"john" wrote in message
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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?
The big problem with these altenate energy sources is that they are not
reliable and most times put out energy when its not needed. At one time
they were diverting the energy into big water pumping stations and filling
resivoirs at night and then using the elevated water to turn water
turbines during the day. Now the main backup systems run on natural gas
powered turbines because of their quick startup times.
The pumped-water storage is still the preferred way to do it, and there are
several projects that include a pumped-water load-leveling system.
I read further on this and I see that Denmark is not having any problem with
load-leveling. They sell the excess power to Norway, and buy back when
they're low. The "smart grid" proposals for the US Midwest are expected to
operate well with geographic dispersal and with wind supplying up to 50% of
total system capacity -- not that they're likely to be built up to that
level.
I'm getting the feeling that the naysayers are twisting the facts a bit.
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?
Nah, I let you look up all the data and get the numbers, and old
technique I was exposed to by some prof.
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.
Wheb Marcy soutn was built they cut up a lot of property in NY state. I
knew one guy that had his property cut in half for no good reason. That
line is as crooked as a voting district border.
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
The line should be run down an existing right of way like the center
median of an interstate or along a railroad track.
PSE&G already owns the rights of way in NJ -- 80 miles of the them. The
towns are objecting to them using their own right-of-way. And if the local
governments prevail, it just means it will be re-routed through still more
towns, which will raise their own objections, and so on, and so on, and so
on...
I guess if they do that though the politicans couldn't prebuy up the
property and resell it at a substantial profit like they did with the
Delaware Tocks Island national park or the PA turnpike extension.
A lot of people got screwed over Tocks Island, including some of the
speculators. My dad worked for one of them, years after the event, and the
guy had lost a ton. And my aunt owned a summer home there that she sold
directly to the feds. The problem was that the feds offered so little money
that most landowners made more by selling to the speculators. Wm. O. Douglas
got involved, trying to straighten out the fed policy, but the prices were
never what they should have been.
It'a nice park, anyway. d8-)
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.
I wondered why all the people in Berwick chewed. 
Lou is a semi-literate who looks, talks, and walks like a mafia leg-breaker.
He was my phys-ed teacher. That job taxed his intellectual abilities to the
limit.
Now if Berwick didnt get a good piece of the action like the towns in
Jersey that have power plants in their town do, I coulc see why he would
oppose it. In PA the local towns dont get much tax benefit from the
plant.
I don't know his position about or his relation to the Susquehanna nuke
plant. I just know about his general behavior. And Berwick, in my jaundiced
opinion and long-ago experience, is not a place that you would expect to
handle such a thing very well.
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.
Here is an article that discusses the maintenance problems with wind
turbines. It seems that they are already having problems with the gear
boxes. They have not developed a failure history on the rest of the
elements. On the ocean all the problems of maintance are increased.
http://pepei.pennnet.com/display_art...ines-Spinning/
That's a good one. Thanks, John.
So, regular maintenance for a wind turbine is less than that for other types
of power generation, but unscheduled repairs remain the wild card because
they can be expensive. And the fact that Congress is funding the 1.9
cents/kWh subsidy on a two-year renewal basis is preventing the
establishment of an efficient supply chain, which raises costs and make the
subsidy necessary. There's a chicken-and-egg, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot
situation, eh?
Anyway, the economics look like they're positive enough that our growth rate
in wind power is running around 25%/year. It must be pretty economic
overall, at least with the subsidy.
Maybe the fishing around the windmills in the ocean will be good. Fish
like to line up along the magnetic field the transmission lines will
generate. Maybe it gets them off. Just dont set your hook into one of
the lines.
Eh, I don't fish that far south, anyway. Those turbines, I see, are going to
be sited 16 - 20 miles offshore and it's pretty deep out there. I haven't
seen what the fishermen's associations have said about it but I doubt if
there will any objections. I think the Hudson Canyon runs much farther
offshore down around Atlantic City, and that's where the big action is.
--
Ed Huntress