"The wind is free so if we extract energy from the wind then we will have as much free energy as we want."
What they don't tell you is that coal and oil are also free. Just as you pay for equipment to extract energy from the coal and oil so you have to pay for equipment to extract energy from the wind. No difference.
They also ignore the amount of aluminium, steel, carbon fibre and concrete that goes into a wind turbine. They also ignore the fact that each one needs its own road for building and maintenance purposes and the fact that each one needs to be individually wired. They also need to be wired to the grid so that they can take electricity from it. This is required to keep the blades turning when there is no wind to prevent the rotor from bending and to provide lighting for maintenance purposes when the turbine is not producing.
Another problem is that most people have no idea how many wind turbines would be required to replace the current fossil and nuclear fuel power stations. Do the sums. Find out how much electricity your country needs then see how many square miles of wind or solar you would need to supply that. Then work out how you could store the energy so that you can have power all the time and not just during daylight hours or when the wind is blowing. Don't just say "a battery". Work out how big the battery would need to be or how many mountain lakes you would need to fill.
Another problem is that if the wind drops or night falls then these "renewable" methods don't work at all. How would we manage with no energy for a day? In the old days of wind driven sailing ships, a ship could be becalmed for weeks.
Another problem is that these "renewable" methods are less renewable then many imagine. Magnets for generators and chemicals for photocells still have to be sourced. Wind turbine blades are often carbon fibre which is not biodegradable. We will end up with piles of wind turbine blades at some point.
Another problem is that the existing grids do not cope well with fluctuating supplies. If large variations are detected the grid usually protects itself by switching things off. Things like cities.
Part of the hype uses the nameplate capacity when describing how much energy will be produced. That is like me claiming that as my car will do 100mph and I have owned it for 5 years it has now travelled: 100*24*365*5 = 4,380,000 miles when, in fact, it has only done 50,000 miles. Wind and solar don't produce power for much of the time just as my car is stationary for most of the time.
Picture below is wind turbine magnets not harming the planet!
Wind is not an answer. It truly only generates its value in power in very windy locations.
Solar power is a great source for providing power. It is not cost-effective in all locations, but the price of solar has been consistently decreasing, so eventually it should be cost-effective. Solar power, however, cannot provide the base load necessary.
This leaves only a few options:
1.) geothermal. Generally geothermal is only able to be built in certian locations
2.) Hydro power - Also only built in certain locations
3.) Nuclear power - generally protested by greeners and has been protested and regulated to be expensive.
4.) Fossil fuels
Nuclear power is the best bet, but unfortunately, the people who seem most concerned about CO2 emission (and I am not one of these people) are also most against nuclear power. Makes me wonder if they really believe the hype they are spewing.
Edit:
BTW, anyone pretending like Wind and solar are cheap alternatives that can provide all the power necessary are mistaken. If they were correct, then the warmers would not be seeking a carbon tax.
The Earth receives an incredible supply of solar energy. The sun, an average star, is a fusion reactor that has been burning over 4 billion years. It provides enough energy in one minute to supply the world's energy needs for one year. In one day, it provides more energy than our current population would consume in 27 years. In fact, "The amount of solar radiation striking the earth over a three-day period is equivalent to the energy stored in all fossil energy sources."
Solar energy is a free, inexhaustible resource, yet harnessing it is a relatively new idea. The ability to use solar power for heat was the first discovery. A Swiss scientist, Horace de Saussure, built the first thermal solar collector in 1767, which was later used to heat water and cook food. The first commercial patent for a solar water heater went to Clarence Kemp of the US in 1891. This system was bought by two California executives and installed in one-third of the homes in Pasadena by 1897.
Producing electricity from solar energy was the second discovery. In 1839 a French physicist named Edmund Becquerel realized that the sun's energy could produce a "photovoltaic effect" (photo = light, voltaic = electrical potential). In the 1880s, selenium photovoltaic (PV) cells were developed that could convert light into electricity with 1-2% efficiency ("the efficiency of a solar cell is the percentage of available sunlight converted by the photovoltaic cell into electricity"), but how the conversion happened was not understood. Photovoltaic power therefore "remained a curiosity for many years, since it was very inefficient at turning sunlight into electricity."
If you really want to know the practicalities and problems with wind power then you need to seek out reliable independent expert opinion. Luckily one such source is readily (and freely!) available which I recommend below.
"Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" is by a world leading scientist Prof. David MacKay FRS. The book is available as a free download (pdf) along with a 10 page summary on this link http://www.withouthotair.com/download.ht...
