Why isn't Toyota on the E85 Bandwagon?

How is wind different from coal or nuclear or any other form of electricity production in this case? When the grid gets maxed out blackouts are a possibility. It doesn't matter where you get the electricity from.

So far you seem to be using a straw man approach to debunking wind. Yet, you've made ZERO comments on the scale of european deployements. Instead you just keep repeating "wind can't provide for peak power". Well, neither can coal. What are your proposed alternatives? We can't keep building NG plants. NG availablilty is already strained enough as it is.

 

As far as grid-tie windpower systems, overall it's only slightly more complex than the grid-tie now used by the major utilities for NG, hydro, coal, nuke, etc. Certainly easier than remote PF correction using capacitor banks.

The difficulty is in proper frequency regulation and load-side power regulation. Most grid-tie systems are designed to *not* function during a blackout, as it's easier to trip off and not have to worry about possible feedback or extreme frequency/current events.

Most industrial co-gen systems are *not* designed to function as "backup" during a general power failure. Ironically, those facilities wishing backup must have dedicated diesel generators! Most micro-turbine systems running on landfill gas or pulp mill digester gas likewise are not allowed to function during blackouts.

We have to accept that we have a serious energy problem in North America. First of all, the "source" of the power (Giant hydroelectric plants in the Canadian North) is usually far removed from the load, in some cases by +1,500 miles. That's a lot of transmission line, even sunspot activity and extrasolar events can adversely effect a transmission line.

Second, we have no easy means of automatically disconnecting high-demand appliances during high power use, where load shedding must be done or a brownout or outright blackout will occur.

When I was younger, I wondered why control signals couldn't be sent along the power lines as a general "trip" to unnecessary appliances like central A/C units. Then I realized the step-up and step-down substations would act to block the override signals. So there is no easy answer.

Third, thanks to the proliferation of gadgets in our society, we're using far more energy than before. It doesn't help a lot of that load is nowhere *near* PF corrected, so the real/apparent power is way out of whack. The worst are those "phantom" loads, the ubiquitous AC brick power transformer.

Finally, most folks use odd reasoning to presume they have a "right" to use power whenever they please. It's hard to pitch energy conservation - especially during peak load times - when folks want to use the power and damn the consequences.

So perhaps rolling brownouts and blackouts are a *good* thing.

 

have a look at the winds for this location and then tell me why the Cowley Ridge wind project is placed here
http://weather.ec.gc.ca/trends_table/pages/zpc_metric_e.html

 

First of all, Clever, the insults started from you. I merely called you on it. I appreciate that you have toned it down.

You argue again and again about Peak Loads. Why does that matter? You have forgotten more than I know about renewable energy, and that is precisely the problem. Let's suppose that there is a natural gas turbine fired power plant that can deliver 100% of the peak load to the grid. Next, let's suppose that 10% of the power comes from wind, varying as high as 15% during optimum wind conditions, and as low as -5% during your "drain" days that you have proposed. Let's say it's windy half the time, and draining half the time, but the net power generated is still 10% of the annual demand.

The result? A 10% reduction in the consumption of natural gas, gas that can be used to power the turbine during your dreaded "peak" load times.

What is the problem? Apparently, none. Yet, you still object, saying something about peak load. Did anyone advocate ripping out the natural gas powerplant? No. Does it save gas? Yes. Is there still enough electricity to meet peak demand? Yes. Do I buy as many Kilowatt Hours of wind power as I consumed? Yes.

Your argument doesn't hold water. Basically, you are angry that hydro is not the end all and be all solution. You also argue that Wind is not a replacement for traditional power. Whoever said it was? You asked the question, where will we get extra power for plug in hybrids? The answer, wind power, is unacceptable to you, and the people that choose that solution are worth mocking with laughter and are nothing more than misguided fools with a good spirit.

You refuse to consider the possibility that a plug-in can be charged by wind power, yet it is being done. (Go see NREL).

As for government subsidies, let's take away the oil company subsidies first. You claim that government subsidies are the only reason wind power exists at all. Too bad Colorado has a 10% renewable mandate by 2015. Subsidy or not, it will be built.

