Change is in the wind!

Stealing national security from thin air.

From a very young age around 5 or 6 I remember summer roads trip up the 5 fwy and into San Francisco. Somewhere along the way I remember those giant white towering windmills. They were really cool.

Especially after nearly 7 hours of constant flat endless farmland it was like entering OZ and seeing a vision straight out of Macross city.

Now it seems every other day I'm bombarded with sensationalitic news reports on these man made avian killing fields. Every "bleading heart liberal" as there more comonly known by people like....well my own parents, certainly seems to want some of this press.

Now I'm not about to quote principles of evolution ala Darwin and say that every species that doesnt elvolve dies, or point out the fact that anything that doesnt naturally avoid huge spining propeller blades is probably better off with lemming status attached. The truth is well I dont have to. The facts are enough.

The fact is in all of the history of all of California for instance of al the windfarms, a total of less than 800 birds have actually died as a result of contact. When compared to the estimated 10's of millions as a result of auto collisions during that same period. Not to mention the untold numbers that suffer from the propegation of poor air quality.

Fortunately there is actually a much better sollution for both of us.

The United States of all countries with it's expanding population and energy needs that are per person considerable. Has become increasingly interested in securing a renewable domestic power source to replace an increasingly expensive and complex power network.

And with solar power still being unable to produce per cost a reasonable alternative the age old technology of wind power generation is being utilized.

Now there is many different types but for this article I'll focus on two. Land based and non land based.

The endless hilltops dotting california along the 10 fwy to Palm Springs are an obvious reminder of the first kind.

The second kind is more to the point.

For about 3.6 billion dollars you can get a brand new state of the art coal fire electricity generation plant capable of generating 1600 megawatts or roughly enough to power 500,000 average homes. Another aspect is the actual fines imposed on these coal firing plants which produce massiveamount of highly toxic mercury.

Taking a cue from the cape wind project in Nantucket sound which uses 130 3.6MW windmills. Which to produce a maximum of 460MW of power for 200 million. While wind is not constant 170MW is expected to be the average.

Thats clean power for 50,000 ish holmes and scaling up to produce the same 1600MW will require an investment of nearly 2 billion dollars.

Now even the least mathmatically inclined will look at this and wonder why you can make the same power for half the cost without all the processing costs such as fuel and transportation related to coal. Why isnt this the standard.

The answer is money.

The kind of money made from exploiting a cheap and easy resource like coal for the people who do just that. For the railroads that transport millions of pounds worth every year. Every step of which using energy like gas which is in large part imported further driving up costs to business and consumers.

Other countries however arent so backwards in there thinking. While the united states currently generates 15.7% of all power made by offshore wind it uses more than 30% of all the worlds energy so that becomes a mere 1%. While Gemany produces 28% or 7% of it's total electricity through wind. And is planning to double that figure within the next decade.

And finally on a worldwde scale. Windpower at it's current level of development and with offshore being limited to 240 feet depths of water or less there is according to this study 72TW of global potential or about 30X the usage of the entire world.