It is a great and enlightening read on the viability and sustainability of energy sources but particularly wind and solar. If you prefer a hard copy you can buy from Amazon.
He explains (without taking sides) how the low energy density of wind and solar impact on the viability of these technologies for large scale energy generation. I can guarantee there will be aspects of renewable energy covered in this book that you will not have considered before.
Wind turbines are a bad idea for lots of reasons. Mainly, they only produce electricity when the wind is not too slow and not too fast. Sometimes the turbines have to be cut back when the grid does not need the electric power.
I never imagined that it was possible to get Free Electricity. I have seen a lot of products offering ways to save on electricity or get free power and I have tried most of them. To my dismay, they are all useless and I just wasted my money trying them. When I saw Power Innovator, I remembered that if someone would have created a Free Energy Device, it would have been Prof Richard Goran the genius that invented the electricity.
And tell you what: this system literally turns my electric meter backwards! Can you imagine how much money I am saving on my electric bill? I hope that many more people will use your product. Thank you so much!
Wath here a free presentation: http://tinyurl.com/PowerInnovatore
Solar and wind is crap, you need an enormous number just to equal a normal power station, they provide power only when conditions are right, not when you need it, forcing electricity companies to back up with conventional generators for when they don't run, because of the huge numbers required maintenance is expensive.
Germany and Denmark were in the forefront of renewables, but now they are backing off, their electricity prices are too high and uncompetitive, in fact Germany is now building 41 new coal fired power stations.
Solar panels on buildings and homes is not a bad idea, and solar and wind in isolated places far from the grid is okay, when backed up by diesel generators.
Global requirements for electricity is rising exponentially, and renewables will never cut it.
I sincerely doubt wind energy will ever be our *primary* energy source. Even in the places where it works best, it is by its nature somewhat irregular.
However, especially if we work out better methods of energy *storage*, it can and should be *part* of our energy mix, especially since we can "multitask" with wind--for example, putting wind turbines on tall buildings, or have farm land with a few wind turbines dotting it
Practicality is not such term to be use as "wind energy" is the second most expensive source of energy in terms of construction, and it requires a location where air is abundant. But in other side, this is an efficient way of obtaining an energy as there are lots of places where airs current is strong.
Wind energy, like other "green" sources of energy is good in some places, not so good in others. It is most effective in the Midwest and Great Plains, less effective in most of the Deep South. You can "prove" anything you want about the effectiveness if you are allowed to pick the location. That's like saying that solar energy is no good because it won't work in Mammoth Cave.
Frequently told that we can get all the energy we need from wind and solar, and that they are cost competitive with fossil fuels.
Then I see a comment like this:
The major utility I worked for was “beaten up” by the state regulators, and to install a certain amount of gas turbine peakers (needed for growth, summers) they had to “subsidize” 100 Megawatts of wind turbines (100 units that is.). That they did, placing them in the WINDIEST PLACE in the STATE... for the next 10 years, I was able to watch the Grid Operations System (GOS) system,and see the amount generated. Yep, after 10 years of operation, the wonderful wind power produced an AVERAGE of 8.7 Megawatts, or 8.7% capacity factor. Installed, each unit was a little under $2 Million. Using STANDARD industrial amortization, the net cost during that 10 years, was…, about $1.65 per KWHr. If you had a standard cost of $100 a month for your electricity, if you had WIND power you could be paying $2000 a month.
the world currently uses 28TW. with 8000 nuclear plants you'd get 8TW, wind has a potential for 6-8TW. The numbers do not add up.
Solar potential is 800TW, it could do it.
costs are another matter.
coal is not cheap if you add up the 'externalities'
The technology is still in its infancy. We need a practical means to store the energy before wind and solar can supply all of our energy needs.
well, i have seen that if MOST!!!!! of the USA was using solar panels and solar power, then the USA could provide energy for the whole earth for a year or more, and i think that is SOOOO cool. idk about costs, but using wind and solar provides lots of energy, especially if placed in super windy/sunny areas, and they dont harm the planet.
hope this helps, good luck!!!! :)
Why do you instantly believe a comment you read on the internet?
Is it perhaps because you want it to be true?
The single source of your quote is a WUWT (and other denier sites) frequent visitor called Max Hugoson (who incidently has a company selling plasma ignition systems for combustion engines and is associated with a Ukranian firm specialized in 'Enviromentally friendly nuclear technology'.)
Hmm, no one seems to be defending it so far.
