[Ryan Crago]

Take heed: Perhaps not a thread for the purist.

In my not-so-random Saturday morning musings, I was considering a recent paper i read regarding proposed wind farms in Western Canada - and was wondering how/if it would be possible to integrate wind turbines into an open space design/golf experience?

In a time of sustainable development and energy crises, wouldn't this make some sense, in the right scenario?  in theory, the land owner could lease turbine footprints, or even sell harvested energy back to the grid...

would you have an issue with wind turbines on a muni or public course? what would they be?

could the turbines play a part in the play of the course? obviously not the windmill hole, but instead of the gawdy target for a blind shot, a well-placed turbine across the site serves as a guide?

just an idea that i'm exploring further, but thought the GCA sounding board could give me some feedback....

[Ryan Crago]

now before we all lose our minds here... i figure I should qualify this (mostly to show that i have put some thought into it):

- Obviously the development scenario would need to be a good "fit" - that means most likely a municipal/public development - in a good "wind" harvesting site.  

- the exact location and aspect of individual turbines would need to be site specific...

- how many sites would have enough space, or be open enough? not many.  

- noise and safety might be issues.

- scale - the turbines wouldn't necessarily have to be the huge 3-blade ones we're used to seeing. smaller scale wind harvesting can apparently be effective as well.
(example: http://www.quietrevolution.co.uk/qr5.htm)

- aesthetics - obviously very subjective, and views IN and OUT would be equally important.  some people think they're beautiful, others? notsomuch.

- DESIGN would be paramount (not that it isn't always...)



 

[Bill_McBride]

Visit Desert Dunes in far west Palm Springs some time if you want to see windmills - there are literally a thousand starting less than half a mile away.

And why not?  The wind howls there and not many folks live nearby.

[Tom_Doak]

Ryan:

There was a very early wind farm just north of Bandon Dunes, on the site of The Sheep Ranch, with a handful of towers.  (They had been dismantled long before I first went out there in 1993, but we dug up the foundations of a couple of them when building greens at The Sheep Ranch.)

The problem was that the site was TOO windy for the technology of the day -- they were always threatening to be blown off the stanchions.

But, I wonder whether Pacific Dunes would be as highly regarded if there were several wind turbines up by Five Mile Point.  I'm all in favor of wind power, but NIMGC.  (You can put one in my backyard if you want.)

[Geoffrey Childs]

I'd love one in my backyard.  They are now becoming practical for individual use whereby about 1/3 of total power can be supplied in many cases for a $10,000 initial investment.  Not sure how the neighbors or town boards will feel about them.

I'd love them on a golf course. I'd love to see the power of the tides used as well.

Wind Turbines are majestic, beautiful and clean, safe alternatives to burning hydrocarbons or accumulating radioactive waste.  If we don't get on the ball and do something to promote this technology we deserve the political, economic and health consequences.

I recall all the wind turbines near the coast on a drive from Siloth on Solway in Cumbria up to Turnberry.  I hope they are still there and more added.

[Lloyd_Cole]

Wind Turbines are majestic, beautiful and clean

Geoffrey
And there was I, thinking I was the only freak who loved the things. I find them quite beautiful, I love to see the rows of them as one drives through the countryside. For me - their beauty juxtaposed with the natural is a plus. I can imagine a few places that they might be  a blight, but not many. Amen.

[Bob_Huntley]

I loathe them with a passion.

They are not anywhere near a solution to our problem.

They are not nearly as efficient as any fossil burning power station.

They massacre birds by the thousands.

They are useless at times, when without wind.

The sight of them coming down I10 into Palm Springs is a montage of utter horror.

Why do I feel thus? Let me tell you. Way back in history, 1983 to be exact, I had made a couple of dollars and to shelter the problem I bought a wind turbine  from the Arbutus Corporation for something like a hundred thousand dollars. Everything went swimmingly but the Corporation was paying us six and a half cents for the avoided costs of power and two years down the road So. Cal Edison said the true figure should have been two and half cents. The end result was that unless I wished to spend a great deal of money fighting the largest utility in California,I could give my wind turbine back to them and they would forgive my indebtedness to them for the overpayment.

I did, and to this day feel that the wind energy lobby is the greatest con in history.


Bob

[Jim Nugent]

Geoffrey -- do you know how long it takes to pay back the wind turbine in electricity savings?  Also, what ongoing costs do you have to run the turbine?

[Bob_Huntley]

JIm,

Good questions. However, no good answers.

This is all woolly headed do goodisms without economic benefits.

Bob

[Gib_Papazian]

http://www.greenskeeper.org/northern_california/golf_courses/details.cfm/oakland_east_bay_area/Mountain_House_Golf_Club

It already exists - in the Altamont Pass near Livermore.

I started a thread about it a few months ago.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Geoff - what Bob says about wind turbines is true.  It takes forever to re-coup your initial outlay, they are unsightly and they are guillotines for birds.

As for alternate energies, we are running at about max for hydroelectric output as America has dammed all her rivers.

Depending on where you live, solar energy is clean and can be marginally economic although outlays are big and outputs are low.

