Finally! We can now put REAL electricity through the wires attached to Iraqis. In Abu Ghraib we did not have enough energy to spare and just pretended, but on U.S. soil we have solved that problem by capturing the limitless power of the wind!

I wonder how many birds those blades and towers kill each year? Bet they performed cursory environmental analysis (if any) to get it placed there.
=== author's response follows ===
If we are seriously interested in reducing bird mortality the following hight hazard items deserve our immediate attention (in approximate rank order of importance).
Climate change.
Habitat destruction from development and agriculture.
High tension electric wires.
Large expanses of windows on commercial and public buildings.
Domestic cats on the loose.
People killing song birds for food.
Way down the list below about 20 more hazards comes wind turbines.

Cars, building windows, pet cats and power lines kill orders of magnitude more birds than slow-spinning modern wind turbines.

If you care about birds, you'd get much better results focusing your energies on these things first.

Very funny... regardless of one's political stance, it's great to see the US Military taking some steps like this. I'm surprised in only generates 25% of the demand, those are pretty big turbines!

In the year 1905, Albert Einstein intellectualized the perfect answer to an everlasting cornucopia of clean, cheap, un-tapped energy. Simply, apply Einstein's paradigm equation E=mc² to ubiquitous Hydrogen Ions (easily obtained from ordinary pure water with a flashlight battery). By means of controlled, slow motion fusion, a mere 1/2 teacup of H+ cations (stored as a teacup of water) will run the family SUV, boat, tractor, truck or airplane for a lifetime with zero pollution.

Sounds good.

Does that mean it's ready?

That's great. So the inmates have the consolation of knowing that green power is being used for all those (potential) shocks to thier genitalia! But no, surely the US government wouldn't condone torture! :-(
===== author's response follows ===
The Naval Base has been there for many years. Not the same entity. Unsure if utilities shared or not.

Before 1960 Gitmo had an Hydroelectric Power facility at Yateras River, a few miles from the base, and also a source of fresh water, but Mr. Castro ordered to stop supplying electric power and fresh water to Gitmo....

"The United States has occupied Guantanamo since the 1898 Spanish-American War, entering a $2,000-a-year lease agreement with Havana in 1903.

Larson said the payment had crept up to $4,085 a year but the checks have not been cashed since Castro took power.

The Cuban president, who has called the base "a dagger plunged into the heart of Cuban soil,'' refuses to consider the lease legitimate and is said to keep the checks in a drawer in his office.

The lease can be terminated only by mutual agreement. The United States has no plans now to give up the enclave 400 miles (640 km) southeast of Miami, which boasts Cuba's only McDonald's restaurant."

http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y98/jan98/16e1.htm

I heard he burns the checks, but US$4,000 a year is a great lease rate for a torture facility these days!

imagine how much energy could be saved if they shut the 'bay down altogether?

Politics and imperial occupation aside, the missing measure is how much less diesel they're actually burning.

It's interesting to compare the output of the wind turbines to the electricity use on the base, but the diesel generators still have to keep running, and may even run less efficiently in the effort to balance the load from the wind.

So the more interesting information is how much diesel they actually save.
=== author's response follows ===
The figures are included in the linked story for diesel saved.

Although I agree that many other things have the potential to be more hazardous to birds, I am surprised the editor states that high tension electric wires are more hazardous. We should all know that the location of any structure will determine its mortality quotient. Not necessarily the structure itself.
=== author's response follows ====
yes of course...and this applies to all structures from wind tubines on up to alabaster monuments. As I have written about extensively in a previous post, Risk = hazard times exposure. Exposure is a function of location and animal behavior. Hazard is an intrinsic function of the structure. Put them together and you get bird mortality/year.

I think it depends if we're talking in absolute or relative terms.

But in the present, there are a lot more high tension power lines than wind turbines, and they are a much bigger problem for birds, AFAIK.

Forgive my skepticism. The press release states: "Before the wind turbines, Guantanamo Bay spent $31,000 a day -- $24 a minute -- on diesel fuel to run generators around the clock to produce electricity. Since the turbines went into operation about six weeks ago, they have been providing between 5 and 12 percent of the power the base uses."

The implication is that wind-generated energy has saved 5-12% of the fuel used, but in fact it says only that the turbines have produced electricity equivalent to 5-12% of the total consumption.

The actual savings of diesel fuel is not given.

====== author's response follows ====
All electricity came from diesel fuel powered generators prior to the turbines being installed. Article explains that the old diesel generators were inefficient and also are being replaced. YOu can do the math based on two levels of total fuel efficiency. I assume you have the engineering background to do so if you are that interested.

Hey Rucio! What brings you here, Mr. professional anti-wind activist? Just doing your job?

Just helping to keep it green!

And, although I am indeed active in the fight against industrial wind power facilities (as every environmentalist should be), it is not my "job." Unlike the wind industry and its professional promoters, I and most of my associates in the struggle are volunteers, sacrificing their own time and money against the well funded developers. (The main Cape Wind opposition group is an exception.)

John, you write, "You can do the math based on two levels of total fuel efficiency."

