21 ms·

Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest, and It's Getting Cheaper

451 points by ph0rque 9y ago

tchaffee 9y ago
And yet we have a president promising to bring back coal. If only our population could elect leaders who will keep up with the outstanding technology the US scientific community (really the global scientific community) produces. EDIT: It would be nice if folks down voting could leave a comment so I could learn what the objection is. I saw no mention in other comments about this specific challenge that America faces in terms of growing renewable energy installations.
- sctb 9y ago
  We started with the topic of the price of wind energy, and now we're into generic political controversy with no steps in-between. Do you see how that takes us from a concrete discussion into tedious flamewar territory? The guidelines ask us not to do that, and also not to complain about voting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - tchaffee 9y ago
    I wasn't complaining about the voting. I'm fine with getting my comments downvoted as long as I can learn why. Without an explanation it might take me a lot time to guess what I did wrong and to improve. Isn't it better for the entire community if I improve my comments quickly? > Do you see how that takes us from a concrete discussion into tedious flamewar territory? If current US politics weren't relevant to the future of renewable energy, then sure. I thought it was a relevant concern. What I wrote isn't a political opinion, it's a fact. I have read the guidelines and I do try to be careful about posting stuff that's purely a political opinion. Thanks for your comment, it was helpful even if I don't agree 100%. At least I now know which of the guidelines you think I was not following.
- mchannon 9y ago
  There's a lot of metallurgical coal necessary for the construction of certain high-grade steels, such as those you'd find in wind turbines. Similarly, try and make a PV solar cell without coal in the value chain. You can't (I can). Arguably, some coal jobs are green jobs. The thermal coal industry, long on the ropes, and not at all green, has not been recovering.
  - jabl 9y ago
    > There's a lot of metallurgical coal necessary for the construction of certain high-grade steels, such as those you'd find in wind turbines. Sure. Though I don't see how that should preclude getting rid of coal for power and heat generation?
  - Something1234 9y ago
    > Similarly, try and make a PV solar cell without coal in the value chain. You can't (I can). What do you mean by "(I can)"?
    - mchannon 9y ago
      Patent-pending technology. Email me for details.
  - hwillis 9y ago
    Steel does not require coke (which can also be made from things other than coal): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron Steel is <2% of US coal consumption, too. It's basically irrelevant to coal as a pollution or economic issue. Any resource that uses coal can be replaced by a renewable source. Coal is just a carbon source, and carbon is one of the most accessible elements. Producing very pure carbon from biomaterials produces energy and is very similar to the production of coke from coal. It's very economical and the only reason it isn't used is because coal is so insanely cheap.
- savanaly 9y ago
  I downvote every comment that complains about being downvoted, for what it's worth. Let the chips fall where they may, the place to discuss why something is or isn't downvoted is somewhere else, never in the replies to a comment that's purportedly about something substantial.
  - tchaffee 9y ago
    Downvote away. I'm more interested in learning than I am in internet points. And thank you for your comment explaining your downvote.
worldsayshi 9y ago
There's so much misinformation about renewable energy. I was quite surprised by this. So how does it compare to nuclear energy?
- samcheng 9y ago
  Once you factor in the costs to decommission a nuclear facility, nuclear becomes one of the most expensive options.
  - virmundi 9y ago
    When you say that, does it take into account nuclear where we reuse fuel?
    - pjc50 9y ago
      Fuel sourcing and disposal is a small part of the cost. Edit: a projected cost breakdown for Hinkley Point C! https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Point-C.pdf https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Po... (figure 2) So fuel is not inconsiderable; 6.2bn "fuel costs", 1.8 "fuel management", 2.6 "fuel disposal". From a total of £54.8 bn. Add 10-50% to actual construction and decommissioning costs for overruns.
  - worldsayshi 9y ago
    And yet still there are so many people that believe that nuclear is the only pragmatic path to a green energy future.
  - RivieraKid 9y ago
    True, but nuclear energy has two important benefits. It has a stable output (so you don't have to invest in energy storage) and it takes up much less space (so it doesn't visually disrupt the landscape as much).
