http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/ Engadget Comments for Terra-Gen lands major funding, expects to complete America's largest wind farm next year 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/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 9:46AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Alright everyone, downrank away.]]>Jul 26th 2010 9:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 9:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 9:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 9:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
They could just be blowing hot air with their wind farms...]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
[Morbo voice] WINDMILLS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!!! [/Morbo voice]]]>Jul 26th 2010 1:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 9:58AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 10:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
when will we finally build Thorium reactors? much safer, much smaller, and almost limitless energy potential (easier to find/extract, and much more plentiful than uranium)]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 10:02AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
(Source: American Wind Energy Association) NextEra Energy Resources provides nearly 25 percent of the wind energy market (35,000 Megawatts).
41% Wind
37% Natural Gas
14% Nuclear
5% Oil
2% Hydro
1% Solar/Other
]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Seriously wind is OK as it does have a return on investment, unlike solar, but the amount of land it takes up for the gain is marginal at best. I'm betting the Yuka storage facility for over 100 years of nuclear waste storage for the entire country is smaller that this one wind farm alone. And it's located int he middle of nowhere.]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:31AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
I'd say that, currently, nuclear power is by far the best way to generate power, considering the cost/safety/environmental factors. Supposedly, the high-level nuclear waste produced for each person per year only amounts to a lump the size of an aspirin tablet.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/miller/miller13.html

Hopefully within the next 30-50 years we could develop cleaner, safer renewable sources of power, but for now nuclear seem to be the way to go. ]]>Jul 26th 2010 1:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Get us* off fossil fuels and then we can devote our time and money into reusing nuclear waste or reducing it.

* Us as in the American government, people and corporations (greedy and not so greedy)]]>Jul 26th 2010 2:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 27th 2010 12:18AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 10:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 10:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
So its fook all then :-) Still better than nothing]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:19AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Pretty cool show.]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
By way of comparison, Grand Coulee Dam puts out an average of 2300 MW, with a peak capacity of 6,800 MW. An average nuclear power plant puts out 1000 MW per reactor. ]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:57AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
http://www.eia.doe.gov/aer/pdf/pages/sec1_9.pdf
has all the complete data.
99.304 quadrillion BTU (british thermal unit).
7.300 of that from renewable sources (yikes. That's less than 10% even WITH hydro power)

A quadrillion has 15 zeros, times 99.304 is

99,304,000,000,000,000 BTU

1,000,000 BtuIT = 1055.05585262 MJ ≈ 293.071 kWh
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_thermal_unit

Meaning you devide it by 1 million and you get how many million BTU you have and that times 293.071 is the kWh

= 29103122584000 kW/h = 29,103,122,584 MW/h

29 billion MW/h.

Yeah... uhm... right. 570 MW/h surely is... err... not that much.

Now you have to know that the number I gave or better linked to is the energy consumed by every way of using it. Fuel for cars, coal power plants, heating et cetera is all in there. Meaning not every MW/h that is given here is currently even transported on the power networks. It's more likely to reside in your gas tank and refineries as well as on coal trains. Meaning even if the US was to go "fully electric" it had to also built a whole new energy grid to even be able to transport all that energy.

This way or another, 570 or even 3000 MW/h seem miniscule compared to that number...

If my math is wrong please correct me. I didn't chose to publish the US energy consumption in BTUs. What a silly way to measure it. Energy is measured in Joule. But whatever :-)]]>Jul 26th 2010 12:15PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Saw that documentary, it was pretty good interesting and have some good points. More people should watch it, its educational :P]]>Jul 26th 2010 2:25PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/You have a problem with your units - you reported energy in MW/h and KW/h (e.g. 29,103,122,584 MW/h) - you should have used MWH and KWH.]]>Jul 26th 2010 3:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Actually, you have other unit problems as well - the 570 and 3000 figures quoted are power measurements and should be in MW, not in MWH (nor in MW/h). Also, it doesn't really make sense to compare a power quantity (570 MW) with an energy quantity (29 billion MWH) - it is like comparing apples and oranges.]]>Jul 26th 2010 3:21PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
We can do a quick fix. 29 billion MWH is over a year. 570 MW means it produces 570 MWH every hour. So using the bad assumption that its always producing 570 MW, it will produce 570 MWH for a total of 24*365 hours in a year.

570*24*365 = 4,993,200 MWH

Or as a fraction of 29 billion MWH: .00017 or ~.02% of total US power generation. Put another way, we would need to build about 6000 of these to produce enough energy.]]>Jul 27th 2010 12:34PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 10:29AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Doubtful... if anything it'll just keep your bill from going up. Here in jersey pse&g is putting solar panels on almost every telephone pole. The general population thinks the bills will be coming down, when in reality its so they wont need to raise our rates to cover the cost of a new plant. ]]>Jul 26th 2010 10:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 11:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
First of all, current solar cells are considered "energy negative", meaning that a cell will rarely produce more energy in it's operating lifetime to exceed the amount of energy that went into it's production, installation and operation. Plus, unlike wind, nuclear, gas or coal, solar energy must be stored in batteries before it's electricity can be used to feed the electric grid. And to the post about storage of nuclear waste, the materials in solar cells and their batteries are as toxic and possibly even more than nuclear. Not only that, the many of the materials needed for solar cells result in mass strip mining to obtain.

At least with wind and natural gas, those concerns do not exist. As a matter of fact, many parts in a wind turbine can be made of recycled plastic, steel and aluminum or recycled at the end of life.]]>Jul 26th 2010 11:11AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Could you cite some hard data backing up this "energy negative" claim?

I have seen this claim before, but have never seen it backed up with numbers that prove it.]]>Jul 26th 2010 5:16PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 11:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Nellis Air Force base has a PV array that generates 14 MW at a cost of 2.2 cents per KWh compared to 9+ cents for the local electric utility.

Having said this, no one approach has all the answers. Geothermal is great if you live near a volcanic heat source. Sun, Wind, Nuclear, Wave, etc. all have their place. Anything that releases CO2 directly adds to the "greenhouse" gas problem. So Bio anything is just as bad as crude oil, coal, natural gas for releasing greenhouse gases.

My personal preference would be nuclear tea kettles similar to those used on nuclear vessels. Imagine a 5KW box that ran for 40 years!]]>Jul 26th 2010 12:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/
Windfarms are very small, but take up a lot of room. I want to know this when I read the articles that boast their generation size.]]>Jul 26th 2010 1:23PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 4:13PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 6:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/26/terra-gen-lands-major-funding-expects-to-complete-americas-lar/Jul 26th 2010 8:10PM