[Newsbot]

Title: Wind turbines are neither clean nor green and they provide zero global energy
Category: Environmental
Posted By: N_Fiddledog
Date: 2017-05-14 20:39:00
Canadian

[N_Fiddledog]

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/05/win ... al-energy/

"The Global Wind Energy Council recently released its latest report, excitedly boasting that ‘the proliferation of wind energy into the global power market continues at a furious pace, after it was revealed that more than 54 gigawatts of clean renewable wind power was installed across the global market last year’.

You may have got the impression from announcements like that, and from the obligatory pictures of wind turbines in any BBC story or airport advert about energy, that wind power is making a big contribution to world energy today. You would be wrong. Its contribution is still, after decades — nay centuries — of development, trivial to the point of irrelevance."

$1:

Here’s a quiz; no conferring. To the nearest whole number, what percentage of the world’s energy consumption was supplied by wind power in 2014, the last year for which there are reliable figures? Was it 20 per cent, 10 per cent or 5 per cent? None of the above: it was 0 per cent. That is to say, to the nearest whole number, there is still no wind power on Earth.

Even put together, wind and photovoltaic solar are supplying less than 1 per cent of global energy demand. From the International Energy Agency’s 2016 Key Renewables Trends, we can see that wind provided 0.46 per cent of global energy consumption in 2014, and solar and tide combined provided 0.35 per cent. Remember this is total energy, not just electricity, which is less than a fifth of all final energy, the rest being the solid, gaseous, and liquid fuels that do the heavy lifting for heat, transport and industry.

Such numbers are not hard to find, but they don’t figure prominently in reports on energy derived from the unreliables lobby (solar and wind). Their trick is to hide behind the statement that close to 14 per cent of the world’s energy is renewable, with the implication that this is wind and solar. In fact the vast majority — three quarters — is biomass (mainly wood), and a very large part of that is ‘traditional biomass’; sticks and logs and dung burned by the poor in their homes to cook with. Those people need that energy, but they pay a big price in health problems caused by smoke inhalation.

Even in rich countries playing with subsidised wind and solar, a huge slug of their renewable energy comes from wood and hydro, the reliable renewables. Meanwhile, world energy demand has been growing at about 2 per cent a year for nearly 40 years. Between 2013 and 2014, again using International Energy Agency data, it grew by just under 2,000 terawatt-hours.

If wind turbines were to supply all of that growth but no more, how many would need to be built each year? The answer is nearly 350,000, since a two-megawatt turbine can produce about 0.005 terawatt-hours per annum. That’s one-and-a-half times as many as have been built in the world since governments started pouring consumer funds into this so-called industry in the early 2000s.

At a density of, very roughly, 50 acres per megawatt, typical for wind farms, that many turbines would require a land area greater than the British Isles, including Ireland. Every year. If we kept this up for 50 years, we would have covered every square mile of a land area the size of Russia with wind farms. Remember, this would be just to fulfil the new demand for energy, not to displace the vast existing supply of energy from fossil fuels, which currently supply 80 per cent of global energy needs.

Do not take refuge in the idea that wind turbines could become more efficient. There is a limit to how much energy you can extract from a moving fluid, the Betz limit, and wind turbines are already close to it. Their effectiveness (the load factor, to use the engineering term) is determined by the wind that is available, and that varies at its own sweet will from second to second, day to day, year to year.

As machines, wind turbines are pretty good already; the problem is the wind resource itself, and we cannot change that. It’s a fluctuating stream of low–density energy. Mankind stopped using it for mission-critical transport and mechanical power long ago, for sound reasons. It’s just not very good.

As for resource consumption and environmental impacts, the direct effects of wind turbines — killing birds and bats, sinking concrete foundations deep into wild lands — is bad enough. But out of sight and out of mind is the dirty pollution generated in Inner Mongolia by the mining of rare-earth metals for the magnets in the turbines. This generates toxic and radioactive waste on an epic scale, which is why the phrase ‘clean energy’ is such a sick joke and ministers should be ashamed every time it passes their lips.

