posted 04-29-2010 01:04 PM ET (US)        

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/29/cape.wind.ceo.profile/?hpt=C2

posted 04-29-2010 01:28 PM ET (US)            

Another is on Parry Island which is south and west from the town/Harbour of Parry Sound.

These are on-land sites and it is not if, but when. As the projects are developed and owned by First Nations People, they do not have to go through the same regulatory process that I would if I wanted to put towers on my property.

I'm Not sure when to epxect construction though. Please do pray for our Great Lakes.

posted 04-29-2010 01:29 PM ET (US)            

I don't know, we need energy. I think we will all get used to looking at them. Imagine the first windmill, I bet people hated that too or a skyscaper? Have you ever seen a clearcut? I would rather look at a new wind farm.

posted 04-29-2010 02:23 PM ET (US)            

It's mind boggling to me that building and servicing wind mills out in deep water is cost effective for the extra wind they catch out there. Yes, in the Netherlands they don't have the land to spare, but here?

The hundreds I've seen in a Minnesota corn field are OK, I guess.

posted 04-29-2010 02:39 PM ET (US)            

EVANSTON, ill. - Evanston's city council is considering a plan that would allow a private developer to build 40 wind turbines off the shore of the north suburb, in Lake Michigan.

Citizens for a Greener Evanston, a community group, have come up with the proposal after 2 years of research.

posted 04-29-2010 03:50 PM ET (US)            

This is being considered, of course, with numerous articles published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. One by none other that Great Lakes reporter extraordinaire, Dan Egan:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/35693224.html
This piece starts with a discussion about Plotman's Madeline Island turbine.

We could have oil refineries or receiving terminals on the Great Lakes shores instead:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/35664859.html
What could possibly go wrong in such an aesthetically pleasing and ecologically sensitive use of Lake Superior shoreline?

Or perhaps we should embrace the option of alternative power sources like wind, to supplement our existing diverse infrastructure. Within one hour of where I sit, we have nuclear, natural gas and coal fired generating plants on Lake Michigan's shore and a massive wind turbine farm just inland along the Buffalo Escarpment.

I say, put a wind farm about 20 miles east of Milwaukee and feed that back into the grid as well. Perhaps it will encourage growth in other areas, like attracting a company that builds wind turbines:
http://www.jsonline.com/business/88302907.html
Hell, maybe that new 114,000 SF manufacturing facility will create a couple jobs for architects, keeping them out of boats. Maybe it'll maintain 100 construction jobs and 300 permanent manufacturing jobs. I won't go further down this road and point out that a train company is building another manufacturing plant to construct rail cars, perhaps to carry some of those turbine parts to Iowa or farther. We know the positive spiral.

Finally, with the exception of the Intrepid Grand Haven to Milwaukee Explorers, I'd bet most of us have never even seen the middle of Lake Michigan, much less will we be impacted adversely by the existence of a hundred wind turbines somewhere over the horizon.

Not much power generated on a day like this, huh? But viability is an entirely different topic.
http://i512.photobucket.com/albums/t329/kalbus/Milwaukee%20Trip/ IslandsOffGrandHaven.jpg

posted 04-29-2010 06:18 PM ET (US)            

Thanks for that explanation Stevebaz. Up here in NorCal we have wind farms in many places, one of which is where we fish in Suisun Bay. I rarely see a blade turn, I always thought it was a lack of wind. Then I got confused because they still weren’t turning even when it was very windy.

Unfortunately, it might be another enviro-wacko boondoggle that makes the greenies legs tingle, but just doesn’t pencil in. Besides being a huge eyesore, if they really expend more energy (money takes much energy to make) than they generate, they are just another drag on an economy that just can’t take much more inefficiency. Too bad.

posted 04-29-2010 06:25 PM ET (US)            

And our energy problem is only getting worse - more people, more homes, more vehicles, some changes MUST be made!

