"john" wrote in message
...
snip
Wind energy is another boondoggle financed by govt grants. I am
supprised that the enviomentalists are not up in arms about windmills
growing like mushrooms across the enviorment.
You know its a boondoggle because of the way they rate the output of them
vs. true cost.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/energyfa...able/wind.html
"The Energy Kid's Page"?? That's where you get your engineering and
economics data? Hoho...No wonder the country is in trouble. g
I guess the DOE lies to kids. Now that I think about it, lately the govt
lies all the time to everybody.
If you like that page, John, you'll love this one:
http://www.thekidzpage.com/colouring_menus/index.htm
Tell us, please, what data you extracted from "The Energy Kid's Page"
that leads you to believe that wind power is a boondoggle? Specific
references, please.
I used the kids page on the DOE sight so as not to overtax anyones mental
comprehension. 
This one nuke plant dwarfs the output of all the windmill generation
systems in the whole country.
19,046,000 megawatt-hour facility vs 26.6 billion kWh per year
http://www.pplweb.com/ppl+generation...fact+sheet.htm
Uh, John, you've got generating capacity rates and Watt-hours a bit mixed
up. The PPL Susquehanna nuke plant is a 2.4 MW facility. The installed
wind power capacity in the US is 22.0 MW -- almost ten times as much as
PPL's nuke. PPL produces 19.0 terawatt-hours of energy per year from that
plant. Wind energy produced in the US is 48 TWh per year -- 2-1/2 times
as much as PPL's nuke, and roughly 2,000 times as much as you state
above.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_po..._note-AWEAQ4-6
If you don't like Wikipedia references, you'll see that those numbers are
linked extensively to original sources.
The numbers on the wind generation are bent. There is a big difference in
capacity and actual watt hour output due to the fickle nature of wind
conditions. What they are rated to put out and what they can actually
generate in a given year are two different numbers. The nuke plants run
continiously and usually near or at their max rated output.
John, that's why I posted both the ratings and the actual, annual outputs.
That's what the terawatt-hours numbers a actual annual output, in
Watt-hours. If you looked at the numbers you noticed that, contrary to what
you said, the actual Watt-hour output of the wind generators in the US is
2-1/2 times that of the PPL Susquehanna plant. If you didn't look at the
numbers, you're not getting it.
The annual energy output relative to the power rating for wind, and for
solar, are much lower than for a coal-fired plant or a nuke. But that isn't
what I was comparing with the TWh. Are we on the same page here?
I go buy some windmills about twice a week and they arent always turning.
I guess that means the wind isn't blowing, huh? g
The nuke plant is always putting steam out of its cooling towers. That
sucker nets about 1 million a day. I did a job a couple of months ago
that was going to a nuke plant in Florida.
That's not to say that wind power is going to replace nukes -- we need a
lot more nukes, IMO -- but, even now, with wind power still in its
infancy, it replaces 2-1/2 decent-sized nukes in the US. That's not a bad
thing.
There would have been windmills up a long time ago if they were
profitable.
They weren't profitable until fairly recently. Now, many of them are.
A little bailout money always helps. It looks like GE is the one that is
getting the bailout dollars.
"It looks like"? Does that mean you have actual data?
They are now in the process of building another plant so Ed can keep his
lights on in NJ.
I don't think we get any power from PPL. We do, however, have our own
nuke at Oyster Creek, which, my utility tells me, supplies 28% of my
power.
You better tell that to PPL since they are getting the permits and right
of ways to run a major power line into NJ. It is ****ing off a lot of
local people in the Poconos that are forced to grant easements to PPL.
The power isn't for NJ. I checked it out: it's running across NJ and into
the NYC grid.
PPL and PSE&G are part of the 13-state Eastern interconnection grid that
runs all the way out to Illinois. The connection to the NYC grid is one that
the DOE identified as a major congestion area in 2006. PPL wants to send
power to the grid but the butthead governments in the Poconos, and in 15
butthead towns in north Jersey, are blocking it.
This is what Wes, Larry, and I were talking about. Every pipsqueek town in
most states, with a town council of ignorant buttheads, can stop or
seriously delay a transmission line. As long as that goes on there is no way
the US can have an efficient electical network with long-distance
transmission. On top of the butthead towns, there are the butthead states.
g
Local government is stupid government, and the more local, the more stupid
they are. BTW, I knew the mayor of Berwick, which is the town closest to the
PPL nuke -- Lou Biachii. His big accomplishment was teaching the junior-high
football team how to chew tobacco. After that, he ran out of intellectual
steam. Lou could be the poster boy for stupid local government.
The thing I like about it is that you can catch fluke (summer flounder)
in their cooling stream until the end of October. And the crabs they grow
there...well...let's just say you wouldn't want to meet one in a dark
alley. d8-)
The proposed offshore wind farm in NJ is getting $19 million of state
money, which is a drop in the bucket. It's just over $2 per person in the
state. Its capacity will be 346 MW, which is more than 50% the size of
our Oyster Creek nuke. Not bad for a start.
The federal goverment has all types of tax incentives for wind farms. I
wonder how long the windmills will hold up in the sal****er enviorment and
gale coditions the frequently occur. Maintanece will be a big cost.
If you can come up with some specifics relating to the offshore systems
planned for NJ, and now for NY, we're all ears.
60 mph winds and salt spray does wonders to machinery.
I do admit though that a local company that manufactures the towers for
windmills is doing quite well, but with the building of the second nuke
plant, the stimilus to the local economy will be a welcome addition. A
certified welder can make a fortune in the coming years. They are
becomming very hard to find.
Well, if there's a market for certified welders, we'll always have them.
Meantime, let me make clear that I'm all in favor of building a lot more
nukes. In most of the country, they're likely the best bet for handling
base load capacity. But the economics of wind are looking pretty good
from what I've seen. The limitations are significant, but they look like
they pay off, where they can be well-sited, as long as you don't try to
use them for too much of your base capacity.
--
I gotta figure out how I can get some of that windmill incentive money.
making windmills.
Good luck.
--
Ed Huntress