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posted by mrpg on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:10PM   Printer-friendly
from the whoosh dept.

Investments in and development of wind power in the US are very unevenly distributed. That is shown in four animated maps at Vox in their article, the stunningly lopsided growth of wind power in the US, in 4 maps. They explore why a huge swath of the country has almost no wind turbines at all.

[...] The major driver to invest in wind in many states is renewable portfolio standards, which mandate a minimum amount of electricity to come from renewable sources, like hydroelectric, wind, solar, and geothermal power plants. While federal incentives like the production tax credit, which benefits wind energy installations, apply across the country, state-level programs make a major difference on the ground.

“The states that have stronger RPSs are the places where you see renewables being deployed more actively,” said Ian Baring-Gould, a technology deployment manager at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. “In places that don’t have RPSs, the utilities don’t have as much motivation to develop renewables.”

Take a wild guess which states don’t have RPSs

Wind speeds are not even around the country, so turbine distribution is not expected to be either. However, there is a long way to go before the turbine distribution reaches parity with the potential.


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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:20PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:20PM (#676473)

    Why think of the future when you can get short term profits today?

    I mean kids are smart. They'll figure out how to clean up the world. until then lets put money into making even bigger SUVs so we have more reason to pump more fuel out of the ground. JOBS!

    The wind and sun are like communist hippies or something because that shit is free.

    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:26PM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:26PM (#676474) Journal

      The pennies in most any wishing well are free also, but few fortunes are made by haphazard collectors. You have to be systematic.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:27AM (#676493)

      There was a time when those were kinda common. [google.com]

      ...and they're making a comeback. [realtor.com]

      .
      WRT TFA, I agree with requerdanos (below).
      It's very clickbaity.

      -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:36PM (10 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:36PM (#676477) Journal

    So, the map of "wind speed" shows the best wind speeds in a line down the center of the country, starting in North Dakota/Wisconsin at the top on down to Texas at the bottom.

    Shocker! Maps of wind turbine deployments and wind power capacity shows concentrations of turbines in a line down the center of the country, starting in North Dakota/Wisconsin at the top on down to Texas at the bottom.

    The wind speed map shows the lowest wind speeds in the southeast.

    The wind deployment and power capacity maps shows wind not appreciably deployed in the southeast.

    For some political intrigue, they also show a map of where states have wind incentive. Also shocking! It's pretty much "everywhere but the southeast".

    Ha Ha! They turned the surprise around with this one wierd, old trick, and you are surprised that the "lopsided growth" is no surprise!

    (Bonus points if you can figure out whether or not I think TFA is participating in the "clickbait" phenomenon.)

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Monday May 07 2018, @12:39AM (1 child)

      by frojack (1554) on Monday May 07 2018, @12:39AM (#676499) Journal

      More careful reading will show that those sparsely populated states, Montana, the Dakotas Wyoming, and Nebraska are under populated with turbines.

      Minnesota has as many as both North and South Dakotas, yet it has inferior wind potential. Then there's Iowa, for Pete Sake, as many as the Dakotas and Minnesota combines.

      Clearly Montana, Dakotas, Wyoming are missing the boat, wind-wise, and should have far more turbines, and be selling power to anyone who would buy. Even the line loss at these distances would be sustainable expenses.

      But those states wouldn't have to ship that power very far, Minnesota is looking into switching Taconite mills to Direct Reduced Iron [wikipedia.org] pellets. (Blast furnaces are old school).
      And the logical place to build the new Electric Arc Furnaces is right next to the ore body. (No coal, no coke, no limestone to ship - Just Nat Gas and Electricity, and don't ship the ore any further than you have to.).

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 1, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 07 2018, @12:50AM (6 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @12:50AM (#676506) Journal

      I'm color blind, so those damned color coded charts often look like gobbledygook to me. But, please, take another look at that wind speed map. Tell me if I'm wrong: California's wind speed is mostly the same as those south eastern states, with significant portions of California even lower. Unless my eyes are deceiving me, Cali has inferior wind resources to the southeastern US. Yet, Cali was an early adopter of wind turbine energy. In fact, California was the first place that I ever saw a wind turbine.

      Your political intrigue and financial incentives are spot on, however. The incentives map pretty clearly match the production map.

      I'll add that maybe there should be a chart for elevation. Those southeaster states are mostly sea level, or a few hundred feet in elevation. States with wind production are all considerably higher. If/when the southeast ever does go strong with wind production, it's going to happen in elevated areas. If you imagine the Appalachians drawn into that map of current wind production, then you can see the area in each of those states where wind power will be most productive.

      I do agree with your clickbait assessment. There is little chance that we could convince Vox to do their article over, to include all the data, instead of their selected bits of "important" data.

      • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 07 2018, @01:33AM (2 children)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @01:33AM (#676525) Journal

        California's wind speed is mostly the same as those south eastern states, with significant portions of California even lower.

        I would say that's right, looking at the graph. But in California there are also areas of orange and even a little red (6.5 - 7.5 m/s), whereas I don't see any visible signs of that south of about West Virginia and east of about Louisiana. And many of the wind installations look to be in those areas of higher wind.

        Plus, California has a higher population density, which might skew the results--the graphs show total wind deployment and turbine capacity in the absolute, not relative to other electricity generation.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 07 2018, @02:14AM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @02:14AM (#676537) Journal

          Thank you - and, yes, looking closer, I can see some of that orange and red. Makes sense!

          • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 07 2018, @03:35PM

            by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday May 07 2018, @03:35PM (#676670)

            It's not just you. The scale on the wind map makes no sense. There is a band of red between the two top-end blue bands. I think that is an editing mistake, but its Vox, so what can you expect?

            --
            "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @04:49AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @04:49AM (#676554)

        I'm color blind, so those damned color coded charts often look like gobbledygook to me

        I encountered similar stuff back in the day.
        My first computer video setup had no color (Hercules Graphics Card).
        It would have been so easy for guys who included drawings in their stuff to have made the different colors also different textures (dots, stripes, crosshatch, etc.).

        As my eyesight gets crappier with age, I appreciate developers|webmasters who have their grandpas|handicapped folks check their work.

        For similar reasons (empathy with those whose sight is even worse than mine and who require a screenreader), when I link to stuff, I try to use #FragmentIdentifiers to index the page past the navigation and self-promotion and other crap and down to the start of the content.

        -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:35AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:35AM (#676575)

        the state as a whole, yes. But there are places like San Gorgonio Pass (near Palm Springs), the mountains between Oakland and Livermore, etc. that are quite windy most of the time because of their geography, much like the Columbia Gorge & Plateau. Those areas get good steady winds too, and are close to feed either huge population area grids or feed into the BPA backbone.

        • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday May 07 2018, @06:56PM

          by bob_super (1357) on Monday May 07 2018, @06:56PM (#676742)

          Surprisingly, despite significant wind every single time I go there, and a huge need for power next door, the very green people have yet to install any turbine along the Malibu coast.

    • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:52PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:52PM (#676642)

      It's classic Leftist-Rag nonsense. As soon as I looked at the stupid maps, I already knew which showed what and how it would be mis-reported. It's not stunning, it's not lop-sided, and it's not fucking oppression.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by suburbanitemediocrity on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:36PM (10 children)

    by suburbanitemediocrity (6844) on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:36PM (#676478)

    building any wind turbines where the wind doesn't blow.They built a few dozen near me and they sit motionless for 10.5 months out of the year. People assume that they were built because they got government money to do so.

    From an intelligent perspective it would have produced far more energy to build them in a windy location (different state) and bring in more wires. It's completely retarded to think that all renewable energy is equal.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by driverless on Monday May 07 2018, @12:38AM (7 children)

      by driverless (4770) on Monday May 07 2018, @12:38AM (#676498)

      The areas in purple and red — the Great Plains states — have the fastest wind speeds and therefore the most wind energy available for harvest. The Southeast, clearly, has a lot less wind.

      Wouldn't it make sense to build a lot of wind turbines around Washington DC, and particularly Capitol Hill? Never experienced so much wind in my life.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Monday May 07 2018, @12:41AM

        by frojack (1554) on Monday May 07 2018, @12:41AM (#676500) Journal

        Long reach for that one.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday May 07 2018, @03:54AM (2 children)

        by captain normal (2205) on Monday May 07 2018, @03:54AM (#676548)

        There is a difference between wind and hot air.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 07 2018, @04:00AM (1 child)

          by driverless (4770) on Monday May 07 2018, @04:00AM (#676549)

          Maybe some sort of horizontally-mounted one to catch the thermal updrafts? I'm sure there's an opportunity there for a Kickstarter.

          • (Score: 2, Touché) by Farmer Tim on Monday May 07 2018, @01:52PM

            by Farmer Tim (6490) on Monday May 07 2018, @01:52PM (#676641)
            Would it be treasonous to suggest putting the turbine blades at neck height?
            --
            Came for the news, stayed for the soap opera.
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 07 2018, @11:08AM (2 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 07 2018, @11:08AM (#676608) Journal

        Lower the blades to near ground level, position them to interlock, and set to blend, and you've got yourself a deal.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 2) by driverless on Monday May 07 2018, @11:27AM

          by driverless (4770) on Monday May 07 2018, @11:27AM (#676614)

          Ah yes, a fine example of 19th-century neoclassical architecture crowned by a magnificent white dome that overlooks the city of Washington. The tenants arrive here and are carried along the corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort, past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed.

