How much do municipal power plants cost to build that use coal? Those plants were not free dipshit. There is a cost for these ventures to provide power down the road.
I’m not a fan of wind farms dawg, I am just the messenger that they will be used with solar farms to produce H2. Sheesh!
Coal and other fossil fuel power plants have to make a profit so they cost less than the energy they sell. If they don’t they are shut down.
Now over in Japan they are working on a process to extract hydrogen from ammonia. This would be cheaper (less energy used) than breaking water molecules apart but whether it could compete with oil is dubious. Then there is the problem of using hydrogen as a fuel. Its very hard to contain though fuel cells get around this by not using free hydrogen.
You told me hydrogen would be extracted on a “massive scale” from wind and solar.
For the third time, I ask you for the installed capacity and when these will come online. Two questions that should be easy to answer for you since you are the resident expert. How big? When?
Rdawg- Mere mortals can only guess at the roll out dates of the energy god’s new and improved hydro-o-rama but I can tell you I think within 5 or 10 years. This video produced by Shell (who will be the big player in the Eurozone) is showing the H2 produced on site at the filing station. They don’t elaborate but I can tell you it will be produced using NG as it will be at your house one day with your own fuel cell stack.
In case you are wondering , Toyota is slated to be the big player here in the US at fueling stations. You can start at 3:14 if you want.
Trapped in Portlandia
August 31, 2018 1:46 pm
You people just don’t understand. Being pro-environment is all about perception. Getting rid of straws, replacing power plants with wind turbines, driving a Prius or Tesla is what proves you care about the environment. The fact that all of these use more energy than the previous approaches is meaningless to environmentalists and politicians.
In this country it is no longer about math, it is looking like you are doing the right thing, regardless of whether it is actually the wrong thing.
PlatoPlubius
August 31, 2018 1:46 pm
I remember the 80s and 90s, it was the plastic from the six pack of cans that everyone was in an uproar over…
Then late 90s and early 2000s it was the Coca Cola Bears and our CO2 emissions melting the ice caps
Hahahaha
It’s always something
Craven Warrior
August 31, 2018 2:04 pm
But it makes someone a lot of money. They just hope you won’t notice that it’s not you.
The base is approximately 20 meters (60 or so feet in diameter) and as it is cone shaped varying from 3 feet to ten feet in height. I’d calculate the yardage of concrete but soon it will be beer o’clock on a long week end. suffice to say it is a lot and heavy in weight…
If you’ve got the drop and the volume, nothing beats small hydro. My buddy runs his mill and whole farm off a spring fed pond and less than 12 feet of drop with around 15k invested. He was quoted 50k to run power back to the mill by niagara mohawk.
I will go to his house and get pictures and put something together from there. He gave me the tour, but i know none of the technicals or brands of generators. Gimme a couple weeks and i will submit it to admin
anarchyst
August 31, 2018 3:36 pm
If environmentalism restricted itself to truly caring for our natural resources, I would have no problem with it. However, with the “secret science” and questionable funding that these environmental groups taints the whole barrel. It turns out that many claims that environmentalists make have no basis in fact and are not based on good, honest, scientific investigation. This is why “environmental scientists” have to hide their data, as it does not fit their agenda. A good example of this is the so-called “global warming” crap, now renamed “climate change”. For one, the climate is always changing. The East Anglia University emails in which data was purposely falsified by “climate scientists” comes to mind. Not only that, the “climate scientists”purposely installed temperature monitoring sensors in cities, contrary to manufacturers recommendations and good scientific practices, in asphalt-covered parking lots, and other “heat sink” areas in order to “prove” their (faulty) hypothesis. This is scientific dishonesty at its worst.
It turns out that the solar system is in a “cooling cycle” due to decreased solar activity. There are two long-term solar cycles that reinforce themselves when in phase and cancel themselves out when out-of-phase”. Look up the “Maunder minimum”. There are no SUVs on Mars or other planets, yet they are also experiencing the same solar variaability.
Environmentalism has been the method used to impose communist principles on western society–especially in the USA.
Environmentalists are not content with promoting clean water, air and land, but are hell-bent on controlling human behavior, and yes, promoting extermination plans for much of humanity as these “anointed” types consider mankind to be a pestilence (except for themselves) to be reduced in population “by any means necessary”.
