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Wednesday, August 6, 2008
832 - Tilting at windmills
Seems like Don Quixote’s worst nightmare is occurring in real life here in Wyoming.
The mythical Man of La Mancha went crazy jousting against huge windmills in Spain that looked like giants to him. In real life, giants are marching across our landscapes here, and yes, they really are windmills.
Everyone knows Wyoming is a windy place, but did you know that our state is ranked number-one in the country for consistent wind? Our average wind speed of 12.9 mph topped the country, according to the governor’s web page.
After all these years, people are getting serious about wind energy here. Seems like everyone, everywhere is talking about Wyoming’s abundant winds.
Two big wind turbine projects have been in the news, as has construction of a huge power line to carry Wyoming wind power. Two separate companies, backed by billionaires Phil Anschutz of Denver and Warren Buffet of Omaha, could provide as much as 6,000 megawatts of electrical power in Wyoming for the desert southwest.
Apparently the experts looked at three ways to provide renewable energy to Southern California, Nevada and Arizona. They looked at concentrated solar power, wind turbines there and wind turbines one thousand miles away in Wyoming.
To no one’s surprise who has driven I-80 in the winter, our wind is strong and consistent. They discovered you could build turbines here and transport the power that far and it would still be cheaper than solar or wind there.
The problem with wind in the desert southwest is there is not much of it. And when they need it the most (hot August days), the wind quits blowing.
This is amazing good fortune for our fledgling wind industry.
As the country rapidly blows away from coal to wind, I am reminded of a story told at least five years ago by a lobbyist for the coalmines. He claimed it would take 20,000 wind turbines to replace one Jim Bridger plant. That coal fired power plant located east of Rock Springs has capacity of 2,120 megawatts.
Well, not so fast. That lobbyist was talking about those original wind turbines, which were small fry, compared to the giants marching across the plains today. The average wind turbine today often can produce one megawatt, a huge improvement. Wind farms are reportedly just one-third efficient as coal, though, so you may need three wind turbines to create one consistent megawatt.
Thus if my math is correct, you would need 6,360 of these one megawatt wind turbines to replace Bridger, which is the 56th largest power plant in the USA.
But wait, there’s more.
On the drawing boards today are gigantic five-megawatt wind turbines. When these behemoths get installed, well, you need just over 1,000 of them to equal a Bridger.
Not everyone is thrilled. The NIMBY folks (Not In My Back Yard) are worried there will not be a ridgeline left in Wyoming that doesn’t contain the swirling images of giant windmills.
Right now, not counting wind, Wyoming produces about 6,000 megawatts of power, of which half is sent to other states. About half the 3,000 megawatts used here are for residential use and the rest for industrial. That 1,500-megawatt total is about three-fourths of a Jim Bridger plant.
But we should keep talking about Wyoming wind. What is the product of wind? Why it is air, of course. Could air be its own energy source? Read on.
Recently, I heaped praise on the concept of compressed natural gas-powered cars. It just made sense to me to use our surplus natural gas in this state to power vehicles at a price less than $1 per gallon compared to gasoline and diesel fuel, which are around $4 per gallon.
Perhaps we should develop wind-powered cars, too.
There really is an “air car” coming into service. The Tata Company in India plans to develop the Compressed Air Car, which will cost $12,700. It will go 68 mph and have a range of 125 miles.
No kidding.
It would take a few minutes to fuel up at a service station equipped with custom compressors. It will cost $2 for 340 liters of air. Its range is 125 miles.
Heck, maybe we should forget what I wrote about compressed natural gas?
Say good-bye to gas and diesel?
And laugh at the demise of corn fuel!
There are renewable fuels and then there are REAL renewable fuels.
Try to imagine a fleet of Wyoming cars powered by air where the electricity that powered the compressor came from our wind! Now that is a concept worth more than a gasp or two.
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