Feb 8, 2009: Wind Farm
 

Mexico recently had an inauguration ceremony also.
But not for a politician, their inauguration ceremony was for a $550 million wind farm to offset their falling oil production.

If the Mexican government wants to build something successfully, the same three rules apply to them as everyone else.
Of course anybody can tell you those three rules are location, location, location. :blush:

http://cellar.org/2009/windfarm.jpg

For a (successful) wind farm you need a spot where the wind blows and it looks to me like they got that right.
The petticoats, the man hanging onto his hat, the bent trees, and the dust off the dirt road, make me think this is a good spot.
I imagine the had the turbines shut down for the ceremony because they're noisy and sometimes toss dead bird parts about.

Link

They turn pretty slowly so the camera probably stopped them.

If they had half a brain they would build a railroad across there.. Yachting cruisers would do that in GREAT preference to the now expensive, slow, and large hassle factor, presented by The Canal.

The wind turbine generators are fairly quiet, except in higher winds - then the blades are feathered to help avoid damage. Though I see conflicting reports on bird deaths caused by the spinning blades, one article recently showed that bats can be killed sometimes if they fly into the area of low pressure caused by their rapid movement. Link.

When I lived in a little village (in a little house) we saw bats every summer evening. I don't know if they hibernate, just that we didn't stand outside for the rest of the year.

Of all the things I miss about that time of my life - and they are many - I think it's the bats that are the most poignant.

Note to self: Take bat pics for Cherry next summer.

In the article, the locals are upset that they are not more involved. Why don't they form a cooperative, and build a few wind generators for themselves? I know - times are tough, they are probably dirt poor etc, but there are ways to get these things done.

On a wind farm, do you have to water the wind, do you irrigate, or what?

And if you use cow shit to fertilize terrestrial crops, can you use cattle farts for fertilizer on a wind farm?

In my old apartment, on any given night, you could see bats. Flying over your head, as you were watching TV. Cats chasing them like "this is fun." Not fun for me. :lol:

The whole argument about birds and windfarms seems pretty stupid to me if it's coming from anyone who drives a car or has ever flown in a plane, and I doubt there's too many greenies who don't fly in planes or travel by car or bus. Far more birds are killed by humans transporting themselves around than are killed by windfarms (at least in Australia).

We have lots of bats here, but one of the most prolific is the fruit bat. The bain of every fruit growers existance! And the little buggers are protected too. Currently they're causing a lot of problems for our stone fruit and apple farmers in Stanthorpe.

I think the farmers should be allowed to shoot them.

In my experience, that would have to be one sharp shooter. Those things flail about with no rhyme nor reason. :)

Use a shot gun mate. ;)

Eh, I probably couldn't hit the broad side of a...um, bat.

Actually, we had a neighbour once who used to shoot plenty of them with a .22 rifle...till he tried walking down the main road with it to one of the other neighbours houses to shoot their bats for them.

The police came. Fear ensued. Guns were confiscated. Bats had a party.

It's an old joke, but if we're looking for a lot of wind, why don't we put them suckers up around Washington D.C.? And speaking of politicans, what happened to T. Boone Pickens plan to save on oil consumption and rescue the U.S. economy with wind? We heard pleanty of it proir the election but now? That was one guy I would have voted for.

Maybe all his money was with Madoff...

hey look, if we zoom in, it's almost like you can see the breeze.........twisting through the twurbines

We had a microbat flying round our lounge room last night. We thought it was a moth for a while - it was smaller than the palm of my hand. It came in through the cat flap, which was uncovered at the time. It would stop occasionally and hang from a shelf or the curtain rails, so we got a good look at it. At least they're easy to get back outside.

The turbines are generating plenty of electricity here in T.Boone-land, but the infrastructure required to 'pipe' all of it to where it is needed is, for now, lacking. Momentum is building to get it matched to production, but I don't see evidence of progress yet. The landowners around here are paid per post regardless of production. I have heard $2,000 per post per year but have not seen that documented.

