Fifteen Bad Things with Windpower–and Three Reasons Why

[Wild Cobra]

Fifteen Bad Things with Windpower–and Three Reasons Why (http://www.masterresource.org/2010/09/15-bad-things-windpower/)


1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on — 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to ever do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate sources like horse power).
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15 – Here is the latest spiel. Since this enormous Capacity Value discrepancy is indisputable, wind energy marketeers decided to adopt the strategy that wind energy isn’t a “capacity resource” after all, but rather an “energy resource.” Surprisingly, this is actually the first contention that is actually true! But what does this mean?
The reality is that saying “wind is an energy source” is a trivial statement, on a par with saying “wind turbines are white.” The fact is that your cat is an energy source too. So what? Lightning is an energy source. So what? Should we also connect them to the grid (after subsidies, of course)?

Again, our modern society is based on reliable and economic electric power. Making claims that wind provides us energy is simply another in a long line of misleading assertions that are intended to fool the public, to enable politicians to justify favoring special interests, and to enrich various rent seekers.

All this comes about for three basic reasons:

1. Wind proponents are not asked to independently PROVE the merits of their claims before (or after) their product is forced on the public,

2. There is no penalty for making specious assertions about their product’s “benefits,” so each contention is more grandiose than the last, and

3. Promoting wind is a political agenda that is divorced from true science. True science is based on real world data — not carefully massaged computer models, which are the mainstay of anti-science agenda evangelists.

[boutons_deux]

American Petroleum Institute tells another lie

[Wild Cobra]

American Petroleum Institute tells another lie
Another post from you that proves two things.

1) You didn't understand the article.

2) You are a partisan pundit.

[Yonivore]

Another post from you that proves two things.

1) You didn't understand the article.

2) You are a partisan pundit.
Pundit? Punditry takes talent.

[Wild Cobra]

Pundit? Punditry takes talent.
I stand corrected.

I should have said puppet.

[Drachen]

I am not sure that anyone is advocating wind as the ONLY source of electricity

However, I don't know why we don't utilize the katabalic (sp?) winds, they blow at high speeds at near 100% of the time.

[ElNono]

Yeah. I'm still trying to discern what's the point of this thread, exactly.

[ChumpDumper]

Yeah. I'm still trying to discern what's the point of this thread, exactly.A guy who worked for Enron is somehow against alternative energy.

It's important.

[Blake]

Yeah. I'm still trying to discern what's the point of this thread, exactly.

I think the title is pretty clear......there are three reasons why there are fifteen bad things.

[Blake]

fNudnI5tzf8

[Wild Cobra]

Yeah. I'm still trying to discern what's the point of this thread, exactly.
Another angle of information. take it or leave it.

[DMX7]

1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on — 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to ever do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate sources like horse power).

I cannot begin to describe how stupid this comment is. There is such a thing as storing power. And no one is suggesting Wind Energy is the only alternative energy that should be used. Just more stupidity and strawmen.

[Wild Cobra]

I cannot begin to describe how stupid this comment is. There is such a thing as storing power. And no one is suggesting Wind Energy is the only alternative energy that should be used. Just more stupidity and strawmen.
Yes, we know that. but there are "capacity" losses.

Strawman seems to be a popular word for the uneducated.

[Blake]

fNudnI5tzf8

huh...

posting a youtube clip in this manner really does feel as lame as I thought it might.

[ChumpDumper]

Yes, we know that. but there are "capacity" losses.

Strawman seems to be a popular word for the uneducated.Tell us all who said wind should be the only source of power ever.

If you can't, it is definitely a straw man argument.

[Blake]

Strawman seems to be a popular word for the uneducated.

It seems to be a popular posting method for the uninformed

[ElNono]

Another angle of information. take it or leave it.

I'm trying to figure out what's the actual ulterior motive. You surely didn't post this to tell us that wind production is less efficient than other methods...

[boutons_deux]

Another post from you that proves two things.

1) You didn't understand the article.

2) You are a partisan pundit.

The article is a hit job on wind power and anybody who promotes windpower, exactly the kind of hit job the VRWC secretly pays gunslingers to write. The write is probably paid by the nuclear or carbon energy people.

This has NOTHING do with partisan (as in Dem/Repug parties) politics.


And Yoni's the typical right-wing chickenshit who would only be interviewed on Fox Repug Propaganda network and "ban" anybody else for fear of getting bitch-slapped.

[boutons_deux]

As more wind and solar power comes on line, expect this kind of problem of mgmt (regulating sources up/down, delivery) to be more common. Is there enough profit for private operators, "The Free Market Always Provides The Best Solution", to invest in infrastructure?

"Saturated with too much energy from wind and water, the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency based in the Pacific Northwest, has been forced to look for outside help. For the moment its problems represent an extreme, but experts predict that other systems will find themselves in the same pickle as utilities build more wind machines in an effort to reach state-mandated quotas for renewable energy.

Bonneville, which issued a report this month on its rough patch, went through a period in June where it literally had to give energy away and induce neighboring utilities to shut down their fossil-fuel powered plants."

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/breaking-out-of-a-wind-ghetto/?partner=rss&emc=rss

[MannyIsGod]

Yes, we know that. but there are "capacity" losses.

Strawman seems to be a popular word for the uneducated.

Thats funny because strawman seem to be the popular argument for the ignorant.

[DarrinS]

At least wind and solar are energy-dense and don't require much land.

:toast

[MannyIsGod]

Let me know when you can put a Coal plant out on the ocean.

[DMX7]

At least wind and solar are energy-dense and don't require much land.


You can put wind turbines in the middle of the ocean and solar panels on your roof. So yeah, you're right.

[DarrinS]

You can put wind turbines in the middle of the ocean and solar panels on your roof. So yeah, you're right.

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/question418.htm

[ChumpDumper]

Ah, the "all or nothing" straw man again.

[DarrinS]

Ah, the "all or nothing" straw man again.


Does it NOT take a large area to generate a lot of electricity?

Oh, and you're fucked on rainy days.

[ChumpDumper]

Does it NOT take a large area to generate a lot of electricity?

Oh, and you're fucked on rainy days.All or nothing, I saiiiddddd!

[DarrinS]

All or nothing, I saiiiddddd!


Simple questions stump you, don't they Stumpy?

[DMX7]

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/question418.htm

Research is being conducted to improve the efficiency with which solar cells collect energy. It's a highly inefficient process right now but its slowing getting better. Sorry, I know that makes you sad.

[Winehole23]

Strawman seems to be a popular word for the uneducated.You'd be surprised. It's an even more prevalent practice among people who have no idea what one is.

[RandomGuy]

The article mentioned in the OP raises some valid criticisms.

It also raises some less-than-valid criticisms.

I am all for taking a cold, hard look at wind power. If it really isn't all that useful, then don't bother.

One thing that the article does right is to treat the rah-rah, pie-in-the-sky projections on the part of propenents with some realistic scenarios.

On the same token, I tend to be a bit skeptical of critical analysis of wind power by a company that earns its money providing natural gas market analysis.

All that said, the current realities of managing a power grid means that you must keep some fossil fuel or nuclear plants running on standby, even if you get an appreciable amount of power from renewables. This is what the article rightfully pointed out.

What the article misses, is that there are lots of new emerging technologies that are solving this problem. Balancing sources, smart grids, localized power generation, and smart grids offer some very good opportunities for realizing a more sustainable energy supply that weren't available a "hundred years ago."

All it takes is some solid investments in (gasp) infrastructure.



Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s.

Let me paraphrase this:

"Wind energy never worked out in the past, and it won't work out in the future".

Let's put this logical form to work and see if we can figure out what is wrong with it.

"Mankind never has flown before, and never will."

"Mankind has never landed people on the moon, and never will".

If you base all of your decisions based on yesterday's technologies, you will end up losing out to those who recognize potential. Edison's power generation scheme lost out to Teslas and our modern power grid is the result.

I'm not going to go point by point, as I don't have the time. It is an interesting bit that makes some fair points.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.northnet.org/brvmug/WindPower/articles.html

wind power "failed" 100 years ago so must fail 100% today? It has no role to contribute as one of several sources of non-carbon, renewable energy?

The guy, Sierra Club member and self-proclaimed hard-assed scientist, sounds like a mole for carbon energy as he attacks wind power.

Does he apply the same hard-assed, critical/sceptical approach to phracked natural gas and it's total cost of production (including destroyed ground water)?

[CosmicCowboy]

I kind of like the bird blenders but don't see how they are going to be feasible long term. When it comes time to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical.

[boutons_deux]

"to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical."

And we know childish America never pays increased taxes or increased utility bills for maintenance of infrastructure. See History Channel's "The Crumbling of America"

[DMX7]

I kind of like the bird blenders but don't see how they are going to be feasible long term. When it comes time to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical.

As opposed to the service/repair/security costs of nuclear power plants? :rolleyes

[CosmicCowboy]

"to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical."

And we know childish America never pays increased taxes or increased utility bills for maintenance of infrastructure. See History Channel's "The Crumbling of America"

Uhhh you realize most of those turbines are built in China, right? All we do is import them and mount them on the towers. Fixing them with union labor is gonna be another story...

I mean...have you guys ever watched a CPS crew work?

[boutons_deux]

union labor? is union labor putting them up now? or some lowest-bidder contractors?

why would union labor be NECESSARILY, INEVITABLY involved in maintenance? Only 1 in 10 AMerican works are unionized, because busting unions is part of the VRWC to fuck over Americans. turbine contractors are unionized?

[CosmicCowboy]

union labor? is union labor putting them up now? or some lowest-bidder contractors?

why would union labor be NECESSARILY, INEVITABLY involved in maintenance? Only 1 in 10 AMerican works are unionized, because busting unions is part of the VRWC to fuck over Americans. turbine contractors are unionized?

IMHO there will be a shit load of wind farms abandoned when they start breaking down. They only get the tax credit for the first ten years of operation and without the tax credit plus maintenance they won't be feasible.

[boutons_deux]

so what happened to the unions? :lol

[RandomGuy]

I kind of like the bird blenders but don't see how they are going to be feasible long term. When it comes time to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical.

They have a similar operating cost structure as nuclear.

You have a large initial investment, followed by low operating costs for a long period of time.

This is a bit different than say, coal or gas, in that you have a good chunk of costs to build the plant, but a LOT of operating costs as you go along in terms of fuel costs.

Servicing and repairing on wind turbines is actually fairly reasonable, from what I am given to understand.

What one ultimately has to do is to examine the costs per unit of power generated over the entire life of the plant.

The OP does note that one has to look at things from a systemic point of view as well. The overall costs of running a plant has to be taken with a holistic view of the grid overall.

One thing the OP and the source documents do, either through ignorance, or through sheer cynical manipulation of argument, is try to point out how oil (when it comes to energy independence) is irrelevant to electrical generation.

Oil is quite relevant to electrical production because, to some extent, energy sources are interchangable. It is possible to power vehicles with natural gas, and or electrical batteries.

Differing energy sources offer differing strengths and weaknesses.

The primary weakness of "fossil" fuels is simply that they eventually face depletion. This has several implications, not the least of which is rises in cost long before they are fully depleted.

[RandomGuy]

IMHO there will be a shit load of wind farms abandoned when they start breaking down. They only get the tax credit for the first ten years of operation and without the tax credit plus maintenance they won't be feasible.

We'll see.

I would like to see actual financial data before making any such proclamations.


Operation and Maintenance Costs for Wind Turbines
Modern wind turbines are designed to work for some 120 000 hours of operation throughout their design lifetime of 20 years. That is far more than an automobile engine which will generally last for some 4 000 to 6 000 hours.
Operation and Maintenance Costs
Experience shows that maintenance cost are generally very low while the turbines are brand new, but they increase somewhat as the turbine ages.
Studies done on the 5000 Danish wind turbines installed in Denmark since 1975 show that newer generations of turbines have relatively lower repair and maintenance costs that the older generations. (The studies compare turbines which are the same age, but which belong to different generations).
Older Danish wind turbines (25-150 kW) have annual maintenance costs with an average of around 3 per cent of the original turbine investment. Newer turbines are on average substantially larger, which would tend to lower maintenance costs per kW installed power (you do not need to service a large, modern machine more often than a small one). For newer machines the estimates range around 1.5 to 2 per cent per year of the original turbine investment.
Most of maintenance cost is a fixed amount per year for the regular service of the turbines, but some people prefer to use a fixed amount per kWh of output in their calculations, usually around 0.01 USD/kWh. The reasoning behind this method is that tear and wear on the turbine generally increases with increasing production.
http://guidedtour.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/oandm.htm
Danish Wind Industry Association




O&M cost covers the day-to-day scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and operations cost of running a wind farm. Different wind turbine designs, due to varying complexity, may have different O&M costs. However, many new configurations have insufficient operating experience to extract a meaningful O&M cost history. Industry cost estimates range from 0.5¢/kWh to more than 1¢/kWh. The LWST project in 2002 recommended a cost factor of 0.7 ¢/kWh, regardless of machine size or configuration. This allowed studies to determine the impact of other technology elements on COE without factoring in O&M cost impacts, which were extremely difficult to estimate at the time. New work is under way to evaluate O&M costs based on actual wind farm experience in the United States. Preliminary results from these studies indicate that the cost per kWh can change significantly between installations of the same machine based on wind farm size, tower height or other operational factors. This indicates that a fixed cost per kWh for O&M is inappropriate. Work is underway to better quantify these effects and build the varying factors into the model. Until this work is concluded, the fixed cost of $0.007kWh is being retained as the best estimate available.
http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/40566.pdf (2006 pdf file, quote from pg 22)
National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

NREL has some good data on capacity costs:
http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_costs.html
http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/images/graphic_capcost.gif

[CosmicCowboy]

The Federal tax credit for a 100mwh wind farm (an average sized farm) works out to be about $1800 an hour, or $43,200 a day or 15.77 million a year. Thats why you are seeing those things pop up everywhere, but after 10 years the tax credit is gone.

[boutons_deux]

In 10 years, the oilcos could be charging $10/gallon as cheaper supplies of oil dwindle.

But WC says it's stupid to predict the future, so we better STFU. :lol

(eg, why can't the fed tax credit be renewed and even increased? Why can't the Feds require coal-fired plants to emit NOTHING except electricity? )

[CosmicCowboy]

(eg, why can't the fed tax credit be renewed and even increased? Why can't the Feds require coal-fired plants to emit NOTHING except electricity? )

So Boutons supports massive federal subsidies for big business/repugs? :lmao

[boutons_deux]

I support federal policies, including subsidies, that move the country forward in any way, and off carbon energy. And of course any policies that effectively block the evil corporations and capitalists.

I don't support any accelerated depreciation for oil/gas/coal, subsidies, tax breaks, etc.

[Wild Cobra]

In 10 years, the oilcos could be charging $10/gallon as cheaper supplies of oil dwindle.

But WC says it's stupid to predict the future, so we better STFU. :lol

(eg, why can't the fed tax credit be renewed and even increased? Why can't the Feds require coal-fired plants to emit NOTHING except electricity? )
No, I would say as inflation from this administrations dramatic increase in debt, and supply dwindles, it could be $20+ per gallon.

[LnGrrrR]

Does it NOT take a large area to generate a lot of electricity?

Oh, and you're fucked on rainy days.

I don't know about land-dense, but I'm pretty sure DarrinS is dense enough to provide power to 2 or 3 homes by himself.

[Bartleby]

IMHO there will be a shit load of wind farms abandoned when they start breaking down. They only get the tax credit for the first ten years of operation and without the tax credit plus maintenance they won't be feasible.

Yeah, this whole wind energy thing is definitely going to be a flash in the pan.