        • (Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Monday May 07 2018, @12:40PM

          by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Monday May 07 2018, @12:40PM (#676624) Homepage Journal

          The wind farms are bird Cuisinarts, they're the Cuisinarts of the sky. Wind turbines threaten the migration of birds. And they're ruining the beauty of parts of the country. If they were to ruin Washington with that, then I would walk away. We would sell the site and go elsewhere. I'll be sitting pretty, believe me. The Washington White House is a real dump. I have my Southern White House, Mar-a-Lago. And my Summer White House in Bedminster. But what about the birds? Where’s the outcry?

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:47AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:47AM (#676505)

      > they sit motionless for 10.5 months out of the year

      Just out of curiosity, do you see these at all hours of the day or only (for example) in the morning when wind speeds are typically lower? Most of the turbines I've seen were really going by late afternoon as the day's solar heating brought up wind speeds.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:18AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:18AM (#676520)

        I don't see them 24/day, but have seen them at all parts of the day, but the wind in my area only blows in he rest of the year is dead calm. When it does blow it's ~15ms^-1, but they are built in an area, https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data?category=residential, [energy.gov] that annually get's less than 4ms^-1. Solar is great however with an annual daily average insolation of well over 6 hours/day.

  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:37PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:37PM (#676479)

    Maybe with enough wind generators, it will dissipates the wind energy to reduce the tornado frequency.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:06AM (8 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:06AM (#676488)

      Doubtful, you'd need a crapton of them over a very small area, and they'd have to be pretty much everywhere in order to have any hope of making a difference. Even the super huge tornadoes are only a few miles in diameter, with most of them being at most a few hundred feet. In order to dissipate that much energy over that short of a distance, you'd have to be sucking an astonishing amount of energy out of the system via the turbines.

      If it's possible at all, the materials necessary haven't been invented.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:17AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:17AM (#676491)

        You are probably right. But you know non-linear math, chaotic system, etc.? Pile on enough small factors, the sum effect can be exponential, not linear.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Monday May 07 2018, @12:32AM

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @12:32AM (#676495) Journal

        energy over that short of a distance

        A tornado does end up being very small compared to the rest of the atmosphere.

        Does the energy for the tornado come only from the immediate locality and its storm and winds, or does removing energy from other parts of the system cause a tornado to eventually have less energy or fail to form?

        Kind of like lightning rods drip-drain the free electrons difference out of the sky and prevent (not specifically attract) lightning?

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 07 2018, @12:58AM (3 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @12:58AM (#676512) Journal

        super huge tornadoes are only a few miles in diameter

        Your basic premise that tornadoes aren't very large is correct. But, I think you exaggerate with the "few miles". A storm front developed into multiple tornadoes several years ago, north of me. At least six tornadoes followed more or less parallel paths across three counties. Their combined footprint was just about a mile wide. Luckily, that footprint stayed out in the forest, so all that was destroyed were Weyerhauser trees, and very few homes suffered some damage.

        It would take a helluva monster tornado to produce a footprint even 1 mile in width.

        Not saying it can't happen, but it's not something we see all the time.

        • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday May 07 2018, @01:35AM (2 children)

          by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @01:35AM (#676526) Journal

          super huge tornadoes are only a few miles in diameter

          It would take a helluva monster tornado to produce a footprint even 1 mile in width.

          So, that means that only the super huge ones get bigger than that. Right?

          • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 07 2018, @05:22PM (1 child)

            by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday May 07 2018, @05:22PM (#676691)

            My units of measurement must be off. Which is bigger, helluva monster or super huge?

            --
            "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Monday May 07 2018, @01:07AM (1 child)

        by frojack (1554) on Monday May 07 2018, @01:07AM (#676515) Journal

        You don't have to catch the tornado itself. Just slow the contributory winds.

        People are no longer discounting the effects of large wind farms, and if some of those taller towers migrate to land the effect will be larger.

        https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-16073-2 [nature.com]
        https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-05/fyi-do-wind-farms-make-it-less-windy [popsci.com]
        https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/myth-debunked-wind-farms-dont-alter-climate-180949701/ [smithsonianmag.com]
        http://www.pnas.org/content/113/48/13570 [pnas.org]

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
        • (Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Monday May 07 2018, @05:26PM

          by nitehawk214 (1304) on Monday May 07 2018, @05:26PM (#676695)

          Ok, so given enough butterflies...

