161–170 of 196 posts
can you bring the birds back though?
So where to put wind farms to minimise disruption is a definite consideration.
EDIT: quick google to find some sources:
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365...
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You do need a carbon source for steel production. It’s integral to steel. You don’t need coal per se, but you do need to burn carbon. Every technique so far will release some CO2 as a waste result.
The carbon needed for steel as an alloying element is a small fraction of the carbon needed for reduction of iron ore. The latter is replaceable with renewable energy (hydrogen or direct electrolytic reduction). Also, note that 70% of steel production in the US isn't from ore at all, but is from scrap metal. Most of the steel used in renewable energy infrastructure will not be consumed, but will be recycled.
And also, that carbon is not going into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide — it's going into the steel (as iron carbine and graphite IIIRC).
> “Although the carbon offset depends on the exact older technology the wind turbines are replacing, we would expect a similar offset internationally. In New Zealand it is gas turbines, but many countries will be displacing fossil fuel generators. Aren’t gas turbines a type of fossil fuel generator?
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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.
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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…
But that is all fine and we can just build them elsewhere where this isn't an issue.
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.
But they’re a very long way from approaching 100% of mining if that’s what you mean.
"The study reviewed current literature on wind farms, as well as using real construction data to take into account everything from the manufacturing of individual turbine parts, to transporting them into place, to decommissioning the entire wind farm at Harapak" I wonder if they take into account the footprint of storage. It should be noted that if wind is used as a serious replacement for non-renewable energy or nuc…
Even if you use li-ion or other electric batteries the materials can generally be recycled with near zero carbon emissions. So carbon emission price we pay now should be spread over the centuries that those materials will be used.
Renewables will also be paired with electric vehicles that represent a huge flexible load. I have already set my car to automatically charge only when electricity is cheap. I would even feed energy back on the grid if I had the option.
So you see, if you count energy storage for renewables, you also have to count the emissions from fossil industrial heat and ICE cars, and fertiliser production (green ammonia production will also be flexible load that can serve as energy storage, etc
By some accounts, if we decarbonise everything, we really don’t need all that much dedicated energy storage at all. The minimum production on a well connected grid will be about enough for base load needs.
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Cats kill 1.3 - 1.4 billion birds/year. Buildings 1 billion/year. Glass windows? Wind farms - 1 million per year.
Cats rarely kill large raptors.
There are areas where wind turbines have been put up near population of eagles (Smøla in Norway for instance) and the population is increasing. Even though we know some of them are killed by the wind turbine.
Giving them a good habitat and not hunting them or their prey to extinction is orders of magnitude more important than not building wind power (as long as we’re not incredibly stupid about where we put them). And avoiding global warming is an incredibly important part of preserving their habitats. Also.. have you seen what oil spills does to birds?
Which is why the National Audubon society is cautiously positive to wind power.
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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.