[Milsurplus] Brouhaha over Navy ROTHR radar

[Peter Gottlieb]

I work in that industry. Wind and solar are both economically wins even without any subsidies. Some companies actually don't even file for the subsidies as the paperwork is quite onerous. I make large battery systems which solve the intermittency problem and yes those are now economically feasible as well.  My batteries are made in 1 MW chunks and run 4-10 hours depending on how much electrolyte is used. Typical real systems are 4 to 35 MW.  Investors buy the battery systems and sell the services to utilities and there is no subsidy from anyone. Ratepayers save money and both utilities and investors make their desired returns. 

As with all things electrical and electronic the price keeps decreasing and asymptotically approaches material costs. 

Yes the birds are a problem with some designs. 

Generating and distributing energy will always have an impact. Burn something and foul the air, wind turbines are noisy if close and the bird issues, nuclear has proven to be expensive to build and maintain. But we need the energy so have to work out the solutions!


Peter

> On Mar 30, 2017, at 5:38 PM, Kenneth G. Gordon <kgordon2006 at frontier.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 30 Mar 2017 at 20:52, Hubert Miller wrote:
>> 
>>    I wasn´t aware of this story and i don´t know how i missed it when it appeared in 
>>    January of this year.
>>    Possible incompatibility of Navy "Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar" and new North 
>>    Carolina wind farm being planned.
>>    Wind farm to be 14 miles away; with 50-story tall towers; some say this will interfere 
>>    with Navy radar. Navy says "not so",
>>    conservatives say "it´s so"; opinion seems to divide mostly by political leanings. 
>>    Apparently old specification for wind
>>    farm distance from ROTHR was 28 miles.
>>    http://bigstory.ap.org/article/7c8718e4a1244b9294e3db6c76933cda/navy-wind-farm-
>>    opposed-gop-lawmakers-wont-harm-radar
> 
> My reading of that article seems to say that the Navy simply doesn't yet know whether or not 
> it would be a problem, but bowed to the environmentalists in the Obama camp.
> 
> Be that as it may, and although I have forgotten where and when I read the following in a long 
> technical discussion I came upon long before the last election, wind farms are NOT 
> economically efficient. They cost far more to build and maintain than their electricity is worth. 
> ALL have been heavily subsidized.
> 
> Then there is the HUGE problem of how to handle such horrendously variable output as the 
> wind varies from none to too much. Much of it has to be "dumped" at times, despite the 
> "buffering" if any, of their huge battery packs.
> 
> Many wind generators are surrounded by piles of dead birds, too. I watched one slice a 
> bald-eagle out of the sky near here once. There is a good sized hill in Whitman County 
> Washington not too far from here which is covered with huge 3-bladed monstrosities one can 
> see for miles. Jacobs would be whirling over in his grave.
> 
> And lastly, their visual impact is tremendous, and IMHO, all bad. They are just plain ugly and 
> too damned big.
> 
> I don't mind solar as much....although someone had BETTER get a handle on those cursed 
> charge-controllers! The RFI most of those things generate is absolutely amazing, and no one 
> seems to be concerned about it other than the few hams being harrassed by them.
> 
> Of course, then there was Solandra...
> 
> Ken W7EKB
> 
> 
> 
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