Why Solar & Wind won't be viable anytime soon?

[DoraM]

Here in Oregon someone seems to think wind is viable as they keep putting up these enormous windmills along the Columbia

My husband heard that the farmers who lease the land for them get $10,000+ per windmill per year...making more off the lease than growing plants.

 

[kumquat]

DW has some farm land. 158 acres rents for $8400/yr. The 2 acres with the cell tower brings in $5K.

I don't know how many acres a windmill uses but at $10K each, I think we could live nicely off her 320 acres. How do we move the land to Oregon and sign up?

 

[ERD50]

DW has some farm land. 158 acres rents for $8400/yr. The 2 acres with the cell tower brings in $5K.

I don't know how many acres a windmill uses but at $10K each, I think we could live nicely off her 320 acres. How do we move the land to Oregon and sign up?

National Wind Watch | Size of Industrial Wind Turbines

How much area is required for a wind power facility?

The huge turbines require a correspondingly large area around them clear of trees and other turbines to maximize the effect of the wind and avoid interference. They should have 10 rotor diameters of clearance in the direction of the wind and 3 rotor diameters in every other direction. In a line of several turbines perpendicular to the wind (as on a mountain ridge), the GE 1.5-MW model would need at least 32 acres and the Vestas V90 78 acres for each tower. In an array that can take advantage of the wind from any direction, the GE needs 82 acres and the Vestas V90 111 acres per tower.

Maybe, but only about 2 or 3 of those big turbines on 320 acres. It's pretty amazing how much room they need between turbines. I know what 320 acres looks like, and just 2 or 3 towers seem awful far apart, but that's what it is.

-ERD50

 

[kumquat]

Gimme another couple of cell towers then.

 

[clifp]

Using the best case of prevailing wind, it looks like you can put 20 GE 1.5MW turbines per square mile. Assuming a 25% utilization rate. That means 7.5MW (non-base load) power generation per square mile. Contrast that with Fukushima nuclear powerplant which generated 4.7 Gigawatts and it looks like the site is roughly a square mile.

Another way of looking at is if we filled the entire 20KM evacuation zone with windmills it won't generate as much electricity as the plant it replaced. Fortunately the US has a lot of sparsely populated areas with pretty high wind speed, so wind can be minor contributing factor. In a place like Japan it can't

 

[GregLee]

http://www.wind-watch.org/faq-size.phpI know what 320 acres looks like, and just 2 or 3 towers seem awful far apart, but that's what it is.

Well, I see models of the GE 1.5 MW wind turbine with rotor diameters of 70.5 to 82.5 meters (http://www.gepower.com/prod_serv/products/wind_turbines/en/15mw/specs.htm). At 10 rotor diameters in all directions, that's an area of 825m in 4 directions, or 1650 x 1650 square meters, or about 673 acres for one large size 1.5 MW turbine.

 

[DoraM]

several shots in this video about the wind farms along the columbia river make it look like there are a lot more than 1 windmill per 100 or so acres, but it could be just a perception thing.

YouTube - Wind Energy Facilities in the Columbia River Gorge?

 

[Brat]

The Oregon windmills are located along the Inter-tie power lines and in an area noted for sustained winds (east of the Columbia River Gorge). Not just any acreage will do.

World's Largest Wind Farm Planned In Oregon – CleanTechnica: Cleantech innovation news and views

Pentagon OKs huge Oregon wind farm despite radar interference concerns | OregonLive.com

GE Energy - Image Gallery

When my parents lived on the Ordinance Depot nearby my Mother said she would hang up my sister's clean diapers on the clothes line and when she got to the end of the wire return to the starting place fold and put them in her basket - they were dry as a bone.

 

[ERD50]

several shots in this video about the wind farms along the columbia river make it look like there are a lot more than 1 windmill per 100 or so acres, but it could be just a perception thing.

Why not look it up and tell us?

As Brat mentioned, and was listed in my quote, in some particular settings the space requirements are somewhat less. But those aren't prevelant enough for the kind of wide scale people are talking about.

"In a line of several turbines perpendicular to the wind (as on a mountain ridge), the GE 1.5-MW model would need at least 32 acres and the Vestas V90 78 acres for each tower."

-ERD50

 

[tryan]

Quote:
Originally Posted by chinaco
I have not looked into it... but one would think that geothermal would be a viable source of energy.

Not sure if it is cost effective.

Geothermal requires appropriate geological thermal reserves and the U.S. doesn't have that many.

I did geothermal at the lake. Water comes up at a steady 47 degrees ... returned at 32 degrees in the winter (after extracting heat) ... much warmer in summer (after cooling the air for AC).

