[LMagic007]

Originally Posted by Wobs

From one of the articles:
"Rock Port, Missouri is set to become the first city in America capable of meeting 100% of its electricity demand with wind power. The town will use power generated from Wind Capital Group's Loess Hills facility, located on agricultural lands within the city limits of Rock Port. The facility produces up to 16 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually, which exceeds the 13 million kWh Rock Port uses each year on average. "

It misleading, but then its journalism, so what do we expect.

It implies that the town runs 100% on wind energy, when this clearly cannot be the case, as it will need a substantial backup, and one would hop be hooked to a grid with surrounding towns and cities.

It's not misleading at all, because the article already states that they will be grid connected and buy energy when the wind is not sufficient and sell wind when they have excess supply. However their estimation is that they will on average annual expectation, be a net exporter of energy to the grid.

As part of this arrangement, MJMEUC will supply Rock Port’s power needs when the wind turbines are not generating at peak capacity.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/story?id=52177

The local electric company, Missouri Public Utility Alliance, will purchase excess electricity when available. They will then supply power when there is not enough wind energy available. Excess wind energy will not be stored but rather fed into the city’s high voltage line, making it an intermittent source of power.

http://cleantechnica.com/2008/05/05/first-wind-powered-city/

It's clear from the articles that in the Rock Port estimation, the net annual carbon footprint of Rock Port will be expected to be close to zero, because on average annual expectation and in net terms, they expect to export more wind energy to the grid, than they will consume energy from the grid. This is because on average expectation they expect to produce more energy than they expect to consume. Of course these are their estimations and it has been well established that wind is intermittent, but that is directly acknowledged in at least one of the articles and indirectly acknowledged in both.

The articles are very clear, honest and frank.