A more futurist possibility is harvesting wave energy.  Magnetic "Bobbers" sliding up and down conducting coils and networked together can make use of constant and never-ending tidal forces to generate clean, safe (move too slow to hurt anything) electricity.  The units would be a few feet underwater and not visible.  The problem is the very low output would require miles of bobber fields to generate even modest outputs.

Unfortunately oil, gas and nuclear are the current cheapest, most efficient easiest, forms of power.  Until they are no longer available there is little economic impetus to spend big dollars solving the problems of alternate energy ideas.

JC    

[Michael_Stachowicz]

Turning this away from the debate of whether it is a practical solution or not...I will leave that up to the scientists and engineers...a golf course should embrace the character of its surroundings.  Turn a golf course into a wind farm? maybe not the best idea aesthetically, but if the landscape is already dotted with windmills why not add some to the course?  It certainly shouldn't be hidden as the screen is often worse than the view.

[Geoffrey Childs]

Solar Energy
Energy from the tides
Wind

Renewable and clean energy policies are vital to our future.

When all of you speak of fossil fuel being cheaper and more efficient are you counting $500 BILLION and counting for the costs of a war in Iraq to stabilize the world supplies?  Are you counting the risks and costs in hundreds of billions or trillions of dollars to store radioactive wastes for thousands of years?  

If we spent the $$$ of the Iraq war on research and incentives of more efficient solar panels and wind turbines it would get done.  Are you counting the costs in healthcare to breathing pollution and increased ozone and IR radiation to the skin?  Are you counting future costs of deactivating nuclear power plants?  We are brainwashed by the oil industry.

Jon & Bob - I'd rather kill thousands of birds then thousands of young kids defending oil fields in the middle east. I'm sure there are ways to avoid bird kills as well perhaps with some sounds that they can hear and we can not that divert their flight.

[Jonathan Cummings]

Geoff - I feel your pain but the fact is man, as with other animals, is programmed by nature to be competitive and opportunistic.  We take the shortest path.  Man loves to intellectualize, but at the end of the day he pays only lip service to consequences and alternatives.  

As long as we can conveniently drive up the street and pump gas into our tanks that's what we're going to do.  Alternate energies, political wars, secondary health effects will all take a back seat - relegated to smoking-room arguments as long as we can reach over and turn on a light, cheaply pump our gas and confidently drawn a glass of pure clean water.

There is a certain degree of luxury and arrogance for all of us here on gca.com.  As a form of recreation, golf courses - the vast majority - are obscenely excessive uses of land.  Several hundred acres of precious resources bathed in chemicals, demanding huge amounts of water all catering to an elite few.  It is one of the more dubious legacies we inherited from our Anglo fore-fathers.

You know me well and I hypocritically embrace all that is golf.  But if I were to try to justify the game and its use of our earth in light to your humanistic arguments above, I would be unable to make any kind of case.

Probably should go off-line with this.

JC

 

[Geoffrey Childs]

Geoff - I feel your pain but the fact is man, as with other animals, is programmed by nature to be competitive and opportunistic.  We take the shortest path.  Man loves to intellectualize, but at the end of the day he pays only lip service to consequences and alternatives.  

As long as we can conveniently drive up the street and pump gas into our tanks that's what we're going to do.  Alternate energies, political wars, secondary health effects will all take a back seat - relegated to smoking-room arguments as long as we can reach over and turn on a light, cheaply pump our gas and confidently drawn a glass of pure clean water.
JC

Jon

We are all being brainwashed and fed a bill of false goods by the oil lobby.  You, me and the rest of us are all paying far more then you admit in our tax money that supports fossel fuel businesses. Wars, an increased military, terrorist plots, our good standing in the world community and all to bulk up dictatorships that control foreign oil reserves.  Our children will pay dearly.

End of rant.

[Tommy_Naccarato]

I think it's a pretty interesting topic. Fire away!

[Matthew Hunt]

Ryan:

There was a very early wind farm just north of Bandon Dunes, on the site of The Sheep Ranch, with a handful of towers.  (They had been dismantled long before I first went out there in 1993, but we dug up the foundations of a couple of them when building greens at The Sheep Ranch.)

The problem was that the site was TOO windy for the technology of the day -- they were always threatening to be blown off the stanchions.

But, I wonder whether Pacific Dunes would be as highly regarded if there were several wind turbines up by Five Mile Point.  I'm all in favor of wind power, but NIMGC.  (You can put one in my backyard if you want.)

You use the same Jokes as my Geography Teacher

But he replases "Golf" with "Gelic Football"

Nice Joke Though

[Jonathan Cummings]

Tommy - weigh in!  I get paid by a few indulgent golf magazines to publish my yammerings but the truth is, with your frayed-rope barely restrained passion you run circles around my writings.  I'd love to hear your thoughts.

J

[ForkaB]

Wind turbines are not at all silent, so if you wan't one anywhere near your golf course, be prepared for lots of extraneous noise, unless you are Joyce "What Wind Turbine?" Wethered.....

I would also surmise that they would significantly affect wind patterns and the flight of the ball, too.  I was told a few years ago by two very reliable observers that the wind patterns on the Connecticut side of Long Island Sound have been significantly affected by the construction of mere McMansions on the North Shore of Long Island....

