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First Town In US To Become 100% Wind Powered
gundar99 writes "Rock Port Missouri, population 1,300, is the first 100% wind-powered city in the US. Loess Hill Wind Farm, with four 1.25-MW wind turbines, is estimated to generate 16 gigawatt hours (16 million kilowatt hours) of electricity annually. 13 gigawatt hours of electricity have historically been consumed annually by the residents and businesses of this town."
Wind can't supply base load so even if the wind turbines are generating more power than the city consumes over a year, that power is being consumed partially by other cities.
They might be a net generator of power, but they are ultimately using other power sources some of the time.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It's a short article, FP isn't all it's cracked up to be:
"What we're celebrating is that the wind farm in Rock Port can produce more energy each year than what this community uses, and that has never been done before," Chamberlain said.
And that's why everyone showed up. From the celebration and speeches downtown to the city's power plant, the guy who made it all happen explained what it is all about.
"What we're showing here is the city is producing 2 megawatts more than they need, so in essence, this meter is running backwards," Chamberlain said.
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I sure hope you aren't saying this as an argument against wind. Every little bit counts in this energy battle: a mature approach will tap many different sources of power. Also, if there is a suruplus at some times, then energetically intensive industrial operations can be scheduled for those times (for instance, aluminum refining).
Good to see that even though the country may be fumbling and lagging behind where it should be from an environmental point of view, individuals and sections of the community are taking up the slack and forging ahead.
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At $0.11 on average per kWh, the savings is $1.7m annually, plus another $300k from the energy they sell to the power company. That's 45 years to recoup the investment ($90m), not including maintaining the turbines for 45 years (more info here)
Still, I think this should be the new standard for sustainable living and development.
And to put 16 gigawatt hours into perspective... the average household in America uses around 11,000 kWh annually. See Official Government Website
Rock Port, MO needs to add their watts saved to the total. It's like they switched out 64,000,000 incandescent bulbs for CFCs!
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A really quick Google search turned up this article which will hopefully put things into a bit of perspective. $2 billion to build a coal plant; while I grant you it'll generate more than 16MWh/year, is still a damn hefty pricetag. How many year (nee: decades) will it take to pay one of those off?
Also, FYI; 40 year mortgage amortizations are becoming very commonplace while some companies are looking towards the prospect of 50 year ams.
As for maintainence costs; how much does it cost to maintain a coal fired plant? How much does it cost to maintain a nuclear plant? How much does it cost to handle the waste product from same? How much ongoing environmental impact is there?
I'm no tree hugger by any stretch, but the fact that a town was able to generate an annual surplus of natural energy with no environmental by-products is a pretty decent little achievement. A small step towards reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
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Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
The earth has managed to power every population that has been on it so far. Now, a population exists where the Earth's current resources can't meet their needs.
So if we wanted to power say, California, which as of 2006 has 36,457,549 people we would need something around (36,457,549/4=28044 so 28044*4=) 112,177 wind turbines. That is stupid ridiculous!
Why would we not have 2 or 3 nuke plants and achieve the same goal with way less environmental impact, better impact on the tax payers wallets and we wouldn't kill all the birds in the state!
Wind power 'feels good' but when you start running the numbers it gets dumb real quick.
Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Of course, cats (also bad rubbish, btw) kill over a billion birds and small animals in this country each year, so the few killed by turbines (see sibling post) are pretty insignificant.
I'm not saying that it's a bad idea necessarily (this sort of thing should definitely be explored and encouraged), but nothing is ever as simple as it seems when that mental light bulb first turns on.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
So far as cost goes no one can disagree with you. Being green isn't cheap. I think we'll find that as coal prices rise and further solutions continue to fail to come to fruition it becomes increasingly economical though.
There's a reason it always comes up, and namely because it actually matters.
Yes, they _could_ use peak storage, but they don't. They're on the grid. It does matter.
So they produce 5 MW all the time (wind non-stop). If yearly production is barely above their yearly usage, let's say they use, say, 8 MW peak and buggerall at night. So someone else has to build the extra capacity to produce the extra 3 MW for them.
But wait, they may have a calm day, or a _storm_. During storms you don't make more power, you align the blades so the turbine doesn't spin. So someone else has to have the capacity to produce an extra 8 MW for them, for those cases.
The point is that someone still has to be able to cover the peak power, so just as many power plants have to be built as before. Only now you have to keep some of them idle at peak time, so you don't recoup your investment as quickly.
The total power produced maths are also a bit mis-leading. They use more power at peak, they give some power back when noone needs it. The problem isn't producing enough energy at 1 AM, the problem is producing enough energy at peak times. That's when those brownouts some years ago happened. The rush to build more power plants, and dealing with NIMBY syndrome, is to be able to supply the whole use at peak hours, not at night.
Because wind can and will occasionally fail you, someone has to build the same capacity again as some other kind of power. Only, again, keep it idle a bunch of the time so they won't get their money back as fast.
Essentially, they just passed someone else the cost of building the peak storage for them. They get their peak storage (and more importantly: backup power) all right, only now "Town B" from your example is the one who gets the bill for it.
Now I'm not saying it should be a hanging offense or anything, but it _is_ a problem worth mentioning. If you want to willy-wave about being all green, then actually be all green on your own money.
Otherwise it's a bit like Liechtenstein not having an army or military budget, because their big neighbours get to deal with defending it. Or about how they do great with a lean government and low taxes... by being a tax heaven for guys who made their riches in other countries' economies. It's just passing the bill to someone else, not being the perfect example of a smart conservative government.
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While alternative energy is expensive, I have to wonder what happens to conventional energy costs when you start factoring in trillion dollar wars to keep the fuel sources available. Imagine how many solar panels, hydro plants and wind turbines could have been purchased with one iraq?
12 million watt-hours per year is not THAT much electricity per person per year when you consider that includes all the electricity the town uses - for service industry, workplaces, and homes. That 12 million watt hours is 12,000 kilowatt hours per year - approximately 1000 kilowatt hours per month - around 33 kilowatt hours per day - approximately 1.5kilowatt hours per hour - or a "ongoing continuous consumption" of around 1500 watts per person. If you have an electric water heater, electric refrigerator, one computer, some CFL and LED lighting, a TV that's on a few hours a day, an electric stove, and an electric clothes dryer in your house, as well as a computer and lighting at your work place, add in some street lights, parking lot lighting, etc. that seems to be a very reasonable number.
In this case it's preferable to move your house to an "all electric" footprint as well - as any electricity you use has 0 carbon footprint. There's no benefit to using propane or natural gas for any of your household needs - heating should be 100% electric as well - any sort of furnace will have a CO2 footprint - where electric will not. Now, the 1500 watts of continuous consumption per person seems very reasonable. Get all these people to drive plug-in hybrid cars for their daily commute and their demand may go up a bit more again - but the carbon footprint of the town would virtually disappear. Very good progress in my opinion.