Study finds that linked wind farms can result in reliable power

[jpak]

http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/december5/windfarm-120507.html

Wind power, long considered to be as fickle as wind itself, can be groomed to become a steady, dependable source of electricity and delivered at a lower cost than at present, according to scientists at Stanford University.

The key is connecting wind farms throughout a given geographic area with transmission lines, thus combining the electric outputs of the farms into one powerful energy source. The findings are published in the November issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology.

<snip>

However, because wind is intermittent, it is not used to supply baseload electric power today. Baseload power is the amount of steady and reliable electric power that is constantly being produced, typically by power plants, regardless of electricity demand. But interconnecting wind farms with a transmission grid reduces the power swings caused by wind variability and makes a significant portion of it just as consistent a power source as a coal power plant.

"This study implies that, if interconnected wind is used on a large scale, a third or more of its energy can be used for reliable electric power, and the remaining intermittent portion can be used for transportation, allowing wind to solve energy, climate and air pollution problems simultaneously," said Archer, the study's lead author and a consulting assistant professor in Stanford's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and research associate in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution.

<more>

(and bookmarked)

[seriousstan]

1. So by reducing 66% of it's output you can get a steady 33%. That kills it's payoff time.

[jpak]

2. That's not what the study concluded...

<snip>

This study implies that, if interconnected wind is used on a large scale, a third or more of its energy can be used for reliable electric power, and the remaining intermittent portion can be used for transportation, allowing wind to solve energy, climate and air pollution problems simultaneously," said Archer, the study's lead author and a consulting assistant professor in Stanford's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and research associate in the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution.

<more>

All the electricity produced would be used (and not reduced)...

[The2ndWheel]

3. Monopoly too

Can't wait until everyone is protesting Big Wind. That'll be a funny day.

The larger the scale that we harness a source of energy, the larger our impact on the environment. It may not be carbon this time, but it will be something. We're not going to harness the wind for free. There will be consequences for doing so, possibly worse than simply putting carbon back into the air. The oil was in the ground, it wasn't really doing anything, but it was there for a reason. The wind actively regulates the planet. If we start harnessing that on a huge scale for ourselves, we don't even know the damage we'll end up causing. There will be damage though, since existing causes at least a minor impact on the environment, let alone doing this.

[GreenGreenLimaBean]

4. are you implying

that wind farms will hinder the wind, enough to cause some kind of impact on the environment? i find that idea implausible....

[GliderGuider]

6. the point is that every large-scale engineering project has unintended consequences

And sometimes they're severe. Look at 3 Gorges. I tend to think that wind will produce fewer "consequences per joule" than many other forms of energy production, but it would be naive to assume it will be free of externalities.

[The2ndWheel]

7. Even if it isn't that

what we do with the energy that we get from the wind will cause some kind of impact. We're not going to build less if we have more energy. We've gone from human energy, to non-human energy, to energy that was formed over millions of years in the ground(coal, oil, gas, uranium, etc). Every step of the way we've had a greater and greater impact on the environment. Now, we not only want to continue to use all the energy that we've been using, but also harness nature itself. Not just the forms of energy that exist within nature, but "it" itself. We may not hinder the wind, but we will want more of the wind. Maybe we'll eventually build something larger than wind farms, something even more efficient at hindering the wind so that we can direct it to where we need it. Are we going to build a wind farm or two, and then stop? We haven't done that anywhere. The point of technological advancement is to be able to control more of everything.

That's the issue with wind though. It's not oil. It's going to take more from us to harness the wind. It's going to take more from us to replace oil. It will be even tougher than that if we diversify and go with multiple alternative resources. The only reason to do it would be to not only replace oil, but have even more energy than what oil gives us. That has to require more impact on the environment, one way or another.

Either way, harnessing wind will have negative consequences(to go along with what it gives us the ability to do). It has to. We live in physical reality. Every action has that equal and opposite reaction. It may not hinder the wind, but it will do something somewhere. We won't even intend to do it. It may trigger M, and O, while we're trying to figure out A. Because M did this, Z will do that, which will make fixing A easier, but completely screw up J. We'll find J6, which will fix Y, but make E3U all kinds of screwy. Existence is complex, and that's why they call them unintended consequences. So we'll dive into using wind, solar, the oceans, and the more problems will pop up, and we'll all go a little crazier.

[phantom power]

8. With wind and solar, watch out for the impacts from manufacturing.

[Systematic Chaos]

5. We won't screw up the wind, but we could wipe out what's left of the birds...

And I guess that's bad enough.