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Researchers Claim Wind Turbine Energy Payback In Less Than a Year
mdsolar (1045926) writes "Researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. They conclude 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."
Watts Up With That? has a more skeptical take on the calculations.
When considering solar power, wind farming is quite practical for large scale production (not for the residential home) however you still need some sort of storage or alternative power generation to offset the hours or even days when there is little or no wind (hence a survey).
Actually no matter what methods are used for large scale energy production it will always be "consumer pays", so if you as a home owner want to offset your electricity bill then solar panels are the way to go, but only after you have done your homework and by that you need to work out the initial costs verses the longs term benefits. Unfortunately it is so easy for so called "experts" to rip people off since most people have no idea how to work out what really is best for themselves in regard to energy utilisation.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
It's hilarious watching people argue over a topic that has already been shown to be a non-issue. The EIA (US) and German statistics show that, in aggregate, wind-energy sources produce a relatively steady amount of power. Individual turbines and even whole wind farms might not be deterministic, but all the wind farms taken together... are.
-Matt
"A 2.0 MW wind turbine would generate 6.12 GWh per year, assuming a 35% capacity factor."
Right in the fucking source paper. They don't even have that as an argument...
Well, forget WUWT and you will see there is not much calculations neither in the original claim and in fact, there is a big warning sign in the text, something the cost has not been taken into account in the evaluation but mandatory for their hypothesis to hold, here it is:
"Wind turbines are frequently touted as the answer to sustainable electricity production especially if coupled to high-capacity storage for times when the wind speed is either side of their working range."
So, they presume the high-capacity storage exists and it has zero cost. Seems to me a bit optimistic.
Achille Talon
Hop!
The price of electricity is falling in Germany owing to renewable energy. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... They like wind power.
"(How do Americans manage to consume so much electricity in their households?)"
That electricity is used because of global warming.
Air conditioners use a lot of power in the summer, when its 82F and 100% humidity
Watts up with that looks like a Republican astroturf site dedicated to debunking climate science.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
Transmission losses matter a lot less when generation doesn't cost you anything. If you have a coal power plant and demand drops, you burn less coal and lower your costs. When demand increases, you burn more coal and make more money. With a wind power plant, if the wind is blowing but demand drops then your choice is either 100% loss by just wasting the power, or something less than 100% loss by transmitting it. For very long distances, the same transmission mechanisms that we use for fossil fuels are applicable: store it in chemical form and put it in trucks / trains / boats. Whether the chemical form is hydrogen, diesel, aluminium, or something else is up to you.
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