There is one aspect of wind-turbines that has always dismayed me. When Turbo-mavens post raves about the latest number of mega-watts now on stream - I always wince. (I'm delighted, but still I flinch.). That's because I long ago doped out the reason George Bush as Governor of Texas created the wind farm initiative, back when. T. Boone Pickens the oil tycoon turned windfarmer got the idea and is poised to take advantage, too. Looks like our current president grasped the concept and is spreading the wealth via entitlements to those who build wind farms under the blanket of subsization and guarantee's that all the power will be paid for at parity, used or not; in the Presidents' bail out plan, too. Very slick.
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I have to admit that my favorite "Invention" is the wind-turbine. However their style and construction are so variable that it's hard to pin down which is my personal fave, albeit the tethered, pressurized helium blimps http://www.magenn.com/index.php floating 5 miles high or so, making the scene of late, are my turbines of choice just now... There is a practical reason that I admire that particular model and favor their deployment - they are too high to create the slow motion light shutter effect that adversely impacts not a few humans and animals and the lack of discernible noise "down wind" of their location that could effect most living entities on or near the ground. Being so high, tehered wind blimps are exposed to sustained, much stronger than surface winds and will miss most storm problems. However, admittedly, on occasion, thunder storms in the vicinity would necessitate their being winched down, most likely.
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More on point: The winds in our neck of the woods, on the surface layer, often are too light during sometimes extended times of the day to make them turn at all. That factoid happens to be why EXXON and Valero and other oil producers out in west Texas are making a pile of money - Whole farms of wind-turbines out there are often motionless during the day. But at night the Catabatic winds are predictably robust and because the local electric load is so light during late night and there is no adequate grid to carry their power away to far off cities - they have gobs of surplus electricity that wind farm operators auction off at penny's on the dollar to the oil pump jack owners that happen to be a stones throw away from wind turbine masts. The subsidy from the State of Texas covers wind farmers for their chronic revenue short fall, paid by urban electricity users and taxes under the guise of green energy initiatives.
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I would like to see a standard made that adjusts for the actual (not announced, designed maximum) mean power output of mega-watt wind turbine farms. While we in the States are demanding truth in bail out and truth in banking, etc. I'd also like the truth about how much energy wind-farms actually produce between 11 am to 6 pm during summer when electrical demand is peaked and at its highest need in our air conditioned, power hungry state. We are being asked to fund state bonds and national bail out funds to build a national and west to east state electric grid.. So? Just how viable will the need for distribution from far off wind farms be, when the demand for electricity is stretched to the limit during peak loads and existing wind farms in west Texas can't actually, currently generate and supply the demands of local towns and cities on an average day during daylight?
I'd also like to know why wind farms don't power water pumps to lift water from holding lakes up to higher holding lakes during the night when wind energy is abundant, and then re-use the stored water for hydro power during the day when demand for that energy is highest instead of discounted so oil companies can make mega million record profits subsidized by rate payers and state taxes? It seems to me that stored energy in the form of two and three level lakes using relativlely reliable night time air flow to power the pumps for recharging them, are a relatively simple no brainer solution.
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These are questions outside my expertise, but I hope some one or more of your bright minds can take up the challenge. Anyone?
pro-active advocate
