Wind Power is a Complete Disaster

[ccbatson]

Nuclear is, by far, the most promising "alternate" energy source available. Of course, in their infinite wisdom, as with oil, liberals oppose real solutions.

[d.mcc]

How so? Nuclear power depends on a finite resource [[uranium) and there is definitely finite available storage for nuclear waste. If you meant "sustainable" as in "more affordable", then perhaps you are right. But if we were to invest the billions that have gone into developing nuclear into building the infrastructure and improving the technology for wind generation, then maybe not.

No, and as this is probably the only thing CC and I agree on...

Nuclear power is a clean energy alternative that is cost effective as it uses minimal resources to produce optimal power output. There are ways that 'spent' fuel rods can be used a second time through the reactor significantly reduces the radioactive properties of the uranium. The French have been using this for years, American power companies that are so in the pockets of the oil companies will only allow so much.

[ccbatson]

How do you explain liberals [[including Obama) opposing nuclear power d.mcc?

[d.mcc]

How do you explain liberals [[including Obama) opposing nuclear power d.mcc?

Lack of understanding on the issue. I know a lot of people on the left who support clean nuclear power sources. It's not a left/right thing persay as much as it is an educated populus thing

[ccbatson]

Oh no sir, not even close...liberal radical environmentalists strongly oppose Nuclear, and, for whatever reason, Obama and other Democrats appease them and support the antinuclear power agenda.

[jiminnm]

I predict that wind power will not reach 10% of total electricity production in any of our lifetimes [[or, let's just say by 2050), too much opposition is developing against a way to get the electricity generated to the consumer. Here is just a small fraction of stories about it.

http://www.heartland.org/policybot/r...sion_Line.html
http://www.krnv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9879595
http://www.windaction.org/news/13487
http://www.thesaintreport.com/saintblog/wind_power/
http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/2...-transmission/
http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/200...w_upstate.html

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would say that there is a concerted movement to prevent any substantial development of additional electric power.

[d.mcc]

And I am sure if you were to dig a little deeper, you would find most of it is funded by Big Oil. No worries though, if Americans begin to actively curb their energy consumption.

[3WC]

Speramus: I pointed out above that T. Boone Pickens has abandoned his multi-billion dollar wind project. You asked "Who says so?"

Well, I just did. I had been discussing some issues with Mesa Energy representatives for some time about the location of his proposed $3 billion 242 mile utility corridor from Pampa to Dallas-Ft. Worth as it was proposed to go across some of my oil and gas leases. I was told a couple of months or more ago that the wind energy project had been dropped.

The project has been discussed on other threads. It never made much sense and depended on massive government tax "incentives." More importantly, Picken's premise was that 20% of electricity in the country is generated by natural gas, and by generating that amount of electricity with wind power, the gas could be used to power automotive vehicles. The result would be the reduction in imports of crude oil because of the use of natural gas.

Pickens implied that in order to power so many vehicles with natural gas, it would have to be freed up from generating electricity. The fatal flaw is that we have a glut of natural as and will have for years. There's more than enough natural gas to power countless thousands of motor vehicles [[if that made any sense) and as much electricity as one wanted to generate as well.

Wind energy has been debated on this forum ad nauseum. The problems with wind generation have been explored on the forum endlessly, along with the real or mostly perceived benefits. Of all the renewable, alternative sources of energy folks toss around, it's probably the most feasible [[far more so than ethanol) but it's still a pie-in-the-sky concept at this point. And, it's been around for a century and billions have been spent on improving the technology, but it really doesn't make much economic sense, and because of the massive govt subsidies that will be required, it will be a very expensive source of energy.

[ccbatson]

Most important, and a point being missed, is that all of these debates centered around government's role in this stuff should not be important if they [[government) limited itself to arbitrating just and otherwise free trade.

