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Meade County Commission turn thumbs down to wind farm
"STURGIS – It didn’t take Meade County commissioners long at all Tuesday to tell an out-of-state developer they didn’t want a wind farm in eastern Meade County.
Scott Debenham, president of Debenham Energy of San Diego, Calif., had asked to be included on the commission meeting agenda for its Tuesday meeting. Debenham, speaking to the commission via phone, explained that the government is beginning to open Forest Service land for alternative energy development.
He told commissioners he was seeking a letter of support from them for the development of wind and/or solar energy on land managed by the US Forest Service on the Black Hills National Forest in eastern Meade County."
Photo: a ranch in Meade County, South Dakota. Beautiful countryside, but how much more beautiful with 100 125-meter bird grinders spread about the landscape!
Meade County Commission turn thumbs down to wind farm
Same old story: renewables evangelicals in California believe building forests of industrial junk in Great Plains states would benefit society; the people who live there, don't. Who would have thought?
Discussions
Bob,
It's hilarious that you would pick South Dakota as a location to try and post a negative story about wind.
In reality, South Dakota is probably the state with best wind story over the last three years.
Let's take a look ...
First, let's see what electricity demand is in SD. Here is EIA State electricity profile for SD in 2019 - they haven't done 2020 yet.
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About 13 TWh of demand with generation slightly higher in 2019.
Now let's take a look at EIA reported fuel mix over the last few years in SD.
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Wow! Wind generation doubled in 2020. Plus, if you add wind and Hydro you get over 14 TWh of zero carbon generation - enough to meet all of SD demand.
How did that happen you say? Over the last few years Wind capacity has more than tripled in the state. Tripled!
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In fact, all ten of these wind projects have been added since Nov of 2019.
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If you look further you'll notice that some of these projects were added late in 2020 and more in 2021. So, how is wind doing so far this year? Thru Jul 2021 wind generation is up 77% Y-Y in SD ! Wow again!
Let's conservatively put wind generation at 8 TWh for the full year 2021 in SD. Throw in 8 TWh of Hydro generation and you far surpass total demand (14Twh) in SD. Maybe they should start adding more solar on to the grid.
Keep trying Bob... the more you try and denigrate renewables the better they do.
Sure, if you don't live there.
Actually, 87% of South Dakotans don't live in the same county as a wind turbine.
Let's take a quick look at some data regarding the 1,300 turbines currently operating across South Dakota's 49M acres.
Here are the counties where those turbines were installed -
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Here are the Top 20 counties by population in SD.
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What's the crossover Bob? How many of the the Top 20 counties have a wind turbine within its boundaries? Three.
So for most South Dakotans - not really backyard. It's a large empty state.
Next up for SD a few GW of solar. Renewables (Wind Hydro,Solar) will supply 140% of its electricity demand. Another renewables success story.
"So for most South Dakotans - not really backyard. It's a large empty state. "
You sound like Scott Debenham, Joe, a real Californian. Fill someone else's "large empty state" with your industrial crap.
550,000 raptors (hawks, eagles, and falcons), ducks, and geese are mangled by U.S. wind turbines each year. I suppose a few hundred thousand more won't matter...it's all part of the "renewables success story", right?
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