In an analysis of all suitable sites for onshore wind farms, the new study reveals that Europe has the potential to supply enough energy for the whole world until 2050. The study reveals that if all of Europe's capacity for onshore wind farms was realised, the installed nameplate capacity would 52.5 TW -- equivalent to 1 MW for every 16 European citizens.
Co-author Benjamin Sovacool, Professor of Energy Policy at the University of Sussex, said: "The study is not a blueprint for development but a guide for policymakers indicating the potential of how much more can be done and where the prime opportunities exist.
"Our study suggests that the horizon is bright for the onshore wind sector and that European aspirations for a 100% renewable energy grid are within our collective grasp technologically.
"Obviously, we are not saying that we should install turbines in all the identified sites but the study does show the huge wind power potential right across Europe which needs to be harnessed if we're to avert a climate catastrophe."
Spatial analysis of Geographical Information System (GIS)-based wind atlases allowed the research team to identify around 46% of Europe's territory which would be suitable for siting of onshore wind farms.
The advanced GIS data at sub-national levels provided a far more detailed insight and allowed the team to factor in a far greater range of exclusionary factors including houses, roads, restricted areas due to military or political reasons as well as terrains not suitable for wind power generation.
The greater detail in this approach allowed the research team to identify more than three times the onshore wind potential in Europe than previous studies.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 15 2019, @08:43PM (12 children)
During the power generation phase, windmills are almost carbon neutral - except for the fossil fuels burned by the maintenance crews as they service them, plus the cost of production and shipping of repair parts, paint, etc.
However, what's the carbon impact of building the wind generator in the first place? Concrete for the foundations, fabrication and shipping of all the parts, whether carbon fiber + epoxy resin, steel, or other metals or plastics. Work involved in assembly. And, don't forget, like all manmade structures, particularly those with moving parts, these wind generators are going to have an end of useful life as well and proper dismantling and recycling of the materials should also be factored into their lifetime cost.
Then, if we have centralized wind farms far from the consumers of their power (say, like the whole Texas panhandle), there's the construction, maintenance, and end of life costs of the transmission grid, none of which is carbon neutral, and long transmission lines can have significant losses between the generator and consumer.
Then, this is wind power production which is highly variable and not well correlated to load demands, so we must also construct energy storage schemes which are less than 100% efficient, and have their own carbon costs as well as frequently significant land area demands for elevated water storage, or gas pressurization in salt mines (what could possibly go wrong there?), or other crazier schemes.
Compare this to the "carbon footprint" of a portable inverter generator, burning old fashioned gasoline, located 25' from the power consumer... The difference isn't quite as dramatic as the Greens' "benefits of the project" papers would have you believe.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:07PM (3 children)
Now take into consideration all the costs of production for the generator. And the same for all the infrastructure required to produce and ship fossil fuels for it to burn. Then ponder the fact that it probably doesn't make much sense to save a few dollars if you end up killing the environment.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:20PM (2 children)
Dollars are a rough equivalent for carbon emission (energy usage). If it's cheaper (and the more expensive alternative is fairly priced), there's a fair chance it's emitting less carbon overall.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:29PM (1 child)
As long as all the subsidies fossil fuels get are removed from the equation, then maybe.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:37PM
Not just subsidies, but also their future cost after their carbon has been released. What's it going to cost to relocate Jakarta, Miami, Guangzhou, Osaka, and Mumbai?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:54PM (1 child)
windmills are almost carbon neutral - except for the fossil fuels burned by the maintenance crews as they service them, plus the cost of production and shipping of repair parts, paint, etc.
They just have to do better and be cheaper than the fossil fuel plants. Economics will always drive our energy choices.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:27PM
The problem with fossil fuel plants is that they're using "found" fuels like coal and oil that are relatively easily extracted from the ground, if it weren't for all that pesky carbon they emit. That carbon _should_ be taxed against future costs it will be incurring, such as the relocation of coastal cities.
