Spain's gain from wind power is plain to see

[jpak]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2008/04/07/ccwind107.xml

Windmills pay. On a breezy Saturday at the end of March, Aeolian Parks scattered across the hill-top ridges and off-shore sandbanks of Spain produced 40.8pc of the country's electricity needs - 9,862 megawatts to be precise.

The much-derided turbines produced enough wattage to power the great cities of Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia, Toledo, Cordoba, Granada, Santander, Bilbao, and Zaragoza combined. The workday record on a Tuesday, March 5, was 28pc.

Years of nurture by the Spanish government have paid off. Spain is a global superpower in the wind race, with 15,000 MW of capacity. The region of Navarra is 70pc green, shielded against gas-shocks, Russian politics and soaring oil prices.

Today's wind turbines are a far cry from the archaic mini-mills that scar the landscape for little return, and provoke such fury in the English shires. They are vast. Each mast can power a neighbourhood.

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[clevbot]

1. i hope a lot of people see this

[Turbineguy]

2. That low frequency rumble underfoot

is Cervantes.

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. LOL

[ladjf]

3. What is wrong with America's brains?

[Champion Jack]

4. Been soaking too long in a tub of oil

[ladjf]

5. Something real is making Americans dumb. It may seem that

I'm trying to make a cute joke but I'm not. How else could one explain that given choices, most Americans are fervently making selections that are contrary to their basic best interests?
In light of the obvious mess made by the recent Republican administrations, how could the Republican candidate still be neck and neck with the Democratic candidates? (In that case, the polls could be rigged.)

[diane in sf]

8. too many cheap carbs, no iodine, unfunded education, pollution, mercury in

the air and vaccines, deliberate media disinformation. A lot of things are making Americans dumb.

[ladjf]

10. Yes. I think you are on the right track. Massive research needs to

be done and soon, before it's too late.

[RaleighNCDUer]

6. Spain has always been big with wind.

You know those windmills in Holland? They were introduced by the Spanish when the Spanish empire occupied Holland in the 15th century. Southern Spain has identical windmills (remember Don Quixote?) and has used them for centuries to take advantage of the winds coming across the Mediterranean from the Sahara.

This doesn't surprise me at all.

[NNadir]

9. Especially now that all those troublesome forests have burned to the ground.

Percent talk is so illiterate.

But the good news is that denial of global climate change by the anti-nuke fundie cults has now caused the Sahara desert to jump the Straits of Gibralta, and given lots of places that are now useless deserts that "renewables will save us" hypers can propose as solar plant and wind plant reserves.

It's telling though that dumb asses feel the need to engage in percent talk every 20 minutes.

They have nothing to say when the wind isn't blowing either. Very few of them report when all of Spain's dangerous gas plants are providing the bulk of Spain's energy, because, let's face it, you can't be a fundie if you care about dangerous fossil fuel waste.

Predictably, they also have nothing to say about the spinning reserve that was running during this 30 second peak in percent talk.

[Dead_Parrot]

11. Yeah, Spain is so green it hurts

http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator_detail.cfm?IndicatorID=199&Country=ES

Or something like that.