Texas Sets New Wind Power Record

CommanderFrank

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
Joined
May 9, 2000
Messages
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If you ever thought Texas and Texans were just a whole lot of wind, you would be right and they would take that as a compliment. The State of Texas has been quietly building wind turbine farms to harness the power of the Texas wind and is now generating more than 10% of the state’s electric power supply….and that’s not just hot air. :cool:

Texas has more developed wind power capacity than any other state. According to ERCOT, 11,000 MW of generators already contribute to the grid, and another 8,000 MW are due to come on line shortly.
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It's always interesting to me when you see something like this. Texas is often stereotyped as big oil, conventional energy tycoon land and then bam they come out leading the nation on wind energy. I say bravo Texans for thinking forward.
 
Ultima99 said:
It's always interesting to me when you see something like this. Texas is often stereotyped as big oil, conventional energy tycoon land and then bam they come out leading the nation on wind energy. I say bravo Texans for thinking forward.
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Part of it is unfortunately due to all the Californian liber-tards that are moving here. Not that wind energy isn't good.. but there is a huge shift in the political mindset here.
 
Texas probably also set a record for the number of birds and bats chopped into pieces too.
Environmentalists are dead silent about this side effect.
 
Ultima99 said:
It's always interesting to me when you see something like this. Texas is often stereotyped as big oil, conventional energy tycoon land and then bam they come out leading the nation on wind energy. I say bravo Texans for thinking forward.
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Except all it has done is proven that large scale wind farming, even when its just a mere 10% of the grid, is a completely failed concept.

Most of the energy produced is wasted, as you can't cycle the power on the other plants to compensate for the fluctuating power produced from wind, nor is wind power reliable enough to change the amount of powerplants needed to avoid brownouts.

So the solution of course is to store the energy for when its needed, but there's no environmentally friendly or economical way to store such vast commercial quantities of energy.

So its wasted... *facepalm*

But at least its better for the environment right? WRONG!

They are showing now that approximately 39 million birds a year are killed by the Texas turbines, and many smaller birds and bats are killed not even by hitting the blades but by the pressure pulses causing blood vessels in their tiny bodies to burst if nearby.

This is showing a more severe negative impact to the environment than building water dams, which we generally frown upon now that we know how much destruction that "green" energy causes.

But hey, at least once we figure out how to store the energy, its cost effective, right? WRONG! The reason wind power is such a hit is because of the massive amount of subsidies it receives, subsidies that you are forced to pay via your tax dollars... that and land is cheap.

Regarding land being cheap, land around turbines will remain very cheap for a long time to come, as a study showed how dangerous they can be around a human population. A 13 ton turbine blade (some of the bigger ones are 36 tons) snapping off due to a failed brake during a storm has enough stored energy to wipe out an entire football stadium and can travel considerable distances due to the momentum carried and aerodynamic shape.... who wants to live near that?
 
Ducman69 said:
Except all it has done is proven that large scale wind farming, even when its just a mere 10% of the grid, is a completely failed concept.

Most of the energy produced is wasted, as you can't cycle the power on the other plants to compensate for the fluctuating power produced from wind, nor is wind power reliable enough to change the amount of powerplants needed to avoid brownouts.

So the solution of course is to store the energy for when its needed, but there's no environmentally friendly or economical way to store such vast commercial quantities of energy.

So its wasted... *facepalm*

But at least its better for the environment right? WRONG!

They are showing now that approximately 39 million birds a year are killed by the Texas turbines, and many smaller birds and bats are killed not even by hitting the blades but by the pressure pulses causing blood vessels in their tiny bodies to burst if nearby.

This is showing a more severe negative impact to the environment than building water dams, which we generally frown upon now that we know how much destruction that "green" energy causes.

But hey, at least once we figure out how to store the energy, its cost effective, right? WRONG! The reason wind power is such a hit is because of the massive amount of subsidies it receives, subsidies that you are forced to pay via your tax dollars... that and land is cheap.

Regarding land being cheap, land around turbines will remain very cheap for a long time to come, as a study showed how dangerous they can be around a human population. A 13 ton turbine blade (some of the bigger ones are 36 tons) snapping off due to a failed brake during a storm has enough stored energy to wipe out an entire football stadium and can travel considerable distances due to the momentum carried and aerodynamic shape.... who wants to live near that?
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The enviromentals (not a misspelling) must be beside themselves trying to figure out which side to support this from and which side to attack it from.

Don't get me wrong, we do need to be more responsible, but not by doing something just for the sake of doing something.
 
