I guess the avout of Arbre would refer to the distinction as"bulshytt" though, so take from it what you will.
edit: Ah, I see this was discussed below under another parent. Apologies if anyone takes umbrage to the distinction discussion.
(1) This is a 30megawatt plant. An average household consumes 2500watts (including heating). 30,000,000 / 2500 = 12,000 homes ... it's in the same ballpark. But only when the wind farm is operating at 100% capacity. That may be only 25% of the time, with lesser being the norm and zero being a thing at some times.
(2) Homes are not the only energy consumers. US electricity consumption per person = 13,246.27kwh / 2088 hours per year = 6300watts per person. 30,000,000/6300 = 4750. ... These five mills can produce enough power for around 4750 people. But that is only the electricity and doesn't include non-electrical energy such as hydrocarbons burnt for transport/heat. If we all start driving teslas, or switch to electric heat, those five turbines will cover far less than 4750 people.
But let's say this plant does cover 5000 people. 320,000,000/5000 = we need 64000 of these plants, or 320,000 turbines[1]. And again, only when running at capacity. The real number is perhaps triple.
[1]Thanks to dmoy for correcting my decimal error.
Nuclear power provides about 20% of the US consumption, and there's no need to shut down existing nuclear plants as wind comes online. So just increasing wind output by 15x would more or less cover America's needs. With lots of untapped shoreline and lots of untapped Midwestern plains (not to mention new tech making previously unviable locations viable), it doesn't seem outrageous.
The missing key here is energy storage, not energy generation. Storage is how you optimize utilization. When plants produce excess power, capture and store, and release when the wind isn't blowing. Even with thermal losses, this gets us in the ballpark of 100% utilization. And there's a ton of investment in this field right now.
As for this plant, it wasn't built to make money on electricity. It was built to learn how to build offshore wind in the US, to deal with the technology and political pressures. The goal is to be able to build a thousand times this capacity, or more.
No. That is getting to 100% by changing the measurements. I was talking about utilization of the turbines, total power production, not how the plant regulated its power output. A plant with storage will still generate more or less power as the wind changes. That they use storage to regulate their output doesn't alter the fact that the turbines are not running at capacity 100% of the time. So the math as to how many turbines are needed to generate a specific amount of power holds.
* "2500watts (including heating)"
* "That may be only 25% of the time, with the lesser being the norm"
* "US electricity consumption per person = 13,246.27kwh"
* "The real number is perhaps triple."
http://rameznaam.com/2015/08/30/how-steady-can-the-wind-blow...
They don't belong in Yosemite, or peppered on & around Mt Shasta. They'd be pretty awful if they carpeted the entire Great Plains.
But, in isolated groups, I agree they can look pretty cool when set against a barren landscape.
They're also a source of light pollution at night, an army of distant flashing red lights. Definitely put a damper on the Perseid shower when I went out into the Plains for skygazing.
They pretty much do in many areas.
And yes, the lights are the worst part. I think the risk of striking a windmill in the Great Plains is low enough that they could probably remove the lights in many areas.
Some better options than brilliant lights shining into the sky in all directions:
1. Use aircraft transponders to turn on lights selectively. 2. Establish a minimum flight level in wind farms, and provide pilots with locations of the towers in the event of an emergency descent. 3. Install reflectors to ensure that the lights are only visible from very far away on the ground. This doesn't solve the light pollution problem, and it's only really useful for pilots above the lights who don't need to worry. 4. Install reflectors to ensure that the lights are only visible below the level of the tower. This would improve the light pollution situation with regards to astronomy, but probably make it worse for viewers. 5. Network the lights so they fade in and out synchronously, rather than random noisy blinking.
or so that they would follow some "visual symphony" or make some other nice image or may be spell some marketing phrase visible from distance/space/planes
Perhaps it's just that enough is enough, or rather, too much is too much.
This is the Mystic Generating Station in Everett, MA.
It is inside Boston Harbor, and receives liquified natural gas to generate electricity.
The arrival of gas ships in Everett is a big security event, and is greeted with a general closure of shipping lanes, chopper patrols over the harbor, and patrol cars at every point in the harbor that are close to the ship. Because each of those ships is a floating fuel-air bomb able to take out the whole city.
Every wind turbine, every solar panel, and every bicycle dynamo hooked to a hamster wheel in New England, lengthens to time between visits from these ships.
So yes, I do feel they are beautiful.
And anyway, yes, I would still feel that they're beautiful. There's something deeply satisfying for me when natural resources are harnessed in this sensible and attractive way.
What's amazing is that only five wind mills are capable of providing power to 17,000 homes per this article. That's 3400 per windmill. Doing the math on 124,000,000 homes in the US. That's only 36,470 total windmills. Something can't be right here if that's ALL it takes.