Problem has been maintenance issues. I have not seen a penny of "return" on my 24k "investment" ... heck, heating with propane would have cost me the same (or less).

Frankly, being the first on the block with this stuff is WAY over rated.

Best I can see the federal tax credits have only increased consumer costs (same system runs +30k today).

So my neighbors - across the lake - brought in a solar consultant to see if they could reduce thier $700/mo electric bill (winter ... they heat with electric). They were told because of the mountian behind them, they are gong to loose 60% of the available sunlite. This, after they clear 20-30 mature trees off the lot. "No thanks" they said.

 

[Zathras]

Interesting, we did geothermal at our house. Zero maintenance so far.
However, ours is a closed system. I know a lot of the early ones did not use closed loop systems. Perhaps that is the difference?
I do agree that being first on the block does require a lot of careful planning.

 

[Brat]

There is an office building in Portland (constructed in the 60s) that heats using a closed loop system. I don't know its condition today but it got rave reviews for many years.

 

[tryan]

The last maintenance visit the rep suggested I go closed loop. Another 5k down the wishing well (drilling a new well)... we'll see. He did say closed loop in the area have better maintenance records.

 

[Brat]

What you are installing is basically a water-to-water heat pump. In our climate the ground temperature is always moderate and water essentially free of salts & minerals so they are efficient year round.

 

[rockyj]

The U.S. finished building out a hard-wired telecom infrastructure before cell phones took off. Third-world countries had the luxury of skipping right over the hard-wiring phase and going straight to cell phones. That seems to be working well.

However the same hasn't happened for third-world electrical infrastructure, unless you count the number of "rich" homeowners with backyard fossil-fuel generators. It'll be interesting to see if photovoltaic tech does for electrical power what cell phones have done for telecom, but it may take another 20 years.

Last week after reading this I ran into an old friend, one of whose kids was about to go on a work/study/mission trip to somewhere in Africa to install photovoltaic systems on a rural hospital or clinic. They will provide power for incubators as well as lights and power for surgery (which apparently still is done under candlelight at times there). I thought it an interesting coincidence in light of this discussion. This case was largely charitable - participants raised money for the system prior and are providing the labor to install. But it's easy to imagine lots of similar opportunities where the lack of pre-existing competitive infrastructure makes the economics markedly different than in more developed markets. It *will* be interesting to see how that plays out - for renewables in general - in places without the benefit of (or perhaps unconstrained by) existing infrastructure investments.

 

[Brat]

The production of solar pannels has just been taken to a new level:

According to an article in ScienceDaily (June 28, 2011):

Engineers at Oregon State University have discovered a way for the first time to create successful "CIGS" solar devices with inkjet printing, in work that reduces raw material waste by 90 percent and will significantly lower the cost of producing solar energy cells with some very promising compounds.

The above is an excerpt from: Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry Engineers salivate!!!

Now if we could develop cost effective batteries that store the energy produced through the night..

I remember when my Father said that nuclear generators would be so cost effective that it wouldn't pay to meter electricity. I hope that the expectations for solar don't go to that extreme.

 

[ERD50]

According to an article in ScienceDaily (June 28, 2011):

If I had a nickel for every 'breakthrough' I've read about for solar power, I would have retired 10 years earlier...

I recently came across a 'breakthrough' in solar PV - 'beads' of silicon produced from waste from IC manufacturing, and cheaply connected to a thin, flexible plastic plated substrate- it lowered the cost tremendously and the beads captured sunlight at multiple angles. Sounded great! Googling further, I realized that the article was about 10 years old, and no follow up since.

I'll read this one later, but it's probably another 'just around the corner' disappointments.

-ERD50

 

[ERD50]

According to an article in ScienceDaily (June 28, 2011):

Engineers at Oregon State University have discovered a way for the first time to create successful "CIGS" solar devices with inkjet printing, in work that reduces raw material waste by 90 percent and will significantly lower the cost of producing solar energy cells with some very promising compounds.

The above is an excerpt from: Inkjet printing could change the face of solar energy industry Engineers salivate!!!

OK, so I got around to reading it. Strikes me as odd that they go on about how cost effective this will be ("reduces raw material waste by 90 percent and will significantly lower the cost of producing solar energy cells"), and then say...

The OSU researchers say that with continued research they should be able to achieve an efficiency of about 12 percent, which would make a commercially viable solar cell.

They are currently getting 5%. With such low costs, why do they need 12% to be 'commercially viable' (14% is about typical for solar panels today)?

Now if we could develop cost effective batteries that store the energy produced through the night..

And when you add that to the cost of renewables....


-ERD50