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The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

washingtonpost.com

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Re: The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

#4
post #3

Anybody has a good link to compare TOC of solar vs wind? From what I've heard, solar panels have a definite lifespan, but are maintenance free until then. Wind could last longer provided you maintain it right.

Solar panels have a warranty for 25 or 30 years. Their output slowly deteriorates over time, but there are 50 year old panels that still work fine out there.

Re: The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

#5
post #3

Anybody has a good link to compare TOC of solar vs wind? From what I've heard, solar panels have a definite lifespan, but are maintenance free until then. Wind could last longer provided you maintain it right.

No technology is maintenance free. Solar PV requires its fair share of maintenance: cleaning panels, field treatment, inverter replacement, performance/yield monitoring, panel replacement, security, etc.

Re: The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

#7
post #2

The future, where everyone involved in a major industry can be fitted into an SEC football stadium.

500K for oil in us jobs, at 36% of energy. It's 4% for wind. By 2050 it's projected wind could support 600K jobs so we aren't talking orders of magnitude difference.

Re: The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

#8
According to the EIA [0], wind energy reached 5.6% of total electricity production.

Having worked with raw EIA data I can say that the inputs are not very reliable: a) a lot of smaller farms are not included in EIA data b) reporting is voluntary and 30%+ of wind sites stopped reporting data in 2016, for example [1], and c) reporting is based on surveys which means errors, delays, etc.

The US is really lagging behind when it comes instrumenting and monitoring its energy infrastructure.

[0](https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3)

[1](https://www.eia.gov/opendata/qb.php?sdid=ELEC.PLANT.GEN.5214...)

Re: The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

#9
post #7
post #2

The future, where everyone involved in a major industry can be fitted into an SEC football stadium.

500K for oil in us jobs, at 36% of energy. It's 4% for wind. By 2050 it's projected wind could support 600K jobs so we aren't talking orders of magnitude difference.

But with more powerful political clout by then.

Re: The U.S. wind industry now employs more than 100K people

#10
post #8

According to the EIA [0], wind energy reached 5.6% of total electricity production. Having worked with raw EIA data I can say that the inputs are not very reliable: a) a lot of smaller farms are not included in EIA data b) reporting is voluntary and 30%+ of wind sites stopped reporting data in 2016, for example [1], and c) reporting is based on surveys which means errors, delays, etc. The US is really lagging behind…

For the aerial view, here's this plant 52143 on the satellite map.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/35%C2%B003'00.0%22N+118%C2...

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