This situation is certainly true in the great lakes area. The last nuclear reactors in the Chicago area were started in the mid 80's - and since that time - more and more people, more energy consumption - and no more power generation. The Northern States Power reactor systems were constructed in around '80 and are close to having to be reevaluated or their lives extended.

Wind power ? In my mind - Low power generation and small realistically usable area. That is - the wind doesn't blow enough to power wind turbines everywhere in our country. Further, realize that energy is conserved - that is, the velocity of the wind downstream of a wind turbine will be less than that entering the turbine. With a wind "farm", the turbines "up-front" will get more wind and therefore produce more power that those downstream turbines.

And, this conservation of energy scenario applies to the entire earth as well - which is of far greater significance than that of the "global warming" thingy.

But, I digress - sorry Jim - but those in the area must realize that wind farms in the great lakes is a viable, source for relatively cheap power (no fuel costs, very few personnel, small employee benefits, minimum maintainence, et al.). Realize that the utilities/companies putting them in will want to put them as close to the load centers (cities, et al.) as possible - to minimize the transmission costs. That, of course, means that the wind turbines will probably be visiable.

But, indeed, we have a major problem - and the solution will impact many of us. --- Jerry/Idaho

posted 04-29-2010 06:25 PM ET (US)            

And our energy problem is only getting worse - more people, more homes, more vehicles, some changes MUST be made!

This situation is certainly true in the great lakes area. The last nuclear reactors in the Chicago area were started in the mid 80's - and since that time - more and more people, more energy consumption - and no more power generation. The Northern States Power reactor systems were constructed in around '80 and are close to having to be reevaluated or their lives extended.

Wind power ? In my mind - Low power generation and small realistically usable area. That is - the wind doesn't blow enough to power wind turbines everywhere in our country. Further, realize that energy is conserved - that is, the velocity of the wind downstream of a wind turbine will be less than that entering the turbine. With a wind "farm", the turbines "up-front" will get more wind and therefore produce more power that those downstream turbines.

And, this conservation of energy scenario applies to the entire earth as well - which is of far greater significance than that of the "global warming" thingy.

But, I digress - sorry Jim - but those in the area must realize that wind farms in the great lakes is a viable, source for relatively cheap power (no fuel costs, very few personnel, small employee benefits, minimum maintainence, et al.). Realize that the utilities/companies putting them in will want to put them as close to the load centers (cities, et al.) as possible - to minimize the transmission costs. That, of course, means that the wind turbines will probably be visiable.

But, indeed, we have a major problem - and the solution will impact many of us. --- Jerry/Idaho

posted 04-29-2010 09:46 PM ET (US)            

Green Jobs = unemployment

posted 04-29-2010 10:03 PM ET (US)            

Below is about Ludington, MI.

http://www.ludingtondailynews.com/news/49359-power-dont-ruin-the-lake

posted 04-30-2010 12:34 AM ET (US)            

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfe_Island_Wind_Farm

The above article announces that these wind turbines will become a tourist attraction. Actually, as a tourist to that region, we found the presence of the wind turbines to be in complete opposition to our motive for visiting. We visited the region to enjoy the boating and scenery, and we did not consider these wind turbines to be scenic. And if we had found them in the water in the middle of the lake, we'd be even more disinclined to consider them scenic; hazardous would be more like it.

posted 04-30-2010 01:28 AM ET (US)            

Now you don't want wind farms off your shore, yet support offshore drilling on the tidal coasts.

posted 04-30-2010 02:01 AM ET (US)            

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/greeninc/capewind.jpg
http://static.businessinsider.com/image/4b97bf5e7f8b9ae164e70000/ cape-wind-from-nantucket.jpg
http://www.saveoursound.org/images/content/pagebuilder/30445.jpg

posted 04-30-2010 02:34 AM ET (US)            

If you sell electricity for $0.07/kW-Hour, how many kiloWatt-Hours does $180,000 represent?

180,000 / 0.07 = 25,714,285-killoWatt-Hours.

