Tag Archives: Wind Power

quiet revolution: elegant solution(s) to wind-power problems

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One of the basic problems with wind power capturing wind regardless of direction. Ask any sailor. A number of turbine designers have solved this problem with vertical turbines, which will turn regardless of wind direction. Quiet Revolution, a London-based firm, has one model in production and producing power all over the United Kingdom. Installations of the Q5 turbine, according to quiet revolution, numbered 25 in June of this year, and were expected to top 100 by the end of the year. Quiet Revolution’s FAQ

describes  the advantages of the QR5, which sounds ideal for locations like lower Manhattan: coastal, with a pre-Revolutionary street grid (i.e. narrow streets) and extremely tall buildings, which conspire to amplify windspeed. From the quiet revolution FAQ:

What are the advantages of quietrevolution turbines?

The qr5 is a vertical axis wind turbine that we have designed specifically for the built environment:

* it is much more appropriate for winds near and around buildings, which are characterized by gusty windspeeds and constantly shifting wind direction.
* it is significantly quieter because the blade tip speed is lower.

* it is more easily integrated in buildings and on towers.
* its active control system uses gust tracking to maximize power harnessed from the wind.

QuietRevolution has a number of other systems in development. We think we might like to see a much smaller model, because they’re so nice to look at. Aesthetic considerations aside, we often ask about how new energy technologies can be scaled up; – if one our goals is to decentralize the grid, lots of relatively small and local  production will be essential.

ELECTRICITY: 100% CLEAN AND GREEN BY 2018

The Gore Energy Challenge– 100% clean, renewable, sustainable electricity in 10 years, can be described in 3 words. Reasonable, Achievable, Visionary. Here’s how:

40% Land Based Wind = 150 GW: $300 Billion.
40% Offshore Wind = 150 GW: $450 Billion.
20% Solar = 75 GW: $375 Billion.

100% Clean Energy = 375 GW: $1.125 Trillion.
Save the Earth – Priceless.

The Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones. And the age of fossil fuels is ending not because we are running out of fossil fuel, (altho we are) but because we are figuring out how better technologies. Biofuels, Geothermal, Marine Kinetic, Solar, Wind, and of course, Conservation.

The Popular Logistics Plan for Clean, Renewable, Sustainable Energy for the United States

The Gore Energy Challenge: Clean and Green by 2018.  Visionary, Reasonable, Achievable. Ask T. Boone Pickens at The Pickens Plan, and Peter Mandelstam at Blue Water Wind.

We could meet the electric power requirements of the United States, estimated at 250 Gigawatts, GW, of generating capacity with wind turbines and photovoltaic solar arrays, for about $811 Billion in 10 years.

  • Land Based Wind: 100 GW, or 40%, at $2.0 Billion per GW: $200 Billion.
  • Offshore Wind: 100 GW, or 40%, at $2.86 Billion per GW: $286 Billion.
  • PV Solar: 50 GW, or 20% at $6.5 Billion per GW: $325 Billion.
  • Total Cost: $811 Billion. (less than has been squandered on the war in Iraq.)
  • Saving the earth: Priceless.

Key Benefits:

  • Good Jobs.
  • Healthy Economy.
  • Enhanced Emergency Response Capability.
  • Stronger National Security.
  • Clean Environment.
  • No Toxic Wastes.
  • No Mercury.
  • No Radioactive Wastes.
  • No Coal Mining Disasters.
  • Less Government Regulation.

This plan doesn’t exploit solar thermal, marine kinetic, geothermal, deep geothermal, cogen, biofuels, or conservation, which will be integrated into this plan in the near future. The plan also focuses on current electricity demand. It does not yet forecast increased electricity demand from population growth, transition from fossil fuels for heating or cooking, or increased reliance on plug-in hybrid cars.

Clean and Green By 2018!

Liz Borkowski at Pump Handle on Pickens’ wind farm

Liz Borkowski at the Pump Handle has a few thoughtful words to say about T. Boone Pickens’ Texas wind project – I didn’t know that his stated larger plan is to free up natural gas for electricity production. I’d add only that – whatever the plan is, building wind capacity to power a few million households will likely demonstrate that wind is a profitable venture. And that’s good, notwithstanding Pickens’ involvement in the “Swift Boat” attacks on Senator Kerry in 2004.