You also state that my neighbor benefits from wind power that I pay extra for. How is this a problem?

As for Natural gas being able to meet peak demand, Colorado suffered some rolling blackouts the other day because Natural Gas was in short supply:

http://www.marketwatch.com/News/Story/Stor...D&siteid=google

It sure would have been nice to have some more wind power in place before this occured.

Nate

 

So, clever, you claim to "have an open mind to new education on any matters." Does this include the use of wind power? Or is it still, (to quote you) "worthless?" Or do you "just laugh" when you have a new research and technology presented to you?

Also, you still seem stuck on the idea that wind power must be able to be the end-all and be-all of meeting peak demand in order to be useful. Where does this idea come from? It doesn't make any sense.

Nate

 

Pincher Creek, Alberta has one of the most sustianed winds of all of Canada. It's about 6 miles from the Cowley Ridge which is a huge wind farm. It was installed to assit in powering the Calgary rapid transit system. It's on the lee of the Rocky Mountains and is virtually at the base and at the mouth of a pass thru the Rockies. It's been know to blow train cars down the tracks and semi's on their sides. I burnt 15 gallons of gas trying to push my truck and camper 33 miles there to make it into the pass. And I was only trying to maintain 30 miles an hour as that was what the traffic was going. There are places with higher winds but not so sustained. The light house on Cape Scott on norther Vancouver Island went wind powered as it's expose to the Pacific ocean with a sustained wind but I'm unable to find data on the winds there.

 

the last time I was by the Cowley Ridge I'd estimate that there was 45 turbines on it. It was tough counting but I was over 40 and there are others that are out of sight from the hiway. That was in March of 2k4 and there was a very agressive developement plan to build more. I'm not sure what the date of your data was but there is a lot more than 10 mills there. Now it's entirely possible that some are not in the Ride the Wind plan and contracts like that are the norm in industries such as this and we'll never know. I wonder exactly what a megawatt of nuke really costs. I'm sure with all the subsidies to the industry, we'd crap if we really knew.

 

Sustained wind is what you want. Gusty conditions are not good. 33 km/h is nowhere near the cutoff speed for modern utility scale turbines.

Here are the specs on the 1.65 MW Vestas V82 turbine:

http://www.vestas.com/uk/Products/v82/v82_UK.htm

The 1 sec cut out speed is 71 mph (115 kmh). The 10 minute cutout is 45 mph (72 kmh). Well above the speeds in Franks data.

Also note the cut-in speed. They're as low as 5.6 mph (9 kmh) in the two-speed version.

Clever, hydro has its own issues. For one, it's not an environmental free-ride. Two, it won't work in places that don't have a lot of water.

BTW, with a production factor of .25 those 10 turbines would produce 14454 MWh of electricity over the course of 1 year.

A recent Standford study examined data from over 8000 windsites across the global. 13 percent of these sites had wind speed suitable for utility scale turbines. Farms built on those sites could produce upwards of 72 TW of power. Total installed global capacity is about 14 TW (all forms). Now what were you saying about hydro electric power?

BTW, you still haven't been able to explain why Demark supplies 20% of its power from wind since wind is not viable.

 

Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. - Green, Renewable, Sustainable, EnergyCowley Ridge Windplant, the first commercial windplant in Canada, was completed in two ... The Cowley Ridge Windplant consists of 57 Kenetech turbines, ...
www.cowleyridge.com/ - 10k - Cached - Similar pages

http://www.canhydro.com/www2005/projects/cowleyridgewind/

 

its funny that we have completely discounted the topic of this thread by one off hand comment.

wind is not reliable. we all know that. but that isnt the topic of this thread. power generation has to be like 99.99% or whatever. but it is cheap. eventually, it will pay its initial costs and then provide energy for the rest of the turbine's life for minimal cost. no one envisions wind power standing alone for any application but for the amount of power wind put out 90% of the time, its well worth the risk in many areas.

