Slashdot Mirror
Pickens Plans On Wind Power
Hugh Pickens writes "T. Boone Pickens (no relation) has launched an energy plan and social-networking campaign that calls for replacing Middle Eastern oil with Midwestern wind. The Pickens Plan would exploit the country's 'wind corridor' from the Canadian border to West Texas to produce 20 percent of the country's electricity and provide an economic revival for rural America. Transmission lines would be built to transport the power where the demand is and natural gas, now used to fuel power plants, would instead be used as a transportation fuel, which burns cleaner than gasoline and is domestic. Pickens proposed that the private sector finance the investment, which would result in a one-third reduction, equal to $230 billion, in the U.S.' yearly payments to foreign countries. Pickens has already invested heavily in wind, notably a planned 4,000-megawatt wind farm in his native Texas. 'We've got to get renewable into the mix. The problem for this country is that we're paying $700 billion — you heard that — $700 billion a year,' Pickens says. 'We can't afford that. In 10 years we'll be broke if we continue that.'"
It could *EASILY* turn out that Pickens is just another participant in the public relations campaign that big oil is putting on to convince Americans that big oil isn't out to get them.
People are angry at the pump, and the more people who identify oil companies as enemies, the more people are exploring alternative fuels.
While his emphasis on America's trade deficit and, apparently, the economy seems to be a new tune for an oil man, he has plenty of others with whom to share the oil-going-green spotlight with.
In 10 years we'll be broke if we continue that.
There are some that would argue that the US is already broke. The creditors just hadn't started calling yet. But they are now. Take a look at the S&P 500 over the past couple months, then zoom out and compare it to 2001. Yes, friend, right here is the abyss. Not later - right now. 1250 is where it stopped a few months ago. 1250ish is where we are now. After that it's 800 and we're back to the low point of the dot-com crash, and after that there's only the floor. It goes all the way down.
No, America doesn't have 10 years. Oil is going to break America long before that. Europeans are paying $9 US or more per gallon of gas and although they don't like it, they manage. What happens to the US economy when gas doubles again? You're having trouble at $4/gallon.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It's really simple. Build windmill farms. Build solar collecting power plants. Build the variety of hydro electric generators.
Run everything from electricity including water heaters, building heaters, and cars.
Stop sending money to the other side of the world.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
20% wind is about right. More than that, and there are problems during periods of no wind. There's a study on wide area wind averaging (need source) which has a table of percent of installed wind capacity vs. percentage of time available. Even averaging over the entire midwestern US only gets something like 80-90% uptime.
Base load should be nuclear, since that's all fixed cost. Peak air conditioning load should be solar. In between, whatever works.
California needs a major effort to install enough solar panels to power the Southern California air conditioning load. The numbers actually work for this. The nice thing about solar is that you get the power during peak hours. You're guaranteed that bright sun and peak air conditioning load come at the same time. Wind is somewhat random on an hourly scale, and hydro is somewhat random on a seasonal scale.
The reason why the entrenched oil industry is uninterested in alternative energy is because with oil they control the supply chain. Many alternative forms of energy are difficult to control. Without this firm grip of control on the industry any investment will ultimately lead to a net loss for these powerful few and a chaotic reorganization for all others in the energy industry.
-rd
"We're going to build a 4,000-megawatt farm in Pampa, and we've already bought the turbines for the first 1,000 megawatts".
He is already a rich hedge-fund manager. He wants recognition for philanthropy, not money.
You say it like a business interest ought normally be interpreted a bad thing.
Where do you think wind comes from ... magic? No. The sun heats up the atmosphere which causes a temperature (and thus pressure) differentiation which balances itself out by mixing with the surrounding atmosphere, thus producing wind.
So by your definition, ALL wind power is really solar power, which makes your statement kind of contradictory. Not that it really matters, but since you were being a semantic pedantic, I might as well be too.
These schemes always go something like, "Renewable, blah blah blah, then a miracle occurs and everyone lives happily ever after." Let's all sing the monorail song now.
Natural gas is already a dead end. There's a reason why licenses for liquid natural gas ports have exploded and that is because domestic natural gas supplies are dwindling. Changing the transportation infrastructure to a fuel already in high demand at power plants is dumber than dumb.
