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How Not to Save the Planet
Several times a month when I’m driving south on Interstate 35 to go to work, I see something like this plodding along in the other direction:
By Alexi Kostibas from Anywhere – Windmill Blade on I-35, CC BY-SA 2.0.
That is a single blade for our primary renewable energy generator: Windmills. What is not shown are the other two blades in the caravan or the escort trucks that each one of these huge, highly specialized carriers has to have. Nor does it show the hundreds of angry commuters who are being held up by these lumbering behemoths. When the parts of the windmill arrive at their destination, the device is assembled using cranes and other heavy machinery. The windmills also have to be inspected and maintained by guys in trucks driving to each generator. Notice what all of these steps have in common? That’s right, folks, each requires a large machine that runs on fossil fuel and spits CO2 into the air.
There are other things that are not so obvious that have an environmental impact. The reason for the guys in the truck is that wind farms are several hundred times larger in area than natural gas-, oil-, or, gasp, coal-fired generating plants. This means you several hundred more miles of transmission lines within the farm. Wind farms also tend to be a long way from cities since most urban areas have a chronic shortage of empty, wind-swept plains and ridges. Every extra mile that you send electricity through transmission lines means that some of the energy is being lost. This “lost” energy isn’t turned into pixie dust or fairy tears, it’s converted to heat. I know “Global Warming” isn’t a thing anymore since the Earth inconsiderately didn’t warm in a way that matched the models. Still, I thought the whole point of “renewable” energy was to not release more heat into the environment.
Finally, no one ever considers the birth or death of windmills. These leviathans are not conjured up by magic with the flick of a wand, but are manufactured in huge buildings. After about twenty years, they need to be replaced. Most of the parts are recyclable, but the blades are not. These either need to be crushed by a large, specially-designed machine, or hauled off by a large, specially-designed transporter. Either way, the blades end up in landfills. With all of this, how carbon neutral are windmills?
Speaking of recycling, how does that help the environment? Recycling metals uses a huge amount of energy and creates pollution. However, it uses a lot less energy and creates less pollution than mining, transporting and refining metal ore. Recycling metals actually helps and makes sense! That’s also why private industry had been doing it for years before the government got involved.
You can melt down a can and reshape it into another can, or something else useful, pretty much indefinitely. This doesn’t work with other materials. Here’s the difference between recycled and virgin paper:
Of course, you can make the recycled paper white enough that you can use like regular paper. The only trouble is that it is more expensive, uses more energy, and creates more pollution than just making paper from wood pulp. Still, it does make sense to recycle low-quality paper such as cardboard. Which, again, is why it was being done before the government got involved.
As for plastic and glass, recycling both requires more energy and creates more pollution than making it from raw materials. The most environmentally sound way to deal with them is to dispose of them.
Environmentalists love their trains. Apparently, the cutting edge of 19th-century technology is the solution to our transportation problems. The City of Austin recently spent about $150 million on a commuter rail system. This expenditure has reduced traffic congestion approximately 0 percent. If you stand next to I-35 during rush hour, more people will pass you in one minute than ride the train all day. A while ago, I was stopped at a railroad crossing for one of these trains. When it went by, I could see that there were fewer people in the train than cars stopped for it. It was only for a short time, no longer than a long traffic light. Still, that means that a couple of dozen cars were idling so 20 people could ride the train. If you multiply that by every railroad crossing in the city, that means that more gas is being wasted and more CO2 being generated by the idling vehicles than if those twenty people had driven their cars.
The newest fad for environmental activists seems to be blocking traffic to create traffic jams and setting trash on fire. An “environmentalist” who does something like that has about as much credibility as someone who drowns puppies and kittens to protest animal cruelty.
I’m not a “climate denier.” I agree that there is climate change, that some of it may be caused by mankind, and that we may have to do something to ameliorate the effects. However, if all of the “solutions” are as expensive, wasteful and counterproductive as windmills, recycling, and choo-choo trains, I think I’ll pass.
Oh, and at least show that you’re as concerned about the problem as you want me to be. Don’t tell me I can’t have air conditioning, then build a multi-million-dollar mansion for yourself. Don’t fly off in a private jet to an environmental conference, where you scold me for eating a hamburger. And if you block traffic with a burning dumpster, then tell me you’re going to take my car, I’d advise you to have good health insurance.
Published in Environment
Zapping birds.
I have some friends that do, in fact, live off the grid. Totally. They have a windmill that occassionally provides some energy, they also have a somewhat more dependable small water wheel. Neither one works all the time, but they have a battery bank and no air conditioning. Its sufficient for their needs.
Speaking of solar panels, I often drive past one of my favorite houses in my neighborhood. I always loved the way it looked. Until one horrible day when what should greet my eyes but this abomination. Just look what they did to this beautiful tile roof:
Hideous.
