It gets windy in the desert, and tonight it's especially so. The National Weather Service issued a strong wind advisory for the Antelope Valley tonight. In the western portions of our little triangular slice of desert, places like Antelope Acres, gusts of up to 75 miles an hour are predicted. 75 miles an hour, by the way, is what meterologists call "hurricane-force" winds.Out here near the Rented Mansion In The Desert, the winds are steady at about 20, with gusts of up to 34 miles an hour so far tonight, although it appears that the winds will peak in about three hours or so. I've moved the barbeque and the greenwaste bin to areas where they won't be blown over, but aside from that, there isn't much we can do about it but keep all the windows shut. The dogs sure don't want to be outside and I don't blame them.
The wind farm in Mojave is probably shut down -- if the turbines run too hard, that burns out the generators. That's kind of ironic, if you ask me. More wind should mean more electricity, but I guess there's a point that the mechanical parts just can't handle the stress anymore.
I love wind farms for some reason. The turbines on the edge of Palm Springs make me happy every time I drive past them (or see them from above).
ReplyDeleteHave you ever been to the (now dilapidated and shut down) wind farm at the southern tip of Hawaii (aka The Big Island)? Apparently that area has [some of?] the strongest consistent winds anywhere on the planet because the winds are basically unobstructed across the Pacific to that point. I was there this fall. Mike and I discussed two problems with the relatively easy answer of put a wind farm where you know those consistent sustained winds will be: (1) there is not enough of an economy on the island (outside of tourism) to promote that sort of entreprenurial spirit and/or (2) there is not enough of a need for electricity in a near enough vicinity to the wind farm to make it worthwhile economically (I assume that it would cost more to transport the energy outside of the islands than it could possibly be worth). But the problem that you discussed (too much wind for the turbines to handle) is a third possibility I hadn't thought about.
Abandoned, broken wind turbines do not make me nearly as happy.