But you need numbers (real-world not theoretical) to do the math. And even if before and after diesel use numbers are made available, it would be hard to tease out what savings is due to the wind turbines and what is due to improvements to the generators themselves.

Not quite the controlled experiment promised.

===== author's response follows ====
No promises were made that I can see in the press release. And this will be my last response.

This is not an "experiement"; it is a functioning utiltity. All the base operating engineer needs to do is track his diesel purchasing records and plot them in parallel with electricity consumption to know precisely how much saving there are on a montly basis, in correlation with average wind conditions and records of turbine output. He will be able to schedule his future diesel deliveries based on whichever combined parameters he feels are most reliable to indicate fuel demand in advance. If wind speed alone turns out to be too imprescise for that purpose, then he will need to carry more diesel on reserve..

The promise was yours, in the 2nd paragraph of your post: "a perfect place to test prototypes, to push the limits of self-reliance and study interacting forces."

I look forward to seeing the numbers.

===== author's response follows ====
Apparently you are unable to distinguish joyful conjecture from a promise. Obviously, I have no access to raw data from the referenced enterprise and hence no ability to analyse further. How you could assume this was a "promise" is beyond comprehension.

Likewise, my friend. I simply pointed out the critical figures that are needed before heaping praise on (or even getting excited about) these turbines.

As for their "green attributes," I note this description in the press release as well:

'Each turbine is anchored in "a giant, swimming pool-sized block of concrete, through which 22 soil anchors are drilled into the mountain," Johnston said. He explained that the soil anchors are sunk 30 to 40 feet deep, then sealed with grout. "So they are essentially nailed to the mountain," he said of the turbines.'

Rucio, please tell us what you are "for" instead of what you're "against" for a change.

This website is looking at solutions, not problems, and if all you do is troll these boards asking for numbers that obviously weren't released in the press (that seems to be your primary tactic), that's not contributing much value and that just won't do.

I'm for an honest presentation of information about the costs and benefits of such "solutions" as industrial wind power.

How can you be "for" something without the data to make an informed decision?

But we have data, that's what you don't seem to understand. Go tell Denmark and Germany that wind doesn't work...

And yes, it would be very interesting to know what you are "for"; what solutions do you prefer to wind? Everything has some downsides, nothing's perfect. So what's your choice?

And you must be a hell of an opponent to suburban sprawl; if you dislike the space taken up by wind turbines, how about suburbs taking up hundreds of square miles everywhere.

I am indeed active in the fight against industrial wind power facilities (as every environmentalist should be)

Uh huh. So put on our radiation suits and build those nukes? Is that what "environmentalists" should be standing for? "Clean" coal perhaps?

What's your solution?

Yikes! If I can return to the issue at hand, the simple fact is that large-scale wind does not appear to reduce the use of other fuels -- not even in Denmark and Germany, and perhaps not even in a closed system such as the one at the Guantánamo base.

How about dropping the talking points and answering the questions, Rucio?

MGR,

Maybe you should just let it go. This schmo is just here to do *this* - waste our time, make noise, and try to convince us that this matter needs further debate.

I'm sure we all have better things to do. Well, except Rucio....

I thought the question was Rucio's: How much fuel is actually saved by the wind turbines?

==== author's response follows ===
I am puzzled by these comments. Methodologically, the base operating engineer logs the reduced fuel consumption unit of electricity consumed per month and/or he multiplies the percent of electricity supply from the turbines as a monthly average (a number in the 5 to 25% range) times the total fuel efficiency of the generators times the rated fuel consumption rate. I don't have access to the data to make an estimate of gallons saved and then verify it with the logs. Nor do I get paid to do the base engineer's job for him. If anyone is that interested, in actual gallons saved, they might set up a dialog with the base commander, who is identified by name in the linked article, and see if they can get more information. I hope it is now clear that writing a post based on a news article about an activity thousands of miles and a secutity clearance away does not put us in a position where we can do detailed efficiency calculations.

no one thinks of the benifits they just want to argue if a bird flys into your house the house is in the way so burn down the house and use up somecarbon dioxcide puting it out!water produces 5cents a watt wind produces 4 cents a watt and you can farm the land .

No one thinks of the benefits they just want to argue if a bird flies into your house the house is in the way so burn down the house and use up somecarbon dioxide puting it out!water produces 5cents a watt wind produces 4 cents a watt and you can farm the land .

Good thoughts. You're right, the benefits are often overlooked. I'm not so sure about the price of wind, though--it's gone up in the past couple of years with the global economic boom and shortage of steel. But yes, the fact that farmers or ranchers can still use the 95% to 98% of their land that is not occupied by wind turbines or access roads is definitely a plus.

Regards,
Thomas O. Gray
American Wind Energy Association
www.awea.org
www.ifnotwind.org

how many birds do they kill!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bravo to the U.S. Military for actually taking a look at environmentally conscious alternatives for energy production. Honestly, I thought the U.S. military would be the last group to ever show an interest in the environment. Kudos to those members of the military that stuck their necks out to push this project through. You are the new leaders and are offering a new line of thinking to the old brass. Job well done! Hope to see more turbines added in the near future. Happy to see us replacing the need for oil rather than seeing soliders die over it.