WMOD00522

• Title: Projected Impacts of a Very Large Windpower Complex
• Date: 9/26/1978
• Weather Modification - Doc Type: Report

transmission of electric power, including superconducting lines; economic
and technical assessment of the concept; exploration of new concepts for
cryogenic refrigeration and installation of an advanced system at the Los
Alamos Scientific Laboratory; and evaluation of cryogenic refrigeraticiD
reliability. Field tests of prototype superconducting cables are planned
to begin in 1981. Projected capacity for superconducting transmission
lines is 10 GW per circuit.

Land requirements per circuit for overhead high-voltage direct-current
transmission systems would presumably be about those of the present day, but
power carried per circuit would be much higher. A quick comparison with the
width of the Niagara isthmus reveals nevertheless that the capacity require-
ments of the complex for more than 50 new overhead circuits could be met only
with the greatest difficulty and would probably involves unacceptable environ-
mental impacts. Although the requirements for first-stage development of the
complex might be met by this technology, full development would require the
use of superconducting underground circuits connecting the Niagara site with
load centers and extending far enough in the direction of the windfarms to
reach the region of very sparse population where very large transmission corri-
dors could be established without seriously interferring with other present or
future land uses. Although superconducting transmission, once d1eveloped to
the point of widespread application, is likely to displace overhead transmis-
sion for all new construction, the present thought-experiment will assume
overhead transmission in regions of very sparse population and undeveloped
land use with superconducting transmission elsewhere. .

4. External Adaptations to the Projected Windpower Complex

The projected complex is so big that it could not be completed quickly;
at the fastest, it would take a few decades to evolve. During this period,
certain adaptations would be taking place where the windpower complex
interacted with other elements of the electric utility system and would
extend to interactions between the utility system and the rest of society.

Assuming that the windpower complex would be built only if it were
cost-effective with respect to both direct and indirect costs, expansion of it
would substitute for units of conventional electric power generation as these
wore out or became obsolete and were retired from service and would displace
the construction of new units that would otherwise be built using exhaustible
resources or higher-cost technologies, The direct environmental result would
be an earlier and larger reduction in the number of electric generating plants
using fossil, biomass~ or nuclear fuels.

The principal ripple effect of the windpower complex, spreading
through the electric utility system to more distant receptors, would be
felt through a decrease in what the costs of electricity would othenvise
be, with endless ramifications throughout the economic and social structure.

C. ENVIRONMENTAL IHPACTS OF THE PROJECTED COMPLEX

One can begin the analysis of environmental impacts by assessing separately
the impacts of each of the three legs of the tripod discussed in the previous
section, However, the complex as a whole will have impacts not derivable from
the characteristics of anyone of its parts. In turn, the complex may alter
the nature and level of organization of still more generalized social and