----- Original Message -----
From: "Jed Rothwell"
The AWEA reports that in the US the industry will probably
install 3000 MW (nameplate) of new wind turbine capacity in
2006. Adjusting for actual output, this is roughly equivalent to
one average US nuclear power plant. The cost will be $3 billion,
My worry is that, even with wind and certainly with nuclear, we
have not done our 'homework' and may still be at a premature stage
in the developmental process, and that the turbine is perhaps not
the optimum way to proceed, long term.
For instance, if a laddermill promises to produce the same energy
output for a $2 billion investment - that for the turbine requires
50% more, isn't it worth at least a prototype costing 1% of the
potential wastage? One does not have to delay what is already in
progress, of course, but are we really putting enough $$ into R&D,
relative to potential savings?
In other fields where significant improvements are possible - in
the corporate world particularly, R&D is at least 5% of the total
budget. Why can't we run DoE more like a company, with incentives
for real progress instead of the pork-barrel bureaucracy it is?
Look at the tiny budget of NREL, meager as it is - Ha! Bush was
going to slash that even more, before getting caught recently in
another energy-embarrassment, and with the emphasis on "bare ass".
But at some point - out of desperation, lack of available options
due to lethargy, and with continually rising gas prices, we will
throw in the towel, the one marked ' optimal' - and spend 'way too
much' for 'way too little' from the 'usual suspects' - companies
staffed with former DoE 'experts' . IOW it is the 'same-old,
same-old' bureaucratic process in action.
AFAIK most of the R&D for wind-energy is going into slight
improvements in the turbine design, and almost zero into any other
competing promising concepts. Even the promising vertical-axis
mill is getting almost nothing from DoE (some privately) and yet
the Feds will end-up committing billions in either grants or
tax-incentives to a "possibly" inferior design, since they have
failed to do their homework in the lab.
Jones
- [Vo]: Re: More on Wind... Jones Beene
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