Wind: Answer to Our Problems?

Yesterday, T. Boone Pickens was on Larry King Live to discuss his energy plan, which he claimed was the answer to all of our problems. One of his most interesting proposals was a "Wind Corridor" from Texas to the Canadian border. I decided to analyze the feasibility of such an investment and if this would really solve our energy needs.

The optimal way to capitalize on a wind corridor would be to build "wind farms", and interconnect these farms to some sort of a main distribution grid. This is easier said than done, since wind turbines have to be spread out over large areas of land to produce at their maximum capacity. There is something called a "wind park" effect that degrades a turbines output when large turbines are too close to each other. Large is probably an understatement 2000 large-diameter turbines will need 20,000 acres or more to operate at optimal efficiency, and to cause minimal impact to the local environment. We need to understand that these are not the regular we see on the side of the highway; these are super-sized turbines designed to produce 1MW-6MW of power each.

So this is how I see the "business" side such a plan working out:

• The company that develops this corridor would be some sort of a Government Sponsored Entity. They would go county by county and strike deals with the local governments for setting up wind farms. Counties would use either eminent domain, or paying annual fees for the use of private property. Anywhere that a building rights issue arise, the Federal Government would use their "override" powers to keep development going.
• State governments would provide the necessary support infrastructure for the wind farms, and determine intra-state power distribution.
• The Federal Government would create a central grid, that would sell the power to local utility companies, at rates agreed upon by the state governments. Utility companies would sell this power to their consumers, while phasing out old power plants.
• The state/federal government would provide tax incentives for Utility companies to use this power.

The business aspect looks very good on paper, but there are many small technicalities that need to be worked out with the distribution system.

• This needs a full computerized national power grid, that would handle distribution. No presently available power grid can manage this much energy/ transmission.
  
• Tens of thousands of miles worth of new transmission lines will have to be erected and staffed.
• Transmission of those distances will have significant power loss, and it is not practical to distribute this power to the west coast with current technology.
  
• State wide power consumption is not even, and urban centers require significantly more power than rural. Additional transmission is needed from state distribution centers to urban areas.
• Wind power production is uneven, and the technology to store and release energy at an even rate is still years away.
• It is much more efficient to use wind power locally, rather than connecting distant wind farms to a central grid.

Transmission Problems: Since transmission and distribution are the main problems with such a system, I will discuss them in more detail. Watts, a measure of power, is defined Voltage*Current. Transmission loss and power dissipation is proportional to Current*Current*Resistance. Longer wires = greater resistance, so much more energy is lost to heat over long distances. So to avoid this problems we use transformers to step up the voltage and reduce the current while transporting it, and step it down closer to the point of usage. Transformer technology is good, but it is still lacking and research into superconductors and ceramics is needed for efficient conversion of large amounts of power. However this technique goes only so far, because at extremely high voltages power lines become more and more dangerous. The higher the voltage, the more shielding needs to be around the wire. Utility companies need fleets of servicing helicopters to manage these ultra high voltage wires, since servicing them from the ground is too dangerous. Also this wind corridor is prone to storms, and downed high voltage wires are extremely dangerous. With current technology this idea that New York and San Francisco will be powered by wind farms in the heartland is not practical.

My conclusion is that this plan will cost trillions of dollars, and billions more per year to maintain. With present technology, much of the generated power will be wasted. The details of this plan are good, but we are still years away from putting such a proposal into action. This plan would provide much needed high tech jobs and money to the heartland of the US. However, we still need to have a better understanding of efficient wind production, power transmission, and wind turbine placement.