Comments on: Citing carbon emissions, Kansas rejects coal plants

By: kevin v

kevin v — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 21:48:25 +0000

Stan, the problem with wind is that it is an intermittent source, so you still need something that can be constantly on (coal, nat gas, nuclear, hydro) to provide baseload power. The older coal plants can’t easily ramp down their burn rate, so they tend to stay on high constantly (plus a coal plant is huge capital cost, low operating cost, so you want to keep it at full burn to maximize payback). However, wind still gives you significant capacity to meet peaking power demands, which can be high (more than double baseload in some areas). Ideally we’d have an interconnected wind grid to provide constant wind power when it’s blowing in one region and not another, but we’re not there yet (Europe is working on something to connect Scandinavian hydro with wind throughout the rest of Europe to provide firm power). Solar is better than wind in adding to “firm” power because you know when it’s going to be on and roughly how much energy you’re getting, so solar can be considered to add to baseload, but not wind (yet).

By: Stan Kjar

Stan Kjar — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:46:57 +0000

Kevin,
Do you, or any of the readers, know of any studies that show how much CO2 wind farms save? I’ve looked for some, but I haven’t been able to find any. One reason I’ve heard that wind farms don’t save a ton of CO2 is because usually they replace fossil-fuel power plants and these plants have to be up and running in case the wind stops.

thanks

By: Nora Thomason

Nora Thomason — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 03:07:45 +0000

For a thorough treatise on the political behind the scenes of this coal war in Kansas, check out my fellow blogger’s post at EverydayCitizen.com -

Thank you Mr. Bremby