Thursday, September 11, 2008

Is Wind the New Ethanol? | Matthew Quirk | Voices | AllThingsD

"The Atlantic, ugh!

Anyway I’m looking at the Atlantic (the real one) right now. Unless something changes my current view of the ocean will in a few years include windmills being planned in the state of Delaware.

I don’t mind a bit. In fact I’m rather looking forward to it (unlike the Kennedys and Cronkites that fought similar projects in their back yard).

I’ll leave you to the Atlantic article to read about how carbon credits are the answer to the fact that wind power costs four times as much as bio fuels (their estimate).

My interest is confined to: “will the things spin?”

I’ve been to California and many states between here and there and witnessed hills full of windmills and almost never seen one actually in operation. They of course not very cost effective if they don’t spin and apparently even in the hills and mountains near LA there often isn’t enough wind to budge them.

On the coast though there is almost always at least a breeze. The dutch are said to have good luck with offshore wind farms. The Delaware test (shame on you hypocrites in Massachusetts) should settle once and for all the viability of wind power so that we can either use it, or move on to something else."

If I had to bet, I'd bet we move on to something else. I have some ideas for what they could do with the windmills if they fail to spin here.

No comments:

Post a Comment