« Courts - This is the day for Citizens United v. FEC [Updated] | Main | Ind. Courts - More on "Shopping mall tycoon Melvin Simon's daughter sues widow over will" »
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Environment - Expanding Use of Wind Power v. the power grid
This story today in the NY Times A quotes:
The Energy Department under President Obama has been a proponent of renewable energy, and the study tackles one of the biggest questions involving wind energy: How much can the power system use and still remain stable, given that the amount of electricity generated by wind turbines is as fickle as the breeze?The answer, according to the study, is that heavy reliance on wind energy is “technically feasible” but will require significant expansion of the power grid.
That expansion would require spending about $93 billion in today’s dollars, according to David Corbus, a senior engineer at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which supervised the study. He said that sum, large as it is on its face, was “really, really small compared to other major costs” in the power system.
A bigger obstacle is how to overcome a political impasse over building power lines, and how to find, and finance, sites for 10 times more generating capacity. The study did not address those questions.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 21, 2010 10:29 AM
Posted to Environment