Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Well I see entire hillsides in California and New Mexico covered with wind turbines; solar energy is big business here, the US is enjoying cleaner air and water than it knew for most of the Twentieth Century, and there seem to be an awful lot of hybrid cars for sale. A lot of this is probably due to private initiative and investment, but then we conservatives think private initiative and investment tends to be more efficient and productive than most government initiative and investment.

So what do you think?

Given the fact that the US are trailing behind Asia and Europe in this particular market segment seems to hint at the fact that private initiative and investment were not quite that efficient...

The biggest windturbine producer worldwide is Danish, followed by two German companies.
All patents are mostly Danish, some German ...

In photo voltaik, Germany is leading ...

I haven't seen any windturbine farms in New Mexico, which could be compared to Europe ... which might sound anecdotical, but I couldn't find figures (online) which give a different view.

I have seen wind turbine farms in New Mexico since I have no doubt seen a whole lot more of New Mexico than you have. New Mexico in fact boasts the world's third largest wind farm, at least in capacity to produce energy.

The article doesn't identify it, but just from the look of the rocks in the limited view in the picture, I'm going to guess that this is the installation along a massive mesa we call the Caprock just south of San Jon NM, about three hours due east of Albuquerque.



Wind

OVERVIEW

Wind is a proven, cost-effective, and environmentally attractive source of power. Recent technological innovations in wind turbine design have resulted in increased effectiveness and reduced cost. The cost of electricity from wind power plants has dropped below 3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh), very close to the cost of power from fossil fuel sources. Public utilities across the country and around the world are beginning to include wind in their mix of energy sources.

WIND POWER PLANTS IN NEW MEXICO

New Mexico has a total of 407 megawatts of wind power capacity installed at four wind power plants. The first utility-scale wind power plant in New Mexico, near Fort Sumner, commenced operation in July 2003. Known as the New Mexico Wind Energy Center, it is 204 megawatts in capacity, the third largest wind power plant in the world. All of its generated electricity is purchased by PNM. Energy produced at the New Mexico Wind Energy Center will replace an equivalent amount of power coming from facilities powered by coal and gas. Wind now comprises 8 percent of PNM's overall generation capacity. However, because of the intermittent nature of wind, the facility's output is expected to comprise about 4 percent of the energy actually produced by or for PNM over the course of a given year.

The wind energy center will bring more than $40 million into rural De Baca and Quay counties over 25 year. This includes $450,000 per year in payments in lieu of taxes to be made to the county governments and school districts; about $550,00 per year in lease payments to landowners; and an estimated $500,000 in salaries for the permanent jobs to be created.

The second utility-scale wind power plant was completed early in 2005. This 80 MW "Caprock Wind Ranch", south of San Jon, produces electricity for SPS/Xcel. the third utility-scale wind power plant in New Mexico, the 120-megawatt San Juan Mesa Wind Project near Elida will be fully operational by the end of 2005, producing power also for SPS/Xcel. There is another small wind power project of 2.6 megawatts near Clovis that provides power for SPS/Xcel customers.

RESOURCES ASSESSMENT

The Energy Conservation and Management Division (ECMD), through its Wind Power Program, has performed a critical role in the development of wind power in the state. The information ECMD provides, especially wind data, has been instrumental in the development of utility-scale wind power plants.

ECMD's Wind Power Program has provided detailed wind resource assessments of the state and high quality wind data to over 40 wind power developers, PNM, land owners and others. ECMD has provided three years of wind speed data collected at seven promising sites. We are continuing detailed wind energy resource assessment in order to promote further commercial development. In 2005 ECMD installed a permanent, 100 meter tall wind monitoring tower, to provide improved wind data for the industry. This project was motivated by the fact that modern turbines have rotors up to 100 meters or higher. Wind data at 40 meters must be extrapolated, reducing the accuracy. Also, a permanent installation will allow future projects the opportunity to correlate their on-site data to our long term data in real time, thus reducing the monitoring period required and improving accuracy. Finally, this permanent monitoring tower will reveal any trends due to climate change.

In partnership with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, ECMD contracted to have TrueWind Solutions, LLC produce a high resolution wind map of the state using the latest techniques. Maps of wind speed are available at heights of 30, 50 70 and 100 meters. A wind power map is available at 50 meters. The map is interactive with many GIS layers.

ECMD'S Wind Power Program has provided studies of the potential economic benefits of wind power to five counties: Eddy, Otero, Quay, Lea, and Colfax. Reports have been presented to these counties. The program has also provided the following products:


New Mexico Wind Power Plant Site Screening Model
Guidelines for Developers and Investors Interested in Wind Power in New Mexico

New Mexico Wind Development Handbook

Mesa Redonda Case Study Report. This study includes: environmental, archealogical, cost estimating, transmission, permitting, geotechnical, micro siting, production, and visual.

The potential for electricity generation from wind is enormous in some areas of New Mexico, especially on the eastern plains. New Mexico ranks twelfth in wind electric potential and is among twelve states in the midsection of the country that, together, have 90% of the total commercial wind electric potential in the contiguous United States. The annual wind energy potential of New Mexico has been estimated to be 435 billion kWh. New Mexico has the potential to produce many times its own electrical consumption, which puts it in a position to export wind electric power.

