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I couldn't disagree more. They popped up as I was growing up - littering the coastline and countryside. They can be seen from great distances and serve to make
by Normal_gaussian 10y ago
I couldn't disagree more. They popped up as I was growing up - littering the coastline and countryside. They can be seen from great distances and serve to make the place seem an awful lot smaller.
I for one can't wait until we develop a way to live without them - the only condolence is that they move us away from the coal and gas industries. I do hope that solar leaves them in its wake and we can be done with the monstrosities.
- metaobject 10y ago"littering the coastline" Your word choice is interesting.
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoI consider them and most of our industrial buildings a kind of litter on our landscape. Some (and I stress 'some') of the old Victorian bridges are exceptions, and there is the occasional building (mainly churches, pubs, and manors) which integrate in an aesthetically pleasing way, but then again we have already turned all the land to farmland so maybe there is little left to protect inland.
- marze 10y agoCompared to ripping the tops of mountains in West Virginia and states nearby and filling in the beautiful valleys to strip mine coal, a huge win.
- coin 10y ago> Compared to ripping the tops of mountains Or consider nuclear, which is much cleaner, safer and lower coast than all other energy sources
- labster 10y agoSo open pit uranium mines are that much better than ripping the tops off of mountains for coal?
- VMG 10y agoHow many mines are needed for the production and maintenance of wind (or solar) of comparable capacity?
- grigjd3 10y agoTons of them. Materials required for solar cells and turbines have to come from somewhere.
- ethbro 10y agoYou're forgetting the "It's different when it happens in Africa / India / China / South America" caveat to most arguments.
- labster 10y agoI'd normally agree with you, but the top Uranium producers are Canada, Kazakhstan, and Australia. Uranium mining is a first (and second) world problem.
- popey456963 10y agoTo be fair, you need _significantly_ less[0] uranium compared with the amount of coal you mine. For every million mountains destroyed by coal mining, you'd only have to destroy a couple of mountains. Not to mention I don't think uranium is usually mined from mountains but rather pit-mined, makes it far better than the alternatives. Personally however, still support solar. Especially solar house tiles, they look good, pay for themselves after a few years and can be placed on every house. [0] https://xkcd.com/1162/ https://xkcd.com/1162/
- kd0amg 10y agoReminds me of this chart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI99A08Y83E&t=13m45s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PI99A08Y83E&t=13m45s (if you want to skip to the punch line, it's just after 15:00), but this one is still in log scale.
- yongjik 10y ago> ... cleaner, safer and lower coast ... Typo or pun?
- afterburner 10y agoLower cost? Utterly laughable. Nuclear costs are notoriously high, always crazy multiples over budget, and then the operating and decommissioning costs are hidden with budget and accounting tricks. But you won't notice because it's a 50 to 80 year process.
- jahnu 10y agoSadly true. If it weren't for the insane costs I'd be a bigger fan of nuclear.
- opo 10y ago>...Nuclear costs are notoriously high, No, according to the US Energy Information Administration the levelized cost of nuclear has been comparable or less than coal (without the massive negative externalities of coal) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
- afterburner 10y agoFalse dichotomy, it's not nuclear vs coal (which is terrible anyways as you note) https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/2016/12/solar-energy-costs-wind-energy-costs-LCOE-Lazard.png https://c1cleantechnicacom-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/files/201... Also: "not typically included in levelised cost of electricity assessments is the cost of decommissioning a reactor and disposing nuclear waste, says Roula Inglesi-Lotz an energy economist and associate professor at the University of Pretoria. This would further increase the price of nuclear energy. Even when these costs are not included in calculations, the cost of nuclear investment remains high." https://africacheck.org/reports/is-nuclear-energy-really-the-cheapest-source-of-electricity/ https://africacheck.org/reports/is-nuclear-energy-really-the...
- opo 10y agoIf you want baseload power, you can choose between coal, nuclear and natural gas. Natural gas has estimates that range between 72 and 113, so depending on which you choose it might well be cheaper or more expensive than nuclear power. Natural gas has a number of advantages over coal, but unfortunately it is now thought to be almost as bad as coal in terms of effects on climate change - this is a very bad negative externality that isn't priced into the cost. Your original point was that "Nuclear costs are notoriously high" - instead they are projected to be roughly comparable to other forms of baseload power. >..."not typically included in levelised cost of electricity assessments is the cost of decommissioning a reactor and disposing nuclear waste Maybe in other countries, but not the US. Every nuclear power plant in the United States is required, by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as part of its licensing to set aside sufficient funds to decommission the plant when it reaches the end of its useful life. >...(The USA is an exception, because the cost of decommissioning is included in the price of electricity, per the Nuclear Waste Policy Act), Also there is a tax on electricity produced by nuclear power in the US to cover eventual long term waste disposal so it is priced into the cost - though ideally this high level waste will eventually be burned in a 4th gen reactor so the volume of waste will be a small fraction of what it would otherwise be.