Put another way – if a right-wing oil man is investing in wind – even if only as a hedge that counts as good news.

As always, Liz Borkowski and the Pump Handle crew are watching and making sense of details that matter.

Nuclear v Wind: The Answer is Blowin’ In The Wind.

Back in May, Rebecca Smith reported in the Wall St. Journal (click here for Popular Logistics posting) that Florida Power & Light wants to spend $12 to $18 Billion to build a 2.2 GW or 3.0 GW nuclear plant at the aptly named “Turkey Point” facility. At about the same time, Reuters reported that T. Boone Pickens ( click here for Popular Logistics posting ) – who made his money in oil – is building a 4 GW wind farm for $10 Billion. FPL says the nuclear plants may be finished by 2020. Pickens says Phase 1 of the wind farm – a 1 GW installation – will be complete by 2011. CNN has also picked up the story .

Nuclear power requires fuel. The fuel cycle produces greenhouse gases. Nuclear power operations produce tons of radioactive waste. Wind power requires no fuel and produces no waste.

On the one hand – $6 per watt, 10 to 12 years to build, tremendous amounts of extremely hazardous wastes. On the other hand $2 per watt, 3 years to build, no waste.

Wired Gets It Wrong – Nuclear Power is Not Good For the Planet

Hummers: Illogical, Un-Economical, and Bad for The Environment. But They Sure Are Big!

Spencer Reiss, writing inWired Magazine says “Nuclear Power is The Most Climate Friendly Insdustrial Scale Form of Energy “. Forgetting for a moment that nuclear power requires fuel, waste management, national security infrastructure, massive government subsidies, including artificial limits to liability, nuclear releases tremendous amounts of heat into the environment, and new nuclear are estimated to cost about 2 to 4 times the price of new wind facilities, without cost overruns (and cost overruns are a given with nuclear power plants) and take 10 to 12 years.

The climate friendly industrial scale forms of energy are Solar, Offshore Wind,large scale Marine Kinetic –tapping the Gulf Stream, Deep Geothermal, CoGen, and the NegaWatts available via conservation. Just as a screw can propel a ship thru the water, a screw anchored to the ocean floor will spin because of currents, and can power turbines. Marine Current Turbines, Ltd., based in Bristol, England has just completed the world’s first megawatt scale tidal/marine current driven power plant in the Strangford Narrows in Northern Ireland. If with wind, the sky’s literally the limit, with MCT the sea’s the limit. Geothermal exploits temperature differentials for heating and cooling. Deep Geothermal

would use the earth’s heat in abandoned mines and wells to generate steam for industrial process power. Recycled Energy Development, RED

, of Westmont, Il does CoGen. REDcaptures industrial waste energy to produce electricity and thermal power, often without burning any additional fuel or emitting any additional pollution. For industrial partners, RED reduces energy costs substantially, increases reliability, and offers the opportunity for emissions credits. Akeena, Evergreen Solar, First Solar

, Sunpower, World Water and Solar, and Vestas Wind are old news. Ausradevelops and deploys utility-scale solar thermal technologies to serve global electricity needs in a dependable, market competitive, environmentally responsible manner.

Wired Magazinealso published a companion piece by Matt Power that says “Pound for pound, making a Prius contributes more carbon to the atmosphere than making a Hummer” (click here). The fallacy here is that they forget to mention that a Hummer weighs about three times more than a Prius, so to have an honest statistic you need to compare 3 pounds of Hummer to each pound of Prius. They do note that the operating efficiency of the Prius outweighs any manufacturing inefficiency. And they point out that it is better for the planet to buy a used car than a new car.

Nuclear Plants: High Cost in Time and Money

Rebecca Smith reported in the Wall Street Journal that Florida Power and Light, FPL, is considering spending $12 to $18 Billion to construct two nuclear reactors at its appropriately named Turkey Point facility in southeast Florida.

Florida Power says “two advanced-design nuclear plants at Turkey Point that would add between 2,200 and 3,000 megawatts. If built, the units are expected to go into service in the years 2018 and 2020.”

