NEW YORK — Installations of wind turbine power hit a record in the United States last year despite the financial crisis that choked off funding for half the year, wind power advocates said on Thursday.
More than 10,000 megawatts of wind power capacity, or 5,700 turbines, were installed in 2009, the American Wind Energy Association said in its annual report, bringing the total capacity in the United States to 35,000 MW.
That kept the United States in the top spot globally for wind power, ahead of China and Germany, which each had about 25.8 MW of capacity. One megawatt is enough power for about 800 U.S. households.
The U.S. wind industry has grown 39 percent on average each of the last five years, and now employs about 85,000 people, many of them in states that have seen other industries close up factories in recent years, AWEA said.
“We really are one of the only bright spots out there in terms of growing the manufacturing centers,” AWEA Chief Executive Denise Bode told a press conference.
[More]
quote – from the marketers and scammers promoting wind energy: “More than 10,000 megawatts of wind power capacity, or 5,700 turbines, were installed in 2009, the American Wind Energy Association said in its annual report, bringing the total capacity in the United States to 35,000 MW.”
Fact: the actual energy produced by wind energy is far less than the nameplate capacity, because, surprise, surprise, the wind doesn’t blow reliably (“sustainability” conferences excepted, of course). The industry standard capacity factor is 30% – in some rare locations it might go up to 40%; in most it’s less than 30% – Ontario averages 25% to 27%.
Let’s be generous and assume 30%. That means in 2010, the actual energy these shiny new windfarms could produce is on the order of 3,300 MW, not the 10,000 MW rated power (the total for ALL US windfarms is about 11,000 MW). Or – as they like to put it – enough power for about 25,000 households. On average. If weather permits.
Oh, and on average, each decrepit, old coal power station produces about 667 megawatts. So, the new windfarms in 2009 represent, on average, the output of some 4.5 power stations. In total there are 492 coal power stations in the US. The TOTAL capacity of all windfarms ever erected in the US represents the output of some 16.5 stations. Wow! That’s roughly 30% of all coal power stations. Only problem is that you cannot close those decrepit old coal stations yet, because they have to stay up and running constantly to supply electricity on demand when the wind doesn’t cut it.
Of couse, coal isn’t the only technology to generate electricity. A total of 1,067,010 MW electricity was produced in the US in 2007; windfarms accounted for 3% of that total. 39% annual growth on 3% – oh yeah, that’s going places!
Which begs the question – at what cost compared to alternative energy sources? For the same investment – notice how THAT’s not mentioned – how many coal fired plants could have been built? How many scrubbers retro-fitted to existing ones? How many nuclear power plants? How much land area was devoted to these farms? What cost of the distribution lines? What annual maintenance costs? What envirionmental impact studies – if any – were performed?
And remember, you cannot close down a single existing power station after erecting the shiny new, Green religious iconography. There’s one thing and only one thing that keeps those blades slicing and dicing wild-life while the Green druids sing: taxpayers’ money.
Just something to remember in the future, should you travel down to Point Pelee to witness the surviving migratory birds running the gauntlet of the windfarms that are to be built in Lake Erie.
Wind power and the other cockamaimee ideas will do little if anything to arrest let alone reverse a naturally and what historical evidence proves to be a recurring natural phenomena. The money designated to be wasted on climate change would save 100′s of millions of real lives in the third world alone just by providing them clean water for drinking and agriculture. The trouble is very few can get rich on that project so don’t anybody hold their breath.
“For example, tree rings show the frequency of droughts, sediments reveal the number and type of organisms present, and gas bubbles trapped in ice cores
indicate past atmospheric conditions. With such techniques, researchers have discovered repeated instances of large and abrupt climate changes over the
last 100,000 years during the slide into and climb out of the most recent ice age—local warmings as great as 28°F (16°C) occurred repeatedly, sometimes in the mere span of a decade.”
http://www.nap.edu/html/climatechange-brief/abruptclimatechange-brief.pdf
Re: #1 — My “Mickey Mouse” site continues to astound me as people who have a firm grasp on the issues weigh in and we learn things found nowhere else.
Thank you “FredR” — you make my daily updates worthwhile and I never know when I hit a nerve.
“Sorta like brain surgeons (laughing).”
I am consistently amused by those who, in their apparent eagerness to dispute the causes of climate change or to promote “the same old same old”, rail against the decisions of others to make use of renewable or sustainable energy sources.
With the technology currently available to us will sustainable or renewable energy sources bring to a halt climate change or replace conventional energy sources – no they will not, and no reasonable person claims that they will. In the end the decision as to whether or not to make use of them is a personal lifestyle decision isn’t it?
Just exactly who do they think they’re going to convince not to put up a wind turbine or set of solar panels?