:downspin:

http://www.gailschwartz.org/blog/german-renewable-energy-company-moving-us-headquarters-colorado

[Wild Cobra]

Subsidies bother the hell out of me. If these technologies cannot stand up by their own merit, then we shouldn't be using them. Corporations will use them if they are profitable. For someone to want the government to give incentives is just wrong. I think we will all agree that social engineering when it is opposed to our viewpoint is offensive. So is this. I wish people could recognize that their agendas often offend others.

[DMX7]

Subsidies bother the hell out of me. If these technologies cannot stand up by their own merit, then we shouldn't be using them. Corporations will use them if they are profitable. For someone to want the government to give incentives is just wrong. I think we will all agree that social engineering when it is opposed to our viewpoint is offensive. So is this. I wish people could recognize that their agendas often offend others.

Please don't tell me you support Big Oil subsidies then.

[Wild Cobra]

Please don't tell me you support Big Oil subsidies then.
I never said I did. Right now, I cannot think of subsidies I support beyond helping the elderly and handicapped. As for social programs, only temporary ones to help people get themselves on their feet. If the individual doesn't apply themselves to be able to support themselves, then fuck them.

[RandomGuy]

The Federal tax credit for a 100mwh wind farm (an average sized farm) works out to be about $1800 an hour, or $43,200 a day or 15.77 million a year. Thats why you are seeing those things pop up everywhere, but after 10 years the tax credit is gone.

Possibly.

Coal, gas, and oil have never had their subsidies lapse.

What makes you think that any government will stop subsidizing any form of energy?

[RandomGuy]

Subsidies bother the hell out of me. If these technologies cannot stand up by their own merit, then we shouldn't be using them. Corporations will use them if they are profitable. For someone to want the government to give incentives is just wrong. I think we will all agree that social engineering when it is opposed to our viewpoint is offensive. So is this. I wish people could recognize that their agendas often offend others.

Here is a thing that you must try to reconcile:

If you allow companies to pollute unrestrictedly, because of non-existant government oversight (something you advocate for), then that is a subsidy.

Coal production and usage is terribly polluting. Mercury, sulfuric acid rain, and all manner of ash left-overs complicate this energy source.

Government pollution regulations in this sense distort the "free market", by forcing the *true* costs of the energy source on those who produce/consume it.

If we fully require the coal industry to a zero pollution model that fully eliminates any inherent pollution subsidy, that would make coal far more expensive than it is today.

That would imply then, that coal is actually much much less competitive than any given renewables, would it not?

[Drachen]

Good point.

[LnGrrrR]

Here is a thing that you must try to reconcile:

If you allow companies to pollute unrestrictedly, because of non-existant government oversight (something you advocate for), then that is a subsidy.

Coal production and usage is terribly polluting. Mercury, sulfuric acid rain, and all manner of ash left-overs complicate this energy source.

Government pollution regulations in this sense distort the "free market", by forcing the *true* costs of the energy source on those who produce/consume it.

If we fully require the coal industry to a zero pollution model that fully eliminates any inherent pollution subsidy, that would make coal far more expensive than it is today.

That would imply then, that coal is actually much much less competitive than any given renewables, would it not?

Well put.

[Wild Cobra]

Possibly.

Coal, gas, and oil have never had their subsidies lapse.

What makes you think that any government will stop subsidizing any form of energy?
I'm not aware of these being subsidized. Can you prove that?

[Wild Cobra]

Here is a thing that you must try to reconcile:

If you allow companies to pollute unrestrictedly, because of non-existant government oversight (something you advocate for), then that is a subsidy.

That doesn't happen. Industries are watched, and some older facilities have been grandfathered, but what you speak of is very limited.


Coal production and usage is terribly polluting. Mercury, sulfuric acid rain, and all manner of ash left-overs complicate this energy source.

Haven't you jkept up? Over the last several decades, regulation have reduced this to a very high degree. Want to pound on this point? Go to asia, Mexico, etc.


Government pollution regulations in this sense distort the "free market", by forcing the *true* costs of the energy source on those who produce/consume it.

WTF do you mean? Regulations do make energy more expensive, and the consumer does pay got it in higher rates than it would otherwise be. That's not necessarily a bad thing. If wind power wasn't subsidized, nobody would build it. they would still build oil, gas, and coal power stations without these subsidies as power requirements dictate more demand.


If we fully require the coal industry to a zero pollution model that fully eliminates any inherent pollution subsidy, that would make coal far more expensive than it is today.

You will never get zero pollution with anything. There comes a point where the output is acceptable. Now that the EPA has become part of the partisan charades, classing CO2 as a pollutant, it's now impossible. They made themselves a joke. Who wants to listen to them now anyway?


That would imply then, that coal is actually much much less competitive than any given renewables, would it not?

Clean burning technology for coal is expensive, yet still cheaper than many alternatives.

[LnGrrrR]

WTF do you mean? Regulations do make energy more expensive, and the consumer does pay got it in higher rates than it would otherwise be. That's not necessarily a bad thing. If wind power wasn't subsidized, nobody would build it. they would still build oil, gas, and coal power stations without these subsidies as power requirements dictate more demand.

The point is that without environmental pollution being regulated by the government, the companies that do pollute essentially get a "free ride", or a "subsidy" if you will.


You will never get zero pollution with anything. There comes a point where the output is acceptable.

Right but "clean" technologies produce less pollution. It's a matter of perspective. RG is assuming a "zero-tolerance-for-pollution model", whereas yours seems to be a "people who are affected by pollution can sue the company" model.

Neither is necessarily right or wrong; RG is just pointing out that environmental regulation can be effective at evening the playing field of clean technologies. (The implementation of said regulations can certainly be ineffective, but that's somewhat beside his overall point.)

[Wild Cobra]

The point is that without environmental pollution being regulated by the government, the companies that do pollute essentially get a "free ride", or a "subsidy" if you will.

This is why agencies like the EPA were created. Few of us want all regulations lifted. If they aren't enforcing good regulations, then they need to be called to the floor.


Right but "clean" technologies produce less pollution. It's a matter of perspective.
Yes it is not. We will never get to zero, so where do we draw the line. I haven't seen any percentages of contamination to be concerned over. have you? If so, what did I miss?

RG is assuming a "zero-tolerance-for-pollution model", whereas yours seems to be a "people who are affected by pollution can sue the company" model.

No, I want all pollution limited. I rather get tired of people taking the short sighted "all or nothing" attitude.


Neither is necessarily right or wrong; RG is just pointing out that environmental regulation can be effective at evening the playing field of clean technologies. (The implementation of said regulations can certainly be ineffective, but that's somewhat beside his overall point.)

Evening the playing field should not be done by subsidies. If it has merit, it will,survive by it's merit. Investors will invest if it has merit. Social engineering is just wrong. How can you justify it?

[RandomGuy]

[Unrestricted pollution] doesn't happen. Industries are watched, and some older facilities have been grandfathered, but what you speak of is very limited.

No it doesn't. But that is mostly because the "free market" providers of electricity have the cudgel of regulation and fines hanging over their heads.

Do you think the same free-market that gives us Bernie Madoff, Enron, WorldCom, etc, etc, etc, would just magically suddenly behave completely ethically when it comes to decisions as to whether or not to pollute if they can pad next quarter's bottom line?

Have you ever seen the studies on ethics conducted at business schools and how poorly most MBA candidates do on that? You can't trust crooked politicians, but you put your faith in people who have been proven to be just as ethically deficient?

Do you really think that, absent of government regulations, the dispartiy in resources to fight court battles between billion dollar companies, and small communities or smaller industries would lead to any sort of meaningful pollution controls whatsoever?

Seriously?

[RandomGuy]

No, I want all pollution limited. I rather get tired of people taking the short sighted "all or nothing" attitude.

Don't get me wrong here.

I am not advocating all or nothing.

What I *am* saying is that coal costs more to the wider economy than you are admitting to.

Some pollution is acceptable, and the costs of goign to "nothing" are pretty steep, and probably beyond the benefit gained.

That said, any pollution is, in essence, stealing something from someone.

In a wider, balanced view of energy sources, you have to consider this in a cost/benefit scenario.

I would also say that lobbying money has grandfathered these coal plants, especially here in Texas, where the Republicans have gone out of their way to be "business-friendly", over the interests of the public good.

You would be shocked at the nasty coal plants that are allowed to keep operating in Texas. That is the best example to me of the real potential failure of the Republican "free market" ideal. It sounds good on paper, but in practice it means selling out to the highest bidder.

[Wild Cobra]

No it doesn't. But that is mostly because the "free market" providers of electricity have the cudgel of regulation and fines hanging over their heads.

Yes, that is why we need some regulations. In some industries, they just laugh at the fines. Some fines simply aren't high enough.


Do you think the same free-market that gives us Bernie Madoff, Enron, WorldCom, etc, etc, etc, would just magically suddenly behave completely ethically when it comes to decisions as to whether or not to pollute if they can pad next quarter's bottom line?

No. But if people are going to break laws, what good does more regulations and laws do? Bernie was caught and is now in jail. I forget what happened to the ENRON CEO's but didn't they get jail time also? Worldcom, I didn't follow, but wasn't there some convictions for wrongdoing there too?

What more do you want? Executions?


Have you ever seen the studies on ethics conducted at business schools and how poorly most MBA candidates do on that? You can't trust crooked politicians, but you put your faith in people who have been proven to be just as ethically deficient?

Bullshit. I don't trust anyone until they prove themselves trustworthy. However, the attitude that they are all corrupt and treating them as such has severe problems too.


Do you really think that, absent of government regulations, the dispartiy in resources to fight court battles between billion dollar companies, and small communities or smaller industries would lead to any sort of meaningful pollution controls whatsoever?

Seriously?

What the fuck are you talking about. When have I ever advocated no regulations?

This is what I hate about debating you. No matter what I say, you argue as if I believe other than I do. You argue as if I am someone else.

Fuck your bigoted attitude.


What do you mean by disparity of resources? Do you think everyone should share without compensation?

[Wild Cobra]

Coal, gas, and oil have never had their subsidies lapse.

What subsidies?

Link please.

[Wild Cobra]

The point is that without environmental pollution being regulated by the government, the companies that do pollute essentially get a "free ride", or a "subsidy" if you will.



Right but "clean" technologies produce less pollution. It's a matter of perspective. RG is assuming a "zero-tolerance-for-pollution model", whereas yours seems to be a "people who are affected by pollution can sue the company" model.

Neither is necessarily right or wrong; RG is just pointing out that environmental regulation can be effective at evening the playing field of clean technologies. (The implementation of said regulations can certainly be ineffective, but that's somewhat beside his overall point.)
You idiots are making the wrong arguments. I am not against most clean air regulations.

Where in hell is that coming from?

[Wild Cobra]

What I *am* saying is that coal costs more to the wider economy than you are admitting to.

I don't believe you. What evidence do you have? Coal is one of the more cost effective means of generating electricity.


Some pollution is acceptable, and the costs of goign to "nothing" are pretty steep, and probably beyond the benefit gained.

That said, any pollution is, in essence, stealing something from someone.

Not if it is small enough that nature handles it just fine.


In a wider, balanced view of energy sources, you have to consider this in a cost/benefit scenario.

Absolutely. That's why I am against hydrogen, ethanol, and a few other things.


I would also say that lobbying money has grandfathered these coal plants, especially here in Texas, where the Republicans have gone out of their way to be "business-friendly", over the interests of the public good.

Don't know the situation there. There had been talk of closing the Boardman plant here in Oregon. I think it will be closing for good. Maybe there are similar timelines involved in Texas for upgrades or closures. Boardman was going to operate until at least 2040, but the upgrades required are too expensive. They made a deal for less expensive upgrades and closing in 2020.

PGE files to close Boardman coal plant early, rekindles concerns (http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2010/04/pge_files_to_close_boardman_co.html)

wiki: Boardman Coal Plant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boardman_Coal_Plant)


You would be shocked at the nasty coal plants that are allowed to keep operating in Texas. That is the best example to me of the real potential failure of the Republican "free market" ideal. It sounds good on paper, but in practice it means selling out to the highest bidder.

I wouldn't call it a failure if American free market values, but whatever is happening, it will not continue indefinitely.

Have a comprehensive link by chance, or only biased ones?

[Wild Cobra]

I was doing a little research on the Boardman plant. They could bring the plant up to standards and run it for another 30 years or more. The cost of modernization alone isn't what's stopping them. It's the unknown cost of paying for Cap~n~Tax!

Because of that, they will run the plant dirty until shut down, rather than cleaning it up!

Thank you libtards, for the policies you support and defend. they are really helping clean things up.

[ChumpDumper]

What subsidies?:lol

[ElNono]

Since the government began aggressively issuing offshore drilling permits under President Reagan, the industry has received tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies, including exemptions from royalty payments — the fees due when a company extracts resources from U.S. government property.

...

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the deep-water waiver program could cost the Treasury $55 billion or more in lost revenue over the life of the leases, depending on the price of oil and gas and the performances of the wells.

Excerpts from here (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/25/nation/la-na-oil-spill-subsidies-20100525)

[ElNono]

double post

[PuttPutt]

At least wind and solar are energy-dense and don't require much land.

:toast

Most large turbines take up 1/2 an acre.

[boutons_deux]

I was doing a little research on the Boardman plant. They could bring the plant up to standards and run it for another 30 years or more. The cost of modernization alone isn't what's stopping them. It's the unknown cost of paying for Cap~n~Tax! .

All of the "could", but none of them would, because it would cost them much money (aka incomes/bonuses for the top mgmt). So they say they will stay dirty forever unless taxpayers bail them out to become clean.

And Americans want everything to work well, like clean, renewable energy, but they don't want to pay for it. America is the country of the eternal free lunch.

Coal is not "efficient" if you consider the permanent, irremediable environmental destruction to mine it, the CO2, waste heat, and water to produce it, and the costs of disposing/storing toxic coal ash, which BigCoal has bought enough govt to keep from being regulated.

Thanks WCtard for bitch slapping yourself.

[RandomGuy]

What the fuck are you talking about. When have I ever advocated no regulations?

This is what I hate about debating you. No matter what I say, you argue as if I believe other than I do. You argue as if I am someone else.

Fuck your bigoted attitude.


What do you mean by disparity of resources? Do you think everyone should share without compensation?

Spare me the moral outrage. You do plenty of arguing with others as if they believe things other than they do, and you know it.

That said:
If I have misrepresented your beliefs, then I apologize.

I was under the distinct impression you were a very strict libertarian. Libertarians generally advocate that we really really gut the Federal government's ability to regulate anything.

Please, in the interests of fairness, what are your specific views on pollution controls?

How much burden to we place on private industry to not pollute? Where do you feel that line should be?

[RandomGuy]

Coal, Oil, and Gas are subsidized, and have been for as long as we have been using them.


I'm not aware of these being subsidized. Can you prove that?

Fair enough. It is something of a research project, as I spoke from what I remember cumulatively reading about the subject.

Give me a day or two, and I will see what I can find to support that. We will probably get into the "what is a subsidy" semantic argument, though, unless you accept that special tax breaks comprise "subsidies".

[Drachen]

I don't believe you. What evidence do you have? Coal is one of the more cost effective means of generating electricity.



Have you added the cost of asthma and other related respiratory ailments into the cost of coal based energy generation (for example).

[Wild Cobra]

Most large turbines take up 1/2 an acre.
Maybe that's it, but you can't pack them that close t0gether, so that figure is meaningless, unless... it's the actual base and fence area since these sometimes are placed over farms. The space that can't be used for something else.

[Wild Cobra]

Have you added the cost of asthma and other related respiratory ailments into the cost of coal based energy generation (for example).
New plants don't have such problems.

[clambake]

What subsidies?

Link please.


