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Wind inefficient
Credit: www.tri-cityherald.com 3 January 2012 ~~
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Translate: FROM English | TO English
It makes me sad to see another opinion column (In Focus, Dec. 18) in support of windmills, the ultimate manifestations of fiscal insanity.
Delusional “green” power is degrading the quality and increasing the cost of electricity. The more of these nonperforming “assets” we deploy at taxpayers’ expense, the faster we will embrace industrial bankruptcy. Why is nobody speaking up? Have our PUD engineers been brainwashed?
The typical capacity factor of 20 percent suggests a first-order estimate of 20 percent for the machine to be in a production mode at any given time. For an industrial plant working the day shift, there would be a 33 percent probability for this event to fall into the day shift. If we estimate a 50 percent chance for the power level to be sufficient, and a very optimistic 50 percent for the power to be sustained for an eight-hour shift, we get a probability of P = (0.2)(0.33)(0.5)(0.5) = 0.0165, or 1.7 percent, that sufficient power will be supplied when needed. No industrial or commercial operation can make a living that way.
This is why power dispatchers call wind power “nondispatchable,” aka “worst power on the planet.” This is why wind power is classified as one of the “supplemental ornamentals.”
Franz J. Markowski, Richland
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