Energy Armageddon

[turbguy + 1,391]

4 minutes ago, notsonice said:

what does a 20 foot by 20 foot white box with 2 200 foot blades attached (size of the end of a nacelle is 20 feet by 20 feet at most) look like from 20 miles away on the horizon??????? ......

the nacelle smaller than the  dot  ..... 0 ..........as you see it on your screen (which should be around 3 feet from your face) the blade less than a tenth of an inch  --.-- (...2 blades with a nacelle in the center shown in black) ...now the same in gray    --.--    (can you see it????????)

oh the horror that you might  be able to see a white dot looking out on the horizon..if you are able to make it out a white nacelle and blades against a white/blueish background and all the water vapor between you . Yeesh

 

now the mathfor the math challenged dummies who are crying about the coast and the views 

 

So, say an object that is 20 feet tall is 100 feet away. If I hold up a ruler 3 feet away, then the object in the distance would correspond to about how many inches?

use the intercept theorem, this is indeed a simple ratio:

 

x/3feet =20feet tall nacelle/100feet away⟹x=0.6feet or 7.2 inches

 

now make it 1000 feet away

=.06 feet or .72 inches

 

now 10000 feet away

=.006 feet or .072 inches

 

now 100000 feet which is a little less than 20 miles

x/3feet=20/100000

 

=.0006 feet or.0072 inches

 

now if you gomers can make out something that looks like it is .0072 inches tall looking out on the horizon 20 miles away .....give yourself a prize

 

and a 20 foot wide-200 foot blade .072inches or less than a 1/10th of an inch tall by 1/100th of an inch wide

 

oh the horror to those starring out on the ocean 

 

 

 

 

As I said, they would be tiny.  And visible.

[notsonice + 1,062]

6 minutes ago, turbguy said:

As I said, they would be tiny.  And visible.

And visible??? ha ha ha...you keep telling yourself lies and you will believe them if you repeat them enough....Lots of ocean front property in Wyoming to give yourself a test?????? can you spot the blades and nacelle in this post...you will need to clean your screen and squint

 

 

                                                                                                                                                   --.--

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 20, 2023 by notsonice

[notsonice + 1,062]

On 2/11/2023 at 1:19 PM, Ron Wagner said:

That is one of the most scenic areas of the California coastline, so it needs to be far enough out to be unseen from the beaches and hills. Otherwise it should not be allowed. It would, as it says, need to be agreed to by various groups. There is no real need for the electricity in the area, which is mostly supported by tourism. I say put it off San Francisco where the electricity could be used locally, but it must be out of sight anywhere on the Pacific Coast, or any coast for that matter. 

most scenic?? with a coal/nat gas power plant that dominates Morro Bay.....

why  have you not been protesting for the past 50 years that your view is screwed up by a fossil fuel plant smack in Morro Bay????  scenic isn't it

Edited February 20, 2023 by notsonice

[Ecocharger + 1,374]

On 2/19/2023 at 9:26 PM, Ron Wagner said:

Bad luck to have your bad attitude. Nobody wants to look at the most beautiful parts of the world and be distracted by wind turbines that could easily be moved beyond the horizon. They can be made to float so that is not an issue. Also, they don't need to be so damn tall in those locations. 

Wind machines are the most obnoxious forms of visual pollution.

[notsonice + 1,062]

6 minutes ago, Ecocharger said:

Wind machines are the most obnoxious forms of visual pollution.

oh my the sight of a wind machine pisses you off.....another benefit of Wind Energy....

Enjoy the veiw and the transition.......

I rather see wind turbines and deal with your whining than dealing with crappy air quality and global warming

 

Easy tradeoff

Enjoy the transition

[turbguy + 1,391]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:05 PM, notsonice said:

And visible??? ha ha ha...you keep telling yourself lies and you will believe them if you repeat them enough....Lots of ocean front property in Wyoming to give yourself a test?????? can you spot the blades and nacelle in this post...you will need to clean your screen and squint                                                                                                                                           -

--.-- ←

Edited February 23, 2023 by turbguy

[turbguy + 1,391]

On 2/19/2023 at 10:05 PM, notsonice said:

And visible??? ha ha ha...you keep telling yourself lies and you will believe them if you repeat them enough....Lots of ocean front property in Wyoming to give yourself a test?????? can you spot the blades and nacelle in this post...you will need to clean your screen and squint                                                                                                                                               --.

