61–70 of 196 posts
That's an amazing investment if it can pay for itself entirely in 2 years and keep generating money after that.
That would be amazing if it was the case (and wind would get a lot more support if so), but it doesn't say that. It says it pays for itself emissions-wise.
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 a…
In some cases if you even ask the question you might be dismissed as a crank because, well, roads and sidewalks can crumble and fall into disrepair, but obviously we're not going to just get rid of sidewalks and roads. There's kind of an unspoken and shared understanding that the necessity of those forms of infrastructure trumps aesthetic concerns.
Status quo extremism might be summed up by the demand that new things have to pass novel and specific tests that would never be applied to the status quo.
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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.
I straight up do not care a about plastic use at all anymore. Specifically: provided the plastic is going to well-managed landfill, and not being washed into the oceans or waterways, then really, what is the problem? Once in landfill it's CO2 which won't end up in the atmosphere, or water, or really doing much of anything while it just sits there. And every bit of it is oil production which won't be burned.
Some plastics get incinerated, it isn't all sequestered in landfills.
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We don't burn the wind turbine blades when we use them, nor when they break. The scale of issue in dealing with a bunch of solid waste you can just bury compared to climate change is insignificant.
Well... technically... some people are starting to https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-make... but this also produces energy and compared to the amount of electricity they produce during their lifetime this carebon can only be incredibly negligible
> Carbon Rivers’ recycling uses pyrolysis—a process during which organic components of a composite (e.g., resins or polymers) are broken down with intense heat in the absence of oxygen and separated from the inorganic fiberglass reinforcement.
That's an amazing investment if it can pay for itself entirely in 2 years and keep generating money after that.
That would be amazing if it was the case (and wind would get a lot more support if so), but it doesn't say that. It says it pays for itself emissions-wise.
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Massive amounts of carbon fiber used in wind blades is coming from … oil. So same problem here. And it becomes unusable toxic waste.
Massive on a personal scale but miniscule compared to the scale of oil production and combustion. So many people are worried about small scale downsides to technologies that are trying to address truly massive problems.
But to make that case you'd actually have to do the next step of assessing the relative scales of how much oil gets used in the creation of windmill components compared to an alternative case where the energy is generated with traditional fossil fuel infrastructure.
I feel like if we're going to bring up the fossil fuel inputs into the creation of critical components for windmills, the mandatory next sentence has to be an acknowledgment of the relative scales of consumption in both cases. Otherwise it's a throwaway line with no context and no clear upshot.
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 a…
And to your point, albeit with a more frivolous example, wind power has been subject to tests for aesthetic satisfaction that never have to be passed with such regularity by, say, telephone wires, roads or sidewalks, other forms of electricity infrastructure, big box stores, oil and gas infrastructure, gas stations, etc. In some cases if you even ask the question you might be dismissed as a crank because, well, roads…
I'm stealing that. It's great!
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Well... technically... some people are starting to https://www.energy.gov/eere/wind/articles/carbon-rivers-make... but this also produces energy and compared to the amount of electricity they produce during their lifetime this carebon can only be incredibly negligible
Pyrolysis is not burning - from your link: > Carbon Rivers’ recycling uses pyrolysis—a process during which organic components of a composite (e.g., resins or polymers) are broken down with intense heat in the absence of oxygen and separated from the inorganic fiberglass reinforcement.
> The process converts organic products back into raw hydrocarbon products called syngas and pyrolysis oil, which can be used for energy production.
Which in a video I can't find they talk about piping this to a concrete plant that was burning it for their heating needs
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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…
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I straight up do not care a about plastic use at all anymore. Specifically: provided the plastic is going to well-managed landfill, and not being washed into the oceans or waterways, then really, what is the problem? Once in landfill it's CO2 which won't end up in the atmosphere, or water, or really doing much of anything while it just sits there. And every bit of it is oil production which won't be burned.
> And every bit of it is oil production which won't be burned. Some plastics get incinerated, it isn't all sequestered in landfills.
Hence this qualifier. In my region, my trash goes to landfill. I've been to landfill! It's a modern design with stabilized storage cells, you can see them excavating it as they expand.