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Oil Billionaire Building World's Largest Wind Farm
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue May 20, 2008 03:38 PM
from the at-the-round-earth's-imagin'd-corners-blow dept.
from the at-the-round-earth's-imagin'd-corners-blow dept.
gadzook33 writes "CNN is reporting that oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens is planning to invest billions of dollars in what will probably be the world's largest wind farm. It will eventually generate 4 gigawatts, enough to power 1.3 million homes. The first 600 GE wind turbines are scheduled for delivery in 2010. Pickens says that each turbine will generate about $20,000 in income annually for the landowner who hosts it."
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In other news (Score:5, Funny)
In other news... Oil companies erect large billboards to block naturally generated windpower in an effort to negate the power generated.
In all seriousness, I really hope this works out, as any effort to lessen our carbon footprint is a good move in the right direction.
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Informative)
National Geographic had a program which described how the latest skyscrapers in New York were being designed to save on energy by using rainwater.
Although, they were saying that every skyscraper increased the surface area of the city due to the vertical walls, but failed to mention the shadow created by the building.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
IIRC (I remember seeing this somewhere).
At 125$+ per barrel wind power no longer needs tax breaks to be competitive vs other energy sources (coal and gas use rises in oil prices to raise their prices accordingly and some are contractually tied up to oil price).
At 150$+ per barrel solar will also stop needing tax breaks.
So it is evil capitalism at its best.
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Re:Idiocy (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the "socialist" things that western governments do are profitable for private business.
- Public schools and cheap/free higher education, if properly used, increase the educated work force and allow for greater productivity and profit.
- Public health care, if properly used, increases the overall health and productive lifespan of the population allowing for more productivity and greater profit.
- Public transport reduces the wear and tear on roads, decreases the consumption of oil(and therefor both the environmental impact and the actual cost of petrol), provides cleaner air(see benefits of public health care), reduces traffic congestion and therefor commute time, requirements for businesses to build parking structures, cost of expansion of roads, and a number of other things.
These sorts of things benefit everyone, including businesses, however no one wants to pay for them because that would involve a reduction in "my" money.The same thing goes for the long term costs of things. A CEO is interested in increasing his or her own personal wealth above all other things(that's how capitalism works), but the system has been put in place such that the only thing that matters to his or her own personal wealth is the short term results of his or her actions combined with luck. Any CEO with half a brain will trade a profit today resulting in a massive loss 5 years down the road for a small loss today resulting in a massive profit 5 years down the road.
This means that things like environmental pollution, outsourcing, and other forms of exploitation are rewarded for their short term benefits as opposed to punished for their long term consequences.
The problem with all of this is that in order to force companies to recognize long term costs and to organize the creation of and management of services which in and of themselves may never be profitable but which reduce costs and increase profits over the whole of society, we need a government, because populist and short sighted though they may be they're still better than private enterprise at certain things.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Wind is too easy. With oil they could hide fake costs and over inflate real ones.
2) Wind is everywhere. By getting exclusive drilling rights they can squeeze out the little guy so they have no new competition.
3) It's new. Big corporations HATE new. New is work and new is learning. CEO people hate work and learning.
Personally reason 3 makes the most sense, But the others are possible. The fact that this guy is trying to move to wind shows that he's at least trying to move foward. Good for him
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Very few new power plants are going to built that burn oil. The majority of new plants now are coal, followed by natural gas, and soon I hope Nuclear.
Wind farms will replace the Coal fired plants first so it really is a win for the oil companies to expand their revenue base.
Same reason that BP makes solar cells.
The Oil companies would like nothing more than to make more money selling wind power at the expense of coal. Which will make coal cheaper so the oil companies can use cheap coal to make expensive gas and diesel fuel to sell us to run our cars and trucks.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
For most of us who have jobs that is nearly impossible. If you don't live in a big city, you don't have access to buses, and using a car is just about impossible to go to your job 10, 15 or even 20 miles away. So it is impractical to walk or ride a bike. So while that may sound great, over 75% of us can't do that.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
It may be, but here in the US there aren't sidewalks everywhere to ride your bike and to actually ride your bike you have to take tons of side streets unless you want to risk being run over on the interstate which takes you quite long and if you have to be at your job by say 8 you had better wake up at 6.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the accident rate for cyclists on roads is about 7 times lower than that on sidewalks. Interstates are of course pretty unpleasant for bikes, but I'm not sure they're really suitable for cars either during rush hour.
