It is not the enviromentally friendly energy source we have been
lead to believe.
And generally not nearly as productive as expected. A very few areas
are quite good for them but many countries that built hundreds or
thousands of turbines at great cost are just waiting for them to
wear out so the can get rid of them. Often the actual output ends up
being less than half the original estimate due to them not working
in low or too high winds..
I thought Spain and the Netherlands seemed to be doing well with them.
I just remembered reading about a country that had built hundreds
of them along the coast and the expense of operation was so high
and the output so low that they were cursing the idea..
We'd have to look up the current situation but the notes that I
took at the time (about 2006) talked a lot about how harmful
they were to people or animals living near them and how the
power output was 'dirty' with high frequency spikes that damage
the power systems and they bleed bleed power into the ground
affecting humans and animals..
Also, as I mentioned about ouput, a number of countries built
enough turbines to supply 30% of their power (at full output)
but in use found they virtually never even got close to that.
Using that 30% as 100% full output Germany got only 14.7% output,
Denmark got 20%, at times their 6000 turbines putting out Zero,
and they had to keep their conventional power plants running at
full power due to the unreliability of wind power.
The UK got 24.1% and areas in the USA got between 20% and 23% but
said that percentage output is declining every year.
To get close to maximun output you need sustained winds at 30 mph,
anything much lower or higher than that dramatically lowers output.
A buildup of bugs can reduce output by 25% and salt build up near
the ocean can reduce output by 20% to 30%..
As I said, this information is not right up to date, much of
it coming from an article called A Problem with Wind Power
written by Science editor Eric Rosenbloom (Vermont) in 2006..
So maybe they have found ways to improve things since then.
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* SLMR Rob * "Milhouse, we live in the age of cooties" - Bart Simpson
* Origin: Capitol City Online (1:2320/107)