:lol


Since the government began aggressively issuing offshore drilling permits under President Reagan, the industry has received tens of billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies, including exemptions from royalty payments — the fees due when a company extracts resources from U.S. government property.

...

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the deep-water waiver program could cost the Treasury $55 billion or more in lost revenue over the life of the leases, depending on the price of oil and gas and the performances of the wells.

Excerpts from here (http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/25/nation/la-na-oil-spill-subsidies-20100525)

[Drachen]

New plants don't have such problems.

So, coal plants without a smoke stack?

[Wild Cobra]

Those don't class as subsidies. Just because they say subsidy, doesn't mean they are using the word right. The media spins things.

[Drachen]

Those don't class as subsidies. Just because they say subsidy, doesn't mean they are using the word right. The media spins things.

are you replying to me? If so, I have never heard the media classify those as subsidies. I just think that if there is a cost which is caused by a business, which that business doesn't pay, and is therefore shifted to the population as a whole. I personally would consider that a subsidy.

[boutons_deux]

actually, it's called not subsidy, but cost shifting.

[Drachen]

actually, it's called not subsidy, but cost shifting.

Are tax dollars going to pay for the health care of these people? Not in all cases, but in some they are (those that don't have insurance for example).
Taxpayers paying the costs that a company incurs . . . Subsidy. No?

[LnGrrrR]

Yes, that is why we need some regulations. In some industries, they just laugh at the fines. Some fines simply aren't high enough.

No. But if people are going to break laws, what good does more regulations and laws do? Bernie was caught and is now in jail. I forget what happened to the ENRON CEO's but didn't they get jail time also? Worldcom, I didn't follow, but wasn't there some convictions for wrongdoing there too?

What more do you want? Executions?

I think you already answered your own question here: higher fines, stiffer penalties.

[RandomGuy]

actually, it's called not subsidy, but cost shifting.

Well cost-shifting is technically the same as subsidizing. It masks the true costs.

[boutons_deux]

China Leads the Clean Economy Race

According to a pithy report from Deutsche Bank titled "The Green Economy: The Race is On", in the years 2000 to 2009, the U.S. invested (public and private) about $67 billion in clean technology. Similarly China spent $72 billion and Germany $38 billion. However, as a percentage of GDP, China, Germany, and even Brazil are investing at a rate three times greater than the U.S. On the specific issue of smart grid investment, another report estimates that the U.S. and China far outpace the rest of the world with an estimated $7 billion each in spending in 2010 alone

Between now and 2020, the country will invest 5 trillion yuan in the clean economy. That works out to about $75 to $100 billion per year for 10 years running (smart grid investment alone is estimated at $60 to $100 billion over the next decade). Imagine the U.S. Congress passing the equivalent of the highly controversial stimulus package 10 times over (not likely).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-winston/china-leads-the-clean-eco_b_744335.html?view=print

==========

Don't worry, the free market will always provide the best solution. Industrial policy is something the US never does.

[greyforest]

1 – Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s. When we throw the switch, we expect that the lights will go on — 100% of the time. It’s not possible for wind energy, by itself, to ever do this, which is one of the main reasons it was relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate sources like horse power).

this is already biased and misleading - energy can be stored when there is an excess, and wind energy is only ever going to supplement, not supplant, the power grid. this sentence in particular is laughably biased:


relegated to the dust bin of antiquated technologies (along with such other inadequate sources like horse power).

with a sentence like that the article CLEARLY has an agenda. propaganda.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Sorry but this article says about 5 points and then claims it as 14. What I read was.

1) Windmills and horse drawn carriages stopped being used when reciprocating piston engines became popular 100 years ago therefore current wind technologies that are pretty much nothing like those in anyway are worthless.

I would like to add to that the east coast power grid was based on the plans of George Westinghouse over 100 years ago. There was no failing on the part of windpower. Edison had his system and Westinghouse had his. Westinghouse won. Nuclear energy also was not used back then. I am not really sure what his point is on this one.

2) Windpower has technical difficulties. The porblem witht his argument is that the solutions to those issues have been found. Basically a for generator to work in the grid its input has to be at a certain hz. 50 or 60 I cannot remember.

This is what he means when he is talking about balancing the grid in another point which is the same damn argument.

When you have a coal burning plant you can feed a steady fuel supply and maintain that easily. Wind energy input is variable cause well wind speeds vary. Thats what they make capacitors for. You can do this at the local level.

He also makes this same point when he is talking about quality of power. This is just stupid. w = va. Is he trying to tell us that a watt from a coal plant is better? If you add a coal plant you have to balance the load too.

As RG pointed out there are startup costs but maintenance and operating costs are much much cheaper.

I mean at no point does he say that the issues have not been overcome. Its not like they do not work.

3) Not much oil is consumed. Well I am not sure what this has to do with windpower. Youre right oil is not burned very much for AC power. Most of it is set aside for various ICE's its very good for portable piston engines.

OTOH, something like 60% of the three power grids is pushed by coal and natural gas. Coal takes too much space and natural gas is too dangerous for portable devices. Really though again I fail to see how this applies.

4) The capacity value is zero and this is not disputable. Well yeah it is. Wind has a reliability rating of 95%.


New gas plants are capable of achieving low forced outage rates—high levels of reliability. Because gas plants have often been the generator technology of choice in recent years, it can be tempting to use this gas plant characteristic in an attempt to estimate the capacity value of an intermittent generator such as wind. To carry out this approach, one collects wind generation over the relevant high-load period (for example, the top 10% of load hours). The next step is to calculate the 95th percentile of wind
generation—the level of wind generation that is achieved 95% of the time during these load hours. A variation of this approach, one that we have encountered, is to then feed this 95th percentile generation into a reliability model to calculate the ELCC of the wind plant. In both of these variations, the method only values capacity levels that are exceeded 95% of the time. All other capacity levels are assigned a value of zero. The use of a percentile arbitrarily discounts reliability contributions that are achieved at levels below the percentile value. These approaches are based on fallacious use of probability theory, and they ignore the statistical independence of outages and the fact that system reliability can be achieved at a very high level (such as 1 day in 10 years LOLE) even though every unit in the system is somewhat unreliable.

5) Subsidies are bad.

I am going to bold this part because it should be damn obvious.

THIS IS A SUBSIDY TOWARDS THE NATIONS POWER GRID I.E. INFRASTRUCTURE.

lets say this again:

THIS IS A SUBSIDY TOWARDS THE NATIONS POWER GRID I.E. INFRASTRUCTURE.

And whoever the dumbfuck that questions whether or not the oil industry gets subsidized should punch themselves in the face just as much as the person that thinks it should not get said subsidization.

I mean come on do you really think none of the power stations, refineries, pipelines, ceded lands, oil exploration, etc were not at least in part funded by the government? Pull your head out of your ass.

And this is expense on infrastructure. This is like roads and bridges and sewers. I mean fuck I do not even think that Ron Paul argues that government has no role in infrastructure development.

Whether or you like or not the oil infrastructure should be maintained as well. This really is a nobrainer. The fact that this is being drawn on partisan lines is just dumb.

[boutons_deux]

"oil infrastructure should be maintained as well"

with private funds, not by taxpayers.

Taxes pay for roads, bridges, K-12, sewers, garbage, etc and mostly their use is not charged. All that stuff is also financed with bonds (loans).

I don't get my oil and gas for free. Why should my taxes facilitate oilcos' 100s of $Bs of profits? Let the stock and bond market "subsidize" oil/gas/coal infrastructure.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

"oil infrastructure should be maintained as well"

with private funds, not by taxpayers.

Taxes pay for roads, bridges, K-12, sewers, garbage, etc and mostly their use is not charged. All that stuff is also financed with bonds (loans).

I don't get my oil and gas for free. Why should my taxes facilitate oilcos' 100s of $Bs of profits? Let the stock and bond market "subsidize" oil/gas/coal infrastructure.

You pay for sewage and water have been subsidized like this for years. Power is something that every american uses.

We need more power. The pacific grid is a mess. The Hoover dam is not cutting it. The east coast has been having blackouts every year and brownouts all the time for 15 years.

So you say we should not have to pay for power. Well that means that either we get nothing because the market has not corrected itself in decades or we can give it away for free.

All I can really say is that even communist countries like China make you pay for power and gas.

[Wild Cobra]

are you replying to me? If so, I have never heard the media classify those as subsidies. I just think that if there is a cost which is caused by a business, which that business doesn't pay, and is therefore shifted to the population as a whole. I personally would consider that a subsidy.
No problem, we disagree. Now I agree it's a cost that should be recouped if it does cause harm. Where do we draw the line for power plants built before the regulations and laws were created? That isn't what I was arguing against. I was arguing against the misuse of the term "subsidy." People here might be surprised of my views if they actually use the correct terms.

[Wild Cobra]

So, coal plants without a smoke stack?
It's what is in the final exhaust. Newer facilities burn very clean compared to past plants. When someone lumps them all together as bad, they are simply wrong.

Rather than a "carbon tax" or "cap and trade," maybe we should tax by type of emission. Tax so much for sulfur, mercury, soot, etc. Make these emissions so expensive that plants either have to shut down or comply. Leave CO2 out of it though.

[Wild Cobra]

I think you already answered your own question here: higher fines, stiffer penalties.
Which is fine with me. Just don't assume that I am against lifting all regulations.

[Wild Cobra]

China Leads the Clean Economy Race

According to a pithy report from Deutsche Bank titled "The Green Economy: The Race is On", in the years 2000 to 2009, the U.S. invested (public and private) about $67 billion in clean technology. Similarly China spent $72 billion and Germany $38 billion. However, as a percentage of GDP, China, Germany, and even Brazil are investing at a rate three times greater than the U.S. On the specific issue of smart grid investment, another report estimates that the U.S. and China far outpace the rest of the world with an estimated $7 billion each in spending in 2010 alone

Between now and 2020, the country will invest 5 trillion yuan in the clean economy. That works out to about $75 to $100 billion per year for 10 years running (smart grid investment alone is estimated at $60 to $100 billion over the next decade). Imagine the U.S. Congress passing the equivalent of the highly controversial stimulus package 10 times over (not likely).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-winston/china-leads-the-clean-eco_b_744335.html?view=print

==========

Don't worry, the free market will always provide the best solution. Industrial policy is something the US never does.
I don't know about Brazil, but Germany's energy infrastructure is in need of replacement. Ours is new enough that we don't need to spend as much. China has nearly an entire nation to build infrastructure for, so it makes sense going with the latest technology. Maybe they finally realized they can no longer be the worlds leading polluter. Too bad they didn't go with state of the art Coal Power plants when they were growing them like rabbits.

[Wild Cobra]

this is already biased and misleading - energy can be stored when there is an excess, and wind energy is only ever going to supplement, not supplant, the power grid. this sentence in particular is laughably biased:

Care to show us a cost effective method of doing this?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

It's what is in the final exhaust. Newer facilities burn very clean compared to past plants. When someone lumps them all together as bad, they are simply wrong.

Rather than a "carbon tax" or "cap and trade," maybe we should tax by type of emission. Tax so much for sulfur, mercury, soot, etc. Make these emissions so expensive that plants either have to shut down or comply. Leave CO2 out of it though.

Yeah the million tons of coal we burn every year is no big deal. :rolleyes

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Care to show us a cost effective method of doing this?

Storage is not an issue. The grids are stressed. I am not sure why storage is even a question here.

[Wild Cobra]

Yeah the million tons of coal we burn every year is no big deal. :rolleyes
And your point is it that you are an uneducated idiot, right?

Tell me. What would you do different. have you looked to see what the emissions are of coal plants using clean burning technology?

I know right now, the answer is a resounding NO!

[Wild Cobra]

Storage is not an issue. The grids are stressed. I am not sure why storage is even a question here.
Then buy a clue. Read a book or two on the subject. Wind is not consistent. Some other power source has to be online that is capable of increasing and decreasing output as the wind output and demand changes.

[LnGrrrR]

Then buy a clue. Read a book or two on the subject. Wind is not consistent. Some other power source has to be online that is capable of increasing and decreasing output as the wind output and demand changes.

I don't think anyone is arguing that wind power is 100% efficient/useful 24/7/365. That doesn't mean wind power is useless, though. Just another tool.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Then buy a clue. Read a book or two on the subject. Wind is not consistent. Some other power source has to be online that is capable of increasing and decreasing output as the wind output and demand changes.

Again what does this have to do with storage. They run 95% of the time and apparently you do not understand how AC power works. Fine its a supplement that does not mean in that 5% that they are down they have to have storage to make up for it.

Its not like natural gas and coal plants are up 100% of the time either and the ability to store power that can be translated back to the generator in gas and coal plants works either either. Its stored as rotational motion and friction eats up the power very very quickly. Your argument is baseless.

One thing that I know for certain is that I know a lot more about how the infrastructure actually works better than you do.

[boutons_deux]

There was a study a couple week ago that said a wind farm stretching from FL to New England would provide almost constant power due to the wind always blowing somewhere in that area.

[MannyIsGod]

Again what does this have to do with storage. They run 95% of the time and apparently you do not understand how AC power works. Fine its a supplement that does not mean in that 5% that they are down they have to have storage to make up for it.

Its not like natural gas and coal plants are up 100% of the time either and the ability to store power that can be translated back to the generator in gas and coal plants works either either. Its stored as rotational motion and friction eats up the power very very quickly. Your argument is baseless.

One thing that I know for certain is that I know a lot more about how the infrastructure actually works better than you do.

Its funny how all the energy on this planet has its root in solar energy even though the Sun doesn't shine 100% of the day. Apparently WC forgot to tell the Sun it was a bad energy source for earth.

[RandomGuy]

Again what does this have to do with storage. They run 95% of the time and apparently you do not understand how AC power works. Fine its a supplement that does not mean in that 5% that they are down they have to have storage to make up for it.

Its not like natural gas and coal plants are up 100% of the time either and the ability to store power that can be translated back to the generator in gas and coal plants works either either. Its stored as rotational motion and friction eats up the power very very quickly. Your argument is baseless.

One thing that I know for certain is that I know a lot more about how the infrastructure actually works better than you do.

One thing the US has going for it, is it's sheer size. Wind and solar both get far more reliable the more the generating power is spread out. The law of large numbers starts kicking in, and you get a much more reliable supply.

The challenge is transmission. Our grid is getting older by the day, and in desperate need of upgrading anways.

Some interesting solutions to this have emerged, and I would love to see the US undertake an Apollo-project scale revamping.

That, of course, would require (gasp) government spending, because no private company would be big enough, or willing to take on the risk.

[MannyIsGod]

One thing the US has going for it, is it's sheer size. Wind and solar both get far more reliable the more the generating power is spread out. The law of large numbers starts kicking in, and you get a much more reliable supply.

The challenge is transmission. Our grid is getting older by the day, and in desperate need of upgrading anways.

Some interesting solutions to this have emerged, and I would love to see the US undertake an Apollo-project scale revamping.

That, of course, would require (gasp) government spending, because no private company would be big enough, or willing to take on the risk.

Its not all in transmission, however. Area really isn't a problem the way most people think it is because of the already existing surface area of our construction. Sooner or later solar cells will become small and efficient enough to be used in a very localized manner with production coming from the very building you're in.

I see this as inevitable.

[RandomGuy]

And your point is it that you are an uneducated idiot, right?

Tell me. What would you do different. have you looked to see what the emissions are of coal plants using clean burning technology?

I know right now, the answer is a resounding NO!

Have you looked to see what the emission are of coal plants now that are useing clean burning technology?

(hint: there aren't any to my knowledge)

Feel free to provide us some data on which to educate ourselves.

I will ask directly:

What are the emissions of power plants currently using "clean burning" technology?

Can you also guarantee that the mine trailings of the mines used to supply those plants are going to be "clean" too?

