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An Interesting Study About Wind Farms
This Harvard Gazette article concludes that the environment impact of large-scale wind farms is not as benign as previously thought.
In two papers — published today in the journals Environmental Research Letters and Joule — Harvard University researchers find that the transition to wind or solar power in the U.S. would require five to 20 times more land than previously thought, and, if such large-scale wind farms were built, would warm average surface temperatures over the continental U.S. by 0.24 degrees Celsius.
“Wind beats coal by any environmental measure, but that doesn’t mean that its impacts are negligible,” said David Keith, the Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and senior author of the papers. “We must quickly transition away from fossil fuels to stop carbon emissions. In doing so, we must make choices between various low-carbon technologies, all of which have some social and environmental impacts.”
As usual, we rush into technology before fully knowing all the impacts. Sometimes, we can only find out all the impacts by embracing the technology and reacting to it (such as the texting while driving impact on auto accidents, and the subsequent bans).
Again, nuclear is the best option (IMHO), with small modular reactors (SMRs) being a much more economical way to keep costs low.
Published in General
All accurate. I work for a power company.
Previously, a waiver for killing bald eagles was for 30 years. If this new number is added to that, well, words fail me. Also, the number of bats killed is enormous – you know, those insect eating fellas. And eagles aren’t the only birds killed. Hypocrisy on stilts.
When the first condor was released into the wild after years of a breeding program, the spectators watched in horror as it was killed by a wind turbine. We in the nuclear industry years ago named them Condor Cuisinarts.
I watched that video and came away with a different perspective. First, the number of GWh required for a year and the land that would be needed for this: No mention of capacity factors was included – and this would have a tremendous effect on required acreage. They may have been calculating land use on a capacity factor (CF) of 100% – when in fact for solar it’s between 12 and 20% depending on the location of the farm. The Agua Caliente Solar Project, located in Arizona near the 33rd parallel, has possibly the highest CF at 29%.
Drew Thornley of National Review, puts nuclear, solar and wind in perspective land use-wise, carefully taking into account CFs:
“Comparing Footprints
I’ve posted before about the massive amounts of land required to produce electricity from solar panels and wind turbines, and so I was delighted to see this informed set of graphics from Clean Energy Insight on the comparative land-use requirements of nuclear, solar, and wind energy. Here are the numbers:
Nuclear
I used the commonly accepted <1 sq mi for Nuclear power plants and doubled it to be conservative. The average capacity factor for Nuclear power plants is 0.90. Two sq miles envelopes 1.5 sq mi / 0.90 capacity factor = 1.67 sq mi for 3,200 MW. I also checked against the current EPR footprints in Europe with Google Earth. You can easily check this for yourself.
Solar
11,000 acres / 0.19 [CF] = 57,895 acres for 1,000 MW
57,895 acres = 91 sq mi for 1,000 MW
3,200 MW/1,000 MW = 3.2
3.2 x 91 sq mi = 292 sq mi
Wind
50,000 acres / 0.30 [CF] = 166,667 acres for 1,000 MW
166,667 acres = 260 sq mi for 1,000 MW
3,200 MW/1,000 MW = 3.2
3.2 x 260 sq mi = 832 sq mi”
Superimposed in the next “comment” (#64) is a map of Rhode Island [with 2 sq. mi. superimposed on the larger segments]). Enjoy the pictures.
Sorry, the map wouldn’t copy and the only place I could find it was in my own file. Basically, the area required for wind was represented as a block superimposed over the map of Rhode Island and covered nearly 2/3 of the map. Superimposed over that block was solar which was about 2/3 of the wind block, and nuclear was represented as a tiny dot, (2 sq. mi.) superimposed on the larger segments.
It is still a completely bogus analysis, as storage was not included. Large-scale “green” energy is a pipe dream, but happens to provide excuses for statists to interfere with energy markets. Interference that is basically about funneling funds to political allies.
Hmmm… The video or the stats I provided? (Depending on your answer, may have to take my ‘like’ away.)
In any case, I could have written much more on the subject, but tried to pare it down
Stats. Did the video describe industrial-scale energy storage sufficient to allow each specific form of “green” energy to supply all of the needs of consumers without other grid producers?
Well, me too. Though my specialty is IT/OT, and not power engineering.
