From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 21:53:28 MDT
On Sat, 14 Jun 2003 EvMick@aol.com wrote, commenting on my comments
of mixed use of rangeland for wind and solar power:
> I just completed my part in a two month long ordeal transporting 136 1.3
> megawatt wind turbines to the New Mexico Wind Energy Center. .....near House New
> Mexico (vaugely halfway between Clovis and Tucumcari)
Good for you EvMick! New Mexico is precisely one area that I think
is good for this type of development -- along with Texas, AZ and
Southern CA. Now, if in the process you run into someone who wants
to develop the solar energy resource that is *between* the wind
turbines, please do put them in touch with me!
I am not absolutely certain about these numbers, but my impression
is that rangeland (per acre) could produce something like $50/yr of
beef, $400/yr of corn (if one had the water to cultivate it) and
something like $1000+/yr of methane (if one had the bacteria
to produce methane from sunlight and salt water). [The key
difference between most agricultural crops and methane
producing bacteria is that there are many bacteria very
comfortable performing photosynthesis in salt water and
we sure have the capacity to build pipelines that can
transport salt water [think oil pipelines]].
Robert
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