Iowa Wind Power

cstrunk

Well-Known Member
Mar 21, 2006
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Ha, you got me. Is anything real these days or am I just lying in a pod generating energy and living some sort of simulated reality?

I hear ya. In the near future we won't be able to tell what videos are real or fake. Some, like these, are almost there...
 

crawfy54

Well-Known Member
Dec 28, 2006
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Ames, Iowa
Not CGI. The blades failed to pitch back to reduce the speed and secondary breaking obviously malfunctioned also allowing it to overspeed. The blades can't take it and strike the tower at the weakest point possible, folding the tower over.

I think while I was working in the industry years ago it was in Washington state that 2 people died and one was just below the folding point on the ladder because they bypassed the turbine's emergency stopping procedures and it oversped and did the same.
It’s fake. Turbines can and do run away, but that video is CGI.
 
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BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
I have been curious about this for a while and this seems a good place to ask. My understanding is that on those residential solar installations the power companies are required to buy any surplus power from the home owner. How does the rate they are buying the power relate to the rate the homeowner is paying when they buy from the utility. Also, how does the rate relate to the rate they are paying larger scale power generators?
They don’t have to buy the energy at all. And it varies when they do I was offered what wholesale price was some companies will actually pay what they charge the customer it runs all over the place
 

NWICY

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Sep 2, 2012
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Just to be clear, the blackouts in California are not caused by clean power. They are caused by PG&E's poor tree clearing practices which led them to be found liable for billions of dollars in damage after their lines caused a massive forest fire. You could argue that is the fault of environmentalists, but it's not clean power related. Now, PG&E pre-emptively de-energizes their lines when the wind blows strong enough to avoid liability for future fires. That is the cause of California's recent blackouts.

If they aren't allowed to clear the way they want they shouldn't be liable but they are, don't blame them for turning the power off at all. I'm not in the industry or in California so any insight you can provide is appreciated.
 

VeloClone

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Jan 19, 2010
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They don’t have to buy the energy at all. And it varies when they do I was offered what wholesale price was some companies will actually pay what they charge the customer it runs all over the place
I was pretty sure they do at least in Minnesota so I looked it up. This is a map that shows "Net-metering laws" by state. Net-metering is essentially your meter running backward whenever you sending energy into the grid so you are credited at the same rate you pay them for power. Some states require them to buy it but only at wholesale rates and others have no rules requiring them to buy it.

1603371243220.png
 

agrabes

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Oct 25, 2006
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If they aren't allowed to clear the way they want they shouldn't be liable but they are, don't blame them for turning the power off at all. I'm not in the industry or in California so any insight you can provide is appreciated.
I don't have detailed knowledge of what exactly happened, but in my view it's a situation where both the government and the utility have some blame. On the one hand, California does have really tough environmental regulations. On the other, PG&E knew about that and the regulations definitely were not set up to prevent them from trimming trees. While it was more difficult to trim the trees, it was not impossible. So to save money, PG&E took the risk (as many utilities do) that if there was a case where a tree contacted a line, that the damage would be pretty minor. Normally it's not that big of a deal - one tree burns down, some customers lose power for an hour or two and then it gets repaired and we all move on with our lives. That's what usually happens. But unfortunately, California is now a tinderbox and a tree hitting their line has caused a massive forest fire on multiple occasions and PG&E was ultimately found liable for $13.5B dollars of damage. Courts found that they had been negligent in maintaining a clear right of way, and the bill got slapped on them. And to be fair to the state and courts - they did find real evidence of negligence.

So now, in order to limit liability until they can catch up with maintenance and tree clearing they're doing the shut offs. I was looking for a good article that covers all this, but couldn't find a great one. This covers a bit of where they are now and has no paywall: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/pge-lawsuit-2019-kincade-fire-damages/581721/
 

BCClone

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Not exactly sure.
I was pretty sure they do at least in Minnesota so I looked it up. This is a map that shows "Net-metering laws" by state. Net-metering is essentially your meter running backward whenever you sending energy into the grid so you are credited at the same rate you pay them for power. Some states require them to buy it but only at wholesale rates and others have no rules requiring them to buy it.

View attachment 76851
The way local companies work with net metering, at least in Iowa, is that you can backfeed and whatever you use during the year they will balance out and if you pushed more back then you used you don’t get anything for that is what they do around me
 

VeloClone

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Jan 19, 2010
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The way local companies work with net metering, at least in Iowa, is that you can backfeed and whatever you use during the year they will balance out and if you pushed more back then you used you don’t get anything for that is what they do around me
Agreed. You only get a credit - not a payment.
 

Stormin

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Apr 11, 2006
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Iowa farmers are not paying enough in property tax. I mean if we're going to have them then the share needs to be upped a little. The assessed values on farmland are a joke here.

Close to $25 per acre taxes for bare crop land with no buildings in my county. That’s a pretty good chunk of change. How much more should they pay?
 

Sigmapolis

Minister of Economy
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So you are in favor of increased nutrition programs? Sounds good. Better than giving away money to Corporations who pay no taxes.

I find it funny that, under normal circumstances, you have never met a dollar of spending without a strong moral imperative behind it. Feed the children, save the whales, peace in our time, etc., all that.

But when it is your taxes, you suddenly sing a different tune about taxes needing to be just and reasonable for the payer. If everybody thinks that way, then spending needs to be constrained by just and reasonable levels of taxation, rather than the "moral imperative" of spending ramrodding the concerns of taxpayers.

I just find it amusing you suddenly feel quite different when it is you in the crosshairs.
 
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usedcarguy

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Apr 12, 2008
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how does that compare to the gas and oil subsidies??

It depends how you define oil and gas subsidies. The disingenuous would add in tax deductions offered to any business and call it a subsidy or assign an arbitrary dollar amount to CO2 emissions.

Other than a few state level incentives, there are no oil and gas subsidies.
 
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Stormin

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Farm ground should be taxed the same as commercial property as it is commercial property. It's a joke that $300k worth of farm ground is taxed at $750 per year. I pay that for my $300k commercial property every month.

Commercial Property is in the City I assume.
 

BanjoCy

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They would need to spin at a certain rpm and they can change the blade angle to do this. They shut them down on real windy days. They could do a lot of damage if they got spinning too fast.

Yup - and on simpler (smaller designs) which use a more typical electric motor/generator and gearbox (rather than permanent magnet generators/direct drive), the actual RPM when generating power only varies slightly between making 5% of rated output vs 100% of rated output. If you look at a torque curve for an electric motor, you can see that at say 1800RPM you might get 5% rated power, but at 1850 RPM you get 80% (I'm just fudging these numbers...).