Vic Smith wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:30:59 -0400, BAR wrote:

Richard Casady wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 09:10:12 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

Windmills have been tried and were rejected several hundreds of years
ago, because they are dependent on the weather
What utter bull****. Windmills have been in constant use ever since
they were invented. The state of Iowa gets 5% of its juice from wind,
BTW.
Now tell us farming was rejected because it is dependent on the
weather.
How do you increase the power output of a windmill, right now?

How do you generate power from a windmill on a dead calm day?

Windmill's are unreliable for on-demand and controllable power.

I don't know the details, but I've read that one solution to the
"storage" problem that is being used - maybe in Australia - is pumping
water uphill when demand is low then releasing through generators when
needed.
Doesn't seem very scalable.

--Vic

Many dams in the US are currently doing that very thing. I believe the
one at Smith Mountain Virgina has been doing it for over 30 years.

On Fri, 15 May 2009 12:56:46 -0400, wrote:



They have hills in Iowa? ;-)

That's presents a problem, doesn't it?

--Vic

On Fri, 15 May 2009 12:56:46 -0400, wrote:

On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:18:17 -0500, Vic Smith
wrote:

On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:30:59 -0400, BAR wrote:

Richard Casady wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 09:10:12 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

Windmills have been tried and were rejected several hundreds of years
ago, because they are dependent on the weather

What utter bull****. Windmills have been in constant use ever since
they were invented. The state of Iowa gets 5% of its juice from wind,
BTW.
Now tell us farming was rejected because it is dependent on the
weather.

How do you increase the power output of a windmill, right now?

How do you generate power from a windmill on a dead calm day?

Windmill's are unreliable for on-demand and controllable power.

I don't know the details, but I've read that one solution to the
"storage" problem that is being used - maybe in Australia - is pumping
water uphill when demand is low then releasing through generators when
needed.
Doesn't seem very scalable.

--Vic


They have hills in Iowa? ;-)

If you ask the 10 000 or so who ride bikes across Iowa from river to
river every August, they will tell you there are hills. You don't
store that Iowa breeze. You turn down the stokers on the coal plants
when the wind blows, which is most of the time. They call Chicago the
Windy City, but Des Moines is windier.

Casady

On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:30:59 -0400, BAR wrote:

Windmill's are unreliable for on-demand and controllable power.

So is the power company, for that matter.

Casady

Richard Casady wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:30:59 -0400, BAR wrote:

Windmill's are unreliable for on-demand and controllable power.

So is the power company, for that matter.

Over the past year the power company has provided me with power 99.5% of
the time. The .5% of the time that we didn't have power about 750,000
other people in my area didn't have power either, massive ice and wind
storm.

"BAR" wrote in message
...
Richard Casady wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 09:10:12 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

Windmills have been tried and were rejected several hundreds of years
ago, because they are dependent on the weather

What utter bull****. Windmills have been in constant use ever since
they were invented. The state of Iowa gets 5% of its juice from wind,
BTW.
Now tell us farming was rejected because it is dependent on the
weather.

How do you increase the power output of a windmill, right now?

How do you generate power from a windmill on a dead calm day?

Windmill's are unreliable for on-demand and controllable power.



PG&E has been doing pumped water power storage for a lot of years. Maybe
more than my lifetime. The Pit River power stations use the excess power
from Shasta Dam during the night to pump water back up to the top reservoir.
There was a big plant built in the southern Sierras about 40 years ago. I
think it is still in use. Large tunnel when being built had an industrial
disaster when scaffolding collapsed killing some workers. Due to water flow
requirements, there is excess power in the middle of the night, so they use
it to store kinetic energy in the pumped power plants.
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssI...33931720090504

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 15 May 2009 11:35:57 -0700, "Calif Bill"
wrote:

PG&E has been doing pumped water power storage for a lot of years. Maybe
more than my lifetime. The Pit River power stations use the excess power
from Shasta Dam during the night to pump water back up to the top
reservoir.
There was a big plant built in the southern Sierras about 40 years ago. I
think it is still in use. Large tunnel when being built had an industrial
disaster when scaffolding collapsed killing some workers. Due to water
flow
requirements, there is excess power in the middle of the night, so they
use
it to store kinetic energy in the pumped power plants.
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssI...33931720090504


I think that is just because you guys are out of "free" water coming
down from the mountain. It does take away a lot of the efficiency of a
falling water system when you have to pump it back up the hill.

It is the water that has to flow from the dam to provide the subsidized
water for subsidized crops in the desert.

Richard Casady wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 09:10:12 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

Windmills have been tried and were rejected several hundreds of years
ago, because they are dependent on the weather

What utter bull****. Windmills have been in constant use ever since
they were invented. The state of Iowa gets 5% of its juice from wind,
BTW.
Now tell us farming was rejected because it is dependent on the
weather.

Casady
It use to be that you would drive through the midwest and every farm had
a windmill in operation. How many have you seen today.

We have recently driven across North Carolina, both Virginias, Kentucky,
and Indiana and not seen one windmill.

"Keith Nuttle" wrote in message
news
Richard Casady wrote:
On Fri, 15 May 2009 09:10:12 -0400, Keith Nuttle
wrote:

Windmills have been tried and were rejected several hundreds of years
ago, because they are dependent on the weather

What utter bull****. Windmills have been in constant use ever since
they were invented. The state of Iowa gets 5% of its juice from wind,
BTW.
Now tell us farming was rejected because it is dependent on the
weather.

Casady
It use to be that you would drive through the midwest and every farm had a
windmill in operation. How many have you seen today.

We have recently driven across North Carolina, both Virginias, Kentucky,
and Indiana and not seen one windmill.

Just on tonights local news... a supermarket just spent $400k to install a
wind turbine cabable of providing 25% of it's electricity needs (equal to
about 25 homes)
The things seem to be catching on here.