Thursday, 2 June 2011

AFRAID something happening in their backyard


I think every new innovation is subjected to harassment from the commons as folks imagine often pseudo scientific arguments to prevent something happening in their backyard.
There may or may not be merit with the questions raised herein. However at the end of the day she is asking her neighbors to also inconvenience themselves for mostly selfish reasons.
Like her I do not want a garbage dump next door or anything else for that matter. However, I recognize that I am part of a community and that I must share common responsibility for ameliorating inconvenience even at my expense.
The remarkable fact is that our wind turbines now produce power at the same cost point as a coal plant. That is a surprising and pleasant outcome for the past thirty years of effort. I can assure you that few were comfortable with the proposition thirty years ago and I am sure the first customers mostly lost on the deal.
For the folks who are convinced that something must be done, it is no big trick to build a nice cinder block wall between you and the problem to create an infra sound shadow. That should be sufficient to provide a good sleep and general protection.
Maybe we can mount a cow bell on the blades so that folks will know when they are getting too close to the infrasound effect.
In the event, according to the recent article in Scientific American we need to build 3,800,000 wind turbines. Most can be out on the Great Plains to provide extra income to those farmers no longer able to irrigate their farms from the aquifer.

Solving Local opposition

Local opposition to proposed wind farms arises because some people perceive that the development will change what they are used to. It is true that a large wind farm can be a significant change, but while some people express concern about the effect wind turbines have on the beauty of our landscape, others see them as elegant and beautiful, or as symbols of a better, less polluted future. The visual effect of wind farms is a subjective issue, but most of the criticisms made about wind energy today are exaggerated or untrue and simply reflect attempts by particular groups to discredit the technology, worry local communities and turn them against proposed projects. In the electronic age, myths and misinformation about wind power spread at lightning speed.

Sound Pollution Level


ECO-SYSTEM IN AUSTRALIA

The average capacity factor for wind farms in Australia is around 35% compared to 85% for coal and gas fired power stations. This means that they cannot operate as a stand alone power source and therefore, require back up from either fossil fuel and/or renewable energy with storage.

During non production events such as low wind, due to the sheer size of the blades, many turbines still require third party power to rotate blades to prevent damage from standing in the same position to long.

The development of some wind farms has led to the division of rural communities. In most cases there is no compensation/benefit to neighbouring landholders that do not lease land for the turbines. In particular, absentee landholders, or those with large properties, are selling permission for turbines that are lucrative and out of their sight but clearly visible from neighbouring properties.

How we can HELP you


Wind Grid

In this case, they have the same basic equipment we do, minus the batteries, but the output is actually connected to the homes circuit panel, and thereby to the rest of the utility grid. Any excess the  produces is sent back out to the grid. It is generally used up at the neighbors house, with the wind producing home getting a credit from the power company, and the nieghbor paying their usual electric bill. This reduces the amount of power the power company has to feed into the grid. So again, there really is not any specific  power infrastructure, it simply uses what is already available, our existing electrical grid. I’ll include some sites below you can check out if you want to learn more. You an also google phrases like, "wind Intertie," and, "Wind Grid," to look for other sources. 

disadvantages of wind power

one of the big disadvantages of wind power is its almost total lack of infrastructure. Infrastructure refers to the structures required to make a system work. Roads, airports and train tracks, for example, are the infrastructure to our transportation system. Our current electrical grid is the infrastructure for our electric supply system in most developed areas of the world. But solar requires only the panels and a storage medium, usually a battery. We have a vacation cabin in the upper midwest that uses both solar and wind power. The entire system fits on, inside and behind our cabin in the form of panels on the roof, a tower and wind turbine in the field, and batteries and electronics in the utility room. By most standards, this does not even constitute a infrastructure since there is no structure connecting it to other locations.