When the total lifecycle cost of a windmill system is cheaper than the total lifecycle cost of a fossil fuel plant, then I'll believe that they're solidly in "good" territory. This is already being demonstrated on some islands with good wind availability and elevation to make energy storage ponds. It doesn't work everywhere. If you can't afford a big turbine that gets above the tree-tops, don't bother - you're emitting more carbon than you're saving by installing a windmill that doesn't spin very much.
If the windmill system is costing more to install and operate than the fossil fuel plant, much of that expense can be traced to the energy cost of the installation and operation - just because it's not emitting carbon while it's making energy doesn't mean it's not emitting carbon at all.
Remember: the rotting corpses of dead birds also emit methane...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by istartedi on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:22PM (3 children)
If you google around, payback time is about 6 months for wind and in Europe solar pays back anywhere from 1 to 2.5 years based on latitude and local climate.
It doesn't matter though. You can literally live right across the street from megawatts of solar and not even know it if there's a fence. Solar all the way. I'll fight any proposal to put a turbine where I can see it.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:31PM
As I just said: the rotting corpses of dead birds emit methane...
Theoretically, when all power comes from "green" sources, then use of power won't be as big a carbon problem. Still, I believe that the Greens do get carried away when espousing the carbon emission advantages of their systems, and the energy cost (whether derived from carbon emitting fossil fuel, or green sources) does need to be deducted from the lifetime output of the system. This would include the mining requirements for solar panel material, etc. And, when you do cost accounting today, a lot of the cost of a material - whether it's concrete or steel or carbon fiber epoxy, can be correlated to the total energy requirement to bring that material to you.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mobydisk on Friday August 16 2019, @11:51AM
Found the NIMBY. "You can have all the green energy you want, just so long as my aesthetic preferences are taken into account."
The problem is megawatts of solar take 10x the space of megawatts of anything else. There's just not enough land to do it. It's sad when acres of usable growing land are covered with silicon that will wear out in 20 years. Solar belongs on top of houses, but these big solar farms are a poor use of land anywhere except the desert.
(Score: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Friday August 16 2019, @01:28PM
Dunno where you get those payback times - they are right up there with unicorns. For solar, 1 to 2.5 years? Seriously?
Back of the envelope calculations here, talking very round figures. A large-scale installations of solar cells costs $1/watt, plus installation, inverters, management systems, etc.. Total cost, probably around $2/watt. Of course, 1 watt (peak) on a solar panel only actually produces 1 watt on sunny days when the sun is high. You're talking Europe, which (outside of Spain) isn't hugely sunny. You will do very well indeed to get 1/6 watt averaged over 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So: 1/6 * 24 * 365 means that your solar panel will generate about 1.5kwh/year. The wholesale price for electricity in Europe - again, round figures - ranges between $0.05 and $0.10 per kwh. So your $2.00 solar installation has a payback time somewhere between 12 and 24 years.
You can put more precise figures into the above calculation, but there is no way you will reduce it by an order of magnitude. If you see that kind of figure, then they are counting the manufacturing cost of solar cells, forgetting about installation and maintenance, and calculating against peak retail rates for electricity. It's much the same for wind power.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:56PM (1 child)
Later in the thread, you wrote:
That's not even remotely accurate on several levels. First, the big one is that marginal power generation costs overwhelm the one time costs of construction. A power source that burns fossil fuels is going to generate vastly more CO2 over its lifetime than one that doesn't even counting the costs of construction and other initial inputs. A power source that requires the mass input that a fossil fuel generator would require, will have a significant ongoing carbon footprint just from those logistics.
Second, dollars aren't a rough equivalent to carbon emission which in turn is not a rough equivalent for energy usage. Third, you're not comparing like to like. If you're going to count the carbon footprint of wind power installations, you need to do the same for fossil fuel generator installations, which is going to include a fair bit of "Concrete for the foundations, fabrication and shipping of all the parts, whether carbon fiber + epoxy resin, steel, or other metals or plastics."
