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

From: habshi (habshi_at_anony.com)
Date: 11/07/04 

Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 01:16:15 GMT

        Some recent calculations (New Scientist ) show that an area
the size of Saudi Arabia with windmills (1m sq miles or half the USA)
can supply all the world's energy needs . These are on shore , non
built areas near the major cities

excerpts
Most experts predict that the world will require 40% more energy in
2020 than today and consumption levels will reach almost 300 million
oil-equivalent barrels every day. This is equivalent to the energy
required to drive a mid-sized American car 378 billion miles, a
distance equivalent to 2,000 round trips between the earth and the
sun. We expect that 60% of this 2020 demand will continue to come from
oil and gas as these primary sources of energy are available in
sufficient quantity to meet the world’s growth and are, at the same
time, the most economical—ExxonMobil

Only 15% of the world’s energy is consumed in the form of electricity,
which means that 85% of global primary energy is consumed in heating,
transportation, and other non-electric applications—IEA

The DOE projects an increase of 60% in worldwide total energy
consumption form 1999 to 2020...as the world’s population increases
from 6 to 7.5 billion people—Energy Information Administration

Eighty percent of of the energy growth from 2000 through 2020 will be
devoted to improving living standards in many parts of the developing
world, where about 85% of the world’s population will live in 20
years—ExxonMobil

Heat is the largest energy market in Europe, larger than electricity
and transport, and 40% of the continent’s primary energy is consumed
in heating and cooling buildings, for water heating, for industrial
process heat and for heat in the service sector—Green Heat Partnership

In the U.S. Geological Survey’s world Petroleum Assessment 2000, the
conventional recoverable liquids resource base is estimated to be
about 3 trillion barrels of oil.. To put this in perspective, less
than 1 trillion barrels of petroleum has been produced since
production started in the 1800s—ExxonMobil

The United States with 55 of the world’s population generates 30% of
the world GNP, consumes 25% of the world’s energy and emits 255 of the
worlds carbon dioxid—Anthony Jones, OceanUS Consulting

In the recently released International Energy Agency (IEA) World
Energy Investment Outlook 2003 report, which calculates a total annual
energy investment of about $530 billion per year (more than the 2004
U.S. national defense budget)—ExxonMobil

>>Back to Top
Conventional Energy
In its application at refineries and gas plants, Cogeneration is a
term used to describe the simultaneous production of electricity and
steam using clean-burning natural gas. Cogeneration is nearly twice as
efficient as traditional methods of producing steam and power
separately—ExxonMobil
Gasoline really costs $5.60 to $15.14 a gallon, because the oil
industry is heavily subsidized. Aside from tax breaks, cost subsidies
of about $115 billion per year are provided for securing and
protecting, extracting, and processing oil supplies. The U.s.
government spends about $1.6 billion yearly on regulatory oversight,
pollution clean-up, and liability costs connected to the oil industry.
Subsidies distort the the free market and make renewable resources
less economical and competitive—International
Center for Technology Assessment

More than $6 trillion of upstream investment will be required to meet
the world demand for oil and gas through 2030—The World Energy
Investment Outlook

>>Back to Top
 
Renewable Energy
Recent political, economic and technological factors indicate that the
global market for renewable energy sources is here now. Governments
and businesses around the world are embracing sustainable technology
today in order to solve deepening problems with current energy
production methods. Consumers are demanding that their leaders begin
to implement alternatives to the fossil, nuclear, and large-hydro
sources that continue to have a negative impact on our climate, our
environment, our economies, and our security—ETEC

Renewable energies will grow to $92 billion a year by 2013, compared
with the current level of $13 billion—Clean Edge Inc. While the
fossil-nuclear energy system amplifies the global water crisis, most
renewable energy technologies do not consume water. They can be
implemented in such a way that they actually benefit water
supply...only 2.5% of the world’s water is freshwater, and only a tiny
fraction of this (ca. 0.007% of all the water on earth is accessible
for direct human purposes...at least 1 billion people have no access
to safe drinking water—World Council for Renewable Energy

During the next 20 years, experts foresee a need for 1,500 gigawatts
of additional power simply to meet new demand. This equates to 15,000
power plants that are 100 MW each and 59 million barrels of oil
consumed each day...2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide released to the
atmosphere per year—Sea Solar Power International

Average costs for solar-derived ocean energy sources are quoted at
approximately 15 to 20 cents per kWh, and fossil and nuclear plants
are quoted around 5 to 6 cents per kWh. However, when you take
hundreds of billions in hidden subsidies and damage to human and
environmental resources into account, solar-derived energy becomes
considerably more effective—International Center for Technology
Assessment

