World’s Largest Wind Farm Planned In Oregon
The Portland Business Journal reports that Oregon has just been given the go-ahead by The Oregon Energy Facility Siting Council to build a 909 MW wind farm in the north-central part of the state. That’s enough energy to power 200,000 homes.
The Shepherd’s Flat Wind Farm will contain 303 wind turbines and will double the state’s wind-generating capacity. It will boost the local economy by creating 250 to 300 new jobs, and lease payments to landowners will supplement farm incomes.
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However, the farm does face one challenge: Northwest power agencies claim to only be able to handle 1500 more megawatts of wind power on the grid. With new renewable energy projects popping up all over the place, it might be time to start thinking about some serious solutions to this problem.
If all goes according to plan, the Oregonian wind farm—scheduled to be in operation by 2010— will ultimately be overtaken in capacity by T. Boone Pickens’ 4000 MW Texas wind farm, which should be completed by 2014.
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Power form wind and solar is a great idea… in theory, but there is one major problem… its not consistent. The sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. So what do we do when we hit peak power for the day and theres no wind? we burn coal or natural gas or use nuclear. Wind and solar are great supplements and should be used whenever possible, but everyone needs to understand its not always feasible.
Also, what about all the land that wind farms and solar panels take up… if we wanted to power the US only wiht solar every single square inch would need to be covered by panels.
No doubt, this is good. Solar needs attention too, and geothermal, and … All forms should be used in geographic areas where they make sense. At the same time people should not be naive by thinking we can escape fossil fuels quickly. The big problem is that the U.S. needs a broad based, well founded*** national energy policy that will address today’s problems with today’s wherewithal (like more oil production, clean-coal technology, etc., that some don’t like), while working toward a more secure (economically, enviornmentally, …) future. The plan needs to be devloped by engineers (like me), not politicians. I think it is almost hopeless though; there are too many special interests, too much ignorance about energy technologies, too much bureaucracy, …
*** example of this is the push toward ethanol fuel. It was not well founded in that it did not recognize the effect on food prices. Now, the ethanol idea is not all bad, it just needs to be folded into the broad based, well founded energy policy I cited here.
androo:
I spent the first 17 years of my life very close to the Florida shore line. I often gazed out over a flat calm ocean and even spent some days water skiing on that ocean.
Even on the shore, the wind can often be gone for many hours at a time. In addition, those large structures - and their underwater supporting structures will either be put into deep water or interfere with an already stressed coral reef system.
Wind is not a panacea and not always the best environmental choice. That is especially true in areas like the entire southeast section of the US - including Florida - where wind maps show that the potential for power production is low.
[...] read more | digg story [...]
John (Vertography) wrote:
“Not sure why they would single out wind power, after all, once generated it is the same as any other power on the grid. So, if that means their grid can only handle another 1500MW of power…”
I think it has to do with the intermittent nature of wind. The grid can only use so much from an inconsistent source such as wind. An online lecture found at Stanford on iTunes includes a good explanation of this problem while offering the solution of combining numerous wind farms to increase reliability. It’s a very recent addition to the “Woods Energy Seminar.” It’s called “The Importance of Wind Power in a Clean and Renewable Future.”
Wind farms , Nuclear, Solar take too long to implement and require huge amounts of capital. For a 20 year lifecycle after all that investment.
Ethanol can do all this now! In World War 2 when we were embargoed we changed over to ethanol in 6 mos.
500b spent on Iraq would have made made us energy independent.
5% of unusable farmland would do it
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[...] World’s Largest Wind Farm Planned in Oregon [...]
I hope more and more cities do this, 200,000 homes is such a significate number. Dugg.
Wind is intermittent,John, so we will never be able to be 100% wind.
And wind is NOT 100% “green”. Everything comes with a price; bats and birds are at risk in our new wind economy, as are forests, which many power speculators have an eye to cut down on the windiest ridges. And all these wind farms in rural areas support sprawl to get workers near them, they encourage road building to remote locations, and they require massive amounts of production inputs.
We are still trying to engineer our way out of the core problem: too many people using too many resources.
[...] is once again taking the lead with renewable energy by installing the country’s first highway solar energy project. The [...]