That's one of my points. If everyone bitching about rising gas prices instead actually started bitching about bike facilities (esp. lanes, parking, showers), then we might be able to start to move in the right direction.
And no, there is really no way a 10-mile commute on a bike can take 2 hours. Average lifetime speed of cars, city and highway, in the USA has been measured a few times, and usually found to be in the neighbourhood of 18mph. Average speed of a pathetically unhealthy lard-ass on a bike: ~10mph. My own average speed for commuting on my bike after a month: 15mph. Now (2 years later): 18mph. Yes, I tend to take more circuitous routes, and that costs me a little extra time, but not much, and it keeps me smiling.
And then there are the intangibles. Arriving by car I have just wasted the time spent sitting in the car (books on CD and whatnot can help somewhat). If I've arrived by bike, I feel refreshed, energised, relaxed, and vibrant. I've gotten in my recreation for the day, as well as my workout. I've caused little pollution, little congestion, few parking problems for anyone, almost no noise, and made transportation safer for everyone just by being seen (yes, the single biggest part of cycling safety is making motor addicts aware that there are bikes on the road).
There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, of course. With shitty bike facilities, few people will bike, and with few people biking, there will be no obvious demand for better bike facilities. Change could start from either end, and I know which end I am on. Are you going to be part of the solution, or part of the precipitate?
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd venture to guess that most of us in the US don't live in a temperate climate for much of the year. I'd also venture to guess that many if not most working Americans have to look somewhat professional when they show up for work. I live in New Orleans...I've had my air conditioner runing pretty much since February. Right now..summer is really starting to heat up, and soon in the mornings it is in the upper 80s' with 90%+ humidity. Even if I did live 5-10 miles from work, a bike ride would leave me a sweat soaked, rumpled looking idiot. It is hot here most of the year. The counter part is the person living in the NE...where it is colder than blazes with tons of ice and snow on the ground for a good part of the year...riding a bike? I don't think so.
I like to exercise, but, I do it at the gym....where looking sweaty while working (out) is an expected by-product.
I'll not even get into trying to ride your bike on public roads in rush hour comign or going to work. You're taking your life into your own hands on that one. I even have to admit feeling my blood pressure going up a bit, when some idiot on a bike is holding up traffic going too slow.
Really in this day in age, unless you have a dedicated bike lane...if you're on two wheels, it should be motorized for everyones safety.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait... you're refusing to ride a bike because you're worried that it will make you not look pretty enough??
Of course, it'll heat up a lot more over the next few years, thanks largely to cars and air conditioners.
You show up sweaty, go take a shower and get changed into your work clothes, and you look good. Relaxed and confident, in fact, the way you feel after a good workout. Body language says much more than clothes, especially to airhead businessmen.
Biking in the heat isn't bad. Wind chill ("augmented evaporative cooling") is rather nice, actually. Clever how we sweat when appropriate, isn't it?
As for the danger of cycling, I'd expect people who watch the mainstream media to make that claim, but on slashdot I'd expect better. Look up how dangerous cycling is vs. driving. No contest--especially when you consider the accident rate amongst reasonably experienced, sober adults. It's virtually nonexistent.
Does your blood pressure rise when you see someone on a bike? Gee. Mine rises when I see someone in a car acting as if he's going to be late to his red light. Cyclists consume almost no resources. Cars are very slightly faster (go look up how much, in day-to-day use), and at what cost? Cyclists are doing the right thing. Why doesn't your blood boil when yet another person gets into a car? Drivers cause rush hour and traffic jams and accidents, and every one of you is equally to blame, for choosing to use your car, and for not demanding traffic-jam-proof transportation solutions.
Motors give people enough kinetic energy to do real damage. How many cars have killed someone in the past year? How many bikes? Now which is dangerous? How many Americans have late-onset diabetes, heart disease, and a plethora of other obesity-related illnesses just because motors let them avoid any and all exercise? How much cancer can be directly traced to the burning of hydrocarbons? How many Iraqi deaths are due to a certain invasion because Iraq had oil and the USA was too weak to find a way around its addiction to artificially cheap energy for its spectacularly inefficient transportation "infrastructure"? New Orleans was just flooded by a hurricane, water levels are going to rise a hell of a lot more, and climate is going to get a lot more unstable--it's burning of fossil fuels that is responsible for these things. I could go on. But think really hard before claiming that motors make us safer.Parent
Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a bike commuter (16 mile commute) who lives and commutes around suburban Minnesota, year-round. Here are my replies to some of the points you make. I'll preface my remarks by saying that the Twin Cities and surrounding areas are known for having a generally bike-tolerant motorist population, and summer heat rarely gets over 95 degrees (though in the winter temps below -10 without wind chill aren't uncommon!).