Wind is awesome. It's cheap. It's safe and there's plenty of it. With DC transmission lines, you can even alleviate the peak demand to peak supply gap. The main problem is that the energy density isn't there. You have to put up a lot of capital up front to get the capacity you need. Wind doesn't need subsidies but until fossil fuel and nuclear subsidies dry up, there isn't enough market incentive to get it going on a scale that's more than a science project.
Hydro has already been overbuilt. There's no more energy to get out of that other than efficiency improvements at existing sites.
This leaves us with various solar technologies. The problem here is that there's a lot of manufacturing to be done before you start to see solar contribute significant energy to the grid. It's too late to make the transition painless. That should have gotten under way with Carter's energy plan. We would already be the beneficiaries of a new energy infrastructure today, but Reagan had to go and rip out working solar panels powering the Whitehouse as a sign to the oil hooligans that the party's on. So no, the transition won't be painless. It won't even be bearable. It will hurt. My only hope is that the pain produces some real political change, hopefully within the framework of the constitution since I'd rather not see Americans shed blood however gratuitous the initial outbreak may be. That always turns ugly. From Tsar to General Secretary or King to Emperor, revolutions have little chance of settling on the median most people want.
A good start would be to actually uphold the existing constitution by impeaching the evil doers. At least then, you're guaranteed not to have to endure some asshole on a "bring em on" trip ever again.
Politicus
That's how capitalism works, my friend. In fact, by encouraging the switch from gasoline to electric (which you can generate yourself with equipment from Home Depot) and natural gas (which is basically methane, which you can generate from a pile of garbage, among other things) he is creating a more "rational" marketplace, one in which monopoly power is reduced and anydamnbody with the time and a few thousand dollars can get into the game.
Will a dozen kinds of regulators, many of them paid for by guys like him, come in and make it more expensive and complex to become a vendor? Duh; of course. But worst case scenario, nothing keeps you from "rolling your own", a thing that you can't say about gasoline.
All looks good to me, I've gotta say.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
I'm getting really damn tired of this crap about "all the greens" being opposed to all of the various renewable power sources. Let's see you back this up. Not with something from Fox "News", but with links to pages on the sites of major environmental organizations saying the sorts of things you claim. I deal with actual policy makers from people like the Sierra Club and Audubon on a regular basis, not to mention attending things like the AWMA convention, a senior official of which crashed at my place, and the line of blather you're pushing is pretty damn far off the mark.
Show us some facts. If you can.
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Would this system not capture a large amount of radiant heat which would otherwise be reflected back into space (genuine question)?
Read Pynchon.
Ya see, I *thought* that might have been it but since wind turbines have been working and turning profits for years now, utterly unlike cold fusion, I thought perhaps you had something a bit more reasonable in mind. By what standard has wind power "failed to deliver"?
It's all about the information. And what we do with it.
Where do you think that nuclear material came from? Exploding stars, thus solar.
And while its not entirely understood why the core of the Earth is still hot, nuclear decay is one theory which would make geothermal solar as well.
Lets all play six-degrees-of-solar-energy!
Of course as I post this, I realize I should've pointed out that solar energy is really nuclear fusion, so we really have a fusion economy already.
We just need to reduce our degrees-of-separation!
Or maybe it's because until recently it hasn't been profitable? No. That can't be. You go with your "control" theory...
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
Never trust a man wearing a coat and tie!
Does the "Slashdot Community" ever thinks ANY idea is a good idea? No matter the topic, most posters to this site will put it down and bloviate about how they know all.
It would be interesting if anybody, ever, had an idea that this self-righteous group would find worthy.
That's the [theory|party line]. Reality however is quite different, as any effective form of alternate energy will have have to be deployed on a large scale rather than as individual installations. (Either local or personal.) Guess who has the capital to fund those large scale deployment?
The simple fact is that until recently it simply wasn't profitable to operate those large installations.
Public transport being piss-poor is not a law of nature, it's a choice americans have made.
I live deep in the midwest, and employment is sparse out here. Also, power tends to be expensive, since it needs to travel long distances and be parceled out in small amounts. It would be nice if we could do this, but somehow I get the feeling that the political will and financial investment won't be coming, especially as people refuse to take risks in an unsure market.