President Trump and the Economics of Wind Power

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Call it synchronicity. Sometimes, in the chance meeting of two unrelated events, new understanding emerges. Such was the case with me recently.

Like many Americans, I traveled over the Christmas holidays. These travels found me with a long layover at the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) airport. Wandering the terminal to pass time, I came upon a wall plaque announcing that DFW had become a carbon neutral airport, indeed, the largest one in the world. Making it possible was its reliance on renewable energy sources, particularly electricity generated by Texas wind farms.

The other event was a 21 December 2019 speech delivered by President Trump to a conservative political organization in Florida. The President lashed out against "windmills" [1] and the "fumes" they release into the environment. He said [2] --

We’ll have an economy based on wind. I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. I’ve studied it better than anybody. I know it’s very expensive. They’re made in China and Germany mostly — very few made here, almost none. But they’re manufactured tremendous — if you’re into this — tremendous fumes. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint — fumes are spewing into the air. Right? Spewing. Whether it’s in China, Germany, it’s going into the air. It’s our air, their air, everything — right? So they make these things and then they put them up.

Uniting these two disparate events is the state of Texas. The Lone Star state is a politically conservative "red" state. It has been home of Republican Presidents George H.W. and George W. Bush, and it has deep roots in the oil and gas industry. And yet ... Texas leads all American states in installed wind power capacity. At 27,000 megawatts of capacity, Texas has power to keep the lights on at DFW, and much more. In a distant second place is Iowa at 9000 megawatts. Texas's involvement with wind power began in the early 2000s under then-Governor (now Secretary of Energy) Rick Perry. The state invested heavily in wind power, including some seven billion dollars spent on transmission lines to deliver the electric power.

How can this be? If wind power is "very expensive" as the President claims, then why would anyone -- most of all, Texas -- invest in it? Perhaps Texas is a fluke. But in third place among the states is Oklahoma, at 8000 megawatts capacity. And it too has an economy tied to oil and gas. It too is politically conservative. Of course, strong winds sweep North Texas and Western Oklahoma. But, I think, there is more to it than that. In reporting on DFW's carbon neutral status, The Dallas Morning News notes

Altogether, the airport says it has reduced its carbon emissions by 31,000 metric tons since 2010, with more than half of the savings coming from the switch to purchasing only renewable wind energy. At the same time, the airport's annual energy bill has fallen from $32 million in 2006 to just under $18 million in the most recent fiscal year.

The example of Texas proves the President wrong.  In wind power is money to be saved, and money to be made. Texans know it. And so do I. I found DFW to be comfortably heated, brightly lit, and as pleasant as an airport during the holidays can be. Kudos to Texas!

https://windexchange.energy.gov/maps-data/321

Postscript

In a future post I hope to consider the "fumes" and "gases" the President spoke of. Presumably he meant greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄), and water vapor (H₂0). These gases are natural products and essential components of Earth's atmosphere. Without them, earth's average surface temperature would be -18 C (0 F), rather than the current 15 C (59 F). Some greenhouse effect is evidently desirable, even necessary, for life to flourish. However, excess quantities of these gases is believed to be the primary cause of global warming. Crucial here is "excess" and how human activity contributes. The primary gas of concern is carbon dioxide, a byproduct of fossil fuel burning, like that I personally caused by my recent flights to and from DFW. Carbon dioxide concentration in our atmosphere has been steadily rising since the inception of the Industrial Revolution in the early 19th Century. So too have average global temperatures. Wind power -- like solar, hydro, and nuclear power -- emits negligible amounts of greenhouse gases. Surely the President must understand this. That he does not also articulate that is both a shame and a mystery.

Footnotes

1. I assume that by "windmills", the President actually means electricity-generating wind turbines, which, incidentally, was the subject of a recent post to this blog.

2. Because this transcript seems nonsensical, it is helpful also to watch the video of the speech. Whatever he meant to say, the President, through his gestures and tone of voice, communicates unmistakable enmity toward wind power.

Posted: 2019-12-26. Updated: 2019-12-26.

Red Mesa in the Distance

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"Energy is eternal delight." -- William Blake (1793)

I call it my engineering aesthetic. But because of it, others call me an apostate. After all, what's natural is always better than what's artificial. So I have been told. I must respond, and I do. In rebuttal I insist that we humans are naturally makers, inventors, and builders. Just look at children supplied with finger paints, construction paper, and paste. In short, human nature is nature. But there's no use arguing any further. Suffice it to say there are particular products of human artifice delighting me. In such joy, I rest my case.

Prowling the western horizon with binoculars first suggested them, but these summer sightings were not yet definitive. That would wait for a clear winter's day, a western wind steadily blowing, and a willingness to shiver a bit watching from my third floor balcony.

Earlier this week, that day arrived.

Unintentionally, I caught sight of them. Out on my balcony I had merely sought to assess the weather and determine how I warmly I might dress. To my unaided eyes, they appeared to be white whiskers of winter frost. These whiskers seemed to sprout from land, desiccated and scrubby, stretching far, far beyond human habitation. I sought my Celestron 8 x 56 binoculars and looked again.

Holding the binoculars steady, I must have seen 15, or so, wind mills, winding the western wind, somersaulting slowly and steadily, twisting counterclockwise. Like pinwheels of childhood, spinning spryly in the spring breeze, they delight. Remembering, I smile still.

Actually, "wind turbines" is more correct. As later research revealed, these monumental three-bladed beasts can crank out 1.6 megawatts each! Megawatts! I would have guessed a few hundred kilowatts at most. They are not what they seem. Originally, I estimated them to be much smaller, and far closer. Yet my web searches using keywords "Albuquerque wind farms" turned up nothing. How could that be? Because their home, I discovered, the Red Mesa Wind Farm, is 48 miles due west. How then am I seeing them from that distance? Because each of them is 270 feet in diameter with a central hub 262 feet above the ground. Giants, graceful giants, 64 in total, turning in the breeze atop a mesa at an 8000 foot elevation. I lack the telephoto lens and tripod needed to photograph them. In lieu of that, I offer a satellite view of three of them.

Satellite view (via Google Earth) of Red Mesa Wind Farm, 

Cibola County, New Mexico, 35.261 N, 107.376 W. 

"But they kill birds." (So, too, do your cats.) "Not in my backyard! I might see them from my hot tub." (Heated how? By electricity? Generated how?)

We both agree, don't we, that the earth's climate is changing, and not in a good way? We need energy, as always, and new sources that do not put carbon into the air. Here then, in the distance, is a part of the answer. Were I a better writer I might more fully express what I see and what I feel: hope, elegance too, and a new spring, a rebirth of possibility. Percy Shelley expresses it well, in the closing words of his "Ode to the West Wind"  --

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth

The trumpet of prophecy! O Wind
If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

posted: 2019-12-09, last edited: 2019-12-09