Environmentalists HATE the God-given concept of private property and have imposed government-backed and enforced “land use controls” on private property owners without compensation–clearly an unconstitutional “taking” of private property. If environmentalists want to control land use, let them purchase it themselves–not by government force. Today the only method of negating government-imposed land use restrictions is “shoot, shovel, and shut up”.
If environmentalists had their way, the earth’s human population would be reduced by approximately 90%, with the remainder to (be forced) to live in cities, in soviet-style high rise apartments, utilizing bicycles, buses and trains for transportation. The use of automobiles and access to “pristine wilderness (rural) areas” would be off-limits to us mere mortals, and would only be available for these “anointed” environmentalists.
The “endangered species act” is another abuse of environmentalism. Species are always changing, to adapt to their environments–”survival if the fittest”. In fact, the hoopla over the “spotted owl” (that placed much northwest timber land “off-limits” to logging) turned out to be nothing but scientific misconduct and arrogance. There are virtually identical species in other parts of the northwest.
More scientific malpractice occurred when government biologists attempted to “plant” lynx fur in certain areas to provide an excuse for making those areas “off-limits” for logging or development. Fortunately, these “scientists” were caught–however, no punishment was given.
In a nutshell, today’s environmentalism IS communism… like watermelon…”green” on the outside and “red” (communist) on the inside…
It is interesting to note that communist and third-world countries have the WORST environmental conditions on the planet. Instead of the USA and other developed countries spending billions to get rid of that last half-percent of pollution, it would behoove the communist countries to improve their conditions first. Here is a question for you environmentalists: Why is there a push for restrictive environmental regulations, but only on the developed first-world countries, and not the “gross polluters” such as India and China?
And lets not forget solar. I have a lot of silver,love it, but for solar? Of course its free now. $15
Some years ago I built a number of on board hydrogen generators for big block diesel truck engines. Nice improvement in MPG. VW built a 250 MPG fuel system using hydrogen fuel cels a year or so ago. Pissed off the rottinfellars. So he destroyed 3000 new VW’s on the dock in Japan.
Bubbah
August 31, 2018 4:59 pm
Thomas Homer Dixon, explained that this quote was completely taken out of context. He stated that some Windmills in certain areas were a complete waste of time. But in other areas with consistent wind it took about 3yrs to start becoming a Net energy winner. Clearly Wind would never begin to replace the huge energy need we have. But in some areas with some Wind turbines it makes sense, in other areas it clearly doesn’t. But the Secret Society quote was completely misleading, and cut off all the positive aspects completely.
My father who was an electrical engineer for a utility company, said that wind in some areas works great, and often time is better than solar. The only thing he saw that had a really high net energy were wave generators, but clearly distribution and other issues are making it problematic. It would be nice if solar/wind and all that actually were able to produce serious energy, but it looks like not, or if so at a price point that would be outrageously high and not doable. For now fossil fuels are working fine, but we need them to produce food, eventually fuels vs. food will come home to roost, but for now they keep producing lots of food on dead soil.
Yes it’s BS. Thomas Homer-Dixon didn’t say this and the point is simply not true. A current generation, utility scale wind turbine (which is far more efficient than the “windmills” that Homer Dixon was allegedly talking about) apparently produces 20-40x as much energy as it takes to manufacture and has a typical energy payback within 12 months.
In Thomas Homer-Dixon’s own words – “No . . . I did not say wind energy is ‘Idiot Power’
A poster widely circulated on the Web highlights text that was purportedly written by me saying that wind power inevitably suffers an energetic deficit. The poster is fraudulent. I didn’t write the text, the text itself is selectively quoted, and the argument it makes, taken in isolation, is meaningless.”
You are confusing total energy expended with power rating…You are also ignoring all the other costs of producing and feeding such intermittent power into a grid..
You are making this far more complicated than it needs to be. The assertion in the above meme is that wind is idiot power because an (attributed) expert says you will never recoup the ENERGY required to even make and install the “windmill”. I’m saying that –
1) The attribued expert says he never said that.
2) The attributed expert says he doesn’t believe that and that it’s not true.
3) Even a small amount of independent investigation shows that the total energy actually produced by a commercially viable, installed, utility scale wind turbine in even one year is much greater than the energy required to manufacture and install it, and that over an operational lifetime it is likely to generate 20-40x that quantity of energy. That analysis includes a 30% duty cycle or whatever figure you think is appropriate for how often and how strongly the wind actually blows.