It gets worse. Wind turbines, apart from the fibreglass blades, are made mostly of steel, with concrete bases. They need about 200 times as much material per unit of capacity as a modern combined cycle gas turbine. Steel is made with coal, not just to provide the heat for smelting ore, but to supply the carbon in the alloy. Cement is also often made using coal. The machinery of ‘clean’ renewables is the output of the fossil fuel economy, and largely the coal economy.

A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs about 250 tonnes, including the tower, nacelle, rotor and blades. Globally, it takes about half a tonne of coal to make a tonne of steel. Add another 25 tonnes of coal for making the cement and you’re talking 150 tonnes of coal per turbine. Now if we are to build 350,000 wind turbines a year (or a smaller number of bigger ones), just to keep up with increasing energy demand, that will require 50 million tonnes of coal a year. That’s about half the EU’s hard coal–mining output.

Forgive me if you have heard this before, but I have a commercial interest in coal. Now it appears that the black stuff also gives me a commercial interest in ‘clean’, green wind power.

The point of running through these numbers is to demonstrate that it is utterly futile, on a priori grounds, even to think that wind power can make any significant contribution to world energy supply, let alone to emissions reductions, without ruining the planet. As the late David MacKay pointed out years back, the arithmetic is against such unreliable renewables.

The truth is, if you want to power civilisation with fewer greenhouse gas emissions, then you should focus on shifting power generation, heat and transport to natural gas, the economically recoverable reserves of which — thanks to horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing — are much more abundant than we dreamed they ever could be. It is also the lowest-emitting of the fossil fuels, so the emissions intensity of our wealth creation can actually fall while our wealth continues to increase. Good.

And let’s put some of that burgeoning wealth in nuclear, fission and fusion, so that it can take over from gas in the second half of this century. That is an engineerable, clean future. Everything else is a political displacement activity, one that is actually counterproductive as a climate policy and, worst of all, shamefully robs the poor to make the rich even richer.

[BeaverFever]

Another well-known climate denier who takes money from the coal industry. The arguments he makes sre pathetic: wind doesn't currently contibute much to worldwide power generation, ergo its a failure. Count the idiocies in that one premise alone.

More about the author, who is actually titled privelage-by-birth aristocrat with an inherited fortune and social status.

$1:

Viscount Matthew White Ridley is a Conservative hereditary peer in the British House of Lords, ...Ridley won a seat in the House of Lords in 2013, a position that he has also used to discuss climate change and advocate for the “Brexit” campaign to leave the European Union. [3], [4]

Ridley was the chairman of Northern Rock, a UK Bank until 2007, during which time the bank experienced the country's first bank run in 140 years. Ridley resigned and the UK Government bailed out the bank, leading to the Nationalization of Northern Rock. Ridley was responsible, according to parliament's Treasury select committee, for a “high-risk, reckless business strategy” which the bank was able to pursue as the result of a “substantial failure of regulation” by the state. [5], [6], [7]

....Ridley is an advisor to the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a group run by climate change skeptic Nigel Lawson. The GWPF describes themselves as “deeply concerned about the costs and other implications” of policies designed to mitigate man-made climate change. [10]

Regarding income from the GWPF and other sources, Ridley says “I am on its academic advisory council, but receive no pay and make no donations. I have income indirectly from unsubsidised coal, and have refused income from subsidised solar and wind power.” (Emphasis added). [11]

Coal Interests

Matt Ridley released the following statement in 2014 regarding his interests in the Coal industry: [12]

“I have a financial interest in coal mining on my family's land. The details are commercially confidential, but I have always been careful to disclose that I have this interest in my writing when it is relevant; I am proud that the coal mining on my land contributes to the local and national economy; and that my income from coal is not subsidized and not a drain on the economy through raising energy prices. I deliberately do not argue directly for the interests of the modern coal industry and I consistently champion the development of gas reserves, which is a far bigger threat to the coal-mining industry than renewable energy can ever be. So I consistently argue against my own financial interest.”

