Talk:Shepherds Flat Wind Farm

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A fact from Shepherds Flat Wind Farm appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 December 2009 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the planned Shepherds Flat Wind Farm in Oregon is expected to be the world's biggest wind farm on land when completed?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2009/December.

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228 MW[edit]

This wind farm hasn't even been built and we have an enthusiastic WP editor making the statement that its "real world average power will be 228 megawatts", see [1]. There is no citation for this figure and it is totally unsourced WP:Original research, see [2]. It is just speculation to be making such predictions, down to the nearest MW no less! Johnfos (talk) 18:23, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is sourced: "It will generate 2 billion kilowatt-hours per year ..."[3]. Converting x TW·h/yr = x/(24×365.25) TW·yr/yr = x/8766 ×10⁶ MW is just arithmetic, no different from converting '90 miles of power lines' to '140 kilometres'.

—WWoods (talk) 17:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I wish this was as simple as a conversion of units, but it isn't. As you imply in your edit summary here the result of the calculation could be given as 228 MW, 230 MW, or 200 MW depending on the number of significant figures used. Calculations which are carried out to greater accuracy than that of the original data are clearly erroneous. And let's face it no one knows precisely what the average power output will be as the wind farm is not even built yet. Moreover, per WP:OR, "Wikipedia does not publish original thought ... Articles may not contain any new analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position not clearly advanced by the sources". There is no way that we should be pushing the data to try to present predictions which are not contained in the source. Let's agree to do what we always do on WP; we stick to what the source says and then there are no problems. Johnfos (talk) 19:32, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In this particular case, the source appears to contradict itself. Its claim of "2 billion kilowatt-hours per year" appears to contradict its claim of "845-megawatts" - but only people who check the math will notice this. The source also claims "enough to power approximately 235,000 California households." This may come from the sometimes cited figure that average household consumption is 1 kw, which would imply an average power output of 235 MW. If we are allowed to convert miles to kilometers without breaking the rule against original research, I don't see why we can't do the math in this area too. Finally, your claim that "no one knows precisely what the average power output will be as the wind farm is not even built yet" is contradicted by the fact that the article claims the power plant will produce "2 billion kilowatt-hours per year." If we know how many kwh it will produce per year, then we also know what the average power output will be. It's no different than converting miles to kilometers. I see math everywhere! (talk) 14:40, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I raised this issue at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard#When does a calculation become OR?, and received this thoughtful reply: [4]

The general rule of thumb would be that as soon as another editor raises reasonable questions about the legitimacy of results from such a calculation, the calculation doesn't qualify as "routine" and the article should defer to actual cited/referenced figures rather than new figures derived by an editor. Only routine calculations are ok under the policy. Professor marginalia (talk) 20:42, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So I am removing the non-routine calculation again. Johnfos (talk) 18:01, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is a simple conversion of units; there's nothing to dispute about the calculation except the precision. And which number gives you a better sense of the scale of the project, 200 MW or 2 TW.h/yr? The power is much clearer, allowing easy comparison with other projects with different capacity factors. And it's less subjective than the usual PR puffery converting to however-many thousand homes or cars. (Which are often done using the peak rate, inflating the benefit by a factor of 3–4.)

—WWoods (talk) 19:00, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

At least the source has the number of homes that will be provided with electricity, so that's in the wikipedia article. I guess that's the best we'll be able to cite, unless a better sourced article comes along. The current situation isn't perfect, but perhaps it's good enough. I see math everywhere! (talk) 19:04, 1 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Concerns[edit]

The concerns listed don't seem to me to be actual concerns--it lists people who may receive money. And already have some other income. Further all of the sources cited in that section refer to a dispute that occurred during development regarding radar interference. There is no mention of that in the section. I submit that the concerns section should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.44.230.195 (talk) 18:17, 22 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]