The title should say has the capacity to power 1M homes. No wind farm ever generates to capacity. And they age very quickly.
This tech maybe better and last longer than in the quoted, but it will still degrade over time. So in 10 years maybe it will be 20%?
Wind is not reliable – so where does the power come from when the wind is not blowing? If you say batteries, then you need excess generation (a lot) and a lot of batteries.
> Where does the power come from when the wind is not blowing?
* Gas peakers
* More interconnects, particularly to places with pumped hydro resources
* Batteries (yes, it needs a heck of a lot. But battery tech & economics are still improving)
* Solar PV (we can build interconnects to the larger installations being built closer to the equator in places like N Africa)
Also worth noting the citation you posted is from 2012. Wind turbines have changed significantly just in the last 5 years. I wonder what the numbers look like today, in particular load factor decay?
Last year Denmarks weather was amazing, which meant no wind at all. What was the solution? Coal from germany who despite having great weather too and based on sun couldnt do anything else. This is the reality. The two countries with the supposedly most agressive use of alternatives cant even support each other without the use of coal.
Denmark had the highest share (Percentage of the average annual electricity demand covered by wind) (41%) in Europe in 2018.
The figures represent the average of the share of wind in final electricity demand, captured hourly from ENTSO-E and corrected thanks to national TSOs and BEIS data.
Electricity no energy yes. It's 17% of the danish energy usage. Not sure what you want proof of.
Wind and solar are intermittent sources which makes them seasonally irregular and requires backup energy from other more stable sources such as coal, oil, gas and nuclear.
You claimed “Last year Denmarks weather was amazing, which meant no wind at all.“ then went on to talk about coal, this was explicitly about electricity generation. Your claim was absurd and provably false. We can have a civil and normal discussion about the downsides of renewable intermittency if you want, or you can make absurd claims like that and I think most people will take you for some kind of crank.
What are you talking about? Last years weather were amazing and Denmark did get electricity from coal in germany. If you want ti have a civil discussion perhaps start with yourself. This is not something i am making up.
Goes to show the climate change we're facing can only be properly countered while (mostly) maintaining nowadays' lifestyle if we, as societies, take caring of being less "every man for himself" and work more toward a solidarity-based world-view. Basically, we need to stop pretending and start acting the Human Rigths we created about 70 years ago. Individualism has failed, animosity culture has too. A simple solution would be to have the global power grid more connected: when it's winter on the north, it's summer on the south, so the winter countries could easily get energy from say, Sahara's Desert's solar plants. It's just an example.
An interconnected sustainable grid would foster the necessity of developed countries properly paying back to the atrocities committed to to underdeveloped countries, with things such as:
1) Investing in development, education in such countries
2) Investing in sustainable energy generation there
3) Subsidizing the costs of much 1st world technology in order for those countries to rise out of extreme poverty
Again, just simple examples; used African continent but could be extended to many other places. We need a "Green New Deal" because extreme capitalism has failed to a point we're now facing our own extinction if things continue like they are. Sure, sounds like wishful thinking, or something that would require some kind of ultimate class-based warfare, but I do believe this path can be achieve without a bloodstained revolution. The alternative is to be enslaved by the plutocracy and eventually to die off as a species, in the far future. Or bear arms and get your hards dirty, but I'm not an advocate for that.
What Greta has said in the UN, I agree with her: the current way dominant classes are acting upon the world's most damning issue seems to be a simple act of looking with a blasé face and not caring. If the wealthy believes all those billions are just going to watch as life becomes utterly difficulty on this planet, they may find not everyone is as peaceful as I am.
In short, there's no sustainable future with the way capitalism operates currently.
We are already doing the things you want us to do.
The only way to solve this is through capitalism not through the currently politically motivated energy capitalism where they pick the winners.
Capitalism certainly ain't perfect but it beats all other structures hands down. It does so because it recognizes human nature which is part selfishness and part altruism and existing in a gradient depending on the relationship of the partners it's in.
Keep in mind that most of our success as rich nations is because of our use of energy especially fossil fuels.
There is no current sustainable energy generation that can solve the increasing need for energy without the use of more fossil fuel and there is no curren green energy supply that can deliver as stable as Nuclear.
The chances of Greta being alive today without the use of fossil fuel and our energy consumption would be much lover. We don't owe anything especially not to a little girl who is being misused by cynical politicians and environmental organizations to make unscientific claims and to blame the very generations that have made sure she is able to grow up in the most safe environment of all times.
Capitalism is the only way we can move forward, the idea that a few politicians know what to is exactly the kind of dangerous thinking that is leading us towards a less safe, less prosperous world.
As far as i am concerned she is the one smearing and the organization around her largely guilty of that. And talk about smearing. And I'm not right wing. So pot calling the kettle
The solution seems to be diversity in supply. In 2017 Denmark had 45% wind with a total of renewable being 66%. The imports are mainly from Sweden and Germany, (possibly Norway) where renewables (hydro and wind) and nuclear dominate. Denmark has a significant portion of coal in district heating, but the portion is also shrinking.
The person I replied to talked about electricity. Yes, the energy supply is different. Electricity seems to supply about 17% of energy consumption in Denmark. I was trying to be brief.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Denmark
Ok. It's just that people seem to always confuse energy with electricity (not saying you are but people in general) and just want to make sure it's clear otherwise it would give the impression that Denmark (or Germany) somehow found a way to solve their energy needs through alternative energy. They haven't not even by a longshot and it's made it more expensive which might be fine in rich countries but definitely isn't a recipe for the poor countries.
The problem is scientific not just technology optimization though. Wind and solar just can't deliver, they are linear solutions to exponential problems. They do around 1% today only expected to be 3-4% in 2040 and that's with the current energy need which will increase significantly in as more people become middle class.
So we need something groundbreaking with high energy density and scalability and which is cheap.
"There are two plausible explanations for the observed decline in average load factors as wind farms age. The first is that the turbines become less efficient over time as a result of mechanical wear and tear, erosion of the turbine blades and related factors. The second is that the turbines experience more frequent breakdowns and their operators take more time to bring them back into service because they are less concerned about the performance of older plants. Both reasons may be relevant in different circumstances and it is not possible to identify a primary explanation from the data. "
There is a tradeoff between how many batteries and power-to-gas plants you need and how large your excess production and how well connected you grid it.
https://www.ref.org.uk/attachments/article/280/ref.hughes.19...
The title should say has the capacity to power 1M homes. No wind farm ever generates to capacity. And they age very quickly.
This tech maybe better and last longer than in the quoted, but it will still degrade over time. So in 10 years maybe it will be 20%?
Wind is not reliable – so where does the power come from when the wind is not blowing? If you say batteries, then you need excess generation (a lot) and a lot of batteries.