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View Full Version : Texas Meets Renewable Energy Goals 15 Years Early




libertybrewcity
05-24-2010, 11:44 PM
Leave it to Texas...and the free market!

Texas has reached its goal of having 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity this year, 15 years earlier than scheduled, thanks to an ample supply of West Texas wind.

According to a report (.doc) filed with the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) Friday, the Lonestar State has 10,367 megawatts of renewable energy capacity, and generated 21,594,278 megawatt-hours of clean electricity in 2009.

Ninety-nine percent of those megawatts come from wind power. West Texas has some of the country’s best wind resources, and has experienced explosive wind power development since ERCOT’s renewable energy program was signed into law by then-Governor George W. Bush in 1999.

Continue: http://www.triplepundit.com/2010/05/texas-meets-renewable-energy-goals-15-years-early

james1906
05-25-2010, 12:38 AM
Texas has reached its goal of having 10,000 megawatts of renewable energy capacity this year, 15 years earlier than scheduled, thanks to an ample supply of wind coming out of Rick Perry's mouth.


corrected

TinCanToNA
05-25-2010, 12:52 AM
Haha, the word Reliable and the phrase wind power appearing in the same paragraph. Such irony.

News flash: there are literally no benefits to wind farms aside from financial ones to certain investors thanks to subsidies.
1) If you're concerned about CO2 emissions, wind power has a record of producing more CO2 than it offsets. How can this possibly be? Because wind is the epitome of an unreliable source, hence it must be backed up (essentially Megawatt for Megawatt) by conventional power. Conventional power which is turning on and off, which substantially hampers its efficiency compared to its constant-run efficiency.
One source:http://www.clepair.net/windsecret.html
Subpoint a) Additionally, there is virtually no chance that a given wind turbine will produce the energy, over its entire lifetime, that was consumed in just making it, its foundation, and installation and maintenance over its life time.

2) If you want power, wind blows when you don't necessarily need it. Peak winds are often in the spring and fall (depending on location), but peak demands are summer and winter.
Subpoint a) Almost any other utilization of square footage for power generation would be more efficiency. Wind mills are enormous, heavy, and require strong, wide bases. While they will not necessarily sink into the Earth when placed at sea, such a great width required to support the weight, they make for very inefficient use of land.

3) Wind turbines, even the newer designs, are bird and bat hunters of extraordinary efficiency. They can really muck up wildlife in the regions.
Subpoint a) If the world went completely bonkers and went 100% wind power, covering most of the Earth in turbines, the extinction of birds capable of flight may perhaps be the worst of our problems. While anthropogenic global warming is in question to some, what nobody can question is that wind, although seemingly infinite, is in fact finite and if slowed to any statistically significant extent it will very likely affect the climate of the Earth to some extent, especially in the areas of evaporation and global heat transfer. But that's doomsday talk, and is only applicable to a world gone mad on wind power.


However, there are some decent applications for wind power, but they cannot be called "wind farms" and they do not resemble power plants usually. A truly "emissionless" setup is to have a wind turbine power a screw which refills a hydro-power generator, therefore the irregularity of the wind is irrelevant because the power is derived from the hydro power and the wind energy is stored in the gravitational potential energy of the water. This setup, however, has many areas of power loss and hence is inefficient.

In remote areas, powering low-power devices on battery backup where it would be prohibitive to hook them up to a grid can make sense.

Specialty engineering applications, such as additional power needed for airplane modules on modified airplanes where the main power supply was not designed to provide the power necessary for the module being tested or utilized, have a role for wind power.

In general though, unless there's some magic design and setup being utilized in Texas, there's no benefit to all those Megawatts generated from wind. So many more were expended in generating the steel, aluminum, concrete, transportation, installation, and so forth than they will ever reap*. That is, of course, barring some absurd improvement in efficiency of manufacture or design.


* - There is a caveat. It is possible that under ideal conditions the people of Texas have imported energy under this wind farm scheme, assuming many things but primarily that the parts were not manufactured in Texas. It's a net energy loss for the world, but perhaps not for Texas.

WorldonaString
05-25-2010, 01:32 AM
TinCanTona, thanks for the in depth analysis. YOu sound very knowledgeable in this area...could you share your views on what the right answers are for energy independence and sustainability?

Elwar
05-25-2010, 05:41 AM
I lived in Texas and liked how their electricity was set up and truly deregulated in that competition was allowed at the production level (I lived in Georgia when they "deregulated" natural gas and all they really did was allowed competition of the middle man but not of production or distribution, it ended horribly).

Whenever I'd move I'd have a choice between several electric companies, whether co-ops or some other electric source. The power company I had in San Antonio charged about 7 cents per kW but would charge an extra 5 cents or so (varying based on gas prices) if demand was too high and they had to start burning gas to keep up. My first year I'd see that 12 cent spike a lot throughout the summer when people were using the A/C (I also lived right near the electric company and could hear them turning on the gas generators). Then they offered a flat rate 9 cent wind energy rates saying that the money from wind customers would go toward adding wind power to their electricity source. I jumped on the 9 cent flat rate mainly because I saw gas prices going up and didn't want to get hit on my electric bill. It worked out well. Gas prices shot up that year and people's electric bills were sky high but mine was locked in at 9 cents for the year.

