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I han intended to mention the blade heaters. And the oil bath heaters. During the cold operation, they reduce the generator's efficiency. And when there is no wind, the turbines are pulling power from the grid.
And- they'll never go away. It's cost prohibitive to tear them down. Not to mention haul off the tons of concrete in the base.
Nope, we're stuck with them.
I have some friends that live up in north western Iowa where the wind farms started being put in about 10yrs ago pretty heavily. They have friends that have them on their property. Apparently the ground gets leased from the land owner and in 20yrs the generators would be at the end of their life expectancy and the farmer or land owner was left with the base etc. I think that has since changed because there was a big brew haha about new sites not being able to get set up due to none of the farmers wanting to give up their land and get stuck with getting rid of the base etc 20 years later.Quote:
Originally Posted by firebird77clone
My friend Buck's brother in law is on the maintenance crew for Mid American wind energy. He was telling us all the maintenance costs and I believe he said all the wind farms in Iowa still only produce 20% at best of production at a given time. He said the gas collected from the land fills which runs large generators is far superior in $$$ to energy produced. But there just aren't enough land fills to make enough for all the needs. Which is a good thing. At the rate farm ground is turned into housing, we'll be in a land drought in 10-20yrs, so loss of more land and more waste streams isn't the answer either.
My son charlie is out of the navy now and is working at a plant in North Carolina that produces electricity by pulling the methane out of the landfill. Says that it is very cost effective but does have some problems with the other by products that are also produced by the landfill. 2 more of those landfill operations are going to be opened near my county by the end of the year.