The problem with coal is that it is nasty on both ends, production and usage. You can't consider one without the other.

[MannyIsGod]

Those mountains in West Virginia are meh anyways, RG. Who cares if they topple them over.

[TheSullyMonster]

Most large turbines take up 1/2 an acre.

So they do, but you can graze cattle or grow wheat around them, if you really want to.

Comparing the land area of a wind farm and a generator seems a bit fallacious. How much land does the coal mine or oil well take up? The oil pipeline? Storing mining waste?

Similarly, you need to look at the effects of mining when comparing the pollution of oil, gas or coal burning plants.


Its funny how all the energy on this planet has its root in solar energy even though the Sun doesn't shine 100% of the day. Apparently WC forgot to tell the Sun it was a bad energy source for earth.

I'm fairly certain the sun doesn't turn off.:lmao

Granted, rotation of the earth makes solar power a bit unreliable. But the sun still shines.:lol


Then buy a clue. Read a book or two on the subject. Wind is not consistent. Some other power source has to be online that is capable of increasing and decreasing output as the wind output and demand changes.

Nobody is saying otherwise...

Balancing production with need goes on every second of every day. Adding in other power sources doesn't change that.

[MannyIsGod]

:lol Yeah obviously it doesn't turn off but in that sense neither does the wind. In any one particular location on earth there is always wind just as there is always sunlight somewhere on earth. The point is that no place on earth ALWAYS receives light.

I could have worded that better.

[Wild Cobra]

I don't think anyone is arguing that wind power is 100% efficient/useful 24/7/365. That doesn't mean wind power is useless, though. Just another tool.
I question it's cost effectiveness.

Would we have it if it had the same taxes and fees as other power, and no subsidies?

[Wild Cobra]

Again what does this have to do with storage. They run 95% of the time and apparently you do not understand how AC power works. Fine its a supplement that does not mean in that 5% that they are down they have to have storage to make up for it.

Its not like natural gas and coal plants are up 100% of the time either and the ability to store power that can be translated back to the generator in gas and coal plants works either either. Its stored as rotational motion and friction eats up the power very very quickly. Your argument is baseless.

One thing that I know for certain is that I know a lot more about how the infrastructure actually works better than you do.
OMG...

You haven't a clue. I understand AC power, and have worked with rotary UPS. Those things do not store rotational power.

Question for you to prove you don't understand AC power.

Why is commercial power and power generation three phase?

Why not one phase, two, four, or even five phase?

can you answer that without looking it up?

[Wild Cobra]

Its funny how all the energy on this planet has its root in solar energy even though the Sun doesn't shine 100% of the day. Apparently WC forgot to tell the Sun it was a bad energy source for earth.What a totally failed correlation you have there.

[Wild Cobra]

Some interesting solutions to this have emerged, and I would love to see the US undertake an Apollo-project scale revamping.

I don't think this nation is capable of such large scale projects anymore. We spend too much money on social programs now.

[boutons_deux]

"We spend too much money on social programs now."

bullshit, as always.

We spend too much money on bogus/botched Repug/conservative wars, and your beloved, wasteful, corrupt MIC.

The carbon energy industry has too much power and will block any legislation that will hurt its dominance.

[Parker2112]

I don't think this nation is capable of such large scale projects anymore. We spend too much money on social programs now.


"We spend too much money on social programs now."

bullshit, as always.

We spend too much money on bogus/botched Repug/conservative wars, and your beloved, wasteful, corrupt MIC.

The carbon energy industry has too much power and will block any legislation that will hurt its dominance.

We spend too much on both. Money spent to secure a federal aim more times than not is not only wasted for the purpose it was intended, but it will also likely be turned into a weapon and used to beat your liberties to death by power hungry career politicians and bureaucrats who need to justify their very existence.

Generals and administrators alike.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

"We spend too much money on social programs now."

bullshit, as always.

We spend too much money on bogus/botched Repug/conservative wars, and your beloved, wasteful, corrupt MIC.

The carbon energy industry has too much power and will block any legislation that will hurt its dominance.

Its about equal protection not about punitive politics. Infrastructure spending is necessary. Without the oil infrastructure the US transportation system does not work.

You're just as bad as they are.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I don't think this nation is capable of such large scale projects anymore. We spend too much money on social programs now.

You actually think that one follows the other?

IOW, I do not think this government can do large programs, it already does too many.

Do you even have a sense of what it would actually cost?

Thats what it comes down to. The rest is engineering and construction when it gets down to it.

[Parker2112]

Just as Repubs push the trickle down, Liberals push the bottom down. The problem is that the Federal Govt is seldom wise enough to push solutions that fit the circumstances of every state.

Why not accomplish progress on a state/local level?

Why not lobby state/local govt for solutions, instead of hoping that the broken machine in Washington will spit out the golden egg?

[boutons_deux]

Without the oil infrastructure the US transportation system does not work.

You're just as bad as they are.

oil infrastructure is completely private, not public. BP maintenance example is probably typical: "run it 'til it breaks". iow, no preventive maintenance, no culture of employee or environmental safety. Such culture reduce profits.

The backbone, the crown jewel, of the US transportation system is the FEDERAL interstate highway system, only possible with BIG GOVERNMENT and sufficient taxes, built by for-profit, private contractors.

I'm sure the contemporary Repugs and conservatives and their ignorant tea bagging dupes would scream it down, obstruct it.

GFY

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Just as Repubs push the trickle down, Liberals push the bottom down. The problem is that the Federal Govt is seldom wise enough to push solutions that fit the circumstances of every state.

Why not accomplish progress on a state/local level?

Why not lobby state/local govt for solutions, instead of hoping that the broken machine in Washington will spit out the golden egg?

Because there are only three power grids for 50 states.

[boutons_deux]

Green-Tech Investment Plummets

investment in China jumped to $153 million in the third quarter from $30 million in the second quarter of 2010.

“Asia absolutely defies the drop and China in particular has shown some strengths,” said Mr. Haji, who noted that on a recent trip he took to China, green-tech entrepreneurs repeatedly told him they had no trouble raising capital.

Over all, investment in Asia spiked to more than $300 million in the third quarter from less than $100 million in the second quarter.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/green-tech-investment-plummets/?pagemode=print

========

but

"investors put $452 million into California companies in the third quarter, versus $126 million for second-place Texas."

[FuzzyLumpkins]

oil infrastructure is completely private, not public. BP maintenance example is probably typical: "run it 'til it breaks". iow, no preventive maintenance, no culture of employee or environmental safety. Such culture reduce profits.

The backbone, the crown jewel, of the US transportation system is the FEDERAL interstate highway system, only possible with BIG GOVERNMENT and sufficient taxes, built by for-profit, private contractors.

I'm sure the contemporary Repugs and conservatives and their ignorant tea bagging dupes would scream it down, obstruct it.

GFY

Lets pick a side and argue that side with no sense of reason because thats what you are told to think.

Oil companies bad so everything that they are involved in should see them get fucked.

The highway system of course is important but every fucking vehicle that drives on it drives on gas.

With you its either complete government nationalization where you do not pay or nothing. You do not even rationally consider your ideology because as an obvious socialist you should at the very least consider nonintervention especially in a market like that to be a bad idea.

So go ahead and spout about your repugs while they blather about stupid liberals and waste your and everyone else's time.

[Wild Cobra]

Hey Fuzzy...

You didn't answer my power question.

[boutons_deux]

"thats what you are told to think."

You Lie

I think what I think. Being reflexively, automatically against anything Repug and conservative is sure to be 100% correct.

Nobody here can ever list anything the Repugs and conservatives have done for the country in the last 30 years.

"With you its either complete government nationalization"

You Lie

"as an obvious socialist"

You Lie (but you don't know socialism is)

[Wild Cobra]

Fuzzy...

If you understand AC power, then you could have written a short response to show me you do.

Why 3-phase power?

I'm calling you out. You said I don't understand. I guess this is proof enough that you don't.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Fuzzy...

If you understand AC power, then you could have written a short response to show me you do.

Why 3-phase power?

I'm calling you out. You said I don't understand. I guess this is proof enough that you don't.

What? Is this the quiz show? You need three phases to make the needle go round and because they're the same thing. What do I win?

And who said anything about UPS? I certainly do not. I was talking about how you store power. As in chemicals, counterweights and flywheels. How power is used to create torque is meaningless.

[greyforest]

Care to show us a cost effective method of doing this?

a question like this is so multifaceted and complex that it's impossible to answer. the best answer is probably to just copy a wind power infrastructure that already exists and works well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

they subsidize the shit out of it, but of course its not as cheap and cost-efficient as a massive coal or powerplant. the benefits of subsidizing this (OMFG SOCIALISMM) are 1. lack of pollution emission and 2. wind is an infinite and renewable resource.

[LnGrrrR]

Why not lobby state/local govt for solutions, instead of hoping that the broken machine in Washington will spit out the golden egg?

For one thing, if you're talking about a power grid, I can't imagine how much of a pain in the ass it would be to integrate thousands of different local power grids, with each organization probably having different rules, regs, ops etc etc.

[Wild Cobra]

What? Is this the quiz show? You need three phases to make the needle go round and because they're the same thing. What do I win?

Bzzzz...

You obviously don't understand.


And who said anything about UPS? I certainly do not.
Well, you responded earlier as if a windmill stored power like a rotary UPS can. It doesn't. A rotary UPS can stay on line for several minutes at full power if the engine fails to start.

I was talking about how you store power.
I know, and a windmill doesn't have a massive flywheel, hence.... zero storage capacity!

As in chemicals, counterweights and flywheels. How power is used to create torque is meaningless.

Flat out wrong. Torque has a very defined meaning. Power is a measurement of torque times time.

Here's the deal. Three phase power is used because you can rectify the three phases and add it together, and get a flat line with no ripple. All car alternators use three phase with full wave rectifiers to produce a smooth DC signal. It's the cost efficient way to transfer the full potential of the power. The two hot wires and neutral we see in our house wiring produces the 120 and 240 volts for normal outlets and appliances like our dryers, baseboard heaters, etc. The power lines this comes off of are all three phase with a single tap from one phase to a transformer to step the voltage down for residential usage. Where I work at, we have 480 volts three phase coming in to our facility. We have I think four huge transformers that reduce this to 208 volts three phase, which we send to our dozens of automation equipment, and can get 120 volts from a tap to neutral. We actually have some equipment that takes the 480 volt three phase to operate on, but most of it used the stepped down 208 three phase. We use so much power, even with the AC's running, it gets hot in the winter time, and our building is 350 x 550 ft!

Look at any power line. There are three wires. Each are one of the three phases, 120 degrees apart. If you understand trigonometry, you understand this significance, and don't need to understand AC power.

Oh...

The last rotary UPS I worked on used a 6 cylinder turbocharged diesel engine that sat idle with the glow plugs always hot. It had an electric clutch that the incoming power held disengaged. The next component was a massive flywheel. I don't know the weight, but by the size, I will guess it weighted about 17,000 pounds or so. My recollection of its size and material calculates to 17,675 lbs, but I could be wrong. After this, there was a 55 KW motor, driven from the incoming commercial AC. Then, the 45 KW alternator, supplying our communications equipment with power, at the Antenna Farm. When the power is lost, the flywheel engages, and the IC engine fires up right away. Seamless... No loss of site equipment power and no power spikes. Now the lights would go out, and the 150 KW generator would take a few seconds to engage.

Yes, I know. Why a 150 KW generator system...

We had huge air-conditioning to keep the equipment cool! We didn't need much for lights, etc, but the equipment would burn up otherwise.

Anyway, any flywheel that windmills may have is to keep sudden changes in speed from occurring. Not to store power.

[Wild Cobra]

a question like this is so multifaceted and complex that it's impossible to answer. the best answer is probably to just copy a wind power infrastructure that already exists and works well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark

they subsidize the shit out of it, but of course its not as cheap and cost-efficient as a massive coal or powerplant. the benefits of subsidizing this (OMFG SOCIALISMM) are 1. lack of pollution emission and 2. wind is an infinite and renewable resource.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the polar wind always blowing in their area? We have few places in the USA that the wind is always blowing.

Now I agree it is a clean form of energy. I never said otherwise. I am simply of the mindset it is cheaper to build with clean technology (low emission) natural gas and coal power plants. I honestly do thrust that when alternate forms of energy become cost effective, they will be used without needing subsidies.

What will happen in maybe 10 years when the subsidies run out? well the power companies abandon wind power as they need repairs because of cost to revenue ratios? Will the country side start being filled with windmills not doing anything?

Just a thought. Agree or disagree. I simply believe in the free market more than most.

[Wild Cobra]

For one thing, if you're talking about a power grid, I can't imagine how much of a pain in the ass it would be to integrate thousands of different local power grids, with each organization probably having different rules, regs, ops etc etc.
Well, considering synchronization of AC is difficult over lengths, the only way to do such a thing would be to create a huge DC network. Everyone sends power via DC onto the network, and pulls it off as needed, using inverters to create the AC power for local transmission. Otherwise, trying to make grids work without cascading failures is next to impossible.

Expensive...

Check out this for reference:

wiki: Pacific DC Intertie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_DC_Intertie)

[RandomGuy]

Hey Fuzzy...

You didn't answer my power question.

What are the emissions of power plants currently using "clean burning" technology?

Can you also guarantee that the mine trailings of the mines used to supply those plants are going to be "clean" too?

[MannyIsGod]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the polar wind always blowing in their area? We have few places in the USA that the wind is always blowing.

Now I agree it is a clean form of energy. I never said otherwise. I am simply of the mindset it is cheaper to build with clean technology (low emission) natural gas and coal power plants. I honestly do thrust that when alternate forms of energy become cost effective, they will be used without needing subsidies.

What will happen in maybe 10 years when the subsidies run out? well the power companies abandon wind power as they need repairs because of cost to revenue ratios? Will the country side start being filled with windmills not doing anything?

Just a thought. Agree or disagree. I simply believe in the free market more than most.

You're wrong. We have a ton of area with more than adequate wind resources.

http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp

Denmark's winds aren't that great at all.

[MannyIsGod]

Those maps don't even account for offshore wind energy potential which is higher.

[boutons_deux]

Wind energy can power much of East Coast,

The strong winds off the Atlantic Ocean could become a cost-effective way to power much of the East Coast -- especially North and South Carolina, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia, a new study released Tuesday says.

The report by the conservation advocacy group Oceana argues that offshore wind could generate 30 percent more electricity on the East Coast than could be generated by the region's untapped oil and gas. It predicts that wind from the ocean could be cost competitive with nuclear power and natural gas to produce electricity.

http://www.physorg.com/print204904716.html

Denmark is a small, manageable country where the govt actually runs the country to the peoples' advantage, unlike the US where the corporations run the govt to the corporations' profits.

Denmark has this quaint, charming rule were lenders cannot just pocket their fees and the sell the loans into the financial netherworld, but must service the loans to term. No CDOs and MBSs there, no financial crisis.

[jacobdrj]

Does it NOT take a large area to generate a lot of electricity?

Oh, and you're fucked on rainy days.

An imperfect solution to an imperfect situation should never be considered as a part of a strategy for an overall upgrade?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Bzzzz...

You obviously don't understand.

Well, you responded earlier as if a windmill stored power like a rotary UPS can. It doesn't. A rotary UPS can stay on line for several minutes at full power if the engine fails to start.

I know, and a windmill doesn't have a massive flywheel, hence.... zero storage capacity!

Flat out wrong. Torque has a very defined meaning. Power is a measurement of torque times time.

