Environmental Assessment and Finding of No Significant Impact: Wind Energy Center Edgeley/Kulm Project, North Dakota

Wind energy is the fastest growing renewable energy source in the past decade. To estimate the wind energy potential for a specific site, the long-term wind data need to be analyzed and accurately modeled. Wind speed and air density are the two key parameters for wind energy potential calculation, and their characteristics determine the long-term wind energy estimation. In this paper, we analyze the wind speed and air density data obtained from two observation sites in North Dakota and Colorado, and the variations of wind speed and air density in long term are demonstrated. We obtain univariate statistical distributions for the two parameters respectively. Excellent fitting performance can be achieved for wind speed for both sites using conventional univariate probability distribution functions, but fitting air density distribution for the North Dakota site appears to be less accurate. Furthermore, we adopt Farlie-Gumbel-Morgenstern approach to construct joint bivariate distributions to describe wind speed and air density simultaneously. Overall, satisfactory goodness-of-fit values are achieved with the joint distribution models, but the fitting performance is slightly worse compared with the univariate distributions. Further research is needed to improve air density distribution model and the joint bivariate distribution model for wind speed and air density.

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Final Environmental Assessment for Construction and Operation of a Water Treatment Building at Cavalier Air Force Station, North Dakota

10.21236/ada611250 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Janet R. Fallo ◽

Mary E. Richards ◽

Sheri A. Rivera ◽

Teresa Stephens ◽

Andy Weinberg ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Water Treatment ◽

North Dakota ◽

Air Force ◽

Environmental Assessment

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Comparative Environmental Assessment of Wind Energy Projects: Acoustic Load

Man and Environment. Issues of Neoecology ◽

10.26565/1992-4224-2018-30-12 ◽

2018 ◽

Keyword(s):

Wind Energy ◽

Wind Turbine ◽

Wind Turbines ◽

Environmental Assessment ◽

Noise Level ◽

Background Noise ◽

Comfort Level ◽

Background Noise Level ◽

Energy Projects ◽

Acoustic Load

Purpose. Comparative environmental assessment of wind energy projects from the perspective of the potential acoustic load on the environment: compliance with permissible values, specificity of propagation and optimization of siting. Methods. Analysis and synthesis of information, field research, cartographic and mathematical modelling. Results. In the most part of the study area, the background noise level reached rather high values, higher than the «comfort» level of 45 dB. The simulation of sound propagation from the wind turbine showed an attenuation to a value of less than 20 dB at a distance of 2 kilometers. The resulting acoustic load was calculated for the points referring to the buildings of the nearest settlements (for the case of installing the Enercon E-40 and Enercon E-115 wind turbines). The calculations of the resulting sound levels make it possible to state that the acoustic effect of the wind turbines in both siting strategies is 15-20 dB lower compared to the background noise level, the main component of which is wind noise. The excess of noise level was 5 dB for Enercon E-115, and 8-9 dB for Enercon E-40. Conclusions. According to the type of wind turbine, the noise level may overlap with the background level and produce a relatively less acoustic impact on the local population. Even in case of the extensive wind energy development strategy, the total noise levels will not exceed the background levels within the model site.

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