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2 weeks ago
Bob and Tee--how do they benefit us more than before? How do they help neigborhoods and cities that were already on the grid and getting electricity before these acres of turbines? Did energy prices go down for anyone? Is power even more reliable now because of them? Any sources or research on this--since they were using these since the 70s under Carter? And since many more of these are going to be built?2 weeks ago
bestonnet: Thanks.2 weeks ago
Trout: lol! The least they could do is tell us what we%26#039;re getting--or not.2 weeks ago
Bob: Thanks. By billions I was meant the $20 billion that the UN was projecting that it should cost us in new energy schemes. It sounds really excessive and they%26#039;re probably going to leave us in the dark about how and where the money will be used.http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireSto...
2 weeks ago
Bob: I thought that power sources benefit specific areas and cities. Isn%26#039;t that why certain cities using one company may have backouts while another is more dependible because of the power provider? Sometimes when there%26#039;s an outage in a city, they blame some kind of malfuction at the plant in that same city. So that%26#039;s why I thought it was the same with wind energy. (the problems Texas is having will also be had by those who try to get a lot of wind)* You must be logged into Answers to add comments. Sign in or Register.
Other Answers (6)
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There%26#039;s a %26quot;power grid%26quot; that interconnects all the power plants across the country. So the existing wind power is already being used by everyone.
Many power plants are located well away from population centers, like the huge coal burning plants in New Mexico.
Bestonnet - The more wind power we build in different locations, the less this will be a problem. There%26#039;s definitely a place for wind power in the mix.
EDIT - The use of wind has lowered the amount of greenhouse gases we emit to power the grid, and has reduced our imports of fuel somewhat. As we build more, the benefits will increase. The costs of the subsidies (which are actually quite small, less than a billion dollars, not %26quot;trillions%26quot;) are much less than the benefits. The real problem is that we actually subsidize imported oil.
%26quot;During the year 2003 alone, federal energy subsidies
ranged from $37 billion to $64 billion, according to a study
prepared for the National Commission on Energy Policy.
Wind energy accounted for less than 1% of the total%26quot;
http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:caQd...
Or if you have acrobat reader:
http://www.awea.org/pubs/factsheets/Subs...
Many countries like Germany believe wind subsidies should be MUCH larger than those in the US, to address the rising costs and uncertainty of imported oil.
EDIT2 -%26quot;The least they could do is tell us what we%26#039;re getting%26quot; The nature of the grid makes it impractical to tell who%26#039;s providing YOUR electricity, since it changes minute to minute. The total amount of wind power generated is known.
EDIT3 - When the grid is running normally, power plants feed the grid, not specific areas. Local failures are usually local failures of the grid itself. Or, if an area is pulling too much power (example - New York in a heat wave losing some power plants that happen to be feeding it at the time), the grid may cut it off to save the whole grid from going down. But power sources are constantly changing, in response to changing demands.
Really they can be put anywhere -
The only people who benefit from wind power are the manufacturers the engineering firms that design the system, the contractor that installs them and the energy provider that gets big fat subsidys for building them
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well who would benifet the wind farms? Well only 20000 people at most per wind farm! yes its inefficiant and crazy cost to set up(well enough to get good power from it) better to go nuclear or invest in Fussion not fission!