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By Ernest Istook
The visuals are terrific. Imagine the Empire State Building with a windmill on top rather than King Kong. That’s how the New York Post depicted Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest idea. Another illustrator adorned the Brooklyn Bridge with windmills atop its towers.
It’s all because Bloomberg proposed that the Big Apple should blossom with windmills to provide at least one-tenth of its power.
What if his idea caught on? Why not mandate that every building taller than a few stories sport a rooftop windmill? We could include the Washington Monument. And every TV and radio antenna. And every hilltop and mountain, including those in national parks.
Don Quixote would be proud. But had Bloomberg done the math, he’d know that even if Manhattan were topped by a solid block of windmills, they wouldn’t come close to meeting the city’s power consumption.
Wind power has its place as a power source, but it’s not a place at the top. It provides less than one-tenth of 1 percent of U.S. electricity because it costs more to produce. The wind may be free, but the equipment is expensive.
The costs are even dearer if you follow Bloomberg’s other suggestion, namely floating windmills in the middle of the ocean.
How many windmills does it take to meet the power needs of a typical city, much less New York City?
At www.scitizen.com, Kurt Cobb worked the numbers. Generously, he presumed the windmills would use 5-megawatt turbines – generating three times the output of a typical 1.5-megawatt turbine. He compared that with a 500-megawatt fossil-fuel (coal) power plant needed to power a city of 300,000 people. A typical power plant, he noted, would cover 300 acres, but use only 30 of those for the actual facility.
Cobb calculated it would take 233 5-megawatt wind turbines to equal the coal plant’s output, since the wind doesn’t blow constantly. Each would need to be spaced 2,065 feet away from the others (five times the diameter of their 413-foot rotors). Adding the rotor diameters to the spacing requirement equates to a 110-mile long line of windmills, half a mile in width.
It comes to 55 square miles. That’s to provide electricity for a town of 300,000 people. Read more…
Related:
CleanSkies.Org’s Denise Bode: Bloomberg Backs Off
Jim Kingsdale at SeekingAlpha.com reports, ” Two Congressmen, Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) and Dan Boren (D-OK) have introduced legislation to push NG into use for cars.”
Does this option interest you? Convert your vehicle to run on compressed natural gas..at what cost?
From Natural Gas Vehicles for America
While NGVAmerica recommends that potential customers contact the appropriate SVMs directly about vehicle conversion costs, the following are general “ballpark” estimates of retail light-duty vehicle conversion costs
provided by SVMs. Specific quotes will vary based on fuel capacity, number of vehicles, wheel base, etc. Crown Vic/Lincoln Town Car/Mercury Marquis with 13 gasoline gallon equivalent (GGE): $13,500
E350 Cargo/Passenger Van with 20 GGE fuel: $15,500
F150/250/350 Pick-up Truck with 20 GGE: $16,500; with 30 GGE: $18,500
E450 Cutaway Shuttle Van with 24-38 GGE: $18,500-22,500
Sierra/Silverado 1500/2500HD Pick-up Truck with 11GGE: $12,500; with 20GGE: $15,500
Savanna/Express G1500/2500 Cargo/Passenger Van 12-20GGE: $12,500-16,000Natural Gas Vehicle for America study available here. But never fear, you may qualify for tax credits for your conservation investment.
Related: Oklahoma’s Chesapeake Energy and Clean Skies America is encouraging corporations and government to convert vehicles to CNG.