Amazon Contracts Iberdrola To Build Wind Farm

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Amazon is moving full steam ahead or, as the case may be, full "wind" ahead with its renewable energy plans.

Amazon affiliate Amazon Web Services (AWS) said on Monday the wind farm would be operational by December of next year, putting it on track to surpass a goal for 40 percent its electrical grids to be powered by renewable energy by end-2016.
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I'm not a multi-billion dollar company, but I'm guessing there's quite a few subsidies and/or tax breaks for doing this.
 
Just waiting for the "OMGZ they hurt the beatutiful landscape and kill the precious birds" haters and tree hugging college trained hippies that "fight the system"
 
BlueSaber80 said:
Just waiting for the "OMGZ they hurt the beatutiful landscape and kill the precious birds" haters and tree hugging college trained hippies that "fight the system"
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If I have to pick between killing a few birds and putting a slight imperfection in the scenery of some multimillionaires front property or reducing greenhouse gas emissions I wouldn't hesitate to go with the latter.
 
Also, in before all the "wind power isn't reliable, we don't get even close to predicted yields" crowd.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041730937 said:
Also, in before all the "wind power isn't reliable, we don't get even close to predicted yields" crowd.
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Wind power has ALWAYS meant to be supplemental energy source being paired with a constant source during flucuating energy needs as well as enviromental changes which of course is window downside. Solar is no damn different. We in Washington State have our energy supplied by dams and then some extra wind power during the season.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041730936 said:
If I have to pick between killing a few birds and putting a slight imperfection in the scenery of some multimillionaires front property or reducing greenhouse gas emissions I wouldn't hesitate to go with the latter.
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And they never bother to read or accept the stastical and proven facts that skyscrapers and cars kill more birds in a month around the nation then wind turbine farms do in years.
 
BlueSaber80 said:
Wind power has ALWAYS meant to be supplemental energy source being paired with a constant source during flucuating energy needs as well as enviromental changes which of course is window downside. Solar is no damn different. We in Washington State have our energy supplied by dams and then some extra wind power during the season.
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Agreed.

Also, if you have a huge national or international grid, like we do, you can distribute your wind power. When it's not windy in one place, it might be windy somewhere else. This helps average out and stabilize wind power.

Combine it with solar which provides the most powerful during peak energy use hours (middle of day, air conditioning) and its actually not bad.

I wouldn't use solar cells though. I'd go with those huge parabolic mirrors focused on a water tank with a steam turbine, instead. Much more efficient.
 
BlueSaber80 said:
And they never bother to read or accept the stastical and proven facts that skyscrapers and cars kill more birds in a month around the nation then wind turbine farms do in years.
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That's because they don't really care about birds.

It's a red herring so they can feel good about resisting wind power, when all they really care about the marginally perceptible impact to their ocean views.

I've followed the Cape Wind project in Massachusetts for some time, and it disgusts me.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041730961 said:
Agreed.

Also, if you have a huge national or international grid, like we do, you can distribute your wind power. When it's not windy in one place, it might be windy somewhere else. This helps average out and stabilize wind power.

Combine it with solar which provides the most powerful during peak energy use hours (middle of day, air conditioning) and its actually not bad.

I wouldn't use solar cells though. I'd go with those huge parabolic mirrors focused on a water tank with a steam turbine, instead. Much more efficient.
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Much more efficient at burning up the birds when they fly thru the focused beam too :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1041730961 said:
Agreed.

Also, if you have a huge national or international grid, like we do, you can distribute your wind power. When it's not windy in one place, it might be windy somewhere else. This helps average out and stabilize wind power.

Combine it with solar which provides the most powerful during peak energy use hours (middle of day, air conditioning) and its actually not bad.

I wouldn't use solar cells though. I'd go with those huge parabolic mirrors focused on a water tank with a steam turbine, instead. Much more efficient.
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Requires more maintenance on the mirrors and land though and solar panel tech is catching up quick
 
Zarathustra[H];1041730936 said:
If I have to pick between killing a few birds and putting a slight imperfection in the scenery of some multimillionaires front property or reducing greenhouse gas emissions I wouldn't hesitate to go with the latter.
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That is a very rational position. Unfortunately, that position seems to be in the minority. Thanks to fanaticism, we lost out on the development of wind/solar farms in our area and fracking. The end result is that my electricity bill keeps going up 40% or so per year, despite the fact that I'm actually using less than when I first moved here.