If we assume the wind turbine is of the same size as the ones on Wolf Island, the generating capacity of a single turbine is 2,300 kilowatts. This is at maximum output. If we assume that the typical wind available only provides about one-quarter of the maximum output, we could expect the turbine to produce 2300/4 or 575-kilowatts average. And we can expect the wind to blow perhaps half the time, so we are down to an average production of 287.5-kW.

How many years will the turbine have to generate electricity to pay for the cost of the bearing:

25714285-killowatt-Hours/287.5-killowatt x 1-day/24-hours x 1-year/365-days = 10.2 years

It looks like the turbine will have to be running for over ten years just to pay for the cost of the new bearing. I hope you get a lot of wind in [Traverse City].

posted 04-30-2010 05:04 AM ET (US)            

A combination of "clean" energy from wind, water, sun and nuke (yes, I include nuclear energy as clean) will absolutly be the way to go.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/03/01/wind.power.denmark/index.html

Check out the video on the linked page.

I go boating around these type of wind mills all the time in Holland. You get used to them and they also make for good reference points on the water.

Erik

posted 04-30-2010 11:22 AM ET (US)            

Wind Power Dissenters = Anti-Environment Wackos (to paraphrase another)

Not 10 posts above yours, Jim, I cite sources and provide links that explain factual job creation related directly to green energy. Your equation is either idly contrarian or ill informed, the latter of which can be easily corrected.

Eric is exactly correct regarding the wisdom of diversifying energy sources to the best of our ability and resource potential. Another option would be to eventually start trading our clean fresh and increasingly rare water resource for oil from Texas/Louisiana or coal from West Virginia. I don't like that option.

posted 04-30-2010 11:38 AM ET (US)            

The other alternative is to remain with primarily, a single source of energy. This should be enough to convince people what a bad idea that is.

http://www.google.com/search?q=aerial+photo+oil+spill&hl=en& client=safari&rls=en&source=univ&tbs=nws:1&tbo=u& ei=EfnaS-afBIvatAOviJGOAQ&sa=X&oi=news_group&ct=title&resnum=1& ved=0CA4QsQQwAA

posted 04-30-2010 02:17 PM ET (US)            

Jimh’s quick math exercise indicates that wind farms may not be economically viable. Is there a place where you can get real numbers about the real economics of these things? I don’t know. I always assumed that they were at least efficient enough to produce and deploy on their own, but if they only exist because of government subsidization, they have no value and should be dropped.

posted 04-30-2010 07:16 PM ET (US)            

This just boggles my mind.....electric battery powered automobiles....the "greenies" really don't acknowledge where their electric power to charge the battery comes from, do they? Nuke plants (they are probably anti-nuke) and coal fire power plants (they ARE anti-coal), hydro electric dams (they are anti-dam).

Erik-the wind turbines that dot the horizon in northern Holland are OK. They blend in with the sailboats that are sailing or motoring on the canals and rivers. They are great reference points.

posted 04-30-2010 10:00 PM ET (US)            

If any of the Michiganders (or Ontarians) here have been to the Soo lately, just look North to the ridge line behind Sault Saint Marie, ON. You'll see this visual treat.

http://www.brookfieldpower.com/_Global/5/documents/relatedlinks/730.pdf

I almost had one in my back yard and along my fishing territory

http://www.sooeveningnews.com/news/x1689201608/ Utility-pulls-plug-on-EUP-wind-farm

posted 05-01-2010 02:48 AM ET (US)            

Interesting thing about nuke is, it does not _have_ to be as controversial or risky as it is. A HUGELY liberal PhD, (Chemical Engineering), friend of mine and I actually see eye-to-eye on, Fast Integral Reactors. They are a form of fusion reactor, and also a breeder reactor. There is a great wikipedia article, but going from memory:

Advantages:

-can NOT melt down

Unlike the fission reactors we use now, they require expert skill to keep them operating. If something starts to go wrong, you simply "let go of the controls", and it shuts down, cold. Fission reactors run by themselves. When something goes wrong, you call in the experts to try to get the runaway under control before it's too late.