Here's the deal. Three phase power is used because you can rectify the three phases and add it together, and get a flat line with no ripple. All car alternators use three phase with full wave rectifiers to produce a smooth DC signal. It's the cost efficient way to transfer the full potential of the power. The two hot wires and neutral we see in our house wiring produces the 120 and 240 volts for normal outlets and appliances like our dryers, baseboard heaters, etc. The power lines this comes off of are all three phase with a single tap from one phase to a transformer to step the voltage down for residential usage. Where I work at, we have 480 volts three phase coming in to our facility. We have I think four huge transformers that reduce this to 208 volts three phase, which we send to our dozens of automation equipment, and can get 120 volts from a tap to neutral. We actually have some equipment that takes the 480 volt three phase to operate on, but most of it used the stepped down 208 three phase. We use so much power, even with the AC's running, it gets hot in the winter time, and our building is 350 x 550 ft!

Look at any power line. There are three wires. Each are one of the three phases, 120 degrees apart. If you understand trigonometry, you understand this significance, and don't need to understand AC power.

Oh...

The last rotary UPS I worked on used a 6 cylinder turbocharged diesel engine that sat idle with the glow plugs always hot. It had an electric clutch that the incoming power held disengaged. The next component was a massive flywheel. I don't know the weight, but by the size, I will guess it weighted about 17,000 pounds or so. My recollection of its size and material calculates to 17,675 lbs, but I could be wrong. After this, there was a 55 KW motor, driven from the incoming commercial AC. Then, the 45 KW alternator, supplying our communications equipment with power, at the Antenna Farm. When the power is lost, the flywheel engages, and the IC engine fires up right away. Seamless... No loss of site equipment power and no power spikes. Now the lights would go out, and the 150 KW generator would take a few seconds to engage.

Yes, I know. Why a 150 KW generator system...

We had huge air-conditioning to keep the equipment cool! We didn't need much for lights, etc, but the equipment would burn up otherwise.

Anyway, any flywheel that windmills may have is to keep sudden changes in speed from occurring. Not to store power.

No jackass the neutral wire happens to cancel out because of how phased sinusoids work. 2 just lines up the peaks and troughs if its symmetrical so they cancel out as well. That is just a caveat. The reason why its 3 is because you need three phases in order for an electric motor to create tourque. 2 or 1 will not and anything more is redundant. Using a residential supply you have to rephase for that very reason.


The only thing I said about windmills was that they are old ass technology that has no bearing on the current technology.

I want to repeat that I NEVER said anything about a rotary ups. EVER. Whats even sadder is that you mention a flywheel and then turn around and say it does not store energy in rotational motion.

Here from wikipedia:


A flywheel is a mechanical device with a significant moment of inertia used as a storage device for rotational energy.

How the fuck do you think you accelerate something? Thats how you change speeds or prevent change as you like to look at it.

I was not even talking about use of rotational storage in that context anyway but that is exactly what that flywheel does.

Power also has several different formulas that can be used to attain it. Thats the beauty of physics and SI, that they all use the same units and because they use the same derivations they come to the same value. James Clerk Maxwell was a badass.

In this case when creating power from AC the formula that you would use would be volts times amps which is how you determine electrical power. From there you can translate the power generation into torque and work backwards from there but that is hardly the only way of doing it and something you obviously have no concept of.

There are other ways as well. The expansion of gases, chemical energy etc all have power equations associated with them and the beauty of it is that power is always joules per second at the end.

This is all a red herring anyway because at the end of the day when you are dealing with whole power grids there is no giant flywheel. That was the whole point of this discussion.

Wind plants operate at similar efficiency as coal and natural gas boilers ie 95%. But hey youre a technician ie a parts changer.

[Wild Cobra]

What are the emissions of power plants currently using "clean burning" technology?

Can you also guarantee that the mine trailings of the mines used to supply those plants are going to be "clean" too?
Why do you bother? If you want 0% emissions, you will pay out the ass.

Here is a tidbit from the DOE. It's not the current clean burning technology, but what is currently being worked on:

Gasification Technology R&D (http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html)

one paragraph of the article:


The environmental benefits of gasification stem from the capability to achieve extremely low SOx, NOx and particulate emissions from burning coal-derived gases. Sulfur in coal, for example, is converted to hydrogen sulfide and can be captured by processes presently used in the chemical industry. In some methods, the sulfur can be extracted in either a liquid or solid form that can be sold commercially. In an Integrated Gasification Combined-Cycle (IGCC) plant, the syngas produced is virtually free of fuel-bound nitrogen. NOx from the gas turbine is limited to thermal NOx. Diluting the syngas allows for NOx emissions as low as 15 parts per million. Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) can be used to reach levels comparable to firing with natural gas if required to meet more stringent emission levels. Other advanced emission control processes are being developed that could reduce NOx from hydrogen fired turbines to as low as 2 parts per million.

I have been exposed to the numbers before, but haven't found them yet.

[ChumpDumper]

It's not the current clean burning technologyWhy do you bother?

That wasn't what was asked for.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Why do you bother? If you want 0% emissions, you will pay out the ass.

Here is a tidbit from the DOE. It's not the current clean burning technology, but what is currently being worked on:

Gasification Technology R&D (http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html)

one paragraph of the article:



I have been exposed to the numbers before, but haven't found them yet.

So in other words there is not a production model for this tech much less any actually out in the field working using this? Those are all projections.

[MannyIsGod]

No jackass the neutral wire happens to cancel out because of how phased sinusoids work. 2 just lines up the peaks and troughs if its symmetrical so they cancel out as well. That is just a caveat. The reason why its 3 is because you need three phases in order for an electric motor to create tourque. 2 or 1 will not and anything more is redundant. Using a residential supply you have to rephase for that very reason.


The only thing I said about windmills was that they are old ass technology that has no bearing on the current technology.

I want to repeat that I NEVER said anything about a rotary ups. EVER. Whats even sadder is that you mention a flywheel and then turn around and say it does not store energy in rotational motion.

Here from wikipedia:



How the fuck do you think you accelerate something? Thats how you change speeds or prevent change as you like to look at it.

I was not even talking about use of rotational storage in that context anyway but that is exactly what that flywheel does.

Power also has several different formulas that can be used to attain it. Thats the beauty of physics and SI, that they all use the same units and because they use the same derivations they come to the same value. James Clerk Maxwell was a badass.

In this case when creating power from AC the formula that you would use would be volts times amps which is how you determine electrical power. From there you can translate the power generation into torque and work backwards from there but that is hardly the only way of doing it and something you obviously have no concept of.

There are other ways as well. The expansion of gases, chemical energy etc all have power equations associated with them and the beauty of it is that power is always joules per second at the end.

This is all a red herring anyway because at the end of the day when you are dealing with whole power grids there is no giant flywheel. That was the whole point of this discussion.

Wind plants operate at similar efficiency as coal and natural gas boilers ie 95%. But hey youre a technician ie a parts changer.

Fuck, that was a blast.

[MannyIsGod]

This is why I get frustrated with this asshole. He's littered this thread with bullshit from the get go and has been knocked down time and time again. He's so full of shit its amazing but he mixes in a bit of jargon or graphics with his posts and the average reader actually thinks that WC knows what he's talking about.

Fuzzy made a blatantly obvious point that it doesn't matter that the wind doesn't run all the time because you can store the energy in any number of ways and use it when its actually needed. Then WC goes on a bullshit rant about phases and UPS systems. Its fucking ridiculous.

So sick of this guy.

[RandomGuy]

Why do you bother? If you want 0% emissions, you will pay out the ass.

Here is a tidbit from the DOE. It's not the current clean burning technology, but what is currently being worked on:

Gasification Technology R&D (http://fossil.energy.gov/programs/powersystems/gasification/index.html)

one paragraph of the article:



I have been exposed to the numbers before, but haven't found them yet.

I didn't ask for the cost to get to 0% emissions, although that would be nice as a base line for comparison.

Coal gassification still does not address the costs of mining and the depletion factors that will drive the price per joule up in the coming decades.

I don't expect any energy source to be completely pollution free. That is both unreasonable and expensive.

But I do like data that is comprehensive, and looks at the system in a comprehensive manner.

I am willing to accept the fact that coal is an important energy source. I am willing to accept that it is readily available, and part of our energy supply.

I am not willing to accept it as a long term solution, simply because it isn't.

[RandomGuy]

This is all a red herring anyway because at the end of the day when you are dealing with whole power grids there is no giant flywheel.

I know. I think it would be really cool to have one though.

At the risk of mentioning an interesting technology too much:

Concentrating thermal solar stores energy in the form of molten salts. No phase change losses, and the abililty to smooth out energy production to a 24 hour cycle.

[RandomGuy]

Just to be clear, yet again:

I do not expect coal to get to 0% emissions.

I am fine with coal putting out some pollution, although I am beginning to think that any heavy metal emissions at all is probably not a good idea.

I just want to be honest about what it DOES put out though. If coal supporters were honest about both the mining and the burning of the thing, that would be one thing, but the fact that they gloss over some pretty nasty shit in making their case does not lead me to find them credible when it comes to long-term viability arguments.

[MannyIsGod]

In the end Solar will win out over everything else. We're not there yet, but we will be.

[Wild Cobra]

No jackass the neutral wire happens to cancel out because of how phased sinusoids work. 2 just lines up the peaks and troughs if its symmetrical so they cancel out as well. That is just a caveat. The reason why its 3 is because you need three phases in order for an electric motor to create tourque. 2 or 1 will not and anything more is redundant. Using a residential supply you have to rephase for that very reason.

Wow... you are an idiot. Most motors are not synchronous and do not rely on phasing. However most motors I work with in automation are either brushless DC motors, or synchronous motors powered through a VFD.

Yes, three phase allows for rotational motor control, but that's not why three phase is used. I see what I said went strait over your head. One reason is that a neutral isn't needed, and power is shared between all conductors. It's more efficient to use three conductors power-wise than two. Here's an article explaining the vector math somewhat:

Three-phase power systems (http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_2/chpt_10/2.html)

Smooth power is what mean. The below graph is taken by adding the power of each phase together. In the case of three phase, three signals 120 degrees apart are squared to convert relative voltage to relative power. The three are then added together give a strait line. For single phase, two hots, referring to a house 240 volt, they are 180 degrees apart. Same thing, squared, then added together. Not smooth at all.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/science/Power2phase3phase.jpg

[CosmicCowboy]

In the end Solar will win out over everything else. We're not there yet, but we will be.

Maybe. And every solar panel will come from China,.

[MannyIsGod]

Maybe. And every solar panel will come from China,.

Probably.

[RandomGuy]

Maybe. And every solar panel will come from China,.

India or Africa would be more probable.

For all the hoopla about Chinese manufacturing and economic growth, they are going to run into some really nasty demographic bumps in about 10-15 years.

There is some fair lines of reasoning that put India on track to have a much more sustained period of economic growth.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Wow... you are an idiot. Most motors are not synchronous and do not rely on phasing. However most motors I work with in automation are either brushless DC motors, or synchronous motors powered through a VFD.

Yes, three phase allows for rotational motor control, but that's not why three phase is used. I see what I said went strait over your head. One reason is that a neutral isn't needed, and power is shared between all conductors. It's more efficient to use three conductors power-wise than two. Here's an article explaining the vector math somewhat:

Three-phase power systems (http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_2/chpt_10/2.html)

Smooth power is what mean. The below graph is taken by adding the power of each phase together. In the case of three phase, three signals 120 degrees apart are squared to convert relative voltage to relative power. The three are then added together give a strait line. For single phase, two hots, referring to a house 240 volt, they are 180 degrees apart. Same thing, squared, then added together. Not smooth at all.

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x262/Wild_Cobra/science/Power2phase3phase.jpg

Yo, flywheel, you realize that the term 'smooth' comes from the symmetry from three phase as it powers a motor? Like I said before, a symmetrical two phase AC rotor will line up the peaks and troughs.

You're a fucking parts changer. You work on flywheels and you do not even know what they do much less how they do it.

Do you know what they mean when they say it s a brushless motor? That should be good for a laugh.

And again this is a fucking red herring. IT has absolutely no bearing on the discussion of power storage. But by all means keep going.

[MannyIsGod]

:lol @ parts changer. That shit cracks me up.

[CosmicCowboy]

India or Africa would be more probable.

For all the hoopla about Chinese manufacturing and economic growth, they are going to run into some really nasty demographic bumps in about 10-15 years.

There is some fair lines of reasoning that put India on track to have a much more sustained period of economic growth.

China has to grow their economy 8% a year just to keep up with population growth. They will continue to artificially keep their currency down to stimulate exports.

[Wild Cobra]

Yo, flywheel, you realize that the term 'smooth' comes from the symmetry from three phase as it powers a motor? Like I said before, a symmetrical two phase AC rotor will line up the peaks and troughs.
But the power isn't smooth.

You're a fucking parts changer. You work on flywheels and you do not even know what they do much less how they do it.
Wow...

What a stupid assumption!

My job entails far more than just changing parts, but troubleshooting as well. various types of UPS' were just support equipment I had to know.

Do you know what they mean when they say it s a brushless motor? That should be good for a laugh.
Yes, there are no brushes. Control is triggerd with sensors, and often uses pulse width modulation from a control circuit. An early common retail example are direct drive turn tables. Modern hard drives, DVD players, computer fans, etc. operate this way as well. The simplest just use hall effect sensors to activate the magnets.

Why is it good for a laugh? You think it's something else?

And again this is a fucking red herring. IT has absolutely no bearing on the discussion of power storage. But by all means keep going.
Its proof that you don't know what you are talking about and why I brought it up. Think about it. You couldn't answer simple questions. The primary reason is power efficiency. You didn't have a clue. It greatly reduces the cost of high tension wires. However, the mathematics of trigonometry are important too, adding the power to get a smooth steady noise free power.

The reason I brought it up... Your statement that it's stored as rotary motion.... Stored... Give me a break. Wind energy isn't stored with rotary motion, i.e. flywheel.

[MannyIsGod]

^^^^Parts Changer :lol

[Wild Cobra]

^^^^Parts Changer :lol
What types of drugs are you on right now for that to be funny?

[Blake]

You couldn't answer simple questions.

source = :lol

[LnGrrrR]

I will say that two-phase diagram makes no sense. Why do they have both phases in combination, rather than contra (ie. phase 1's wave hits the top as phase 2 hits it's lowest point, and vice versa)? Of course if they're in phase together you're going to have massive spikes as they add to each other than nothing as they both drop.

I mean, the phases in the 3-phase diagram aren't all running together, after all.

[LnGrrrR]

The reason I brought it up... Your statement that it's stored as rotary motion.... Stored... Give me a break. Wind energy isn't stored with rotary motion, i.e. flywheel.

What's the problem with this statement? I mean, I'm no physics major, but I could see the theory behind taking, say, wind energy and putting it into a flywheel to store it as a different form of energy (in this case, rotational).

Dumb it down for me, if you would. Why couldn't you convert wind energy (which is created by the rotation of the windmill AFAIK) and store it using rotational energy?

[MannyIsGod]

You absolutely could but whether or not its a efficient or practical is another. Fuzzy addressed this himself and WC is just stammering on about this non issue even though Fuzzy has said its not practical. we could store wind energy but I don't think he said we should store it in that fashion.

[coyotes_geek]

Perhaps I just didn't read back far enough in the thread, but did someone ever explain why this whole thing about whether or not wind energy can be stored efficiently is a big deal?

If you've got a power grid hooked up to a bunch of different types of power plants, wind/coal/hydro/nuke/solar/geothermal/whatever, then on days where there's no wind wouldn't the loss of generation capacity from wind power just be made up by increasing output from the other sources?

I'm just not seeing storing wind energy as some kind of major stumbling block. Am I missing something?

[LnGrrrR]

Perhaps I just didn't read back far enough in the thread, but did someone ever explain why this whole thing about whether or not wind energy can be stored efficiently is a big deal?