Allowing competition at all levels is key. Competition at the source is big because it encourages new ideas and progress. Competition at the distribution level is tricky but would probably be possible if we had private roads that the road companies could rent out under-road space to distribution companies with wires, water lines, heat, etc.

noxagol
05-25-2010, 06:04 AM
Wind and solar power won't work the way they are trying to use it, which is conventionally. They still want big power grids that they can control. Wind and solar would work best on an individual basis I think. A wind turbine on top of a house can produce a few kw, and during the summer here, near St. Louis, MO, I use on average 7.5kw. Granted, I live in a kind of small house. But solar panels and one or two windmills would provide all the power I need. Couple this with tying everyone's panels and mills into the grid and have regular coal, gas, nuclear plants running to supply power to places that are running poorly on their own, THAT could work. But using giant banks of windmills wont work too well. New sources of power require new ideas of delivery.

sevin
05-25-2010, 06:13 AM
I lived in Texas and liked how their electricity was set up and truly deregulated in that competition was allowed at the production level.

I love the competition in electricity in Texas, but it definitely means you have to do your homework. I can see now why some people want power regulated, but I'd rather do the research myself and make my own decision.

Someone recommended Ambit Energy to me, and they were the most unprofessional assholes I've ever dealt with. I think the guy who set up my account was on his cell phone at home. Turns out they offer people free power if they can sign up 15 others. It's a multi-level marketing scam that will not end well. I started reading reviews online and they seem to screw everybody over, charging people for power even when the power is out, huge late fees even though you pay on time, etc. I finally when with First Choice power.

TinCanToNA
05-25-2010, 01:17 PM
TinCanTona, thanks for the in depth analysis. YOu sound very knowledgeable in this area...could you share your views on what the right answers are for energy independence and sustainability?
Thanks for the compliment, but I am just an avid amateur at this stuff.

By definition, no energy source is "sustainable" indefinitely, as even the sun will run out of fuel eventually, but there are some sources that are sustainable for very long periods of time. Speaking strictly for the United States, coal is the only solution that will enhance independence while also being "sustainable" for quite some time. Those worried about CO2 obviously do not like this, as CO2 is inherent in hydrocarbon combustion. Further, coal always has other, more substantial pollutants such as sulfur, which can be a problem. No energy source is without its problems, but coal is by far the best for meeting the energy independence and "sustainability" goals of the United States, at least in my opinion.

Nuclear power has a role too, but mainly because of artificially concern over CO2 emissions. It is flat-out more expensive than hydrocarbon, but not orders of magnitude more expensive like the "alternative" energy sources. On the other hand, it is a somewhat efficient use of land, even when waste is considered.

Hydropower where applicable is a great way to harness energy from the sun (which is why water is "uphill" to begin with--it got energy from the sun). The sun is ultimately the only energy source that can be measured in the billions of years, so for "very very long-term" sustainability, we need energy derived from the sun. Virtually all of the "alternative" energy sources derive their energy ultimately from the sun and its effects (except tidal, which is roughly half solar and half lunar). However, among them, hydro power is far and away the most efficient. The problem is that you cannot simply create a dam anywhere, and all dams change the landscape substantially.

A real tangible step is to enhance efficiency or mitigate usage. Right now energy is cheap because the world is awash in oil, not just the gulf coast. Depending on who you talk to, we have probably hit "Peak Cheap Oil" whereby oil will start to become substantially more expensive in future decades because new finds will not catch up with demand. The only meaningful way to deal with this is to enhance energy efficiency, which unfortunately means electric cars will play a role. Electric cars and hybrids are substantial detractors from our goal of energy independence because virtually all battery materials (I think the figure is 97%-100%) are produced in China, so we trade the basket of dozens of oil-producing nations for just a single one, China. Further, electric cars are a radical departure from gasoline cars because of the nature of charging them. This will likely mean a substantial increase in demand from the energy grid as many will charge during the day as well as at night, unless there's some sort of regulation controlling that. That's hardly a libertarian solution, of course.


Anyways, in summary, there is a reason why so much of our power comes from the traditional sources. They are the most efficient at delivering power, in spite of their drawbacks. Change is not impossible, but changing into devices which as far as I know still cannot reap an energy ROI greater than 1 is asinine.

Zippyjuan
05-25-2010, 08:05 PM
Wow. I did not realize that Texas uses so much energy. They are #5 in per capital energy consumption in the US. Alaska, Wyoming, Louisiana, and North Dakota are the only ones higher. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/hf.jsp?incfile=sep_sum/plain_html/rank_use_per_cap.html In total electric usage, they are #1 ahead of California which has a larger population (on this list California has the third lowest per capita consumption). They are also #1 in petroleum consumption (total state consumption), natural gas, and coal consumptions as well.

1836er
05-25-2010, 09:40 PM
Wow. I did not realize that Texas uses so much energy. They are #5 in per capital energy consumption in the US. Alaska, Wyoming, Louisiana, and North Dakota are the only ones higher. http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/states/hf.jsp?incfile=sep_sum/plain_html/rank_use_per_cap.html In total electric usage, they are #1 ahead of California which has a larger population (on this list California has the third lowest per capita consumption). They are also #1 in petroleum consumption (total state consumption), natural gas, and coal consumptions as well.

Or another way of looking at it... We Texans are doing more than our "fair share" in terms of wealth creation... the rest of y'all need to get on the ball and start driving more and cranking up those ACs.:)