Wind power probability in your State?

[Bluehawk]

Here is an intereactive map of the USA state by state, which shows how much wind you get, and by inference how much energy your location could likely receive from wind turbines.

Source link:
Wind Powering America: State and United States Wind Resource Maps

Just click on your State, and you'll receive a graphic analysis.

[Chrisj]

Wind power the solution to all the worlds ills. or so the green lobby would have you think. The chairman of Eon Europe's largest supplier of 'green energy' admitted that there needed to be standby generation of 95% of the total wind farm capacity to cover those periods when wind speeds didn't fall within the required band. These stations are usually coal or gas and need to be kept ticking over ready to pick up the demand when the output from the wind farms drops.

[leobold1]

Originally Posted by Chrisj

Wind power the solution to all the worlds ills. or so the green lobby would have you think. The chairman of Eon Europe's largest supplier of 'green energy' admitted that there needed to be standby generation of 95% of the total wind farm capacity to cover those periods when wind speeds didn't fall within the required band. These stations are usually coal or gas and need to be kept ticking over ready to pick up the demand when the output from the wind farms drops.

Its the same for solar power.

[Woodmonkey]

I agree. Neither wind power nor solar power is the sole answer to our problems. We need a variety of options.

[Bluehawk]

The amount of wind or solar power required per household is a function of how much that household consumes. Wind power at minimum generation produces about 1/8th of what it does at maximum or maximal wind speed (as little as 10 mph more).

Personal wind turbines are an option, as would be personal solar. Other than initial cost, the other downside of solar is that the systems I've worked with personally use an array of 8-15 traditional lead-acid batteries to store energy... which need to be totally replaced periodically and maintained between time. Other than that, solar works fine in a household or business with modest or low energy consumption profile. Naturally however, if everybody did that, then the public utilities would be ticked off and jack prices up even more... i.e. the same result in the reverse situation - aka "prices must increase due to INSUFFICIENT demand."

"Getting off the grid" so to speak, as much as possible is a worthwhile and achievable goal, and very doable even without a single alternative power source. Of course, there are going to be those people who occupy/build a house 20 times bigger than they need, and who use 20 times the energy anyone else does... and who believe it's their inalienable right as an American to do so. A fairly large home, 1500-2500 sq ft absolutely can be operated at very low expense and waste.

We can live with a whole lot less energy than we use, but nobody seems to believe in that approach until the electricity goes out for a few days during a major storm. People like to turn their air conditioners on 24/7 right about April 15th, and shut them down just before Thanksgiving... at which moment the heating system goes on; often paying no attention at all to their filters.

Industry consumes vastly more amounts of energy of course. But some, like Johnson & Johnson, have built factories which, as one example, use methane gas from a nearby landfill dump to generate power.

Getting the drilling started at ANWR and any other proven oil field is mandatory, right now... and should have been done a decade ago.

Anyhow, there are lots and lots of options, and now that most people are having to put more in their gas tank than into other things, maybe it'll get done. I;m not holding my breath though, and haven't been since the 1960s when most of these alternatives first came into common discussion. I believed it then, and believe it now.

Unfortunately, I have only one vote... and we have had to live with the ignorance and selfishness of others.

We'll see how much longer that lasts. My guess is that if they can find a way to make just as much, if not more, money as they are making now without killing the goose (i.e. us) who lay their golden eggs, then nothing will change whatsoever. They pretty much know that our typical response is to get even more greedy about the amount of money we need to get by on. The healthcare industry learned this lesson 30 years ago... all they had to do was say that expenses were increasing and so would our premiums. Period.

Now we're in the position of financing pretty much whatever health, petroleum, banking, insurance and food industries say they need from us... increasing exponentially every single hour of every single day.

The whole thing will either collapse suddenly, or we'll somehow find a way to survive this.

What I'm seeing so far is little more than more heads doing more talking more excitedly... accomplishing nothing more than that.

Makes me very grateful to be in my winter years... I'm sorta tired of the crap at this stage.

If somebody in authority gets serious about a resolution of this thing, let me know.