If you've got a power grid hooked up to a bunch of different types of power plants, wind/coal/hydro/nuke/solar/geothermal/whatever, then on days where there's no wind wouldn't the loss of generation capacity from wind power just be made up by increasing output from the other sources?

I'm just not seeing storing wind energy as some kind of major stumbling block. Am I missing something?

That's pretty much what everyone but WC was getting at earlier. I was just asking why WC thought wind energy couldn't translate to rotational energy.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You absolutely could but whether or not its a efficient or practical is another. Fuzzy addressed this himself and WC is just stammering on about this non issue even though Fuzzy has said its not practical. we could store wind energy but I don't think he said we should store it in that fashion.

My point is that it does not matter. You do not store power for fuel consuming plants either.

All power plants are taken offline from time to time for all kinds of reasons. They run at a very high efficiency but wind runs at a very high efficiency as well. 95%.

You have to plan and balance loads either way.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

But the power isn't smooth.

Wow...

What a stupid assumption!

My job entails far more than just changing parts, but troubleshooting as well. various types of UPS' were just support equipment I had to know.

Yes, there are no brushes. Control is triggerd with sensors, and often uses pulse width modulation from a control circuit. An early common retail example are direct drive turn tables. Modern hard drives, DVD players, computer fans, etc. operate this way as well. The simplest just use hall effect sensors to activate the magnets.

Why is it good for a laugh? You think it's something else?

Its proof that you don't know what you are talking about and why I brought it up. Think about it. You couldn't answer simple questions. The primary reason is power efficiency. You didn't have a clue. It greatly reduces the cost of high tension wires. However, the mathematics of trigonometry are important too, adding the power to get a smooth steady noise free power.

The reason I brought it up... Your statement that it's stored as rotary motion.... Stored... Give me a break. Wind energy isn't stored with rotary motion, i.e. flywheel.

You missed the point at the beginning. I have tried to tell you that from your first fixation on rotational motion. Everyone else here understands that.

And three phase and efficiency of transmission are not optimized. We can have the discussion on power loss too if you want to. Its pretty fucking pointless but hey...

When you do not know what the role of a fly wheel is in an electrical power supply for the place where you work at then that does shows that while you may work on the machines you do not know what they do.

That makes you a parts changer.

Going down the manufacturers list is not troubleshooting.

[ElNono]

I haven't seen two and three phase electric chit chat since since high school...

I remember having to wound up our own transformers, counting the number of loops.. Scott-T transformers, solid-state inverters.... Make it stop!!! :lol

[Wild Cobra]

I will say that two-phase diagram makes no sense. Why do they have both phases in combination, rather than contra (ie. phase 1's wave hits the top as phase 2 hits it's lowest point, and vice versa)?
Whe we are talking power, the formula is voltage squared divided by resistance. There can be negavive voltage, but not negative power. Remember, I squared the voltage. -1 x -1 = 1 just like 1 x 1 = 1.

Of course if they're in phase together you're going to have massive spikes as they add to each other than nothing as they both drop.

Correct, a three phase system is more power efficient.


I mean, the phases in the 3-phase diagram aren't all running together, after all.
I'm not sure what you are going for, but at 120 degrees apart, and intentionally so. Allowing for maximum power at all times, rather than the up and down of single phase and split single phase makes for far more efficient designs.

Two phase as a term isn't really used. However, if you take your circle/phase relationship, there are 360 degrees. In a polyphase system, if you evenly divide, you get 180 degree separation, 120, 90, 72 degrees, etc. the 180 degree example that I called two phase is equivalent to a home's 120 volt outlets, but a Dryer, baseboard heater, water heater, range, etc. use both incoming wires to a home, which effectively are each 120 volts, but 180 degrees apart, giving 240 AC.

[Wild Cobra]

What's the problem with this statement? I mean, I'm no physics major, but I could see the theory behind taking, say, wind energy and putting it into a flywheel to store it as a different form of energy (in this case, rotational).

Dumb it down for me, if you would. Why couldn't you convert wind energy (which is created by the rotation of the windmill AFAIK) and store it using rotational energy?
You could, but it isn't done that way. Where would you put the flywheel anyway? Would you mount it atop a windmill with all it's gyroscopic forces? Without two at opposing directions, wouldn't the precession be unhealthy for such a structure?

[Wild Cobra]

Perhaps I just didn't read back far enough in the thread, but did someone ever explain why this whole thing about whether or not wind energy can be stored efficiently is a big deal?

If you've got a power grid hooked up to a bunch of different types of power plants, wind/coal/hydro/nuke/solar/geothermal/whatever, then on days where there's no wind wouldn't the loss of generation capacity from wind power just be made up by increasing output from the other sources?

I'm just not seeing storing wind energy as some kind of major stumbling block. Am I missing something?
What type of brownout would you expect if suddenly, you had the wind die for a local 200 megawatt wind farm? The grid compensates by increasing oil, gas, coal powers, but none of this is immediate. Any commercial or household useage spikes are small compared to a sudden loss of input power, and don't need any immediate compensation.

[Wild Cobra]

That's pretty much what everyone but WC was getting at earlier. I was just asking why WC thought wind energy couldn't translate to rotational energy.
That's not how I understood the question. It starts as rotational power, as does anything that turns the alternator generating the power.

[Wild Cobra]

My point is that it does not matter. You do not store power for fuel consuming plants either.

All power plants are taken offline from time to time for all kinds of reasons. They run at a very high efficiency but wind runs at a very high efficiency as well. 95%.

You have to plan and balance loads either way.
And if we could plan for the wind patterns, sudden stops and starts, it would be more viable.

[Wild Cobra]

When you do not know what the role of a fly wheel is in an electrical power supply for the place where you work at then that does shows that while you may work on the machines you do not know what they do.

I know what it was used for. Apparently you don't understand it's necessity.


That makes you a parts changer.

No, it makes your mind so limited that you cannot think past simple issues.


Going down the manufacturers list is not troubleshooting.
I seldom use a troubleshooting guide. I have more than 30 years experience troubleshooting. You are really dumb making such statement of me.

[RandomGuy]

I haven't seen two and three phase electric chit chat since since high school...

I remember having to wound up our own transformers, counting the number of loops.. Scott-T transformers, solid-state inverters.... Make it stop!!! :lol

Hey I find all of this highly fascinating. I had heard the thing about three phases before, but never quite understood why they did it that way until WC posted the graph, showing how it normalizes the power.

I think electricity is quite fascinating and bought a nifty little science set for my kids that lets them make electromagnets and so forth. My 7 year old thought it was the coolest thing in the world to essentially make a flashlight using some wire, a battery and a small bulb.

Since my wife is studying organic chemistry, we also bought one of those little "construct a molucule using balls with holes and sticks" sets. I even started trying to teach him about the known phases of matter, to build on the three they are teaching him in school. Not sure he quite gets it all, but it is the funnest thing in the world to see him occasionally "get it".

Anyways, 'nuff about that.

[RandomGuy]

And if we could plan for the wind patterns, sudden stops and starts, it would be more viable.

You can actually. There are places in the continantal US, especially off-shore, where the wind blows 90%+ of the time.

Average wind speeds in various places has been extensively mapped, and that data is readily available.

That and simple geographic dispersion will effectively mitigate that particular drawback.

A lot easier to mitigate than say, hundreds of thousands of tons of coal ash, and millions of tons of mine trailings.

[Wild Cobra]

You can actually. There are places in the continantal US, especially off-shore, where the wind blows 90%+ of the time.

But it's not 100%. See my point? The wind can suddenly calm. Without a large enough flywheel to maintain near full power for a couple seconds, the grid doesn't have time to compensate, and you will have brownouts and outages when we actually start relying on them for any large percentage of the community power.

[RandomGuy]

But it's not 100%. See my point? The wind can suddenly calm. Without a large enough flywheel to maintain near full power for a couple seconds, the grid doesn't have time to compensate, and you will have brownouts and outages when we actually start relying on them for any large percentage of the community power.

As I said before the wind in many places blows at a fairly constant speed 90%+ of the time, and maps of these average wind speeds are readily available, being composites of large amounts of data.

What do you think the probability is of a sudden, unpredicted cessation of wind over a large area is, given the ready availability of accurate forecasting data?

Such events MUST be considered in the overall planning of a system, but can be effectively mitigated so the odds of such a disruption effectively approach zero. Indeed, the very act of building more wind capacity over a larger area mitigates the risk.

Although a valid concern to be integrated into the system, it is NOT a valid cause to simply not build wind power in the first place.

[coyotes_geek]

What type of brownout would you expect if suddenly, you had the wind die for a local 200 megawatt wind farm? The grid compensates by increasing oil, gas, coal powers, but none of this is immediate. Any commercial or household useage spikes are small compared to a sudden loss of input power, and don't need any immediate compensation.

How realistic is it that a wind farm putting out 200MW would drop to 0 instantaneously? I don't think wind behaves that way where it's blowing 30mph one second and 0mph the next. Plus, we do have an ability to predict the weather. Not with perfection, but certainly we can look far enough ahead to cover the amount of time it takes to crank up the output from other generation sources.

[CosmicCowboy]

Interesting argument here considering y'all are reinventing the wheel. No one has ever claimed wind or solar (or nuclear for that matter) could service 100% of our energy needs without enormous battery banks. Wind and solar because they aren't constant and predictable, and nuclear because it IS constant and predictable (and can't be turned on/off with the flip of a switch) and power usage is variable. A variable energy component will always be part of the grid mix (like gas turbines that can be throttled and shut on/off rapidly) to balance supply and demand.

[RandomGuy]

Interesting argument here considering y'all are reinventing the wheel. No one has ever claimed wind or solar (or nuclear for that matter) could service 100% of our energy needs without enormous battery banks. Wind and solar because they aren't constant and predictable, and nuclear because it IS constant and predictable (and can't be turned on/off with the flip of a switch) and power usage is variable. A variable energy component will always be part of the grid mix (like gas turbines that can be throttled and shut on/off rapidly) to balance supply and demand.

Exactly.

I do think we need to ramp up solar and wind capacity greatly though. One thing that solar especially has the potential to do is to reduce "peak" strains, since solar tends to have the most output when demand is greatest.

Another way that a solid investment could reap rewards is integrating power grids, so that strains in any one area can be met by a larger overall system.

[MannyIsGod]

And if we could plan for the wind patterns, sudden stops and starts, it would be more viable.

:lol

We can, and do. Next.

[MannyIsGod]

But it's not 100%. See my point? The wind can suddenly calm. Without a large enough flywheel to maintain near full power for a couple seconds, the grid doesn't have time to compensate, and you will have brownouts and outages when we actually start relying on them for any large percentage of the community power.


Its amazing that wind power is so unreliable and yet is growing at such an expansive rate.

The wind does not just "suddenly" calm over areas the size of wind farms. Thats just ridiculous and utter nonsense.

[MannyIsGod]

As I said before the wind in many places blows at a fairly constant speed 90%+ of the time, and maps of these average wind speeds are readily available, being composites of large amounts of data.

What do you think the probability is of a sudden, unpredicted cessation of wind over a large area is, given the ready availability of accurate forecasting data?

Such events MUST be considered in the overall planning of a system, but can be effectively mitigated so the odds of such a disruption effectively approach zero. Indeed, the very act of building more wind capacity over a larger area mitigates the risk.

Although a valid concern to be integrated into the system, it is NOT a valid cause to simply not build wind power in the first place.

The probability of wind ceasing over a large area is zero. How often do you see the ocean go from choppy to calm? Calm winds in a large area of the atmosphere are present due to equilibrium and you don't go from one side of the pendulum to the middle on a dime.

Its a non issue hes trying to make an issue.

[RandomGuy]

The probability of wind ceasing over a large area is zero. How often do you see the ocean go from choppy to calm? Calm winds in a large area of the atmosphere are present due to equilibrium and you don't go from one side of the pendulum to the middle on a dime.

Its a non issue hes trying to make an issue.

Well, yes. But in playing Devil's Advocate he does force one to adequately support and explain things, as we have done here.

As much as I might disagree with him on things, I have come to view his participation here as a valuable part of the greater political debate "ecosystem".

It just wouldn't be quite as interesting without his contributions. I find it good to have my assumptions challenged by someone who disagrees with me, as I avoid some of the pitfalls of "group think", just as I have a beer with a group of buddies every week as the Token Liberal Guy.

Even Cobra himself occasionally gets something out of this, I'm sure.

[Wild Cobra]

Although a valid concern to be integrated into the system, it is NOT a valid cause to simply not build wind power in the first place.
I can agree with that. One of my opposing points to wind power is that it can only remain a small part of our power, unless we do store the energy some how. I don't know where the line would be, but once it exceeded a certain percentage, a sudden loss of wind would not be compensated for by other sources. At a minimum, we would have brown-outs. It could however lead to cascade power grid failures like we've seen in the past. Now we do expect sudden outages at times, but with wind, we would likely multiply that by 100 or so. Think about the few power outages you experience today. Would you like to see that frequency increased dramatically?

My major opposition to wind power is the subsidies. As I have stated over and over, if a technology cannot stand by it's own merit, then it shouldn't be built. When do wind subsidies run out, and what is the cost to tax payers now? What happens in 10 or so years when the power companies have increased costs of operations? Will utility prices increase, or will they RIP them... Retire in Place...

[Wild Cobra]

The probability of wind ceasing over a large area is zero. How often do you see the ocean go from choppy to calm? Calm winds in a large area of the atmosphere are present due to equilibrium and you don't go from one side of the pendulum to the middle on a dime.

Its a non issue hes trying to make an issue.
It happens, especially not far from mountains. Ever stay for long periods of time east of the Cascade mountains? The wind, believe it or not, acts at times as if someone threw a switch.

[RandomGuy]

I can agree with that. One of my opposing points to wind power is that it can only remain a small part of our power, unless we do store the energy some how. I don't know where the line would be, but once it exceeded a certain percentage, a sudden loss of wind would not be compensated for by other sources. At a minimum, we would have brown-outs. It could however lead to cascade power grid failures like we've seen in the past. Now we do expect sudden outages at times, but with wind, we would likely multiply that by 100 or so. Think about the few power outages you experience today. Would you like to see that frequency increased dramatically?

My major opposition to wind power is the subsidies. As I have stated over and over, if a technology cannot stand by it's own merit, then it shouldn't be built. When do wind subsidies run out, and what is the cost to tax payers now? What happens in 10 or so years when the power companies have increased costs of operations? Will utility prices increase, or will they RIP them... Retire in Place...

All forms of power receive some subsidies.

One of the problems of renewables, and nuclear is the high initial cost.

Viewed over a long period of time, the expenditures tend to "even out" between renewables and fossil fuel based power, but the high initial capital investment tends to favor lower cost established technology.

Once those subsidies run out, we will have reached the point where we can scale them back, as they will be more mature technologies as well.

We have some strong reasons to think that in 10 years or so, rising costs of fossil fuels will simply make renewables a lot more competitive anyways. I'm not too worried.

[Wild Cobra]

We have some strong reasons to think that in 10 years or so, rising costs of fossil fuels will simply make renewables a lot more competitive anyways. I'm not too worried.
That could be the case, and I expect to see in my lifetime a serious increase in fossil fuel process. Still, it's not something I would bet the [wind] farm on.

[MannyIsGod]

It happens, especially not far from mountains. Ever stay for long periods of time east of the Cascade mountains? The wind, believe it or not, acts at times as if someone threw a switch.

Nope. This is just flat out false.

[MannyIsGod]

Well, yes. But in playing Devil's Advocate he does force one to adequately support and explain things, as we have done here.

As much as I might disagree with him on things, I have come to view his participation here as a valuable part of the greater political debate "ecosystem".