Do microbats carry the lissa virus? I don't know, but I hope you were careful if you had to handle it sandy.

A little slice of Texas: cotton modules and some of the thousands of wind turbine generators. No people. No blasted birds. No exploded bats. At least, not until one of you talented folk 'shop them in! :D

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...ceOfWTexas.jpg

Then what are all those feathers on the ground from?

note to self: tell Bruce he is off by one month on two image threads

Those are cotton balls.
(cuz we don't want our teddy bears reproducing)

Damn! Uh, well, I, um... wanted to see if youse guys was paying attention, Yeah, that's it, a test. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. :o

We are getting the same arguments here from the tree huggers. There is a risk benifit ratio in most of these decisions. I vote for non-oil/nuclear based energy forms. And then of course you have Kennedy family and their support of wind farms as long as it is NIMBY.

I can't wait to look over the landscape and see nothing but miles of these beautiful windmills.

I submit they're purtier than oil rigs. ;)

Over here the debate rages between those who don't want them because they'll kill the birds, or because they'll look unsightly. Then there are the proponents who fight each other to get them in their back yards so the govt has to pay them and not their neighbour (and they're paid very very well).

We have a plant here that makes the blades. I am trying to get a job there.

I have been looking at some home models for my future property.

http://www.mdpub.com/Wind_Turbine/index.html

bumper crop here.

Wind farm announced for Lake Erie, could produce 1,000 megawatts by 2020
Link



Offshore wind power park to energize Delaware homes
Link

Very cool. Aside from the obvious benefits, apparently there are certain species of fish that like to congregate around these farms as well. Some of which are great game fish.

And they don't leak freaking oil all over the coast.

I was counting that in the "obvious benefits" part - but yeh that too!

I never really thought of Ohio as having a coast.

Also, this is a commonly misused term: "light about 50,000 homes a year."

But, what about the naysayers who think we'll all have epileptic fits if we look at them?
There are windfarms sprouting up all around the hilltops here, and so far, no bird losses, no noise pollution and no epilepsy epidemics.
We do have a similar problem here that the Taxachusetts folks had. New York City and Long Island want electricity, but they want upstate to handle the generation and infrastructure, and to pay higher rates so they don't have to.

A few lost birds is a small price to pay. There will just be that many less to shit on cars and eat glatt's mulberries.
The only birds that these will take out are seagulls - Personally, I consider that another benefit.

This was bugging me so I looked it up (dictionary.com): –noun
1.the land next to the sea; seashore: the rocky coast of Maine.

So, what counts as a sea?
–noun
1.the salt waters that cover the greater part of the earth's surface.
2.a division of these waters, of considerable extent, more or less definitely marked off by land boundaries: the North Sea.
3.one of the seven seas; ocean.
4.a large lake or landlocked body of water

Ah, Lake Erie certainly meets definition 4, so I was wrong. Ohio does have a coast.

HLJ, have you ever been near Lake Erie? It looks like an ocean, and the winds might rival the sea.

:seafaringsmilie:

Aaaah, the "Mistake by the Lake". How I remember it. Bitterly.

Pie, Cleveland survivor, 1992-1996

A friend of mine from Ohio once spoke of summer evenings when her sister and her would tie hot dog pieces onto a stick and swing them around up toward trees to catch bats. When she asked me if I enjoyed doing that as a child, she could tell by the look on my face that I had never heard of such a thing!

As for the windmills - while driving down Interstate 35 I've seen semi trucks hauling those windmill blades. I had no idea how HUGE they were until I saw that one blade covers the 53' semi flat-bed trailer all the way from the front to the back.

I saw a ship going up the Hudson river with a bunch of those blades on it. they were enormous.

Nice!

They make those just a couple of miles down the road from me.

Yup, once enough of them are built, they morph into Tripods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIlHoHiL4xE

That's short!

Try 413 foot blade length for the Enercon E-126... as in 126 meters!:D