That's not a typo in the headline. The meters are running backwards and they're exporting the 23% extra.
Rock Port, Missouri, is a small city of 1,300 people, and they just made history by being the first city in the US to be 100% powered by the wind, also making them #1 in the US for percentage of renewable energy. The Loess Hills Wind Farm, built by the Wind Capital Group, employing 500 workers from 20 states for about a year, is expected to produce about 16 million kilowatt hours annually, while Rock Port only uses 13 million. The excess wind power will be sold to other communities in the area.
To celebrate the historic moment, citizens of Rock Port were invited to a "Green Switch" celebration on April 18th (we couldn't be there unfortunately, so we don't know how it went or if it was any fun) to mark the advent of residential wind power in their lives.
Who's going to finance these ventures? The town I came from is the same size as Rock Port and we could barely keep our streets paved let alone build wind farms. Anyone know how Rock Port financed those farms?
S33 wrote:Who's going to finance these ventures? The town I came from is the same size as Rock Port and we could barely keep our streets paved let alone build wind farms. Anyone know how Rock Port financed those farms?
Think of it this way. Â Small Town, NE pays, say, $10M/yr for its electricity. Â someone gets a bright idea and buys 4 turbines for $100M. Â The town would pay $11M/yr (like a car payment, say) to finance these turbines over 10yrs, except that the turbines make more energy than they need. Â So the town gets back $2.5M/yr in selling excess power back to the grid, lowering their payments even further. Â Once the turbines are paid off ... schwing ... no more electric bill and the town is reaping $2.5M/yr in excess energy sold.
S33 wrote:Who's going to finance these ventures? The town I came from is the same size as Rock Port and we could barely keep our streets paved let alone build wind farms. Anyone know how Rock Port financed those farms?
Let's also conveniently overlook the ability of a state legislature along with a venture capital group to lobby the federal government for special project funds (W Dodge Expressway, anyone?).
CNN.com wrote:Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is putting his clout behind renewable energy sources like wind power.
The legendary entrepreneur and philanthropist on Tuesday unveiled a new energy plan he says will decrease the United States' dependency on foreign oil by more than one-third and help shift American energy production toward renewable natural resources.
"The Pickens Plan" calls for investing in domestic renewable resources such as wind, and switching from oil to natural gas as a transportation fuel.
That and a Big 12 South title, for the love of Cheebus.
T. Boone Pickens wrote:"We are going to have to do something different in America," Pickens told CNN. "You can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil."
Brad wrote:How does this old Oil Exec get it but no one else does!
I wouldn't exactly say nobody else.
Brad wrote:Can you fill a natural gas car here in Omaha anywhere?
I don't believe so, but I looked into the Honda Civic GX NGV at one point. Â You can buy "Phill" converters to fill up directly off your home gas line, but they had no licensed vendors in Nebraska at the time. Â Looks like that may have changed since: http://www.fuelmaker.com/Dealers/usdealers.htm
1) Metropolitan Utilities District Construction Center 3100 S 61st Avenue Omaha, NE 68106 Phone:
Fuel: Compressed Natural Gas
2) Offutt Air Force Base Offutt AFB, NE 68113 Phone:
Fuel: Compressed Natural Gas
Although you'd probably have to ship the Civic GX from California...
1) Metropolitan Utilities District Construction Center 3100 S 61st Avenue Omaha, NE 68106 Phone:
Fuel: Compressed Natural Gas
2) Offutt Air Force Base Offutt AFB, NE 68113 Phone:
Fuel: Compressed Natural Gas
no retail outlets yet... figures. Â I wonder if you can just get a gas pump in your garage? Â After all the HVAC and water heater both use it.
Joyful_Girl wrote:Although you'd probably have to ship the Civic GX from California...
The Honda Civic GX is made in Ohio and according to Honda can be purchased from the Omaha dealers.
Brad wrote:I wonder if you can just get a gas pump in your garage? After all the HVAC and water heater both use it.
The website for the GX lists "Convenient Phill home refueling"... hmm... looks like you could, just not sure if it's possible in Nebraska. http://www.myphill.com/ Â EDIT: Â FuelMaker (see Big E's link above) makes the Phill system.
Phill Website wrote:Phill is currently available for purchase in the US in select parts of California, Arizona, Colorado, Illiniois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
I assume the commercial stations will use a technology other than natural gas? Â I heard something about the home refilling technology a couple of weeks ago... it sounded as if, at current gas prices... you saw about a 33% reduction in fuel costs with the new civic (when factoring in the increased natural gas use). Â Again, I would assume the commercial filling stations of the future would use a different technology for producing the hydrogen.
Otherwise, I would guess that we're simply going to switch the windfall profits from one energy sector to another... and I don't know what our natural gas 'reserves' look like today... but if our cars are going to start inhaling it... I suspect we may put some serious pressure on that resource as well.
Shoot for the Moon... if you miss, you'll land among the stars.