You can try to complicate this as much as you like but it really is that simple. Yes I fully accept that this is simply about the energy argument and doesn’t touch on the cost or availability arguments, but the premise of this meme, which is energy, is quite clearly complete and utter bollocks, a whopper of a lie, or fake news as we seem to call it these days.
The following is just one (older) article. As I understand it efficiencies have improved tremendously with newer and larger installations, especially offshore, so the returns on energy are actually now even better than this states. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/29/turbines-energy
In case that’s not compelling enough, here is a scientic analysis focussing specifically on US 2 MW turbines. It concludes that “in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online”. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140616093317.htm
Mark- You are farting in the wind, they hate any news of technology other than fossil fuel. Their devotion the their oil is unmovable. I don’t know why I try to bring news to the table, waste of time with people who have their minds closed.
Mark to market, via auction, every minute of every day – or wind socks is you. In perpetuity, so far.
There is a plausible JP Morgan-Tesla dogleg, too. &, as said already, the morgaizers are the same bunch that took that Jekyll Island vacation together. To color of law what they’d been doing even better.
Rawdawg- You are like a broken record of peak oil doom, there is no hope!! We iz all doomed……oil is the only game in town……..we will revert back to the dark ages. Like I said, things are changing with or without your expert(?) opinion.
Rdawg – I have 40+ years in electronics design, a PhD in engineering and worked in various roles including as head of department and CTO in a design consultancy. I have exposure to a wide range of industries, including sustainables. I am certainly not an expert in renewables, but I know enough about the industry to distinguish truth from lies.
I think there are a lot of false claims in any industry, and these often get exaggerated once politics and media gets involved, so I am receptive to the skepticism that many have – especially someone such as yourself who’s worked in an industry. However, on this specific issue of Energy Invested, versus Energy Returned for wind turbines I think it would take a lot of naivety to believe the above claim – i.e. that it takes more energy to make/install a wind turbine than you ever get out. There are multiple credible sources which say you get 20-40x the amount of energy out that you put in. Even if these assessments are off by 2x (something which would be extreme in the engineering world) they would still prove a massive return on energy invested.
Here is yet another analysis, from Wikipedia, which ranks Energy Returned vs Energy Invested (EROI) for different power generation types. Again, the data is almost 10 years out of date, and my understanding is that things have improved dramatically in that time, as you would expect with any nascent technology. This chart says wind turbines generate around 20x the energy they consume to manufacture and install. Wind definitely has its shortcomings, but the EROI argument is complete and utter BS.
And my farts have been powering my house for 19 years. I just eat a can of beans per day. It’s a miracle. I haven’t told anyone yet out of fear of being suicided.
Nobody is ever allowed to put any of these environmental or REAL dollar costs on the same spreadsheet for everyone to see. THAT is one of the primary missions of the mainstream media and the “clean energy” propagandists. Just like pointing out that driving a plug-in hybrid in GA means that most of the power you use to charge the battery comes from high sulfur coal and nuclear and its the same in many US states.
Boat Guy
August 31, 2018 5:55 pm
But but but it’s greeeen , remember like a Tesla vehicle and corn alcohol . Rape pillage and plunder tax paying citizens to subsidize these follies . Make billon dollar boondoggles profit for a few at the cost to the many .
The costs , losses and failures are insignificant to those profiting , as for those losing , if only you were special you would understand your sacrifice is of no consequence !
Mark H
September 1, 2018 5:50 am
The only problem is that the claim here appears not to be true! It seems that the energy/resources cost of manufacture/installation of utility scale wind generation is comparable to that of conventional fossil power generation (for the same output). They all (crudely) produce around 30x the “cost” that they consume to manufacture/install. The big win for wind generation is the ongoing resource cost to run/maintain it is minimal compared to conventional power. Furthermore, not only does conventional carbon generation always consume carbon energy to generate power it also typically consumes a lot of further resources to run/maintain (often a lot of water) and to process any waste. Finally, since wind turbines are actually net energy positive, once you have a wind turbine you can use the energy it produces to make more wind turbines.