An even better meme...

 

Edited February 23, 2023 by turbguy

[TailingsPond + 460]

On 2/21/2023 at 11:00 AM, Ecocharger said:

Wind machines are the most obnoxious forms of visual pollution.

Really?

[Ron Wagner + 642]

On 2/21/2023 at 12:09 PM, notsonice said:

oh my the sight of a wind machine pisses you off.....another benefit of Wind Energy....

Enjoy the veiw and the transition.......

I rather see wind turbines and deal with your whining than dealing with crappy air quality and global warming

 

Easy tradeoff

Enjoy the transition

You are dealing with a lot more than just me. 

The U.S. Has Billions for Wind and Solar Projects. Good Luck Plugging Them In.

 

1.2k

Brad Plumer

Thu, February 23, 2023 at 12:53 PM CST

 

 

 

President Joe Biden holds up a wind turbine size comparison chart during a meeting on offshore wind farms in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, June 23, 2022. (Kenny Holston/The New York Times)

Plans to install 3,000 acres of solar panels in Kentucky and Virginia are delayed for years. Wind farms in Minnesota and North Dakota have been abruptly canceled. And programs to encourage Massachusetts and Maine residents to adopt solar power are faltering.

The energy transition poised for takeoff in the United States amid record investment in wind, solar and other low-carbon technologies is facing a serious obstacle: The volume of projects has overwhelmed the nation’s antiquated systems to connect new sources of electricity to homes and businesses.

So many projects are trying to squeeze through the approval process that delays can drag on for years, leaving some developers to throw up their hands and walk away.

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More than 8,100 energy projects — the vast majority of them wind, solar and batteries — were waiting for permission to connect to electric grids at the end of 2021, up from 5,600 the year before, jamming the system known as interconnection.

That’s the process by which electricity generated by wind turbines or solar arrays is added to the grid — the network of power lines and transformers that moves electricity from the spot where it is created to cities and factories. There is no single grid; the United States has dozens of electric networks, each overseen by a different authority.

PJM Interconnection, which operates the nation’s largest regional grid, stretching from Illinois to New Jersey, has been so inundated by connection requests that last year it announced a freeze on new applications until 2026 so that it can work through a backlog of thousands of proposals, mostly for renewable energy.

It now takes roughly four years, on average, for developers to get approval, double the time it took a decade ago.

And when companies finally get their projects reviewed, they often face another hurdle: The local grid is at capacity, and they are required to spend much more than they planned for new transmission lines and other upgrades.

Many give up. Fewer than one-fifth of solar and wind proposals actually make it through the so-called interconnection queue, according to research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

“From our perspective, the interconnection process has become the No. 1 project killer,” said Piper Miller, vice president of market development at Pine Gate Renewables, a major solar power and battery developer.

After years of breakneck growth, large-scale solar, wind and battery installations in the United States fell 16% in 2022, according to the American Clean Power Association, a trade group. It blamed supply chain problems but also lengthy delays connecting projects to the grid.

Electricity production generates roughly one-quarter of the greenhouse gases produced by the United States; cleaning it up is key to President Joe Biden’s plan to fight global warming. The landmark climate bill he signed last year provides $370 billion in subsidies to help make low-carbon energy technologies — like wind, solar, nuclear or batteries — cheaper than fossil fuels.

But the law does little to address many practical barriers to building clean-energy projects, such as permitting holdups, local opposition or transmission constraints. Unless those obstacles get resolved, experts say, there’s a risk that billions in federal subsidies won’t translate into the deep emissions cuts envisioned by lawmakers.

“It doesn’t matter how cheap the clean energy is,” said Spencer Nelson, managing director of research at ClearPath Foundation, an energy-focused nonprofit. “If developers can’t get through the interconnection process quickly enough and get enough steel in the ground, we won’t hit our climate change goals.”

