Not Just Tilting Anymore

[banana republican]

Better technology and government stimulus, along with high prices for competing types of power generation, are driving renewed optimism about wind power. With prices for the fossil fuels used in conventional power plants hovering near record levels, wind power is the cheapest source of energy that can be built now. Newly built wind farms are "beating the socks off of any other new source of generation," says Ryan Wiser, an energy economist at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.
<snip>

A modern wind turbine can produce electricity for about 2.5 cents to four cents a kilowatt hour, including government subsidies, so the biggest turbines compete effectively against modern natural-gas-fired power plants, though they won't run as many hours of the day due to the variability of wind. Assuming natural gas at $6 per million British thermal units, a kilowatt hour of electricity from a newly built gas-fired plant costs at least 5.5 cents a kilowatt hour, including both fuel and capital costs. Natural-gas plants have led the sector in recent years because they can be constructed quickly, are clean burning and operate reliably.

<SNIP.

In Washington, Puget Energy Inc.'s Puget Sound Energy in September said it intends to buy the entire output of a new wind farm that Zilkha Renewable Energy of Houston hopes to build on rangeland near Ellensburg in eastern Washington. The Wild Horse project is expected to include more than 100 turbines producing 165 megawatts of power, enough to power 40,000 homes. If built, it would be Kittitas County's biggest taxpayer, contributing more revenue than the next 10 biggest taxpayers combined.

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109770528042944636,00.html?mod=DUT

[truthisfreedom]

1. i wonder how many hours these things can run without overhaul?

obviously they don't have to all be overhauled at once, but it would be interesting to know what the operating lifetime is of the bearings and such... and how tough they are in the face of hurricanes and tornadoes.

[GHOSTDANCER]

2. Magnetic Energy anyone?

<http://www.perendev-power.com/mm_howitworks.htm>

[Carl Brennan]

6. That is very interesting. A completely fuelless system that can

power alternators and generators.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. Since there is a complete theory of magnetism

which states that getting continuous energy from permanent magnets is impossible (rather than just retrieving some fraction of the energy that had to go into producing the magnets in the first place), anyone making such a claim need to show a bit more proof than just a computer animation. A theory of how it works, and long running public demonstrations, would be a start.

For instance, this man says he has built equivalent motors, and they lose their force, and stop working. As he points out, they are the magnetic equivalent of a clockwork motor.

http://freeenergynews.com/Directory/Perendev/MagneticMotor/KeithAnderson_statement/index.html

[0007]

10. I found this to be an interesting tell tell sign in the article

The amount of energy used in manufacturing a magnet is typically 10 times what the magnet is capable of producing. More expensive magnets are even less efficient. Add to this the losses in energy incurred by these 33%-66% concept magnet devices themselves, and the energy consumed in the overall manufacturing process is 20-25 times the energy you will get out.

[Miss Authoritiva]

3. Where I live, we have a wind-powered neighbor.

Along the Jersey coast where I live, breezy is a slow day and (low)gale force winds are frequent. A neighbor took advantage of an alternative energy payback program about 25 years ago and installed a device (something like a scaled down windmill) that provides more energy than he needs. He actually gets rebate checks from the power company, for they use the excess power he generates. Once or twice a year he may go back on the grid, but not for long. Amazing. They no longer have the alternative power program, but I sure would like my own windmill.

[Blue_Tires]

4. bush admin will probably bury this

[Carl Brennan]

5. The BFEE is the reason why these alternatives to oil never

come on line.
;(

[Guaranteed]

9. They actually probably have a lot of buddies back in TX with money

in wind power. It's huge down there.

However, you can bet that they don't want this getting big in California.

[corker]

8. Jimmy Carter

saw that we needed to get off Saudi oil but...now you know the rest of the story.