http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/ Engadget Comments for Wind farm announced for Lake Erie, could produce 1,000 megawatts by 2020 http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
well, if you're referring to mW, you're referring to "milliwatts", which won't do much of anything on a grand scale.

But, one-thousand MEGA Watts is considerably higher, which is MW. Just a little clarification...]]>May 24th 2010 2:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
"There is no Silver Bullet for solving the energy problem. A combination of efficient and renewable energy sources working together can easily solve it though. Obviously wave power won't help those living in a desert or far from water but lets look at some place like the Great Plains. Plenty of land to build a solar panel farm AND wind farm. Again, there is no one solution we have to use everything we have together in the appropriate environments.

Disclaimer: I do not consider myself a subject expert for environmental issues and I did not invent the Internet."]]>May 24th 2010 2:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
They're all pretty rough estimates, though, and I've seen some numbers that put the power consumption of a US home at much higher (up to 4000 W), but 1000 MW is still a pretty large number. For comparison, the largest single wind facility in the US (and world) currently is at Roscoe, TX and generates 782 MW.]]>May 24th 2010 2:19PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
Wish they would include a cost/benefit analysis. Great that a couple hundred thousand homes can be powered by this tech in 10 years. I love that it's "green". But just how much are we paying in the way of a premium to move from away from cheaper energy alternatives?

Should be pretty simple to figure out what one of these costs to purchase and install and then maintain annually. Figure out how many homes a single one can power. Then you have a baseline of initial cost plus annual cost per household. From there it's a quick calc to see how that cost compares to what those homes are paying today with coal fired electricity (or whatever they use in the area).]]>May 24th 2010 2:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/everyone needs to stop thinking about the initial 'premium' costs and start thinking of the long term costs

wind farms are amazing for long term costs, though solar panels are better, people call them ugly so dont put them on their houses / desert (some screwed up people i tell you)


id love to know if its at all possible to make the material for the turbines out of solar panels, 2 in 1 yeah!! :P

i should patent that XD]]>May 24th 2010 2:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:57PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:59PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/In about 100 years people are going to look back at how stupid we were for using nuclear. Radiating ourselves is not the answer, wind is a much better idea.]]>May 24th 2010 3:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
dammit beat me to it]]>May 24th 2010 3:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
What about building one nuclear power plant instead?]]>May 24th 2010 3:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Exactly the comparison I was going to make. 1000MW is about the output of an average sized nuclear power plant to answer the very first question. But that would not be green of course. ]]>May 24th 2010 3:35PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 3:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Actually it will power one house. That house belongs to Lebron James and they'll hook him up in a vain attempt to keep him in Cleveland.]]>May 24th 2010 3:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
Noise could be a problem with all those turbines though.]]>May 24th 2010 3:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/In about 100 years people are going to look back at how stupid we were for using wind power. Large wind turbines take over 15 years to generate the same amount of energy it takes to build them in the first place. The amount of concrete needed to stabilise them is huge and concrete production is one of the most energy intensive in the world.

As you pointed out nuclear does have its flaws though. The waste produced in a whole year by a nuclear power plant can fit in a London taxi cab. That is not very much. This is without considering that new technology has recently been developed (but not put into use yet) that can utilise the waste products as a nuclear fuel to produce even more energy.

Nuclear is probably our best bet until something better (aka fusion) can be produced]]>May 24th 2010 3:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/I don't consider myself an expert, but I have been reading quite a few studies in my research towards my Master's degree in Power Engineering.

1. Most estimates suggest that we will need something like 1000-1500 GW of newly installed clean energy sources to reduce our carbon footprint (in the U.S.) by 80% from 2005 levels. This is the target that's being set right now by congress and has been suggested by several other organizations. This one installation is 1GW, so imagine 1000 of these if we'd do it all with wind.

2. The most specific estimates I've seen, based on U.S. Department of Energy studies actually state that for a utility wind (both on- and off-shore) have the potentially lowest cost, with on-shore wind being overall lower than nuclear, and on-shore wind covering about the same cost spread as nuclear. Estimates of nuclear costs, however, are reliant on federal loan guarantees, since new plants (even without evolutionary plant designs) represent quite a risk, with literally billion-dollar pricetags.

3. Solar represents a very attractive option, but most likely not to utilities in the next 20 years. Prices to utilities for wind, nuclear, and non-carbon-captured coal and natural gas sources generally range from about 5-8 cents per kilowatt while solar (both concentrated/thermal and photovoltaic panel installations) are expected to be about twice that. It is competitive to end-users for local installation, however, because it's long-term costs are still competitive with retail prices of electricity at about 10-13 cents per kWh.

These are long-term costs, and are based on cost ranges. This data is from a paper from the National Academy of Engineers available (for purchase) here:http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12710.html

These estimates are based on the Department of Energy's Annual Energy Outlook 2007. This report is used as a basis of comparison for many long-term planning studies as well as to gauge the effects of legislature proposed by Congress.]]>May 24th 2010 3:47PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 3:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Every single year US nuclear power plants produce 4,000 tons of highly radioactive waste that need to be stored and sealed for the next hundred thousand years or so. That is NOT green!]]>May 24th 2010 3:50PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Should have included a link to the 2010 Annual Energy Outlook .
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/]]>May 24th 2010 3:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station near Toledo outputs 889 MW. Nearly a thousand times what this wind farm will output. With a single nuclear reactor.

How much will it cost to build and maintain these things in the middle of the lake? How much dirty energy will be used during construct and maintenance?

