Re: Wind energy a boon for farmers - tenfold returns !

From: Chris Torek (nospam_at_torek.net)
Date: 10/30/04 

Date: 30 Oct 2004 02:24:20 GMT

[I dropped the soc.* groups. Aside: is it just me, or do other
people read "anony.com" as "annoy.com" instead? :-) ]

>In article <418155f5.7038821@news.clara.net>,
> habshi@anony.com (habshi) wrote:
>> These if true are truly amazing figures . Nepal and other
>>Himalayan countries can get very rich as the monsoon rises up the
>>mountains. ...

The "figures" depend on many things.

>>The competition among farmers in Iowa or ranchers in
>>Colorado for wind farms is intense. Farmers, with no
>>investment on their part,

In article <2MCdnfAtbKentB_cRVn-pA@rcn.net>, <jmfbahciv@aol.com> wrote:
>Huh? Who pays for materials, installation and who does
>the maintenance?

The company that installs and operates the wind turbines, usually
a utility company. They lease land from the farmer (or, more
commonly, from the Giant Industrial Agribusiness).

>> ..typically receive $3,000 a year
>>in royalties from the local utility for siting a single
>>wind turbine, which occupies a quarter-acre of land.
>
>That is a huge windmill.

They *are* large -- these are 1 to 2 MW units -- but whoever it is
that wrote the article that "habshi@annoy.com" is quoting is being
a bit careless with the wording. The windmill tower base is not
all that big, and even the swept area does not cover 0.25 acre;
the 0.25 acre figure comes from the optimal spacing of the turbines.

>>Communities in rural America desperately want the
>>additional revenue from wind farms and the jobs they
>>bring.
>
>This is supposed to be a passive form of energy generation.
>Exactly _what_ jobs will a wind farm bring?

Wind turbines need maintenance, as well as the obvious: initial
construction. The *amount* of maintenance required is small (or
at least, the utilities who own and operate them certainly hope
so; the manufacturers -- primarily GE and Vestas, and smaller
suppliers like ABB -- who sell parts may perhaps hope otherwise),
but if you have 1000 turbines and each one needs maintenance one
day per year on average, that means about 2 3/4 under maintenance
every day on average.

[snippage]

>> .. Within a matter of
>>years, thousands of ranchers could be earning far more
>>from electricity sales than from cattle sales.
>
>Only as long as the price of electricity stays higher than
>beef. If everybody generates power, the prices will plummet
>to nothing and beef prices will soar.

It does seem a bit overblown to claim that "thousands" of ranchers
could be earning so much.

Also, beef prices are still up. :-) But who knows what will happen
to the Atkins-diet-popularity over the next few years... 

-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Wind River Systems
Salt Lake City, UT, USA (40°39.22'N, 111°50.29'W)  +1 801 277 2603
email: forget about it   http://web.torek.net/torek/index.html
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