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Pickens Calls Off Massive Wind Farm In Texas
schwit1 writes with this excerpt from an AP report:
"Plans for the world's largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle have been scrapped, energy baron T. Boone Pickens said Tuesday, and he's looking for a home for 687 giant wind turbines. Pickens has already ordered the turbines, which can stand 400 feet tall — taller than most 30-story buildings. 'When I start receiving those turbines, I've got to ... like I said, my garage won't hold them,' the legendary Texas oilman said. 'They've got to go someplace.' Pickens' company Mesa Power ordered the turbines from General Electric Co. — a $2 billion investment — a little more than a year ago. Pickens said he has leases on about 200,000 acres in Texas that were planned for the project, and he might place some of the turbines there, but he's also looking for smaller wind projects to participate in."
Wow. I've seen this same kind of mistake happen in the little companies I work for, spending money on stuff right before plans change. I've seen this kind of mistake but never personally witnessed one of them this big. Looks like I'm going to have to RTFA to see what changed the deal after all the checks were signed.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
These things are a great way to make a beautiful landscape hideous. And the amount of power generated considering the acreage needed is ridiculous.
Here's a crazy idea: how about nuclear power? Oh, that's right, the word "nuclear" is too super-scary for the science-based environmentalists. Never mind that they actually are better for the environment than anything else.
This is why we buy prototypes and work out the fascilities/infrastructure before we order hundreds of parts with no place too put them. Everyone always underestimates the need for a building for their new business plan...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
Call it what you want, but this is going to be a huge blow to alternative energy in this country. This was an all out high-profile project that just fell on it's face. Pundits will be using this to slap other alternative energy projects in the face for years to come. This is the kind of thing you could dream up very elaborate conspiracy theories about. Watch the oil prices skyrocket as a consequence.
Here's another suggestion.
High priced oil *triggers* recessions.
This would be far simpler and explain the oscilation in the price of oil after the demand destruction has fed through.
Deleted
Make people pay for the full environmental impact of oil, and the cost of their share of wars in the middle east. Solar looks great once the real costs of fossil fuels are not hidden in taxes and the benefits of running an empire.
I don't think there's a huge conspiracy, but oil producers manipulate prices on a regular basis - they even have an official racketeering ring called OPEC. It's unfortunate that American and British companies are in on the profits, though, because if they weren't, we would have probably abandoned oil as an energy source. Relying on a finite resource that is mostly on the other side of the planet for nearly everything we consider essential to modern life seems pretty short sighted.
Becuase[sic] wind doesn't meet the needs of today's energy grid (baseline power needs, peak power needs)
Nuclear doesn't meet peak power needs either. It turns out that multiple sources can be used together -- every wind turbine spinning replaces MWh generated by gas or coal. Build enough un/negatively correlated turbines and you can count a fraction of wind generation as base. The rest replaces gas turbine output. No engineer is claiming that wind can, by itself, replace all other power demands. It can certainly play a role replacing some fossil fuel power generation, and it's nuclear waste-free!
It takes alot[sic] to maintain such a distrubuted[sic] generation system
But not so much that we can't do it. It also takes a lot to underwrite the insurance for nuclear power. So much, in fact, that nuclear power companies don't pay for it -- the US gov't does. Somehow that tidbit, a tidbit that makes nuclear power one of the most expensive options around, is rarely mentioned around here.
some people don't like the aesthetics
Some people don't like the aesthetics of coal power plant smokestacks, giant fences around nuclear plants, or what's left of the mountain after the coal or nuclear fuel is mined. No energy solution is perfect.
they grind up birds like no tomorrow.
No, no they don't. The 1980s called, and they want their built with small fast moving blades, non-monopole design, and located in bird migration routes wind turbines back.
Sure they will be nice here and there but they don't have the potential to solve the problems we have now while nuclear does.
Nuclear has the potential to be part of the solution, but it too can't solve the problem whole-hog. Nuclear isn't financially efficient now, if you try to use it for anything more than base load your efficiency drops like a rock. Solar can be used to shave some peak (in much of the world peak demand is very positively correlated with hot sunny days), wind can be used to reduce the need for fossil-based intermediate demand when it's blowing, and biomass, natural gas, and water pumped uphill (battery) can be used to make up the difference.
Enviromentalism needs to wake up and face the fact that the problem is now so bad that idealism must take a back seat to pragmatics.
The pragmatic solution is not to pooh-pooh wind. The pragmatic solution is to use a mix of non-fossil fuel approaches to (1) meet our electricity desires, while (2) reducing the amount of carbon emissions we generate as much as we can. Wind can't do all of that to maximum effect. Neither can nuclear. Neither can solar. Neither can biomass. Nor hydro. Nor natural gas. Nor whatever comes next (tidal?). But, using all of them, whenever feasible, will maximize our reduction of carbon emissions in electricity generation.
Why not support both?
Support a few technologists in Washington.
Wait a second. You're arguing that wind is better than nuclear because it requires fewer people to operate a wind farm? In case you haven't noticed, there's a recession on. Unemployment is a problem. If nuclear power plants require more people to run, wouldn't that be a good thing?
I write sci-fi for metalheads
CNN is reporting the project is "On hold" not "scrapped". They also reports the wind equipment that has been bought is going to be used.
There is a big difference between "On Hold" and "Scrapped".
I remember reading those stories and I don't really doubt it because water is drying up in the west. You don't hear much about it, but water rights and who controls the water is going to be a deal and make someone very rich over the next 25 - 30+ years. Actually that goes for the entire world. Anyone take notice of how many dams have been built around Iraq in the past few years by Turkey and Iran?
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Wind IS a base load replacement. Demand for power fluctuates, just like wind supply. It doesn't matter whether you are using coal, nuclear, or wind for you "base" power, you still need gas power plants (or other easy to control plants - maybe hydro) to smooth the difference between supply and demand. The only difference between wind and coal is that the standard deviation of the signal is a little bit larger (so you need another gas plant to provide more smoothing).
The lower reliability of wind means that it's worth a bit less than coal power (depending on the size of the grid, and the reliability of the demand), but it competes directly with base power.
Coal generators HATE wind, because it is a competitor. Peak load generators LOVE wind, because it requires more peak smoothing than coal.
If coal is cheap and wind is clean, then we should burn coal to power turbines that generate wind, then get electricity from wind turbines. It becomes a win-win!
You have just described the entire ethanol industry.
Or, what's the easiest way to get both right-of-way AND water rights? Uh huh, have the government condemn miles upon miles of land from everyone in the way.
Dog is my co-pilot.
Isn't that one of the major problems with nuclear power? It produces waste that we don't know what to do with. Hiding it somewhere and pretending it doesn't exist doesn't seem like a valid long term solution.
In a real emergency, we would have all fled in terror, and you would not have been notified.