It always amazes me that so many politically right wing people seem so violently against sustainable energy? I assume it’s largely mainly a reaction against an often fanatical left that seems to want to ram an agenda down everyone’s throat, sometimes based on claims that don’t survive scrutiny? But just because that’s (probably) true doesn’t mean that the underlying case is necessarily wrong, and clutching at unfounded claims (like the above) to justify that is just as nonsensical. Personally I would rather live near to a wind turbine generation facility than a coal or nuclear power plant (or a coal mine or fracking plant). Furthermore, I’d actually quite like my own solar/wind installation and not have to rely on anyone else for a modern lifestyle that I’m rather addicted to. It seems to me that the emerging tech here has the potential to give us more independence from stupid people? Shouldn’t that be appealing to anyone craving an escape from an increasingly broken “system”?
pyrrus- So, I’m guessing you have totally missed the discussion of municipal power storage batteries?
steve
September 1, 2018 8:21 am
“Idiot Power” how true. Wind power reality is far worse than hearing some idiot talk about how their Tesla is non-polluting. Electricity grows on trees, right?
We’ve got wind, solar thermal, photovoltaic, hydro and geo-thermal. The costs have all been paid off and they all generate energy, every day.
The problem isn’t in which form of energy we select or it’s efficiency or up front cost, it’s that utilities want to control delivery in perpetuity. It’s the entire reason that Edison beat out Tesla. You either allow people to pay for their own point generated energy supply at whatever the cost up front or you control the distribution and gouge them in perpetuity.
If you are looking for a lot of wind power connected to idiots, put up a picture of DC.
Read it and weep.
This is one of your solutions for how we harvest all that yummy hydrogen.
Not. Gonna. Happen.
When are you going to tell me how much installed capacity of these miracle wind and solar-powered hydrogen generators is coming online, and when?
Bueller? Bueller?
How much do municipal power plants cost to build that use coal? Those plants were not free dipshit. There is a cost for these ventures to provide power down the road.
I’m not a fan of wind farms dawg, I am just the messenger that they will be used with solar farms to produce H2. Sheesh!
Coal and other fossil fuel power plants have to make a profit so they cost less than the energy they sell. If they don’t they are shut down.
Now over in Japan they are working on a process to extract hydrogen from ammonia. This would be cheaper (less energy used) than breaking water molecules apart but whether it could compete with oil is dubious. Then there is the problem of using hydrogen as a fuel. Its very hard to contain though fuel cells get around this by not using free hydrogen.
Cost to BUILD , when new Unit . How much ground up to build the plant ?
You told me hydrogen would be extracted on a “massive scale” from wind and solar.
For the third time, I ask you for the installed capacity and when these will come online. Two questions that should be easy to answer for you since you are the resident expert. How big? When?
Rdawg- Mere mortals can only guess at the roll out dates of the energy god’s new and improved hydro-o-rama but I can tell you I think within 5 or 10 years. This video produced by Shell (who will be the big player in the Eurozone) is showing the H2 produced on site at the filing station. They don’t elaborate but I can tell you it will be produced using NG as it will be at your house one day with your own fuel cell stack.
In case you are wondering , Toyota is slated to be the big player here in the US at fueling stations. You can start at 3:14 if you want.
You people just don’t understand. Being pro-environment is all about perception. Getting rid of straws, replacing power plants with wind turbines, driving a Prius or Tesla is what proves you care about the environment. The fact that all of these use more energy than the previous approaches is meaningless to environmentalists and politicians.
In this country it is no longer about math, it is looking like you are doing the right thing, regardless of whether it is actually the wrong thing.
I remember the 80s and 90s, it was the plastic from the six pack of cans that everyone was in an uproar over…
Then late 90s and early 2000s it was the Coca Cola Bears and our CO2 emissions melting the ice caps
Hahahaha
It’s always something
But it makes someone a lot of money. They just hope you won’t notice that it’s not you.
Laws and new regulations create new markets and new jobs…
That’s how this house of cards has lasted so long
He doesn’t even include the concrete into the equation..
I work for a rebar company and have seen how much goes into building these. Nobody is ever going to convince that they make any cents..
How many yards to support a hundred foot tall hundred ton windmill? A thousand? A hundred times that?
Depends. Each base design is different. For this one
https://www.enercon.de/en/products/ep-2/e-82/#Oben
The base is approximately 20 meters (60 or so feet in diameter) and as it is cone shaped varying from 3 feet to ten feet in height. I’d calculate the yardage of concrete but soon it will be beer o’clock on a long week end. suffice to say it is a lot and heavy in weight…
or make for good scents
If you’ve got the drop and the volume, nothing beats small hydro. My buddy runs his mill and whole farm off a spring fed pond and less than 12 feet of drop with around 15k invested. He was quoted 50k to run power back to the mill by niagara mohawk.