POLICY

New Mexico has a state tax incentive in the form of a corporate Renewable Energy Production Tax Credit of one cent per kWh. ECMD administers the tax credit, a very significant incentive for wind power development.

Other incentives in New Mexico are: Industrial Revenue Bond (IRB) Financing that provides relief from property tax, and Gross Receipts Tax Exemption that allows an exemption from the gross receipts tax for certain wind equipment. New Mexico has a Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that requires investor-owned utilities to procure or generate 10% renewable energy by the year 2011 with intermediate requirements. The rule also require utilities to offer an optional green power tariff so that those customers willing to pay more for renewable power will be able to purchase larger amounts of renewable power. Green power tariffs are offered by: PNM, Southwestern Public Service, El Paso Electric, and Kit Carson Electric Cooperative.

Development of New Mexico's renewable energy resources is a high priority of Governor Richardson. He has appointed a task force to investigate ways of developing new electric transmission capacity to export large volumes of renewable energy to market. Such a development has the potential to vastly increase wind power development in New Mexico.
http://www.emnrd.state.nm.us/emnrd/ecmd/Wind/wind.htm

Is far as I remember, the US were actually the leading country in photovoltaics not so long ago. However, the numbers have changed in recent years.

Here are the Worldwide installed photovoltaic totals:



And, when looking at these numbers, keep in mind that Japan only has a population of ~128 million and Germany of ~80 million, whereas the number in the USA is 300 million....

I don't doubt that you saw more of New Mexico.

But also bear in mind that neither Germany nor Japan have any appreciable natural resources to produce other forms of clean energy. So you have to factor in the initiatives we in the USA have made to make use of existing forms of energy more environmentally friendly as well as initiatives for alternate forms of energy.

I also look at the massive enormous windfarms in California that are an enormous eyesore compared to the view that once existed there and the fact that despite all that acreage and massive turbine power, it produces less than 2% of California's energy needs. I shudder to think how many of those things would be needed and how much acreage they would have to appropriate to provide all of California's energy needs.

I'm not saying that Germany and Japan aren't both doing terrific things with your wind turbine programs and hats off to you. But there are always other sides to consider in almost any issue. Are your programs provided by the government or by private initiative? Ours are almost all by private initiative though government provides attractive incentives to encourage such private initiative.

Where does the land for the wind turbine farms come from in Germany? There is a limit to how much private land US citizens would be willing to have confiscated for the wind farms. Plus there are some areas of the country that simply don't get enough wind to make a wind farm practical.

I think we have to keep looking at all components of the problem before deciding that any one or two things is the only possible solution.

... and these are the numbers for wind power:

That's a pretty subjective opinion, because I and many others find the windfarms to be incredibly beautiful - not only in aesthetic terms, but also for what they represent.

Cycloptichorn

Source and more here

In Germany, all windprojects are private.



All private, besides the planned off-shore windparks.

There are limits - in our state municipalities (now, since a couple of years) are only allowed to plan windturbines in special area development plans. (That is, distance to next housing, roads etc, limited number ...)

Given the relatively small footprint taken up by each wind turbine, it seems that the land could still be used in large part for graze-ranching and maybe even some specific farming.

You don't think there are plenty of ranchers or farmers out there who could use the extra money, without sacrificing much space?

Cycloptichorn

Well like anything else, I think an open mind is always the best approach to these things and the energy sources we have now will no doubt seem primitive in another 50 years as new technologies are developed.

I wonder if the U.S. statistics include the many private wind turbines used by many rural homeowners here? I see an awful lot of those too - never in the towns or cities but out in the mountains, on farms, etc. The owners tell me that when the wind blows these usually produce enough energy for their needs plus usually a bit more to sell back to local power companies. (In New Mexico and I suspect in other states, the power companies are required to buy excess energy produced by these.) But the downside is that the wind doesn't always blow so they have to have some sort of back up when that happens.

I don't know neither.

But such aren't included in German (and I suppose, in other European) figures.

I should also qualify a previous post. I didn't mean to imply that Germany and Japan have no natural resources at all, but just that they don't have enough to meet all their energy needs. But then neither does the U.S. unless we increase our petroleum production, and there are enough protesting that to make it difficult to do. So we are still importing large quantities of petroleum.

You wrote "neither Germany nor Japan have any appreciable natural resources to produce other forms of clean energy".

We aren't as big as most US-states USA, Japan is even smaller.

Both have, however, quite some dirty coal resources. (We closed nearly all pits besides a good handfull by now.)

Most if not all of the land devoted to wind turbines in New Mexico is owned by or leased by private owners. But you have to have roads to these things because they require a lot of maintenance and the seem to break down often. And most are fenced off to discourage vandals and/or attractive nuisance situations. And they are a hazard for migrating birds so there are some areas it is inadvisable to put them such as near wetlands or other migratory routes, etc. etc. etc.

They do serve a purpose for sure and I'm not knocking them. But for all the reasons I've cited, I think we shouldn't expect wind power to provide a substantial amount of the nation's energy for some time, at least with the technology that we now have.

Coal, gas and oil as sources of clean energy. Marvellous.