In Ontario (Canada), there was an initiative to build some wind turbines that hit a roadblock when, based on treaties signed long ago, a group of Natives argued, successfully, that they were legally entitled to the wind! Funny how something that was worthless back then is not so worthless now.

“He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind”?

Perhaps that’s not such a bad fate after all!

Wind power is intermittent. As such, adequate reliable energy must be available to cover the wind production. Therefore, it is additive, capable of supplementing existing energy production but doesn’t do much to alleviate demand for fossil fuels. This characteristic is exacerbated by the fact that total output is still comparatively low, and that peak production (when winter winds are higher and more constant) may be out of time with peak demand (when summer homes are occupied and air conditioners are on). Of course this last point is variable depending on location.

It would be interesting to see an energy demand forecast for a given region, plotting energy from a propsed renewable energy project against project increase in demand for that region. I think that the former would eclipse the latter in most coastal regions.

It would also be interesting to see the relative benefits in terms of emmission of a given energy facility- or several even, compared to a 1 mpg increase in minimum mileage criteria for vehicles. Most of our fossil fuel consumption is, I believe transportation related, rather than home heating/energy.

The case that renewable energy facilities actually offset pollutants that would be emmitted by conventional fuel plants seems dubious, particularly if the renewable generator can sell off certificates or credits that allow another generator to continue polluting but still meet standards under cap and trade schemes.

One or a few wind turbines may be pretty and elegant if properly sited. A broad swath of turbines that dominates or obliterates a landscape of finer scale, usually isn’t percieved as such.

Other nations are signficantly farther ahead than the US in terms of capacity installed, capacity in planning and permitting. In part, this is because these countries decided to pursue wind proactively and deliberately. They (the governments) identified sites likely to be suitable for wind energy production, then they identified the scale- the installed capacity– likely to be suitable for the site, then they sent out solicitations for private firms that would build within those constraints. So, the public interest was safeguarded to some degree from the outset. Limits on the scale and extent of new facilities was established by the state, rather than by the profiteer. In the U.S., we have been largely reactive- almost entirely in the offshore environment and until recently with regard to private leasing arranagement on agricultural land and on public (BLM) lands.

Wind is part of the picture, but in my opinion the current bandwagoning is misplaced and is resulting in huge investment in a technology that is space-hungry, has clear impacts to the environment (particularly if foundations are embedded in shifting marine sandflats), and is poorly understood in terms of cradle-to-grave costs and lifespan net benefits to the environment.

Do a show on emerging tidal, current and wave generation instead. Its more consistent and more promising and output is moving upward in a similar manner to wind generators a couple decades ago. Test project is in at East RIver NY, there’s a tidal facility in Nova Scotia, there is a wave demo project off of Portugal and ORegon, proposals have been filed for current production in parts of Nantucket Sound, and the Cape Cod Canal- probably one of the largest, tidally driven hydrologic pumps around.

Re “But this is kind of moot, because we all know man made global warming is the con job of the century. And when people are properly informed, this is the conclusion they reach..”-

What is the nature of “mootness” here? Our use of power (& sources for same) are inconsequential? Smooth-talking “expert” Michael Crichton is more believable than a shrill young woman posing as a “scientist” to a disinterested audience? So, global warming is just a “given”- and we’d better get over it? Well, sure… it IS relative, after all. It’s bad if you’re a polar bear, but not if you’re a starling… and bad if your Alaskan village of 3500 years is built over permafrost, but not so bad if you’re a real estate developer in British Columbia. Anyone who buys into the “think globally, act locally” paradigm, and who bears a burden of ethical intentions, doesn’t have to look too far into the past to get a vision of the future… ^..^

Frequency and voltage are also significant hurdles. Since the wind does not blow at a constant speed, it is difficult to provide the type of “clean power” that the overall grid requires. As with anything, time and money can solve these issues, but many as with location, if it costs more than a conventional source, few are going to spend the money or time.

Dispatch is also a fairly thorny issue for wind, and I believe the most significant. Utilities use complex forecasting tools to estimate how much power they will have to produce in order to match demand as closely as possible. They take into account the time of the day, the day of the week, weather, holidays, major events, and historical data, and usually can predict within a few tenths of a percent the actual power required by the grid. Since most of their plants can generate exactly the amount they need, with high reliability, integrating a variable output station effects the operations of all their other facilities.

With a large grid and a small wind generator, there is plenty of margin to suck up the variances, but if we want to go the way of Denmark and supply 20% of our electricity needs via wind, the technical challenges, and costs, might price wind out of the market (at the present date at any rate). Point to Denmark as an example, is also a bit misleading, because while Denmark (tiny) gets 20% of its electricity from wind, its electrical grid is fully and heavily interconnected with the rest of the EU-25′s grid. Its the equivalent of comparing power production in Massachusetts with the rest of the United States. In fact, the largest increase in power production in Europe over the past 20 years has been from natural gas, not wind.

But this is kind of moot, because we all know man made global warming is the con job of the century. And when people are properly informed, this is the conclusion they reach.

“The grant for Massachusetts will provide specialized test equipment for a $15.2 million hangar on Massachusetts Port Authority-owned land in Charlestown, where different designs of turbine blades up to 230 feet long will be shipped in on barges for testing”

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/06/26/state_gets_2m_grant_for_wind_technology/

the state’s delegating $13m? and MiT $5m as well? something like that