- noonespecial 10y agoIf you laid Tolkien's world on ours, Orcs would mine coal with dynamite, Men would use nat-gas and oil, and Elves would use wind and solar. Nuclear? Dwarves all the way. "Clean, safe, and low cost" until you delve too deep and awaken nameless evil!
- anigbrowl 10y agoI want to reject your analogy but it's too damn good :-)
- whyever 10y agoHow is nuclear waste clean? How is a possible reactor meltdown safe or cheap?
- pikzen 10y agoNuclear waste is cleaner than what coal emits in the atmosphere. Store it in an underground facility, figure out what to do with it later. It's not perfect, but it's better than what we have currently for high volume electricity generation. As for reactor meltdowns, well, to give one example, France has beeen one of the world's biggest users of nuclear power, and we haven't had any meltdown ever. So, uh, don't build your reactors near dangerous zones, and don't go with the cheapest contractor for a critical piece of infrastructure? Meltdowns don't happen unless you do something really, really stupid. Nuclear power is still the better cost/production method we have for now. It's safe (yes, the stats include deaths while building which puts wind/ocean at a disadvantage, but overall it is just as safe as renewable energy), it's efficient. Just don't pull a Chernobyl and actually follow security measures.
- grigjd3 10y agoReprocessing could take care of the waste problem.
- coin 10y agoThe nuclear waste problem has already been solved, at this point it's a political issue. See http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter11.html
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoMy point exactly
- hueving 10y agoFalse dichotomy. That's not how a significant amount of coal is mined. Yet every windmill sticks up into the air as a reminder of human presence.
- j3097736 10y ago>reminder of human presence. Still not as bad as a plastic bottle on the ground.
- Sanddancer 10y agoThe smog generated by burning coal gives the air a rather obnoxious brown tinted reminder of human presence.
- TheOtherHobbes 10y agoIf you think really coal pollution is invisible, try visiting China - which, perhaps not coincidentally, is currently rushing headlong towards a fully renewable economy.
- hueving 10y agoWhat? I'm talking about a bad generalization made about mining, not coal pollution.
- noonespecial 10y agoI guess it's a matter of perspective. I suppose the true end-game is for tech is to be completely invisible. The great thing about wind and solar is that when you're done with them, you can pretty much just pack them up and haul them off. Strip-mining? Not so much.
- Normal_gaussian 10y agoI agree they are much better than strip mining and I said as much, they just are not beautiful.
- ashark 10y agoMaybe it depends on where they are? I think the ones in Iowa and Kansas look great, but that might be because there's not much else to look at. And if the old-and-rural endless plains meet towering-tech-wonder-behemoth aesthetic isn't your thing, there's so much nothing there that you can just drive a while and not see them (or anything else) and have that, too.
- hueving 10y ago>Strip-mining? Not so much. I assume you don't know much about strip mining, because strip mines in first world countries reclaim the land they mine as they follow the seam.
- foofoo55 10y agoI also find them an eyesore, audibly irritating[1], and the documented bird deaths are awful[2]. But, I'll take them over coal any day. [1] http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0114183 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... [2] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-w...
- MagnumOpus 10y agoMeh about [2] - house cats and glass&steel skyscrapers kill an awful lot more birds than that. There is absolutely no outcry against either; that's how we know the outrage against windmills killing birds is planted and artificially kept alive.
- MrTonyD 10y agoAnd I was reading that most "capped" underwater oil wells are actually leaking oil - and there are many thousands. So oil is silently killing incredible amounts of sea life. So, while I regret the loss of animal life to wind turbines it is much better than the loss of life to oil. (And new wind turbines in the ocean are being placed at heights which almost eliminate bird impacts and also being designed with structures which won't attract birds as a place to perch, unlike prior generations of wind turbines.)
- ams6110 10y agoOil leaks naturally out of the sea floor also.
- AReallyGoodName 10y agoTransport too. I suspect that's the biggest bird killer. Which really just goes to show how good wind is. The worst complaints aren't actually a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
- anigbrowl 10y ago
- chinathrow 10y agoI do hope we can come up with just about anything than nuclear.
- 7952 10y agoDamage to landscape seems like a trivial price to pay.
- hsjhgktfdy 10y agoSolar has a much larger physical footprint than wind and there's no getting around that even at 100% efficiency (which will never be obtained). Footprint that unlike wind, cannot be used for agriculture or accessed by much wildlife; it's fenced in and covered with panels. Here in upstate New York there are planned wind and solar farms in the region and every one of both brings out a certain crowd of torches and pitchforks. There's no pleasing some people. The energy has to come from somewhere, and right now coal, gas, and nuclear together make up most of the fuel mix.