I bet many here would be interested in reading more about what your buddy did exactly.
I will go to his house and get pictures and put something together from there. He gave me the tour, but i know none of the technicals or brands of generators. Gimme a couple weeks and i will submit it to admin
If environmentalism restricted itself to truly caring for our natural resources, I would have no problem with it. However, with the “secret science” and questionable funding that these environmental groups taints the whole barrel. It turns out that many claims that environmentalists make have no basis in fact and are not based on good, honest, scientific investigation. This is why “environmental scientists” have to hide their data, as it does not fit their agenda. A good example of this is the so-called “global warming” crap, now renamed “climate change”. For one, the climate is always changing. The East Anglia University emails in which data was purposely falsified by “climate scientists” comes to mind. Not only that, the “climate scientists”purposely installed temperature monitoring sensors in cities, contrary to manufacturers recommendations and good scientific practices, in asphalt-covered parking lots, and other “heat sink” areas in order to “prove” their (faulty) hypothesis. This is scientific dishonesty at its worst.
It turns out that the solar system is in a “cooling cycle” due to decreased solar activity. There are two long-term solar cycles that reinforce themselves when in phase and cancel themselves out when out-of-phase”. Look up the “Maunder minimum”. There are no SUVs on Mars or other planets, yet they are also experiencing the same solar variaability.
Environmentalism has been the method used to impose communist principles on western society–especially in the USA.
Environmentalists are not content with promoting clean water, air and land, but are hell-bent on controlling human behavior, and yes, promoting extermination plans for much of humanity as these “anointed” types consider mankind to be a pestilence (except for themselves) to be reduced in population “by any means necessary”.
Environmentalists HATE the God-given concept of private property and have imposed government-backed and enforced “land use controls” on private property owners without compensation–clearly an unconstitutional “taking” of private property. If environmentalists want to control land use, let them purchase it themselves–not by government force. Today the only method of negating government-imposed land use restrictions is “shoot, shovel, and shut up”.
If environmentalists had their way, the earth’s human population would be reduced by approximately 90%, with the remainder to (be forced) to live in cities, in soviet-style high rise apartments, utilizing bicycles, buses and trains for transportation. The use of automobiles and access to “pristine wilderness (rural) areas” would be off-limits to us mere mortals, and would only be available for these “anointed” environmentalists.
The “endangered species act” is another abuse of environmentalism. Species are always changing, to adapt to their environments–”survival if the fittest”. In fact, the hoopla over the “spotted owl” (that placed much northwest timber land “off-limits” to logging) turned out to be nothing but scientific misconduct and arrogance. There are virtually identical species in other parts of the northwest.
More scientific malpractice occurred when government biologists attempted to “plant” lynx fur in certain areas to provide an excuse for making those areas “off-limits” for logging or development. Fortunately, these “scientists” were caught–however, no punishment was given.
In a nutshell, today’s environmentalism IS communism… like watermelon…”green” on the outside and “red” (communist) on the inside…
It is interesting to note that communist and third-world countries have the WORST environmental conditions on the planet. Instead of the USA and other developed countries spending billions to get rid of that last half-percent of pollution, it would behoove the communist countries to improve their conditions first. Here is a question for you environmentalists: Why is there a push for restrictive environmental regulations, but only on the developed first-world countries, and not the “gross polluters” such as India and China?
That was a strong post! 1000+
Good (but you just scratched the surface of environmental fascist fraud).
What’s the net?
It’s the thing Entenmann’sologists use to catch the butterflies.
https://www.entenmanns.com/en
And lets not forget solar. I have a lot of silver,love it, but for solar? Of course its free now. $15
Some years ago I built a number of on board hydrogen generators for big block diesel truck engines. Nice improvement in MPG. VW built a 250 MPG fuel system using hydrogen fuel cels a year or so ago. Pissed off the rottinfellars. So he destroyed 3000 new VW’s on the dock in Japan.
