energy engineer’s Recent Comments

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  ...but that's not the cost of wind turbines today

  With the huge economies of scale from the recent run-up in wind turbine production, the costs are now around $1800-$2000/kW (or $2/watt).  Also, by making a lot of the same turbine, reliability is way up, and capacity factors for new machines is almost 50%, the same as the total capacity factor for all fuels. See capacity and generation

  So the only real difference in the impact of Wind from dirty fuel is dispachability, not cost. As Gar has shown in the past, this can be resolved by a stronger grid (which we need anyways) and geographically-dispersed turbines.

  All that said, recycled energy sounds very viable, with only stupid administrative obstacles holding it back.  We have a race against time that we are losing, and I get the impression that this would be relatively quick to build out.  

  Is this true?  I hope so...we will need many of these solutions in order to shutdown coal, starting very soon.On Proposed renewable-energy bill is better than nothing posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 26 Responses

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  Green power

  A couple of things jump out at me looking at the map:
  

  
  
  • The lowest emmiters have a total of 137 electorial votes, while the highest have 59 (yes, I've been staring at way too many electorial maps lately!).  When you take out the 2 each for Senators, I think they have a 117-39 House of Rep. advantage.  So are we underestimating the ability to get emissions limits at the federal level?
    
  • The top 2 emitters (Wyoming and North Dakota) have tremendous opportunities for wind power, and are starting to pursue it in a big way.
    
  • The juxtoposition of those wind states and the hydro states.  One way that countries like Denmark have been so successful with high penetrations of wind power, is that they have paired their grid with countries with high levels of hydro.  This is good for everyone.  The amount of total hydro energy available is in part governed by the amount of water built up over long periods of time (seasons). Wind allows you to stretch out the use of the hydro-powered enegery that you have available.  And while it is cheap power, its intermittant, and benefits from quick-dispatch hydro.
    
  
  The map format is a great way to see the solutions available, and the political ability to get them implimented.On CAP releases interactive U.S. map of per-capita emissions posted 1 year, 1 month ago 3 Responses