As for the economics, I conducted studies of the feasability of wind and solar energy for numerous US government agencies and private companies in the mid-to late 1970's. Absent of subsidy neither was economical then, and from what I hear, nothing has changed.  Immutable lawas of physics and economics seem to be at work here......

And, Geoffrey, this was well BW ("Before 'W'").  In fact Jimmy Carter was President, Saddam Hussein (RNIP) was our pal and oil was selling at $10/BBL.......

Those were the days.......

PS--there's enough wind in Scotland tonight to light up all of Tommy Naccarato's computers for a week!  Wish me and my family well as we traipse through our village with a bottle of whisky and a few lumps of coal, trying to find our Hogmanay party whilst shielding our eyes from the flying pints of lager........

Happy New Year to all!

Rich

[Jonathan Cummings]

Rich - I'd sure like to read those reports of wind in CT affected by Long Island MacMansions.  As an research engineer and a long-time pilot, I'd be very interested in the low-altitude atmospheric physics used by your references.

Supply me a link if possible.

JC

[Geoffrey Childs]

As for the economics, I conducted studies of the feasability of wind and solar energy for numerous US government agencies and private companies in the mid-to late 1970's. Absent of subsidy neither was economical then, and from what I hear, nothing has changed.  Immutable lawas of physics and economics seem to be at work here......

And, Geoffrey, this was well BW ("Before 'W'").  In fact Jimmy Carter was President, Saddam Hussein (RNIP) was our pal and oil was selling at $10/BBL.......

Those were the days.......

Rich

In the 70's we had different technology. Do you think that incentives would not bring efficiency up and subsequent prices down? The laws of physics say we can do much better with solar and wind.

We have significant subsidy for oil be it $500 Billion for a war, pollution cleanup or any number of other costs that we don't see publicized.

$10 a barrel oil as you state for the 70's has gone up 6-fold without taking into account all those other (political/military) costs I mentioned. Do you think its going back to $10 before it hits $100?  Why not plan for the future now!

As far as McMansions affecting wind patterns on the Long Island Sound  -    Lets just say I am not a believer- talk about the laws of physics.

Don't get me started about nuclear enery costs and safety either.

So what would you do?  Wait until the next huge crisis?

[Bob_Huntley]

Geoffrey,

Oil is the same price as it was in 1980 in inflation adjusted dollars.

Bob

[RT]

Jonathan,

As one of the 1500 participants on this DG I respectfully disagree with a certain degree of luxury and arrogance of us here on GCA concerning having golf courses as playing fields for our pastime.

There are, as my old university turfgrass Professor Dr. Beard said, positive attributes that golf courses provides on several levels.

On a social level they allowed kids like myself in my slightly younger days an opportunity to be outdoors for 2 loops per day on a OKC public GC during the summer period, and about any other possible chance I had during the school period.  University days the same, much less an opportunity in the profession unfortuately.  It was-is a great outlet and resource.

The game of golf teaches great lessons about life and how to conduct oneself.  Isnt there a more necessary time than now in todays western society to have an outlet for kids to learn about good solid manners and respect for others and for ones own self?  The understanding of healthy fair play and gentleperson manners stems from a true understanding of the game and appreciation of its ethos.

On an biological level they are the green lungs powerhouse champion in CO2-O2 exchange.  They are cooling sink holes, as it were, in urban settings of concrete, covered parking lots and roads, etc.

With all due cognizance the brush painted describing golf courses was a bit too exaggerated concerning their potential for nocivity to the environment with the bathing of chemicals, this observation based on the fairly voluminous amount of research I have read in my professional pursuits.

However I would agree with your first paragraph.


RT

[Jim Nugent]

Geoffrey, what do you think are the real costs associated with oil-based energy?  Do you have any precise (or ball-park) numbers?
 

[ForkaB]

Jonathan and Geoffrey

My data regarding the Long Island Sound microclimate are anecdotal, but not without substance.  They all relate back to an old GCA thread where I expressed simlar scepticism as you have on a related issue (the ability of golfers using technology to predict wind shifts at a specific place and a specific point in time--the example was at the 12th at Augusta during the final round of the Masters...) with an NLE member (John McMillan).  John said it was possible, I found this hard to believe, and used the example of highly experienced sailors on LIS only being able to sometimes being able to predict a more secular wind shift (i.e. over minutes rather than seconds).  As did you, John asked me for proof, and by the time I got it (18 months ago), he was gone.  As for the "proof," well John was right!  My sources told me that there were technologies (radar/doppler, I think) which could predict wind shifts, but that they were not used in most competitive racing, for reasons of cost and fair play.  And then.......

.....in the course of the conversation, my two data points (lifelong friends, each of whom is a world-class sailor--one aN  America's Cup veteran, the other a Pan-Am games medalist) mentioned their observation of the changes in wind patterns over the past 10 years or the patch of water that they have sailed competitively for 50+ years, and the consensus reason for them (McMansions).

I hope this meets your standards of proof.  I've been trying to confirm that this somehow relates to the Arts and Crafts Movement, but to no avail, yet, alas........

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