Shower at work? That's not terribly common.
This is indeed a limiting factor for commuting cyclists. I happen to work at a large employer that has showers (and lockers!) accessible to all employees, so I'm spoiled in this regard. Some cyclists aren't so lucky. I know some that take a birdbath with wet towelettes, or happen to have memberships at a nearby gym that has showers. No global solution here.
Also..where do you carry your change of clothes with you on that bike so they don't get wrinkled?
A bike with a rack and pannier can carry work clothes as you describe easily without wrinkles. Alternatively, some of my suit-wearing bike commuting brethren will drive to work once a week or so, and stock their offices/cubes/whatever with a few fresh suits, and change in the office on the days they do commute by bike.
Generally, a bicycle has little business on roads where 70mph is normal. Most roads that have speed limits that high (freeways, etc) around where I live are specifically "no bikes allowed."
The speed differential problem you mention isn't a problem provided that there is adequate horizontal spacing between the bike and the cars. Many roads where 50 mph is the norm have a sufficient bike-able shoulder where 5-8 feet of spacing is easily accomplished. It might not sound like a lot, but it is plenty of space, and traffic can pass the cyclist at full speed without slowing down or veering off to the side. Of course, many roads don't have such shoulders. Fortunately, the road system in the US is very dense. A little bit of studying on Google maps will usually yield good bike commute routes that stay off of the high-speed, zero-shoulder roads. They will often be a bit longer, of course, often winding through residential areas, business parks, etc.
I said that they shouldn't share the road with bikes
I disagree with this sharply. Cyclists and motorists can indeed share the road safely and not get in each other's way. All it takes is both the cyclist and the motorists to respect each other's rights on the road, and have an ounce of consideration for the other party. I admit that cyclists deserve much of the blame here. Many people on bikes think that they're not subject to traffic laws when they ride on the road, and do stupid things (run stop signs, pass cars in turn lanes, etc) that make the responsible and considerate cyclists look bad. Even so, bike-car collisions are relatively rare. Around here, even non-crippling/fatal bike-car collisions will make the evening news. Car collisions only make headlines when they are particularly spectacular. Your locale might be different, of course.
In the end...even with my short comings I'll admit to...there is just no practical way, in the professional world for most of us to ride a bike to/from work when you take climate into consideration.
Everybody's situation is different, and I concede that it is quite difficult many to commute to work via bicycle for various reasons, be it distance from work, family commitments, health conditions, etc. However, it is much easier, safer, and practical than many people think. I'd suggest that the nay-sayers take closer look at bike commuting. Even if you drive 3/4 of the way to work with a bike in the trunk, park the car, and bike that last portion, and only do this on nice-weather Fridays, you're cutting down on your fuel costs and getting some healthy exercise at the same time.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
mass transit by and large sucks on this continent
we're too bloody spread out for self-propelled transit to be an option for most and i need to be able to carry things like groceries.
electric vehicles are nigh-impossible to get for the majority
alternative fuels are still building infrastructure, so aren't an option for most.
not that i don't agree with the sentiment, but realistic alternatives would be nice.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
My goodness, how much groceries are you buying?
I can't imagine what a family of four would have to contend with....hell one trip to Sam's and you'd need to tow about 8-10 of those bicycle carts bare minimum.
Once a week? That seems like a lot of groceries, even for a family of 4.
Most of us do not live in an urban setting my friend.
I live in a town of 23 thousand. about 12 miles from the town i work in, which is ~ 90 thousand people. Far from urban, methinks.
I've also not got time to shop every day...I tend to buy a weeks's worth and cook 2-3 meals on Sunday to eat through the week...lunches and some dinners....
Same here. I don't like going to the store every day. Who do you think is going to plan their outings more efficiently, someone in a car, or someone who's pedaling their way around?
so I have time to go to the gym and whatnot after work....
Seriously? You don't ride a bike because then you wouldn't have time to go to the gym?
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, see, when you say "stop buying oil products" you have no idea how a statement like that can be so naive and obtuse at the same time.
This country runs on money but the currency that money uses is oil. It is intertwined in everything we have and do. You can't just stop using it no matter how hard you try.
