Wind vs. Nuclear wisdom from Professor Dick Hill

The 4 July, 2009 issue of the Bangor Daily News contained a very informative snippet from Professor Dick Hill. After almost a decade of arguing and permitting processes to build the Cape Wind project, not a single turbine has been put up. The project proposal calls for the erection of 130 wind turbines over 25 square miles of ocean. If constructed the wind farm will produce an estimated 1.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. Hill points out that if this proposed wind farm is ever built and it meets its production goals, it will only produce one fourth of the energy output that was created by the old Maine Yankee nuclear power plant.

The Cape Wind project is a proposed wind farm that is supposed to be build off the coast of Cape Cod. It has gained notoriety from the opposition of the Kennedy family to this project. The Kennedy family has for the most part adopted a “not in my backyard” position on this wind turbine project while pushing similar projects on other Americans.

There is another issue with comparing the power production of a wind farm vs. a nuclear power plant. A nuclear power plant produces a steady flow of power that can be projected and relied upon. Wind farms produce varying amounts of power and rely on the presence of back up power generation sources to maintain the electrical supply. Many studies have shown that wind power generation does not reduce the need for traditional electricity generation as the need back up sources must be maintained on line. This may lead to a massive investment in wind energy with no reduction in fossil fuel dependence. An excellent article on this issue can be found at http://www.aweo.org/ProblemWithWind.html

Professor Dick Hill is a mechanical engineering professor at the University of Maine and is featured on the radio show Hot and Cold. I wish that the state of Maine and federal government would rely more on people like Hill who looks at the practical instead of what feels good with energy production. With congress passing the cap and trade energy bill, we need to take a serious look at what really works in the area of energy production. Will wind energy really provide any solution?