Let me limit my response to OTEC and wind power. First, that 100 MW OTEC facility will actually be something on the order of 10 MW, very close to the equivalent of the first flight of the Wright Brothers. Several generations of OTEC successes will be necessary, and this will take many many decades. Someday, the electricity alone will still cost more than 10 cents/kWh, but, hopefully, the co-products of freshwater, clean fuels, next generation fisheries, floating cities and a thousand new nations will make that technology worthy, or onerous, if you think the United Nations is already stalemated. But that will take us into the 22nd century, long after your world has collapsed, maybe.
That Mitsubishi wind farm at South Point? This was a special project for me because I lived in Naalehu for several years, the southernmost community in the USA. Second, while I had no personal involvement in the project, this was a first generation wind energy conversion system. All FGWECS, everywhere, failed. So did the second generation, the Boeing MOD2 above Turtle Bay, being a good example. Hawaii was Boeing's final windmill. Nearby was the third generation Westinghouse wind farm. That fell apart.
For a while I wondered what was wrong with us. Everything we helped install virtually self-destructed. Were we incompetent engineers? Only much later did I get it. Government gave universities and companies money to serve as guinea pigs. We sacrificed our egos for the sake of humanity. Sure computers and iPods work when you buy them. But that is because they are small enough to go through a hundred generations of failure in the laboratories of Sony and Apple. Hawaii served as the international test laboratory for the renewables.
Mitsubishi floundered, and just recently installed a current generation 2.4 MW device in Oregon. They are still testing, a quarter century later.
Westinhouse, as we knew it, is no more. Toshiba owns the nuclear power portion, and Taiwan took over the segment that made windmills and motors. Just this past Friday came this announcement:
TECO-Westinghouse breezes into wind turbine industry
"
"WRITTEN BY AMY STANSBURY, FRIDAY, 06 FEBRUARY 2009"
Clean energy is produced by thousands of wind turbines across the open spaces of West Texas. In a state that leads the nation in wind energy generation, the wind turbines in Texas are not made locally," AND "TECO-WESTINGHOUSE MOTOR COMPANY" WOULD LIKE THAT TO CHANGE."
"WITH EXPERTISE IN INDUSTRIAL MOTOR DESIGN AND MANUFACTURING, THE COMPANY RECENTLY LAUNCHED INTO THE EMERGING WIND ENERGY INDUSTRY, MAKING IT THE ONLY WIND TURBINE MANUFACTURER IN TEXAS. IN DECEMBER, THE INTERNATIONAL COMPANY'S HEADQUARTERS IN ROUND ROCK SHIPPED 10 110-TON WIND TURBINES TO CHILE FOR A 40 MILLION WIND POWER GENERATION PROJECT."
Now, this from the only renewable electricity industry (with hydropower and geothermal) that is competitive with coal and nuclear. It took a long time and lot of mistakes, but the technology made it, and universities played an important role.
PV is still too expensive for the nation, but maybe not for Hawaii. Leighton's most recent blog has a comment, from me, indicating that even this option might well be ready for our state, and would certainly be if the Legislature shocks us by passing something similar to Germany. And this current technology is said to be close to being replaced by "paint on systems" at much lower costs. Frankly, the boasts are outrageous, but, within a decade, who knows?
So what does this all mean anticipating the doom? You can look at it as too little too late, or hope and subsequent progress.
Aloha.
Pat-The Dow Jones slipped a bit, 10 to 8271. I was watching President Obama's townhall statement and Qcolor:#cc0000;">-Crude sunk below 40/bbl to 39.69 today. Remember, my Friday blog reported that Morgan Stanley was predicting 25/BARREL DURING THE NEXT QUARTER. IF THIS HAPPENS, THEN OIL WILL, IN CURRENT DOLLARS, REACH THE PRICE BEFORE THE FIRST OIL CRISIS, WHICH OCCURRED IN 1973. ALL TIME LOW? NO, THAT WAS AROUND 16/BARREL IN 1998. YES, THE ABSOLUTELY LOWEST PRICE OF OIL IN CURRENT DOLLARS WAS ONLY ELEVEN YEARS AGO.-Gold dropped 16/toz to 896.-Tropical Cyclone Gael never did hit Madagascar, and is now veering south southeast to nowhere. Tropical Cyclone Freddie, now at 40 MPH, formed northwest of Australia and is moving safely west, also to nowhere.-That storm closing French airports almost looks like a typical hurricane, even on satellite. Winds from 70 to 80 MPH are expected in Paris, with much higher velocities aloong the Atlantic seaboard. But this one is not as fierce as the one a little more than two weeks ago, causing 1.3 billion of damage.--
Origin: greenenergychoice.blogspot.com
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