    - olau 9y ago
      Demand is not stable so you still need energy storage or something else to fill the peaks. The only alternative is not running the plant at full capacity, which will make it even more expensive. Less space: that's true. But you still need a fair bit of space to the nearest city. :)
samcheng 9y ago
It's cheap in the places that are windy. One big challenge (mentioned tangentially in the article) is in moving this cheap energy from the windy center of the continent to the populated coasts. The coolest project to tackle this problem (in my opinion) is Tres Amigas, a superconducting interchange between the west coast grid and the (wind-heavy) Texas grid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation
- jessaustin 9y ago
  Lots of coastline is plenty windy. Why isn't there more offshore wind generation in USA like there is in other nations? My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast have no taste and think that offshore wind generation is an eyesore.
  - strictnein 9y ago
    > "My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast..." Yep. An example: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index....
  - ccorda 9y ago
    At least with respect to the west coast: > Unlike the Atlantic Ocean, where offshore wind farms can be bolted into the seabed in relatively shallow water, the West Coast's continental shelf plunges quickly and steeply. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703...
    - olau 9y ago
      There are efforts underway to develop floating foundations, but I believe it's still in the test phase with only a few turbines deployed.
      - nicktelford 9y ago
mrfusion 9y ago
How close are we to mass deployment of rooftop turbines? Seems like the installation could be way cheaper than solar.
- jabl 9y ago
  Very far? In wind turbines, bigger is better, as bigger turbines are mounted on higher towers and thus get stronger and more consistent winds.
- RALaBarge 9y ago
  As jabl says, it is a question of the surface area of the blades. Another consideration is the noise that they make. I am from rural Michigan initially, and the main push back from the residents (aside from seeing them) is hearing the constant / woosh woosh woosh / noise that you can hear if you live close enough. That said again that noise would be proportional to the area of the blades themselves. I presume they become part of the background noise as these people have no complaints about the huge trucks that air break down the 2 lane highway connecting these areas to civilization and I notice it when I am back in the area.
  - eloff 9y ago
    Plus you'd need a way to clean up the dead birds. I know my mother loves all her birds that come to her bird feeders (she names them!), she'd never install a wind turbine around her house.
    - pjc50 9y ago
      Turbines are about as dangerous as windows. Although you can alleviate that with stickers. https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/ https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/
  - Tuna-Fish 9y ago
    > As jabl says, it is a question of the surface area of the blades. Not just the surface area, but also altitude from ground. Unlike solar panels, wind turbines really want to be big. The cost/watt goes down rapidly as the size of the unit increases -- the reason for the cost of wind electricity being driven as low as it is is basically that the turbines have been made larger.
mrfusion 9y ago
I wonder how many turbines we'd need to be able to run them inreverse and affect the weather. Edit: I know we're no where close to doing this but how far is it. Are we 1% of the way there?
- horsecaptin 9y ago
  Wind wars?
- Retric 9y ago
  Even a small fan slightly changes the weather. But let's say you want a 5MPH light breeze across the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale The atmosphere is really heavy. 14.696 pounds per square inch, but you don't need to alter it all call it the bottom 10 pounds * (5280mile/foot * 12foot / inch)^2 * 3.797 million square miles across the US. = 1.5 ^ 17 pounds. That is 1.25 x 10 ^ 17 joules. Let's say your doing this over 1 hour that's 35,000 GW vs 82 GW of actual wind power generation. Of course a 50MPH wind (strong gale) needs 100 times as much power and drag is going prevent this from being even close to 100% efficient. PS: I suspect I am really messing up the units here.
  - snovv_crash 9y ago
    This assumes the wind is flowing over a frictionless surface with no protrusions. In reality trees, mountains etc cause drag below, and other atmosphere causes drag above. Drag is proportional to the cube of speed, so I really don't think a wind turbine will be able to affect wind speed much. Well, not more than reforestation would, and wind turbines don't even cause local temperature or humidity differences like a forest would.
    - Retric 9y ago
      Turbines actively extract energy which may give them larger impact than say a building of the same size. Anyway, as I said drag is going to be an issue. But, I think a larger issue air is never calm. So it's going to be hard to notice at low speeds because winds are often much stronger than that and going in random directions. Still, IMO that's on the order of magnitude you would need to do things like shift a hurricane's path slightly.
abpavel 9y ago
Sure, instead of destroying climate indirectly by heating atmosphere, let's destroy it directly by blocking wind paths. Last time it happened, it created the largest desert in the world - just look at the effect Himalayas had on Sahara.