It just wouldn't be quite as interesting without his contributions. I find it good to have my assumptions challenged by someone who disagrees with me, as I avoid some of the pitfalls of "group think", just as I have a beer with a group of buddies every week as the Token Liberal Guy.

Even Cobra himself occasionally gets something out of this, I'm sure.

You give him far too much credit, IMO. He doesn't play devil's advocate he simply seeks to destroy every opinion he doesn't agree with, RG and thats important.

I agree its important to have someone who thinks outside the norm but its also important that person actually does so in an intelligent manner. WC just throws a bunch of shit against the wall and waits for something to stick. He's extremely lazy when it comes to proving his claims and he brings up strawmen and red herrings like he's getting paid per instance.

[Wild Cobra]

Nope. This is just flat out false.
No it's not. Consider the density of air at different temperatures, air and clouds pouring over a mountain range until equalized. The wind does suddenly stop.

Lived there for several years.

[MannyIsGod]

Wind over large areas does not suddenly stop. Thats just completely and utterly false. Provide some data to back up your claim or please stop with this nonsense. I don't care what you "feel" unless you have an ananometer built into that empty head of yours at the appropriate height.

[Wild Cobra]

Wind over large areas does not suddenly stop. Thats just completely and utterly false. Provide some data to back up your claim or please stop with this nonsense. I don't care what you "feel" unless you have an ananometer built into that empty head of yours at the appropriate height.
Idiot.

Your asking for a case that if I cannot find it on the internet, it's not true.

Fuck you. I lived east of the mountains. I know it's true.

[LnGrrrR]

Hey I find all of this highly fascinating. I had heard the thing about three phases before, but never quite understood why they did it that way until WC posted the graph, showing how it normalizes the power.

I think electricity is quite fascinating and bought a nifty little science set for my kids that lets them make electromagnets and so forth. My 7 year old thought it was the coolest thing in the world to essentially make a flashlight using some wire, a battery and a small bulb.

Since my wife is studying organic chemistry, we also bought one of those little "construct a molucule using balls with holes and sticks" sets. I even started trying to teach him about the known phases of matter, to build on the three they are teaching him in school. Not sure he quite gets it all, but it is the funnest thing in the world to see him occasionally "get it".

Anyways, 'nuff about that.

If you want an educational game about folding proteins in molecules, look up "foldit". Interesting, though a bit dry. Fun puzzler.

[LnGrrrR]

Idiot.

Your asking for a case that if I cannot find it on the internet, it's not true.

Fuck you. I lived east of the mountains. I know it's true.

To be fair WC, there could be some selective bias in your memories. (ie. you remember the days where the wind dies down suddenly, but not the days where the wind was constant).

[MannyIsGod]

Fuck that, its not even about selective memories. Its about WC not able to accurately measure wind speed at the appropriate height over a large surface area. Its simple fucking physics. An fluid in motion doesn't just stop all of a sudden.

If it happens then why can't he prove it?

[CosmicCowboy]

I'm not sure I see the relevance of arguing whether the wind stops/starts.

[Wild Cobra]

To be fair WC, there could be some selective bias in your memories. (ie. you remember the days where the wind dies down suddenly, but not the days where the wind was constant).
There were plenty of windy day. In fact most summer days were, and it was a blessing since the temperatures were normally above 100F where I lived.

I don't claim to no the facts of where windmills are being placed. I only know I have witnessed regular sudden changes in the wind where I lived. Maybe that was unique, but for someone to call me a liar is flat out incompetency. Thinking about it, it probably was unique due to the geography. At least I do recognize that the Cascade mountain range had much to do with it. For Manny to assume fact for all large areas from what appears to be statistics, is real idiotic. To stay on my ass about something he is assuming makes him an absolute and total fool in my book.

[ChumpDumper]

For Manny to assume fact for all large areas from what appears to be statistics, is real idiotic.Not as idiotic as assuming fact for all large areas from a few square feet of anecdote.

[LnGrrrR]

I don't claim to no the facts of where windmills are being placed. I only know I have witnessed regular sudden changes in the wind where I lived. Maybe that was unique, but for someone to call me a liar is flat out incompetency. Thinking about it, it probably was unique due to the geography. At least I do recognize that the Cascade mountain range had much to do with it. For Manny to assume fact for all large areas from what appears to be statistics, is real idiotic. To stay on my ass about something he is assuming makes him an absolute and total fool in my book.

But Manny wasn't saying the wind blows everywhere 95% of the time. He said that there is data for certain areas (ie. the East Coast) where, in total, the wind blows 95% ofthe time. I'm sure there are areas where windmills aren't feasible; that doesn't mean they aren't feasible everywhere.

[Wild Cobra]

But Manny wasn't saying the wind blows everywhere 95% of the time. He said that there is data for certain areas (ie. the East Coast) where, in total, the wind blows 95% ofthe time. I'm sure there are areas where windmills aren't feasible; that doesn't mean they aren't feasible everywhere.
His argument with me was that I was wrong about the wind being able to suddenly stop. He is flat out wring, but saying I'm wrong. I don't deny the other topics related to the wind and wind power. I point out one relevant drawback, and he says I'm wrong?

My major fear is that we will incorporate too many windmills, at too high of an unsustainable cost. Not that the wind doesn't blow. However, if there are places that the wind suddenly changes speeds, and the power capacity suddenly changes, reserve power can only keep up with a certain rate of change. On the premise that we rely too much on wind, when the wind slows over a large area, will there even be enough reserve power to keep us from having brownouts?

[LnGrrrR]

However, if there are places that the wind suddenly changes speeds, and the power capacity suddenly changes, reserve power can only keep up with a certain rate of change. On the premise that we rely too much on wind, when the wind slows over a large area, will there even be enough reserve power to keep us from having brownouts?

This is why RG/Manny have pointed out that they've done studies on where windpower is nearly continual, where windfarms should be placed. I don't think anyone here is advocating for windfarms in areas where it wouldn't be advantageous.

[CosmicCowboy]

So 30 years from now will we find out that robbing all this energy from the wind has caused climate change?

[Wild Cobra]

This is why RG/Manny have pointed out that they've done studies on where windpower is nearly continual, where windfarms should be placed. I don't think anyone here is advocating for windfarms in areas where it wouldn't be advantageous.
Still, nearly is not always. Are you in favor of expensive subsidized power with brownouts, or would you like a gas fired clean burning plant. We still have plenty of natural gas for power.

[Wild Cobra]

So 30 years from now will we find out that robbing all this energy from the wind has caused climate change?
LOL...

I wonder how much harm we can do to weather patterns.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the entire corn industry failed?

[RandomGuy]

If you want an educational game about folding proteins in molecules, look up "foldit". Interesting, though a bit dry. Fun puzzler.

It isn't quite an educational game.

You are actually doing work for the researchers, in the manner that the SETI@home thing does for SETI, but using your own brain as the processor.

Heard a story on it on NPR...

Scientists: Computer Game Could Help Cure Diseases (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129914162)


In a new game called Foldit, players move computerized versions of proteins to give researchers new combinations to try as they seek to cure diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. David Greene talks to one of the creators of the game, Zoran Popovic, a professor at the University of Washington.

DAVID GREENE, host:

If you've ever played "Pac-Man" back in the day or you're hooked on "Madden Football" - like I am - well, you know, videogames can be fun, addictive, guilt-inducing. Imagine all the more productive things you could and should be doing. Well, guilt no more.

Scientists believe they have found a game that can actually help cure diseases, like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It's called Foldit, and the game is not unlike Tetris, when you move different shaped blocks into place so they fit neatly. But what players here are actually moving are computerized versions of proteins, giving researchers new combinations to try in real life as they seek to cure illness.



Been wanting to try it, but had forgotten about it until your post. THANKS.

[MannyIsGod]

So 30 years from now will we find out that robbing all this energy from the wind has caused climate change?

I just read an interesting study that says that there are temperature immediately downwind of the prevailing winds from a wind farm but it generally shows no change in the daily average temperature but a smaller diurnal range due to better atmospheric mixing.

The turbines kinda act like atmospheric blenders over a short area making the air temp range over a day to become smaller but the average temp stays about the same.

[MannyIsGod]

Still, nearly is not always. Are you in favor of expensive subsidized power with brownouts, or would you like a gas fired clean burning plant. We still have plenty of natural gas for power.

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4655798&postcount=33

[MannyIsGod]

WC makes another claim he can't back up. Pretty standard.

[RandomGuy]

You give him far too much credit, IMO. He doesn't play devil's advocate he simply seeks to destroy every opinion he doesn't agree with, RG and thats important.

I agree its important to have someone who thinks outside the norm but its also important that person actually does so in an intelligent manner. WC just throws a bunch of shit against the wall and waits for something to stick. He's extremely lazy when it comes to proving his claims and he brings up strawmen and red herrings like he's getting paid per instance.

(Nods)

He isn't playing devil's advocate just for the sake of argument, he is acting pretty much as you say, an attempt to completely invalidate anything he doesn't agree with.

Frankly his posts tend to be almost universal examples of some type of cognitive bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases), confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias), just plain logical fallacies (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/).

I like to play a fun game where I try to find which one of the cognitive biases he is displaying when making arguments. For example his post regarding wind stoppage is essentially a Neglect of Probability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglect_of_probability) cognitive bias, rather remarkably similar to the example given in the wiki entry.

It's kinda fun in a wierd "look at this interesting bug that crawled from under the house" sort of way.

Someone who is obviously fairly bright when it comes to learning technical data fails so spectacularly when it comes to logically considering larger things beyond that. Odd dichotomy.

[Wild Cobra]

(Nods)

He isn't playing devil's advocate just for the sake of argument, he is acting pretty much as you say, an attempt to completely invalidate anything he doesn't agree with.

Frankly his posts tend to be almost universal examples of some type of cognitive bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases), confirmation bias (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias), just plain logical fallacies (http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/).

I like to play a fun game where I try to find which one of the cognitive biases he is displaying when making arguments. For example his post regarding wind stoppage is essentially a Neglect of Probability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglect_of_probability) cognitive bias, rather remarkably similar to the example given in the wiki entry.

It's kinda fun in a wierd "look at this interesting bug that crawled from under the house" sort of way.

Someone who is obviously fairly bright when it comes to learning technical data fails so spectacularly when it comes to logically considering larger things beyond that. Odd dichotomy.
My God you assume allot.

[LnGrrrR]

Still, nearly is not always. Are you in favor of expensive subsidized power with brownouts, or would you like a gas fired clean burning plant. We still have plenty of natural gas for power.

Do clean burning plants provide 100% uptime with no brownouts?

Do clean burning plants have no subsidies?

Will clean burning plants ever run out of natural gas?

[LnGrrrR]

It isn't quite an educational game.

...

Been wanting to try it, but had forgotten about it until your post. THANKS.

I didn't say it was ONLY an educational game. :)

[MannyIsGod]

My God you assume allot.

He assumed you were bright. I for one would never ave gone that far.

[ChumpDumper]

I don't claim to no the facts of where windmills are being placed. I only know I have witnessed regular sudden changes in the wind where I lived. Maybe that was unique, but for someone to call me a liar is flat out incompetency. Thinking about it, it probably was unique due to the geography. At least I do recognize that the Cascade mountain range had much to do with it. For Manny to assume fact for all large areas from what appears to be statistics, is real idiotic. To stay on my ass about something he is assuming makes him an absolute and total fool in my book.So it can be safely concluded that we should not build a wind turbine farm on Wild Cobra.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

I know what it was used for. Apparently you don't understand it's necessity.


OMG...

You haven't a clue. I understand AC power, and have worked with rotary UPS. Those things do not store rotational power.

You were saying?


It's the cost efficient way to transfer the full potential of the power. The two hot wires and neutral we see in our house wiring produces the 120 and 240 volts for normal outlets and appliances like our dryers, baseboard heaters, etc.

Oh and homes do not use 120V and 240V. Try again.

I have no doubt that with the industrial equipment that you work with all the time you can troubleshoot without the manufacturer list. I also have no doubt that you have very little knowledge of the why of things. You may know however many farad capacitor you need or when a contacter needs to be changed but thats about it.

I doubt you could explain the electron flow in said capacitor. You obviously have no concept of the Maxwell equations etc. You may no longer need to read the manufacturers lists because you have been working those machines for so long but that is where your knowledge ends. You are a parts changer.

Your anecdote about the Cascade mountains is fucking stupid. You do not build wind farms in mountains and foothills. So basically all you have shown is that maybe it might be a bad idea to build a wind farm where you live. Brav fucking o.

95% efficiency. NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE TIME WIND TURBINES ARE ON LINE.

[MannyIsGod]

Your 95% figure is likely not right btw. In the spirit of smashing the parts changer I support you, but its likely 95% due to maintenance but there is still time lost due to insufficient wind. Operational time is likely closer to 65%.

His anecdote on the cascade mountains is wrong anyway. Mountain areas actually experienced higher levels of wind due to their overall higher elevation either way.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Your 95% figure is likely not right btw. In the spirit of smashing the parts changer I support you, but its likely 95% due to maintenance but there is still time lost due to insufficient wind. Operational time is likely closer to 65%.

His anecdote on the cascade mountains is wrong anyway. Mountain areas actually experienced higher levels of wind due to their overall higher elevation either way.


New gas plants are capable of achieving low forced outage rates—high levels of reliability. Because gas plants have often been the generator technology of choice in recent years, it can be tempting to use this gas plant characteristic in an attempt to estimate the capacity value of an intermittent generator such as wind. To carry out this approach, one collects wind generation over the relevant high-load period (for example, the top 10% of load hours). The next step is to calculate the 95th percentile of wind
generation—the level of wind generation that is achieved 95% of the time during these load hours. A variation of this approach, one that we have encountered, is to then feed this 95th percentile generation into a reliability model to calculate the ELCC of the wind plant. In both of these variations, the method only values capacity levels that are exceeded 95% of the time. All other capacity levels are assigned a value of zero. The use of a percentile arbitrarily discounts reliability contributions that are achieved at levels below the percentile value. These approaches are based on fallacious use of probability theory, and they ignore the statistical independence of outages and the fact that system reliability can be achieved at a very high level (such as 1 day in 10 years LOLE) even though every unit in the system is somewhat unreliable.

there you go.

[MannyIsGod]

What is "capacity factor"?

Capacity factor is one element in measuring the productivity of a wind turbine or any other power production facility. It compares the plant's actual production over a given period of time with the amount of power the plant would have produced if it had run at full capacity for the same amount of time.

Actual amount of power produced over time
Capacity Factor =
Power that would have been produced if turbine
operated at maximum output 100% of the time
A conventional utility power plant uses fuel, so it will normally run much of the time unless it is idled by equipment problems or for maintenance. A capacity factor of 40% to 80% is typical for conventional plants.

A wind plant is "fueled" by the wind, which blows steadily at times and not at all at other times. Although modern utility-scale wind turbines typically operate 65% to 90% of the time, they often run at less than full capacity. Therefore, a capacity factor of 25% to 40% is common, although they may achieve higher capacity factors during windy weeks or months.

It is important to note that while capacity factor is almost entirely a matter of reliability for a fueled power plant, it is not for a wind plant—for a wind plant, it is a matter of economical turbine design. With a very large rotor and a very small generator, a wind turbine would run at full capacity whenever the wind blew and would have a 60-80% capacity factor—but it would produce very little electricity. The most electricity per dollar of investment is gained by using a larger generator and accepting the fact that the capacity factor will be lower as a result. Wind turbines are fundamentally different from fueled power plants in this respect.

If a wind turbine's capacity factor is 33%, doesn't that mean it is only running one-third of the time?

No. A wind turbine at a typical location in the Midwestern U.S. should run about 65-90% of the time. However, much of the time it will be generating at less than full capacity (see previous answer), making its capacity factor lower.