Now only is it destructive to the environment but the only way these farms make money is subsidies. There are countless sites online that shows when a "farm" runs out they cannot compete cost wise they remove the blades but leave the towers where they stand making a nice blight.

Look at how pretty that is :rolleyes:

205v8ug.jpg
 
Wow, didn't take long for people in this thread to attack wind energy. And pretty all of these attacks are wrong. Oh sure, wind turbines do kill birds, but more birds are killed by energy production from fossil fuels.

birds_v_nukes.jpg


Source: Sovacool 2012

Then again, I am more surprised that you people even give a shit about the birds, especially when you consider that cats are more likely to kill them than any particular energy source. The point of wind (and other renewable energy sources) is to benefit humankind through CO2 emissions reductions, not the birds. It is one thing to debate about the financial costs, but to claim that renewable energy sources are less friendly to the environment is really stretching the truth.
 
BassDX said:
Wow, didn't take long for people in this thread to attack wind energy. And pretty all of these attacks are wrong. Oh sure, wind turbines do kill birds, but more birds are killed by energy production from fossil fuels.
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What I always found amusing was the SOURCE fore those 'ZOMG! WINDMILLS KILL BIRDS!! ENVIRONMENTALISTS RISE UP AGAINST THEM!!!' articles and studies. At least, last I'd seen on those (mid-last-year), the 3 major studies cited in alarmism around that...

...were all funded by the Koch brothers companies and organizations.

It's almost like they don't want to see all their investments in oil crash, so they are looking for easy/gullible audience to dupe (which, lets face it, many environmentalists are) to question any/all alternative sources.

Ducman69 said:
So the solution of course is to store the energy for when its needed, but there's no environmentally friendly or economical way to store such vast commercial quantities of energy.
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You realize that storing "commercial quantities" of energy is actually one of the easiest things to do, right?
 
ep0x73 said:
14000 Abandoned Wind Turbines In The USA

"The US experience with wind farms has left over 14,000 wind turbines abandoned and slowly decaying, in most instances the turbines are just left as symbols of a dying Climate Religion, nowhere have the Green Environmentalists appeared to clear up their mess or even complain about the abandoned wind farms."

http://toryaardvark.com/2011/11/17/14000-abandoned-wind-turbines-in-the-usa/
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Like this, for example. It's entirely fictional myth.

=1679&cHash=a6ffbf36a98ab3ba82069d2486ebd7ae]There is no actual evidence to back that up at all, indeed, the number quoted is utterly preposterous to begin with!
 
ep0x73 said:
Now only is it destructive to the environment but the only way these farms make money is subsidies. There are countless sites online that shows when a "farm" runs out they cannot compete cost wise they remove the blades but leave the towers where they stand making a nice blight.

Look at how pretty that is :rolleyes:

205v8ug.jpg
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Not true, just like the fish that make habitats in the oil rigs we no longer use, birds & bats make homes in these towers.
 
I am glad to see this is doing well. I assume a lot of this is that wind farm that T Boone Pickens created. I remember hearing about that years ago and him wanting to just fund the entire thing himself as he didn't want investors or anything else trying to tell him how they thought they should cut back on anything or do it differently as he knew what he wanted and how he wanted to do it.
 
dderidex said:
You realize that storing "commercial quantities" of energy is actually one of the easiest things to do, right?
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Actually, storing commercial quantities of energy is actually one of the hardest and most expensive things to do. That article points to flywheels that can at most store 5 MWhr of electricity, which in the whole scheme of things is essentially irrelevant. The only thing in use today that can store decent amounts of potential electricity is pumped storage hydrostations, which like normal hydropower is limited to suitable areas.
 
wind-works.org? yeah I am sure they are not biased in the least.
The fact remains that if wind was so great then it would not need to be subsidies by the taxpayer, it would stand on it's own merit.
Wind is not reliable, it does not always blow and the turbines can't handle too high of wind or cold.
They are a novel item at best.

And yes there are thousand of wind farms that started losing money when the government handout dried up and they were taken offline.

Only a pro-green person could actually make up some excuse as to the blight of towers left behind.

Same song and dance, not in my back yard.
 
the more time i spend on these forums the more i realize how different we are from the US...
 
SLee said:
Actually, storing commercial quantities of energy is actually one of the hardest and most expensive things to do. That article points to flywheels that can at most store 5 MWhr of electricity, which in the whole scheme of things is essentially irrelevant. The only thing in use today that can store decent amounts of potential electricity is pumped storage hydrostations, which like normal hydropower is limited to suitable areas.
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I think we can do big projects, we could build big water reservoirs and use it for energy storage too, you all artificial.
Don't ask me how to do it, but I think we gone far enough engineering wise.
 