-waste is low-grade, small in amount, and with a half life of couple of hundred years

Fission reactors waste, we all know, is high grade, with a half life of 10,000years or multiples. And there is lots of it.

-creates it's own fuel

Part of the reason for so little waste is that, one of the byproducts is fuel-grade plutonium. You just turn around and use your waste. Believe it or not, uranium, as used in ordinary fission reactors, IS a finite resource and can and will run out.

Too good to be true? Nope. Already been done. They are banned... because they produce plutonium, which could fall into the wrong hands. The powers that be at the time, decided that the old, dangerous, hazardous waste methods of the fission reactors were preferable. I disagree with them. I side with safety and sustainability over fear of proliferation.

posted 05-01-2010 04:11 AM ET (US)            

As well as not being cost effective, it will be hideous, and pose a hazard to navigation.

It is another recent example of a project that has been shoved down our throats.
The choice of location for the first coastal wind farm in the US is intentional. The government will take what it wants, and nothing is sacred! Cape Cod is a beautiful summer destination that is visited by millions. Though the interior of the Cape has been compromised by overdevelopment, the coastal areas have been spared, and remain mostly unchanged from my childhood.

The thought of seeing hundreds of these windmills spinning around in unison lined up like up like marching soldiers and is mind-numbing.

posted 05-01-2010 12:03 PM ET (US)            

Wind turbines are expensive.

Wind turbines are ugly.

Wind turbines kill lots of birds.

Last week I was in Californian with my wife and we traversed the Coachella Valley (think: Palm Springs) on our way from the Santa Rosa and San Jacinto Mountains National Monumentt to the Joshua Tree National Park and then we existed the Coachella Valley through banning Pass on I-10 where there are hundreds of wind turbines.

Banning Pass is one of the earliest wind turbine sites and it is quite a sight to see; my wife had never sen wind turbines on a scale as great as that.

I would not want to have to look at all those twirling blades for any length of time, it would give me a headache.

The other thing I found interesting is that driving through them you could see the evolution of the wind power over the last two decades. The earlier rigs were apparent by their more "old fashioned" diagonal strut towers and smaller sizes. The newer rigs were much larger and had sleek one-piece molded towers.

I was also surprised to see how may wind turbines were malfunctioning, either stopped dead with blades feathered or weathervaned the wrong way barely moving. That leads to believe there may not yet be great reliability in their design.

posted 05-01-2010 12:16 PM ET (US)            

Before going further - realize that I am not for or against the wind turbines. I am in favor of nuclear power and only in favor of generating more power within our country.

Now numbers can be and have been manipulated for a purpose - Jim, this was the case noted above - as yours was simply a math error. But for example, let's take a bearing costing a few hundred dollars and then add the downtime and the loss of generating kilowatt or megawat hours of electricity during this downtime period and the cost of buying replacement power from an adjoining power system - indeed that number is large - if that is the purpose of the number.

But Jim, a utilization of only 12.5% is unreasonably low - for a coastal, ridgeline, et al. area - where the wind has been known for many years to really "howl". That is where the wind turbines are being installed. Hell, they should put wind turbines in Chicago and the entire state of Wyoming.

Here in Eastern Idaho, wind turbines have been installed on one of our ridge-lines. I don't remember all of the published information - but some energy related company in the Chicago area put the 1 megawatt (as I recall) units in for about $1 million (as I recall) - and expected payback within about 3 years (as I recall). They stated that a wind velocity of only 35 mph is required for 100% output. Wish I a had a few extra million and could get payback in 3 years.

