Once again, Ted Kennedy's death has reaped a windfall (heh). Kennedy opposed the wind farm on NIMBY grounds - the turbines would be visible from his Martha's Vineyard compound. Ted Kennedy stonewalled a green project that would provide clean energy to Massachusetts and New England simply because he didn't want to look at wind turbines.(CNN) -- Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Wednesday approved the nation's first offshore wind farm, signing off on a project that has bitterly divided Cape Cod over the last nine years.
The 130 turbines are to be located several miles from the Massachusetts shore in the iconic waters of Nantucket Sound. The interior secretary said Cape Wind, as the project is known, is the start of a "new energy frontier."
I think they ought to hook some generators up to Teddy's bloated corpse spinning in his grave over this to make even more energy...
That is all.
5 comments:
I think wind turbines are great technology.
After they fill Nantucket Sound they can then fill the Bay with them as well.
There's are only a few small prolems that need to be worked out......
Wind Turbins use more steel and concrete per Megawatt than a conventional power plant.
The highly variable power generated and dumped onto the grid is not very predictable and tends to make the other sources of geration less efficient as they compensate to meet the load. ( Since you can't store electicty )
Only about 25% of the units will actually turn at any given wind speed since the blades are sized and configured to only work in a narrow range of wind speed. When the wind is too strong the turbines shut down so that the blades do not overspeed.
Although from a distance the Blades appear to turn very slowly ( 6 - 15 rpm ) the tips can be going more than 100 mph.
......and lastly......no one has yet to find a way to make them profitable ( without the massive subsidies)
......other than that The're a great idea
And if Kennedy had objected to the wind farms because of the many reasons you list, I wouldn't be poking fun at him right now with this post...
Instead, it was the super hypercritical "we must save teh environment but not in my backyard" thinking at its finest...
NotDilbert
There's a few other minor issues with them as we've found in the UK:
They disrupt radar so airborne threat detection is made more problematic, they can create massive blindspots.
They kill wildlife. Either by blade strike or by popping a critter's internal organs in the partial vacuum behing the blade.
Oh, when there's no wind the tubines draw power from the grid to keep the blades turning to prevent damage to the bearings, but at least it looks like they're working.
And for a more detailed description of the problems that will affect the power grid, may I direct your attention to this
As the man says, buy a generator.
I was so strongly opposed to this project because it represented a net loss to the Cape's economy from lost commercial and recreational fishing revenue.
BUT, the 0Bama appointee to NOAA managed to completely destroy the commercial fishing industry in New England in just 12 short months. This Friday is the last day that non-corporate fishing interests may fish for most New England fish.
So, since the Prez already ruined thousands of livelihoods and turned over our fish to just over a dozen lucky corporations, screw it, I hope cape Cod Bay dries up and the wind stops blowing.
nbc and notDilbert:
NUKES FOR A GREEN EARTH!
Save Gaia through the CLEAN source of steady load power!
(Study teh actual economic and environmental effects of nuclear fission versus ALL of the popular Watermelon (Green on the outside, Red on the inside) renewable sources.
The only things that truly compare to nukes are major geothermal and tidal power (not just hydro -- standard hydro power is generally DEVASTATING ecologically speaking).
There is, however, one way to store electricity. Use juice to create kinetic potential -- i.e., pump water into elevated holding areas, so it can be released for hydro generation at need. See earlier comments on hydro power, though. . .
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