Define Irony: Users posting about new technology being inefficient and expensive using a device which only became efficient and affordable because people bought into the concept.
 
dderidex said:
...were all funded by the Koch brothers companies and organizations.
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Kind of laugh at he "Koch brothers" bogeyman yet your guys are completely comfortable for with Soros being at the root of nearly all your perspective and politicians.
 
Wind Energy doesn't run on a schedule which means you have to have other energy production built anyway, so you have non-wind energy production capital investment has to be the same as if the wind energy was never built. So the capital investment is greater overall with wind. So that cost battle is already at a deficit. Now it comes to operating cost. You save on coal or natural gas consumption only when demand the wind co-operate and align.

Texas is heavily invested in it because its a placebo for environmentalists that is no real threat to traditional energy production. And why not? Environmentalists help take the blame for restricting supply that helps keep prices inflated. Why not toss them a cookie.
 
BassDX said:
Do you know that fossil fuels are also subsidized?
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Oil and coal stand on their own, they are in demand and do not need $$ so that a failed concept can break even.

Nuclear done right is still the best power source we have with the least amount of pollution, just don't build them on a fault line or near the ocean.

If our gov't was smart they would give homeowners a huge incentive to put solar panels [even better shingles] on their roof and each house could add to the power grid without having to make solar plants by tearing down forest or eating up land.

That would make sense, much more sense then wind.

The downfall to solar is they use a great deal of rare earth elements, why rare? you have to destroy thousands of acres of land just to find some.

No matter how you slice it if you want energy there is going to be a negative, nothing is perfect until we can harness and control nuclear fission.
 
Subsidies, Subsidies, Subsidies ....
..... and no way to store electricity for times when the wind is not blowing
NOTE: This announcement very carefully does NOT talk about what percentage of power is generated - only PEAK generation

I have an idea, lets FORCIBLY TAKE money from electric consumers (people we DON'T like) and GIVE it to "alternate" energy producers (people we DO like). Lets FORCE people to pay more for electricity (and everything they buy) and HIDE the higher rates in their electric bills.
After all WE are MUCH smarter than a free market in deciding what people should do with their own money.
 
You wont see this mentioned in Huffington Post unless it were a blue state doing it.
 
Alternative energy may some day out perform fossil fuels, but that day is far off.
And when that day comes, that alternative energy source will not be weather dependent.
 
BassDX said:
Do you know that fossil fuels are also subsidized?
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There is no net subsidy on fossil fuels, there is a massive net tax actually, and its taxed several times before it makes it to the consumer from the raw oil (especially if its domestic supply). The "subsidies" are only there to encourage desirable behavior in the form of reduced taxes, and in fact the top three companies to pay the most taxes were ExxonMobile, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips.

Not only were their paid taxes the highest dollar amount, but they were also the three highest TAX RATES paid by any companies. Exxon’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3% and Conoco’s was 41.5%. That’s even higher than the 35% U.S. federal statutory rate, which is already the highest tax rate among developed nations.

Furthermore, this doesn't include the taxes paid for rights to extract oil from domestic sources nor the additional tax revenue that is factored in to every gallon of refined gasoline at the pump.

So to pretend that oil is subsidized is rediculous, and also irrelevant. Wind turbines aren't replacing big-oil, because we get most of our electricity from coal. Clean coal has minimal environmental impact now, aside from very high CO2 output thought to contribute to global warming (could have used it in the South this winter). Carbon sequestration, also implemented at three large plants in Texas, is proving a good option when the geography permits (need several clay layers), which eliminates the CO2 output concern. The nice thing about clean coal is that we have tremendous amounts of it domestically.

Nuclear would be a good option, except we have laws against recycling and no one wants it in their backyard creating so much red tape that it becomes hugely expensive in the end, and also requires subsidy to be viable right now (although nothing like wind or solar).
 
A lotta FUD in this this here thread. Good on Texas for diversifying their energy portfolio. They'll benefit in the long run.

It's true that wind energy is not cost competitive with natural gas right now without tax incentives. But here's the funny thing... hydro-fracking is the reason why gas is so cheap right now. Back in the 70s and 80s when fracking was first being explored, it could not compete cost wise with conventional gas wells. The only reason we got where we are with fracking is that the government subsidized the development of the technology for thirty years, with the same types of production and investment tax credits and R&D money that wind is getting now.

New technologies take time to bear fruit. Wind isn't under attack because of it's cost, it's under attack because it stands the threaten the traditional power players in the energy market. The thing about birds isn't really a factor anymore. A majority of the confirmed birds killed by turbines happened at one wind farm, which used lattice towers as support structures instead of the more modern tubular designs. Bat deaths are still an issue with more modern wind farms, but it's not the slaughter some would have you believe and doesn't even come close to other human impacts like White Nose Syndrome.