E85 will NEVER do that. it will always cost a lot to produce. i've read and heard several issues on E85 in the past month, none are good. many say that only South America can produce E85 economically because they can do it with sugar cane which has a much higher yield with a much lower energy penalty in the conversion process. in fact, Brazil is looking to be positioned to export ethanol and become rich like the middle east. now what that will do to the rain forrests... well again, that is another story.

Alberta Switchgrass is something some E85 proponents are suggesting, but even that will not be sustainable in the amounts necessary. Switchgrass grows now because of the current biological cycle that sustains it. it grows, animals eat it, the defecate, the cycle starts over again. the grass flourishes. for E85 production, the grass is cut down and then nitrogen based fertilizers must be used to replenish the soils. that creates a whole new host of issues.

so you see, reliability is only a very small part of the picture. both wind, solar, hydro, and E85 will only provide a partial solution. and E85 provides, by far, the weakest solution for most of the country.

here, with the mountains and its associated convectional wind currents, wind is a much much better answer.

clever, look at the proponents and where they live. colorado, the rocky mountain state, BC, Canada and Washington State, home of the North Cascades. the geographical attributes should be more than enough for you to understand our position.

its closed minded attitudes that greatly hamper our ability to change. we spend to much time talking and not enough time doing. its always the same thing, congress is not willing to commit a real effort towards any thing because they are nitpicking details just like you. farming areas only want money for E85 and wont give a dime for anything else. same with us. we do have a few E85 pushers here but not many, we simply dont have the amount of farmland available to really do anything.

until we realize that there is no one "do it all" solution and the power has to be coming from many different sources can we actually get anything done. it doesnt matter how good the solution is. if we dont agree on it, it wont happen.

 

on the link I provided to the Cowley Ridge project, an interesting piece is found at the bottom of the page on the Taylor Wind project. Note that it's tied into the Taylor hydro project on the Old Man river which only produces hydro power during the early summer months. The rest of the year the agricultural business have priority useage of the water for irrigation. Up stream of the dam. Also summer flows almost dry to a trickle. A little more stable flow now the Old Man dam is in and operational as they are able to store more acre feet of water at the base of the mountains. The Cowley project is tied to the grid for the Old Man dam hydro system. One other thing is a lot of the water used for irrigation in that region is used to produce sugar beets. There is a large sugar beet refinery in Lethbridge Alberta.

 

Clever, your hatred for environmentalists is transparent. Why are you on this board? To spread falsehoods? To insult us? To try to get a dam that is being torn down rebuilt? You hate environmentalists so much that you would lie about the usefulness of wind power in order to get more hydro built?

Everytime someone has presented you with working, functional wind farms in windy places you have stated that they don't work and that the places aren't windy. Why is this so? You also claim that the facts presented are lies, discounting the entire Internet as lies and rumor, propagated by misguided enthusiasts.

Do you even own a Prius? Do you have any interest in electric propulsion? Do you work for the E85 Consortium? Own a farm, and trying to drive up corn prices?

It would be one thing if we were proposing wind power as some pie-in-the-sky idea, and you were the voice of reason keeping the lights on. It is yet another to try to deny the usefulness of a technology we are already using.

Frankly, your attitude and closed-mindedness reminds me of people trying to tell me that my Prius is not good transportation. Yet, here I am at work yet again. You keep stating that wind power is worthless, yet the wind farm I get my power from generates about 17,000,000 kWh per year since 2001.

http://www.prpa.org/energysources/windspeedperform.htm

Here's a wind map of Wyoming, where the Medicine Bow project is located:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/wi.../wy_50m_800.jpg

Here's where you can look up winds for your area:

http://www.eere.energy.gov/windandhydro/wi...a/wind_maps.asp

We continue to quote you evidence contrary to your claims. However, you spout off about ad campaigns that don't suit you or some other such conspiracy theories about how all of the information on the Internet is doctored by environmentalists.

You want E85 in Minnesota, grow some, but don't be surprised when the rest of us charge up our cars from the power of the blowing wind.

Nate

 

Milk River past 24 hours
http://weather.ec.gc.ca/trends_table/pages/wry_metric_e.html

Pincher Creek past 24 hours
http://weather.ec.gc.ca/trends_table/pages/zpc_metric_e.html