Renewable energy use while expected to rise 53% during the period 1999
to 2020, still represents less than 10% of the total energy
consumption. Global capital expenditures for renewable energy are
forecast by 2010 to range from a low of $15 billion per annum to a
high of $85 billion per annum—Anthony Jones, OceanUS Consulting

The U.S Department of Energy has initiatives in place that include
tripling the use of bio-based products, installing solar in one
million residential and commercial buildings, and generating more than
10 billion watts of wind power by 2010—DOE

It is expected that 60% of the world’s energy will come from renewable
energy by the year 2070—ETEC

The use of unconventional renewable energy supplies grew in the 1990s
by rates far outstripping those of conventional energy sources: wind
power by 24.2% per year, photovoltaics by 17.3% per year, and
geothermal by 4.3% per yea—Worldwatch Institute

U.S. non-hydropower renewable electricity generation is projected to
grow at a faster rate than all other sources except for natural gas,
continuing the nearly 30% growth rate seen in the 1990s.—ETEC

Biomass accounts for 15% of total world energy supply—and as much as
35-50% of domestic energy in some developing countrie—Douglas Westwood
Ltd.

Consumption of renewable energy worldwide will jump by 56% from 2001
levels to 50 quadrillion btu in 2025—U.S. Energy Information
Administration

World Solar Summit, World solar Decade and the World Bank have
recently allocated over $2 billion to projects dealing with renewable
energy and the environment—ETEC

Europe is aiming to get all of its energy from renewable sources by
2050—New Scientist

The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) and the World Bank have begun
a 10-year project to increase China’s non-conventional renewable
energy use by 14,300 MW by 2010—GEF

Renewables are rapidly gaining a global foothold in the largest
horizontal market the world has ever seen: Energy Technology—ETEC

Iceland, Norway and Sweden get more of their energy from renewable
resources than anywhere else in the world: 72.6%, 52.8% and 31.7%
respectively in 2002—New Scientist

>>Back to Top
 
Wind Power
One in six households in the UK will soon be powered by wind
energy—BWEA
Wind power has the potential to supply a large fraction, probably
about 20% of the United States electrical demand at an economical
price—U.S. Department of Energy

Wind power has the potential to supply a large fraction, probably
about 20% of the United States electrical demand at an economical
price—AWEA

Europe has 87% of the world’s installed wind energy capacity,
supplying enough electricity to meet the needs of 40 million people
and growing by 40% per year. The cost of wind energy has dropped 80%
in the past 20 years —New Scientist

The world’s largest wind plant is the Stateline Wind Project on
Washington and Oregon border (300MW) —AWEA

Wind capacity was installed or under construction in 28 states by
2001—ETEC

Program Goal—By 2010, Achieve 10,000 MW of installed windpowered
generating capacity in the United States—U.S. DOE’s

Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Wind Energy could
provide at least 6% of U.S. electricity by 2020, enough to serve 25
million average households.—AWEA

Wind energy is a domestic, reliable power source that provides more
jobs per dollar invested than any other technology—more than five
times that from coal or nuclear power—National Renewable Energy Labs

U.S. winds could generate more electricity in 15 years than all of
Saudi Arabia’s oil, without being depleted.—AWEA

Wind power already supports 35,000 new jobs in Germany—Friends of the
Earth

New, larger wind turbines (1MW to 1.8MW) cost 20 times as much as
early 1980s models, but generate 120 times more electricty.—AWEA

Wind electric power plant net summer capacity expanded by over 70% in
the U.S. in 2001—ETEC

Enough wind generation is now in place in the U.S. (6,374 MW) to serve
1.6 million average U.S. households and worldwide (39, 294 MW) to
serve 9 million average U.S. households.—AWEA

The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced the Wind Powering
America initiative with goals to power at least 5% of the nation’s
electricity with wind by 2020, increase the number of states with more
than 20 MW of wind to 16 by 2005 and 34 by 2010, an increase federal
use of wind energy to 5% by 2010—U.S. Department of Energy

There are about 1,000 wind turbines in operation around the UK,
electricity generated by wind turbines rose 30% in 1999, a wind
turbine will produce over 30 times the energy that was used in its
manufacturing (coal and nuclear power return only one third the energy
used in their construction and constant fuel supply)—Department of
Trade and Industry in the UK

Germany, the world leader in wind energy, has the capacity to generate
12 gigawatts of electricity from wind, enough to supply 15 million
people—New Scientist