Thomas Homer Dixon, explained that this quote was completely taken out of context. He stated that some Windmills in certain areas were a complete waste of time. But in other areas with consistent wind it took about 3yrs to start becoming a Net energy winner. Clearly Wind would never begin to replace the huge energy need we have. But in some areas with some Wind turbines it makes sense, in other areas it clearly doesn’t. But the Secret Society quote was completely misleading, and cut off all the positive aspects completely.
My father who was an electrical engineer for a utility company, said that wind in some areas works great, and often time is better than solar. The only thing he saw that had a really high net energy were wave generators, but clearly distribution and other issues are making it problematic. It would be nice if solar/wind and all that actually were able to produce serious energy, but it looks like not, or if so at a price point that would be outrageously high and not doable. For now fossil fuels are working fine, but we need them to produce food, eventually fuels vs. food will come home to roost, but for now they keep producing lots of food on dead soil.
Yes it’s BS. Thomas Homer-Dixon didn’t say this and the point is simply not true. A current generation, utility scale wind turbine (which is far more efficient than the “windmills” that Homer Dixon was allegedly talking about) apparently produces 20-40x as much energy as it takes to manufacture and has a typical energy payback within 12 months.
In Thomas Homer-Dixon’s own words – “No . . . I did not say wind energy is ‘Idiot Power’
A poster widely circulated on the Web highlights text that was purportedly written by me saying that wind power inevitably suffers an energetic deficit. The poster is fraudulent. I didn’t write the text, the text itself is selectively quoted, and the argument it makes, taken in isolation, is meaningless.”
You are confusing total energy expended with power rating…You are also ignoring all the other costs of producing and feeding such intermittent power into a grid..
You are making this far more complicated than it needs to be. The assertion in the above meme is that wind is idiot power because an (attributed) expert says you will never recoup the ENERGY required to even make and install the “windmill”. I’m saying that –
1) The attribued expert says he never said that.
2) The attributed expert says he doesn’t believe that and that it’s not true.
3) Even a small amount of independent investigation shows that the total energy actually produced by a commercially viable, installed, utility scale wind turbine in even one year is much greater than the energy required to manufacture and install it, and that over an operational lifetime it is likely to generate 20-40x that quantity of energy. That analysis includes a 30% duty cycle or whatever figure you think is appropriate for how often and how strongly the wind actually blows.
You can try to complicate this as much as you like but it really is that simple. Yes I fully accept that this is simply about the energy argument and doesn’t touch on the cost or availability arguments, but the premise of this meme, which is energy, is quite clearly complete and utter bollocks, a whopper of a lie, or fake news as we seem to call it these days.
The following is just one (older) article. As I understand it efficiencies have improved tremendously with newer and larger installations, especially offshore, so the returns on energy are actually now even better than this states.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/29/turbines-energy
In case that’s not compelling enough, here is a scientic analysis focussing specifically on US 2 MW turbines. It concludes that “in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online”.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140616093317.htm
Mark- You are farting in the wind, they hate any news of technology other than fossil fuel. Their devotion the their oil is unmovable. I don’t know why I try to bring news to the table, waste of time with people who have their minds closed.
Mark to market, via auction, every minute of every day – or wind socks is you. In perpetuity, so far.
There is a plausible JP Morgan-Tesla dogleg, too. &, as said already, the morgaizers are the same bunch that took that Jekyll Island vacation together. To color of law what they’d been doing even better.
Words catch up…mesmerized do not catch on.
Not true.
I have worked as an engineer in wind turbines: http://www.windturbinecompany.com/
as well as solar thermal: http://www.powerplaysolar.com/PDFs/PowerDish_Brochure.pdf
The experiences left me…skeptical.
How much work have you done in alternative energy?
Rawdawg- You are like a broken record of peak oil doom, there is no hope!! We iz all doomed……oil is the only game in town……..we will revert back to the dark ages. Like I said, things are changing with or without your expert(?) opinion.
Doggy boy does not know the truth of abiotic oil. He also says hydrogen fuel is stupid. How to deal with idiots?
Rdawg – I have 40+ years in electronics design, a PhD in engineering and worked in various roles including as head of department and CTO in a design consultancy. I have exposure to a wide range of industries, including sustainables. I am certainly not an expert in renewables, but I know enough about the industry to distinguish truth from lies.
