Quiz - what do you know about wind turbines?

Traffic waited for this load to pass, just east of Missoula and eastbound on I-90 when it was two-way traffic because of construction. The load was a single blade of a 3-blade rotor for a wind turbine generator. Interesting stuff about wind generators:
     •    Each of the 3 blades on a wind turbine rotor is 120’ long or longer
     •    Average output of a single U.S. wind turbine in 2018 was 2.43 million watts (MW)
     •    Sixteen turbines would supply enough electricity to enable the Missoula urban area’s electricity that’s now 60% “clean” (no CO2 emissions from its generation) to be 100% clean. A somewhat larger number of turbines with storage batteries would be needed to ensure the reliability of the electricity supply.
     •    The carbon “payback time” for the wind turbine is 7-9 months. That is, all the CO2 emitted for extraction and manufacturing of raw materials, production of the turbines, their transport, erection, operation, maintenance, dismantling and disposal is recovered by the turbine’s zero CO2 emissions during its first months of operation.
     •    Turbine lifetime is 20-25 years
     •    A typical wind farm leaves 98 percent of land undisturbed and free for other uses like farming and ranching.
     •    Annual avian mortality from collisions with turbines is 0.2 million, compared with 130 million mortalities due to power lines and 300-1,000 million from buildings.
     •    There are 120,000 full-time workers in the U.S. wind industry and, in 2018, turbines and components were manufactured at 530 facilities in 43 states.
A good reference: Center for Sustainable Systems, University of Michigan Wind Energy Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems (umich.edu)

Laurel Gas Plant proposal

The Dave Gates Generating Station. Photo courtesy NorthWestern Energy. As published in The Montana Standard.Despite regulatory and legal challenges NorthWestern’s construction of the methane-fueled generation plant near Laurel, Montana is moving forward. Now called the Yellowstone County Generation Station, when completed it will emit 300,000 – 600,000 tons of CO2 annually, depending upon whether it is generating half the time or more than half the time. NorthWestern has proposed to make a one-time purchase of a carbon offset to mitigate the CO2 emissions of the Laurel plant. The Proposed purchase amount would be $327,000. The amount of CO2 that would be offset is 21,800 tons. This one-time purchase would offset only a tiny fraction of the CO2 production of the Laurel plant over its lifetime. Fully offsetting CO2 production of the plant would require an annual purchase of roughly $5 million in carbon offsets. Carbon offsets of any amount are widely regarded to be ineffectual in reducing CO2 emissions.

NorthWestern has no goal for carbon reduction in its generation resource portfolio. The utility must set goals that match those of the Paris Climate Agreement, adopted in 2015: Cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 50% below 2005 levels by 2030.