- bdamm 9y ago
  Seems ok to me. If anything we ought to be removing some of the energy we're so enthusiastically adding to the atmosphere.
  - abpavel 9y ago
    If you mean temperature, then wind turbines actually increase temperature (friction, inefficiencies...) of locale climate. Solar panels cool the Earth, not turbines. Wind is a byproduct of solar power. Why not derive energy from the primary source (solar) instead of going for secondary (wind). Edit: really curious about downvotes. There is nothing in the above that's controversial. I've also provided data below: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/044.. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/044.... "Specifically, we discovered that operational wind turbines raised air temperature by 0.18 °C"
- usaphp 9y ago
  Do you think solar panels also change climate by taking the sunlight away from the otherwise heated earth?
  - abpavel 9y ago
    Nothing is going to grow underneath the solar panels. At least with solar panels you can selectivaly decide where nothing should grow. With roofs it's already an easy decision. With wind paths - not so much.
    - eropple 9y ago
      I assume, before posting this very serious set of comments, that you have exhaustively researched exactly how much turbine surface area would be needed to cause climactic impacts and are prepared to show your work, especially around how a sub-percent surface area of the Himalayas would cause such drastic results in a desert a continent away. I would love to see this sterling research I'm certain you have conducted. Please educate all of us so that we can be enlightened as to the turbine menace.
mabbo 9y ago
The only problem is variability. I know that many places have fairly stable wind 99% if the time, but it's the absolute lowest you need to worry about. If we are to rely on wind as a power source, we either have to only rely on its lowest output or else rely on its typical output, but have a second source that can be easily scaled up and down. The problem is that the good sources of energy that can scale up and down well and cheaply are coal and natural gas. Nuclear, by contrast, works best when is outputting constant amounts of energy.
- eru 9y ago
  Some alternatives for quick scaling up and down: - finding some big consumers (like aluminium smelters) that can scale down. - batteries (both as scalable consumers and suppliers); widespread electric car usage might accidentally help her
  - krrrh 9y ago
    > batteries (both as scalable consumers and suppliers); widespread electric car usage might accidentally help her I've been in a some jurisdictions that have periods of low water supply where you can't water your lawn or garden on certain days, or sometimes based on whether your house has an odd or even number. Imagine the same applied to fueling up your car. Not enough wind and sun this week, sorry you'll have to stretch out the capacity you put into your car last week. Obviously demand could be shaped with spot pricing, but it's interesting to imagine how rolling brownouts would affect mobility and transportation.
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Restrictions like these have been used on electricity for roughly as long as they have on water. They're slightly different in that with electricity it's often the peak usage that they care about rather than total usage, but some people are ordered or paid to reduce usage at certain times where this is considered cheaper/better than building a coal plant that's only used 1 day a year. Due to the nature of modern electricity generation, electric car batteries will help the grid rather than harm it, as they can be (and are) set to use off-peak power to avoid increasing the peaks, while getting best usage of the grid at other times.
tomcam 9y ago
Does no one care that thousands of birds get shredded every year regardless of endangered status?
- haeffin 9y ago
  Illustration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-AYhMoLorI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-AYhMoLorI
- komaromy 9y ago
  Maybe if it was millions, but thousands of birds is a rounding error.
- pjc50 9y ago
  No, they don't; this is only ever brought up in the context of wind, and not any of the other risks to birds: https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/ https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/
- peteretep 9y ago
  No.
- stinos 9y ago
  I do think people care. But you should realize that in comparision with the hundreds of millions (!) of shredded birds because of cars/pesticides/powerlines/... this is peanuts.
- russdill 9y ago
  Go look at this chart: http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/ http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mort... Come back and tell me about how people bringing up bird strikes is relation to wind power are being intellectually honest and not pushing an agenda of some kind.
  - matthewmarkus 9y ago
    That chart is based on data from 2003! Recently, for one Scottish installation, government reports indicated "that more than 1,000 gannets would perish in the turbines each week, along with a similar number of puffins and hundreds of kittiwakes [1]." Many birders and environmentalists are very concerned about this issue [2]. The video footage of a bird attracted to a turbine's blades is fascinating. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/20/scotland-birds-at-risk-windfarms-gannets-kittiwakes-puffins https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/20/scotland-bir... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMfyJmSuOGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMfyJmSuOGM
freddref 9y ago
Could someone comment on solid state solutions to harnessing wind energy?