- mavhc 10y agoAre the torches burning sustainable wood? What are they doing about the wood particle pollution? Were the pitchforks forged in coal powered furnaces? Did they drive to protest? We need nuclear, solar and wind, or 90% of people to die and the rest live in caves.
- Gravityloss 10y agoSolar might require a bigger footprint but it is easier to place close to the point of use, at least up to a certain extent...
- glenstein 10y agoThe disagreement between you and the parent commenter illustrates something that I think is fascinating about NIMBYism with respect to windmills. NIMBYism depends on the idea that the aesthetic judgments of windmills are objective, shared across people. Windmills really do look bad, objectively. Normally talking about aesthetic experiences as if they are universal is frowned upon, because the judgment of beauty is taken by many people to have an intrinsic quality of subjectivity to it. But that appears not to be a problem in the community of people that oppose wind turbines.
- lqdc13 10y agoThere is some subjectivity to beauty, but there is also some objectivity. For example, things that incorporate golden ratio tend too look good. If you look at parent's comment: "They are. Like living sculptures. There's just something extremely dignified about them. Like finally growing up after the childishness of strip-mining. The adults are here. " You can see that the judgement of beauty here is tainted by social implications, energy concerns, and possibly political environment. This is only my reading of it though so maybe the parent meant something else. I personally find them attractive but I haven't spent much time around them at all.
- vacri 10y ago> Windmills really do look bad, objectively. And yet if you were to make the same argument about a coal or even nuclear plant, you'd be considered a loon. Coal plants don't just look awful, they also stink up the surrounding areas. And while I've heard plenty of people say they like the look of windmills (I'm one myself), I've never heard anyone say they like the smell of coal plants.
- Broken_Hippo 10y agoMost folks don't know what a coal plant looks like. For example, I can put a few wind turbines or the classic towers from a nuclear plant into artwork and folks get the reference. I paint in a coal plant, and folks just think factory. Nuclear plants, the Simpson-esque version I picture, are beautiful in their own right, btw, as are nearly all factories. It just depends on framing.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoSeeing thousands of hectares of solar panels everywhere you go might not be so awe inspiring. Could be quite dull and monotonous. Although I guess beauty is subjective.
- unlmtd 10y agoSolar is dirty and hard/impossible to repair. Bio fuels are a much smarter way to create energy from the sun, especially since electric power cannot substitute liquid fuel. Solar panels won't go very far. If someone has a good place for solar panels, and xe still brings in food by fuel transport, that person isn't sharp. #growfoodmotherfuckers
- mikestew 10y agoThey popped up as I was growing up - littering the coastline and countryside. I guess you've never seen them blow the top off a West Virginia mountain to get the coal out. Windmills can be replaced by solar, but that mountain isn't coming back. (Caveat: don't know if that's still done or not, but it was done plenty in the past.) If feel ya on the aesthetics (though I personally like them), but if you're complaining about windmills "littering the coastline", then maybe blowing the tops off mountains doesn't happen in your backyard. Instead you got windmills. Consider it your aesthetic tax for having reliable, inexpensive electricity.
- Sanddancer 10y agoMountaintop removal is still done pretty often because it's the economically cheapest way to do it, damn the economic, social, and environmental consequences of that action.
- astrodust 10y agoWest Virginia might end up flatter than Kansas at the rate we're going.
- empath75 10y agoThe could coat the country with neon flashing windmills playing the nyan cat song 24 hours a day and it would still be better than fossil fuels.
- Sanddancer 10y agoI grew up as the last oil wells in the South Bay part of LA were being brought down. I've been by the Tehachapi wind farm, the Mojave wind farm, driven past the Solar One/Two demonstration plant [1]. They all have an environmental and observation impact, all the technology does is change where that impact is felt. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project#Solar_One https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project#Solar_One
- barking 10y agoI totally agree with your point about how they make the country seem smaller, it's my main gripe about them. I also feel like mountains were were about the last place we hadn't domesticated apart from the odd telecoms mast but now we've found a use for them. There is nowhere wild left.
- djrogers 10y agoThis can vary greatly on the type of windmill... I live near the Altamont wind farm, and the oldest windmills are undeniably ugly, and so small that they required tons of them. The next generation windmills were less ugly, but still too small. I always found them rather unobjectionable, but I could see one quibbling with that. The current giants being put up though? They look great! They have these 90 foot blades that look like they were designed by an advanced alien race, their size makes them operate with a slow graceful sweep, and the relatively low density of them leaves the hillsides more visible as well.
- ocschwar 10y agoAltamont is a disgrace for the whole industry. They had incentives to install and retain mills at the site, but almost no difference to the bottom line on how much power they produced. That's why these ancient mills are still there, even if they're missing turbine vanes.