I would have preferred the wind option. They were going to build a series of wind turbines along the hillsides of several valleys in my area. The environmentalists killed it because it would disturb the pristine beauty of the landscape. That pristine beauty was mostly dairy farm grazing fields and I seriously doubt the cows would actually have cared about it.

To make things more fun, several towns in our area outlawed the roof-mounted solar panel systems and small-scale vertical windmills. I'm honestly not sure what the argument against either of those is, but it was apparently effective. As a last resort, I would've tolerated fracking. Personally, I'm not a big fan of fracking, but it can be done right if properly monitored.

We need more power generation in our area. Costs are high at least in part due to a lack of supply. Demand is constantly increasing. Banning every possible option that might help the situation is not good policy, and yet it is happening.
 
BlueSaber80 said:
Wind power has ALWAYS meant to be supplemental energy source being paired with a constant source during flucuating energy needs as well as enviromental changes which of course is window downside. Solar is no damn different. We in Washington State have our energy supplied by dams and then some extra wind power during the season.
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This is only because the current grid is all about production and consumption; there's no storage.

Renewable is very much like food production (less like today and more historical) where storehouses were used to store excess yields for times of drought or winter.

There is still work that needs doing in this area of course, but there's good ideas out there and examples of actual use. Tesla's all about batteries though they do have a relatively short life currently (that will change with Li-Air and solid state batteries (if they can ever become reality)). My favorite idea is Pumped Storage Hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity which is already in use. There's also Pumped Air storage (basically pressurize air in large containers and release the air when electricity is needed).

When there's enough storage in the system the fears of unreliability can be diminished. Add to that a diversified/distributed grid (many solar/wind farms all over the place (solar for the day and wind at night when it blows more) any fears of running out of electricity can be forgotten. A smart grid would also help a lot.
 
MrCaffeineX said:
That is a very rational position. Unfortunately, that position seems to be in the minority. Thanks to fanaticism, we lost out on the development of wind/solar farms in our area and fracking. The end result is that my electricity bill keeps going up 40% or so per year, despite the fact that I'm actually using less than when I first moved here.

I would have preferred the wind option. They were going to build a series of wind turbines along the hillsides of several valleys in my area. The environmentalists killed it because it would disturb the pristine beauty of the landscape. That pristine beauty was mostly dairy farm grazing fields and I seriously doubt the cows would actually have cared about it.

To make things more fun, several towns in our area outlawed the roof-mounted solar panel systems and small-scale vertical windmills. I'm honestly not sure what the argument against either of those is, but it was apparently effective. As a last resort, I would've tolerated fracking. Personally, I'm not a big fan of fracking, but it can be done right if properly monitored.

We need more power generation in our area. Costs are high at least in part due to a lack of supply. Demand is constantly increasing. Banning every possible option that might help the situation is not good policy, and yet it is happening.
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Farmers actually make VERY NICE subsiday payments from the power companies for the leasing agreements to build on their farms, which helps them during poor production seasons.

But apparently, the ecogreen fundyasswads don't care about that either
 
Europe is sooooo far ahead of America in regards to power infanstructure and renwable sources of power complimenting backbones of nuclear and hydro power its not even remotely funny how sad America's situation is.

And if you think this really "destroys" natural beauty when done right, you are beyond all logical reasoning with

7851934266_c00f4a0e6e_o.jpg
 
BlueSaber80 said:
Europe is sooooo far ahead of America in regards to power infanstructure and renwable sources of power complimenting backbones of nuclear and hydro power its not even remotely funny how sad America's situation is.