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Re:In other news (Score:4, Informative)
Pickens made his initial big money in oil and is still heavily invested in it.
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Re:In other news (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish he would do solar collectors(not panels)
Right now they are the most promising clean alternatives, and they can store energy for night time use.
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Re:In other news (Score:4, Informative)
All in all, it seems like some people are trying to be realistic about this whole energy thing. Maybe. If we're lucky.
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Re:In other news (Score:5, Insightful)
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Doc Brown ain't all that impressed (Score:5, Funny)
just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:4, Interesting)
just playing devils advocate as from a environmental point of view how could this be a bad thing. First off the US needs to do something like Germany and give economic incentives, ie a fixed price on energy. This way your not competing dollar for dollar with oil and coal.
This is a capitalist country after all, nothing happens unless there is a profit to be made. My only other concern is the amount of land that these wind farms gobble up. With the growth in population especially in energy craving areas like southern california land is at a premium, which makes dedicating hundreds of acres to a wind farm also cost prohibitive. Considering no only likes high tension lines running through their neighborhood it is reasonable to think that systems like wind and solar will have to think seriously about competing with local land needs.
just a thought
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, so you think that developers are building these without incentives and that's a bad thing? Sadly, wind still does need incentives -- and gets it in the U.S. -- but the whole idea is for incentives to jump start the technology to where it becomes competitive without the incentives.
And these turbines, at least, aren't really gobbling land -- a lot of them get placed on ranch land, so it's essentially multi-use.
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Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:5, Insightful)
Incentives and subsidies rush products that are not yet ready into the market because they are made artificially cheaper. The problem is, instead of using whatever technology can profitably produce energy, we end up using whatever technology is the favorate of the most people, or the pet project of a particular legislator or lobbying industry (corn ethanol, I'm looking at you).
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Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Well the concept behind incentives is that sometimes you have a chicken-and-egg problem where the technology is advanced enough to give a good return, but is only truly economically feasible once mass-production lowers the price. But you can't get mass production until there's lesser production, but at lesser production it's not profitable. The incentive is designed to get around this problem, so it's profitable now, and once the price lowers due to mass production, it becomes feasible without the incentive.
You know that hydroelectric was based on "incentives", right? The Hoover Dam was entirely a government-funded project. You can't exactly mass-produce dams, so this isn't a totally analogue example, but it is an example of successful alternative energy implementation based on government subsidies, no?
Corn ethanol would be an example of a bad subsidy, to be sure, but pretty much everything to do with agriculture in our country is fucked up by the corn lobby. The lesson is not that government subsidies are bad as an idea. It means that like most things some implementations are bad, some good.
If wind mills are only economical with subsidies now -- I'm not convinced that's the case any more, but even still if it gets more built -- then that sounds like a fine use of taxpayer money to me, since of all the alternative energy sources wind power has the fewest drawbacks of any of them. In fact the worst thing you can say about it is that it won't replace all of our coal plants. Big woop, it's a step in the right direction.
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Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:5, Informative)
This is so utterly wrong it's funny. You OBVIOUSLY don't live anywhere near California. Try driving from Los Angeles to Las Vegas some time... Note the 3+ hours of driving (at 70MPH) through COMPLETELY VACANT FRICKIN' DESERT.
Land in Los Angeles county is ridiculously expensive. Land in immediately surrounding counties in the basin is fairly expensive also, but low enough that there are lots of farms, and the like, located there. As soon as you get out of the LA Basin, however (cross over the San Bernardino mountains) there are many, many thousands of square miles of utterly empty desert land...
That's why Sterling Systems/Southern California Edison is building a 7 square mile solar power facility north of Victorville. That's why there's a half dozen new state and federal prisons there, that's why there's one of the longest airport runways in the world located there. That's why Chinese airports are actually contracting to have maintenance on their jets done in Southern California. That's why BNSF railroad is building an absolutely gigantic intermodal facility there, adjacent to the airport. That's why the Army's National Training Center is located nearby, with 1000 square miles (2590 km) at Ft Irwin, not to mention NASA/JPL's North American Deep Space Network (DSN) facilities. There is an unimaginably huge amount of empty, dirt-cheap land in Southern California. Not only would dedicating hundreds of acres to wind farms be trivial... Dedicating THOUSANDS of square MILES of Southern California desert land to wind farms would go completely unnoticed by the public (the Bureau of Land Management might have a little something to say about it, though).
