The problem is not energy efficiency, but financial efficiency, meaning return per capital, or ROI. The march of progress increases the financial efficiency of wind generation, as it has been doing since wind generation began. And there is enormous scope for improving wind generation in that respect.
As far as a solution to anything,
theyre already a solution to power generation in niche applications
more or less any financially effective technology solves a real problem. Wind turbines arent there now, but there's an awful lot of room for progress.
The funding of current generation large machines is indeed controversial. Some regard it as funding useful technological progress, some dont.
That's why we need a mix of energy suppliers. Pv panels will have been putting out a lot this last few days, I wish we could afford some. Our solar water heater has filled the tank to over 60C, I'm washing all the things like curtains which I wouldn't waste electrically or gas heated water on.
Perhaps that ought to made part of the planning approval? Realtime and historical data from each farm, if not each turbine, to be available on the web. Along with the rating and original projected power generation.
At least then people could find out how much power these things aren't generating (70% below the rated output on average).
Oh, yes. I've seen farms on the continent on a good breezy day where
90%+ of the turbines were running.
Why the others were off on such an ideal generating day I didn't stop to ask.
TNP, the copper "used" to build these things can mostly be got back when they fall down, so it isn't lost. Unlike the CO2 from making all that concrete...
as the ratio of return to capital investment improves, so does the ratio of carbon reduction to carbon used in manufacture, and thus the overall carbon footprint.
I dont think many people think it is. The question is can it become good
i've been out touring in my motorhome for the last month and a half,
went to scotland, and it's been piddeling it down all the time we were there appart from 2 days where we got a half arsed attempt of the sun showing it's self.
i'd just fitted a new battery bank, consisting of 6 x 233AH 6 volt batteries, wired in paralell and series to give a 699ah 12 volt battery bank,
on the roof are 3 x 123 watt solar panels, which should have kept up with the 80AH a day load we take out of the batteries (12 volt compressor fridge freezer tanking the bulk of that)
found out the new batteries will last for a good 4 days before getting low enough to worry me, they are damn good at high loads tho, the old leisure type batteries voltage would drop drasticaly and keep dropping when the microwave was used (a 90 amp load) the new batteries, if i have 12.6 volts, they will drop to 12.2 volts with the nuker on, and stay there for the 10 mins i used it for the other night,
Anyway, we had to buy a genny due to the crappy weather, and i've put about
45 hours on that keeping up with our current drain, dosent help we only have a little 20 amp charger,
anyway, came out of scotland 3 days ago, and been lovely sunny weather since, yesterday evening the batteries were declared 100% full by the solar controllers display, and today it was in float mode by lunchtime (which was when we got up, so dunno when they reached 14.8 volts and did the 3 hour absorption cycle during the morning)
We had been considering a wind turbine as whilst in scotland along with the rain was plenty of wind, especialy some of the places we were wild camping, but i know the little wind turbines are about as crap as they get, ok for a yot moored out at sea i guess, but not really for a motorhome, as when the wind i high enough to make it work, it'll be uncomfortable in the van.
oh, wind turbines turning, the ones along the coast of cumbria were mostly all turning, few of the very big uns were stalled, but as people say, those turning were most likely just free wheeling.
Well... as I was driving along the A55 on the N Wales coast this a.m. and back this p.m., the redundant stock of Woolies windmills that they have been planting in the sea were not rotating. A decidedly windless day.
There were a few boats trying to sail on the Conwy estuary but the majority seemed to have resorted to their iron donkeys.
If it wasn't for both my sister and brother being on holiday at present and hence the need for me to do Pater sitting- well shopping, collecting crops from the garden, feeding the mobile rocks in the garden and making him socialise and move about to avoid total immobility, I should have been sailing a 45 foot boat from Oban to circa John O'Groats this last week.
I think your estimation may change if you have to start from raw materials -- i.e. sunlight, some algae orplants, some CO2, water, etc ... and all that geophyics. No matter how small the initial capital costs, the multi-million year waiting time will just kill you. :-)
Not really. A generator that opeartes at an everage load factpor of 30% is always going to contain 3 times as much copper and iron as one that operated at 90% load factpr.
A generator whose output is weather dependent cannot alone be relied upon as baseband power, and, copuled with energy storage systems that increase the per kilowatt cost, makes theh whole thing - already hopelessly uneconomic, even more so.
The whole windmill case rests on two basic assumptions: we need carbon free energy generation *at any price*, and nuclear doesnt count. Coupled with a naive assumption that some sort of engieering magic will violate the laws of physics and make the damn things work.
Anyine who can do sums regards it as a waste unless its sole purpose is jobs for teh boys.
However even theoretically, there is still more carbon used to build a windmill than the equivalent in other power stations.
To cope with the low average power factor, you need three times more genarting capacitry than any otrher sort.
To cope with teh geographically dispesre nature of teh su[pply, you need masses of piower lines everywhere, and, because sma;ll power lines are more expensive than big power lines, because teh amount of material does NIOT go up in proprtion to the power, tahts wasteful too.
Its even MORE wasteful if you have to run DC undersa cables at huf=ge expense, and use boast to service the thinggs.
And its IMMENSELY expensive if you have to back the units up with either carbon burning sets. or large storage systems.
In general the REAL costs of building windmills are about twice what is 'quoted' by proponents, and the ACTUAL output is one third of what is quoted by their proponents.
They have no positives at all apart from beiong relatively carbon free fuel wise. But if that is the sole reason to use them, nuclear is three times better.
sure, but you need an area the size of loch lomond and a 1000ft wall round it, to cover the whole UK for a couple of days.
or 30 medium sized nuclear power stations, that we already know how to build, have almost zero impact on the environment, and will do the job nicely for 50 years.
There's obviously a lot more to power gneration and distribution than the iron and copper in the generator.
Load factor varies depending on site and the speeds at which the machine can provide useful output. Today's wind farm turbines are more restricted in that respect than is inherently necessary.
yes, but then a percentage of energy consumption rises as wind speeds rise. This is one reason it can be workable as a small percentage of total supply.
no need for them. You only need storage if youre trying to use turbines to deliver a high percentage of total energy need, and you'd be hard pressed to find anyone recommending that.
no... thats *a* case, and certainly not one I'd propose. The fact is theyre already an economic success in niche applications, and as designs improve and new cheaper machine types show up their ROI will improve to cover more such apps.
The case for them as far as I'm concerned is purely economic. Yes they have lousy load factor, OTOH they also in some situations eliminate a good deal of other costs.
We dont have the data on future designs to know. Since wind gens are already economic in some niche apps, it would make little sense to claim they will always be unviable, as they already are viable.
At the risk of stating the obvious, no this doesnt mean a wind turbine is or will be viable for every situation.
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