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."

Comments

Perhaps you should have read the article

[hellfire]

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.

Re:big catch

[RiotingPacifist]

Indeed, domestic applications are pretty unforgiving of random fluctuations too - sorry kids, we can't have dinner tonight, the wind isn't blowing. That's why you need energy stores, like hydro plants. When there's not enough energy going in you open the valve, and when there's an excess you pump stuff up to the top again, they already do this with conventional power sources why would wind be any different.

And what is the average cost of wind power anyway? Probably a lot higher than coal even with large carbon taxes. How? coal power stations have all the initial costs of wind farms and then a fuel cost, a waste cost and an environmental cost.

Re:Moving Air

[C_L_Lk]

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.