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

energy.gov

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

#151

Post by yesbut »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #149
yesbut wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder where all of these raw materials for all the solar panels and wind turbines is going to come from. Do you think we can replace all of our energy with renewable energy without destroying the remaining natural habitats? I feel like the drive to green energy is only to allow us to continue growth and consumption instead of saving the natural world. It seems short sighted.

> Do you think we can replace all of our energy with renewable energy without destroying the remaining natural habitats? Yes. In fact it's pretty much the only way to not destroy those remaining natural habitats so it's good were pursuing it if that's what your worried about.

How much mountain top removal and mining will we need to do in order to build out all of this green energy? Steel, copper, concrete, rare earths, etc. all require fossil fuels. The green energy systems all require those components. Just take copper for example. How many tonnes of copper are going to be required to outfit all of the wind turbines? Copper isn't renewable. It will require endless mining and extraction to get anything close to the amount of copper we need. I feel like people are ignoring the elephant in the room.

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

#152

Post by puskavi »

CydeWeys wrote: post #113
puskavi wrote: post #101

Wind energy blows, rotors are not recyclable so they just get buried. nuclear energy is the greenest energy, as long as they are built in safe places.

> rotors are not recyclable so they just get buried. Fortunately nuclear has no similar issue, right?

Used nuclear fuel will probably have uses in the future, and storing it should not be a problem. Amounts that needed burying are vastly different.

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

#153

Post by philipkglass »

einpoklum wrote: post #48
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…

Well, recycling that stuff is a challenge, for sure. But is it unrealistic to expect that they _can_ be recycled? Also, what about wind turbines that use less/almost no rare-earth materials? Could these be produced at sub-optimal efficiency but still be viable?

The great majority of installed wind turbines are already built using electromagnets. Only a minority of turbines use rare earth permanent magnets. Permanent magnet designs cost more but are lower maintenance, so they are mostly used offshore where maintenance is more costly.

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

#154

Post by ZeroGravitas »

yesbut wrote: post #151
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you think we can replace all of our energy with renewable energy without destroying the remaining natural habitats? Yes. In fact it's pretty much the only way to not destroy those remaining natural habitats so it's good were pursuing it if that's what your worried about.

How much mountain top removal and mining will we need to do in order to build out all of this green energy? Steel, copper, concrete, rare earths, etc. all require fossil fuels. The green energy systems all require those components. Just take copper for example. How many tonnes of copper are going to be required to outfit all of the wind turbines? Copper isn't renewable. It will require endless mining and extraction t…

> Steel, copper, concrete, rare earths, etc. all require fossil fuels.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but in most ways it could be interpreted, that's not true.

Copper doesn't require fossil fuels, and if it did then we'd come up with an alternative.

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

#155

Post by ClumsyPilot »

adrianN wrote: post #150
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"nuclear is probably out for economical reasons (unless we have some breakthrough in reactor design in the next five years or so)" We are discussing artificial fossil fuel production with terrible efficiency, in that context nuclear is very viable.

I'm not convinced. Solar is cheaper than nuclear and making Methane can be done when production exceeds demand. Why do you think that nuclear would be better suited for the task?

Its cheaper, but you are converting it to methane and back to electricity at abyssimal 15% efficiency, and paying for all that extra conversion infrastructure, so your costs are like 10x.

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

#156

Post by yesbut »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #154
yesbut wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much mountain top removal and mining will we need to do in order to build out all of this green energy? Steel, copper, concrete, rare earths, etc. all require fossil fuels. The green energy systems all require those components. Just take copper for example. How many tonnes of copper are going to be required to outfit all of the wind turbines? Copper isn't renewable. It will require endless mining and extraction t…

> Steel, copper, concrete, rare earths, etc. all require fossil fuels. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but in most ways it could be interpreted, that's not true. Copper doesn't require fossil fuels, and if it did then we'd come up with an alternative.

How is copper turned into wire? I guess they have litle men to rub the copper with their little hands until the copper is warm enough to spin ibto threads. Little copper Rumplestiltskins.

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

#157

Post by creato »

fuoqi wrote: post #51
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…

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.dailym…

The post I replied to implied metals and rare earth materials were being thrown away. That is the part I doubt.

For materials like the blades, we need to compare this to alternatives. The lack of recycling may be insignificant compared to the amount of materials consumed by non-renewable power sources (e.g. coal, oil), purely in terms of environmental impact from mining the materials, let alone GHG emissions.

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

#158

Post by lovemenot »

kumarvvr wrote: post #34
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…

I guess one solution is smart devices and processess that can be optimized to load whwn there is peak power. Some industrial processess, such as smelting, crushing, etc can be incentivized to do that. At domestic levels, its more difficult

>> At domestic levels, its more difficult

Not sure if this is correct. Once power cost is reduced, the cost of investing equipment dominates still further. Industrial processes are designed to operate 24/7 and when they don't, they are uneconomic.

Domestic power consumption is never 24/7 on any major device and there is some discretion over scheduling. Even fridge/freezer has some flexibility

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

#159

Post by VintageCool »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #142
cinntaile wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First, it only refers to the US, while the headline makes no such qualification. Yes the title should be "Land-Based Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition Released" but it still won't say US cause it's not in the title. > Second, this refers only to electricity generation, which is roughly 25% of US energy use, or 20% if you include energy embedded in imports, mostly fueled by fossil fuels in China. Of course it's only…

Worth noting that one of the standard anti-renewable talking points is to compare electrical energy production with the energy output by burning fossil fuels. This latter number is about 3x higher than the useful output since if you need something other than heat, say a car to move, or grid electricity then 2/3rds of the energy will be lost as heat while converting the energy to motion (and then to electricity). And…

I assumed (generously) that they were talking about capacity factor. Most wind power plants have a capacity factor between 0.25 and 0.5, which has been increasing over time. We are now able to build taller towers with longer blades, and that makes a difference. From the PDF:

> The average 2020 capacity factor among projects built from 2014 to 2019 was 41.4%, compared to an average of 29.0% among projects built from 2004 to 2011, and 25.2% among projects built from 1998 to 2001. This improvement among more-recently built projects has pushed the cumulative fleet-wide capacity factor higher over time, reaching 36% in 2020.

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

#160

Post by VintageCool »

anovikov wrote: post #3

Best news is that cost of these installations is now quite low: less than $1.5 per watt peak. What about capacity utilisation factor of newly installed turbines? Does it trend downwards? Which means, are we close to exhausting potential of wind? PS: It's not, it's actually trending a bit up. Which is explainable because average capacity of a turbine trends up -> the turbine is bigger and taller -> wind blows faster a…

Turbines are being built in slower wind-speed areas but are producing more power because they're bigger and taller.
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