Twenty-One Bad Things About Wind Energy — and Three Reasons Why

katzgar said:
I quit watching Top Gear when I realize it was just typical Brit anti-americanism. I have no idea if the boss is being sold in Europe or not but a V8 certainly is.

The problem with discussing Renewables in a forum like this is everybody has a bit of information and their own bias and very little of its related to actual reality at any given time
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You are banned from further threads on the subject, so that should cure your angst!

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Thing1 said:
Tom has always contended that it can never happen - ever. That the technology will not advance to that point.

And not as "sole source." As merely a viable, affordable source of energy.
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As always you just miss the point, but I can't be bothered to get into another of your protracted wimpfests.

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Havana Moon said:
You are banned from further threads on the subject, so that should cure your angst!

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You are nothing more than a Exxon shell mobile bot. The idea that you have any point to make is absurd other than let's pump oil. You make no case except that Renewables have problems of course they do oil and coal and gas have problems too. Your agenda is obvious and you are dishonest.
 
katzgar said:
You are nothing more than a Exxon shell mobile bot. The idea that you have any point to make is absurd other than let's pump oil. You make no case except that Renewables have problems of course they do oil and coal and gas have problems too. Your agenda is obvious and you are dishonest.
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You're just a fool, using the sad old trope of Big Oil in place of rational argument.

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Havana Moon said:
As always you just miss the point, but I can't be bothered to get into another of your protracted wimpfests.

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What point can there be when you always contradict yourself?

Both you & the OP have some sort of weird thing going about wind energy. No one is really suggesting it can step in NOW to replace fossil, or that it can do so on its own in the future. But you have always said that technological advance with it will somehow "cap out" at a certain point, and that it can never be truly viable.

Which, of course, is ridiculous.
 
Thing1 said:
Tom has always contended that it can never happen - ever. That the technology will not advance to that point.

And not as "sole source." As merely a viable, affordable source of energy.
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Then he is wrong. However, when applied to the UK, some of his arguments do have merit but that's hardly makes them a universal truth.
 
katzgar said:
I quit watching Top Gear when I realize it was just typical Brit anti-americanism. I have no idea if the boss is being sold in Europe or not but a V8 certainly is.

The problem with discussing Renewables in a forum like this is everybody has a bit of information and their own bias and very little of its related to actual reality at any given time
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True and abided by extensive research that doesn't go beyond a Google enquiry.
 
Mott the Hoople said:
Then he is wrong. However, when applied to the UK, some of his arguments do have merit but that's hardly makes them a universal truth.
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Oh back to the bullshit. It is patently obvious that you didn't read the article or even noticed that the source is an American website. I have little time for Thingy, so if you want to talk to him fine but get your facts straight. Are you even aware what is happening in Germany or South Australia. You think that the US is different somehow from their experiences, sorry but that the absolute height of arrogance.

https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/21-bad-things-wind-power-3-reasons-why/




Here is an excellent article about Germany and the failure of their Energiewende policy.

What has been obvious to me for a long time now appears to have become obvious to many others: Germany’s energy policy is a confused mess. Germany’s energy revolution is, in the words of New Scientist,“on the verge of collapse.” And it was all rather predictable. Ramping up renewables quickly, building more coal power plants, closing nuclear power plants, and doing very little to reduce carbon emissions. Vaclav Smil, perhaps the most trenchant observer of energy transitions, rightly called this*“totally zany.”

However point out these realities and you will quickly be labelled “anti-renewables,” such is the vacuous nature of too much debate on energy policy. Germany however has been set up as a symbol of the 100% renewables nirvana state to come, so I guess this is understandable. Yet, despite what many believe, Germany has a target of sixty, not one hundred percent, renewable energy by 2050, and is now building more coal power plants than any European country. Again, pointing out that Germany is building coal power plants puts me at risk of getting called “anti-renewables.”Mumbo jumbo rules the world.

This then is the perversely ideological backdrop to such debate. If things have gone wrong in Germany, they are bad for renewable energy, thus we should not talk about it. However as the great physicist Richard Feynman said “For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.“

Here then is what has gone wrong in Germany. It built far too much solar capacity, when wind was a much better option. It*closed nuclear power plants, while building coal plants. And it built these coal plants instead of much cleaner, if more expensive, natural gas plants.

Yes, again I risk being called “anti-renewables”, but a careful reader will note that I argued for building wind instead of solar. That would, by any reading, be “pro-renewables”, or at least “pro-wind”. Sadly these caveats, while frustrating the flow of one’s prose, are by experience necessary. Here I will focus on the first statement, where conventional opinion is rather misguided. Germany’s solar build up, instead of being a huge success, was a massive mis-application of much needed effort.

In 2012 Germany had one third of the world’s solar panels, and at one point these panels generated over half of Germany’s electricity demand. This is how things are normally put. But it as rather like talking about a third rate golfer and only referring to the time he almost won the US Masters. Yes, Germany got 50% of its electricity from solar one afternoon. Throughout the year it only produced 5%. The 5% is what really matters. The 50% gets all the headlines.

And solar is an awful source of energy in a country as cloudy and as far north as Germany. Electricity has to be available when we want it. Germans, like many Europeans, most want the stuff around 6 pm on a cold Winter evening. This is an incredibly reliable peak in demand. Yet, the electricity supplied by Germany’s solar panels at 6 pm on a cold December is also incredibly reliable: zero.

Physical realities mean that Germany’s solar panels generate a pitiful amount of electricity for a large part of the year. This is demonstrated by comparing the output of Germany’s solar panels in July 2013, 5.1 TWh, with that in January 2013, 0.35 TWh. This is a difference of more than an order of magnitude. Solar is unlikely to be anything other than a marginal source of energy in Germany, simply because of its distance from the equator. And wishful thinking cannot shove Germany ten degrees to the south.

The astonishingly poor value for money of Germany’s solar build out can be demonstrated by comparing the subsidies for solar with those for onshore wind. Solar gets more than two times more in subsidies, but produces almost two times less electricity. Just think what could have been done by putting that solar money into wind turbines. Some will counter that Germany’s build up helped costs decline. Yes, this has happened, in part thanks to*China dumping under-priced panels in the EU.

But what is Germany doing now that the costs have declined? They are building far less solar. At peak Germany was installing 7.5 GW of new solar each year. Now the government wants this to be limited to no more than 2.5 GW per year. To put this number in perspective consider the 10.7 GW of new coal plants Germany is building. It would take between 20 and 30 years to build enough solar panels, at 2.5 GW each year, to match the electricity generated by these coal plants.

Solar then appears to have left Germany with a very hefty bill, and with very little to show for it. Or I should say wishful thinking politicians have. Solar remains a very promising long term bet compared with wind, because of its higher*power density. Just not in cloudy northern countries.

The lesson here is not “solar and renewables are a failure”, but “build solar where the sun shines.
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http://www.theenergycollective.com/...ble-energy-has-failed-and-other-strange-ideas



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DOE: If it weren’t for coal-fired electricity plants, the Northeast would have blacked-out during recent bomb-cyclone.

Coal-fired power plants kept the lights on for millions of Americans during January’s bomb cyclone, according to an Energy Department report warning future plant retirements could imperil grid security.

Energy analysts at DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory found that coal power kept the lights on for millions of Americans during the bomb cyclone that pummeled the eastern U.S. from late December to early January.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/03...-have-blacked-out-during-recent-bomb-cyclone/

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10kW systems need to come down about $10K more before I would invest in one. Right now, it would be just prepaying my utility bill for the next 20 years just to break even in the end.
 
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