Oil Billionaire Building World's Largest Wind Farm 661
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."
Who is responsible for maintenance? (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Footprint? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Who is responsible for maintenance? (Score:3, Interesting)
Tower maintenance is handled by the owner.
Re:Why not buy a nuclear plant... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Interesting)
Example of a nuclear plant with 16 GW of electrical output, please. Else I'll call BS.
Wind farming = greater climate change? (Score:2, Interesting)
1st Law of Thermodynamics (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:In other news (Score:2, Interesting)
Unlikely. Wind will put pressure on gas first, because it's in the same economic niche. Coal plants take many hours to start up, and can't be effeiciently throttled down below a narrow range of output. Nuclear plants are even less responsive, they take days or weeks to start up and shut down. Both are usually used as "base load" generators that run all the time. Natural gas plants can start up and shut down more quickly, so they run during peak demand hours (daytime and evening) and shut down at night when demand is low. Wind farms can turn on and off in a few minutes, but don't have steady output that can be counted on (and sold) days in advance, so they mostly add peak capacity.
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pickens is not a good guy (Score:1, Interesting)
Water rights were basically handed out to the few land owners in the area a hundred or more years ago... and for some reason this means their family is entitled to water in perpetuity. Never mind that the water comes out of seeps and springs that feed nature, or that x CFS of a river is needed to maintain fish and habitat. Never mind that not even oil companies get "rights" for ever for no cost. Sorry, but someone bestowed water rights to you a hundred years ago...they should have known better.
Want to make a difference? Have less than 3 kids and tell your friends to also. This population will grow until there's nothing left, then we can look forward to famine. Yeah.
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.
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:1, Interesting)
A single wind turbine can generate 5-6 megawatts [wikipedia.org]. If you gave each a space of 2 acres, it would require less than 500 acres to match the electricity California gets from Hoover Dam. If you quadrupled that to account for non-productive hours, you would need 2000 acres for your wind farm.
Or you could put one on either side of the freeway each mile between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. You know, kind of like how they have power towers every 1000 ft along that stretch of empty desert already.
Or just one last ego-polishing exercise (Score:3, Interesting)
Exactly what motivates it, I wouldn't know. Maybe it's an attempt at a last deal with (or against) the devil. You know, one last big grab for saint points, to somehow balance whatever else they have on their conscience. Maybe some just want to be remembered, so they have to attach their name to _something_. Some probably are just sociopathic enough to rather spend the money fast on something that gets them personally attention, than leave it to some heirs they never really cared about. Or whatever. Whatever the reasons, it happens.
So now look at T. Boone Pickens. He's 80. Whether oil has peaked or not, it's not like he'll actually live until he sees the bad part of it. In the short run, the oil prices going up, just means profits going up for the middlemen. It's not like there's a real alternative to using oil yet, consumption is still going up, and (assuming a similar profit margin) selling a tank gas at higher price just means more profit. Profits in the oil business may peak, maybe even soon-ish, but it's not like he's going to go broke before he dies.
No, that's not the motivation. He's pretty much the usual trolling for attention at the end. He's good to attach his name to something which to a very large number of people says, "OMG, he's a saint!"
What were the real choices? Charity? Always a choice, but it's not like he can compete with Gates or Warren Buffett. The latter alone announced giving $31 billion to charity. (In 5% increments each year. At the age of 75. Seeing a pattern yet?) Pickens doesn't even _have_ that much total. So while he'd whitewash his name a lot, it would still be lost in the honourable mentions. He'd probably just manage to edge out the over 2 billion pledged by Barron Hilton. (At age 80, pleadges 97% of his fortune to charity. Hmm.)
And even Hilton's donation only made headlines because he's essentially shafting the well known Paris Hilton out of the inheritance. If the gal hadn't been so well known, even if largely for the wrong reasons, you would have barely heard about it, in a footnote.
Enter the carbon cultists. Hmm, noone has done horribly much for those lately. There's a lot more publicity to be gained by doing something spectacular for those, than from going the charity route.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
And for goodness sake, don't try to build said wind farm off the coast of Cape Cod, MA [cbsnews.com]. Apparently wind farms suffer from NIMBY too...
Where's the DOE in all this (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
not as long as they have the worlds largest coal seam (and they mine it open pit too)
india would love to buy american coal however, and not just for electricity, for use as a replaclment for all the forests they've raped without replanting for the past 140 years, turning what were once beautiful forests into a desert like wasteland...
Re:In other news (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
Within a few years, he would attempt a failed hostile takeover of Gulf Oil and then Exxon, but in doing so, he pointed out how poorly both companies were managed, and he ended up getting several members of the boards of directors of these companies removed, improved their profits, and enjoyed a windfall as the stock he owned in them soared. He didn't take over either of them, but his actions increased his own personal fortune by billions. He is one very smart businessman.
And now that he is investing so aggressively in wind technology, he's proving himself to be even more brilliant than I imagined.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
West Texas, Guadalupe National Park (Score:3, Interesting)
There were several examples of blades (I would guess the blades were ~70ft long, each, three blades per turbine) sheared off due to excessive winds. Splintered fiberglass across the desert. Never got to see one go in person, though. That would have been cool.
I thought they were immensely cool, from a geek standpoint. Obviously modern technology juxtaposed with the harsh, ageless desert. Pictures of Guadalupe National Park available at the park center had the windmills photoshopped out. I found this a bit odd, but people's aesthetics differ. [shrug]
You know what the kicker was? I was there to perform geologic mapping for the development of oil reservoir models. Turns out the geology of the place is some of the finest examples of an exhumed turbidite (underwater landslide) complex in the world, and these turbidites make mighty fine oil...