Indeed, fast nuclear reators have been known and used for years. The first-ever nuclear electrical power generating reactor was the EBR-1 located in Eastern Idaho. Right now - not operating, but rather a museum and historical site open during the summers. But today, there are no "fast" power generating stations in the U.S..

posted 05-01-2010 12:28 PM ET (US)            

http://www.propertyinvesting.net/cgi-script/csNews/image_upload/ specialreports_2edb.wind-map-usa-renewable-energy-source.jpg

posted 05-01-2010 04:53 PM ET (US)            

What I remember is they were talking about junking the whole wind mill.

http://www.thegrandvision.org/blog/2010/01/13/ tc-lp-board-votes-to-fix-broken-wind-turbine/

Con

posted 05-01-2010 06:33 PM ET (US)            

quote:

---

The problems we have with the fusion reactors is the waste - and the anti-nukes with their liberal court system. But the anti-nuke crowd will follow the fission reactors as well. ---- Jerry/Idaho

---

I couldn't agree more with you. I don't see the "waste" from a fusion/breeder reactor as waste, either. It is exremely valuable fuel. And if our folks need some of it for keeping our weapons the way they see fit, so much the better.

My hat's off to my extremely liberal PhD Chem Engineering friend, who also supports Fast Integral Reactors. He is a rarity.

posted 05-02-2010 01:07 AM ET (US)            

You must be looking at the much faster wind chargers we used 50 - 60 years ago. But even then, I don't recall the wind chargers killing any birds. The wind farm in the Palm Springs area that I have seen are all low rpm turbines. In fact, all of the wind turbines I have seen (Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, California) are all low RPM units.

The wind turbines are basically the 3 bladed "prop", a gear box (at least 100/1) and the generator/alternator.

Peter - agreed - the material removed from a fusion reactor fuel assembly is not waste. The separation process picks out the valuable nuclear materials used for medical purposes, research, defense material, et al. - and the rest (pretty nasty chemicals) is the waste.

While I don't know - I suspect that the majority of those knowlegable individuals regarding technology, energy sources and nuclear power prefer nuclear power. Frankly, we HAVE to go that way.

posted 05-02-2010 10:29 AM ET (US)            

Nothing's perfect, guys, when we're talking about energy production, but at least the substantial investment in wind energy (by private business and via governmental tax incentives) indicates that alternatives are being taken very seriously indeed.

Here's a photo I took a couple of years ago off the coast of Holland. You choose which of the two forms of energy production shown here seems more benign:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b309/elaelap/Newcastleferry036.jpg

Also taken off the coast of Holland -- tankers at anchor waiting to discharge oil with a wind farm in the background. The present and the future, in part:
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b309/elaelap/Newcastleferry045.jpg

posted 05-02-2010 04:35 PM ET (US)            

Jim - The $180,000 number was, of course, generated from another source - you only used that number, which I have already mentioned the number being inflated a bit.

My only thought, when I read your cost estimate reply, was 180,000 divided by .07 was around 2.5 E+6 (in my mind, 18E4/7E-2 or 2.3E6) instead of the 25,000,000 (25E6) kw-hrs you mention. I didn't give much attention to it as previous numbers were already skewed.

posted 05-02-2010 06:06 PM ET (US)            

I think there are some tidal generating facilities in use now, but they "catch" the high tide and then let it out, powering the turbine.

We have a lot of dams up here on the Skagit River, thanks to Seattle City Light. They are clean and seem to work well but they were very bad for the salmon population. Fish hatcheries were built but there is a great controversy about native and hatchery salmon that still rages on. What these dams did in creating lakes but destroying habitat, pros and cons. They never would have been allowed to be built today in my opinion.

There is also a back up generator up here in case the output from the dams gets compromised. It runs on oil.

John

posted 05-02-2010 07:41 PM ET (US)            

John - There are the tidal power generating systems as you mention in Europe. I have not heard of this approach being used in the U.S. There have, however, been research in using the tides to generate power - and I suspect that some effort has been expended in studying the generation of power from wave motion - which would make more sense to me.