I think there are a lot of false claims in any industry, and these often get exaggerated once politics and media gets involved, so I am receptive to the skepticism that many have – especially someone such as yourself who’s worked in an industry. However, on this specific issue of Energy Invested, versus Energy Returned for wind turbines I think it would take a lot of naivety to believe the above claim – i.e. that it takes more energy to make/install a wind turbine than you ever get out. There are multiple credible sources which say you get 20-40x the amount of energy out that you put in. Even if these assessments are off by 2x (something which would be extreme in the engineering world) they would still prove a massive return on energy invested.
Here is yet another analysis, from Wikipedia, which ranks Energy Returned vs Energy Invested (EROI) for different power generation types. Again, the data is almost 10 years out of date, and my understanding is that things have improved dramatically in that time, as you would expect with any nascent technology. This chart says wind turbines generate around 20x the energy they consume to manufacture and install. Wind definitely has its shortcomings, but the EROI argument is complete and utter BS.
And my farts have been powering my house for 19 years. I just eat a can of beans per day. It’s a miracle. I haven’t told anyone yet out of fear of being suicided.
The wind never blows more than 1/3 of the time anywhere, let alone in the correct range for wind power, which is 8-29 mph
That’s certainly the older wisdom, but I think you might be surprised about where things are moving, especially in Europe.
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/3/8/17084158/wind-turbine-power-energy-blades
Nobody is ever allowed to put any of these environmental or REAL dollar costs on the same spreadsheet for everyone to see. THAT is one of the primary missions of the mainstream media and the “clean energy” propagandists. Just like pointing out that driving a plug-in hybrid in GA means that most of the power you use to charge the battery comes from high sulfur coal and nuclear and its the same in many US states.
But but but it’s greeeen , remember like a Tesla vehicle and corn alcohol . Rape pillage and plunder tax paying citizens to subsidize these follies . Make billon dollar boondoggles profit for a few at the cost to the many .
The costs , losses and failures are insignificant to those profiting , as for those losing , if only you were special you would understand your sacrifice is of no consequence !
The only problem is that the claim here appears not to be true! It seems that the energy/resources cost of manufacture/installation of utility scale wind generation is comparable to that of conventional fossil power generation (for the same output). They all (crudely) produce around 30x the “cost” that they consume to manufacture/install. The big win for wind generation is the ongoing resource cost to run/maintain it is minimal compared to conventional power. Furthermore, not only does conventional carbon generation always consume carbon energy to generate power it also typically consumes a lot of further resources to run/maintain (often a lot of water) and to process any waste. Finally, since wind turbines are actually net energy positive, once you have a wind turbine you can use the energy it produces to make more wind turbines.
For anyone interested in understanding this the following is quite a good opinion – https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-manufacturing-wind-turbines-uses-more-power-than-they-will-produce-in-their-lifetime?share=1
It always amazes me that so many politically right wing people seem so violently against sustainable energy? I assume it’s largely mainly a reaction against an often fanatical left that seems to want to ram an agenda down everyone’s throat, sometimes based on claims that don’t survive scrutiny? But just because that’s (probably) true doesn’t mean that the underlying case is necessarily wrong, and clutching at unfounded claims (like the above) to justify that is just as nonsensical. Personally I would rather live near to a wind turbine generation facility than a coal or nuclear power plant (or a coal mine or fracking plant). Furthermore, I’d actually quite like my own solar/wind installation and not have to rely on anyone else for a modern lifestyle that I’m rather addicted to. It seems to me that the emerging tech here has the potential to give us more independence from stupid people? Shouldn’t that be appealing to anyone craving an escape from an increasingly broken “system”?
A utility can’t operate on wind power, which is absent most of the time, without 100% fossil fuel backup….So you are paying twice the cost upfront.
pyrrus- So, I’m guessing you have totally missed the discussion of municipal power storage batteries?
“Idiot Power” how true. Wind power reality is far worse than hearing some idiot talk about how their Tesla is non-polluting. Electricity grows on trees, right?
https://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2011/5036/sir2011-5036.pdf
We’ve got wind, solar thermal, photovoltaic, hydro and geo-thermal. The costs have all been paid off and they all generate energy, every day.
The problem isn’t in which form of energy we select or it’s efficiency or up front cost, it’s that utilities want to control delivery in perpetuity. It’s the entire reason that Edison beat out Tesla. You either allow people to pay for their own point generated energy supply at whatever the cost up front or you control the distribution and gouge them in perpetuity.