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

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

#251

Post by tertius »

hsjhgktfdy wrote: post #228
tertius wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there's no wind there's no power. Or really, when there's no wind we just turn on the gas. Also, it + solar will not meet needs.

Wind complements solar well in terms of peak generation. In some markets, wind + solar + hydro + existing demand pricing could already manage current consumption requirements. Hydro is perfect for base load and for peaking. As a bridge fuel natural gas is also perfectly capable for base load and peaking, and due to pricing has already been rapidly supplanting coal and oil. Longer term, pumped hydro where available, o…

Solar and wind cannot meet demand. Neither is there enough hydro storage.

The population will peak. What causes the peak? Lifting from poverty. What results? Much higher energy demand.

Regardless, current demand cannot be sustained by wind and solar. Not even speaking about future demand.

Gas is fossil. I prefer nuclear to meet demand for the foreseeable future.

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

#252

Post by empath75 »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #56
noonespecial wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think wind turbines are absolutely beautiful They are. Like living sculptures. There's just something extremely dignified about them. Like finally growing up after the childishness of strip-mining. The adults are here.

I couldn't disagree more. They popped up as I was growing up - littering the coastline and countryside. They can be seen from great distances and serve to make the place seem an awful lot smaller. I for one can't wait until we develop a way to live without them - the only condolence is that they move us away from the coal and gas industries. I do hope that solar leaves them in its wake and we can be done with the mon…

The could coat the country with neon flashing windmills playing the nyan cat song 24 hours a day and it would still be better than fossil fuels.

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

#253

Post by ubernostrum »

jnordwick wrote: post #67

This is NOT a good thing. Producing the same amount or less with more resources is generally considered a very very bad thing. It is the definition of being less efficient..

OK, so apply your logic: we should never construct any new buildings, since that requires more people (during the construction period) than maintaining an existing building. Obviously this means new buildings are inherently inefficient, and only someone who was economically illiterate would want to put up a new one.

Right?

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

#254

Post by Sanddancer »

mikestew wrote: post #243
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't disagree more. They popped up as I was growing up - littering the coastline and countryside. They can be seen from great distances and serve to make the place seem an awful lot smaller. I for one can't wait until we develop a way to live without them - the only condolence is that they move us away from the coal and gas industries. I do hope that solar leaves them in its wake and we can be done with the mon…

They popped up as I was growing up - littering the coastline and countryside. I guess you've never seen them blow the top off a West Virginia mountain to get the coal out. Windmills can be replaced by solar, but that mountain isn't coming back. (Caveat: don't know if that's still done or not, but it was done plenty in the past.) If feel ya on the aesthetics (though I personally like them), but if you're complaining a…

Mountaintop removal is still done pretty often because it's the economically cheapest way to do it, damn the economic, social, and environmental consequences of that action.

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

#255

Post by Baeocystin »

jMyles wrote: post #14
eagletusk wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind Farms are built by people living in RVs already, so you've got that figured out. Three months here 6 months there. Embedded software is extremely hard to do mobile, and anyways all of the electronics tech is designed in Germany. Getting a entry level job in wind is about being nearby and willing to work. If you have a college degree you can always be a field Engineer. I'm an Electrical Engineer in the wind indus…

> Getting a entry level job in wind is about being nearby and willing to work. So like, if I see people working at a wind farm, just go up and introduce myself?

I've gotten more than one job over the years by doing exactly that. Most people are happy to talk about what they're doing, and meeting someone who appreciates and is interested in it, so much the better!

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

#256

Post by randomdata »

tertius wrote: post #251
hsjhgktfdy wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind complements solar well in terms of peak generation. In some markets, wind + solar + hydro + existing demand pricing could already manage current consumption requirements. Hydro is perfect for base load and for peaking. As a bridge fuel natural gas is also perfectly capable for base load and peaking, and due to pricing has already been rapidly supplanting coal and oil. Longer term, pumped hydro where available, o…

Solar and wind cannot meet demand. Neither is there enough hydro storage. The population will peak. What causes the peak? Lifting from poverty. What results? Much higher energy demand. Regardless, current demand cannot be sustained by wind and solar. Not even speaking about future demand. Gas is fossil. I prefer nuclear to meet demand for the foreseeable future.

Apples and oranges, really. Wind/solar/gas are best suited for peak production. Nuclear is best suited for base load production. While technology can change down the road, they currently aren't directly in competition with each other.

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

#257

Post by Sanddancer »

hueving wrote: post #191
marze wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to ripping the tops of mountains in West Virginia and states nearby and filling in the beautiful valleys to strip mine coal, a huge win.

False dichotomy. That's not how a significant amount of coal is mined. Yet every windmill sticks up into the air as a reminder of human presence.

The smog generated by burning coal gives the air a rather obnoxious brown tinted reminder of human presence.

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

#258

Post by opo »

afterburner wrote: post #112
coin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Compared to ripping the tops of mountains Or consider nuclear, which is much cleaner, safer and lower coast than all other energy sources

Lower cost? Utterly laughable. Nuclear costs are notoriously high, always crazy multiples over budget, and then the operating and decommissioning costs are hidden with budget and accounting tricks. But you won't notice because it's a 50 to 80 year process.

>...Nuclear costs are notoriously high,

No, according to the US Energy Information Administration the levelized cost of nuclear has been comparable or less than coal (without the massive negative externalities of coal)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

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

#259

Post by ashark »

Normal_gaussian wrote: post #188
noonespecial wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it's a matter of perspective. I suppose the true end-game is for tech is to be completely invisible. The great thing about wind and solar is that when you're done with them, you can pretty much just pack them up and haul them off. Strip-mining? Not so much.

I agree they are much better than strip mining and I said as much, they just are not beautiful.

Maybe it depends on where they are? I think the ones in Iowa and Kansas look great, but that might be because there's not much else to look at. And if the old-and-rural endless plains meet towering-tech-wonder-behemoth aesthetic isn't your thing, there's so much nothing there that you can just drive a while and not see them (or anything else) and have that, too.

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

#260

Post by jnordwick »

x1798DE wrote: post #212
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're complaining about downvotes (which I also downvoted), I'll explain why I downvoted: Your complaint doesn't make any sense by itself. You're assuming that they're doing the same or less with more people. I have no idea where you got that idea. Wind is growing rapidly, so the fact that they're employing more people is expected and a good thing. You can't complain about efficiency with only the numerator.

This is true, but it is annoying to tout the number of jobs as if it's a benefit, not a cost. It should be kilowatt-hours / human hour, or some measure of labor productivity if you want to show serviced, or some measure of actual output if you want to show the magnitude of the sector, or both. Giving raw number of "jobs" requires a lot of assumptions about the sector to make it into useful information. Not to mention…

He's just being disingenuous with that statement. He isn't hold those cheering the jobs numbers to the same standard.
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