John Dorschner writes in the Miami Herald that FPL wants to start billing today for plants that may or may not be built and running in 10 to 12 years!“ The average home electric bill in South Florida is likely to increase about $2.50 a month next year to start paying for two nuclear power plants that Florida Power & Light hopes to put in service in 10 or 12 years.” That’s like “buy now pay later,” except it’s “pay now, buy later”. And the plants haven’t been approved by Florida’s Public Service Commission. So it’s “Pay now, buy later — maybe!’

What about Wind Power? The 7.5 MW Atlantic County Utilities Authority Wind Farm cost an estimated $12 million, approximately $1.6 per watt. (click here)

Putting the pieces of this puzzle together, FPL wants to spend $12 to $18 Billion, assuming no cost overruns, to add 2200 to 3000 mw of capacity in 2018 or 2020. If $12 Billion builds 2200 MW, then we are looking at $5.46 per watt of capacity. Similarly, if $18 Billion builds 3000 MW, we are looking at $6.00 per watt. That’s about what it costs to install commercial scale PV solar, and about four times what it costs to build land based wind farms, and twice what it costs to construct an offshore wind farm. And it takes a whole lot less than 10 or 12 years to install solar panels and build wind farms. Since there is no fuel, there is no fuel cycle, there are no fuel costs, there is no waste heat, and are no toxic or radioactive wastes with wind and solar.

Let’s ignore for a second the fact that nuclear plants present terrorists with targets, the massive subsidies that the government provides nuclear power, the national security ramifications of nuclear power, and the fact that the NRC fires whistleblowers and ignores critics — which in and of itself is a cause for concern — the regulator appears to be incompetent. Why should we spend Billions to build nuclear plants that won’t be operational for at least 10 or 12 years when we could spend a fraction to build solar and wind systems — which are available almost immediately with no pollution, no security challenges, no potential for disaster, and no need for incompetent government regulators?

  Nuclear PV Solar PV Solar Wind — Offshore Wind — Onshore
  FPL Turkey Point NJ Residential NJ Commercial Estimated NJ ACMUA
Cost $12 Billion $80,000 $20 Million $24 Million $12 Million
Capacity 2.2 GW 10 KW 3.5 MW 7.5 MW 75 MW
Cost / watt $5.45 $8.00 $5.71 $3.20 $1.60
Fuel Unknown $Zero $Zero $Zero $Zero
Safety & Oversight Unknown $Zero $Zero $Zero $Zero
Security Unknown $Zero $Zero $Zero $Zero
Waste Management High $Zero $Zero $Zero $Zero

The Day After Three Mile Island

March 28, 2008 was the 28th Anniversary of the Meltdown at Three Mile Island, which makes March 29 the 28th Anniversary of the Day After Three Mile Island.

Still, it’s hard to say ‘Happy Anniversary.’ The last nuclear power plant to come on line in the United States, the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee, took 23 years to complete. And no new nuclear power plants have been ordered or built.

This is in part because of Three Mile Island, and its sister-disaster, Chernobyl. While the American nuclear power industry says ‘We do it better’ the truth of the matter is that American reactors are safer because American anti-nuclear activists have forced the United States government to pay attention and American nuclear plant owners and operators to build in redundant safety systems. Continue reading →

Texas v Massachusetts & NJ. Go Texas.

Texas, with environmentalists like T. Boone Pickens (official site) is building wind turbines. Click Here. In Texas, when they find that they have wind in their backyard, they want to use it to make money. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, when someone finds wind in his backyard his neighbors say ‘Hold on there, Cowboy. What you think you’re doin? You think this is Texas or somethin?’ Just ask Mike Mercurio.

Massachusetts, with Environmentalist Liberals like Ted Kennedy, is not building wind turbines. Cape Wind is swinging like an albatross, like NJ’s Offshore Wind Farm. Maybe they are worried they’ll find Jimmy Hoffa’s body swinging from the nacelle.

I’m glad the Texans are doing something right. And I’m not proud of Kennedy or Jon Corzine.Makes me almost wish I was a Texan.