[rb336]

Why can't I find a website for the Danish Federation of Industries?

is wind a panacea? no
is solar a panacea? no

I just want to read the actual DFI data, not some distillation that is propogating through the pro-fossil fuel media

[oladub]

The Danish Wind Association, on the other hand, provides a superb informational site worthy of bookmarking. This is the first page of its guided tour about how energy is derived from wind. Chapters are found in the left column covering various topics.

http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/index.htm

[rb336]

Oh no sir, not even close...liberal radical environmentalists strongly oppose Nuclear, and, for whatever reason, Obama and other Democrats appease them and support the antinuclear power agenda.

first -- Obama is pro-nuclear as are most dems, but to you, responsible nuclear development is "radical"
second -- Where does most of the world's uranium come from? nice places like Nigeria that make the middle east seem stable as a rock. Uranium mining is extremely hazardous and destructive, and, as i posted [[with a link) on the old board, if we tried to use nuclear for even 50% of our energy, we would run out of the raw materials in 50 years

[oladub]

Rb, You are correct that President Obama is supportive of nuclear energy except he promised Nevada he would not put the waste there. I suppose it will continue to pile up in little warehouses and puddles across the country. One of Obama's top campaign contributors was Excelon which provided him with hundreds of thousands of dollars for his presidential campaign. . Chicago based "Exelon operates the largest and most efficient nuclear fleet in the United States and the third largest commercial nuclear fleet in the world."
http://www.exeloncorp.com/aboutus/

Most Democrats must want nuclear power. Note: I'm for breeder reactors myself to get rid of much of the radioactivity found in nuclear waste.

[Johnlodge]

Seeing as Mr. Pickens is hosting a town hall meeting at Kansas University to tout his plan, I think it's safe to say he has not abandoned it.

http://www.kansascity.com/news/break...y/1131485.html

In fact, looks like he's on tour. He was just at the University of Arkansas last week.

http://www.4029tv.com/money/19110047/detail.html

[rb336]

Just wondering if this 3wc is the same guy who claimed "inside" knowledge in the fossil fuel industry on the old board? it was also rather easy to find contradictions to those comments as well -- oh yeah -- 3WC= thirdworldcity

[Glowblue]

first -- Obama is pro-nuclear as are most dems, but to you, responsible nuclear development is "radical"
second -- Where does most of the world's uranium come from? nice places like Nigeria that make the middle east seem stable as a rock. Uranium mining is extremely hazardous and destructive, and, as i posted [[with a link) on the old board, if we tried to use nuclear for even 50% of our energy, we would run out of the raw materials in 50 years

The world's largest producer of uranium is Canada. The second largest is Australia. The third largest is Kazakhstan. Less than 20% of the world's uranium comes from Africa.

[Johnlodge]

[Sstashmoo]

What you see and what is...

What if TBoone has investors to appease? The truth be known it's probably just dawned on this bumpkin, that when there isn't any wind blowing those things are just giant yard ornaments. The drop in oil prices has probably not helped either.

[jiminnm]

And I am sure if you were to dig a little deeper, you would find most of it is funded by Big Oil. No worries though, if Americans begin to actively curb their energy consumption.

Is this just your uninformed opinion, or do you have any evidence to suport your claim? I ask because less than 2% of electricity is generated from oil, so there's no risk to oil companies from other sources.

[rb336]

The world's largest producer of uranium is Canada. The second largest is Australia. The third largest is Kazakhstan. Less than 20% of the world's uranium comes from Africa.

Thanks for that. It figures. I went back to see where I got that and it turns out it was a fossil fuel [[coal) website

[3WC]

Well, Speramus and Johnlodge, maybe you should be honest for a change and disclose what Pickens is actually saying and doing. He's conducting his "Pickens Road Show," going around talking at colleges and to whoever else will listen, including CNN, that he still believes in the benefits of wind power, and now, solar energy. He has NOT said that his project is still viable, and it is not.

