Wyoming Wind Farms

[Jensjustduckie]

Originally Posted by protopyre

Food for thought-
Dams were considered green when they were first being built all over the country. Renewable energy at its best. Now most of us curse these very dams every day on this site. What future unseen controversy will come from these wind turbines?

I'm sure we will see migratory bird issues once we have thousands of wind farms. Then we will be trying to figure out ways to deter birds from flying into the windmills.

[Randaddy]

I would like to see a video of a bird flying into a windmill. That would be hilarious! Costlow's pigeons?

[Canada]

Food for the homeless that can be cooked on the jackalope horns.

[splatdog]

Wind farm effects on birds and bats are already well documented. Many thousands of bats and birds die each year. The deaths are likely due to putting the wind turbines up in migratory cooridors where the animals are not 'paying attention' but some recent hypotheses with bats question if the wind towers are not used in mating displays where male bats attempt to 'tree top'... call from the highest object in the landscape, in this case turbines. Bird diversity is also decreased underneath wind farms likelyh due to noise generated by the turbines... in fact, ground squirrels have been shown to increase the frequency of their alarm calls under the noise generated by wind farms. Ungulates (antelope and elk) don't appear to change their space use when wind farms are constructed but there is plenty of evidence that the basic ecology of many critters is effected. No energy is free. No reason to hide from the costs. We just need to measure the effects and go into each energy resource with open eyes. No reason to Cheney this shit.

[thumper]

I have seen something about vertical-axis turbines. They basically have blades that run up and down with an axle in the middle. I always wonder why we aren't seeing more of these. Seems to me the advanages from the physics and environmental standpoints would really encourage development of them. The footprint is much, much smaller, with only a column probably less than 50 ft. diameter, which also increases the visibility to any flying critters. The speed of the blades is greatly reduced because you don't have the tips of those giant 100 ft. "wings" spinning out there, which in turn should reduce the noise.
Who knows more about these, where to find more?

[jrbouldin]

I went out to visit the one east of Peetz. They put that thing up in 6 months last year--250 or so big windmills. Really an awesome sight Every one of them that I could see were turning. There is another one near the Pawnee Buttes and it has about the same number.

It is terrific to finally see these things going up fast and replacing fossil fuel energy. Bring 'em on, and fast. Wind (and solar) has nowhere near the down side that other energy sources do. So what if some birds get chopped? Global climate change is a far, far, far, far greater concern and most certainly trumps some bird or bat deaths. Plus, show me the studies--I doubt if there's any significant population impact on birds or bats.

[caverdan]

Originally Posted by protopyre

Food for thought-
Dams were considered green when they were first being built all over the country. Renewable energy at its best. Now most of us curse these very dams every day on this site. What future unseen controversy will come from these wind turbines?

They are killing a lot of bats and birds back East with these things. Good for us.....bad for some animals..........but who gives a dam about bats and birds.........as long as we get this great free energy for us humans.

[turboturtle]

There is a plant being built in Little Rock Arkansas now thats going to produce the blades for the windmills. Thats pretty cool. Given that Arkansas is about ten years behind the rest of the nation in technology usage! This means we will be producing products that I am almost positive we will not use here for another ten to twenty years. Kinda makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside just knowing we got nowhere to go but up! Sorry peoples sarcasm becomes me here. I hadta grow up here witnessing the almost constant struggle by our city leaders to avoid growth and commerce.
T.T.

[cma]

The turbines are not spinning because the electricity is not needed at the time.. It is much easier to feather the blades on the windmill (minutes) than to ramp up and down power at a coal or any other kind of plant (hours), so unless the draw on the system is more than what the plants are producing the turbines will go offline.

[bwilkins]

Originally Posted by thumper

I have seen something about vertical-axis turbines. They basically have blades that run up and down with an axle in the middle. I always wonder why we aren't seeing more of these. Seems to me the advanages from the physics and environmental standpoints would really encourage development of them. The footprint is much, much smaller, with only a column probably less than 50 ft. diameter, which also increases the visibility to any flying critters. The speed of the blades is greatly reduced because you don't have the tips of those giant 100 ft. "wings" spinning out there, which in turn should reduce the noise.
Who knows more about these, where to find more?

You don't see more vertical axis windmills because they are less efficient. The efficiency of a windmill is proportional to the tip speed ratio. This is the speed of the tip of the blade (or the fastest moving part in other forms) divided by the wind speed. The higher the tip speed ratio, the higher the efficiency. I'd go on, but it's been years since I studied up on the subject.