Move Over, Oil, There’s Money in Texas Wind

[groovedaddy]

SWEETWATER, Tex. — The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way.

“That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently.

Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.

Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy.

“I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23wind.html?th&emc=th

[jpak]

1. NNo!!!11111

They won't work, they won't be built!!!!111

[groovedaddy]

2. Which is why we need nuclear, right? ;-> n.t

[losthills]

3. They're DANGEROUS!

Someone once fell off a ladder while installing one....

[jpak]

4. Millions Dead!!!11111

:rofl:

[Zachstar]

5. Ok joking aside there are multiple issues with wind power..

Energy Storage being the main which actually makes steam solar towers much better as you can use molten salt.

You silly anti-nuke crap makes kittens cry!111!!1

So mines better...

Anyway I could give a flying crap as long as yall stop thinking its THE solution and that nuke plants need to go away. Nukes take upwards of a decade to build and we need somthing major here on the order of 1-2 years.

Electrostatic Fusion!

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. I think the storage issue is a Red Herring

http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/express-and-chronicle/2008/02/23/trade-body-official-defends-wind-power-86081-20505787/

Trade body official defends wind power

Feb 23 2008 by Steve Catchpool, Hudd Sat

A SPOKESMAN for the British Wind Association claimed that wind power was much misunderstood – often wilfully.

Nick Medic, from the trade body association, said that the UK had the most efficient wind turbines in Europe, producing power levels that had not deviated by more than 1% for the past nine years.

He said: “Plant load factors (the capacity and efficiency of electricity generation) are higher for coal stations than they are for wind turbines, but taking into account the price of coal, CO2 emissions, environmental impact, and the fact that some estimates of world coal reserves see them running out in 2070, I would prefer to see investment in wind over investment in coal.

...

“For instance gas - it might be cheaper to build gas turbines than the equivalent wind turbine capacity, but where will the gas come from, how much will it cost, and will we as nation be at the mercy of foreign gas suppliers?

...

If you assume a single gigantic turbine is your sole source of power, and it is spinning up and down constantly, then I see where storage is a big question.

How realistic is that scenario?

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. More on Pickens

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=134673&mesg_id=134673