What is "availability" or "availability factor"?

Availability factor (or just "availability") is a measurement of the reliability of a wind turbine or other power plant. It refers to the percentage of time that a plant is ready to generate (that is, not out of service for maintenance or repairs). Modern wind turbines have an availability of more than 98%--higher than most other types of power plant. After more than two decades of constant engineering refinement, today's wind machines are highly reliable.

http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html#What is availability or availability factor

You're going to have to break your paragraph down for me. I read it several times but my hamster refuses to turn the wheel.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

What is "capacity factor"?

Capacity factor is one element in measuring the productivity of a wind turbine or any other power production facility. It compares the plant's actual production over a given period of time with the amount of power the plant would have produced if it had run at full capacity for the same amount of time.

Actual amount of power produced over time
Capacity Factor =
Power that would have been produced if turbine
operated at maximum output 100% of the time
A conventional utility power plant uses fuel, so it will normally run much of the time unless it is idled by equipment problems or for maintenance. A capacity factor of 40% to 80% is typical for conventional plants.

A wind plant is "fueled" by the wind, which blows steadily at times and not at all at other times. Although modern utility-scale wind turbines typically operate 65% to 90% of the time, they often run at less than full capacity. Therefore, a capacity factor of 25% to 40% is common, although they may achieve higher capacity factors during windy weeks or months.

It is important to note that while capacity factor is almost entirely a matter of reliability for a fueled power plant, it is not for a wind plant—for a wind plant, it is a matter of economical turbine design. With a very large rotor and a very small generator, a wind turbine would run at full capacity whenever the wind blew and would have a 60-80% capacity factor—but it would produce very little electricity. The most electricity per dollar of investment is gained by using a larger generator and accepting the fact that the capacity factor will be lower as a result. Wind turbines are fundamentally different from fueled power plants in this respect.

If a wind turbine's capacity factor is 33%, doesn't that mean it is only running one-third of the time?

No. A wind turbine at a typical location in the Midwestern U.S. should run about 65-90% of the time. However, much of the time it will be generating at less than full capacity (see previous answer), making its capacity factor lower.

What is "availability" or "availability factor"?

Availability factor (or just "availability") is a measurement of the reliability of a wind turbine or other power plant. It refers to the percentage of time that a plant is ready to generate (that is, not out of service for maintenance or repairs). Modern wind turbines have an availability of more than 98%--higher than most other types of power plant. After more than two decades of constant engineering refinement, today's wind machines are highly reliable.

http://www.awea.org/faq/wwt_basics.html#What is availability or availability factor

You're going to have to break your paragraph down for me. I read it several times but my hamster refuses to turn the wheel.

LOL I just reread it and it does not say what I thought it said. Its basically an indictment of the 0% model that parts changer was trumpeting in the beginning. It basically says that those studies only consider stats >95% which is bullshit cherry picking. I just looked up the stats and you are right.

[MannyIsGod]

Yeah thats what I thought and I was like wtf am I missing something.

[boutons_deux]

oops, #16

For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/business/energy-environment/06noise.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print

[Wild Cobra]

You were saying?

I was saying wind mills did not store rotational power like a Rotary UPS does. You misunderstood.

As for the rest of your dribble...

Show me a capacitor rated in farads. They are generally rated in micro-farads and below.

You show yourself unknowledgeable again. You make too many foolish assumptions.

As for voltage, 120/240 is nominal. It varies somewhat. How many times you going to expose your ass?

[Wild Cobra]

His anecdote on the cascade mountains is wrong anyway. Mountain areas actually experienced higher levels of wind due to their overall higher elevation either way.
Yes, the wind blows really good more often than most places, but it can suddenly die. Think of the mountains as a dam, and when the water finished running over the top, it stops. Believe it or not, the atmosphere can do the same thing, like with a temperature inversion, and you have denser air that finally equalizes. In fact, if you ever studied fluidics or pneumatics, you will notice they are all the same formulas.

You are wrong. Bet you cannot support your lies anymore than I can support my first hand knowledge.

[Wild Cobra]

Oh and homes do not use 120V and 240V.
Tell me master-baiter...

What do they use then?

[Wild Cobra]

Do clean burning plants provide 100% uptime with no brownouts?

Do clean burning plants have no subsidies?

Will clean burning plants ever run out of natural gas?
You know, I often ignore such silly extreme "take it to the extreme" remarks. You know I am not making such statements like 100% uptime. Then you know that I use the actual definition of subsidy than the modern liberal revised definition also. Will we ever run out of natural gas? We probably will run out of enough of a flow rate to maintain power, but we will never run out. It will just get more expensive, and stop being used as our upcoming technology becomes relatively cheaper.

[ElNono]

But it's not 100%. See my point? The wind can suddenly calm. Without a large enough flywheel to maintain near full power for a couple seconds, the grid doesn't have time to compensate, and you will have brownouts and outages when we actually start relying on them for any large percentage of the community power.

This is not true. Do you know what a SVC is? This is a problem that has been dealt with a long, long time ago. Before SVC you had STATCOM and before those, you had STATCON. You can also have overload capacity, which SVCs also deal with. Most SVC use thyristors for switching (which can switch on/off in about 15-20 usec).

Power sources are added and removed from the grid all the time. Look at solar production for an example.

[MannyIsGod]

Yes, the wind blows really good more often than most places, but it can suddenly die. Think of the mountains as a dam, and when the water finished running over the top, it stops. Believe it or not, the atmosphere can do the same thing, like with a temperature inversion, and you have denser air that finally equalizes. In fact, if you ever studied fluidics or pneumatics, you will notice they are all the same formulas.

You are wrong. Bet you cannot support your lies anymore than I can support my first hand knowledge.

Except mountains don't damn air in the atmosphere since the atmosphere goes much higher than the mountain and air always flows above and around it.

This is exactly what I mean about how you use jargon. Explain to me exactly how a temperature inversion would cause a wind that is blowing to suddenly stop. If you understand the mechanics then please break them down for the rest of us. Or tell us how dense air that is moving in such a large and complex system suddenly finds equilibrium.

I'm not debating that the wind can and does die down. There are calm winds in places and the air can be very very still. I'm saying your claim that this happens suddenly is bullshit.

But please, explain the fluid dynamics of how this happens or would happen. I'm especially interested in your temperature inversion explanation.

[Wild Cobra]

95% efficiency. NINETY-FIVE PERCENT OF THE TIME WIND TURBINES ARE ON LINE.
That's not efficiency. If you go by capacity factor, wind mills vary. Most are between 20% to 40% of nameplate value if I recall correct. Manny is right on this.

[ElNono]

Tell me master-baiter...

What do they use then?

This should tell you:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Threephasepolemountclose.jpg/350px-Threephasepolemountclose.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Three_Phase_Electric_Power_Transmission.jpg/350px-Three_Phase_Electric_Power_Transmission.jpg

[MannyIsGod]

You know, I often ignore such silly extreme "take it to the extreme" remarks. You know I am not making such statements like 100% uptime. Then you know that I use the actual definition of subsidy than the modern liberal revised definition also. Will we ever run out of natural gas? We probably will run out of enough of a flow rate to maintain power, but we will never run out. It will just get more expensive, and stop being used as our upcoming technology becomes relatively cheaper.

You must ignore many of your own posts.

[MannyIsGod]

Man, WC comes up with the worst names to call people. Dog, master baiter.

So much fail on so many levels.

[LnGrrrR]

You know, I often ignore such silly extreme "take it to the extreme" remarks. You know I am not making such statements like 100% uptime. Then you know that I use the actual definition of subsidy than the modern liberal revised definition also. Will we ever run out of natural gas? We probably will run out of enough of a flow rate to maintain power, but we will never run out. It will just get more expensive, and stop being used as our upcoming technology becomes relatively cheaper.

Right, but you seemed to imply that because winds occasionally stop, gas is better.

I don't think anyone's denying that wind MAY suddenly die in some areas. However, the places these windfarms would be built would be in areas where winds rarely die, I'm assuming.

For instance, say you have X area with 30 windfarms. The wind may only hit 30 of them 50% of the time, 20 of them 25% of the time, and 10 of them 20 % of the time. 5% of the time the wind suddenly "dies".

So, while windfarms might not be at optimal generation more than 50% of the time, there would still always be some power available 95% of the time. (As you said yourself, even gas doesn't have 100% availability.)

Regarding the cost thing, if gas is too expensive to use, that effectively means it has "run out" for the great majority of people. That's an issue we won't have to worry about with wind farms.

And I wouldn't be surprised if some gas generators relied on the same sort of subsidies that the proposed windfarms would be getting, or at the least, some form of gov fiscal help.

[Wild Cobra]

You're going to have to break your paragraph down for me. I read it several times but my hamster refuses to turn the wheel.
I think Lumpy is misunderstanding the 95% level.

[MannyIsGod]

In any event, the whole situation is a red herring once again irrelevant to the core subject. There have been many posts in here showing that even if it did stop suddenly its a situation easily accounted for.

[MannyIsGod]

I think Lumpy is misunderstanding the 95% level.

You're so damn slow. He already acknowledged that. Thats something you should try. Admitting when you're wrong.

[Wild Cobra]

oops, #16

For Those Near, the Miserable Hum of Clean Energy

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/06/business/energy-environment/06noise.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=print
Wasn't there a similar article a couple months or so ago?

[Wild Cobra]

You're so damn slow. He already acknowledged that. Thats something you should try. Admitting when you're wrong.
I do admit it when I'm wrong. Why can't you?

[Wild Cobra]

Right, but you seemed to imply that because winds occasionally stop, gas is better.
Well, I do believe that. Other than the subsidized cost, my point centered around not relying on a large enough percentage of wind that the rate of power loss cannot be compensated for. Same goes with the total loss should the wind go to zero.

Lets say we supply like 1% of our total power usage with wind. No big deal, other power generation systems need not instantaneously compensate for any fast changes. Once you cross a certain percentage, and I'm not sure what that would be, you have to have backup power that can compensate at least close to the rate of change, else you will have brownouts, or even blackouts.


I don't think anyone's denying that wind MAY suddenly die in some areas. However, the places these windfarms would be built would be in areas where winds rarely die, I'm assuming.
I agree. Still, that isn't the arguments I got into with others.


For instance, say you have X area with 30 windfarms. The wind may only hit 30 of them 50% of the time, 20 of them 25% of the time, and 10 of them 20 % of the time. 5% of the time the wind suddenly "dies".
Statistically, it would be rare to have the wind die with each. Still, it can happen, but that wasn't my major concern.

So, while windfarms might not be at optimal generation more than 50% of the time, there would still always be some power available 95% of the time. (As you said yourself, even gas doesn't have 100% availability.)
I wouldn't count on 95% of the time, but I would give your assessment a hoigh percentage. Just not quite 95%.


Regarding the cost thing, if gas is too expensive to use, that effectively means it has "run out" for the great majority of people. That's an issue we won't have to worry about with wind farms.
I agree to some extent. However, until we actually build the means to store windmill power efficiently, it will never become a large part of power generation.


And I wouldn't be surprised if some gas generators relied on the same sort of subsidies that the proposed windfarms would be getting, or at the least, some form of gov fiscal help.
Again, definition... I doubt they were technically subsidized. The difference I would argue is that once built, natural gas power plants are cost effective with no subsidies. Wind mills are not.

[Wild Cobra]

This is not true. Do you know what a SVC is? This is a problem that has been dealt with a long, long time ago. Before SVC you had STATCOM and before those, you had STATCON. You can also have overload capacity, which SVCs also deal with. Most SVC use thyristors for switching (which can switch on/off in about 15-20 usec).

Power sources are added and removed from the grid all the time. Look at solar production for an example.
Those devices address switching. The capacity already has to be online. That's a different argument all together.

[Wild Cobra]

This should tell you:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/98/Threephasepolemountclose.jpg/350px-Threephasepolemountclose.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e0/Three_Phase_Electric_Power_Transmission.jpg/350px-Three_Phase_Electric_Power_Transmission.jpg
You were not following the conversation. I was saying 120 volts and 240 volts is used in residential dwelling. 120 for most outlets and 240 for the dryer, water heater, range, etc.

Are you going to tell me also that 120/240V is not the nominal USA standard for inside houses?

[ElNono]

Well, I do believe that. Other than the subsidized cost, my point centered around not relying on a large enough percentage of wind that the rate of power loss cannot be compensated for. Same goes with the total loss should the wind go to zero.

Lets say we supply like 1% of our total power usage with wind. No big deal, other power generation systems need not instantaneously compensate for any fast changes. Once you cross a certain percentage, and I'm not sure what that would be, you have to have backup power that can compensate at least close to the rate of change, else you will have brownouts, or even blackouts.

Who suggested that you could deploy wind/solar as primary power without redundancy in place?

Now, if you do have redundancy in place, why wouldn't you deploy it?

[ElNono]

Those devices address switching. The capacity already has to be online. That's a different argument all together.

The capacity is always online when you're talking supplying an alternative to solar/wind. There's no 'seconds to compensate' as you claimed.

[Wild Cobra]

Who suggested that you could deploy wind/solar as primary power without redundancy in place?

Now, if you do have redundancy in place, why wouldn't you deploy it?
Agreed. Now will the rate of other generation ramp up as fast as the wind power can ramp down? Please tell me that you don't plan to have the backup running at capacity when not being used...

[Wild Cobra]

The capacity is always online when you're talking supplying an alternative to solar/wind. There's no 'seconds to compensate' as you claimed.
So we are wasting energy then, and this is all a farce to keep the greens happy?

[Wild Cobra]

Lumpy...

Where are you???

Tell me now, what is the nominal house voltages if it's not 120/240?

[ElNono]

Agreed. Now will the rate of other generation ramp up as fast as the wind power can ramp down? Please tell me that you don't plan to have the backup running at capacity when not being used...

Sure. That's why SVCs are inherently capacitive devices. The smooth the flow of current temporarily while the other source ramps up capacity. Read up on FACTS systems. That's exactly what they do.

[ElNono]

So we are wasting energy then, and this is all a farce to keep the greens happy?

No, you just don't understand how power distribution and capacity compensation work in the real world.

[Wild Cobra]

Sure. That's why SVCs are inherently capacitive devices. The smooth the flow of current temporarily while the other source ramps up capacity. Read up on FACTS systems. That's exactly what they do.
Yes, but again, that's not the argument at hand.

[Wild Cobra]

No, you just don't understand how power distribution and capacity compensation work in the real world.
I know enough that this capacity compensation has limits. My concern is if/when those limits are surpassed.

Please stop changing the goalpost.

[ElNono]

You were not following the conversation. I was saying 120 volts and 240 volts is used in residential dwelling. 120 for most outlets and 240 for the dryer, water heater, range, etc.

Are you going to tell me also that 120/240V is not the nominal USA standard for inside houses?

No. I'm not disputing that, in the US, the voltage you have in an outlet is 120v (or 240v in some cases).

That said, power distribution is almost universally 3 phase. From that point onward, you basically break it down into lower voltages using transformers, even inside your house (while you might have devices that use actual 120v or 240v, you also most likely have a lot of devices that have transformers in them and break it down further to 12v, 5v, 3.3v and such).

[ElNono]

Yes, but again, that's not the argument at hand.

If that's not the argument at hand, why did you bring it up? After all I was responding to one of your claims/theories...

[Wild Cobra]

No. I'm not disputing that, in the US, the voltage you have in an outlet is 120v (or 240v in some cases).

That said, power distribution is almost universally 3 phase. From that point onward, you basically break it down into lower voltages using transformers, even inside your house (while you might have devices that use actual 120v or 240v, you also most likely have a lot of devices that have transformers in them and break it down further to 12v, 5v, 3.3v and such).
So we both agree Lumpy is wrong.