In the UK, a single average-sized turbine of 1 MW typically produces
at least 2.5 million KWh of electricity per year. This is enough to
meet the needs of almost 600 average households—Friends of the Earth

Today there are 82 operational wind farms with 1030 turbines in the
UK, with a combined capacity of 587.6 MW. They generate
1.5 TWh of electricity a year, meeting the needs of over a third of a
million households in Britain—but still only 0.4% of the total supply
in the UK. Wind can theoretically provide more than 100% of the
country’s electricity needs—BWEA

The U.S. congress appropriated $34.8 million to support the wind
energy program in FY 1999—DOE

A typical wind farm of about 20 turbines extends over an area of about
one to two square kilometers—Friends of the Earth

The first UK wind farm was completed December, 1991, at Delabole using
10 400 kW Vestas turbines—the UK’s first offshore wind farm at Blyth,
came online in December of 2000—BWEA

Since electricity is consumed by millions of appliances spread all
over the country it is actually more efficient to generate electricity
in the same dispersed way, cutting down on the energy lost when
electricity is transmitted over long distances. smaller sources of
energy production can help us to use electricity more efficiently by
putting it closer to where it is used—Friends of the Earth

Wind turbine rotor blade diameters range up to 80 meters, and produce
up to over 2 MW (up to 5 MW under development). The larger machines
are desirable for offshore wind farms and produce electricity at a
lower cost—BWEA

Some $3 billion worth of wind power investments (about 3,000 MW), or
enough to supply 850,000 homes) are currently scheduled for
development in the U.S.—AWEA

It is difficult to compare the cost of making electricity from
different energy sources because the benefits of renewable energy
(e.g. no pollution and never-ending supply) do not have a universally
accepted price—BWEA

There are no technical, economic or resource barriers to supply 12% of
the world’s electricity needs with wind power alone by 2020—EWEA and
Greenpeace

Germany plans a massive increase over the next 25 years, with a target
of 25% of present electricity needs coming from wind power. Spain is
another rapidly growing wind energy market (second fastest in 2001)
with a total of 3,340 MW of installed capacity. In Denmark, 18% of
electricity already comes from wind and is set to increase—Friends of
the Earth

The market for wind power has the potential to become a Euro 67
billion annual industry by 2020—equating to 1.5 million jobs, carbon
dioxide savings of 12 billion tons, 1.2 MW of wind power installed,
3,093 TWh of power equivalent to the current electricity use of all of
Europe, twice that of China, two thirds that of North America and
three times that of Latin America.—EWEA and AWEA

Offshore wind power is the new frontier for the wind power industry.
As of June 2003, just 250 MW of the 23,000 MW wind capacity installed
in Europe was offshore—BWEA

Offshore wind is on track to be fully competitive with gas by as early
as 2010—Wind power Monthly

There are currently 11 operational offshore wind farms around the
world, with 163 turbines totalling 260 MW—BWEA

The offshore wind resource is huge—the DTI estimates it could supply
current electricity demand 10 times over—Friends of the
Earth
The total global market for offshore renewables could be as much as £8
billion by 2007 with the European market accounting for 90% of this.
the scale and sheer number of offshore wind developments make it the
largest sector accounting for over 97% of the forecast expenditure.
Annual global offshore wind installations will exceed 900 MW by 2007.
The UK is expected to install 907 MW of wind installations, which is
21% of the global new capacity by 2007—Renewables, UK

Wind power is moving to the forefront of the renewable energy
industry...the resource, wind, has no price volatility—Business
Communications Co. Inc.

>>Back to Top
 
Wave
A 30 MW (Pelamis Wave Energy Converter) offshore wave farm would
consist of 40 machines occupying a square kilometer providing
sufficient power for over 20,000 home—Ocean Power Delivery Ltd.

Theory tells us that along a shoreline a three-foot-high wave six feet
wide produces the equivalent of 35 horsepower—Don Walsh It has been
estimated that 0.1% of the energy in oceans waves could be capable of
supplying the entire world’s energy requirements five fold—Wavegen Co.

