Is Wind Power Worth It?

mpm wrote in news:63a23793-57ed-4459-bb0d- snipped-for-privacy@k36g2000pri.googlegroups.com:

No, sorry, I didn't - when I said in a different post I have a glitch in the part of my brain whcih is supposed to give people social "instincts", I was unfortunately serious :( So, yeah, I do often come across as overly-pedantic because I do very strongly tend to perceive questions as serious...I very often miss sarcasm, subtlty, implication, and hints, which has caused me immense trouble through the years, and which is why I can't work in an office - I don't 'get' people.

So, I didn't mean to come across as being, well, mean, I was trying to describe some thoughts.

But what a funny mental image! It'd at least have a lot of entertainment value ;)

Maybe I should do it up in........CGI!!!

Oh - either I missed it, or FIFO has once again triumphed - I keep trying to cram more into my poor brain than it was designed to handle, so things inevitably either get squeezed out, or "compacted" and shoved into some poorly-lit cobwebby corner...

No, it's a valid question that needs to be asked as part of planning any integrated energy-supply system (which also, as you noted, does need to include conservation).

Although I don't see him as some "energy messiah", I do think he can have an important role to play in terms of getting out the message of long- term energy planning. He also dispells teh fantasy that offshore drilling will magically cure all of our energy problems - he realizes that it would only put off the inevitable.

I think the lasst point in important because there are some people who are manipualting the current scare so as to gain a personal advantage, in that there are millions of acres already leased and already approved for drilling, which are *not* being either explored or drilled, but a few greedy people are using scare tactics to get their hands on the whole enchilada, and using fuzzy statements to convince voters that offshor drilling will be some sort of instant panacea for what Americans perceive as high gas prices.

As you noted:

No, and that is very much what got Americans into the current situation to begin with. Any idiot could have looked at trends and realize that (1) gas prices have risen over time, often in excess of other price inflation, (2) that supply and demand influence *any* market, with gas being no different, unless it's heavily subsidized, and that (3) if the nation was nearly paralyzed by restrictions placed upon only 40% of the supply (i.e. th percentage that was imported in the 70's when teh 'gas crisis' occurred), then squandering what we ourselves could produce, and going to over 70% imported, would put the nation into a far more serious situation.

The problem is that the short-sighted get-rich-scheme answer is "drill offshore", and people like that because it means they can go on living in a delusional lala land and simply continue to squander, squander, squander. And anyone who mentions the gas crisis of the 70's, and what we ought to have learned, is basically tarred and featherd, and run out of town on a rail - becasue people don't want to be told that they'll eventually pay the price for complete irresponsibility.

Wind is part of the equation, at elast as we currently see it. What I was trying to say was that, goign past hype (which exists everywhere, and about everything, in various venues).

IS it competitive? I don't thingk ther ecan be any one pat answer, becasue there are numerous local factors to consider, such as, what is the location of a community and how does its location affect the cost of delivering power to that location; how reliable is the power delivery; what are the characteristics/parameters of local winds and insolation; what is the cost (materials plus labor) of erecting a wind-turbine; and what are the land costs. I saw a program featuring a farming community which switched most of its energy sourcing to windmills, because the cost of delivered energy alone was literally driving people out of business - farmers agreed to allow windmills to be placed on their land gratis, because they benefitted from having a local, i.e. lower-cost, energy source, and IIRC, it was local peopl ewho got the windmills and put them up, and local people maintain them and run the system. So that particuar community now has far *far* lower energy costs, and that's allowing farmers to stay in business, and even permitting some revitalization of the community.

So, for that community, yes, it was not only competitive, but a whole lot less expensive.

It might not be as competitive for a different community.

Also, the greenness of a technique also impacts its cost, which is why I mentioned some of the things I did. Now, IIRC, there was a ruling that Exxon only had to pay some fraction of the cleanup costs for teh Exxon- Valdize oil spill - which means, the total cost wilol never be refelcted in the price of gas, but it *will* be reflected in thing like higher taxes for those living in the affected areas.

For coal-derived energy, what never gets mentioned is that, as mines become deeper and larger, accidents increase, including accidents that lead to the deaths of miners. Many costs are borne by the families, and never reflected in the price of the elctricity; nor are the costs of a community's need to clean up mining-related pollution.

The thing is that, when people are making comparisons between the costs of alternative energy and the cost of "traditional" energy, teh head-in- the-sand crew tends to reject any costs that communities (or the federal gov.t) incur from "traditional" energy. So I'm not convinced that your question (re: competetiveness) has a specific answer. Also, there are IMO factors that go beyond current existing cost figures. THat's not meaning to be rude, that's just something that I think needs to be considered when people are asking about alternative energy, and considering not only any proffered answers to those questions, but also, the context which frames the answers in terms of what teh respondent might be glossing over.