But - there have been other power generation efforts taken too - for example at Grand Coulee, they will pump water from the downstream pool back over the dam - during the night/early-morning hours (when the demand is low).

I am somewhat famaliar with Puget Sound - and have heard the words Deception Pass before - but where in the heck is it?

I am surprised that the backup power system is gas fired - whereas, I would have suspected that the principle/backup would have been Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). ---Jerry/Idaho

posted 05-02-2010 11:33 PM ET (US)            

One problem with wind as a power source is its unpredictable nature. When there is a wind, it has to be in the right speed range. If the wind blows too fast I think they have to shut down the turbines so the blades won't come flying off. If the wind is too slow the turbines don't produce much power. The turbines need the wind to be in just the right range to be efficient producers. In this way, they're just like sailboats.

Having sailed on the Great Lakes for twenty years, I know that the wind does not blow all the time. When it does blow it is often light and variable. And a fair number of times it blows too hard to sail. One of the reasons I got out of sailing was the low percentage of the time we actually were able to sail comfortably with the wind speed in that preferred range. If you pick your days, you can find some nice sailing weather. If go out every day for a month, you will find there are many days where you have to motor instead of sail, because there is either not enough wind or too much wind.

It would be interesting to see some real data from wind turbine farms to see:

--what percentage of the wind turbines were available for service on a long term basis;

--what percentage of time the wind blew with the proper velocity to make efficient power generation

I also wonder if there isn't some form of subsidy or grant or franchise being awarded. If the turbines are built on public land by private companies, is a proper land use fee being paid?

posted 05-03-2010 05:48 AM ET (US)            

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l11.html

Erik

posted 05-03-2010 09:07 AM ET (US)            

--
Potential Wind Capacity at Some Locations in the US:

Along the Aleutian Chain 402 Billion KWH
Offshore New England 318 Billion
Offshore South Carolina 283 Billion
Great Plains effort 210 Billion
Off Shore Texas Gulf Cost 190 Billion
East-West Axis of Lake Superior 35 Billion
North-South Axis of Lake Michigan 29 billion
North-South Axis of Lake Huron 23 Billion
East-West Axis of Lake Erie 23 Billion
East-West Axis of Lake Ontario 23 Billion
--
http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l12.html

We see that the potential for wind generated electrical energy in New England is more than ten time greater than Lake MIchigan. Maybe this will keep the wind turbines on shore for a while in Lake Michigan.

I also found the presentation using this assumption of the average useful wind velocity:

"...on average, the wind velocity is only this high about 10% of the time..."

This is even lower than the 12.5-percent figure I pulled out of thin air in my estimate above, based on my sailing experiences.

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l11.html

posted 05-03-2010 11:37 AM ET (US)            

http://apps.ecy.wa.gov/shorephotos/scripts/bigphoto.asp?id=isl0314

posted 05-03-2010 01:12 PM ET (US)            

The report was provided by personnel of the University of Oregon which could be protective of the Oregon/west coast. But then, the report was prepared by many authors - many of which were students - so the question still remains - Why the difference?

cohasett73 - thanks for the information - interesting. Using hydraulics certianly makes sense.

posted 05-05-2010 03:16 PM ET (US)            

The numbers don't work. If they did I could become accustomed to the sight of these towers where it made sense. Transmission of the power is another issue. In Ontario, areas with high population density has little sustainable wind, areas with decent wind areas enjoy low population density.

As and aside, we are now charged for power based WHEN we use the hydro. I set my dishwasher and all other appliances where possible to run at night when power is cheaper.

While I just skimmed some of the posts in this thread, I didn't encounter much discussion about reduction of consumption. Or adjustment of consumption.

Many folks (not whaler enthusiasts) leave lights on, run a half (or less) full appliance, and do so during peak consumption times.

I believe an investment in efficiency, in the machines we use, when we use them, and how we use them could go a long way to solving this issue.

I am now cowering under the dining table waiting for the onslaught of buns to be hurled in my direction!!