Where's the Best Place to Put a Wind Farm?

You seem to have missed the point entirely. The article doesn't conclude anything of the sort, unless you take phrases out of context. Try reading it again, and read what you see rather than what you want to see. An extract, which summarises the main point, as follows:

"But part of the reason to generate electricity from such renewable resources is to cut back on the pollution that comes from burning fossil fuels. And if you take that into account, the best places change........And when you consider all those factors, a solar panel in New Jersey delivers more overall benefits than photovoltaics in far sunnier Arizona."

You could argue that the article is on the vague side, but the point is valid, unlike your hyperlink, which is rather irrelevant.

(And I suggest that whoever accorded the GA should perhaps re-read the article aswell. We are in danger of reaching the point where GAs denote a wrong or irrelevant answer {rant over!}).

Oh, I got the 'point'.

You seemed to miss my point that with everyone connected to an electrical grid the power can be generated in Arizona, where it is sunny, and used in New Jersey, where it is relatively cloudy. The article was an intellectual exercise taking into account a limited number of factors within the energy industry, disregarding the inter-connectedness of the US Electrical grid.

The point of the article about Germany is that the bloom is off the photovotaic rose, so to speak. Even Germany, which invested heavily in photovoltaics, is having second thoughts. So this exercise seems like it has diminishing utility.

I see no point in engaging in the wishful thinking that we can just get rid of coal and replace it with PVs without considering all the factors involved.

I see now that it's Spain's turn to shut off the subsidy spigot to the 'green energy' industry due to the high expense and poor performance of 'green energy' compared with traditional means of generating power.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/07/15/spain-cuts-green-energy-losses/

Where lots of wind and lots of people are close together.

(I am tempted to say put wind farms where the sun don't shine, and PV farms where the wind don't blow.)

Where the wind flows uninterrupted--The various Jet Streams--Now, YOU have to figure out how to transmit the said energy back to the grid. This is always been the problem--

Well I'd say the best place for wind is Antarctica, and the best place for sun is the desert, neither of which is inhabited to any extent....which pretty much puts the whole thing in perspective....Go nuclear....

Actually, the best place for sun is above the Earth's atmosphere, but point well taken. High energy generation usually occurs where people don't want to, or can't live--Hot , Cold, Windy, Remote, Deep and Wet (Ocean Current energy generation) etc. Go nuclear!! (regarding such, just saw that due to high increases in Energy costs, the Japanese are revisiting large scale Nuclear Power plant production.)

The best place would be a huge updraft wind turbine over Washington DC.The rising hot air and bovine flatulence could keep the whole country powered up.

Ya beat me to it!!

Most people will answer: not in my backyard

But it is the general approach wind farms deply which is the reason for this general low support windmills get from the public: the bigger and higher the better.

A low profile approach with VAWT windmills would enable to put them on the trooftops of buildings and replacing almost every electricity and light pole. Certainly along the highway's.

So the main approach of the article is correct: try to put the energy production at places where the enegry is consumed. Wich is the big advantage of the PV system: easily adopted at places where a windmill would never be possible.

The main question is not how to generate sufficient energy with sustainables, but how to regulate the production to follow the consumption. A nationwide grid will certainly help.

Europe has such systems in place and it helps us to keep each other alive, certainly at moments when the sun is backing the German PV cells (and Belgian) pushing productions in the gigawatts.

The Desertec organisation is promoting a system where the North African desert (Sahara) will be the battery and production site for the main main energy required in the north. This will bring sustainable wealth to these regions (not the oil and gas money off which the locals only see the problematic side of pollution and greed) as these installations will require maintenance and operational personnel.

The problem with wind and solar is that it is not reliable....This requires a second backup system....who wants to build two systems when one will work, is less complicated, less expensive, easier to manage...The second problem is that it doesn't have a constant output when it is working, the clouds can cover the solar cells from one minute to the next, and the wind can change from one minute to the next, that means the power provider must be constantly switching from one source to the next all day long trying to keep the power supply regulated...If the power supply is not constant and reliable it's useless....Go clean, reliable, nuclear....

What you claim is not completely thru: long time experience with wind farms in Denmark showed that their output is very reliable.

Clouds will cover one PV system in seconds and then the next, freeing others at the same time, also this is rather stable. The biggest issue comes with full clear sky (too much PV power)

that is where the nationwide system comes in place: overproduction in one area covers underproduction in another area. and storage of course.

The research that has been done on Denmark does not support your statements here....

"In 1998, Norway commissioned a study of wind power in Denmark and concluded that it has "serious environmental effects, insufficient production, and high production costs."