And that glossing-over will inevitably occur - all of this is politics, because *any* proposed social endeavor requires community consensus, and politics is the process by which concensus is sought; the main consideration is not whetehr somethign is "non-political", becasue that isn't possible - the main consideration is whether the politics are based upon honesty, or upon lies intended to hide an agenda that will, in the long run, hurt the very community/society whose consensus is being sought.

Bit Farmer wrote in news:K-idnW7yc8SidhTVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:

Zinging is BS. I don't care about BS, I care about trying to get people to think seriously about serious issues, without childish self-obsession that places personal egotism above truth and everything else.

Too many people are so busy trying to never admit they don't know something, and are too egotistical to realize that they end up looking far stupider than they would if they simply admitted a lack of information.

mpm wrote in news:9abe32b2-fabd-4c65-99f8- snipped-for-privacy@u6g2000prc.googlegroups.com:

Not sure but this might be of some interest, since it's designed for individual users rather than power grids:

If the federal and state governemnts made a commitment to start installing solar and wind systems, teh proces would come waaaay down, since, from what I've heard and read, gov.t is the biggest user iof energy in the US.

Wind is one leg of an integrated solution.

By all means.

b. Farmer

Bit Farmer wrote in news:UridnWTS862CZhTVnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@supernews.com:

and in open cooling pools. It was meant only to be a temporary storage,not a long-term method.

You must have not seen the videos of how they test the transport cars. No credible danger of "taking out the vehicles".

they glassify it and store it in caverns. the waste is only a problem if it can migrate.

James Arthur wrote in news:ybpik.14$wS4.6@trnddc03:

well,maybe we should be producing our OWN petro sources. BTW,I've read that in some places it took only TWO years to begin oil production. This "10 years" factoid bandied about is IMO,an attempt to discourage,maybe a worst-case estimate.

read this about Pickens and his energy proposal;

Junk Science: Is T. Boone 'Swiftboating' America?

I bet they don't test it against shaped cutting charges. The IEDs used in Iraq can disable an M1

Yep, I know T. Boone has a bunch of wind investments and is pushing things in his interest. Ditto for natural gas.

And most of our oil comes from Canada and Mexico, not the Middle East.

It's still true, though, that if we used the stuff more effectively it'd save us a bunch of money, which couldn't be bad.

Cheers, James Arthur

James Arthur wrote in news:PYyik.46$iM5.0@trnddc07:

sure,but that has to be people's choice,not the government's. Let the market determine supply,not the gov't. Blocking US oil production is criminal.(and unpatriotic)

Let the market determine from what sources they generate energy. Just insure safety and clean operation within REASON.

I also note that some private landowners in S.Dakota have drilled their own oil wells recently,and it didn't take THEM 10 years to do it.

That sounds about right.

And NIMBY, where BY is 500 miles.

Are you questioning the patriotism of Democrats?

The Demonrats used the 10 year excuse ten years go. Seems they would have had time to think up a new excuse.

Hey, I pal'd around with Amory Lovins for a few days at the National Science Fair in Baltimore in, I think, 1964. He got it into his head that one of the other contestants was cheating (which he was) and launched into an intensive personal crusade to turn him in. I thought he was being a bit rigid at the time.

We got a side trip to the White House. Got to see the Oval Office, but LBJ was called away at the last minute, so he didn't show us around.

Really.

John

Not when you think sucking your thumb means when it's up your ass ;-)

...Jim Thompson

Where else would they put their thumb to suck it?

Aye, i am guilty of this myself frequently, how about you?

JosephKK wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

No simple answer to that - all I can say is that I work hard to avoid the appearance of 'zinging', which is not to say I'm always successful, but I do *try* to think before I speak. Then too, I rather suck at "zingers" - part of that "brain glitch" I've mentioned; I've never been able to come up with clever one-line come-backs or insults. Which is not at all to say that I communicate perfectly - it's not uncommon, for some reason I still honestly can't pin down, for people to assume I'm being snotty, when that's not at all my intent. But deliberate zinging? Nope. I don't like when people do it to me, so even if I had any talent at all for it, I'd work very hard to avoid doing it to others. It's simply not constructive.

krw wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@news.individual.net:

IMO,DemocRATs have more concern for World Government than any patriotism for the US. It appears they are dedicated to tearing down the US,destroying the Constitution and the concept of "written law".

own

Maybe in their ear??