Talking with The Guardian, Friends of the Earth (FoE) campaigner Guy Shrubsole said: “We think it’s worrying that climate sceptic Viscount Ridley should be using his privileged position in the Lords to argue against renewable energy, whilst lobbying to benefit a coal industry he has a significant financial interest in. [13]

“Ridley has always maintained his own coal interests are immaterial to his climate sceptic views and political activities,” Shrubshole said. “This disclosure paints a different picture – of a peer who attacks clean energy whilst seeking to extend the lifetime of the coal industry in this country.” [13]

The disclosure Shrubsole spoke of was communications between Ridley and the UK energy minister Lord Bourne where Ridley promotes a Texas-based company with “fascinating new technology, which may well interest the Department of Energy and Climate Change.” The Guardian suggests this could be seen as an example of lobbying by Ridley on behalf of he energy industry. [13]

https://www.desmogblog.com/matt-ridley

[Thanos]

Bring back more coal. If the world needs more of anything it's more coal! And get rid of all those commie catalytic converters the bastards made us put on our cars too! And bring back leaded fuel too because lead exposure, as any knowledgeable person knows, is absolutely and completely harmless! The perpetually angry man on the AM radio talk show told me so!







The first two are from today's China. The last one is from the killer smog in London in 1952, where it's now estimated that up to 12000 people died over a four-day period from the foulness in the air. No sane person would ever argue that this is something that should return as a prominent feature of our daily life, especially in cities, with the "no sane person" part being all you need to know as to why someone like Donald Trump wants the coal industry to be as profitable as it was back in the "good" ol' days.

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Another well-known climate denier who takes money from the coal

https://www.desmogblog.com/matt-ridley

And again the guy who got Desmog going - what appears to be your only source for anything climate - was prosecuted for money laundering. So what's you're point? Anybody can do this...



about anything.

Show us what's incorrect about the article.

[N_Fiddledog]

Now as to this...

Thanos Thanos:

The chinese burn too much smog producing coal

Granted. They should use better cleaners of pollutants in their coal plants like we do.

[Thanos]

Or stop using it altogether, which would knock down the annual amount of fossil fuel emissions so much that even an uptick in the use of oil & gas wouldn't be able to cause any further increases in CO2. Coal is something that belongs in the past, a past that shouldn't ever be celebrated because it's marked by too much environmental devastation and too much human misery for those who've mined it and for those exposed to it's toxic effects. At this stage I'm expecting some libertarian meathead in the US to demand that leaf-burning in autumn and cooking with animal dung-fires be brought back because everything in the past was so super fucking terrific.

[PluggyRug]

Costly Maintenance


.

[N_Fiddledog]

Thanos Thanos:

Or stop using it altogether, which would knock down the annual amount of fossil fuel emissions so much that even an uptick in the use of oil & gas wouldn't be able to cause any further increases in CO2. Coal is something that belongs in the past, a past that shouldn't ever be celebrated because it's marked by too much environmental devastation and too much human misery for those who've mined it and for those exposed to it's toxic effects. At this stage I'm expecting some libertarian meathead in the US to demand that leaf-burning in autumn and cooking with animal dung-fires be brought back because everything in the past was so super fucking terrific.

And how much death and misery has their been in third world countries as a result of lack of cheap energy. Wood burning for cooking fuel has caused more pollution deaths over the centuries than coal ever did.

You know what's becoming popular lately?

Biomass: The World’s Biggest Provider Of Renewable Energy

I'd have to double-check how factual the below is, but for now...

$1:

If I asked you to think of renewable energy what comes to mind? I imagine it is skyscraper-sized wind turbines, solar panels on suburban roofs or massive hydro-electric dams. You probably do not think of burning wood or converting crops to liquid fuel to be used in cars. Yet throughout the world bio-energy remains the biggest source of renewable energy. In fact its growth in the last decade has been greater than or similar to that from wind and solar in most places, and those places include the European Union and the United States of America.

I have heard similar claims about about burning wood chips elsewhere though.

And it's now possible to burn coal much cleaner than it was. Wood pellets too, I hear.

[BeaverFever]

DeSmog isn't the onty source, not that it matters, because the fact that your entitled aristocrat takes money from coal and gas is an open fact that even he admits to.

And besides the "money laundering" charge had nothing to do with climate, he was an early investor in online gambling back when it was still the Wild West and was charged with "conspiring to transfer funds with the intent to promote illegal gambling. ". They weren't hiding anything in what they were doing, their company was publicly traded and simply provided PayPal - type transactions for users of online gaming sites.

[Coach85]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Another well-known climate denier who takes money from the coal industry. The arguments he makes sre pathetic: wind doesn't currently contibute much to worldwide power generation, ergo its a failure. Count the idiocies in that one premise alone.

