In Oregon, Wind Power Surges Disrupting Grid

cpm99352 writes "The Oregonian reports gusts of wind cause synchronized power surges, more than the transmission lines can handle. Windmill farms are ordered to fan their blades, despite tremendous demand for 'green' power from California."

Comments

These greenie-weenies will never be happy

[mkintigh]

First they complain about us burning up the planet, so we build them these bird killers. Now they complain that the infrastructure cannot handle what they asked for.

First -- upgrade your stupid infrastructure! You want it, you better be able to handle it. You get too much energy, store it somewhere (a lot of great ideas have been posted here).

Frankly, forget all of this crap and really go clean -- nuclear. Since the byproduct can be neutralized and used for other products it's a win-win power source.

Re:From TFA, wind is fine.

[mdarksbane]

It's the same question you always face with socialism vs the market - long term or short term suffering?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if this is becoming a problem that the line owners are already looking at an additional fee for window power to upgrade their network. Or eating the cost, because they're the one profiting by selling this capacity to the wind networks and to users - they've got to deal with not being able to deliver it.

Re:From TFA, wind is fine.

[ultranova]

Everybody says it is not their responsibility and the US, with its dislike of government control, does not have the mechanisms for someone to take charge and decide who pays for it in the short term, and how they are going to get paid back buy the other beneficiaries.

Ah yes, libertarian idealism runs headfirst into reality once again. I wonder how long it'll take for some randroid to blame it all on government regulation? After all, John Galt would simply pull a thermodynamics-violating engine out of his ass and solve everything that way.

In the long term the market will work; in the short term the economy and people will suffer.

Not really, because there's always short-term problems causing unnecessary suffering. Free market is a fine-tuning mechanism, it's idotic to leave large-scale decisions to it.

Re:From TFA, wind is fine.

[ultranova]

Oh dear. Did someone feel their pet ideology being slighted? "-1 Overrated" is such a good moderation option for those who are sure of of their ideals but not quite as sure of how to defend them rationally, eh?

But don't feel bad, randroids/libertarians. Defending your ideology is an impossible task. After all, reality has a liberal bias.

Re:hydrogen is a joke

[mark-t]

Storing hydrogen is cheap.... *REAL* cheap. All you need is a hollow tank that is built to hold gasses. If you run out of tank storage, you just add more tanks. Batteries may be able to store energy more efficiently, but they are *FAR* more costly to produce.