Wind Power - Now is the Time

[Lynn Farris]

Sharon, interestingly enough, we developed municipal windmills, (not your daddy's eh Holland windmills) here at NASA Lewis during Carter's administration. Then Regan came to power and took the solar panels off the White House and stopped our research on alternative energy.

Fortunately it was picked up in Europe where it has expanded greatly. "The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) has set a target to satisfy 23 percent of European electricity needs with wind by 2030. EWEA also notes that Europe has enough wind resources to meet the electricity demands of all of its countries."

"The cost of wind power has fallen due to advances in technology, declines in the costs of financing wind projects, and the economies of scale of turbine and component manufacturing and construction."

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Wind/2006.htm

Asia, Europe, and Central America are all taking advantage of this technology as well as pockets in North America. It isn't the answer to all of our problems. But it is one more aspect in the mix.

[sharon kinsella]

I have friends who live off the grid and live very well.

They have windmills and solar panels. Many of them sell their excess power to local power companies.

There are a couple of companies in Cleveland that are doing solar panels. It's a separate technology and a budding industry. We either get informed and get on board or we miss the boat, literally.

[Will Brown]

[quote="sharon kinsella"]Holland and farms in the 1800's.[/quote]

If you read better you would have noted that I said a couple of hundred years ago.

Holland (more properly the Netherlands) is still there, but the windmills are for tourist displays. The farms are still there, but the windmills are gone.

Actually, the Netherlands does have a large number of wind turbines, but most of their power is supplied by carbon-based generation. In fact, their largest power generation company has wind turbines, solar facilities, and generation plants of varying types. One wonders why a company familiar with all these types of power generation would have just placed a major order for more gas fired generation plants, if the other technologies are so superior.

Virtually all of the citations asserting that wind power is superior are from organizations of enthusiasts, trying to generate political support for their systems, since they have to date been largely unsuccessful in getting their systems into use without massive subsidies. I can understand that a company heavily invested in traditional generating facilities would rather keep updating those facilities rather than tearing them down and risking their money on windpower. But it seems to me when they need to add capacity, they would have no incentive to build a new traditional facility if a more efficient and ecologically friendly technology was available at a competitive price. Yet they continue to add gas powered generating plants.

And now it is argued that the problem has been that the government subsidies were only available for a limited time, and that the solution is eternal subsidies. I can see why a limited subsidy would be necessary to build facilites on a demonstration basis. But eternal subsidies seems to me a tacit admission that this technology will never be competitive.

Incidentally, if your friends were really off the grid, they would have no way to sell their excess power to the local power company. Do you think they put it in boxes and deliver it?

[sharon kinsella]

I didn't say they were in Ohio and I resent the fact that you think I'm not very smart and that I lie. That is unacceptable and I'm asking that you do not do that again.