More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source • Hacker News Board

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#51

Post by fuoqi » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 5:54 AM UTC

creato wrote: post #36

asien wrote: post #24

What I’m more worry about those Renewables stuff is their ressource footprint , when you look at how much « rare earth » « composite » material is needed to build just one its seems like a nonsense to use wind their are many documentaries on this topic. Today the vast majority of those turbines are not recycled. On top of that wind being intermittent you need gas power plant to provide. France power provider RTE esti…

> Today the vast majority of those turbines are not recycled. I really doubt this is true in any meaningful sense. First of all, I'd expect the majority of all turbines ever produced to still be in their useful service life. Second, many of the materials are valuable as scrap. It would be blatantly idiotic to just destroy and bury these materials, even if your goal is to spite environmentalists. Third, even the unsub…

Today most of wind turbine blades get literally buried in specialized landfills [0]. Companies which produce them promise to boost recycling rate in a decade or so, but right now it's just yet another externality. Proper recycling simply costs more and it's not given that there is enough capacity for materials produced from recycled blades (you can find a similar story with plastic recycling).

[0]: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8294057/Hundreds-no...

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#52

Post by cycomanic » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 5:55 AM UTC

olivermarks wrote: post #8

mrtnmcc wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'd have to look at the statistics for consecutive windless days for the given location to rule out battery storage? Also in the US, I think natural gas peakers are more common than petro.

Michael Shellenberger is very good on the realities of this but sadly this site will quickly flag anything that is inconvenient to the preferred narrative. https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/finally-they-adm...

This is some serious biased data selection going on there.

For example he claims that renewables can't replace fossil because of their unreliability. And shows a graph of global energy use that shows that overall percentage of renewables did not grow between 2009 and 2019 despite significant growth in total output. He the compares this to local data which shows that _locally_ turning on and off a nuclear power plant has a significant effect on the _local_ carbon emissions.

You can't really compare conclusions from global and local studies. By his own argument nuclear can't function without fossil either, because over the same time frame as the report he quotes nuclear energy output rose as well [1] (except for a drop due to the GFC).

What the global data really shows is that global energy demand has increased rapidly largely in countries like China and India etc. who build (cheap) coal plants to keep up with tha demand. It will be interesting to see developments now that China is moving away from growing at all costs.

Regarding the baseload myth, it has been debunked many times [2] [3]

[1] https://nwenergy.org/featured/debunking-the-myth-of-baseload... [2] https://nwenergy.org/featured/debunking-the-myth-of-baseload... [3] https://reneweconomy.com.au/dispelling-the-nuclear-baseload-...

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#53

Post by Reason077 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 5:58 AM UTC

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Am I correct to assume that wind is a more indirect source of power than solar? In my mind, solar energy creates wind by heating up the surface of the earth, which then heats up the air above it, which then moves around to even out the temperature differences. Therefore I suspect that in the long run (10 years? 100 years?) solar energy will be more common than wind energy. Similar to how solid state drives are overta…

Most of our energy sources (except nuclear and geothermal) are forms of solar. Wind, hydro, and fossil fuels are all just stored solar energy!

The fact that they’re stored energy is what makes them particularly useful, though. If we were exclusively using solar directly then we’d need to store it ourselves, or build a global distribution grid to move energy from where it’s sunny to where it’s needed.

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#54

Post by blibble » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:01 AM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #53

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Am I correct to assume that wind is a more indirect source of power than solar? In my mind, solar energy creates wind by heating up the surface of the earth, which then heats up the air above it, which then moves around to even out the temperature differences. Therefore I suspect that in the long run (10 years? 100 years?) solar energy will be more common than wind energy. Similar to how solid state drives are overta…

Most of our energy sources (except nuclear and geothermal) are forms of solar. Wind, hydro, and fossil fuels are all just stored solar energy! The fact that they’re stored energy is what makes them particularly useful, though. If we were exclusively using solar directly then we’d need to store it ourselves, or build a global distribution grid to move energy from where it’s sunny to where it’s needed.

tidal too :)

(extracting kinetic energy from the orbiting moon)

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#55

Post by fuoqi » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:02 AM UTC

fulafel wrote: post #4

Is there a plan to eliminate coal and gas as big elements in USA's eletricity production?

