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Energy Dept. Wants Big Wind Energy Technology In All 50 US States
coondoggie writes: Bigger wind turbines and towers are just part of what the U.S. needs in order to more effectively use wind energy in all 50 states.That was the thrust of a wind energy call-to-arms report called "Enabling Wind Power nationwide" issued this week by the Department of Energy. They detail new technology that can reach higher into the sky to capture more energy and more powerful turbines to generate more gigawatts. These new turbines are 110-140 meters tall, with blades 60 meters long. The Energy Department forecasts strong, steady growth of wind power across the country, both on land and off shore.
As someone who spent some years in county government where various wind projects have taken place, one thing is true... Without a shell game of tax dollars shuttling in and out with many transfers of project ownership, there would be NO turbines standing. You do realize that even when those monsters are turning in the wind, they usually are just lubricating internals and not generating?
.. should alert the alert reader to the DOE's approach on things. Unfortunately the US public hasn't yet been hammered with sticker shock yet unlike the UK and German ratepayers. (Well, Maine rates jumped 19.6 percent last year due to "upgrades" "required" to ease a transmission choke near a wind facility whose power gets shipped to Massachusetts- Maine doesn't need the excess power by they pay for it nonetheless.) The US public as a whole doesn't yet understand that wind turbines GUARANTEE simple-cycle gas plant proliferation and lots more fracking to supply the natural gas to the gas plants needed to ramp when the big boys don't spin (and they don't spin, a lot, averaging 19-28 percent capacity factor, some as low as 6 percent). So the DOE and its "friends" at GE and the White House can proceed unfettered, the public oblivious, the corporate-owned press scamming well-meaning environmentalists into thinking these things are going to save the planet. HmmHmm and be sure to factor in replacing them every 15 years and uprating the transmission system on your monthly bill. Oh yes let's not think about the polluted lakes in China killing villages from metals poisoning a result of mining rare metals used in the wind turbine generators. Best of luck to all! Maybe in 400 years, humanity will be using a sensible stable power design based on engineering rather than ideology and lining the pockets of one's "friends".
Can someone help me understand EROEI ("Energy Return on Energy Input").
All the research on future sources of energy (that I can find) say that we're doomed as a civilization because the EROEI for renewables isn't as large as that of fossil fuels.
Okay, EROEI is the energy you get out minus (or divided by) the energy you put in, I get that. Fossil fuels take relatively little energy to gather, and generate lots of energy so their EROEI is rather large.
Wind and solar require a larger energy input per energy out, so it's EROEI is smaller but still greater than 1, even after accounting for mining the raw materials.
I'm not clear how the economic conclusion is reached that solar and wind cannot power our civilization. If we have enough rooftop solar and wind farms to generate all the energy we need as a civilization, and if there's enough left over to make *more* solar and wind installations over time (to replace the warn out bits), then why does EROEI matter?
Assuming that EROEI is a net energy positive (with a reasonable margin of error), why does it even matter at all?
(Also note: world population growth is slowing, and is steady or decreasing in all industrialized nations (including the US if you deduct immigration). The standard economic model assumes infinite consumption, but is that assumption correct? Is there be an upper limit to personal comfort in terms of energy use? Or at least diminishing returns? Would finite population and finite consumption invalidate the standard economic model?)
Are you really going to get up at 3AM to do laundry? I doubt it.
People on Kauai, HI do this all the time - by setting a timer on a washing machine (electricity prices 8x the national average are a good motivator) . You can also pre-heat water during the nighttime or use solar water heaters during the day.
So what happens when a tornado hits, rips off the 60 metre blades and throws them around?
I mean that sort of thing can't happen, can it?
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!