Oh calamity, we are getting windmills in our county

[KK4AMI]

I went to a county supervisors meeting to listen to the discussion about a company called Apex Energy. They want to build 150 600 ft tall windmills on 22,000 acres of our county. I have no issue with wind power for electrical generation and I especially have no problem with a little more industry in this very rural county to pick up the local economy. I guess I can even get use to those monster towers with their 200 ft rotors.
1. I do wonder however, how much they will help our county in the long run.
They are leasing Weyerhauser logging land. Normally that land is open to hunting. If the windmills go up it will be closed to hunting. Our rural county does pick up a lot of tourist hunter and fishing dollars.
2. These towers will be just north of the airport, while the regular power towers are just south of the airport. I think it is going to be tough on the pilots.
3. Apex bragged about setting up windmill farms all over the US, but none of these farms resulted in the shutdown of a single coal, nuclear or natural gas plant. What gives? Is this just a technology demonstration?
4 Of course the standard Ham fears, will 150 200 ft Dia rotors rotating at 19 rpm screw up my AM, FM and shortwave listening pleasure? The farm will be about 20 miles north of me.

[KG4NEL]

I don't see how it's a zero-sum game. The "clean coal" lobby isn't just going to roll over and die because some wind or solar farms go up. The more, the better - and maybe if people see that renewable energy isn't Obama's secret Kenyan plot to steal their children in the night people will be more likely to vote on pro-environmental policies instead of burning whatever's cheaper at the time.

The next county over from me is throwing a fit over some new solar farms. I can't think of a better industrial neighbor.

[n2ize]

I say Go Nuclear !! Only problem is the words "nuclear" or "radioactive" strike intense fear in the hearts of most Americans.

[PA5COR]

Nuclear didn't work out so good for Chernobyl or TMI or Fukushima.
Wind and solar are at the moment the largest or only added energy supply's to new plants in the USA, the new plan from Obama will shutter the old coal plants anyway.
Germany now gets 50 - 75 % from renewables Denmark Portugal Spain etc in the same ball park.
Even China is now installing wind and solar like mad and closing down the old coal plants.

Coal is on the way out, the industry might fight it but it's a done case.

[KK4AMI]

I know it's a necessary change over, but I still wonder if it is practical. There is currently no way to store energy, so I guess we still have to keep the fossil fuel plants around for those non wind days.
The opposition is throwing every counter environmental and health issue they can think of, ie. It's going to cause flicker, kill the bald eagle population, lower the surrounding real estate values, etc, etc.
The funny part about this is that Apex is a company based out of Charlottesville where I just came from. I kinda feel like I should root for the home team. We use to make jokes about Apex, calling it a Democratic Political Action Committee. The only way they are making money at this venture is through all the Federal tax breaks. So in this case are tax breaks good or bad? That was just rhetorical, don't want politics here.

[KC2UGV]

I know it's a necessary change over, but I still wonder if it is practical. There is currently no way to store energy, so I guess we still have to keep the fossil fuel plants around for those non wind days.
The opposition is throwing every counter environmental and health issue they can think of, ie. It's going to cause flicker, kill the bald eagle population, lower the surrounding real estate values, etc, etc.
The funny part about this is that Apex is a company based out of Charlottesville where I just came from. I kinda feel like I should root for the home team. We use to make jokes about Apex, calling it a Democratic Political Action Committee. The only way they are making money at this venture is through all the Federal tax breaks. So in this case are tax breaks good or bad? That was just rhetorical, don't want politics here.

What do you mean there's no way to store energy?

Flywheels? Battery? Supercaps?

The windmills here in WNY charge a flywheel, which levels energy production somewhat. Sometimes, they do shut down, mainly because it's easier to turn down a windmill than it is to turn down a coal producer.

[PA5COR]

Pumping water up to higer reservoirs when there is an excess of generated electricity, and use that to power generators when there is a shortage, Molten salt to store heat to be used to drive turbines when there is a need for, heat special oil to release the stored heat, etc etc.

Combine the wind turbines with other alternative energy producers to get a 24/7 production it's all done over the world, I can't see any reason the USA can't do that.

Prices for electicity where wind turbines are build or solar is used nose dived.

[KK4AMI]

I'm aware that there are plenty of ways to store energy, just as I'm aware we currently don't have them. Won't the designing and manufacturing of such storage facilities jack up the costs of "alternative energy"? One of the arguments they used at the meeting was that natural gas plants will be cheaper per kilowatt.

[PA5COR]

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/04/13/...-power-prices/
Wind and solar electricity have become some of our least expensive ways to generate electricity in several markets around the world.
Wind is now the cheapest way to bring new electricity generation to the grid in the US as well as many other countries. Solar PV costs are rapidly dropping and solar is expected to join wind over the next few years. Furthermore, low-cost utility-scale solar is already beating out all other sources of electricity in some bidding processes, and home solar power beats the price of retail electricity (on average) in many markets.

Wind power, on average, sold for 2.5¢ per kilowatt-hour in the US in 2013, when looking at PPA prices (2014 numbers are due to come out this week). That’s the average for all reported PPAs, which means they’re a bit under 4¢ per kilowatt-hour without subsidies. These super-low prices are extremely hard to beat, and demonstrate why so much of the electricity generation capacity added in the past few years has come from wind power plants.


Solar PV power prices vary a lot, based on region, size of the project, type of technology, and other factors, but we’re already seeing solar PV projects win PPAs where the promised electricity is cheaper than electricity from new natural gas, coal, or nuclear power plants.
Solar prices are still dropping very rapidly.

In Austin, a SunEdison power plant won a PPA to sell Austin Energy electricity for less than 5¢/kWh. Federal subsidy would come to ~ 2¢/kWh, which is much lower than then the estimated 9–27¢/kWh in health costs that coal brings us, and I would presume less than the health and environmental costs of natural gas (but I haven’t seen a thorough analysis on that) — and that’s not even taking into account their own subsidies. (Note that Austin Energy has now designated solar power as its default energy generation method through 2024.)


In Dubai (in the UAE), ACWA Power bid just 5.98¢/kWh to provide electricity from a solar power to the Dubai Electricity & Water Authority (DEWA) — without subsidy. That was a world record low bid, but even if ACWA Power didn’t exist, the record would have been broken by the second-lowest bid, which was 6.13¢/kWh and came from Fotowatio Renewables & Saudi Abdul Latif Jameel Energy. Both bids came well below the average price of electricity from natural gas in the region, 9¢/kWh.

Lastly, while we didn’t get to see any numbers on a Minnesota case, a judge ruled that a solar power plant there offered a better deal for ratepayers than several competing natural gas power plants.

On average, rooftop solar power has hit “socket parity” or “grid parity” in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, Australia, Hawaii, California, Arizona, and several other countries and US states.

Deutsche Bank actually predicts that all 50 US states will be at grid parity by 2016 — that’s next year. (Note that it takes several years to build coal, natural gas, or nuclear power plants.) Deutsche Bank also predicts that ~80% of the global electricity market will be at grid parity by 2017. This is why solar power is scaring coal companies, natural gas companies, and utilities so much, and why you see so many anti-solar myths out there being repeated over and over again… despite being several years out of date.




Nuff said me thinks.

[KK4AMI]

I hear you loud and clear. All that stuff was recited at our county meeting. The other guys countered with the fact that current wind energy prices are being held artificially low by Federal subsidies and by the fact that fossil fuel plants still have to back them up until they get power storage capability which will raise the cost.