Uh oh
Mr. Pickens -- looks like you've got some competition down in Texas. With the aforesaid energy baron
scraping plans to plant 687 massive wind turbines in Texas' panhandle, Baryonyx has stepped in to do the honors via a slightly different project. Just this past week, Baryonyx won a bid to create a pair of sizable offshore wind farms that Jerry Patterson -- Commissioner of the Texas General Land Office -- says "could be the biggest offshore wind farms in the nation." Additionally, another lease was granted for a prospective wind energy development in the panhandle, and now the company is eager to get going on the green energy gigs. The best part of this whole plan involves that actual purpose of the turbines; aside from providing juice for grids, they'll also be used to energize forthcoming Tier 4 server farms, with a minimum of 750 megawatts of power being pumped to two coastal areas all the while. Ma Earth would be proud.
[Via
CNET]
Read - Baryonyx announcement [PDF]
Read - Patterson announcement [PDF]
posted Jul 23rd 2009 8:27AM
Dinosaurs building wind farms?
Companies named after dinosaurs are automatically more awesome!
w00t McAllen Texas!
Pickens abandoned his wind energy sham because all he was interested in was cashing in on initial investor outlays and then selling. It didn't work like he hoped. After many years it looks like even Mr. Pickens' magic is starting to falter.
Wind farms seem like a terrific idea, but wind farms in the Gulf seem a bit too vulnerable during hurricane season. I'll admit that's an awful lot of wind to harness but you'd have to have some very strong structures to take the punishment. The U.S. should put up wind farms on land wherever they have steady winds. Wind is too good a resource to waste.
...Not to mention all the exotic birds that (use to thrive) on the Texas coastline that are going to get chopped up. No bird lover, just saying, someone is going to make a big issue out of it.
contemporary wind turbines do not spin fast enough to kill birds (anymore than a tree, tower or similar shaped structure does) and actually shut off during winds that are too high, there are also new designs where the blade shape shifts to make the most of any wind speed
Most birds avoid the *whumpwhumpwhump* of your standard blade. It's not like it's an unavoidable airplane zooming around at 200 miles per hour.
I wonder what they have in mind for the inevitable cat 5 hurricane thats coming this year. Though honestly, a GIANT propeller would be really cool to see spun up by 150mph winds.
That hurricane will generate enough power to last them an entire year lol. If only there was a way to store it.
Perhaps a little dangerous as well?
On a different note, has anyone read about the impact that wind farms have on the environment? I am all for sustainable energy, but it is interesting how no matter what we do, there is a potential for damage. For example, massive wind farms have shown to decrease the air flow behind them (common sense), but this can also affect the temperature by a couple of degrees. In some instances, it also forces the wind towards the ground, thus drying the soil beneath. Just a couple of interesting points, take it for what its worth. I'm not sure how it would have a large scale affect, then again, neither did our ancestors when they began burning oil, wood....
@ JStro
You make great points. Those are the things that must be considered before our non-scientist legislators make hasty decisions.
Just like solar power alters the albedo, tidal generators affect tidal flows etc etc... But I do find it interesting how these are seen as huge reasons to avoid them until we can find something perfect... instead building nuclear power plants which effect water temperatures, produce nuclear waste etc, or coal power plants which etc. etc. etc.
I wouldn't be one to say that we should go blindly into new areas, nor would I say that the effects shouldn't be researched; it is more that I feel that we shouldn't wait until we find perfection before we move on. Everything we do has an impact, and that is ok, so long as the impact is moderate in scale and magnitude, and within the limits of the natural homoeostasis of the planet.
So IMO I figure we should continue researching, but continue building at the same time. I admire that people are concerned about the potential impacts... if we had been that cautious during the industrial era the world would be VERY different; for better or worse.
Coal fired power plants have a far larger impact than wind farms.
"Scraping plans" -- that sounds like it's gonna leave a rash.
"minimum of 750 megawatts"? I wonder how they get that minimum even when the wind is calm.
They have a pontoon out front carrying a guy with a MASSIVE beach towel who flaps it like crazy to generate the required breeze to generate 750MW ;-)
Uhmm, and why is it a good idea to put server farms in one of the hottest parts of the country? Cooling is no trivial matter, they will have increased costs, and huge energy needs for that. Sure, its wind power, but this solution doesn't seam all that "green".
It's the thought that counts, all else is irrelevent.
because server farms are put in places where they are unlikely to be damaged by disaster, natural or otherwise. The cost or rebuilding is greater than the cost of A/C in the long run.
There's a large number of data centers in Eastern Oregon and Washington - powered by uber cheap and reliable hydro power (now supplemented by wind power too)
I have visions of one of these huge turbines on a tether being blown a couple of hundred feet up in the air during a Cat 5 hurricane and then gracefully falling back to earth to its mounting pod, all the while spinning at 150 mph and generating enough power to make sure none of the lights go out in Galveston.
What to you take to have these visions? They sound exciting!
Great to see some new investment into wind energy! Now if only the goverment would look at installing homebuilt wind generator power like this everyone would be able to produce their own energy and have a grid style wind farm.
Mustang Island, sweet! That's just down the road. The only problem is that South Texas has a big bird lobby agains wind power. As if coal plants would be so much better... Cats kill more birds than windmills, but I think placing them a bit off-shore will reduce the minute numbers even more.
Apparently they only want to run the servers certain times per day, and dont need a constant energy source given that the average capacity factor for wind energy is around 33%...so the other 67% they can run off of coal, ng, or nukes. Bravo for a very 'green' and well thought out plan ;-)
I don't understand why all the big companies don't build massive data centers along the coast in cold regions. I know latency is an issue, so they can't go to Siberia (at least for companies serving North America or western europe), but why doesn't Google/MS/Yahoo/etc build data centers in mid-latitude Canada along the coast/rivers/lakes ? Then they just pump in ambient air during most months, and use the nearby water source for cooling during the summer? This should dramatically reduce cooling costs, not to mention they surely could increase server density.
Because you need access to power. Wind farms get put where the wind blows all the time and solar farms get put where the sun shines all the time. Coal plants get put near the coal... and so forth.
You can dramatically decrease power needs for heating/cooling by building underground and using geothermal pumps. Geothermal works the same and just as well in a hot climate as a cold one.
@Nicole
Overall, your points are good. However, you are leaving out hydroelectric power, which would no doubt be built in the same river that could be used for cooling. One good place for this would be Quebec and eastern canada where it is a cool environment and they get nearly 100% of their power from hydroelectric dams. I'm sure there are others, and certainly the nordic countries would be great place for servers as well to server eastern europe.
I've heard of geothermal for heat, but not for cooling? I assume it would be taking advantage of the constant, year-around cooler temperature underground. (60 degress maybe?)
Interesting article on offshore server hosting
http://ezinearticles.com/?Offshore-Dedicated-Server-Hosting---Why-Consider-Hosting-on-Anonymous-Dedicated-Servers?&id=2968254