- ajross 9y ago
  An electrical generator is 100% solid state up to the output wire (battery storage may not be). Not sure what your question is.
  - WJW 9y ago
    Except for the spinning parts you mean? Those bearings run out and need maintenance. Ontopic: There are some preliminary design for electrostatic wind energy converters: see for example http://www.wired.co.uk/article/bladeless-wind-turbine-ewicon http://www.wired.co.uk/article/bladeless-wind-turbine-ewicon
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    I think "solid state" is being used as meaning "no moving parts".
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Are there any? I can't imagine how one would harvest kinetic energy without moving parts...
- andrewl 9y ago
  This is the closest thing I'm aware of, but I'm not educated in this field: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930552-600-plastic-grass-could-cover-buildings-to-produce-energy-from-wind/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930552-600-plastic-... The "grass" generates electricity when it waves back and forth in the wind.
falcolas 9y ago
I think they buried the lede: wind is so cheap because of tax credits. Once those are taken out, it's simply competitive with the LNG power generation, and about 2/3 of coal. Turbines require a ton of high risk maintenance, and have limited lifespans due to the stresses they are put through. Still very good, but not as good as the headline and the first half of the article claims.
- whyenot 9y ago
  Fossil fuels in the US also receive government subsidies, at least indirectly, don't they? If you take out wind's tax credits, shouldn't you also account for those as well?
- the_why_of_y 9y ago
  Wind needs some subsidies so it can compete with the huge subsidies for carbon based fuels. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0
nikolay 9y ago
The current method to harness wind energy is primitive and leads to visual pollution of the landscape. We're swimming in a vast ocean of endless energy, and, yet, we use very primitive mechanical means to harness it!
- yuliyp 9y ago
  OK... What is a better mechanism? that'll look better to you?
  - nikolay 9y ago
    Let's say, thorium reactors.
    - adrianN 9y ago
      I'm not sure I understand how Thorium reactors capture wind energy...
      - nikolay 9y ago
        I'm not sure why do you think that in my comment I expressed any interest in this primitive mean of harnessing the ocean of energy that we swim into. Wind and solar are possibly the most primitive ones and not a bit more advanced than burning fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is the only intelligent mean we have invented so far - everything else is savagery.
        sumedh 9y ago
        > Nuclear energy is the only intelligent mean we have invented so far Do you want a nuclear plant in your backyard?
        adrianN 9y ago
        Do you want a wind turbine in your backyard?
k__ 9y ago
Yet people hate it from the bottom of their heart, it seems. A friend of mine works for a company that builds these things in Germany and he says most people hate it. And even those who like it say, they can't allow them to build on their property, because their neighbours would hate them for it. People say these things are loud, ugly, kill birds and bats etc. pp. They could have done so much to decentralise energy production, somehow the most are built and owned by big energy corps so they can tell the world how "green" they are...
- anon_dev_123456 9y ago
  They suck! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc - No one I know would enjoy living in this conditions.
- Xylakant 9y ago
  Having lived in viewing distance of two nuclear power plants in germany, I can tell you I vastly prefer wind turbines. Coal power plants are not exactly beautiful either. Germany is a densely populated country, there's practically no space where you can build anything without disturbing someone. I'm afraid we'll have to disturb someone if we want electricity.
  - deusex_ 9y ago
    That's one of the advantages of off shore turbines, no disturbing.
  - k__ 9y ago
    Yes, same here. I lived in viewing distance to AKW Biblis, the sun basically set behind it in the evening, kinda surreal picture, haha. I also regularly go on vacation on a farm that has multiple wind turbines in viewing and hearing distance, find them kinda soothing.
    - Xylakant 9y ago
      The Rhine valley is crazy with nuclear plants. A few kilometers upstream from Biblis is Philippsburg and then there's Fessenheim on the French side and Leibstadt in Switzerland. That makes 4 nuclear plants on 350km of Europes largest river valley.
fit2rule 9y ago
I'd be quite happy stepping off the grid and having my own small suite of power-harvestors, out on the property and so on, and generally share the overage of the system with any other nomad who needed to charge their suit, so to speak. I've sort of come to the personal belief that the way to solve the power crisis is for us all to be harvesting it from the most local sources, and .. perhaps .. become less dependent on mass/social- infrastructure, reducing our group load, decomposing cities, &etc. The technology is there. I could easily live off the stream and wind energy in most of the world, personally. I just don't quite have the harvesting device. I wonder what an "iEnergyHarvester", y'know .. the cool new disruptive kind .. would look like?
