Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Wind Power Is Expected To Double In the Next 5 Years

Posted by Soulskill on from the will-power-8-light-bulbs-instead-of-4 dept.

merbs writes: The U.S. Department of Energy anticipates that the amount of electricity generated by wind power to more than double over the next five years. Right now, wind provides the nation with about 4.5 percent of its power. But an in-depth DOE report (PDF) released yesterday forecasts that number will rise to 10 percent by 2020—then 20 percent by 2030, and 35 percent by 2050.

7 of 262 comments (clear)

  1. Has anyone studied? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Has anyone studied the effect on the environment of taking all of that energy out of the wind? What if seeds and dust aren't carried as far? How does that affect terraforming? What about migratory birds? Has anyone bothered to solve the problem of mass kills during migration season?

    These questions will never be answered, I don't think, because the politics that drive wind power are the same as those that drive anthro climate change - "We're right, shut up if you disagree?"

    The Earth is going to be destroyed by people (on both sides of the political aisle) who refuse to take a reasoned approach to our energy crisis. The root causes of our energy shortage, climate change, starvation, hunger, crime, and disease, are all one in the same: OVERPOPULATION.

    We're 7 times as numerous as the Earth can sustain. Unless and until we fix that problem, our habitable climate WILL be destroyed.

    1. Re:Has anyone studied? by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Has anyone studied the effect on the environment of taking all of that energy out of the wind? What if seeds and dust aren't carried as far? How does that affect terraforming? What about migratory birds? Has anyone bothered to solve the problem of mass kills during migration season?

      These questions will never be answered, I don't think, because the politics that drive wind power are the same as those that drive anthro climate change - "We're right, shut up if you disagree?"

      The Earth is going to be destroyed by people (on both sides of the political aisle) who refuse to take a reasoned approach to our energy crisis. The root causes of our energy shortage, climate change, starvation, hunger, crime, and disease, are all one in the same: OVERPOPULATION.

      We're 7 times as numerous as the Earth can sustain. Unless and until we fix that problem, our habitable climate WILL be destroyed.

      "Informative"? WTF mods, just wtf. Let's see: YES, they have studied it: wind speeds beyond the wind farm in question are not changed any measurable amount by the operation of the farm. Don't worry, pollen and dust will still get all over every fucking thing. Terraforming? Wtf, no. Bird issues are being addressed by implementing various repellent techniques, and the number of birds killed is actually already extremely low (far less than the number killed by household cats but you aren't here on /. to whine about getting rid of cats, are you).

      As for your overpopulation assertion, Thomas Malthus died 150 years ago, and still isn't close to being right.

    2. Re:Has anyone studied? by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Okay first off, I just wanna say whoever modded the parent up is walking evidence that this site has become a complete shithole. It's not just Dice's fault, folks. The community moderates unadulterated feces to the top these days.

      Has anyone studied the effect on the environment of taking all of that energy out of the wind? What if seeds and dust aren't carried as far?

      This is such an unfounded concern, I'm not even sure where to start. I grew up in the prairie of Minnesota and I could only hope that the wind is reduced there. It is absolutely brutal at times and causes erosion and top soil loss. Why do you want dust carried far? What seeds are you concerned about falling too close to the parent plant? I just, this hasn't been studied because there's nothing to argue about. Like solar there's a lot of energy to be harvested. There's no way to harvest all of it, a lot of it is dissipated as friction against water and earth and I can't think of one positive purpose of that friction.

      How does that affect terraforming?

      How does that affect our ability to transform the planet into a more livable human environment? I can't even parse this or apply it to the topic at hand. "How does that affect X?" when X has nothing to do with the discussion just sounds like fear mongering.

      What about migratory birds? Has anyone bothered to solve the problem of mass kills during migration season?

      This is well documented and researched but I am constantly confused as to why "migratory birds" are the stipulated losses. It's any birds. Migratory or not. And the numbers have been scientifically estimated to be 140,000 to 328,000 per year. But we're getting smarter about designing these windmills to prevent avian death.

      These questions will never be answered

      Well, the first two are just too fucking vapid and inane to be answered. The latter, I've answered for you.

