George And Barbara Bush Go Green On The Coast Of Maine
November 25th, 2007 by Maria Evans
A wind turbine similar to the one recently installed at the Bush’s Kennebunkport home.
George and Barbara Bush are powering their Maine vacation home with the help of a windmill. The 33 foot tall structure is “connected to the electric power grid,” and expected to save the couple money on their electric bill:
If the turbine is not producing all of the power needs in the Bush home, it will draw electricity from the power company. But when it produces excess energy, that power goes to the grid and the homeowner will get credits from the power company.
That will probably be the case with the Bushes, said Greig, because the Bushes’ summer home needs little power during the winter.
“When he comes up, he should have a substantial credit on his bill to start off the summer,” Greig said.
The windmill was made by Southwest Windpower and you can check out their website HERE.
When I covered the current President Bush’s visit to Wilmington last January, he was there to speak about energy, and this is what I wrote about his idea of the future American home, (which was obviously written during a low point in the Delaware off shore windpower saga):
The President looked forward to a future where your house “becomes a power generator,†and he brought up wind power, an idea that’s floundering and dying in Sussex County:
“We’ve got a lot of wind, especially in Washington.†-George Bush
So now the current President Bush’s parents are living his vision in Maine. I think it’s great. Maybe Bush 41 can talk the Kennedys into going a little greener in Cape Cod, and maybe he can do a little lecture tour here in Delaware.
November 26th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
I think the Kennedys would have a difficult time navigating windmills in the waterways off Hyannis. Let’s get them sure footed on our roadways first.
November 27th, 2007 at 12:30 am
Still trying to push the wind turbines I see. Look into the problems in the UK and how much money it has cost them. Germany has also had similar problems. I’d rather see a garbage incinerator like New Jersey has. It would be money well spent which also produces power, recycles, and replace the harmful pollutants that are produced from our dump now. A landfill contributes to global warming two times the amount that a modern incinerator does. The environmentalist make it sound terrible but any environmental engineer would argue otherwise. If you look into the workings of a modern trash incinerator you would see environmentalist are full of it. It actually is cleaner than the trucks hauling the trash to the plant. It is a much better investment than wind farms costing 250-300million compared to a billion and a much better option to the stupid curbside recycling we have now. All counties would be recycling without even knowing it. Alright enough of seeing these useless turbines in the news.
November 27th, 2007 at 4:44 am
The cost of the wind turbine for an individual’s home varies by the height of the pole; the price can be somewhere between $14,000 and $17,000. There may be rebates from the state of delaware. A company in Cape May sells and installs them.
However, I agree that the garbage incinerator is the way to go. It is a win-win situation. The problem is that laws would have to be changed regarding the burning of trash and how close the operation can be to a town etc.
This is something I wish WGMD would investigate and highlight during their talk shows. They sure gave enough time to the windmill people. How about equal time for a trash burning power plant. It’s the only way to mobilize people to have the laws changed and get our elected officials behind such a plan.
November 27th, 2007 at 6:05 am
We got the wind farm because a company PROPOSED it and it won. See how that works? And apparently Delaware IS getting power from trash: http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=46648. That’s from the methane. But if you look into incinerating trash, it does create more pollution that the back up gas plant that was chosen by the PSC to work in conjunction with the wind farm.
Now check this out: http://media.cleantech.com/274/delaware-now-generating-power-from-land The landfill is generating “7.4 megawatts of electricity in total - enough for the yearly needs of 7,400 homes” from it’s facility in Georgetown, while the proposed wind farm will generate 450-megawatts providing enough energy for as many as 100,000 homes. If you incinerate trash, 900,000 tons of trash a year equals about 65,000 homes getting electricity for the year, but again, it does create more pollution than a natural gas plant.
The cost for a residential wind turbine installed ranges from $6k to $22K depending on what you choose, and the state will reimburse you for half of that cost.
