Wind meets reality and the people who need the electricity get stuck between the crosshairs
- By Randy Brich -
As a windsurfer I’m intimately aware of the power of the wind, especially while sailing the legendary winds of the Columbia River Gorge. As a windsurfer I’m also mindful of the diurnal nature of thermal wind: low in the morning, building during the day to a peak then decreasing to nothing as darkness prevails.
Windsurfing the better part of 3 decades in the Columbia River Gorge, Southern Oregon Coast, Maui, Baja, Costa Rica, and elsewhere has also taught me that the wind doesn’t always blow when you want it to blow. It is this inherent attribute that makes current windpower technology ideal for remote locations (coupled with a reliable backup such as batteries or hydropower) and problematic everywhere else.
Presently I’m in the Columbia River Gorge windsurfing the fabled Gorge summer westerly winds for several weeks. The first couple of days greeted my wife, Michele, and I to “nuking” winds, so named by former big wind pro sailor Pat Doherty on a particularly windy easterly fall day in the early 1980s. Since they were downwind of Hanford, Doherty supposedly remarked to his sailing buddies when asked how windy it was, “it’s nuking” and the phrase stuck. Now it’s applied anytime windsurfers are forced to rig their smallest sails, in my wife’s case a 3.3 square meter nuclear blast equalizer, designed to handle winds in the 30+ mph range.
In the days prior to windsurfing and the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant incident, at least 5 large commercial nuclear power plants were planned for the Pacific Northwest.
Only one was completed, the Columbia Generating Plant outside Richland, Washington, and the other plants were cancelled at various stages of planning and/or construction http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/nuclear/page/at_a_glance/reactors/columbia.html.
Now, it seems those nuclear plants are needed as thousands of windmills sprout along both sides of the eastern Columbia River Gorge like props from a bad science fiction flick. Obliterating the aesthetic flood-carved Gorge walls, the windmills span the entire length of the eastern Columbia River Gorge hugging the ridges right up to the Scenic Area Boundary while their service roads scar the pristine geo forms with gravel exclamation marks.
This we are told is the future; and, we should embrace it.
Roosevelt, Washington is a small town situated about 70 miles east of the ground zero of windsurfingdom - Hood River, Oregon – that was previously owned by PG&E. Hundreds of windmills now dominate the horizon for miles in all directions from Roosevelt - like derelict oil derricks pumping madly at every little breeze that wafts their way.
Ironically, PG&E had big plans for Roosevelt back in the heyday of commercial nuclear engineering. The company planned 3 coal-fired and 2 nuclear power plants on the banks of the Columbia. Those plans were overtaken by events and never materialized and PG&E divested itself from the community. Matching the capacity of those planned power plants now takes several thousand windmills which will never equal the base load power those planned industrial giants would have produced. At best, the windmills will provide power when the wind blows. Period.
When the wind doesn’t blow, like it hasn’t for the past week or so as the entire Pacific Northwest swelters in a 100+ degree record-breaking drought-induced heat wave http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/ and http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/total_forecast/getprod.php?wfo=pqr&sid=PQR&pil=RERthe power grid strains to bear the burden of air conditioners and fans gobbling energy like a thirst-crazed sailor. Thousands of people have lost power in the current heat wave and the situation could get a lot worse if the heat wave doesn’t break soon:
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/07/28/Seattle-could-break-all-time-high-temp/UPI-91191248813718/
“The mercury in Portland, Ore., topped out at 103 degrees Monday, a record for the date, triggering electric grid overloads. The Oregonian reported 10,000 customers of Pacific Gas & Electric customers were without power Monday in the Portland region, but officials reported that number was down to 700 by 5 a.m. Tuesday.”
Who would have guesssed that as the windmill frenzy amps up and thousands of windmills are being installed together with miles and miles of service roads ripping apart the fragile shrub steppe ecotone -- the normally reliable summer westerly winds go into hibernation as a record-breaking heat wave smothers the entire region.
If the wind doesn’t blow there is no power – no matter how many windmills are constructed.
If I were Don Quioxte there might be a lesson here.
About Randy BrichRandy graduated from South Dakota State University in 1978 with a M.S. in Biology. After developing the State of South Dakota’s environmental radiological monitoring program, he became a Health Physicist with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, eventually transferring to the Department of Energy where he specialized in environmental monitoring, worker protection, waste cleanup and systems biology. Later in his career he published a multi-sport adventure guide book and became a regular contributor to The Entertainer Newspaper’s Great Outdoor section.
Since then he has retired from the federal government and, after taking time out to build an energy efficient house near the Missouri River, has formed Diamond B Communications LLC. Diamond B Communications LLC uses a multimedia approach to explain complex energy resource issues to technical and non-technical audiences. He also guides for Dakota Bike Tours, the Relaxed Adventure Company, offering tours of the Badlands National Park, the Black Hills and Devils Tower National Monument.
If you have questions, comments, or know of a book that you think Randy should review Email Randy Brich>> randy@nuclearstreet.com
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I witnessed the construction of a nuclear plant in my back yard as it tore up the marsh and spread its fences through people's yards and homes. For what? Power that is shipped to the Midwest, while the waste piles up here? Routine releases of radiation, while cancer rates rise.?
So glad you can retire to your energy efficient home, while you spent your time promoting nuclear plants and NOT protecting the public. Shameful.
We Americans are brighter and smarter than this - we can figure this out and make for truly clean, safe renewable sources of energy.
Which plant was it?
Conrad: Would greatly appreciate it if you'd provide me an objective reference, or two. Perhaps you know of a book I should review?
In the future refrain from ad hominens and perhaps we can hold an intelligent discussion. Please.
Very interesting article, Randy. Well written and accurate. I think your perspective is quite interesting seeing that you have a biology and environmental background.
That said, my wife and I love Maui and just want to puke everytime we see windmills on the sides of Mauna Kahalawai and Hale Mahina.
The Following comment was sent to this publication's editor with the request that it be posted here.
- Editor
Here are my comments. Please add them as you see fit.
Mike
I take it that Mr. K. Conrad never got out of the antinuclear funk of the 70s. Having mastered all of the one-liner nonsense of that movement, he still assumes they are all true.
I know of no utility or coal plant or nuclear plant which generates energy in one state and sells it exclusively to others out of state. Building plants closer to the load centers minimize the energy lost in transmission. State PUCs and others, have a way of preventing this as well.
Nuclear plants are invariably built on solid footings and solid rock or soil structures, not in marshes. Some are close to marshes in the exclusion areas required around the plants which makes them ideal for maintaining habitat for all forms of fish and wildlife.
All radiation releases are reported annually to the NRC from all power plants, even though very small. Such releases are spectacularly low, much lower that the natural radioactivity to which everyone is exposed around the world.
Unless Mr. Konrad is closer to God than I think, his own excretions will contain comparable amounts of natural radioactivity such as tritium, potassium-40, carbon-14, and a number of the actinides as well. He doesn't have to report these "emissions" even though a number have enormous half-lives and decay energies.
Over the years many anti-nuke congressmen have aided and abetted their anti-nuke supporters with millions in funding in the desperate attempt to show somewhere, somehow, any elevated incidences of cancer around these power plants, to no avail. The doses are simply too small to cause cancer excesses, much smaller that the doses from natural sources.
It does make you wonder when, if ever, will the environmentalists ever learn anything about the environment.