What's more, though, wind turbines are NOT like solar power plants. Wind turbines need as much space between them as can be practical done. In other words, you can have a few wind turbines across a farm, and continue to use the area as a farm, minus a small area that the base of the turbine takes up... It's not like the US is lacking in farm-land. In fact, most farmers LOVE wind turbines... Manufacturers just can't make them quickly enough.
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Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:4, Insightful)
Plant construction: not every design is actually energy-positive over the expected lifetime
Variability of wind even in windy areas
Energy transport and storage to non-windy areas/times (if you want to go more than 10% wind)
Kennedys: don't want their "view" spoiled. Unfortunately, Joe was both prolific and very wealthy.
Just to name a few.
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Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Don't bring up "killing birds" (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, if air pollution from oil/coal/whatever happens, that affects the birds too, dumb and smart.
Skyscrapers more dangerous (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently the combination of tall buildings, glass, and bright light is pretty deadly for birds. The bright lights on the tall buildings (like those over 40 stories) can really confuse the birds when they are migrating. The birds are used to using visual cues from the stars and moon to navigate, and according to the article can end up crashing into the building at night since they are attracted by the light, or get confused into circling the building until they are exhausted. Then in the morning, when they try to leave the city, the glass of the building reflects the sky and the birds fly into the glass.
Most of the birds are small songbirds, which are easily swept up by custodial staff, and it happens at many buildings, so it's not so noticeable for pedestrians, but it's a big enough problem that the buildings (according to the article) have started dimming their lights to avoid killing more birds.
So if you want to argue against windmills on the bird issue, then you should be prepared to argue against skyscrapers as well.
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Early adopter (Score:5, Insightful)
Pickens is not a good guy (Score:5, Informative)
FWIW, these two projects (the wind farm and the water system) are really the same [texaskaos.com]
Re:Pickens is not a good guy (Score:5, Funny)
He also drank my milkshake!
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Some notes (Score:5, Informative)
I totally support wind energy and think the turbines have done good for the community.
They make noise. Even at 1/2 mile away, low whooshing sounds are clearly audible, especially at 4AM.
They are HUGE. Pictures don't do it justice. By the time your next to one, it's an awesome site.
The community here gets jobs and money from them. The government pays 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour for wind energy, netting the community here $150,000 a year. Also Florida Power and Electric pays about 12 employees here to service them. I've known a few that have worked on the turbines, they have some amazing pictures of being on top.
They significantly interfere with off-air television. I work for the cable company, and we had to build a giant antenna in another site because our first giant antenna was to close to the windmills. Local houses have trouble getting off-air signals, digital HD included.
They are a tourist attraction. The first few years they existed here, many people tried to sneak onto the private land to snap pictures etc..
1st Law of Thermodynamics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:1st Law of Thermodynamics (Score:5, Insightful)
Trying to get an idea of scale when comparing our size (or the size of these engines) to the ENTIRE WORLD would be a good place to start. It's like saying that the friction from all our cars breaking will slow down the Earth's rotation. Come on.
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Re:'Bout time... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Who is responsible for maintenance? (Score:5, Informative)
This PDF [spiegel.de] contains some scary pictures. And there is nothing you can do if the turbine catches fire. It is to high up to put it out. Don't get me wrong I like wind energy but if these things are conventionally designed each one of them will be a bush fire waiting to happen.
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Re:Who is responsible for maintenance? (Score:5, Funny)
Those things can literally crash and burn too.
Totally off topic but it was the most exciting thing to happen at work in forever.
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Re:Who is responsible for maintenance? (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just sayin'.
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Re:They are industrially designed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:They are industrially designed (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:its time to take notice!! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:its time to take notice!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not exactly. Oil billionaries can't drill for oil anymore in the first or second world so they are looking at new sources. Drilling for some terrorist despot in a third world hellhole and hoping the regime lasts long enough to pay you the percentage they promised before the next revolution nationalizes the fields isn't all that enticing.
Owning windmills in Texas is a solid moneymaking proposition now and since Texas isn't likely to experience a revolution anytime soon and seize your assets long term investing makes sense.
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Wow... you are dumb. (Score:5, Interesting)
The largest plant in the world is the
Kashiwazaki-Kariwa [wikipedia.org] nuclear power plant in Japan which has a peak theoretical output of 8.2GW, but is currently offline because of damage caused by an earthquake.
So 4GW of power would be significant.
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