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

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

Date: Sun, 07 Nov 2004 01:36:37 GMT

excerpt
Windustry, however, is banking on small farm- and ranch-owned
operations becoming the backbone of U.S. wind-power development. To
foster that, Daniels says, her group is trying to see if next year's
federal Farm Bill can include incentives for the development of
farmer-generated commercial power. These might include guaranteeing
bank loans, easing access to transmission systems, and facilitating
development of wind-electric cooperatives. After all, Daniels argues,
"wind is the best new crop to come along in many years."

Moreover, she points out that small-scale wind farming keeps much of
its income in the local economy. That's good because wind resources
are often strong in areas with poor soils. In such areas, it doesn't
take a huge investment to make a big impact. A few Minnesota wind
farms "have basically resurrected several small towns," Taylor notes.

And that's just the beginning, Brown says. He anticipates that
people—call them wind prospectors—skilled at pinpointing the best
places for wind farms could soon assume a role "comparable to that of
the petroleum geologist in the old energy economy."

Will rural winds power urban cars?
"Hydrogen is the fuel of choice for the new, highly efficient fuel
cell engine that every major automaker is now working on," says Lester
Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.
With Daimler Chrysler planning to roll out its first emissions-free,
fuel cell-powered cars in 2003, he says, "Ford, Toyota, and Honda will
probably not be far behind."

What if electricity from wind-powered turbines in North Dakota broke
down water into hydrogen, which could be piped 1,600 miles to Chicago
vehicles? Bill Leighty, director of the Leighty Foundation in Juneau,
Alaska, presented results from a new study that projected the
economics of this 2010 scenario.

Last month at the American Wind Energy Association's annual meeting in
Washington, D.C., he described a system in which operators in North
Dakota would use 4,500 MW of wind-derived electricity to power
off-the-shelf electrolyzers. The system would then pressurize the
hydrogen gas and feed it into 2-meter pipelines.

The economics of this scenario remains vexing. Its cost would be 30 to
45 percent more per unit of energy than that of building electrical
transmission lines to link the Dakota wind farms with the power grid
serving Chicago, the new study estimates. However, Leighty points out,
breakeven could occur in other scenarios. For example, today's
considerable research efforts could lead to fuel cells that are
somewhat cheaper to make and operate.

Moreover, he adds, there are potential advantages to a hydrogen
pipeline that economists currently find hard to value. For instance,
it would—as its natural gas counterparts do—store several days' worth
of energy in the system. Therefore, temporarily becalmed turbines
wouldn't disrupt downstream operations.

Also, it may prove less expensive to add distributed sources, such as
wind turbines, to a pipeline route than to a transmission line.

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