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday August 16 2019, @03:09PM
One thing that wind power lacks is economy of scale. Even a massive turbine is a tiny fraction of the output of an average sized fossil fuel generation station. They also seem, by past performance, to not have the greatest lifespans, so that cost of construction needs to be multiplied many times (and a few more times to account for inefficiencies of generator placement, power storage, etc.), and multiplied again to account for shorter overall life.
Yes, if we're all on wind power, then it's all "clean" energy, but the cost of that energy can't be compared by looking at megawatts of generator output alone.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @09:14PM (2 children)
Are those identified areas in your own backyard? Then nIMBY buddy!
https://earther.gizmodo.com/anti-wind-farm-activism-is-sweeping-europe-and-the-us-c-1829627812 [gizmodo.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by driverless on Friday August 16 2019, @04:11AM
What sort of European wind generation capacity is left once you subtract the sources at Louise Weiss in Strasbourg and Espace Léopold in Brussels?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 16 2019, @12:15PM
Where I live (Flanders, Belgium), its a bit to densely populated to go building these things. So yes, I do object to the +200m tall windmills they want to put at 300m from housing. (My house is luckily further away, close to 1km)
There just isn't any space with sane distance from population that isn't in the middle of a natures reserve. There is a large windmill farm just out of the coast, so that's good and I support such projects, some spots next to highways are also used, good. But lets keep things somewhat sane where we put them. I'd like to have at least a few spots where I can get a nice view on actual nature without seeing ugly concrete/steel stuff.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @10:05PM (16 children)
Pureed by windmill turbines. Oops.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 15 2019, @10:36PM
Fake news from Big Oil. Actual research has proven that 92% of birds who fly into turbines had pre-existing mental health issues.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:03PM (13 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:33PM
It's true, wind turbines kill birds, but not nearly as efficiently as commercial airport managers killed birds after Captain Sully ditched in the Hudson river.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:40PM (11 children)
He's being modded troll because there is no evidence birds or bats are harmed by wind turbines, and "studies" are probably funded by the oil industry.
The link you posted is a litany of weasel words like "we estimate".
A large wind turbine farm was proposed for some hills overlooking a large town near where I live and the locals went crazy with fears of how their quality of life was going to be destroyed.
Here we are 10 years or so later and they're proud of their wind turbines, and all those things that were going to ruin their lives has never come to pass. Also they get clean electricity.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Friday August 16 2019, @04:21AM (1 child)
There's plenty of evidence in bird corpses. The problem with the above narrative is that cats and glass panes each kill like a couple of orders of magnitude more and yet birds persevere. The real concern where it is legitimate is more for large raptors and such which apparently like nesting in places like that, are relatively few in number, and have some trouble navigating through the blades.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday August 17 2019, @11:23PM
No there is not.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Friday August 16 2019, @04:47PM (8 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Saturday August 17 2019, @11:19PM (7 children)
Ha ha! Oh yes, funded by Big Wind.
Hilarious.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Sunday August 18 2019, @05:49PM (6 children)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 18 2019, @09:49PM (1 child)
No, I think they're built by a bunch of businesses that haven't got the political clout of the oil industry (yet) so haven't managed to fleece taxpayers quite as efficiently.
