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Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

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Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#131

Post by hyperbovine »

grumpydba wrote: post #114
hyperbovine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto, they make me feel like I’m living in a near-future sci-fi film. And let’s be honest, whatever natural beauty once existed in the UK was largely destroyed over the course of millennia.

Yeah so let's destroy pristine nature landscapes with ugly turbines (which kill a lot of birds and cost an arm to decommission). I've seen wild landscapes in Brittany completely ruined by still wind turbines. It's a disgrace. I'd rather go nuclear in select ugly places. What is beautiful is good. He who creates ugliness is evil.

There is no wilderness in Brittany that I am aware of. Very little anywhere in Europe actually. My point being, man have altered the landscape in that part of the world on a continual basis for thousands of years. Heck, people have been building windmills, the very object you object to, on this land for that long. It seems a bit rich to suddenly stand on principle and proclaim No! This should be banned! What is there left to despoil? Virgin Amazon or Boreal forest? Sure. Brittany? C’mon.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#132

Post by elamje »

dang wrote: post #76
elamje wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you are getting downvoted. Can someone show that a company that does not install wind turbines at your house can guarantee that you will be receiving power only produced by wind turbines? I could be misunderstanding something, but it seems that two neighbors(one using “wind”, the other using standard power) that share the same power line simply cannot be getting power from different sources. Edit: Hmm, n…

It breaks the site guidelines to go on about downvoting and that often triggers further downvotes. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Okay, sorry dang.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#133

Post by tracker1 »

Spooky23 wrote: post #52
tracker1 wrote: post #14

One thing I'm amused (not in a good way) by, is that there's so much FUD and marketing around the use of Coal etc. for energy and alternatives (Nuclear, wind, solar) ... I'm not necessarily knowledge enough to favor some over others. But I always felt, "because pollution," should be enough reason alone to look at alternatives, and considering the impact of building/supplying/disposing of the materials in the alternat…

People tend to miss obvious things when their mortgages depend on them doing so. Places dominated by extractive industries tend to be run by he money behind those industries. That transcends party traditionally, but has become a pillar of the right wing of the GOP since Nixon. Unfortunately, that means that people who run those industries basically control the Senate and soon the Supreme Court.

Wasn't the EPA a Nixon thing?

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#134

Post by tracker1 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #112
briandear wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why not do nuclear?

Why not both? Also, nuclear has the whole radioactive waste and potential meltdown thing, which wind does not.

I'm in favor of both. There are lots of very stable locations in the US. Far from flooding and earthquakes that are suitable. Similar for wind. I think solar should be limited to existing rooftops for now though.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#135

Post by stevenwoo »

H8crilA wrote: post #96
adrianN wrote: post #10

How difficult is it to build transmission lines in the US? In Germany we have enormous problems building a transmission line from the offshore windparks in the north to the industrial centers in the south. NIMBYs are opposing it fiercly.

The US has much lower population concentration, for example Texas: 40/km2, Germany: 230/km2. It makes it so much easier to build pipelines and power lines. It also makes it much less profitable to have inter-city ground level public transportation - compare American trains (low quality) with European trains (very nice and popular). Both American continents still have a lot of land that's completely unutilized, not ev…

Texas might be kind of unique in the USA for the way utility and pipeline companies can use eminent domain liberally against homeowners in order to secure property for right of way for power lines or pipelines. https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/permian-highway-pipeli...

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#136

Post by cma »

adventured wrote: post #72
cma wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Natural gas is cheaply transportable for heating which is probably a more efficient use of it than in electricity production (I think for electricity it is mainly used in peaker plants that need to start up quickly)

Natural gas is 35.1% of the US energy mix now. That's not peaker plants. It's extremely effective for normal utility scale electricity production.

Ah ok, looks like it has grown a lot the last 10 years.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#137

Post by dtornabene »

huffmsa wrote: post #105
johnohara wrote: post #20

Not difficult to imagine. I drove from Illinois to Arizona just last week. In west Texas, steady winds were turning hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of energy converters. Below those turbines were enormous fields of corn rivaling anything seen in southern Illinois. Ethanol? When the wind farms ended the feed lots began. Thousands and thousands of head of cattle being fed from hay piles five hundred feet long and tw…

A big driver of this is the relatively non-existent zoning laws in most of Texas. It's broadly the case (and accepted and defended by people with lots of guns) that you should be free to do just about anything you want on land you own. Want to build windmills, run cattle, and operate a strip club in your backyard? Go for it. So you get all these ranchers who realized "shoot, cows only need space up to about 6 feet. I…

this is....false. The "big driver of it" is state and federal subsidy, period. And as far as the zoning goes, that is a much much grayer picture than painted by this comment. For example, in the county I live, you couldn't sell liquor on one side of a highway, a highway which runs dead center through the county and town, because of religious influence on the approval and application of zoning laws. And blue laws are only a tiny part of it.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#138

Post by mirimir »

dinofacedude wrote: post #127
elamje wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas resident here. If you have ever driven by a refinery of any type you will see where energy goes. The shear amount of energy to convert oil to usable gas/plastics/etc. is pretty crazy. Texas has the biggest oil refinery presence in the US ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petroleum_refining_in_the_Un... ) Refineries don’t just make gasoline, but plastic, engine oil, industrial lubricant. That being said, wiki wi…

This exactly. I lived in Lumberton near Beaumont for a few years and the paper mill made most of the town stink at the time. I moved to Mount Pleasant for another few years and the entire town's industry centers around the pilgrim's pride chicken factory. The entire town, coincidentally, smells like raw chicken.

I recall a tour of a kraft (softwood paper) mill. There was a water spray unit (like you'd see in a car wash) at the parking lot exit. To keep SOx deposits from dissolving employees' vehicles.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#139

Post by zamalek »

grumpydba wrote: post #114
hyperbovine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto, they make me feel like I’m living in a near-future sci-fi film. And let’s be honest, whatever natural beauty once existed in the UK was largely destroyed over the course of millennia.

Yeah so let's destroy pristine nature landscapes with ugly turbines (which kill a lot of birds and cost an arm to decommission). I've seen wild landscapes in Brittany completely ruined by still wind turbines. It's a disgrace. I'd rather go nuclear in select ugly places. What is beautiful is good. He who creates ugliness is evil.

If we don't destroy the pristine landscapes, were sure as hell going to destroy the pristine planet.

Nuclear is better, though, in the short term.

Re: Wind is outpacing coal as a power source in Texas for the first time

#140

Post by duckMuppet »

dtornabene wrote: post #137
huffmsa wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big driver of this is the relatively non-existent zoning laws in most of Texas. It's broadly the case (and accepted and defended by people with lots of guns) that you should be free to do just about anything you want on land you own. Want to build windmills, run cattle, and operate a strip club in your backyard? Go for it. So you get all these ranchers who realized "shoot, cows only need space up to about 6 feet. I…

this is....false. The "big driver of it" is state and federal subsidy, period. And as far as the zoning goes, that is a much much grayer picture than painted by this comment. For example, in the county I live, you couldn't sell liquor on one side of a highway, a highway which runs dead center through the county and town, because of religious influence on the approval and application of zoning laws. And blue laws are…

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