I have a financial stake in this matter as Mesa Power had published its intent to build a 242 mile utility corridor from Pampa to D/FW, to include electricity transmission lines and water lines; the water lines were dropped months ago.[[ He has purchased well over $10 million of water rightys in the Ogillala acquifer, but is now prevented from extracting enough water to make a prifit.) The ROW would cross some of my oil and gas leases and I was negotiating to resolve some issues of placement and to assure that my operations were not disrupted. That ROW acquisition project - at a cost of over $3 billion - has been abandoned, at least for several years. No ROW, no electricity production from wind power.

I have quite a file on Pickens and this project. It's true that Pickens is still telling anyone who will listen that he's still going forward with the project, such as folks who attend his university appearances. But, he has admitted that the project is "delayed" until at least 2011. See link below. The fact that Pickens admits that his hedge fund lost $1.5+ billion betting wrong on the price of oil is one thing. However, most people who are familiar with his companies say that he has lost over $2 billion of his personal wealth and probably much more [[Yahoo investment down the toilet etc.) That might not be a big deal for him in happier times, but it sure is now.

To a packed lecture hall at Rice, he stated: "I am running out of money." Cite below.

Pickens' whole "Plan," and he's made no bones about it, depends primarily on the amount of tax breaks and govt financial support he can get. The prospects don't look good, not in this economic climate, even though the Administration and Congress purport to support alternative energy. He admits that. He's trying to drum up supporters who will lobby Congress to get him out of his current mess. That's why he's speaking at colleges. You folks ought to join his "army."

Pickens has a hell of a motive to try and salvage this deal. In addition to the millions he's spent in advertising it, he purchased 667 turbines from GE for $150,000,000 in 2008. That would get the first phase of his project off the ground. He can't salvage any of that investment unless he restarts the project in 2011. No one I know thinks he can do it.

Maybe you folks should get some factual background before you you make your snide comments. Try reading "The T. Boone Pickens Road Show" in the March 26th Houston Press. the link's set out below:

http://www.houstonpress.com/content/...ersion/1155258

Rb, I note you made one of your usual snide, know-nothing comments above, implying I know nothing about the energy or oil and gas businesses. You say you're the genius that always sets me straight of something to that effect. The fact is that since 1990 I have produced almost 3 million bbls of crude oil in Taxas; last year I produced about 150,000 bbls of crude oil and stripped 1.5 million gallons of propane and other natual gas liquids from the gas I produce. Now, I don't pretend to know everything there is to know about the oil and gas business, but I'm pretty sure I've forgotten more than you have the capacity for ever knowing. I've followed your "energy" posts on the old forum and you are absolutely energy illiterate, relying on Wikapedia or Mother Jones News for your opinions. There's no sin for being ignorant about a business - we all are about one thing or another - but you hold yourself out as knowing what you're talking about, and because you rarely have any rational, informed ideas on these matters, or any actual knowledge, people on here ought to understand that.

[barnesfoto]

Apparently use of wind energy is working in some places:
From today's NYT column by Thomas Friedman:

... Costa Rica hugely invested in hydro-electric power, wind and geo-thermal, and today it gets more than 95 percent of its energy from these renewables. In 1985, it was 50 percent hydro, 50 percent oil. More interesting, Costa Rica discovered its own oil five years ago but decided to ban drilling — so as not to pollute its politics or environment! What country bans oil drilling?

more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/op...iedman.html?em

[Sstashmoo]

Spermicus Quote to 3WC: "BTW, your ad hominems against RB are childish and show that you have run out of arguments. Why don't you cool it?""

Right after saying this to me:

""Yep, he's a "bumpkin" - which is why he is worth millions and you are not. ""

Make up your mind, do you want to act like an adult or a child?

[ccbatson]

I think the point is that these billionaires have there own agenda that we "regular folks" can't identify with and should therefore take these appeals by them with a grain of salt, or less.

[ccbatson]

Don't trust anyone trying to tell you what is good for you when they have their own agenda. The worst offenders are those with the power to force you to do as they say [[government liberal types).