Yet.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday August 19 2019, @04:24PM
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 18 2019, @09:52PM
Also, "Big Wind" is probably the organic bean industry.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 18 2019, @09:59PM (2 children)
Oh, I just realised that "Big Wind" is probably the sustainable organic bean industry.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Monday August 19 2019, @04:27PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 19 2019, @09:12PM
Yes. I just decided I that I would love to work for Big Wind™
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 16 2019, @04:14AM
Put a picture of a hungry cat on the wind turbine to scare the birds away. You're welcome.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Pslytely Psycho on Thursday August 15 2019, @11:20PM
And when they finish putting windmills in all the places they can and the places they shouldn't and even the places they assured us they couldn't, they will pull so much energy from the atmosphere itself that the winds will quit blowing and we will all die from smog that won't be blown away into other poorer countries! It's a Global Catastrophe of the largest scale! Nowhere will be safe from the wind killing EU! We're doomed! Doomed I say! We need a western project to create huge fans to counter this immediately! Our fans will run on the cleanest coal and human slaver----er--patriots, yes, the sweat and tears of patriots! ! We will beat those Socialists who would deny us the wind! We will retain the meaning of Go Fly A Kite!!!
GFAK.org
startyourownconspiracytheory.net
wholetthispsychooutofhiscage.com
MEME/MakeEddieMunsterEcclesiastic.wtf
whyareyoustillreadingthisshit.lol
damnyoureallyareboredarentyou.dul
/s
No, not sarcasm. Stoned. 'nuff said..
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by Luke on Friday August 16 2019, @05:07AM (1 child)
I'm an engineer, so I like solid science and real facts.
However I've also had to deal with a large wind-driven noise and power generator nearby my property.
No matter what the scientists say about the effects of such things there can be a significant adverse impact on people close by. This impact may not be quantifiable in normal terms, it may be difficult to 'measure', but it is no less real.
In short these things pollute the sound as well as visual landscape, they do so for many miles around.
I have, after many years of thinking about it, and legal battles to deal with the local issue, come to the conclusion that if one or more of these things are to be installed then the land for up to 5m or so around should be acquired from those that don't wish to be affected in this way.
There is precedent for this - if it were a hydro dam project then property covered by the resultant lake would need to be acquired, and a decent sum paid. Why not the same here, where the environment will be seriously polluted for those nearby?
Alternatively put them OFFshore...
(Score: 2) by mobydisk on Friday August 16 2019, @11:58AM
Are wind turbines noisy? [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Friday August 16 2019, @06:14AM (2 children)
I've always been curious how the problem of wind intermittancy scales with area. You still need a big storage option for when there's low wind for many consecutive days. That technology doesn't exist yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 16 2019, @10:13AM (1 child)
The problem being that the most one can sensibly operate is 50% wind / solar.
One needs to back such systems with at least equal thermal (e.g. coal, nuclear, CCGT, OCGT) capacity in order to have Grid Stability, cope with the variability of supply / demand, and handle days where there is no wind (or too much overcast).
Witness the recent UK problems where one a day when they (probably for PR and political reasons) pushed > 40% renewables use, a minor drop out then caused frequency drops, and consequent Grid protection measure being automatically instigated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 16 2019, @05:44PM
hmmmm... but by this logic, when the grid was born many aeons ago the newly installed generator was maybe 200% over capacity? and the grid broke down?
methinks if you want to go intermittend source all the way you gotta overbuild capacity. you can throttle solar inverters and can probably throttle windmills too ...
the folly is footing intermittant nameplate capacity on the same as non renewables?
so sure, a 3500 watt solar inverter with enough pv modules will maximum output 3500 watt. it should be obvious that this depends on how strong the sunlight hitting the panels is ... like non at night.
apple to apples ... pls?
cost is a endless debate. so much what we pay for in modern times has energy cost included. even "money" would not work (being digital) without energy. so how do you calculate "cost" of a energy source that is free, unlimited but intermittant?
money, dollar, rubels etc itself is closely tied to ... "the cost of energy".
maybe for the programatically inclined, the equation that gives mathematicians a head-ache: x=x+1 might capture the problem of "cost of energy" a little bit?
theoretical stuff aside (above) what the unwashed masses experiences as "cost of energy" is obviously the sticker price of the inverter and solarpanels at walmart or whatnot ... NOT the price of having to deal with (example) radiation contamination from nuclear powerplant fallout, which is generated in even working nuke plants but "contained"? oil spill? ground water contamination from fraking? price?