodic chart making heavier and heavier elements which are radioactive and therfore radioactive waste. As for wind power each of the wind generators has a capacity factor of approximately 30%. That means that it produces only 1/3 of what it could produce. So now triple the amount of generators required.

Iran versus Iraq and Wind Turbines versus pink whale pants! Does anyone else feel the same way I do about this ongoing battle? It's just like Henry Kissinger's comment about the Iran- Iraq war: "It's too bad there has to be a winner."

We have two groups of greedy, self interested, special interest groups trying to manipulate the system to screw the average taxpayer. The bottom line comes down to a commercial developer who found a loophole in maritime law and geological location to exploit an idea that is politically correct, economincally stupid, environmentally questionable but most assuredly profitable (because of the tax subsidies to be funded by us.) On the other side, we have a well financed, pseudo environmental special interest group who seeks to protect its property values and scenic views. The same property and scenic views that they agressively protect against sharing with the common person. To accomplish this they exploit holes in our tax laws that permit lobbyist and legal payments to be characterized as charitable tax deductions. Its a great country.

Don Quixote on cape ...Its a great country.

You get what you vote for. And we continually vote for those who's personal or special interests come before that of the common good.

Please give me an example of an elected official in the last twenty years that contradicts that premise.

Please don't look in RI or Mass. You might be up all night.

i think this is a most intersting site which debates some very topical issues. i would like toi knoe if anyone thinks there is a future for nuclear power

i think people like m curran are jokers and should be banned from this site. it is dispicable that somebody would ask stupid questions like this. by the way if you do drive i hope it is a hybrid car!!!

i think that small out burst has proven my point!!1 you are dispicable!!!