Waiting in Line for Years

In the largest grids, such as those in the Midwest or Mid-Atlantic, a regional operator manages the byzantine flow of electricity from hundreds of different power plants through thousands of miles of transmission lines and into millions of homes.

Before a developer can build a power plant, the local grid operator must make sure the project won’t cause disruptions; if, for instance, existing power lines get more electricity than they can handle, they could overheat and fail. After conducting a detailed study, the grid operator might require upgrades, such as a line connecting the new plant to a nearby substation. The developer usually bears this cost. Then the operator moves on to study the next project in the queue.

This process was fairly routine when energy companies were building a few large coal or gas plants each year. But it has broken down as the number of wind, solar and battery projects has risen sharply over the past decade, driven by falling costs, state clean-energy mandates and, now, hefty federal subsidies.

“The biggest challenge is just the sheer volume of projects,” said Ken Seiler, who leads system planning at PJM Interconnection. “There are only so many power engineers out there who can do the sophisticated studies we need to do to ensure the system stays reliable, and everyone else is trying to hire them, too.”

PJM, the grid operator, now has 2,700 energy projects under study — mostly wind, solar and batteries — a number that has tripled in just three years. Wait times can now reach four years or more, which prompted PJM last year to pause new reviews and overhaul its processes.

Delays can upend the business models of renewable energy developers. As time ticks by, rising materials costs can erode a project’s viability. Options to buy land expire. Potential customers lose interest.

Two years ago, Silicon Ranch, a solar power developer, applied to PJM for permission to connect three 100-megawatt solar projects in Kentucky and Virginia, enough to power tens of thousands of homes. The company, which often pairs its solar arrays with sheep grazing, had negotiated purchase options with local landowners for thousands of acres of farmland.

Today, that land is sitting empty. Silicon Ranch hasn’t received feedback from PJM and now estimates it may not be able to bring those solar farms online until 2028 or 2029. That creates headaches: The company may have to decide whether to buy the land before it even knows whether its solar arrays will be approved.

“It’s frustrating,” said Reagan Farr, the CEO of Silicon Ranch. “We always talk about how important it is for our industry to establish trust and credibility with local communities. But if you come in and say you’re going to invest, and then nothing happens for years, it’s not an optimal situation.”

PJM soon plans to speed up its queues — for instance, by studying projects in clusters rather than one at a time — but needs to clear its backlog first.

‘Imagine if We Paid for Highways This Way’

A potentially bigger problem for solar and wind is that, in many places around the country, the local grid is clogged, unable to absorb more power.

That means if a developer wants to build a new wind farm, it might have to pay not just for a simple connecting line but also for deeper grid upgrades elsewhere. One planned wind farm in North Dakota, for example, was asked to pay for multimillion-dollar upgrades to transmission lines hundreds of miles away in Nebraska and Missouri.

These costs can be unpredictable. In 2018, EDP North America, a renewable energy developer, proposed a 100-megwatt wind farm in southwestern Minnesota, estimating it would have to spend $10 million connecting to the grid. But after the grid operator completed its analysis, EDP learned the upgrades would cost $80 million. It canceled the project.

That creates a new problem: When a proposed energy project drops out of the queue, the grid operator often has to redo studies for other pending projects and shift costs to other developers, which can trigger more cancellations and delays.

It also creates perverse incentives, experts said. Some developers will submit multiple proposals for wind and solar farms at different locations without intending to build them all. Instead, they hope that one of their proposals will come after another developer who has to pay for major network upgrades. The rise of this sort of speculative bidding has further jammed up the queue.

“Imagine if we paid for highways this way,” said Rob Gramlich, president of the consulting group Grid Strategies. “If a highway is fully congested, the next car that gets on has to pay for a whole lane expansion. When that driver sees the bill, they drop off. Or, if they do pay for it themselves, everyone else gets to use that infrastructure. It doesn’t make any sense.”

