Fort Worth Real Estate

• 31Aug

  Wind Power and Land Consumption

  Uncategorized 3 Comments
  I put together a spread sheet and made some rough calculations on how much land would be used if we were to gain our electricity solely through wind turbines. As you can see I ran one calculation estimating the land usage necessary to only power the residential properties (on 2001 electricity data), and a separate calculation estimating total land usage to supply ALL electric consumption in the United States.

  

  These numbers assume 40 acres are needed for one turbine. Estimates range up to about 50 acres per turbine, so my numbers may actually be conservative. Most people do not realize how spread out wind turbines are. There are roads and infrastructure that must go in to building a wind farm. As well, the base of each turbine is planted in a very large concrete pad. Transmission lines are also necessary for moving the electricity to a main power grid.

  I have also used a 1.5 mega Watt turbine as these seem to be the most commonly used turbine. Obviously, if 3 mW turbines were the only ones used we could bring efficiency up and negate half of the number of units and also halve the land being consumed.

  So, just to power all residential homes in the United States, we would necessitate lands roughly equal in size to Lousiana. To gain all US electricity through wind, we would use up about as much land as Montana holds.

  Here is another critical piece of information that most people don’t understand. When you transport electricity from a wind farm you lose quite a bit of it as it travels further down a transportation line. So there is a certain degree to which the electricity generated will be depleted before it ever reaches its destination. In some cases, this depletion can be as high as 50%. Because of this our necessary land sizes for power generation may reasonably be doubled. In such a case powering the entire United States from Wind Power alone could feasible consume enough land to fit inside of the entire state of Texas.

  Some methods of electricity generation can be extremely costly in terms of land amounts used.

• 28Aug

  Lancaster bridge over Trinity River closed until November | News | Star-Telegram

  Local Stuff No Comments
  Found out that the Lancaster Avenue bridge over Trinity River is closed until November. It was revamped only a few years ago, but apparently it needs some more work. It doesn’t bother me when they close the Lancaster bridge, I think that the city is correct about it being underused. I know that it will bother me when the 7th St. bridge is closed. It, of course, is overused.

  Go sit on the patio at 7th Haven at about 4:45 on any given weekday. You will be surprised by the number of cars utilizing 7th street.

• 28Aug

  New Pour House

  Uncategorized 1 Comment

  I notice that the Pour House’s new location on 7th St. is underway. Looks like it will be some time before it’s up and running though.

  The Blarney Stone (behind 7th Haven) should be on line soon as well.

  I am really starting to wonder at what point you simply have to many bars per square mile.

• 28Aug

  What happens when you don’t pay your mortgage?

  Residential 5 Comments

  Nothing.

  There’s something that people don’t understand about the severity of the current real estate market. There are a good deal of homeowners out there who are not paying their mortgages. They are two or three months behind, and no-one is holding them accountable.

  So your neighbor is three months behind on his mortgage, and the bank is foreclosing on them. Why? Because the banks don’t want to book anymore bad assets. They don’t want to push any more foreclosed homes onto the market. Eventually, the man behind the curtain will come out.

  We are building economic numbers that are nothing more than a fallacy. It is a delicate house of cards; and someone needs to start reinforcing the walls.

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