          --
          "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:50PM (5 children)

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Sunday May 06 2018, @11:50PM (#676482) Homepage

    And it turns out there are several reasons states like Alabama and Georgia are so far apart from states like Nebraska and Wyoming

    The most obvious reason being their physical locations.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:45AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:45AM (#676503)

      Georgia is a coastal state, so there is no geographical reason they couldn't have wind farms there.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:55AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @12:55AM (#676509)

        Here is a global wind speed map,
            https://www.ceoe.udel.edu/research/affiliated-programs/wind-power-program/mapping-resources/world [udel.edu]
        which shows that the Southern US states are not that windy. Even off-shore windmills wouldn't be all that effective off the Atlantic coast of those states.

        • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 07 2018, @01:15AM (2 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday May 07 2018, @01:15AM (#676518) Journal

          You should continue on with the links on that page.

          Taking one area, we do a first-cut analysis of the near-term resource, considering wind speed, depth, and current technology, for the U.S. Eastern continental shelf.

          https://www.ceoe.udel.edu/research/affiliated-programs/wind-power-program/mapping-resources/map-intro [udel.edu]

          The third page in is this - https://www.ceoe.udel.edu/research/affiliated-programs/wind-power-program/mapping-resources/overlay-wind-and-depth [udel.edu]

          All of the yellow on that page is suitable for wind power generation, with today's technology. That is, the wind is about 7.5 mph, and the depth of the water is between 20 and 30 feet. That yellow band doesn't look like a lot, until you consider the scale of the map. Literally tens of thousands of wind generators could be built within that area. It is noted within the article that as technology advances, and as we become capable of building in deeper waters, that yellow band will grow substantially.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:54AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @01:54AM (#676530)

            I live in one of those states. I would not even bother building them at this time. Most of our power is hydro and NG. They build thousands of dams across the state to feed the now nonexistant textile and tobacco industries. We are per megawatt one of the lower states. Our rates are only as high as they are to maintain the existing infrastructure (5-8 cents per depending on area, demand, and taxes).

            • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday May 07 2018, @07:03PM

              by bob_super (1357) on Monday May 07 2018, @07:03PM (#676750)

              Uh-Oh ... Don't you know about saying Candyman or Beetlejuice too many times ?

              HIDE YOUR OUTLETS ! Here come the cryptominers !!!

  • (Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Monday May 07 2018, @01:07AM (3 children)

    by Appalbarry (66) on Monday May 07 2018, @01:07AM (#676517) Journal

    Am I too late to argue that even though countries in Europe are having a great success with wind power, you can't say that it would work in North America because [mumble mumble] is so different here?

    (Never have been entirely clear how North American wind is significantly different from European wind.)

    Or am I supposed to start first by "informing" people that wind generators don't make power when the wind isn't blowing.

    Oh what the hell. They kill birds and cause brain damage due to EMF or vibrations or something.

    (When I was a kid we made power the old fashioned way, by flying a kite in a thunderstorm, Kids these days...)

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @02:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @02:00AM (#676533)

      It mostly comes down to population distribution. Where the power is needed is not necessarily where the wind is. There is also major political aspects to it as well. For example Texas is neither an importer or exporter of electricity. It is self sufficient. It is also one of the larger users of wind power. The state I live in is part of a 8 state power grid. Not connected to the rest of the united states. You may think it is all one grid. It is thousands and thousands of smaller ones. Some owned by states. Some owned by companies. So owned by co-ops. Some regulated by particular laws others not. You can for example generate thousands of MW in Wyoming. The problem is Wyoming is a fairly small population state. The states where the population is already has built power plants that they need close by (for technical and legal reasons).

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:44AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:44AM (#676577)

      the US is 3 or 4 power distribution zones that are not interconnected. "ooo interconnect them all!" uh no fk that... and I'n not even in the Texas grid.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:51AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 07 2018, @07:51AM (#676578)

        and y'all in New England should get that great negotiator in the White House go to get better terms from Trudeau up north... or build more coal power plants, so many, that we can then sell Ontario & Quebec power at a 10th of what they sell it at to the US.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday May 07 2018, @11:20AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday May 07 2018, @11:20AM (#676613) Journal

    A variety of explanatory factors suggest themselves. First, the Southeast doesn't have wind turbines because they don't want them, not because the wind magically stops at the East Texas border. Second, the states in the West that have fewer don't lack for wind, but they do for population. Third, clustering effects could drive greater concentrations in places where the wind farm reps have been able to talk to land owners and word of mouth in local communities has created a culture of acceptance when it comes to wind power (they have been a tremendous boon to communities in rural America that had been losing population for 50 years).

    Another aspect that surprised me is how few wind farms line the Columbia River. It ought to be lousy with wind farms, because it has the strongest, most constant wind I have ever encountered. In fact, it's a wind-surfing mecca for that reason. So, again, buy-in from landowners and political climate probably play a part.

    Finally, with all the cheap power in that band from Texas to Iowa it seems a natural place for industry to cluster. It's centrally located, too.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
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