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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

#151

Post by ggm »

gosub100 wrote: post #141
freeone3000 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it’s really clear that wind energy pollutes less than natural gas, per kwh generated, once the plant is built. So then we looked at the costs for building the plant, where wind won again. So now we’re looking at the costs of building the materials that go into building the plant (a “second-order” effect), where, shockingly, wind wins again… against simply running the gas plant, excluding its cost of constructio…

> wind energy pollutes yes, it does. So the far right can use the same semantic arguments (redefining words) as the far left. "wind energy pollutes", that's enough (for them). I'm not taking that position, just showing how dirty politics becomes when you stop using logic and just go for the jugular with opponents instead of engage with them on a fair level. Again, the ones who engage fairly will die off - figurativel…

First and second order problems aren't woke they're rational observations to outcome. The first order problems are decarbonise the second order problems are the anti wind and anti solar and anti nuke argument. It's not designed to denigrate or put somebody down, its distinguishing between categories of reasoning and outcome drive.

I'm sorry if you think I said it to be dismissive or to put somebody down. I just want to try and assert that aesthetics and personal preference have to rank against a larger outcome.

I accept for some people their personal outcome outranks wider goals. I don't know how you discuss problems with that view: what's the basis of e.g. decarbonising, if you don't believe it's a problem or don't care, as long as your personal domain is unaffected?

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

#152

Post by glenstein »

zdragnar wrote: post #130
glenstein wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wit…

Like I started my point with, windmills get higher scrutiny because there are alternatives to them, unlike things like sidewalks and electrical lines.

I'm not sure I agree there truly are such things as "alternatives" to windmills depending on what you mean. Presumably you locate windmills in places where it's most advantageous to do so, where they are the best answer to a present need, not in places where they are worse than some other alternative, where they, as the lesser alternative, have to make up the difference with escalated emphasis on aesthetic concerns.

It's one of the more idiosyncratic rationalizations for escalated aesthetic standards I have yet heard.

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

#153

Post by bluefirebrand »

freeone3000 wrote: post #139
nucrow wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal of building washing machines, highways, etc. is not a cleaner environment. The point of windfarms is, but it defeats the purpose if producing them emits more carbon than they save.

It would defeat the purpose if windfarms made more pollution than they removed, but they don’t . By orders of magnitude. With current processes. They don’t .

Listen, I believe you

But only because those studies were done and numbers were produced.

It's important that we actually prove claims like this with facts.

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

#155

Post by neilwilson »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #39
Alupis wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scotland is microscopic in relation to the landmass and population that is the US. Yet... look at the sheer volume of wind turbines Scotland has to operate to get anywhere between 10% - 80% of their power generation, depending on the day and wind conditions. You cannot build a reliable grid based on wind. It requires other non-temperamental energy sources to be available when the wind isn't blowing. Solar? What if it…

Yet... look at the sheer volume of wind turbines Scotland has to operate What 'sheer volume'? You didn't give any numbers or sources. Here is some actual information: https://www.gov.scot/publications/renewables-and-wind-power-... " In 2022, almost 28 TWh of zero carbon electricity was generated by renewable wind in Scotland, representing 35% of all wind generation in the UK. This could power the equivalent of approx…

The shared grid is struggling for capacity. There are insufficient north to south links because of political instability. All of which leads to excess curtailment.

Nothing is sadder than driving past locked off wind turbines that could be turning and generating green LPG or something, rather than being paid to stand idle.

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

#156

Post by Gibbon1 »

thebruce87m wrote: post #12
Alupis wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Wind farms appear as ridiculous as they are. What do you mean by this? My country is mostly powered by wind. Edit: https://electricityproduction.uk/in/scotland/

Couple of days ago I tried converting Britain's wind energy into equivalent barrels of oil per day.

Raw energy it's 130,000 barrels per day. But available energy it's around 350,000 per day. Britain's share of the North Sea oil is something like 1 million barrels/day. Excluding nat gas. That's down from 3 million/day 25 years ago. Notable oil production will continue to decline but wind energy will not.

I also calculated energy in watts per person and it's 130W/person.

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

#157

Post by abenga »

_AzMoo wrote: post #112
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.

I've read articles and watched a few YouTube videos about electric mining trucks that are already in use in Australia, Canada, and other places.

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

#158

Post by Gibbon1 »

abenga wrote: post #157
_AzMoo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mining is an incredibly long way away from electric vehicles.

I've read articles and watched a few YouTube videos about electric mining trucks that are already in use in Australia, Canada, and other places.

A good bit to know is the power/energy requirements for vehicles is logarithmic. Large vehicles need less energy per unit weight than smaller ones.

A motorcycle might have 300hp per ton. Passenger car 100hp/ton. Train maybe 20hp/ton. South Dakota-class battleship is 3hp/ton.

So yeah size isn't an impediment to electrification.

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

#159

Post by gibolt »

TheGRS wrote: post #140
genocidicbunny wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does my not living in a city require that I change my sense of aesthetics? Is my sense of what is and isn't attractive required to be defined by where I live?

I think the whole point is that in cases of aesthetics, we built a bunch of eyesores for utilities and industries in the past anyway. Also I'm sure the next guy is going to say "does my land-ownership not mean anything? Why could my neighbor build an oil field in the past but I can't put up a big wind farm?" It's not black and white like that and trade-offs get made all the time.

Most of a city is ugly. It doesn't mean we ban alleys, dumpsters, worn paint, trashy vehicles/houses, and most commercial buildings.

We accept all of these and yet a beautiful, slow rotating turbine in some farmer's remote land or the middle of the ocean is unacceptable...

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

#160

Post by notTooFarGone »

genocidicbunny wrote: post #71
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…

I don't think it's fair to dismiss the aesthetic argument entirely though. As your yourself said, some aesthetic concerns are dismissed because of utility, but not all of them can be. It's not a fiction that a large scale solar or wind farm will occupy more land than an equivalent gas or coal plant. So perhaps some of the concerns aren't quite so "status quo extremism" (lovely phrasing though, I'm going to be stealin…

>It's not a fiction that a large scale solar or wind farm will occupy more land

This argument still baffles me - when we are talking about the US, things requiring a bit more space is laughable. There's SO MUCH UNUSED SPACE that no one cares about, there's offshore space and dual use space no one gives a damn about how is this even an argument. If it'd be orders of magnitude yea that'd be a problem but a few percent? Please.

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