There’s a household about 30 minutes east of me that went solar, they re-mortgaged the house and mortgaged the land to fund the project but they now, produce enough power to run their house and put (which means sell) power back into the grid – indeed the calculations are that they will eventually (although be it many years down the road) recover the cost of the project.
That household, and 10 thousand like it were they to spring up tomorrow, are not going to result in the shut down of a hydro plant – but every household making use of that sort of energy helps reduce the necessity of building new additional hydro plants… something that people like FredR (and others) who tout lines like “And remember, you cannot close down a single existing power station after erecting the shiny new, Green religious iconography.” seem to conveniently forget to mention.
As I said in an earlier comment on another environmental topic, the “green battle” (for lack of a better phrase) is over and done with except for the die hards who have yet to clue in that no one is paying much attention to them anymore.
I loved the story and pictures from a few months back of all the wind turbines in northern Great Britain sitting idle while the coldest winter in a while happened. Who would have thought that the wind doesn’t blow when it gets real cold. Plus there is a problem with lubricating the turbines when it is real cold as the oils don’t flow as well at low temperatures. Sort of like molasses in January.
Another problem is that areas that have sufficient amounts of strong enough winds, are frequently where the birds fly. Birds in a blender anyone. One report I read was that the pressure differential going through the turbine caused lungs to explode, so they were killed even though not struck by the blades. Where are the animal welfare types and why aren’t they advocating for the birds?
Winds that are too strong means you have to shut the turbine down and feather the blades or they self destruct very quickly.
mid island mike
I lived in a community in the Canadian High Arctic where a test turbine went in at least 15 years ago – as you can well imagine it gets cold in that part of the world, considerably colder than it gets in Great Britain, and the wind blew and spun the blades even in the middle of a cold dark Arctic winter.
Lubricants were not a problem, when the wind speed got too high the props automagically feathered themselves to prevent over-speed conditions that may have damaged the unit, and ya know what……. despite the high number of sea gulls, ravens, and arctic terns, in the area I never once saw one dead bird anywhere near it (and we would have noticed that sort of thing what with the turbine being right beside the community softball field) — do you suppose the poor little feathered buggers lungs exploded so violently that they were vaporized?
Gosh….. that would have been something to see now wouldn’t it
The point that some are trying to make, is that just like every thing else, (example:see fuel economy ratings on the windows of new vehicles), the reality never reaches the hype. Wind and solar power are no exception.
mid island mike
Stageleft has given us an example of how one family converted to solar power as I surmise was a great expense. It has been theorized that at some point the project will break even or perhaps earn a profit. This may be true if the time frame wasn’t so long and if there was few breakdowns, upgrades, replacement of worn out equipment, etc., etc. I have seen one or two farms that went to green power. They work fine as long as the sun shines and the wind blows. However, these farmers are hooked into the power grid just in case…..
Solar and wind will never meet all of the power requirements of a modern, developed, expanding country. At the end of the day we will still need reliable, on demand power sources. That’s why this is such a lunatic undertaking. It’s pointless. If we are going to sacrifice to the gods of green then at least be smart about it and go nuclear. Europe has been doing so without incident for decades.
Finding a safe/secure place to store the nuclear waste could be a draw back, possibly making this a ticking bomb for future generations.
@johndoe124 re: Solar and wind will never meet all of the power requirements of a modern, developed, expanding country.
We have no idea what technology is either on someones bench, or just around the corner, so how can we possibly make statements like that?
“so how can we possibly make statements like that?”
Physics.
In any case, why put all your eggs into the solar/turbine basket when we already have a virtually unlimited and reliable source of energy in nuclear.
@johndoe124: Sorry, I can’t agree. We have no idea what technology may be on someones workbench right now that either is going to blow todays ideas into yesterday real fast, or lead to something that will – you’re being dogmatic about this and dogmatism never leads to anything productive.
Who said anything about putting all of our eggs into one basket, I am making the case of (at least until the technology gets better) using renewable energy on the individual personal/business level to reduce the need to build additional power plants…. I am not against nuclear energy but it has some pretty major negative issues issues doesn’t it?
What to (securely) do with the waste being the largest, immediately followed by some folk simply not wanting other folks in other parts of the world to have access to the technology — and then someone is eventually going to bring up the “if a solar panel goes wrong big deal, if a nuclear plant goes wrong……..”
I’m sure that real scientists around the world are looking into better, cheaper alternatives for power. Having said that we are stuck with the traditional sources of power until the right product comes along. I submit this will take quite a long time, so suck it up…. use coal, natural gas or oil until a cost effective reliable source is designed. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to spend money finding better ways to clean up emissions from coal and gas, etc.