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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

#111

Post by glenstein »

ggm wrote: post #67
glenstein wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Status quo extremism I'm stealing that. It's great!

Please do, consider it yours. I don't know that it's a generally accepted term but it's my opinion that it should be.

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

#112

Post by _AzMoo »

PaulKeeble wrote: post #75

At some point of transition the CO2 emissions drop to zero because all the energy at every stage comes from renewables. Solar can pay it's emissions cost back in 6 months but every solar panel company powers their factories with their own solar panels so in practice the practical emissions are reduced a lot and as mining adopts the new electric vehicles most things will tend towards almost nothing. The more renewable…

Mining is an incredibly long way away from electric vehicles.

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

#113

Post by genman »

Meegul wrote: post #99
PaulKeeble wrote: post #75

At some point of transition the CO2 emissions drop to zero because all the energy at every stage comes from renewables. Solar can pay it's emissions cost back in 6 months but every solar panel company powers their factories with their own solar panels so in practice the practical emissions are reduced a lot and as mining adopts the new electric vehicles most things will tend towards almost nothing. The more renewable…

This is only true on the energy and transportation sides of emissions. Some processes like the creation of cement and refining of steel create CO2 through chemical processes, regardless of the energy source.

You don't necessarily need fossil fuels for steel production. It is also nothing impossible in capturing CO2 from cement making - it's mainly centralized production and much simpler problem than transportation.

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

#114

Post by tstrimple »

MetaWhirledPeas wrote: post #42
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

We have a profit based energy sector. Of course this is a battle between nuclear and wind. And nuclear has lost.

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

#115

Post by ch4s3 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #104
gibolt wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These aren't built in a city, where most people will be staring at them. They are in remote areas. I'd also argue that they are awesome, quietly spinning giants in the distance. Although maybe that wears off if you constantly live near one. Cell towers and oil wells are allowed to be built wherever by a landowner and are both eyesores, yet were built anyway.

> These aren't built in a city, where most people will be staring at them No, we reserve our cities for these lovelies [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/05/nyregion/nyc-5g-towers.ht...

That looks better than a transformer or a bunch of phone lines IMO.

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

#116

Post by jandrese »

xnx wrote: post #22

That's an amazing investment if it can pay for itself entirely in 2 years and keep generating money after that.

While this is talking about carbon emissions the monetary payoff is not that much different. There's a reason people are building these things like crazy. The solution to climate change is to align the incentives.

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

#117

Post by baseline-shift »

It is rather ridiculous to fret about the very minor emissions of manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels compared to sticking with fossil fueled energy sources!

We don't see similarly breathless studies of the carbon emissions of all the other manufactured things we need to run our civilization.

Where's the emissions involved in making washing machines? Highways? Primary schools? Oh dear, let's not make those things!

But no, it is only the things that compete with the fossil industry that must be tallied up so NIMBYs can have some excuse to ditch these crucial solutions to our climate problem.

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

#118

Post by glenstein »

zdragnar wrote: post #83
glenstein wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

There are plenty of alternatives to wind turbines. There are very few or no alternatives to the others you mentioned, especially in rural areas. Even so, when a community has enough funding, they will often implement such things with additional aesthetic considerations- running wires underground, adding decorative touches or using more expensive materials for sidewalks, adding greenery to roadways such as planting fl…

If, when people raise aesthetic concerns about windmills, all they are really saying is that it's subject to the same level of concern as our electric and telecom and highway and gas infrastructure, which have been built out like a nervous system into every city and town across the country, and therefore it will be as equally as easy to build out as all of those, then there's no such thing as an aesthetic problem with windmills.

If there's an elevated standard that differentiates aesthetics of windmills from those other cases, then those other things are not subject to the same type of consideration after all.

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

#119

Post by glenstein »

QuercusMax wrote: post #80
TheGRS wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing I would be worried about is noise in otherwise serene areas. But I'm yet to see a wind farm in an area and think "bah, what a waste!" I'm usually pretty pleased by the sight of them. And if I'm going to be totally fair, I hate the noise from freeways, but I also don't like living that far away from them.

I love driving by the actual farms that are also wind farms. There are a bunch of them driving between San Jose and LA - just endless huge fields of cabbage or whatever overseen by giant wind turbines. Also seeing rows of them along ridgelines feels very cool.

Same. They are quite stunning and beautiful in rural forested mountain regions near me, and I make a point of driving by them if I can.

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

#120

Post by [deleted] »

baseline-shift wrote: post #117

It is rather ridiculous to fret about the very minor emissions of manufacturing wind turbines and solar panels compared to sticking with fossil fueled energy sources! We don't see similarly breathless studies of the carbon emissions of all the other manufactured things we need to run our civilization. Where's the emissions involved in making washing machines? Highways? Primary schools? Oh dear, let's not make those t…

[deleted]
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