As for what I write about, that’s up to me. Don’t like it? Bummer. I’ll stop writing about a topic when I decide it’s “enough.”
November 27th, 2007 at 10:19 am
Maria: You go Girlfriend !!!!!! You can write about anything you so desire. Your posts are always interesting and keep up the good work please.
November 27th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Your missing the gist of the incinerators. They kill three birds with one stone. Wind turbines do nothing for us but give us inconsistent electricity while still leaving us with pollution. They really don’t put a dent in pollution and are very expensive. Turn to the UK and Germany which have been in the news recently with their wind farm woes. Incinerators eliminate landfills which the methane contributes to twice the amount of pollution as the incinerators. Landfills also put metals or leachate into our groundwater. Personal chimneys even put off more pollutants than an incinerator. They eliminate the need for the very expensive curbside recycling program since they sort through your trash bags and pick out recyclables for you. Lastly, they take care of our trash problems in the future with landfills filling up in our state. I don’t know where you got your numbers for power output but modern incinerators can generate more power than that. They can produce in the upwards of .5 to .6 MW per ton. Georgetown brings in an average 686 tons a day. Not to mention the heat you can use from the incinerator too. It’s a win win situation. With a wind farm you don’t replace anything and don’t put a dent in pollution problems. The incinerator kills wind farms when comparing them. The only way people make incinerators sound bad is by using data from old incinerators. They have come a far way with them in the past few years. Not to mention the cost to build one compared to the wind farms. In some countries and states the energy cost from incinerators was half that of other power plants. The trash will always be there but the wind will not.
November 27th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
@Fabio
“Turn to the UK and Germany which have been in the news recently with their wind farm woes”
Sources please.
“It would be money well spent which also produces power, recycles, and replace the harmful pollutants that are produced from our dump now. A landfill contributes to global warming two times the amount that a modern incinerator does. The environmentalist make it sound terrible but any environmental engineer would argue otherwise.”
Sources please.
If you are going post “given knowledge” please provide a source for those of us who are less informed.
November 27th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
I thought the same, dpb, because his claims are in disagreement with common knowledge about wind power.
I figured that Fabio has to be an employee of NRG, correct Fabio?
I don’t think he knows that Denmark gets 30% of their electricity from off shore wind mills. Up to a point, the inconsistency of the wind is not a problem when connected into a huge grid like ours, certainly a lot bigger a grid than the Danes have. Moreover, no one claims that wind is the sole solution to our need for green energy. The proposed DE off-shore wind mills will furnish 13% of our electrical needs, so we are not even close to 30% using established technology.
And speaking of 30%, TX generates much of their needs with wind mills, believe it or not. TX is the leading state in the use of wind. I have no idea what problems Fabio refers to. — Wind power and it’s incorporation into existing grids is established technology! Today’s NPR has the TX story:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16658695
For an excellent short read on the advantages of wind, read Jeannette Robinson’s letter to the editor in todays WNJ:
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071127/O
Fabio, you need to do a little more research on wind power.
November 27th, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Keep up the good fight, Maria. So far, we’ve heard the unconvincing assertions on the inefficiency of wind power, killing birds, and aesthetics (even though the actual word wasn’t written), mostly from the same broken record. And someone has also apparently swallowed the hook on the *global warming* issue as well.
Wind power has been around for decades, and the argument of waiting until the technology is ‘perfected’ is backward and short-sighted. Although, in the grand scheme of things it may be a small one, but Delaware is in a unique position to take a first step in reducing the dependency on polluting fossil fuels. It’s absurd to think we can’t make a difference now with a combination of existing alternative power sources, such as wind, passive and active solar, water turbines, etc. Some people either don’t have the stones to do anything now, or perhaps they’re just content to sit comfortably back and wait for our children to have to deal with it.