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
Shower at work? That's not terribly common. Also..where do you carry your change of clothes with you on that bike so they don't get wrinkled? Our dress code is business casual...usually dress slacks and a polo button down shirt or the like...
"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."
Well, I'm lucky...where I live and my route and timing..I rarely get into heavy traffic. I speed, I'll admit it. I don't look at the speedometer till the radar detector goes off...if a bike jumps out at me...I'm going anywhere from 45-70mph...but, even if I did the limit...a bike cannot go that fast, and hold up traffic behind it till you can safely pass. Again, if there are no bike lanes, they are a danger to the rest of the 99% of us...the speed difference even if going the limits make it unsafe for non-motorized and motorized traffic to share the same street/lane.
Frankly...I'm not a greenie. I'm not against it...but I'm not going out of my way to 'reduce carbon' if it is inconvenient to me. I've got more important matters on my mind.
"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."
Also, I never said motors made us safer, I said that they shouldn't share the road with bikes, the speed difference thing again.
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. This is true if you , like most of us, do not live in an urban setting and live more than a few miles from work.
Re:In other news (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, I would hope that an, ahem, *economic* system would put money (or, more accurately, wealth) ahead of whatever politically santizied soundbites catch people's ears nowadays.
You say we have laws to obstruct free markets, but in reality they help free markets. Besides the all-essential "enforcement of contracts" thing, there's also the fact that the paper company dumping PCBs in the river is going to fuck up the water company downstream. Little market externalities like that make things a little bit less "free."
You also seem to associate "profit" with "crushing." I'd be happy to keep you from crushing others. If you'd only send me your paychecks, I could save you from the profit of your labors.
Assuming you have a job and work for one of those evil capitalist profit-mongers. Hypocrite.
Doomers (Score:4, Interesting)
As an aside, the farm that's currently being built is going to be starting out at 1GW. So is the London Array [wikipedia.org], whose largest investor is Shell. Ultimately, this one will get bigger, though.
Re:Econ 101 time (Score:3, Interesting)
For example, when you buy a bottle of fancy mineral water, you are paying a lot more $$$ per gallon/litre than you are when you buy gasoline/petrol (assuming USA).
With fancy mineral water, the companies try to advertise that they hardly do anything to the water except find a marketable place with water, pump the water out, filter it a bit, test it, bottle it, distribute it.
With gasoline/petrol, there's a lot more work involved, the oil companies have to keep finding new places to drill for oil, build an oil rig or whatever, drill for it (and it's not 100% guaranteed they'll get oil), pump the oil out, store it, send it to the refinery, refine the oil, send it to add the necessary additives (with the associated costs of R&D), distribute it to fuel stations.
All for prices cheaper than fancy mineral water.
Re:just a few thoughts on clena energy (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a lot of land in California which could be used for turbines, true. Who pays for them, the power transmission cables and, possibly even more importantly, what is the financial overhead to meet the crazy government requirements? Maybe California will change but they haven't had alternative power because it's too expensive to build from a liability standpoint. Would be nice, though. Why not harness the winds from the sea? makes perfect sense. Hmmm....maybe places like Orlando could use solar panels that also harness impact from rain. Put them in the swamps.
Re:In other news (Score:4, Interesting)
Illegal too, at least in NC.
If it's all twisty roads on hills, sure. 5 mph on a steep uphill for an unfit person is not unreasonable, and if the downhill side is sufficiently twisty, you won't be able to get any kind of speed. Throw in some time to rest (again, unfit person), and some stoplights, and you're there.
I love biking, and I commuted to work via bike for two years (almost entirely uphill to work, and coasting downhill on the way home). My workplace had showers and the ride was along pleasant 35 mph roads. Then I got a different job, and my choices were biking 7 miles over some steep hills on a 45 mph road that everyone went 70 mph on, or drive. I drove.
Neither, I telecommute now, and just bike around the neighborhood for fun.
Re:Idiocy (Score:3, Interesting)
If you make school mandatory, then you'll have to force people to pay for it ... somehow. Doesn't make a really big difference if it's through taxes or fees, just that you might end up with different amounts in different locations if you don't force the schools to keep their fees at a certain level.
If you make school optional ... well, you'll end up with a lot of uneducated people who'll just skip school for some reason or another (don't care, don't want to pay for it, would like to attend but cannot pay for it, etc). Having a mass of uneducated people is generally bad for an economy (because they're less productive and more prone to becoming criminals), and you'll end up with enough of them to cover the low-wage crappy jobs even if you make school mandatory.
As for public transport... why can't a private company offer the same services?
Because a private company needs to make its profits from the fares alone. A city can accept to make little or no profit from the fares, because it reaps additional benefits from running public transport (increased economic activity of businesses in the city (which leads to higher tax revenues even if the tax rates are kept the same), less wear of the roads (which means less cost for maintenance), etc).
Are you saying it's impossible for a private company to make buses and put them on the roads and fill them with people, or for them to make a subway system?
No. But the problem isn't building the infrastructure, it's running the system once the infrastructure is up.
No, nobody wants to pay for them because they're already paying ridiculously high taxes, and can only imagine the corresponding private services costing even more, despite the fact that competition reduces the cost to the customer. There is no competition in the arena of public services.
If there are no profits to be made, there will be no competition. Ergo, no privatized public transportation, everyone has to drive cars again, wastes a lot of time being stuck in traffic and looking for parking lots, is forced to spend money on car upkeep if they want to get farther away from their home than walking/biking distance, etc.