Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 66 posts

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#51

Post by mcguire »

melling wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #8

That's because there's not much load in that area. America's best wind power belt is north from the Texas panhandle up to Canada.[1] But there are no big cities in that region. The US thus needs more long DC power lines. The technology is already in use in China. The Zhundong-Sichuan power line goes 2600km. It's a DC line at 1.1 megavolts carrying 10 gigawatts. That technology could easily carry power from the wind b…

It was also at 4:30am on a Sunday morning.

They need more windmills. Fortunately, that is a fast growing industry.

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#52

Post by mcguire »

arca_vorago wrote: post #37

It is worth noting Texas has it's own grid seperated from the west and east grids supplying most of the rest of the world. I had a relative who was a project manager on some of the big wind installs in Texas, but for some reason I can't remember his main criticism of the project which caused him to move over to solar work...

Interesting.

You can't swing a cat without hitting a wind tower construction crew in OK and the TX panhandle.

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#53

Post by froindt »

melling wrote: post #11
Animats wrote: post #8

That's because there's not much load in that area. America's best wind power belt is north from the Texas panhandle up to Canada.[1] But there are no big cities in that region. The US thus needs more long DC power lines. The technology is already in use in China. The Zhundong-Sichuan power line goes 2600km. It's a DC line at 1.1 megavolts carrying 10 gigawatts. That technology could easily carry power from the wind b…

It was also at 4:30am on a Sunday morning.

That doesn't matter, the information loss in mentioning a percentage makes it sound really awesome and headline worthy!

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#54

Post by mikeyouse »

arca_vorago wrote: post #37

It is worth noting Texas has it's own grid seperated from the west and east grids supplying most of the rest of the world. I had a relative who was a project manager on some of the big wind installs in Texas, but for some reason I can't remember his main criticism of the project which caused him to move over to solar work...

They're building some huge interconnect HVDC lines to the rest of the country from the Panhandle region. There's a 4GW, 600kv line slated for completion in 2018 that's going to bring Texas and Oklahoma wind power to the TVA.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/huge-transmission...

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#55

Post by [deleted] »

arca_vorago wrote: post #37

It is worth noting Texas has it's own grid seperated from the west and east grids supplying most of the rest of the world. I had a relative who was a project manager on some of the big wind installs in Texas, but for some reason I can't remember his main criticism of the project which caused him to move over to solar work...

[deleted]

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#56

Post by trome »

6d6b73 wrote: post #27
Filligree wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 500 years the fuel will have decayed to near-harmlessness. It'd still be a toxic heavy metal, so you don't want to eat it, but simply standing next to it isn't going to kill you. There's also the little detail that we're using the least efficient fuel cycle imaginable. More efficient ones, e.g. involving breeder reactors, wouldn't produce nearly as much waste.

What if just one of the almost 500 power plants goes into a meltdown after a disaster/asteroid strike/pandemic . How long will it take for the fuel to become harmless? 20k years?

Compare how many people are killed, let alone animals per unit of energy produced with Wind as compared to Nuclear. Wind is far more deadly to humans (from accidents) & animals than the public is lead to believe. Nuclear despite its accidents is far less lethal towards the environment around it.

Wind is only a third as deadly as coal apparently, which isn't too great in my book: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-eag...

Also: http://firsttoknow.com/in-october-2013-two-engineers-became-...

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#57

Post by acchow »

Has anyone done any back-of-the-napkin math on how much solar PV we can harness before we start contributing to actually warming the planet? Since it turns mostly-reflected-back-to-space radiation into absorbed-onto-the-surface radiation.

Is there a point at which we need to focus more on wind? (since wind arises from already-being-absorbed-by-surface radiation)

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#58

Post by dududu »

trome wrote: post #56
6d6b73 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if just one of the almost 500 power plants goes into a meltdown after a disaster/asteroid strike/pandemic . How long will it take for the fuel to become harmless? 20k years?

Compare how many people are killed, let alone animals per unit of energy produced with Wind as compared to Nuclear. Wind is far more deadly to humans (from accidents) & animals than the public is lead to believe. Nuclear despite its accidents is far less lethal towards the environment around it. Wind is only a third as deadly as coal apparently, which isn't too great in my book: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca…

however, the article is saying "coal is the biggest killer in U.S. energy at 15,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, while nuclear is the least at zero. Wind energy kills a mere 100 people or so per trillion kWhrs, "

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#59

Post by Maakuth »

samcheng wrote: post #4
Maakuth wrote: post #3

Yet they account for a modest percentage of the total production. This is where PowerPack and other grid storage technologies would need to come in - to counter the variability of renewable production. Pumped hydro would be cost effective per MWh stored, but there's limited chance for building that.

There are other mechanisms that can also help ameliorate the challenges of intermittent ("non-dispatchable") power generation: - Long-range (generally, DC) power transmission lines. China is investing heavily here. - Similarly, inter-grid connections. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation - Superconductors! - Diversified renewables. Solar works on the stifling windless summer days; wind works on…

I've even heard of a technology for pushing compressed air in abandoned mines with surplus electricity, to be let out through turbines when there's need for power.

We do all of the above (except the compressed air thing and superconductors) here in Finland and between neighboring power grids. Of course there is room for improvement.

Re: For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region's Power

#60

Post by Animats »

screwston wrote: post #32
mountainethos wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't diminish this achievement by claiming it's a low populated area. The Midwest alone accounts for 1/5 of the population of the U.S. [1]. 1. https://www.census.gov/popclock/data_tables.php?component=gr...

The Midwest has many large cities. But the Midwest does not completely overlap the wind belt. The more densely populated parts of the Midwest are especially far away.

There's not much overlap between the wind belt and where people live. But there are many round farms in the wind belt. The unused corners of round farms would be good places for windmills. There's road access in place. Extra revenue for farmers. Won't bother the crops.

Collecting up the power and shipping it somewhere useful is a problem. That requires new high voltage transmission lines and collection at substations for conversion to DC and long distance transmission.

Post reply on HN