Denmark (population 5.3 million) has over 6,000 turbines that produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used in 2002. Yet no conventional power plant has been shut down. Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants must be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity. Most cannot simply be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises, and the quick ramping up and down of those that can be would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide (the primary "greenhouse" gas). So when the wind is blowing just right for the turbines, the power they generate is usually a surplus and sold to other countries at an extremely discounted price, or the turbines are simply shut off. A writer in The Utilities Journal (David J. White, "Danish Wind: Too Good To Be True?," July 2004) found that 84% of western Denmark's wind-generated electricity was exported (at a revenue loss) in 2003, i.e., Denmark's glut of wind towers provided only 3.3% of the nation's electricity. According to The Wall Street Journal Europe, the Copenhagen newspaper Politiken reported that wind actually met only 1.7% of Denmark's total demand in 1999. (Besides the amount exported, this low figure may also reflect the actual net contribution. The large amount of electricity used by the turbines themselves is typically not accounted for in the usually cited output figures. Click here for information about electricity use in wind turbines.) In Weekendavisen (Nov. 4, 2005), Frede Vestergaard reported that Denmark as a whole exported 70.3% of its wind production in 2004. "

read all.....http://www.aweo.org/problemwithwind.html

LAst I heard from him, a friend whose mother lives in Dresden, says when the dark days come, they rely on French nuclear power, from across the border.. Wonder what going to happen when the French decommission those plants. Or what if Russia gets a wild hair and stops exporting Natural Gas to parts of Eastern Europe? As mentioned before, wind and solar are good at LOCAL power production, that which does not take great distances into account. Line costs and line loss is a nasty cost . As well as the bird soup produced by the high speed "efficient" rotors, that turn so quickly that raptors are totally unable to perceive and avoid them.

Build a blimp with a skin of thin gage PV cells (probably not available now) with a wind generator in the tail. Fly the contraption in the jet stream and there ya have it. Use the guy wires to transport the current.

Not over MY house you don't....

Now relating to where is the best, or at least most practical, place to put a wind farm in the US put it here in North Dakota! We for the most part like having the extra income plus we are in the process of increasing and expanding our overall power grid systems to handle even more outgoing power so we don't mind having even more wind turbines here at all!

In fact our #1 down fall to wind power production is that it's often too windy here and we have to shut them down to prevent burning the turbines out or overloading our outgoing grid systems.

"it's often too windy here"

I'm sure it's windy where you are all the time. Or, is that blustery?

Did I ever mention there is lots of natural gas around here as well.

Anyplace that I don't have to see them or hear them. I'm a classic NIMBY. Some people are so in love with the idea they are saving the planet, trying to convince them otherwise is like telling a new mother her baby is ugly.

I recall driving down a rural backroad in New Hampshire a few years back and I rounded a bend in road and was visually slammed by four or five wind turbines desecrating an otherwise stunning view of a mountain ridge line.

Someone erected one of these monstrosities along Woods Hole Rd. in Falmouth Mass. in a residential neighborhood. It looks so out of place with the classic Cape Cod architecture. I feel bad for the neighbors who have live with this thing. If I had a million dollars to spend on house in Falmouth, I sure as hell would not want to see or hear that thing voop-voop-vooping around.

Fortunately for you there are PIMBY people like me who happily say PUT IN MY BACK YARD!

Being that we can then sell whatever it is that it makes to the NIMBY people at outrageous profits!

You don't want it but need what it makes so you can pay me very well to get what you need from it.

As far as I am concerned I will take a half dozen million BBl per day oil refineries, a couple of multi gigawatt nuclear power stations, and a thousand 2.2 megawatt wind turbines to go please!

( I have a really big back yard.)

Everything "rosey" is great until those nasty "thorns" start jabbing you.

I'm happy that you'd like them in your back yard. You're welcome to 'em. I'm also happy to pay market rates for the electricity as well. The only problem is shipping that electricity to markets where there is the greatest demand for electricity.

I'm thinking there ought to be more HVDC links between major markets and sources of power to more efficiently transmit power over longer distances. We could even envision a national HVDC grid similar to our interstates to improve the distribution of power.

The nice thing about HVDC is that it de-couples the various regional grids from running into issues with synchronizing the frequency and phase and provides a reliable mechanism for preventing the sort of cascading black-outs that have bedeviled the industry in times past.

As for outrageous profits, put some hours on those turbines, maintenance is not trivial. Drive through Altamont Pass in California and see the graveyard of wind turbines past.

The link below obviously belongs to a group not enchanted by the wind power industry so take it with the appropriate grain of salt, but these are issues that should not be ignored either.

http://www.windtaskforce.org/page/abandoned-eyesores

I previously lived in Hawaii for over a year. I saw these on the Big Island. I've lived in California and I've seen the mess there too. I was raised in Massachusetts and spent many summers on the Cape. Cuttyhunk Island on Cape Cod had a wind turbine long before it was fashionable (70's - 80's). They took it down, and the people there don't want it replaced. Wind turbines are obnoxious. People in general don't like to be around them.

Unless wind companies, as part of the licensing process are forced to put up de-commisioning bonds that are periodically updated for inflationary costs, then we are likely to continue to have this sort of problem where the company simply goes bankrupt after milking as much money out of it as possible.

One possibility would be to make these wind farms a temporary impact zone and let the artillery folks use them for target practice, then a scrapper can go in and clean up the pieces. I'm kidding, sort of.

Cheers !!

"" the mess there too. ""

is there more conclusive effects affecting the reduced wind movement for a particular environmental concern as heard of , but not seen.?

I would like to see the controllers' view of the global "carbon-footprint":

1) plains/trains/cars and meetings for all the systemic proposals, designs, coordination(s), management, overseeing, PM, repairs, replacements, drop-offs/outs.

2) Distribution connectivity arrangements to repairs/ other markets.

3) all of the "footprint" per usable life, advantages, and disadvantages.

Several clients are on their 2nd and one 3rd hybrid electric car, in under 10 years...

What's the 'print ?