I think that natural gas plants will be a significant part of power grids for a long time. Maybe they will not be primary generators, but they certainly will stay as backup. At the very least until the grid-scale storage problem will be properly solved (i.e. you need to store at least several days of consumption, ideally several weeks). I don't think that any kind of chemical batteries is the solution to this problem. Personally, I hope that hydro pumped storage in artificial underground cavities will become mainstream one day.

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#56

Post by Reason077 » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:08 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #20

spats1990 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquid-air batteries. Big ones. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/18/worlds-b... https://highviewpower.com/

I also hope that efficient scale batteries become possible. But if there is an extended deficit with wind / sun then even a battery might not do it. One undeniable advantage of petrochemicals is they work at any time, consistently, and are a solid backup. Maybe we are OK as a society with backup generators being petrochemicals, rather than going nuclear.

> “if there is an extended deficit with wind / sun then even a battery might not do it.”

It’s always windy (and sunny) somewhere. The combination of energy storage and grid transmission alleviates intermittency.

Chemical batteries are very useful, but far from the only way to store energy.

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#57

Post by shusaku » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:08 AM UTC

techpression wrote: post #49

creato wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Today the vast majority of those turbines are not recycled. I really doubt this is true in any meaningful sense. First of all, I'd expect the majority of all turbines ever produced to still be in their useful service life. Second, many of the materials are valuable as scrap. It would be blatantly idiotic to just destroy and bury these materials, even if your goal is to spite environmentalists. Third, even the unsub…

You would be very wrong unfortunately. There’s currently no way to recycle or reuse the blades and it’s a big problem that nobody seems to care about. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb... “Companies are searching for ways to deal with the tens of thousands of blades that have reached the end of their lives.” In Sweden we are making wind power company owners very rich with heavily subsidies,…

> Wind power is carbon-free and about 85% of turbine components, including steel, copper wire, electronics and gearing can be recycled or reused.

That’s a far cry from “no way”.

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#58

Post by ishtanbul » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:12 AM UTC

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Am I correct to assume that wind is a more indirect source of power than solar? In my mind, solar energy creates wind by heating up the surface of the earth, which then heats up the air above it, which then moves around to even out the temperature differences. Therefore I suspect that in the long run (10 years? 100 years?) solar energy will be more common than wind energy. Similar to how solid state drives are overta…

I think solar energy will ultimately be cheaper than wind energy and that will make it the leader in total installed capacity. But both resources are freely available so the fact that sun produces wind isn’t relevant to this question.

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#59

Post by LeegleechN » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

ArtTimeInvestor wrote: post #7

Am I correct to assume that wind is a more indirect source of power than solar? In my mind, solar energy creates wind by heating up the surface of the earth, which then heats up the air above it, which then moves around to even out the temperature differences. Therefore I suspect that in the long run (10 years? 100 years?) solar energy will be more common than wind energy. Similar to how solid state drives are overta…

Wind acts like a battery (or capacitor) that smooths out fluctuations in solar energy. Radiant solar being more "direct" really has nothing to do with which is the better option.

Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source

#60

Post by nextaccountic » Tue, Aug 31, 2021, 6:16 AM UTC

seibelj wrote: post #20

spats1990 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquid-air batteries. Big ones. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/18/worlds-b... https://highviewpower.com/

I also hope that efficient scale batteries become possible. But if there is an extended deficit with wind / sun then even a battery might not do it. One undeniable advantage of petrochemicals is they work at any time, consistently, and are a solid backup. Maybe we are OK as a society with backup generators being petrochemicals, rather than going nuclear.

Fossil fuels store energy like batteries too. You could store excess wind energy as synthetic diesel[0] or gasoline, it's just not commercially viable yet.

[0] like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-diesel - the input is water, CO2 and electricity, and as such it's carbon neutral.