Wind Energy in Iowa...Your Thoughts

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
One thing that is offsetting the efficiency of wind and others, even as they become more efficient, is needing new transportation lines. Many of the oldest wind farms used existing structures that were already built for the coal produced power to go to the rural and smaller towns. The wind farms could back feed these and power those sources and not have to erect more structures. These old costs were built into coal and hydro distribution and helped make wind seem cheaper.

Now that the grid is full they have to build new or replace and it is hurting the efficiency.
 

Sigmapolis

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I should note --

The Soviets looked into doing the same thing with their nuclear industry -- build isolated, well-guarded "giga-plants" in Siberia and transmit the power back west.

They came to roughly the same conclusions that the U.S. and Canada did.
 
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ArgentCy

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Electricity can be “efficiently” transferred great distances via HVDC, HVAC, and uHVAC lines. Problem is the infrastructure isn’t there.

I wouldn't call that really efficient. You'd lose at least 5-10% due to resistance of the lines.
 

Alswelk

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There's a lot more to the story about nuclear. Things like the once-through fuel cycle (thanks President Carter!), regulators changing the rules halfway through construction (this is what happened to the new V.C. Summer and Vogtle units), political appointees with no actual knowledge of the industry they're being asked to regulate (Jaczko).

Also, the production of nuclear energy is not subsidized. It is, in fact, penalized by a fee paid per KWH to build the "spent" nuclear waste repository (Yucca Mountain). I personally strongly disagree with this, we should be reprocessing fuel to isolate useful isotopes (both for fuel use and medical use), but there's an irrational fear of using plutonium to make power (the irony being that if we did use it to make power, it would no longer be plutonium and thus not a proliferation risk). Additionally, by the end of life of a given fuel element, most of its energy is produced by plutonium fission anyway, but we'll pretend that that's not the truth.

Sorry that paragraph digressed, my original point was to state that the only subsidies the nuclear industry receives are *insurance* subsidies, since the premiums would be prohibitively high because of the perception of risk (even though the actual risks are astronomically low).
 

jbhtexas

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JFC man, just because you think it's unrealistic and impossible to accomplish doesn't mean it's a "hoax", that's nowhere near the definition. Good lord.

It's pretty much the very definition of a hoax. She's trying to legislate into law an edeavor she claims to be possible, but in reality is an endeavor that is a physical impossibility in the time frame she has proposed and with the technology that is likely to be available well beyond the proposed timeframe.
 

Sigmapolis

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It's pretty much the very definition of a hoax. She's trying to legislate into law an edeavor she claims to be possible, but in reality is an endeavor that is a physical impossibility in the time frame she has proposed and with the technology that is likely to be available well beyond the proposed timeframe.

American politics in 2019, my friend.

Free **** and unrealistic promises. Everything is either all-good or all-bad.

Hard policy choices with important trade-offs are so 1956.
 

Al_4_State

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The sound would drive me crazy. Friends who live about 1 1/2 miles away always have a sound whooshing from them. Even at that distance.

My mom lives right in the middle of a large wind farm near the state line (being as everything along the state line from Highway 63 west is a wind farm) and I don't really notice it much there.

There are 3 on the farm my uncle lives on (same area) and it's the same thing. I think the nuisance aspect is incredibly overrated.
 

Alswelk

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American politics in 2019, my friend.

Free **** and unrealistic promises. Everything is either all-good or all-bad.

Hard policy choices with important trade-offs are so 1956.

Which is why arguing about energy sources is so frustrating. All options have pros and cons. There is no silver bullet (although I believe with proper education and understanding of what risk actually is, there is a uranium one).
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
My mom lives right in the middle of a large wind farm near the state line (being as everything along the state line from Highway 63 west is a wind farm) and I don't really notice it much there.

There are 3 on the farm my uncle lives on (same area) and it's the same thing. I think the nuisance aspect is incredibly overrated.


Must be area related. Know one town near the interstate that the turbine company bought TV boosters for the whole town due to the reception being distroyed. Another I drive through dumps my radio on AM and FM while in the middle of it for a couple miles.

I’m far enough away now that I only deal with them when I drive through.
 

flycy

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A hoax? Iowa gets a huge percent of it's energy from wind, this is a good thing.
Yeah, but not really. The energy has to be produced when needed unless you’re ok with blackouts so that doesn’t really happen. The real net gain is far lower as wind often produces when there is less demand. Traditional fossil fuel plants actually produce more pollution than if there was no wind trying to ramp up and cut back production to react. If there was a way to store large amounts of energy it would be different, but there isn’t.
 
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Al_4_State

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Must be area related. Know one town near the interstate that the turbine company bought TV boosters for the whole town due to the reception being distroyed. Another I drive through dumps my radio on AM and FM while in the middle of it for a couple miles.

I’m far enough away now that I only deal with them when I drive through.

I'm around them constantly and have zero issues with AM/FM or cell phone signals. A significant chunk of our farmland has turbines on it, and there's zero effect.
 
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NoCreativity

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Go live under one and tell us your experience.
Please tell me this is the resurgence of the old "EM/non-ionizing radiation fields cause cancer" conspiracy theory.

Under one? According to Twitter in Chief the noise from them causes cancer, so all you would have to do is be within audible distance of one of these things and you are getting cancer I guess.
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
I'm around them constantly and have zero AM/FM or cell phone signals. A significant chunk of our farmland has turbines on it, and there's zero effect.

I think you missed a word or two in your response. It kinda covers both sides. Not being douchey just think you mean no issues but you mention no signals in first sentence.
 

ISU22CY

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Christ has it been that long!? I admittedly haven't looked at that market in years but my response was the same internal debate I've had with any subsidized market. I knew plenty of people who were trying to buy into ethanol producers and convincing me to do the same. I just didn't see the numbers.
Oh trust me only reason that I knew that is from a twitter post a few weeks ago but they had no links. I'm in the same boat with any subsidized market and know plenty that lost their shorts buying into it.
 

flycy

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Excellent video. There are number of definitions of "hoax" out there, but they all generally involve some aspect of perpetrating a falsehood as truth. That seems to be exactly what happened in Germany. Germany was duped into believing the "hoax" that nuclear power is bad, ultimately shutting down their nuclear facilities in favor of wind and solar, when they should have been expanding nuclear power.

And the same thing is happening here in the US. We've been duped into spending billions on wind and solar, when at least some (I would contend most) of that money would have been/would be much better spent investing in next-generation nuclear facilities. I read a keynote address given at an engineering conference on the very topic about a decade ago. The conclusion was the same...the safest and most economic way to generate the amount of electricity that our society will require is by using nuclear power. Do the math. Wind and solar simply can't accomplish it.

So, is wind power a "hoax" in the sense that it doesn't work...well, no, wind turbines certainly do generate electricity. Is wind power (and solar power for that matter) a "hoax" in the sense that it is the best means for meeting our current and future electricity needs, and as such, is bleeding off precious energy investment dollars...absolutely!

I'll give you a hoax to chew on: AOC and her absolutely ludicrous "green initiative" suggesting that it is possible to have a carbon free energy footprint in the near future that doesn't involve nuclear power.

Winner right here.