US Dept. of Energy Wants Bigger Wind Energy Ideas

coondoggie writes "The Department of Energy wants to kick up the research and development of offshore wind projects as it looks to achieve its goal of producing 20% of the country's electricity from wind farms by 2030. The DOE Wind Program is looking to focus on what it calls specific advanced technology, gigawatt-scale demonstration projects that can be carried out by partnerships with a wide range of eligible organizations and stimulate cost-effective offshore wind energy deployment in coastal and Great Lakes regions of the country. The agency is also looking for more research that can help address market barriers in order to facilitate deployment and reduce technical challenges facing the entire industry, as well as technology that will reduce cost of offshore wind energy through innovation and testing."

Comments

My Opinion, More BFE Buffalo Ridge Projects

[eldavojohn]

There's over two hundred Z-750 windmills (the largest turbines made in the USA when they were put up in the 90s) on farmland in Minnesota along Buffalo Ridge, my father helped pour the foundations for them. As far as I know (and Wikipedia state):

Xcel has contracted an additional three hundred megawatts of wind energy by 2010 and must obtain ten percent of its own electricity from renewable sources by 2015. Xcel is expected to increase its wind power contracts from 302 megawatts to one 1125 megawatts by 2010.

If you're worried about avian species, Wikipedia quotes two studies that found in seven months a death of 1.1 to 1.4 birds killed per windmill. Bats are higher but it's lower than bat deaths related to lighthouses, communication towers, tall buildings, power lines, and fences. So while unfortunate, it could probably be viewed as acceptable.

The advancements in turbine technology and infrastructure will always be needed but to answer the DOE's "Annual installations need to increase more than threefold." Why don't they just buy up a bunch of (relatively) cheap farmland in Minnesota? I think you can get away with negotiating the small plot of land they use and service roads through fields while still letting the bulk of the land be used for farming. Farmers already maneuver around sloughs that rise and fall with the water table. I don't know how the rights to offshore wind farms work or what the costs to permits are but it seems like you'd just have a strip of them so why not just do a huge block out in the middle of nowhere instead?

You can see which states really took off with wind power, I don't know why you're highlighting coastal areas and the Great Lakes when Colorado and Texas have demonstrated an equally large potential.

Re:My Opinion, More BFE Buffalo Ridge Projects

[ibpooks]

Why don't they just buy up a bunch of (relatively) cheap farmland in Minnesota?

Because it is almost impossible in the current legal climate to build the power lines from rural areas into the cities where the power is needed and can be sold at a price high enough to finance the project. There are a LOT of transmission line projects on drawing boards across the country all tied up in endless legal disputes and injunctions. There are complaints from environmental groups about lines going through wetlands, forests, and virtually any other habitat. Complaints from pseudoscience scaremongers about lines going through populated areas giving off "toxic radiation". Complaints from towns, villages, homeowners associations about nearby power lines decreasing property values. Endless permits, plans, documents, studies to upgrade the lines on existing right-of-ways. Every inch of the process is an uphill battle for the power companies, and a huge multi-hundred million dollar project can be held up or torpedoed by any judge in any district along the planned path of the line forcing expensive delays or re-designs. The few major lines that have been built in recent history have taken decades from the first plans to in-service and actually cost more money in legal costs than the cost entire planning, engineering and construction combined.

It is terribly frustrating for those of us in this industry. We know what needs to be done and many ways that it can be done, but our hands are tied.

NIMBY

[reSonans]

I hope the offshore aspect solves the NIMBY mentality I often encounter whenever wind energy comes up.

Here's an example. One of my colleagues bought a lakefront property in rural Ontario. A couple of years later, a farmer on the *other side* of the lake leased land to a wind energy provider. They pay $10k per turbine per year, so ten of them went up. My colleague sold his property shortly thereafter, saying that he couldn't stand the turbines.

Can anyone explain this? I'm genuinely curious to know why some people dislike turbines.