Wind is bullshit. We need to take whatever dollars are going into wind power R&D and put them into solar power technologies so we can see those new breakthroughs used in cost-effective production units sometime in the next two decades. Then, until solar can sustain us, we need to build Gen III nuclear facilities, and kick-start the hydrogen economy for real.]]>May 24th 2010 3:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/GREAT SCOTT!!!]]>May 24th 2010 4:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/No offense, but before you go on a rant, check your units.
889 MW=0.889 GW. This is a 1000 MW=1.0 GW farm.

This farm is expected to produce as much power as the nuclear plant, though I'll grant that it is an intermittent source.


]]>May 24th 2010 4:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
That's why I asked about initial costs AND maintenance costs going forward.

Look, if the initial cost is the equivalent of $20k per household and on-going cost (maintenance) is going to be roughly equivalent to what we pay today I don't see how this makes sense (I don't have any idea what those costs are - $20k used here for illustration only).

You can't pretend that the initial cost doesn't exist. You also can't always look at the big picture down the road. We have to PAY for this stuff NOW. If my local gov't proposed a plan that would keep my energy rates at where they are today but was going to charge me an extra $20k through local taxation to cover "going green" I would throw a fit.

I'm all for renewable energy. Great idea. I just want to know what it's going to cost. Is it too much to ask that we get some very basic pieces of information around what this technology will cost if we were to adopt it?]]>May 24th 2010 4:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
Moreover haven't we got enough wind without these fans?]]>May 24th 2010 4:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/I don't know if it was clear in my post, but the "long-term" costs that I cited were levelized, long-term numbers. That is, the entire cost of new generation + fuel over the lifetime of the installation, referred to (in this case) U.S. dollars in 2007.

I can assure you that wind energy is quite affordable. If we assume some sort of cap-and-trade or any other factor increases the cost of coal and natural gas (for example, as is not unlikely, we exhaust our most accessible NG sources) wind becomes the most affordable technology. For today...new investment has the potential to make now-expensive sources like solar and geothermal power much cheaper.

(I realize you weren't responding to me, but I figured I'd give a shot at clearing some things up)]]>May 24th 2010 4:37PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/I'm not American. I'm German. But I want to give you a perspective of what's the situation here so that you can decide. For long Germany was the major wind market in the world because the government gave it a kick start by passing a law that bound the providers to buy the energy at a certain higher price than average. So the wind sector flourished. There was no tax money involved.
The consumer has the choice to buy the electricity from the source he wants. The standard energy mix from fossil fuels and nuclear or green. And many many people and businesses chose green. In 2006 the monthly electricity bill of an average household purchasing green power was only €0,50 higher. Projections are that with the rise of costs in fossil fuels and the pace of technological improvements in green technology, wind energy will be the cheapest energy source in Germany within the next 5-10 years.
The state where I live in already produces more than 30% of it's energy needs with wind power. Now you know the situation here. I let you make up your mind. :-)]]>May 24th 2010 5:14PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/I will add a source link for what I wrote above about the german energy market. Didn't know that 'google translate' also works with PDF files. Cool. This is a translation from a survey by an independent clean energy organization from 2006. Also interesting, the paragraph about nuclear energy subsidies compared to green energy on page 3.
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wind-energie.de%2Ffileadmin%2Fdokumente%2FHintergrundpapiere%2FWirtschaft_und_Strompreise%2FHG_Subventionen.pdf&sl=de&tl=en]]>May 24th 2010 5:32PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 5:51PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 5:58PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
Oh, shit. If we're not going to see a benefit for 15 years, it ain't worth doing.

How about talking to the folks in Vegas who run a ridiculous amount of lighting 24/7 thanks to the cheap electricity provided by Hoover dam. Maybe they regret the up-front investment and wish they would have spent the money elsewhere.

15 years for break-even on the construction cost is very attractive. The aformentioned Hoover Dam was a 50-year construction loan. Hoover Dam generates 2080 Megawatts and was fantastically more expensive to build and operate than these windmills. Not to mention that hydroelectric requires specific geographical arrangements and in many cases poses a negative environmental impact.]]>May 24th 2010 6:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 6:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 6:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 8:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 9:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 9:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Modern nuclear power plants can supply in the Giga-Watt range.
That is GW...

Doc Brown calls it a Jiga-Watt]]>May 24th 2010 10:39PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 25th 2010 12:48AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://bit.ly/bloom-energy-will-change-the-world]]>May 25th 2010 1:12PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Jul 26th 2010 4:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
In the estimates about how bad wind and solar are, there's never any mention of our methods constant and exponential pace of improvement. Every perspective offered seems as though the current statistics are set in stone and will continue perpetually.
All of the talk about maintaining expensive photovoltaics? I think I read HERE ON ENGADGET that there's work being done RIGHT NOW to make cheaper organic photovoltaics. I read that some lady discovered how to separate hydrogen out of water using a virus! Talk about poor wind returns? I read that changing the configuration from straight lines to patterns can increase yield ten-fold!

This is all very nascent technology. It's too soon for the foolhardy to start digging a grave.]]>Aug 3rd 2010 2:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:10PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/May 24th 2010 2:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/Now we just need a delorean and a flux capacitor...]]>May 24th 2010 2:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/http://www.engadget.com/2010/05/24/wind-farm-announced-for-lake-erie-could-produce-1-000-megawatts/
1.21 juggawats is, by definition, enough to travel forward in time until the inauguration of the first Insane Clown Posse president. ]]>May 24th 2010 2:55PM