Mortimer's Comments

DrAlexC that is a lot of resources. Not nearly as much as building an oil tanker or refinement factory, but enough to take a couple of years of wind (over the windmills 20-30 year lifetime) to pay back the oil and coal that were needed for construction. You couldn't be more correct that it is terrible that oil and coal need to be used in the construction of windmills. Thankfully, the windmill parts can be recycled after the windmills have played out their useful lifespan. It's also nice that much of the land they are constructed on can continue to be used for farming and grazing.

Regarding electric38, his comment made no sense as a response to your initial posting.

P.s. Dr.C, making fun of someone's name is not appropriate in a forum like this, but I've gotten used to it over the years.

Wasteful windmills?!

It amazes me that such a deep level of ignorance still exists in this country.

I do though agree about the tax money going to BP. Our renewable projects should be built purely with American parts and labor, and BP should be banned from any operations in the U.S.

"In their 2011 Annual Energy Outlook, the United States Department of Energy projects that the RE sector will nearly double its output from 2009 to 2035. "

Solar is expanding at about 60% a year, wind at (I think) around 25%. This means a doubling in these REs about every 2 years. If that rate continued 2009-35 it would have grown about 500 fold. The US DOE must be trying to discourage RE by understating its potential growth to such an extreme level.

Good article, but needs one correction. A gigatons is a billion tons, not a trillion tons.

Avanderbom makes a good point. Also, as offshore development moves forward, turbine size is being pushed up to 10MW. This type of development will push down both the unit MW cost and the cost of servicing (because there will be less units per MW). In the end, offshore development will push down prices, and advance the field.

When authors write articles, they shouldn't just attempt to be truthful, they should also make sure that their truths are representing the full picture.

I disagree with some of the author's points. First, methane is 21-23 times worse than C02 as a green house gas, not 100 times.
Second, fraking is done so far below the water table, that it would rarely affect water quality. I agree with Clee though. Fraking should definitely be under the clean water act and be very strictly monitored and regulated.

Pickens is just a business man out to make money. There should not be tax breaks for fraking or the Picken's plan. Having said that, if the plan goes forward without tax breaks, it will help renewables, not hurt them. The amount of methane coming on the market is, and will continue to increase, and the price will go down. Boones plan will use up that excess and push the price back up again. This will keep renewables competitive.

A comment on JimW input.

GreenGas is a carbon fuel. Making methane from split hydrogen and the C02 from the atmosphere, is making a green gas.

I'm not clear if the author is joking in the last paragraph. 2KW will run more than a laptop. It will run an entire house including refigerator, tv, airconditioner...(maybe not all at once).

What's the point of writing an article on an energy device while leaving out one of the most important items. How much energy does each of these devices produce?

Steven,

As a reader I appreciate comments like yours. Author's should be held to accurate statements.

The article states, "Asia is slated to witness the fastest growth in installed wind capacity, to reach 25.5 GW by 2013." It would be depressing if this were true. Already today, China has exceeded the 25.5GW installed wind capacity, and China is only part of Asia. For the above statement to be true, Asia would have to start taking down windmills rather than adding new ones.

This article brings to mind the connection of wind and solar. If the south side of windmill towers were covered with solar cells, a 2MW windmill might be able to pump out and additional 500KW of solar.

I agree with both of the above comments. How crazy is it to shut down a nuclear plant ahead of a coal plant? That's bizarre.

I'd like to see a 1000 systems like this in the eastern U.S. where forest growth is abundant. This is a more efficient use of cellulose than making ethanol (though I'm for that also).

Fred,

I didn't find anything you said that I don't agree with. You've made a number of intelligent arguments. Keep it up.

You mentioned the $850B going to Bush's friends. It did essentially nothing for the economy except increase our debt. Nothing was built. Our dependency on foreign oil wasn't decreased. Now another trillion is about to be spent and there are fights about the small amounts allotted to renewables and construction of infrastructure. There is a loud voice that only wants checks going into peoples pockets. It didn't do any good the first time around, but I guess it will get someone a vote here and there.