I’m not that concerned. The bald eagle is no longer endangered, and the population continues to increase.
Some species of bats are considered “Threatened” so it depends on which bats are getting killed.
Rumor has it that after a super-typhoon hit Guam some years ago, a good portion of the island of some 150,000 was provided power from the reactor of a single aircraft carrier. At 500mW (165 mWe) per reactor, how many would it take to power a city? Just wondering.
It’s wonder Guam didn’t tip over in such a storm.
I guess there weren’t enough Marines there.
It is always appropriate to poke fun at Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Twilight Zone).
There was some kind of green energy conference at my workplace (I was not part of it) and at lunch I got to talking to one of the suits. I forget how we got to the topic, after he told me of his company’s work in installing wind farms, I told him that someday in the future, when it was decided to remove the wind towers, there would be objections from people who don’t want the landscape ruined, because they will have become part of what we expect to see.
My supervisor was also at the table, and later he told me that might have been the president of Detroit Edison that I was talking to. (That was several years ago; I never thought until now to look on the web for a photo of the president of Detroit Edison. The person whose photo is there now now looks similar, but a tad young to be the person I was talking to.)
I agree but it seems the trend is just the opposite, with people left and right wanting the feds to get involved in protecting the grid as a matter of national security.
We’re there, have been there for decades. The Molten Salt Reactor Experiment ran from 1965 – 1969, demonstrating the safe operation of MSR with more than 17,000 hours of operation.
More details on it are here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molten-Salt_Reactor_Experiment
Given the many improvements in materials that have happened since 1965, the reactor could be easily be implemented. Perhaps as a small reactor – in a hospital, for example to be operated primarily to provide medical isotopes for the treatment of cancers, but also to provide independent power in case of a disaster.
Is that mutually exclusive?
No, I agree. Decentralization of the grid would seem to be a way to create a dynamic grid that would be more robust.
But it does seem to be a legitimate concern for the feds… You know inter-state transportation of energy and all…
I once read a long article about the electric utility Industry. The executive’s and the politician’s incentives are absolutely terrible for the consumer. They basically work together to screw the consumer. Minnesota used to have lower utility prices now they’re above-average because they’re shoving renewable mandates down our throats. Its regressive taxation.
I work in the project management space, so I only have an idiot’s level of understanding of the tech, software and hardware.
And it’s done through the regulators. When power companies bring their rate cases forward, if they don’t include the things that politicians and regulators want, the case gets rejected, and gets changed to meet the requirement.
In the end, the power consumer pays for everything. We get what we pay for in politicians.
When my wife and I drove out west and back, I looked at all the windmills and thought, “This ruins the majesty of seeing how the Great Plains stretch out for miles.”
That’s what it said. It was depressing as hell.
Decentralize everything.
Don’t central plan anything unless there is no other option.
Mises.org is right about everything.
No longer endangered, but still threatened and protected by law (unless you’re Green Energy).
Windmills can’t discriminate between common bats and endangered. One blade fits all . . .
Ideally, we would have a large number of power plants spread out over the country, with multiple transmission paths to all customers. This would greatly enhance realiability, while at the same time providing firewalls in case of natural disaster or terrorism.
TRansmission of electricty across state lines would be considered interstate commerce, so it is a Federal issue. However, generation of power and rates within states are governed by local boards and their laws, which can have negative consequences when politically-driven mandates are written into state utility regs.
For practical purposes, yes. The feds aren’t going to think of ways to help that don’t involve control.
Last summer I had a chance to visit the east end of the North Dakota fracking fields — places we used to travel to when I was a little tyke — and was surprised at the effect on the landscape. It was neat and orderly, not the mess the fracking-haters had led me to expect, but it ruined the majesty of the rolling prairie country a lot more than wind towers do, IMO. But I imagine people will come to view it as the way the plains are supposed to look.
That’s the dynamic. Then nobody does anything about it because of K Street money or inertia or whatever. Then things get worse. Nobody does anything. So now you’ve got Tump.
Centralization, cultural Marxism and the media. Those are your enemies.
Bald Eagles are no longer considered “threatened” but of “least concern” with the population increasing.
They are still regulated like they’re “endangered” because they’re like — BALD EAGLES.
Most species that are in the “least concern” catagory can be hunted on a limited basis. You can still be prosecuted for carrying a bald eagle feather.