A better approach, Gramlich said, would be for grid operators to plan transmission upgrades that are broadly beneficial and spread the costs among a wider set of energy providers and users, rather than having individual developers fix the grid bit by bit, through a chaotic process.

There is precedent for that idea. In the 2000s, Texas officials saw that existing power lines wouldn’t be able to handle the growing number of wind turbines being built in the blustery plains of West Texas and planned billions of dollars in upgrades. Texas now leads the nation in wind power. Similarly, MISO, a grid spanning 15 states in the Midwest, recently approved $10.3 billion in new power lines, partly because officials could see that many of its states had set ambitious renewable energy goals and would need more transmission.

But this sort of proactive planning is rare, since utilities, state officials and businesses often argue fiercely over whether new lines are necessary — and who should bear the cost.

“The hardest part isn’t the engineering; it’s figuring out who’s going to pay for it,” said Aubrey Johnson, vice president of system planning at MISO.

Climate Goals at Risk

As grid delays pile up, regulators have taken notice. Last year, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission proposed two major reforms to streamline interconnection queues and encourage grid operators to do more long-term planning.

The fate of these rules is unclear, however. In December, Richard Glick, the former regulatory commission chair who spearheaded both reforms, stepped down after clashing with Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., over unrelated policies around natural gas pipelines. The commission is now split between two Democrats and two Republicans; any new reforms need majority approval.

If the United States can’t fix its grid problems, it could struggle to tackle climate change. Researchers at the Princeton-led REPEAT project recently estimated that new federal subsidies for clean energy could cut electricity emissions in half by 2030. But that assumes transmission capacity expands twice as fast over the next decade. If that doesn’t happen, the researchers found, emissions could actually increase as solar and wind get stymied and existing gas and coal plants run more often to power electric cars.

Massachusetts and Maine offer a warning, said David Gahl, executive director of the Solar and Storage Industries Institute. In both states, lawmakers offered hefty incentives for small-scale solar installations. Investors poured money in, but within months, grid managers were overwhelmed, delaying hundreds of projects.

“There’s a lesson there,” Gahl said. “You can pass big, ambitious climate laws, but if you don’t pay attention to details like interconnection rules, you can quickly run into trouble.”

© 2023 The New York Times Company

 

[Ron Wagner + 642]

On 2/10/2023 at 3:21 AM, Rob Plant said:

Ron some valid points and clearly not all areas offshore are condusive to wind power.

Dont really get the beached whales comment as this happens all the time around the globe where there are no wind turbines

Lots of air time and I have never seen such large whales dead on the beach. Apparently it is directly due to development of wind turbines. It has to do with sonar that deafens the whales so they cannot navigate. That will not fly with ecologists and needs a work around!

 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 2/10/2023 at 9:21 AM, Rob Plant said:

Ron some valid points and clearly not all areas offshore are condusive to wind power.

Dont really get the beached whales comment as this happens all the time around the globe where there are no wind turbines

I can remember on 3 occasions Sperm Whales getting washed up on the  North Norfolk coastline in the 1990's and most critically before any offshore turbines were built. 

 

[Rob Plant + 2,600]

8 hours ago, Ron Wagner said:

Apparently it is directly due to development of wind turbines. It has to do with sonar that deafens the whales so they cannot navigate.

Hi Ron

Can you show evidence where this has been proven that this is the reason? Rather than just someone's theory.

Whales have been beaching themselves for as long as they have existed as far as I can see, I dont see how this point can ever be totally proven.

[Ron Wagner + 642]

It was on a television news report and I have frequently heard from educated sources that sonar used by the navy and marine engineers interfere with whales and dolphins, which are mammals, sonar hearing which causes them to become totally disoriented. That makes sense to me. Maybe I can find a reference for you.

Please find me an old reference prior to modern sonar use by mankind. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_and_sonar 

Note the very high sensitivity of marine mammals that can be hear noises far away. Also listen to sounds of whales communicating with one another. 