And if you think this really "destroys" natural beauty when done right, you are beyond all logical reasoning with
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Yeah the logic of it destroys the beauty is lost on me somehow. And to be fair to blame "environmentalists" for objecting to this is a bit far fetched, lets be honest it's a bunch of rich people who have no problem paying for anything who don't care if electrical costs stay high. Sure some might be environmentalists at heart, but they're doing it for personal reasons, not environmental ones.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Yeah the logic of it destroys the beauty is lost on me somehow. And to be fair to blame "environmentalists" for objecting to this is a bit far fetched, lets be honest it's a bunch of rich people who have no problem paying for anything who don't care if electrical costs stay high. Sure some might be environmentalists at heart, but they're doing it for personal reasons, not environmental ones.
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These are the same people on the other side of the same coin don't don't bitch about how "ugly" cell phone towers in remote area's are because OMGZ, they "open minded think different" souls and their iphones just HAVE to have access everywhere or they will feel limited.
 
We have some large wind farms in Eastern Oregon & Washington. It's always windy here. Smells like shit, too.

Of course, we have a lot of the tree hugger folks on the West side. They seem to want to make the rules for everyone else. When I was a kid, I lived in the Columbia River Gorge. Then, we had people from California, Portland, Seattle come in and dictate how we weren't going to do logging anymore, and a ton of other rules (can't paint your house any color other than brown or green shades). Now, they only want wind power on the East side of the state because it's all desert and not pretty here.

Many of these tree huggers are looking for a play ground or things to benefit them, but they are screwing up people's homes and back yards. I'm all for wind power, and East Oregon is a great place for it. It's just the attitude of the tree huggers that gets me. They come from the city and just tell people what to do in their small communities...

So, due to all that, I don't listen to the tree huggers anymore. I'm an environmentalist, but I'm not extreme about it. I don't try and tell other people what they can or cannot do.
 
Ur_Mom said:
We have some large wind farms in Eastern Oregon & Washington. It's always windy here. Smells like shit, too.

Of course, we have a lot of the tree hugger folks on the West side. They seem to want to make the rules for everyone else. When I was a kid, I lived in the Columbia River Gorge. Then, we had people from California, Portland, Seattle come in and dictate how we weren't going to do logging anymore, and a ton of other rules (can't paint your house any color other than brown or green shades). Now, they only want wind power on the East side of the state because it's all desert and not pretty here.

Many of these tree huggers are looking for a play ground or things to benefit them, but they are screwing up people's homes and back yards. I'm all for wind power, and East Oregon is a great place for it. It's just the attitude of the tree huggers that gets me. They come from the city and just tell people what to do in their small communities...

So, due to all that, I don't listen to the tree huggers anymore. I'm an environmentalist, but I'm not extreme about it. I don't try and tell other people what they can or cannot do.
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I do like Seattle for many reasons since moving here 2 years ago, but I really hate that kinda shit that comes with it. The liberal "Our mindset is the only way, to hell with your viewpoint" really annoys fucking red state in me.

And I don't ever recall wind farms smelling like shit around the Gorge Area or even the Wild Horse facility that i've visited
 
BlueSaber80 said:
And I don't ever recall wind farms smelling like shit around the Gorge Area or even the Wild Horse facility that i've visited
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Wind blows from the huge dairy/meat farms... Cow shit smell. Wind is always blowing. Wind farms themselves, no.
 
Lol, why would you stay (or move somewhere) that smells like poop? No matter what else an area has going for it, if that were the case it would be instantly off the list for me :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1041733000 said:
Lol, why would you stay (or move somewhere) that smells like poop? No matter what else an area has going for it, if that were the case it would be instantly off the list for me :p
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We want to move back to the west side of the state. But, work brought me back here... It doesn't stink all the time. Just a lot of the time.
 
Ur_Mom said:
We want to move back to the west side of the state. But, work brought me back here... It doesn't stink all the time. Just a lot of the time.
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Reminds me of college when I used to visit South Deerfield, MA (famously home of the Yankee Candle factory) on occasion.

You may think that would be preferable to poop smell, but certain candle scents get overwhelming when the whole town smells like them for days.
 
Zarathustra[H];1041733173 said:
Reminds me of college when I used to visit South Deerfield, MA (famously home of the Yankee Candle factory) on occasion.

You may think that would be preferable to poop smell, but certain candle scents get overwhelming when the whole town smells like them for days.
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Eh, no different then being near a brewery and smelling that horrid yeast smell or a coffee roasting plant ect...ect....
 
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