- mythrwy 9y ago
  I live in a very windy rural area and looked at getting a small wind turbine. But after researching I gave up the plan. The reason is maintenance. Every year have to find a way to get up to the thing and grease (too high and not suitable for a ladder, means renting a manlift at $300+). Also parts can go out and apparently do from time to time, it's mechanical with a lot of stress and movement. Can't buy these parts at home depot which means keeping a large inventory on hand or else potentially being down while on-line order comes in. The estimated expense barely justified the purchase (over a long period, I don't recall details but had it figured out at one point), with estimated repairs, particularly the need to reach the top every year, it just didn't add up and seemed like a fair amount of work. I believe solar is much more feasible for home installations. Also, I have seen wind turbine models similar to the size I was looking at, quite often they appear to not work and are just sitting there. Maybe there are better models, but I really think solar is just easier to deal with at a small scale.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  > "I wonder what an "iEnergyHarvester", y'know .. the cool new disruptive kind .. would look like?" What do you mean by this? Are you simply talking about solar panels/wind turbine/etc?
  - fit2rule 9y ago
    I'm talking about someone like Apple, revolutionizing the local/personal power harvesting technology, by applying to this problem a similar ethos to that of the iDevices. Like, I'd love to have a portable harvester that has a similar degree of comfort and performance as I'm used to with my laptop and phone. I'm sure they're out there - but I'd prefer an Apple-style level of quality ..
dumbfounder 9y ago
And here's why it doesn't matter for most of the US: energy companies are regulated to make a percentage of the money they spend. This incentivizes them to SPEND MORE MONEY for energy so they can make more money. Until we fix that, most of us are screwed (at least the ones who can't get off or mostly off the grid). Sources: My friend who runs an energy company and I also found it here: http://blog.aee.net/how-do-electric-utilities-make-money http://blog.aee.net/how-do-electric-utilities-make-money
- cc439 9y ago
  "And here's why it doesn't matter for most of the US: energy companies are regulated to make a percentage of the money they spend." This is also found in the ACA (Obamacare) in the form of a minimum medical loss ratio. Insurers must spend 80% of what they take in from premiums on direct medical care and their profit is capped at 3% of premiums. It disincentivizes cost reductions as 3% of $5 billion is a lot more than 3% of $1 billion.
  - juiyout 9y ago
    Apology to bring up Taiwan again in the same thread. Taiwan's national health insurance was once praised by Michael Porter and other Nobel prize laureates. It was marveled as the best invention to bring to the masses. Basically, Taiwan congress establishes a fixed budget for health care for next year. Then no matter how many patients or how expensive it runs next year, National Health Insurance Administration pays the hospital proportionally by assigning "points" to treatments. For example, pulling one wisdom tooth is 10 points. 1 point is 1 dollar last year then 10 points earn the hospital 10 dollar last year. This year it may go down to 0.8 dollar per point then 10 points mean 8.8 dollar due to more patient visits/treatment higher cost nationally. All the while, the cost of treatment hasn't really changed. Now when NHI started out, it was indeed 1 TWD per point. Now it has gone to 0.5 TWD per point. (Detail varies, this is the gist of it). Hospital jobs are not as good as it used to be nowadays.
    - brianwawok 9y ago
      What happens if the pay per point is too low to retain employees, and all the doctors move to the US? What is to discourage a doctor from doing a 6 point procedure even though a 3 point procedure has a better or same outcome for the patient?
anon_dev_123456 9y ago
They need to figure out how to keep these things away from people's homes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc Imagine living in this constant flicker, I would go insane.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  I completely agree with you. (It's worth nothing that fracking and coal mining are even worse.)
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- ceejayoz 9y ago
  If by "constant" you mean "for a short period of time in the morning/evening". A tree waving in the breeze creates the same effect, and people seem to live with that.
  - Coincoin 9y ago
    A tree in the wind is random, a turbine is not. edit: I love wind noise, it doesn't mean I also love car alarms because they are also noise.
