Showing posts with label Wind power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wind power. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

The Future of Wind Energy

Greenman3610 takes on the idea that wind energy is not as efficient in this video and explains why cutting funding to the growing industry would be a bad idea.

Monday, September 12, 2011

I Want One!

Having more and more energy efficient houses and buildings is beneficial not just to the people who make the technology but in the long run to the people who live in the houses as Greenman3610 shows in his latest video. We have been seeing over the last few years more and more houses like these popping up around the country and as far as houses are concerned it is definitely the wave of the future. As the title of my post suggests I would really like one but that isn't going to happen for sometime. Right now though I would just take a more energy efficient apartment building but right now most apartments don't have any reason to make their buildings more energy efficient, why should they in order to maximize profit for them they need must put in the cheapest stuff available and fix broken parts with cheap parts. I want to make something clear that I don't have a problem with them trying to make a profit but I feel you could charge more rent if people didn't have to pay as much for their utilities they would want to move into your place, ok that is the end of that rant but hey its my blog. Enjoy the video.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Wind Power in Oil Country

When most people think of west Texas they think of oil. The southern high plains and areas nearby have long produced many barrels of oil. This is largely due to the presence of the Permian Basin that made this area a rich area at one time. In recent times oil production has decreased as the peak oil for this area has long since been removed. This has led to an economic depression of sorts in cities such as Midland/Odessa and surrounding areas. But some of this is starting to change.

In the mid-1800s when farmers first started settling the southern high plains a major problem to agriculture in this area is the lack of water. At some point in time water was discovered in the Ogallala Aquifer in the rocks making up the Ogallala fromation as well as some of the underlying Cretaceous rocks. This water would allow farmers to grow plants that would not normally have naturally grown. In order to get this water up from the deep the water needed to be pumped up from these depths. To accomplish this task windmills, like the one at left [photo at left of a windmill at the National Ranching Heritage Center (Wikipedia article) in Lubbock, Texas from ~1898 taken by author], were built that would use the naturally occurring high winds in this area to pump the water up (as someone who has living out on the southern high plains trust me the wind is almost always blowing).

Wind is continuing to serve the southern high plains today. With the decline in oil the future in energy is starting to move toward alternative fuels. In Lubbock there is a place known as the American Wind Power Center (Wikipedia article) which showcases the past present and future in wind power. In the wind power center they have a fully functioning moder windmill. Often times these modern windmills are accused of being loud but as you can see in the video I posted to YouTube earlier today is that the windmill itself is quieter than the wind itself. Most of sound that the windmill itself produced could not be heard until right next to it. What is more is that the farmers whose land is being used to put up many of these wind farms enjoy having them, just as they enjoyed having the oil wells before. The footprints of the wind farms are less than those of the oil fields before them and also give the farmers subsidies that are on par with or larger than their subsidies from the oil companies. And after the initial construction of the windmills farmers can continuing farming the land as they were before. All of these things contribute to making west Texas the wind power capital of the U.S.



As with oil before it the future of American power rests in west Texas!