All posts in the topic Clean Energy-Wind Power Development (Short link)
Summary
- There are 6 posts — by 4 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by Gail O'Hare at Jul 09 04:11 UTC
In yesterday's New York Times, there was an interesting article about wind-power development in Texas: THE ENERGY CHALLENGE Move Over, Oil, There's Money in Texas Wind By CLIFFORD KRAUSS http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23wind.html?th&emc=th Minnesota gets a mention, as in: > Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and Oregon, states with smaller populations > than Texas, all get 5 to 8 percent of their power from wind farms, > according to estimates by the American Wind Energy Association. The article also points out the possibilities of developing wind energy as a means of rural development. My question: What is the regulatory environment in Minnesota and how does it affect the development of wind power? Another question that comes to mind involves the problem of the fluctuation of wind: Is anybody working on a power storage system that can be used in association with wind-power generation that would mediate the fluctuations in power generation? In terms of rural development, in terms of self-sustaining rural communities,and in terms of isolated farms (etc.), a combined system of power generation by wind and a storage mechanism would allow for the development of many small-scale nodes within the power generation-transmission grid. These nodes could add stability to power grid in face of large demand/production fluctuations.
"Been there done that here," Mike. Matty Lang posted here back in the Fall with a link to a demonstration project for wind to Hydrogen pilot project in Golden, Colorado with fuel cell storage run by Xcel and the National Renewable Energy Lab, while decrying the governor's climate change hypocrisy. There are some good animations on the page and it's probably the easiest way for Minnesota to go in the direction you outline. Here's a link to the post: http://forums.e-democracy.org/groups/mn-politics/messages/post/ 34ePzDPdmbiOcnmT6Ated2 If it breaks: http://tinyurl.com/3549zx Here is the NREL demo link: http://www.nrel.gov/hydrogen/proj_wind_hydrogen.html
Sorry, Mike, et. al. I should have addressed Mike's first question
about the Minnesota regulatory environment for wind energy before the
second question about storage. I recalled Matty Lang's post and link,
and just went for it. For reference, Mike's first question:
"What is the regulatory environment in Minnesota and how does it
affect the development of wind power?"
Others could speak better to specifics, but my general impression is
that Minnesota's reg. environment is "well above average," as in the
Keillor joke about all of our children. In the states with the best
wind opportunities around us, you don't see nearly the effort to
foster 'windustry,' but here it seems mostly a result of Xcel's
compliance with the requirements to develop alternative energy agreed
to for allowing storage of nuclear waste on site at Prairie Island.
The big disappointment is N. Dakota, where the really big
opportunities are from what I've read; we could knock back a great
deal of our dirtier energy with wind energy from next door, so
perhaps what we need is some more multi-state regional regulatory
structure for Minnesota to participate in to make it happen.
Sure hope others more savvy chime in on this one. Dat's two. Over 'n
out.
Something in the Pioneer Press about an 80 ton sodium-sulfur battery to even out power from wind that Xcel is working with: http://www.twincities.com/newsletter-business/ci_8399674 Says it's been in use in Japan for some time.
I recently caught an article about Excel and a new wind turbine farm coming online later this year. I vaguely recalled that there was some discussion of this earlier and used the search function to pull up this thread. Here's some more information that answers (in part and via some extrapolations) the questions Mike had raised earlier: • Excel is opening a new wind farm down by Austin (Mower County) that has a theoretical capacity of over 100 Megawatts. See http://tinyurl.com/5cblkt • Although the capacity is 100 Megawatts, it appears that the industry standard is to assume a 30% capacity for wind turbines due to variation in the strength of the wind over a year, operating limitations of the equipment, etc. See http://tinyurl.com/5wqd7f • I was surprised to read in a couple of places that the new wind farm would meet the needs of approximately 35,000 homes. The site that's opening has 67 turbines (at 1.5 MW/turbine) and uses 45 square miles. BTW, Xcel is considered to be "the nation’s No. 1 wind power provider in the nation, as ranked by the American Wind Energy Association" (http://tinyurl.com/5bpgoh) and apparently we're second to only Iowa in percentage of total power generated by wind (4.6% -- see http://tinyurl.com/5oldmd) and third in number of total installed capacity (about half of #2 California and about a third of #1 Texas)
I'm hesitant to post this because I only half-heard the story, but MPR reported
on the possibility of storing wind-generating energy as hot water. I'll see
what I can dig up on that.
And isn't it ironic that T. Boone Pickens has adopted alternative energy as his
new passion? It will be great having him absorbed in that rather than flaying
liberals.