How much fossil fuel consumption was reduced as a result?
More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
71–80 of 166 posts
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#72This is good news. As wind increases on the grid we really need to move towards shiftable-load specific submetering so that an EV, water heater, etc can exploit their ability to shift demand to take advantage of times of excess renewable supply and lower prices. In CA there was a pilot of this for EVs but it seems to have fizzled out. With today's rate structures in CA you have to choose between a plan that is optima…
Do you know if any fossil fuel consumption was reduced as a result of this new wind? Or are we just using more energy?
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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”.
The problem is today no industrial bother recycling them , it’s just cheaper to buy new material. Those 85% are actually 15% in effective.
Surely copper at least is worth recycling?
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#74Earlier 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...
Shellenberger is running an Astro-Turf campaign against renewable energy for the nuclear industry. It's good he is flagged where serious discussion is encouraged.
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-stories-michael-shel...
https://nuclear.foe.org.au/michael-shellenbergers-pro-nuclea...
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2020/07/review-bad-scienc...
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#75Am 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…
You're technically right that wind is an indirect form of solar energy. You're not right that this would imply that solar is any "better".
The wind will blow whether you use its energy or not. You're not "more efficient" if you use solar instead of wind. You're just making use of energy at another place in the system where it would otherwise go unused.
More generally on the Wind/Solar question: They complement each other quite well. Most of the time when there's a lot of sun there isn't a lot of wind and vice versa. Therefore building up both reduces your needs for flexibility and storage compared to only using one. Also of course there's a bit of location dependance, there are places where wind works better and places where solar works better (sunny). But still in almost all places you can use both, but you probably want a different mixture depending on the location.
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#76Earlier 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,…
Except people do care and are looking for solutions. Just Google turbine blade recycling to see. Also, storing some inert waste seems pretty mild as an environmental issue.
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#77Earlier 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,…
> There’s currently no way to recycle or reuse the blades and it’s a big problem that nobody seems to care about
The wind power industry cares and is actively asking for political incentives to change this: https://windeurope.org/newsroom/press-releases/wind-industry...
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#78Am 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.
Taking that energy out of weather systems seems like a good idea too, given the extreme weather we’ve been seeing over the last few years. Perhaps it’s too small amount of energy to make a difference though.
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#79Am 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…
Solar is indeed long term cheaper to install but subject to periodic down-time. Wind blows at night and when it is cloudy. Also the nature of our atmosphere is that there is always some wind somewhere. So, they are complementary. Right now everybody is focused on getting to 100% carbon neutral. However, the question must be asked: why stop there and not go to something like 500 or even 1000% energy generation. There…
Once we've gotten to 100% renewable energy, Excess that isn't sopped up mining bitcoin (I'm probably joking), would best used to reduce the price of things like smelting metals, running heavy industry, and recycling plastics or even better trying to clean the carbon from air.
Re: More wind energy was installed in 2020 than any other energy source
#80Am 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…
For wind you're harvesting the solar energy baked over a vast area while on solar panels you're only harvesting the solar energy directly reaching the small surface area of the panel.