November 28th, 2007 at 12:15 am
Sure sources.
http://www.energybulletin.net/4527.html
http://www.kvnews.com/articles/2004/07/10/news/news10.txt
As windy as Great Britain is they are having a hard time keeping the steady winds to power their wind farms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incinerator
Read under CO2
Perry, no your wrong. I don’t work for NRG. Far from it. However I am in the engineering field. You have to be economical while caring for the environment. Now let’s see you have a wind farm that doesn’t put a dent in pollution and only produces 13% of our electricity at an inconsistent rate for one billion dollars. Or you have an incinerator that cost around 250-300 million dollars (depending on size that’s a large facility) to take care of our landfill woes and it takes care of multiple problems our state faces as I’ve already stated. If your set on the whole wind farm then as I said before there is a new technology on its way. It’s ashame but I believe that BWW has you sold by the green clean air marketing technique which is a hoax. You have to weigh the pro’s and con’s and I have. I’d rather have the waste incinerator before this wind farm. I believe our money is much better spent there. Lastly, I leave you with a link to a nice architecture and engineering feat of the waste incinerator in Italy. It will give you useful information on the plant and the nice picture of how far they have come. If you got to this site http://www.centrovolta.it you can find information on the waste incinerator in Brescia, Italy. Here is a nice image: http://cbll.net/images/DISP-SOCI/ASMBrescia.jpg
The ash from the incinerators is now being turned into fertilizer. It’s a growing thing since it produces zinc which helps plants grow, however it puts out elements like lead and cadmium. Some states treat the ash and use it as a fertilizer but I don’t find that safe yet and would still say it’s in the testing phase to work out the kinks. I like the idea of recycling it into concrete rather than converting it to fertilizer.
Thanks for the grilling though guys. Weigh your options and compare the these two technologies. Look at what the proposed wind farms do and what they will eliminate and how independent they are from power plants. Also weigh the cost to build and how efficient they are. Then compare that to modern waste incinerators and what they will eliminate and how independent they are from power plants. Also weigh the cost to build and how efficient they are. Compare the electric prices between the two and what it will cost the consumer.
November 28th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
Too bad these arent a little closer in the development time frame. It could increase the windfarm efficiency quite a bit.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/26/maglev-wind-turbines-1000x-more-effiencient-than-normal-windmill/
would probably cut down on the aesthetics issue too, because I believe these are shorter than a bladed turbine…
Sorry Fabio…wikipedia isnt a qualified source…I can go on there right now and totally write whatever I want on that same page. Its not vetted.
November 28th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
That’s what I am saying. There are new wind turbines in testing stages. Right now wind farms have developed slowly and are only in the toddler years. Like most products that are in the beginning stages there is a lot of money to be made however you have to find the demand. Well with global warming and sooooo many people jumping on the bandwagon hauling the greenies they market wind farms as green and clean air. Sure they generate power when there is wind and don’t pollute but they can’t produce enough power to become independent of power plants. That day and age is going to come and be cost effective but it’s not here yet and I am not going to be fooled by BWW’s marketing techniques like soo many have.
Since you won’t except wikipedia, I found an even worse illustration of pollution between landfills and modern day incinerators. Take note of the progress of WTE’s.
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdpa/mpp/fig2a.gif
http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/images/faq.jpg
Some other good charts.
http://www.p2pays.org/ref/09/08624.pdf
Georgetown brings in about 650 TPD of trash and a lil over 200000 TPY.
November 28th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
Realist still at his antics but has yet to prove to us wind farms are the way to go. Especially since I’ve introduced an alternative to the wind farms. All he has proved is he can dish out insults about people but can’t back up his assertions. He hasn’t made a case to deny my claims of wind farms not being able to provide us with steady power. He hasn’t made a case against my claims that it’s not worth the money. He hasn’t made a case that it will put a dent in our pollution problems or become independent of power plants. I don’t think he’s even read the articles I’ve provided here. Another good one btw. http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976951414
My data is there to back up my opinions. Until wind farms advance and can become greatly independent of power plants and/or way cheaper I am not sold on the technology. Waste incinerator is the way to go in Delaware. Change the laws!