Edited February 24, 2023 by Ron Wagner

[Rob Plant + 2,600]

12 minutes ago, Ron Wagner said:

It was on a television news report and I have frequently heard from educated sources that sonar used by the navy and marine engineers interfere with whales and dolphins, which are mammals, sonar hearing which causes them to become totally disoriented. That makes sense to me. Maybe I can find a reference for you.

Please find me an old reference prior to modern sonar use by mankind. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_and_sonar 

Note the very high sensitivity of marine mammals that can be hear noises far away. Also listen to sounds of whales communicating with one another. 

Ron I'm not disagreeing with you, I just find it hard to definitively blame wind turbines for this when whales have been beaching themselves for millennia and we dont know why.

[NickW + 2,714]

4 hours ago, Ron Wagner said:

It was on a television news report and I have frequently heard from educated sources that sonar used by the navy and marine engineers interfere with whales and dolphins, which are mammals, sonar hearing which causes them to become totally disoriented. That makes sense to me. Maybe I can find a reference for you.

Please find me an old reference prior to modern sonar use by mankind. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_and_sonar 

Note the very high sensitivity of marine mammals that can be hear noises far away. Also listen to sounds of whales communicating with one another. 

You'll be campaigning then to have all offshore oil and gas platforms removed. They make load of noise unlike the wind turbines I sail past regularly and see loads of seals in the area. 

[NickW + 2,714]

4 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Ron I'm not disagreeing with you, I just find it hard to definitively blame wind turbines for this when whales have been beaching themselves for millennia and we dont know why.

A significant proportion of dead and beached whales show signs of previous collisions with ships. Makes sense after the collision the injured animal struggles to feed, perhaps due to internal bleeding /broken bones which ultimately leads to the beaching. 

[TailingsPond + 460]

5 hours ago, Ron Wagner said:

It was on a television news report and I have frequently heard from educated sources that sonar used by the navy and marine engineers interfere with whales and dolphins, which are mammals, sonar hearing which causes them to become totally disoriented. T

Not just sonar.  Noise from ship propellers bothers them too.  

Whale watching tourist ships harass them by following them around disrupting their behaviours.

 

Side comment, whales are one of the few animals that really benefited from fossil oil development.  The whale oil industry was killing them off fast and petroleum took the pressure off.

[Ron Wagner + 642]

1 hour ago, Rob Plant said:

Hi Ron

Can you show evidence where this has been proven that this is the reason? Rather than just someone's theory.

Whales have been beaching themselves for as long as they have existed as far as I can see, I dont see how this point can ever be totally proven.

 

22 minutes ago, NickW said:

A significant proportion of dead and beached whales show signs of previous collisions with ships. Makes sense after the collision the injured animal struggles to feed, perhaps due to internal bleeding /broken bones which ultimately leads to the beaching. 

I asked you to show proof that this has happened before mankind started using sonar. Can you back up the statement you just made? The article explains why the sonar spooks the whales and dolphins and they surface more frequently. Modern whalers have used this technique to harvest them. I am not saying that accident's don't happen, but they are rare. The newer types of asian carp are common near me. The Silver Carp, are spooked by motorboats and jump high out of the water. People sometimes shoot them with bows or catch them with nets. Great sport and good fish to eat. Meanwhile states are trying to kill them off while they can provide good food. The states fear that traditional gamefish will be decimated. The silver carp are similar to whales in that they are surface feeders, in fact their eyes are nearer the top of their head and they eat mainly algae. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPeg1tbBt0A Silver carp documentary. 

[TailingsPond + 460]

3 minutes ago, Ron Wagner said:

 

I asked you to show proof that this has happened before mankind started using sonar. Can you back up the statement you just made? The article explains why the sonar spooks the whales and dolphins and they surface more frequently. Modern whalers have used this technique to harvest them. I am not saying that accident's don't happen, but they are rare. The newer types of asian carp are common near me. The Silver Carp, are spooked by motorboats and jump high out of the water. People sometimes shoot them with bows or catch them with nets. Great sport and good fish to eat. Meanwhile states are trying to kill them off while they can provide good food. The states fear that traditional gamefish will be decimated. The silver carp are similar to whales in that they are surface feeders, in fact their eyes are nearer the top of their head and they eat mainly algae. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPeg1tbBt0A Silver carp documentary. 

