New Record: Wind Powers 40% Of Spain

Source
Wind power is breaking new records in Spain, accounting for just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed during a brief period last weekend.

It is very unclear to me why this has not been done in extemely windprone parts of the U.S., on land and along coastlines.


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[edit on 5/4/2008 by watch_the_rocks]

Wind power will slowly become more and more realized as time goes on.

I was traveling along I75 through St. Ignace Michigan and seen a huge turbine from the Mackinaw bridge.

Here in my city we have a huge wind farm that give google viewer a curious look.




Link

A quick google search lists many U.S. cities that have or are planning to have wind turbines.

New York is also constructing some.

YouTube.com

Wind generators are a somewhat simple solution to a complex problem.

Cost withstanding for the actual placement of the units, you need infrastructure in place to take the power generated to the grid for distribution. This is harder than it sounds as where wind farms are to be placed does not mean that large cities are nearby.

Large wind farms in the normally windy parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakotas (all midwest states of the USA), all have one thing in common. A lack of large population centers or industrial complexes.

Large transmission lines need to be built to to handle the power. This is were environmental activist file lawsuit after lawsuit for damage done to some damn creature for the placement of these transmission lines.

reply to post by hinky


Isn't it funny how environmentalists keep saying how we need to cut down on oil and coal and then turn around and file stupid lawsuits like that. Another subject that is a bit of conundrum on the environmentalists part is the resistance to nuclear energy. Instead of having a high tech, clean, 21st technology to power everything, they would rather have coal power plants because of the "boogey man" that is nuclear energy. Incredibly ironic don't ya think?

I live in Aberdeen SD we have a company that makes the fan blades for these wind turbines. We have so much open area around here that these turbine would be great to help our energy crisis.

Nuclear power isn't clean, it produces massive amounts of waste that we just toss into the ocean or bury in Texas, Texas is big, but it's running out of hidey wholes, and isn't the ocean polluted enough?

Originally posted by Ruggeder
Nuclear power isn't clean, it produces massive amounts of waste that we just toss into the ocean or bury in Texas, Texas is big, but it's running out of hidey wholes, and isn't the ocean polluted enough?

All the nuclear waste that's actually nuclear waste, and not just the occasional piece of irradiated stuff involved in the production of nuclear fuel has to be stored on site, next to the nuclear plant, BECAUSE nobody will let them put it "in Texas" or dump it in the ocean.

If we were allowed to put it in some secure location, there wouldn't be a problem with that. The amount of fuel consumed is almost negligible. we make a few dozen tons of high level nuclear waste a year. On a national scale, that's nothing.

It'd damn well be safer than keeping it in steel and concrete barrels next to the nuclear plant. It's not exactly easy to sneak in and nick one, since they weigh a few tons, and are somewhat guarded, but it'd be a fair bit more secure if they were inside some mountain somewhere under federal guard.

[edit on 17-4-2008 by mdiinican]