It seems to me it’s an easy thing to figure out how much KW the country needs and then see how many windmills and solar panels we need to generate the power.
Pickens says he wants to generate 22% of our electric power with wind. Is this feasible?
Does anybody out there know of any real data on the subject. Sure the polit’s all talk a mean fight but how many wind mills will we need to serve the power needs of the country?
Hi, I’m Erik Astrand and the man behind this site.
My story? I am about to be 50 and all my life I have been interested in technical things. Not sure if the special interest for the wind, and how to use the wind, started when I as a 5 year old boy and got my first sail dinghy.
Anyway, wind power and to build my own wind generator was a dream for several years. I studied many websites and also bought many courses before I finally built my own windmill. This site is about that journey and you will also find some more general articles about wind power.
Enjoy! and check out the about me page to read more.
The big problem with big power plants is the tiny little transmission lines that carry electricity to the cities. They are over 40 years old and in need of upgrade.
On the other hand, take a flight over your city in a small airplane and look down. What do you see? Hundreds of thousands of rooftops catching solar energy and converting it into heat to be fought off by your air conditioners.
Now, imagine if every one of those roofs was covered by solar panels. No more problem with carrying hundreds of volts from Nevada to St. Louis.
The "political" problem of solar is that it’s "democratic" – in the sense that every home-owner can generate and sell to the utility company. The utility companies don’t like that idea. They prefer a technology where one big corporation generates and sells and you and I are just consumers – not participants.
The problem with the Pickens plan is that his real motive is to get "mineral rights" leases on every piece of land where he wants to install windmills. Once he has those rights he will lay claim to the aquifer and sell water back to the people who used to own it.
Yes. But investment needs to be made in the newer technology. I paid over $4000 for my first ‘pentium’ computer back in the early 90s. But after all these years of research & development – you can buy a much more powerful desktop / laptop for far less. That was made possible through investment in technology. Same with bandwidth. Look at how much faster our connections are? Remember when we were using mainframes and were happy to have 2400 BAUD? So. Yes, it’s definitely enough, and it’s something we have to start working on. After a few years, we’ll be wondering why we waited so long when the answer was always right there in front of us.
It’s enough but it’s just too expensive at the moment, unless solar and wind power comes to be a reasonable price, it can’t be used.
Because of the unpredictability of sunlight and wind, and the relative youth of these technologies, we need to do more research on them while supporting other energy sources–such as nuclear.
There was a study a while back that siad that taking something like 2% of the land in Nevada and converting it to solar would be enought to power the Country. There’s als ample evidence that theres more then enough wind around the clock in certain areas toi give 24hr power. It’s all about money though!