Carp are highly invasive and will decimate native species.

 

[Ron Wagner + 642]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

You'll be campaigning then to have all offshore oil and gas platforms removed. They make load of noise unlike the wind turbines I sail past regularly and see loads of seals in the area. 

Seals do not use sonar. I have no objection to wind turbines that are agreed to by the local communities, counties, and states. In Illinois they are common, but we have them in cornfields and no few scenic areas that would be affected. Ocean turbines should, in my opinion, be beyond the horizon. They can be further out or shorter, that should not be an issue. I am AOK with wind turbines in acceptable areas, if there are no subsidies and they are not misrepresented to the public. Also the proper disposal and reclamation should be insured. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,129]

On 2/22/2023 at 6:06 PM, turbguy said:

--.-- ←

Yup, Wyoming... NOTHING there... No powerlines to connect to nor any population centers to run power to.   Lots of frost damage.  Lots of hail damage.  Lots of horrendously HIGH winds where HAWT's will turn off as well.  Good news, wind direction is W-->E though. 

The kicker?  Same turbine at sea level generates 33% more power and on the plains down lower, 25% more power.  Montana, South Dakota/North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Texas will have 1000X more turbines in large numbers LONG before Wyoming ever will. Nothing there either. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,129]

48 minutes ago, Ron Wagner said:

Seals do not use sonar. I have no objection to wind turbines that are agreed to by the local communities, counties, and states. In Illinois they are common, but we have them in cornfields and no few scenic areas that would be affected. Ocean turbines should, in my opinion, be beyond the horizon. They can be further out or shorter, that should not be an issue. I am AOK with wind turbines in acceptable areas, if there are no subsidies and they are not misrepresented to the public. Also the proper disposal and reclamation should be insured. 

Uh Ron... Dolphins love riding the front bow wave of power boats... They do not get "lost" due to engine noise being excessively noisy even though it is literally right next to their sensitive ears.

[turbguy + 1,391]

1 hour ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Yup, Wyoming... NOTHING there... No powerlines to connect to nor any population centers to run power to.   Lots of frost damage.  Lots of hail damage.  Lots of horrendously HIGH winds where HAWT's will turn off as well.  Good news, wind direction is W-->E though. 

The kicker?  Same turbine at sea level generates 33% more power and on the plains down lower, 25% more power.  Montana, South Dakota/North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, Texas will have 1000X more turbines in large numbers LONG before Wyoming ever will. Nothing there either. 

Wind turbines (and steam turbines, and gas turbines) use mass flow to extract energy.  Less dense air at altitude is made up by wind speed.

Go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokecherry_and_Sierra_Madre_Wind_Energy_Project

And here:

https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/wind-power

 

...and, just north of Medicine Bow, in the Shirley Basin:

 

Edited February 24, 2023 by turbguy

[notsonice + 1,062]

55 minutes ago, turbguy said:

Wind turbines (and steam turbines, and gas turbines) use mass flow to extract energy.  Less dense air at altitude is made up by wind speed.

Go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokecherry_and_Sierra_Madre_Wind_Energy_Project

And here:

https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/wind-power

 

...and, just north of Medicine Bow, in the Shirley Basin:

 

boy that is scenic...I bet the sheep are pissed that their views of their sagebrush grazing areas have those pesky wind turbines in them........BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Windy Wyoming finally found a use along with sheep grazing...something to look at when traveling on I-80 an the way to scenic Rock Springs....One windy stretch of boredom

Yeeeeeee Haaaawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

[Ron Wagner + 642]

2 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Uh Ron... Dolphins love riding the front bow wave of power boats... They do not get "lost" due to engine noise being excessively noisy even though it is literally right next to their sensitive ears.

I am aware of that. I have witnessed large schools gathering around boats also. I was talking about Asian carp being sensitive to the noise. 

Here is some good info. on how sonar affects some sea mammals.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_mammals_and_sonar