Every time i see a wind farm there is nothing under the towers. Is there a reason you couldn't farm around them or use it for grazing land?
wind farm question
- Thread starter Drillbit
- Start date
Drillbit said:
I think it's kinda like power line right of ways. They don't want to walk through a tobacco field to work on the towers.
There sure as hell nothing around the ones in the 29 Palms, CA area. But then again its deserty out there.
My Grand Father has a contract with Shell Oil for Wind Turbines. From what I hear, each turbine can pay $25K in royalties a year. So I figure don't plant anything and just watch the wind blow.
Around here the land owner usually retains the rights to farm and graze. The wind turbine owner is given an easement to ingress and egress and also for transmission lines within the lease agreement. All depends on the lease and what is dictated. If I had fertile ground I would retain farming and grazing rights, but that is just me.
Other than the access road and a laydown area for maintneance there is nothing to keep one from farming right up to the base of the tower.
We have done a lot of surveying for windfarm construction in Iowa and a few surrounding states. We have two sites in the preliminary survey stage in eastern Iowa right now. The sites usually are situated on many square miles of row-crop or pasture ground, mostly row-crop. Not much crop ground is taken out of production; a small footprint at the base of each turbine and a small gravel road connecting each turbine. Also a couple acres somewhere on the windfarm for a sub-station. The farmers plant crops right up next to the turbine bases.
Wind power is a pretty cool thing. The wife & I are looking into putting up a residential wind turbine at our acerage.
Wind power is a pretty cool thing. The wife & I are looking into putting up a residential wind turbine at our acerage.
How many have gas turbines for back up power? The wind farm in Northern IN has a large gas power turbine real close to it.
This is kinda random but my dad's company has designed a plan for a solar boiler power plant and I guess they're going ahead with it. It seems pretty interesting.
Basically its an inside out boiler 200 ft in the air with a bunch of mirrors focused on it with lasers. Water heats up and turns a turbine and generator. This isn't a revolutionary idea but it's the first of its size- 200MW (about the power production of a small coal power plant). The existing power plants of this type are usually 5MW.
It's in the Mojave Desert so growing plants won't be an issue.
Basically its an inside out boiler 200 ft in the air with a bunch of mirrors focused on it with lasers. Water heats up and turns a turbine and generator. This isn't a revolutionary idea but it's the first of its size- 200MW (about the power production of a small coal power plant). The existing power plants of this type are usually 5MW.
It's in the Mojave Desert so growing plants won't be an issue.
They do farm around them. But here's the problem I see with these things.
Guess what? Energy prices have not gone down. No dams have been removed because of these, either. And in order to actually get the energy from them that they need, they are going to have to build a completely new system -- high tension lines are not efficient enough to allow for a realization of energy lost versus energy created.
Thank you green nazis.
- First, way expensive. Especially in terms of maintenance.
- They don't produce electricity when it isn't windy. Duh...
- They kill birds, and around here, they have begun to effect the bat population enough that the farmers are actually noticing the difference in bugs and in bat families living in their barns.
- They make a lot of noise. Groans, spinning props, etc...
- Finally, at least where they are here in Oregon, it really makes me sad to see the empty desert/grasslands and what used to be pure, rolling, plowed farm fields, completely overtaken with these things -- they are everywhere. One used to be able to drive some of the back roads out there and really get a sense of being out in the plains. You can't drive the east end of the Columbia River Gorge now without seeing these things on the crests of the hills. At night, each of them has at least one light on them -- so now the prairie lands are spoiled in that way as well.
Guess what? Energy prices have not gone down. No dams have been removed because of these, either. And in order to actually get the energy from them that they need, they are going to have to build a completely new system -- high tension lines are not efficient enough to allow for a realization of energy lost versus energy created.
Thank you green nazis.
toadermcgee said:
What is going on here is the operators/companies are delivering energy even when the wind is not blowing. This allows them to get the tax rebates and incentives the Government give them for running the windmills. It's a scam at tax payer expense. (As if the incentives and kickbacks weren't also at tax payer expense already.)
The gas turbines are cost effective enough that they can keep electricity running through the lines without spending more money on the turbines than what they can make up with the kickbacks.
wind farms are just another aspect of the global warming black hole economy.
I really believe that the next big break through for energy will be small scale nuclear. until then, we will be just as dependant on fossil fuels and all of the other "alternative" sources are just making someone else rich.
I really believe that the next big break through for energy will be small scale nuclear. until then, we will be just as dependant on fossil fuels and all of the other "alternative" sources are just making someone else rich.
RBBailey said:
Yes nothing is quite as pretty as deep plow farming with its massive unchecked erosion, chemical fertilizers, bioengineered monoculture crops that are patented by ADM or Monsanto and aquifer killing pivot irrigation. Who would want a carbon free source of electricity fucking that up....just sayin.
ptschram
Well-known member
I think that plot of land that the windmill on belongs/rented to the power company that owns the windmill. It is their land, doubt they want people farming/building/messing around in it.
Makes sense. If I lease/buy land, I probably also wouldn't want it farmed.
Makes sense. If I lease/buy land, I probably also wouldn't want it farmed.