Debunking the myths around renewable energy

[Vague_Boy]

Wind energy is often called inefficient

 

Wind energy systems require a fossil fiuel economy to back them up.

 

Thanks to fossil fuels, you could produce the special alloy metals needed to make the turbines, and you could run factories to mass-produce them and make the replacement parts—because wind turbines are notoriously finicky and break down a lot—and you could set up the installations using petroleum-powered heavy equipment, backhoes and front-end loaders and bucket trucks and what-have-you to prepare the site and jockey the machines into place. What happens without the fantastic technological support of the oil economy in the background?

 

Kunstler, James Howard (2006-04-01). The Long Emergency (Kindle Locations 2238-2242). PGW - A. Kindle Edition.

 

As Kunstler says earlier in the same book:

 

There is a set of erroneous popular notions to the effect that renewable energy systems such as solar power, wind power, and the like are available as freestanding replacements for our fossil-fuel-based system, that they are pollution-free and problem free—that renewables represent something akin to perpetual motion, a gift from the sun.

 

Kunstler, James Howard (2006-04-01). The Long Emergency (Kindle Locations 2211-2213). PGW - A. Kindle Edition.

 

An example of what he means can be found here

 

Rare earths, minerals used in windpower technology, could fall into short supply

 

...they generally occur naturally as mixtures of various rare earth elements and are not always found in economically exploitable concentrations. Second, the minerals must be mined, then concentrated into rare earth oxides, and finally, separated into individual rare earth elements and compounds.

 

A major proportion of the world’s rare earth reserves are located in China, and the production and consumption of rare earths is dominated by China. China alone accounted for more than 85% of world rare earth production in 2012, and consumed approximately 70%. In terms of consumption

 

Think China is just going to let us have those minerals?

 

The lifespan of wind turbines may not be quite what was hoped either:

 

Life of wind turbines only 10-15 years, new peer-reviewed study says

 

The Renewable Energy Foundation today published a new study, The Performance of Wind Farms in the United Kingdom and Denmark, showing that the economic life of onshore wind turbines is between 10 and 15 years, not the 20 to 25 years projected by the wind industry itself, and used for government projections

 

The situation is far from being a simple swap from one technology (oil, coal) to wind or solar.

[Guest]

It seems pretty pointless for the west getting all green when apparently India and China between them are to build 600 or so coal powered fire stations!

[Cyclone]

If there is enough investment in renewable energy it will turn out to be a LOT cheaper than nuclear in the long term. The cost of producing electricity through for example solar panels and wind-turbines has already come down enormously as new innovations improve the quality of electricity generation. This can only come down further. The problem with nuclear is that it will always be expensive due to all the processes involved with creating nuclear energy and the very strict protocols required to ensure safe production.

 

The problem with solar and wind is that we need the highest level of power generation when it's dark and windless.

 

Nuclear is the way forwards.

[Super Hans]

Cheaper for who in the future? All I read is a few large snouts making millions out of us mugs.

 

One big power company has just pulled out of investing 5 billion in the construction of turbines somewhere off the West coast of Scotland.

 

I live near hundreds of those monster turbines.They never seem to turn??

 

Why's that? They said bloody basking sharks, are they having a laugh or what?

 

No, it's because the Government signed a contract with EDF guaranteeing that they will be paid twice the current amount of money per unit of energy.

 

How can Scottish Power and their windwarm compete with that?

 

This Government is shafting us and I hope I'll be dead and buried before the effects of global warming really kick in.

[GLASGOWOODS]

Why's that? They said bloody basking sharks, are they having a laugh or what?

 

No, it's because the Government signed a contract with EDF guaranteeing that they will be paid twice the current amount of money per unit of energy.

 

How can Scottish Power and their windwarm compete with that?

 

This Government is shafting us and I hope I'll be dead and buried before the effects of global warming really kick in.

 

Yeh!

 

I think they were scared in case the Basking Sharks ate all their lovely new turbines..

 

The company in question blamed the sea-bed.Apparently it's granite,which makes it difficult to erect those big beasts.And they reckon the seas too choppy for the boats to work safely.

[Super Hans]

I would have thought that would be one of their first checks when finding a site...maybe its the cynic in my that correlates the EDF thing.

 

I still think it's criminal though that the UK isn't knocking up more wind turbines, the new ones just off the parkway up prince of wales road end, I think look nice.

[geared]

This here text draws on numerous references, ranging from blogs by energy experts to data released by the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change)

 

So why not include the references?

 

And why are you using online blogs as a reference, thats moronic - anyone can write a blog containing whatever they want.

[GLASGOWOODS]

I would have thought that would be one of their first checks when finding a site...maybe its the cynic in my that correlates the EDF thing.

 

I still think it's criminal though that the UK isn't knocking up more wind turbines, the new ones just off the parkway up prince of wales road end, I think look nice.

 

Knocking up more!

 

The good people of Scotland are up in arms by the amount of turbines destroying the natural beauty of the place.

 

They should concentrate them off-shore.

[retep]

I would have thought that would be one of their first checks when finding a site...maybe its the cynic in my that correlates the EDF thing.

 

I still think it's criminal though that the UK isn't knocking up more wind turbines, the new ones just off the parkway up prince of wales road end, I think look nice.

 

It's a money making scam, abandoned turbines should send out a warning.

 

"What if the green subsidies that have made many landowners in Britain millions of pounds dry up, too, in the not-too-distant future?

Who in their right mind would want any of the new generation of turbines — under EU plans, the turbines will be nearly 1,000ft tall (that’s six times the height of Nelson’s Column) — rusting away in their backyard?"

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116877/Is-future-Britains-wind-rush.html#ixzz2nZpzvXi8

[Jmack]

I'm sure renewables are the future of UK energy. However im equally sure that wind turbines aren't the answer and ten years from now we will laugh at the thought we even considered them.