Wave energy can be considered as a concentrated form of solar energy.
Winds are generated by the differential heating of the earth’s
surface, and, because they blow over large spans of water, part of
their energy is converted into eaves. The rate of energy transfer from
wind to waves is small, typically about 1 W/sq. meter, but over the
fetch available in oceans it can build waves with power levels of
typically 10 to 50 kW per meter of wave crest length—Denis Mollison

Probably the first global wave energy resource assessment was produced
by Kinsman (1965) who estimated the wave energy dissipated along the
coasts to be around 2.2 TW. this is in good agreement with the
estimate of 2.5 TW by Isaacs and Seymour (1973) and of 2 TW by the
World Energy Council (1993). the global offshore wave energy resource
should range between 1 to 10 TW, which is of the same order as global
electrical energy consumption—Instituto Nacional de Engenharia e
Technologia Industrial (INETI), Lisbon Portugal

>>Back to Top
Solar
The PV market will grow from $3.5 billion last year (2002) to $27.5
billion by 2012—Clean Edge Research
 
Tidal
A typical tidal farm or power station would consist of between 30 and
100 TidEI units (a pair of contra-rotating 500 kW turbines mounted on
a single crossbeam). A 100 unit farm would therefore generate peak
power of 100 MW at a load factor of 40%—Soil Machine Dynamics

The marine current resource is potentially large. A study of 106
possible locations in the EU countries for tidal turbines showed that
such sites could generate power on the order of 50 TWh per year.
Compared with the largest wind turbine operating today (rated power 2
MW), the power output as well as the size of a marine current turbine
are extremely promising. The power density of marine current is
approximately four times that for a wind generator...35 times that of
a solar photovoltaic generator—Dr. AbuBakr S. Bahaj, Univ. of
Southamton

Water has a density 832 times that of air—Marine Current Turbines

>>Back to Top
Thermal
A great amount of thermal energy (heat) is stored in the world’s
oceans. EAch day, the ocean’s absorb enough heat from the sun to equal
the thermal energy contained in 250 billion barrels of oil—U.S. DOE
It is estimated that, in an annual basis, the amount of solar energy
absorbed by the oceans is equivalent to at least 4000 times the amount
presently consumed by humans. for an OTEC efficiency of 3%, in
converting ocean thermal energy to electricity, we would need less
than 1% of this renewable energy to satisfy all of our desires for
energy—L.A. Vega, PICHTR

In coastal regions solar thermal power plants could use seawater for
cooling and deslinate it as a by-process in the generation of clean
electricty—World Council for Renewable Energy

This technology (Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion-OTEC) can not only
compete with fossil fuel but it will provide base load power to
operate 24/7, produce an abundance of fresh water for most of the
world’s population and cause mariculture to flourish...a 10 MW
landbased OTEC plant that also produces 3 million gallons of water per
day is being developed for commercial application—Sea Solar Power
International, LLC

TSC does not guarantee these facts & figures to be accurate or valid.
They are a collection of exerpts from documents and articles collected
by TSC. ©2004 Technology Systems Corporation

>>Back to Top
 
 
   Media Sponsors:

 
Organized By:

Technology Systems Corporation
PO Box 1096
Palm City, FL 34991
 
   strong response from the U.S. wind energy industry to a request for
proposals (RFP) to build new power plants in the Pacific Northwest is
a signal that the clean energy technology is ready to respond quickly
to the electric power crisis in the Western states, the American Wind
Energy Association (AWEA) said today.

The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA), a federal agency based in
Portland, Ore., that sells electricity from federally-owned hydropower
projects, issued an RFP in February seeking 1,000 megawatts (MW) of
new wind power. Describing the response, George Darr, BPA's renewable
power resource program manager, said, "[It] blew us away" -- 25
proposals, totaling about 2,600 MW, were submitted. [2,600 MW of wind
capacity is enough to serve 500,000 to 750,000 average U.S.
households, or 1.4 million to 2.1 million people.] Furthermore, the
proposals included room for expansion of the projects to a total of
4,000 MW.

The first wind power plants to be built for BPA will be installed by
the end of next year -- far more quickly than most other power plants
could be built -- and will begin delivering electricity to the utility
system, helping the drought-plagued Northwest conserve scarce
hydropower supplies. As BPA Acting Administrator Steve Wright
explains, "Harvesting the strong, steady winds of the Columbia River
Basin works especially well with our hydro power base. When the winds
blow, we can save more water in reservoirs. When the winds are still,
we can release the river's power. Wind farms add to our local
renewable resources."

Even so, AWEA said, the BPA experience "has only scratched the
surface" of the wind potential of the Pacific Northwest and Western
states. Said AWEA executive director Randall Swisher, "Hundreds of
thousands of megawatts of wind power plants could be installed in the
western U.S., vastly increasing electricity supplies and providing an
abundance of clean, domestic energy.

"The wind resource of the Western and Midwestern states is bigger in
energy terms than the oil resources of Saudi Arabia (see note). It's
a strategic national energy asset, and developing it should be a
national energy priority."