If it's not a failure, what exactly would you classify it as?

[N_Fiddledog]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

DeSmog isn't the onty source, not that it matters, because the fact that your entitled aristocrat takes money from coal and gas is an open fact that even he admits to.

DeSmog's only raison d'etre is to point fingers at people skeptical of the idea the right global power structure can adjust the Global climate with a twist of it's mighty fingers on some sort of metaphorical temperature gauge and stop some proposed conspiracy of world destruction through nice weather.

Again it would be just as easy to point fingers in the other direction. The exponentially greater investment of money and power comes from those pushing the climate agenda.

[Tricks]

Thanos Thanos:

The perpetually angry man on the AM radio talk show told me so!

Holy shit, I'll listen to talk radio from time to time in the GTA. I could make a bingo card of how much stupid spews on that station on daily basis. It's highly entertaining.

[PluggyRug]

Global Warming Activists Don’t Like When Someone Follows The Money

$1:

ANDREW FOLLETT
Energy and Science Reporter
3:03 PM 11/03/2015

Environmentalists like to claim skeptics are making money off hampering global warming regulations, but those same activists are making a lot of money promoting global warming alarmism.

A recent video from The Guardian claims that there is little money or power to be gained from environmental activism. The money behind activism pales in comparison to those of their fossil fuel-financed opposition, according to the video. The video even claims that “most of the money in solar and wind power comes from savings to the consumer.”

In the case of Al Gore, prominently featured in the video, the former vice president has levied his global warming activism from a net worth of $700,000 in 2000 into an estimated net worth of $172.5 million by 2015. He’s not alone in his financial endeavor.

“Funding of science, in this particular case, climate change science, is dominated by the federal government. We assert that this will cause recipients of [government] grants to publish findings that are in-line with government policy preferences (i.e., don’t bite the hand that feeds you),” Chip Knappenberger, the assistant director of the Center for the Study of Science at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation in an email.

“After a while, the scientific literature becomes dominated by these types of research findings which then produces a biased knowledge base,” Knappenberger said. “This knowledge base is then ‘assessed’ by intergovernmental and federal science committees (i.e., IPCC, USGCRP) to produce authoritative reports that supposedly represent the scientific ‘consensus,’ which is then tapped by the federal government in determining policy and setting regulations, such as the CPP [Clean Power Plan].”

Studies that receive financial support from the public sector don’t have to disclose it as a conflict of interest, even when that support is in the millions of dollars. Recent studies that the Environmental Protection Agency is using to support the scientific case for its Clean Power Plan saw the EPA itself give $31.2 million, $9.5 million, and $3.65 million in public funds to lead authors according to EPA public disclosures.

The author who received $3.65 million, Charles Driscoll, even admitted to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the result of his study was predetermined, saying “in doing this study we wanted to bring attention to the additional benefits from carbon controls.”

Universities typically received about 50 percent of the money that their researchers get in public funds if their research finds positive results, making them deeply dependent upon federal funding and likely to encourage studies which will come to conclusions that the government wants.

Even counting only private money, environmental groups massively outspend their opposition. Opposition to global warming activism only raises $46 million annually across 91 conservative think tanks according to analysis by Forbes. That’s almost 6 times less than Greenpeace’s 2011 budget of $260 million, and Greenpeace is only one of many environmental groups. The undeniable truth is that global warming activists raise and spend far more money than their opponents.

Attempts by governments to encourage solar and wind power have created incentives for corruption that even environmentalists acknowledge. The push to encourage “green” systems has already led to serious corruption, such as the Solyndra scandal, which “crowds out” investment dollars that could be better spent on more workable solutions.

[Tricks]

Coach85 Coach85:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

Another well-known climate denier who takes money from the coal industry. The arguments he makes sre pathetic: wind doesn't currently contibute much to worldwide power generation, ergo its a failure. Count the idiocies in that one premise alone.

If it's not a failure, what exactly would you classify it as?

Just starting? Wind installations only picked up in the last decade, and it's already providing 4% of world power, and about 11% in ontario. And it's growing exponentially as the technology advances. That's not too bad for only a decade of real development and deployment.