baird

Wind Turbine Energy: How It Works and Stocks to Watch

Clearly matching real time load requirements with wind availability is a key issue and there are some interesting methods being explored to store energy which may mitigate this problem to some extent, we shall see.


On Mar 22 10:40 AM billp37 wrote:

> "The reason is that in Texas, and most of the United States, the
> hottest days are the least windy. As a result, wind turns out to
> be a good way to save fuel, but not a good way to avoid building
> plants that burn coal. A wind machine is a bit like a bicycle that
> a commuter keeps in the garage for sunny days. It saves gasoline,
> but the commuter has to own a car anyway.
>
> But neither wind nor solar power can be used to meet surging energy
> demands. And, while wind may be a low-cost resource when it is blowing,
> no renewable resources will provide for the large "base load" resources
> that Colorado needs the most.
>
> An economic analyst claims he's done the numbers and wind energy
> is costing the Victorian Government far more money than any wind
> turbines could generate.
>
> In addition wind is very unreliable, it cuts in and cuts out, so
> you have to have backup for it, so the costs are somewhat in excess
> of that crude depiction of the premium price you have to pay for
> wind.
>
> "Oh, well they just cut in and cut out. Windfarms on average operate
> for 25 per cent of the time, but they only operate when the wind
> is blowing, so when the wind isn't blowing they're not available.
> I think it was well publicised in South Australia a wek or so ago
> when they had a heatwave of 42 or so degrees and suddenly none of
> the windfarms were operating, or only operating at very low level
> and one of them caught fire. Wind is not and cannot be reliable.
> You can rely on it to be there when you need it only 10 per cent
> of the time," he says."
>
> Links to articles found here.
>
> www.prosefights.org/wi...
>
>
>