Swisher called for expansion of President Bush's national
The Saudi Arabia of Wind

Tomorrow's industries in Nebraska could be wind-to-electricity farms.
That's what a federal energy lab study suggests in a recent report.

"Choices for a Brighter Future" says the seven states in the Midwest
Region - including Nebraska - could potentially generate 5.4 trillion
kilowatt-hours of electricity from wind turbines. That's nearly twice
the electricity used in the United States every year.

All states in the region, except Missouri, have more than enough wind
energy available to meet all their electrical needs. Nebraska, for
example, could become a net exporter of electricity since it has the
potential of producing nearly three and a half times the power needed
by the seven state region.

A complete copy of the report can be found at the National Renewable
Energy Laboratory web site at www.nrel.gov/analysis/emaa/topical.html

 Return to the Fall 1999 Newsletter
Fusion using helium 3, on the other hand, produces little or no
radioactive byproducts. The closest place where helium 3 can be found
in any quantity is the surface of the Moon, where it is estimated a
million tons of the isotope exists, depositing over billions of years
by solar wind. Helium 3 could be mined from the Moon and delivered to
Earth where just a few tons of the isotope could supply all the power
needs of the United States for a yearThe Moon especially may be the
Saudi Arabia of energy production for the later part of the 21st
Century. It could be the key, in fact, for instituting a number of
methods of energy production which are both virtually limitless and
clean. This potential has much relevance in an age when the price of
oil has recently flirted with fifty dollars a barrel and the
industrialization of countries like China and India increases the
demand for energy.

 

Space solar power is an old concept, first developed by Peter Glasser
at Arthur Little in the late 1960s. The idea is that huge solar
collectors, located in orbit around the Earth or on the lunar surface,
would collect the flood of energy flowing from the Sun and beam it to
the Earth via microwaves. On Earth, the microwaves would be converted
to electricity and fed into the power grid. Space based solar energy
is also seen as a means of powering space based industries and mining
operations.

But water — H 2O — has hydrogen, and if Minnesota could extract
hydrogen from some of its 14,000 lakes and estimated one trillion
gallons of ground water, the state could become the Saudi Arabia of
the North. The key is using an efficient power source to extract
hydrogen from water.

How fast can you say wind turbines? The Minnesota Department of
Commerce estimates Minnesota ’s potential wind energy is 23 times the
state’s current electrical usage. By using water and non-polluting
wind energy to power turbines, hydrogen could be generated at a low
cost relative to gasoline. One benefit of using hydrogen to make
electricity (via fuel cells) is that it doesn’t require a transmission
line. Hydrogen can be stored in pressurized tanks and shipped to
provide power to remote areas. For most of us, however, most likely
use of hydrogen would be powering vehicles, not providing electricity.
Scott noted with envy that in southern California, significant wind
blows only in the spring, but in Minnesota, wind blows all year…just
like in the Sahara, 60 miles due west of Saudi AraSince the inception
of the wind energy production tax credit in 1993, more than 1,128
megawatts of generating capacity have been put online across the
country. This generating capacity powers nearly 300,000 homes, or
750,000 people. More than 900 megawatts of new wind energy capacity
were added last year, bringing wind energy generating capacity in the
United States to more than 2,500 megawatts.

Relevant Pages

  • FIGHTING FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
    ... Fighting for America's Energy Independence ... The so-called wind production tax credit Dorgan was ... with power capacity equivalent to that of roughly six ... Costs and True Costs ...
    (sci.physics)
  • FIGHTING FOR ENERGY INDEPENDENCE
    ... Fighting for America's Energy Independence ... The so-called wind production tax credit Dorgan was ... with power capacity equivalent to that of roughly six ... Costs and True Costs ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Stupid "free energy" idea
    ... use up in require additional energy to the truck. ... Actually it is impossible to generate more power than you use. ... as by utilizing vehicle traffic on roadways. ... Energy sources useful for the generation of electricity include wind, ...
    (rec.martial-arts)
  • Re: A programme to tackle the Environmental Crisis
    ... "The so-called renewable forms of energy (wind, wave, solar, ... electricity, assuming there is a broad spread of wind farms. ... Wind Power is actually a very rapidly growing industry across the ...
    (sci.energy)
  • Re: Free electricity is not cheap
    ... He certainly did not know about fusion energy, this was not worked out until ... These "Teslas" are said to be under development by the Tesla company, ... "Free" Electricity ... hidden power of the Universe. ...
    (sci.physics.fusion)
Quantcast