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

These stretch as far as the eye can see. T Boone Pickens plans to construct thousands upon thousands of them across TX - "Don't think he's going green," he says, "There's a lot of money to be made with these."

June 4, 2008 6:15 AM PDT

Siemens to open Colo. wind turbine R&D center

Siemens Energy plans to open its first U.S. wind turbine research and development facility in Boulder, Colo.

The energy sector of the German company made the announcement on Tuesday in Houston, Texas, at Windpower 2008, the American Wind Energy Association's annual conference.

The center will concentrate on everything from designing better wind turbine components such as aerodynamic blades to conducting atmospheric-science research.



The strongest wind turbine Siemens currently makes has a capacity of 3.6 megawatts, according to the company. The one being used in Colorado will have a 2.3-megawatt capacity.

(Credit: Siemens)

As part of the plan, Siemens Energy will collaborate with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to install a Siemens 2.3-megawatt (MW) wind turbine at the National Wind Technology Center located just outside of Boulder.

"The creation of these green jobs is good for our economy and our communities and will help set us on a path of greater energy independence," Colorado Governor Bill Ritter said in a statement.

The Siemens R&D center, however, will create only about "12 to 15 green-collar positions in the first year," with a total of 50 new jobs in Colorado by 2013, according to Siemens' own estimates. And those jobs may not be what many economic reports predict could supplant lost jobs for blue-collar professionals.

Most of the employees of the new Siemens facility will be "new hires with a Ph.D. or master's degree in the desired disciplines," according to the Siemens announcement.

Siemens already has wind turbine R&D centers in Copenhagen, Denmark; Aachen, Germany; Delft, the Netherlands; and Keele, United Kingdom. The U.S. facility will share gained wind technology knowledge with those facilities.

The announcement follows news that increased costs in materials, coupled with engineering challenges, are hindering Europe's push to use more renewable sources like wind energy by 2020, according to a report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Siemens Energy and Automation helps customers in the industrial, manufacturing and construction sectors succeed by providing complete electrical, engineering and automation solutions. Through a commitment to innovative engineering that goes back more than 150 years, Siemens serves the world's largest and most respected companies through integrated solutions, software, hardware and services..

So what happens when the wind quits blowing? I am enthusiastic about wind energy, but even in Denmark where they are blessed with the winds almost constantly blowing off the North Sea, wind provides only about 1/3 of their electrical power, I think. That is what it was a couple years ago, I did not look it up now. Which is large, but from what I have read, that is about the limit that can be achieved until a suitable storage system can be perfected for when the winds quit blowing, and to accomodate wind speed fluctuations, etc.

Today, wind energy is economic at about 7 cents per kilowatt hour, and that is without factoring in production tax credits. A few years ago, that cost was 15 to 20 cents. Compare the 7 cents for wind energy with the 12 cents per kilowatt hour required to build a gas-fired power plant, and you can see why there is a veritable land rush to harness wind energy.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

173
Award winning Chief Meteorologist James Spann of Alabama ABC TV affiliate declared that he does "not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype." "I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country," Spann, who holds the highest level of certification from the American Meteorological Society, wrote in a January 18, 2007 blog post. "I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can't find them," Spann added. "Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up. This is big money, make no mistake about it. Always follow the money trail and it tells a story... Nothing wrong with making money at all, but when money becomes the motivation for a scientific conclusion, then we have a problem. For many, global warming is a big cash grab," Spann said. "[The climate] will always change, and the warming in the last 10 years is not much difference than the warming we saw in the 1930s and other decades. And, lets not forget we are at the end of the ice age in which ice covered most of North America and Northern Europe," he noted.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.SenateReport#report

174
Dr. Habibullo Abdussamatov, head of Space Research for the Pulkovo Observatory in Russia, pointed to global warming on Mars and the melting ice cap on the red planet as more evidence that the sun was a key driver of climate change. "Mars has global warming, but without a greenhouse and without the participation of Martians," Abdussamatov said in an interview on January 26, 2007 with Canada's National Post. "These parallel global warmings -- observed simultaneously on Mars and on Earth -- can only be a straight-line consequence of the effect of the one same factor: a long-time change in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov explained. "It is no secret that increased solar irradiance warms Earth's oceans, which then triggers the emission of large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. So the common view that man's industrial activity is a deciding factor in global warming has emerged from a misinterpretation of cause and effect relations," Abdussamatov added. A predicted decline in solar irradiance is going to lead to global cooling by 2015 and "will inevitably lead to a deep freeze around 2055-60," according to Abdussamatov. Abdussamatov was also featured in a February 28, 2007 article in National Geographic titled "Mars Melt Hints at Solar, Not Human, Cause for Warming, Scientist Says," where he reiterated his scientific findings that "man-made greenhouse warming has made a small contribution to the warming seen on Earth in recent years, but it cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance."

okie wrote:

So what happens when the wind quits blowing? I am enthusiastic about wind energy, but even in Denmark where they are blessed with the winds almost constantly blowing off the North Sea, wind provides only about 1/3 of their electrical power, I think. That is what it was a couple years ago, I did not look it up now. Which is large, but from what I have read, that is about the limit that can be achieved until a suitable storage system can be perfected for when the winds quit blowing, and to accomodate wind speed fluctuations, etc.

In Denmark, wind power never reached more than the nearly 20% of electric power (consumption) than last year.

If the wind is not blowing ... well, we use (better: the try to use it) a 'demand side management' with electricity from wind as well.
(The problem now isn't that there's too less wind but too much.)

That will take some time until it really works.


However, wind energy never can't be a single or even main elecricity source. (Sailing ships and balloons, for instance, don't have punctual time tables :wink: )




From an opinion in today's WaPo: The Answer's in the Wind -- and Sun:

Quote:

Today, wind energy is economic at about 7 cents per kilowatt hour, and that is without factoring in production tax credits. A few years ago, that cost was 15 to 20 cents. Compare the 7 cents for wind energy with the 12 cents per kilowatt hour required to build a gas-fired power plant, and you can see why there is a veritable land rush to harness wind energy.

[The writer is chief executive of Loews Corp., which has interests in Diamond Offshore drilling; Boardwalk Pipelines, an interstate natural gas pipeline company; and HighMount Exploration and Production, which drills for natural gas.]

LOTS MORE STUFF IN THIS USA TODAY ARTICLE

But I think it is reasonable to ask whether reducing real estate values and/or enjoyment of aesthetic beauty of our great country should not be part of the mix in the discussion?

I am reading accounts where homes near wind turbines are not selling because of the turbines.

Foxfyre wrote:

I am reading accounts where homes near wind turbines are not selling because of the turbines.

We've building regulations here: depending on the number of turbines, those only can be constructed in a distance of 300 m (one) up to 3,000 m (more than 50) to the next houses.

Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

I am reading accounts where homes near wind turbines are not selling because of the turbines.

We've building regulations here: depending on the number of turbines, those only can be constructed in a distance of 300 m (one) up to 3,000 m (more than 50) to the next houses.

Well Walter, we have building regulations here as well. I believe the salient fact is that people in both the United States and Germany don't like to live in close proximity to either wind farms or nuclear power plants.

Using your data for a minimum 3,000M separation from houses for 50 or more turbine wind farms, that means in our terms a nearly 2 mile separation from a wind plant that produces as little as 250MW at peak hours. We (and you) can do as well as that with a nuclear plant that produces almost ten times as much power - on a continuous basis.

Why not do both

Cycloptichorn