Oh and storage is definitely a problem for renewables. Pumped hydro isn't cheap and isn't easy to collocate with the greatest areas of wind and solar resource (the plains and the desert). If the transportation grid moved whole scale to electric, you could store energy in car batteries in a distributed fashion, but that would require a complete redo of the electric grid. Transmission and intermittency would probably limit renewables to at most 30-50% penetration in the current U.S. electric system. The rest could be provided by nuclear and/or combined cycle natural gas. We're slowly moving in that direction anyway, as almost all new power generation in the U.S. in the past decade has been natural gas and wind.
 
Ducman69 said:
Wind turbines aren't replacing big-oil, because we get most of our electricity from coal. Clean coal has minimal environmental impact now, aside from very high CO2 output thought to contribute to global warming (could have used it in the South this winter).
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Coal (to say nothing of "clean coal") is not cost competitive with natural gas. That's why new coal plants aren't really happening anymore (not, as some would claim, because of the EPA). See this figure from the EIA:

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/images/figure_3es-lg.png
 
Pfft wind. I get my energy by burning dead dinosaurs and that's how I like it. Who cares about the air quality anyway? I'll be dead before you can notice the impact.
 
drako said:
Coal (to say nothing of "clean coal") is not cost competitive with natural gas. That's why new coal plants aren't really happening anymore (not, as some would claim, because of the EPA). See this figure from the EIA:

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/er/images/figure_3es-lg.png
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Just to be clear, obviously most of that figure is a projection, but you can see that the dips in coal generation up to 2012 have been largely offset by natural gas generation increases. To summarize, natural gas is replacing coal for electricity production because it is cheaper. (and lucky for us it is much cleaner)
 
drako said:
New technologies take time to bear fruit. Wind isn't under attack because of it's cost, it's under attack because it stands the threaten the traditional power players in the energy market. The thing about birds isn't really a factor anymore. A majority of the confirmed birds killed by turbines happened at one wind farm, which used lattice towers as support structures instead of the more modern tubular designs. Bat deaths are still an issue with more modern wind farms, but it's not the slaughter some would have you believe and doesn't even come close to other human impacts like White Nose Syndrome.
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Great post! I want to highlight the above section and elaborate some more. You are partially correct that this is threatening the traditional "power players" in the energy market -- mainly the coal and natural gas providers, not the power delivery entities. The other biggest problem with wind energy, that a lot of people seem to neglect, is the fact that it doesn't generate when we need ti most -- summertime. So what wind really gets us is too much generation in the wintertime, when electrical prices are at all time lows already, and virtually no generation in the summertime, when we actually could use them to offset peak costs.
 
drako said:
Just to be clear, obviously most of that figure is a projection, but you can see that the dips in coal generation up to 2012 have been largely offset by natural gas generation increases. To summarize, natural gas is replacing coal for electricity production because it is cheaper. (and lucky for us it is much cleaner)
Click to expand...

That is until we have no more coal plants and we are on a predominantly natural gas market, then we will see prices rise a lot for natural gas.
 
drako said:
Just to be clear, obviously most of that figure is a projection, but you can see that the dips in coal generation up to 2012 have been largely offset by natural gas generation increases. To summarize, natural gas is replacing coal for electricity production because it is cheaper. (and lucky for us it is much cleaner)
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Isn't most natural gas used in NG plants coal gas or found as coalbed methane?

Kinda still coal, but either way is fine.
 
Kryptorchid said:
Great post! I want to highlight the above section and elaborate some more. You are partially correct that this is threatening the traditional "power players" in the energy market -- mainly the coal and natural gas providers, not the power delivery entities. The other biggest problem with wind energy, that a lot of people seem to neglect, is the fact that it doesn't generate when we need ti most -- summertime. So what wind really gets us is too much generation in the wintertime, when electrical prices are at all time lows already, and virtually no generation in the summertime, when we actually could use them to offset peak costs.
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Yes. Thank you for the clarification on the corporate structure there. Indeed, the utility company in my area (Xcel Energy) has actually fully embraced wind energy, so I don't want to lump in the whole power sector in that comment.

Yeah, there are certainly issues with production timing. Solar is more promising in that respect for obvious reasons. Offshore wind would be more advantageous in summer, particularly because areas of high resource are located so close to high load centers, but unlike onshore wind, offshore definitely can't stand on its own at the moment without government support.

Estimated-Levelized-Cost.jpg
 
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