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Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

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Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#41

Post by cycomanic »

Alupis wrote: post #8
pedroma wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>negative return on investment, energy wise, no one would be building wind farms I don't think it's this simple considering politics is usually involved. But if it was a simple profit question I still don't think people would be building wind farms.

Exactly right. Government subsidies makes a lot of things appear viable and/or affordable, when in reality they are not. Subsidies are bolstered by politics. Wind farms appear as ridiculous as they are. Yet... they keep getting built because there's government money to be made. There's government money to be made because they give the appearance of "doing something, anything" while in fact doing almost nothing. Follo…

Seriously did nobody read the article?! The article was specifically about this question, windfarms generate all the energy they needed to make them in 2 years time. This is completely unrelated to government subsidies.

Sometimes I loose faith in humanity.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#42

Post by MetaWhirledPeas »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #26
vuln wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could take the same route with nuclear waste imho.

Except old turbine blades tend not to leak out and make surrounding land unlivable by humans.

This not a battle between nuclear and wind. Why not use both? Nuclear has dangers (which people are learning to mitigate) but wind, solar, and geothermal cannot be used in every situation. When no better choice exists we should embrace nuclear.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#43

Post by 2024throwaway »

Alupis wrote: post #28
pedroma wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure the linked study has accounted for the energy required to acquire and operate the batteries used alongside these wind farms. But it would be interesting to see what percentage batteries factor into this equation. I would imagine it's massive.

> I would imagine it's massive. It has to be massive. There is no other way to manage a 70% production swing in as short as a couple minutes and not have the grid go dark. Which then begs the question of how green the batteries are over decades. We've picked the least reliable energy source and intellectually anchored ourselves to it - then we don't talk about how we actually keep the lights on 24/7. It's kind of nut…

As nuts as just burning anything flammable we can get our hands on?

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#44

Post by verall »

Alupis wrote: post #18
mikeyouse wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Wind can't be the entire solution" is such a different statement than whatever this misinformed smug dismissal is trying to get at.

If you were able to read the statement you would clearly see no such thing. Erecting more and more wind farms to make you feel fuzzy at night is absurd. We have the solution - metaphoric you just doesn't want it because reasons .

I think it's fun to imagine that this solution you're miming at is closer to soylent green rather than only-viable-through-subsidies nuclear.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#45

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

xnx wrote: post #21
christkv wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still the problem of recycling the blades. https://theconversation.com/wind-turbine-blades-inside-the-b... .

Why do blades need to be recycled? What's the harm in piling them up on empty land until someone finds use for them (or not)?

We do need to disassemble them and move them somewhere, so those costs should be included. Perhaps they should be made to where they can be broken down into sections and reused as durable seawall filler or as construction filler in levees or dams.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#46

Post by hi-v-rocknroll »

ajuc wrote: post #30
christkv wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is still the problem of recycling the blades. https://theconversation.com/wind-turbine-blades-inside-the-b... .

How's the recycling of burned oil and coal going?

Let's start off with just the cleaning off vehicles and people merely to move tar sands sludge around the ground that goes everywhere.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#47

Post by pedroma »

yareal wrote: post #34
pedroma wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My answer applies to both cases actually. For example, if one wanted to maximize profits, energy wise, there are better options than wind turbines and batteries. The choice to go with wind seems politically motivated due to optics of the alternatives.

It's not either or, it's both and. Of course there are different options that have better results in some axes. Building wind does not mean not building nuclear, solar, hydro, tidal, biomass pyrolysis, etc.

Yes, but due to the nature of wind being fickle, we have to keep these other energy facilities running and people employed. This adds to the costs of these other energy solutions while they are doing very little while wind is blowing. This messes all these metrics up.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#48

Post by mattmaroon »

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #36
xnx wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do blades need to be recycled? What's the harm in piling them up on empty land until someone finds use for them (or not)?

We need to be considering the impact of any big changes we make in regards to our energy. But the thing is, we already know the answers to most of these "but what about" questions and they've been answered time and time again, yet they keep being brought up and used in an effort to slow progress. Which is worse, the __________ caused by technology Z or the airborne carbon dioxide they prevent? THE CARBON DIOXIDE IS W…

This is actually why I tell people recycling is mostly bad. The impact of some plastic in the landfill is less than the extra carbon emissions.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#49

Post by ggm »

A conversation about second order effects against first order deliverables. This is proof of the obvious because very few people seriously believed their emission cost inputs exceeded their energy production, it's been necessary to prove it because of politics, not serious scientific questions to their aggregate burden.

During early years on lower efficiency sure, it's possible wind and solar had higher input costs and lifetime burdens than they produced. We're well beyond that phase now.

If you don't think this, ask yourself if the gas wastage, consumption and fugitive emission at production and supply chain facilities in aggregate is ever costed against the energy returns through the use of the product. I never see serious analysis of things like fugitive gas emissions on the cost side of gas production overall. CCS had no solution for this. It's huge.

Re: Wind farms can offset their emissions within two years, new study shows

#50

Post by zer00eyz »

Alupis wrote: post #11
mikeyouse wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wind farms generate substantial quantities of power at like $0.04/kwh unsubsidized - they're in no way ridiculous. California generates well over 10% of their total electricity demand via wind, Texas is closer to 25% of their total demand (more than coal and nuclear combined). Hundreds of thousands of cheap, carbon-free GWh produced is an odd definition of "doing almost nothing".

They are ridiculous for a number of reasons, including the quantity needed and the storage problem. Neither are trivial issues to solve - making any stand-alone production numbers meaningless. The obvious answer has been staring us in the face for decades. Yet... underinformed electorate continues to be unrationally scared, making it politically infeasible. We could have been 100% "green" energy decades ago. Let that…

>> including the quantity needed

Texas power has gone negative, CA has dropped to zero. That means power flowing on to the grid either has no where to go or is only being charged transmission fees (and those in CA are gonna be excessive).

Transmission and storage are big issues. But they are solvable ones. Storage can be localize and the grid can be upgraded (and needs to be).

Candidly we need to look for ways to decouple energy creation, storage and transmission from each other. How do I buy enoung fractional shares in creation and storage so I only have to pay the cost of transmission? How do I make my utility into an asset!

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