RA,
I sold a little solar when I was much younger. Our panel was small and very efficient and reasonably good looking (looked more like a skylight than a panel). We quickly discovered what should have been obvious that the aesthetics of someone’s home was important to them. Our crude competitor wanted to plaster a great mass of ugly inefficient panels on their roof.
An interesting thing about the free market. The customer really is King (and Queen). If you don’t make them happy, they don’t buy your product. We sold successfully where others had been and failed.
Regards,
Jim
I do the same–where in New Mexico?
Off-grid is the only justified use of these so-called “green” energy production technologies. Green power connected to the grid, even if it never reaches back-feed levels, is a grid destabilizer, and a net cost to its neighbors. It is utterly stupid to allow green power on-grid. Even little ones in the backyard.
When we drive to Texas down I-35, we see lots and lots of these blades being hauled. Between Minnesota and Kansas, we counted enough to make 12 complete windmills on our last trip.
I’m still intrigued by the Powerwall technology for the home. Smoothing out the power demand over the day-night cycle would be a boone to the power companies.
Solar (and wind) can be useful on a small scale such as for the home, but their footprint is unacceptable for large-scale bulk power production.
Yes. The reflecting mirror solar farms fry birds in flight, the beams are so concentrated . . .
……………………………….
Exactly. Just ask the Mayor of Georgetown, Texas, about an hour away from me (spoiler alert: He “can’t be reached for comment” hahaha). Seven years ago, he announced that Georgetown had decided to go “100 percent renewable.” He was lauded by Al Gore and the larger Green Movement, and was pretty proud of himself.
Now, however, he’s in trouble over electricity costs that have residents paying more than $1,000 per household in higher electricity charges over the last four years.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/01/29/epic-fail-of-renewables-causes-texas-town-to-have-1200-per-month-higher-power-bills/
I have a feeling the owners got some government subsidies for uglifying this house.
Just heard a news mention about how some Chinese windmill owners were being paid for being green. Didn’t even have to generated electricity or be connected to the grid. Just put them up, let them blow around, and wait for your government (PRC? UN? USA?) check!
Agree completely. Also, my friends didn’t get any subsidy whatsoever.
This picture, taken today by friends returning home to Houston, could not help but bring to mind your photo, @josepluma, and this excellent conversation:
I doubt if they know. They are buying components based on their specifications and monetary cost.
Do you mean that it’s utterly stupid for utilities to be permitted to purchase green power?
If so, why? From an economic point of view it seems smart.
Yes.
I explained in detail over here:
http://ricochet.com/674572/the-green-energy-movement-give-us-sf6-a-bad-newgas/#comment-4576068
I recommend reading the entire thread for additional nuance.
Thank you Phil!! I’m sitting here with my astro-physicist nephew enjoying the lesson! There is nothing the Left cannot corrupt with its crappy ideas.
Read all your comments there. Good stuff. I saw a video recently about the situation in Australia, almost all of which you cover in your comments. A couple of extra tidbits.
They are looking at some storage methods. For ten times the cost of the green energy production infrastructure, you can store the energy for two hours. Meaning, you can build the full capacity of non-green generation as backup, then build the full capacity of wind and solar, and then spend ten times that much on storage. Or you can just build the non-green capacity, and get a better result, because:
When your green generation (at peak) hits about 40% of the grid, the grid destablilizes. That fine tuning of output is done by varying the speed at which the turbines turn, which is actually kind of difficult, especially since the green output constantly varies in a way that a normal plant won’t. (Every cloud, every gust causes variation.)
Actually, the speed at which the turbines turn must remain constant because that is what determines that AC frequency being generated. The speed is kept constant within very tight parameters, but the load on the turbines varies according to the power load being carried. The governor equipment opens or closes the throttle valve to modulate the amount of fuel being burned as required.
There are thermal problems with ramping the turbine load up or down too quickly.
I may have misunderstood the exact mechanism, but the point was that it is done at the generator itself. According to what I saw anyway.
I don’t think you get my meaning. People who live off the grid build wind mills and solar arrays for their own household and often do this very cheaply.
One of the best ways to pull a person’s electric bill down a lot is to attack the bigger motored items first. For most Americans, that would be the heating/cooling system and the clothes dryer.
I mentioned to a friend how I’d love to have a solar powered clothes dryer. He said that it was impossible to design this, as a one off item. Unless a person was willing to spend more than was reasonable.
But then I moved away from that housing association to my newer residence and now do this:
My cost was $ 3 for the clothes pins. (I already had some rope.)
I do have to use the electric clothesdryer sometimes in the winter months, and then I see a definite uptick in the utility bill.
I thought you meant that if you bought a small scale windmill you would not be paying PG&E some $175 each month over the summer for your AC.
Please let me know what you meant.