      , I don't think, because the politics that drive wind power are the same as those that drive anthro climate change - "We're right, shut up if you disagree?"

      You know, that could be said about any politics anywhere because modern politics are about inaction and hot air. Companies and scientists are trying hard to expand our energy portfolio away from fossil fuels. And that's smart whether it's biofuel algae, solar, wind or even failed corrupt initiatives like corn ethanol. In the end there are going to be regionally localized energy productions that will account for a large amount of that local populace's consumption. This will likely still be augmented by fossil fuels -- maybe as emergency or backup but I don't think we'll ever see them completely removed from the equation.

      The Earth is going to be destroyed by people (on both sides of the political aisle) who refuse to take a reasoned approach to our energy crisis. The root causes of our energy shortage, climate change, starvation, hunger, crime, and disease, are all one in the same: OVERPOPULATION.

      We're 7 times as numerous as the Earth can sustain. Unless and until we fix that problem, our habitable climate WILL be destroyed.

      Scientifically, can you explain how you came to calculate the multiplier of "7 times as numerous as Earth can sustain?" Because the idea that the Earth can only sustain a nice round even number like a billion people raises suspicions. But it's pretty evident that nothing is going to talk sense into you, Malthus. Science and human ingenuity has gotten us past radical adj

      --
      My work here is dung.
  2. Care to volunteer? by BillCable · · Score: 4, Insightful

    So you think we need to get rid of 6 out of every 7 people. Will you be first in line?

  3. Yes they have studied all that stuff by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Has anyone studied the effect on the environment of taking all of that energy out of the wind?

    Yes. It's basically a nonissue.

    What if seeds and dust aren't carried as far?

    Then they settle someplace else. No actual evidence exists however to indicate wind turbines are actually causing such an effect however on any sort of substantial scale.

    How does that affect terraforming?

    We're on Terra so terraforming on terra is meaningless.

    What about migratory birds? Has anyone bothered to solve the problem of mass kills during migration season?

    The number of birds killed by wind turbines is a rounding error compared to the number killed by domestic cats.

    The Earth is going to be destroyed by people (on both sides of the political aisle) who refuse to take a reasoned approach to our energy crisis.

    What energy crisis? We have no lack of energy. We have a pollution crisis due to a lack of clean energy sources. Wind is demonstrably cleaner than some of the alternatives. There is no ideal energy source with no problems so it's a minimization problem. What is the least worst way to supply energy without resulting in catastrophic climate effects.

    The root causes of our energy shortage, climate change, starvation, hunger, crime, and disease, are all one in the same: OVERPOPULATION.

    There is no energy shortage. Climate change is due to pollution, not overpopulation. Starvation and hunger are distribution problems, not production problems. Crime has existed since the dawn of mankind and has nothing inherently to do with overpopulation. Same for disease. At most some of these problems can be exacerbated by population but population is not the root cause of any of them.

  4. Re:Misallocation of resources by mdsolar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Natural gas from gas wells is not just burned off or vented. It is sold. There is flaring from some oil wells that produce natural gas. The linked DoE study aims to lower the cost of wind power well below the cost of natural gas, so your main point seems mistaken. http://energy.gov/sites/prod/f...

  5. Re:Wind is by Maury+Markowitz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > On the wind side there are substantial additional costs over dispatchable sources

    No, there are not. I posted the numbers. Integrating wind is cheap, and the numbers keep going down because the equipment is getting better. The vast majority of "the equipment" is a PC running software you can buy from IBM.

    When they invented coal fired power in the 1880s do you know what the interconnect cost was? Infinity. That's because they didn't have a grid, and the plants went up and down all the time. In spite of this, they built it out successfully anyway. They figured out how to interconnect two generators that would otherwise be running out of phase, how to keep voltages under control, how to handle generators going offline out of the blue.

    Now after over 100 years, do you think we know more or less about how to hook up generation to the grid? More? Well if infinity was small enough to handle 100+ years ago, how can you possibly believe it's a) more difficult, or b) more expensive?

    This isn't theoretical. We're actually adding this capacity as I type this. The grid is not failing. The companies are not going out of business. Everything is working just fine.