This past Tuesday I went to a meeting on the Pickens Plan. The original idea was to use wind to replace the cng now used for electrical generation and to free the cng to power automobiles. The plan seems to have morphed by downplaying wind. Pickens now says that we have enough natural gas to power autos until the next generation is sorted out (probably plug-ins or plug-in hybrids). Right now, the cost of a cng Honda Civic is about $9.5 K greater than a petrol-powered one according to Clean Fuels Ohio. A study by Popular Mechanics about two years ago gave cng-powered cars the equivalent of $1.10/gal., so that the cng-Honda is no bargain. It appears that cng may have an application in fleets of heavy vehicles. Mayor Coleman spoke of ordering cng garbage trucks during the meeting.
The President of AEP was also there. He talked of building high-power transmission lines near energy sources to solve the problem that both wind and sun are most potent away from major population centers.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wind Turbine Size
Larger wind turbines are more efficient than smaller ones. I took data for small Skytstream systems (02. - 3.0 kW) and found that:
P = kD^1.7
where P is power, D is diameter, and k is a constant.
The implication is that a small home turbine is a poor investment (a letter to the Columbus Dispatch about a month ago stated that one cost him about $1/kWh, whereas we pay about 9 cents). It would appear that it would be better for several people in an area band together and build a big one. However, on Tueaday, the President of AEP said that they were not building a turbine farm on Lake Erie because it would have been 'inefficient and uneconomical.'
I located some data comparing wind to nuclear. For the Wolfe Island Plant in Ontario, the cost was about $2/W, while the expected cost of nuclear construction from Moody's is expected to be $6/W. But wind powers about 375 homes/MW, while nuclear powers 590 homes/MW (Progress Energy FL estimate). Thus the cost per home is $5,300 for wind and $10,200 for nuclear. I would guess that the cost of operation per kW is similar for the two technologies, but need to check this.
P = kD^1.7
where P is power, D is diameter, and k is a constant.
The implication is that a small home turbine is a poor investment (a letter to the Columbus Dispatch about a month ago stated that one cost him about $1/kWh, whereas we pay about 9 cents). It would appear that it would be better for several people in an area band together and build a big one. However, on Tueaday, the President of AEP said that they were not building a turbine farm on Lake Erie because it would have been 'inefficient and uneconomical.'
I located some data comparing wind to nuclear. For the Wolfe Island Plant in Ontario, the cost was about $2/W, while the expected cost of nuclear construction from Moody's is expected to be $6/W. But wind powers about 375 homes/MW, while nuclear powers 590 homes/MW (Progress Energy FL estimate). Thus the cost per home is $5,300 for wind and $10,200 for nuclear. I would guess that the cost of operation per kW is similar for the two technologies, but need to check this.
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