- joveian 9y ago
  Yeah, my current apartment is in the path of a small urban one for a little while in the spring and fall when the sun is in the right place. It is surprisingly annoying, but tolerable for me since it is just a short time of day for a short part of the year (and I don't get seizures, important since it seems to flash at seizure-triggering speeds). The big ones look like they are slow enough to avoid triggering seizures but would otherwise be worse, lasting longer each day and for more of the year and would be just as annoying. I never considered this side effect until it happened to me.
- adrianN 9y ago
  That sucks. I wonder for how many weeks a year the angle of the sun is such that the shadow hits that house.
architectonic 9y ago
we at energy&meteo systems https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/company.php https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/company.php provide means for overcoming the fluctuation problem of renewable energy while offering some cool software services. Two main methods for achieving that are the virtual power plants and would class forecast of the productivity of wind and solar power plants. We're based in Germany but have customers all over the world including the US. Find out more on our website or contact us.
menacingly 9y ago
I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I bring this up when we talk about wind energy and I've never had a satisfying answer. Maybe that's due to not knowing what I'm talking about. Since the wind does other stuff beyond just feeling breezy, it stands to reason that there exists some level of wattage we could pull out of it that would have undesirable effects. If there were no wind tomorrow, we can agree that this would be bad. Are there lower levels of energy depletion where the effects would be subtler and harder to anticipate? Would pulling 0.5% of the wind's energy result in shifts in weather patterns, even if it's localized? I mean, since we're collectively so good at breaking things, maybe it's worth assuming we will fill some hypothetical area with as many contraptions to take energy from the wind as we can, and that these contraptions will get increasingly effective. EDIT: There are some great replies to this, and the minds of HN are always an awesome resource to tap. I guess I can't shake the vague spooky feeling I get from interfering with a massive system that feeds into itself in unpredictable ways, but it sounds like ruthless expansion of some massive drain on the wind system is unlikely/impossible.
- throwaway613834 9y ago
  I understand the amount we might ever extract pales in comparison to the amount that would upset any natural phenomena.
  - juiyout 9y ago
    Is it true that we once had the same rationale with coal?
    - URSpider94 9y ago
      I would say that with coal, we never even considered the impact - carbon dioxide, much less the greenhouse effect, were unknown when we started burning coal in earnest. With wind power, smart people have at least sat down and done the math.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
shmerl 9y ago
So why aren't prices going down? On the contrary, if you subscribe to use something like Arcadia Power, you'd actually pay a bit more than regular electric bill.
zeristor 9y ago
There are plans to build a 6 km^2 island in the middle of the North Sea to act as a marshalling point for a whole new raft of wind turbines on the Doggerbank. https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/05/north-sea-wind-power-hub-offshore-wind-farm/ https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/05/north-sea-wind-pow... It would also be a routing point for powerlines out to the surrounding countries. My question is which country's territory would it be? A key question since this would bestow rights on the surrounding ocean. If this is planned to be a European territory then wouldn't that in itself be novel?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bluGill 9y ago
  It would probably count as a boat/ship: some country like Panama (ie no geographical relation to the north sea) will register, and on board their laws will apply. It will account for no ownership of the sea around it other than a safety factor so boats don't collide.
jamez1 9y ago
It is cheap because it is a poor power source, the energy is delivered at inopportune times. C&I doesn't want to sign PPAs with them, which is why they have to discount heavily to get them. This article then takes that fact and pretends it means wind can undercut gas? Gas, especially gas peakers command the highest prices per MW because they run at the times when we need energy the most. That then covers the cost of having them idle for the rest of the year. Wind has low operating costs but the maintenance and depreciation are huge, so looking at it from an operating cost perspective completely undermines this. The simple litmus test we should use is that there are no profitable wind companies. It's not very hard to run one - so if this article is accurate, where the hell are they?
- verelo 9y ago
  I actually love that it's cheap, for the reasons you state. If nothing else this just encourages the market to look at storage more seriously, if there is money being left on the table that could be redirected to storage this might be a good means of replacing gas down the road.
- dpierce9 9y ago
  https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30112 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30112 If you can't get a loan to build wind farms, why was new 7.7 GW of capacity added in 2016? Also, Alstom, Invenergy? I know you are trolling but come on.
  - jamez1 9y ago
    Where did I say anything about loans? You do realize renewable energy is subsidized by RECs, who wouldn't want to add capacity when the government will pay the shortfall! They aren't profitable on their own, and barely turn a profit when you look at the full life cycle of these businesses due to the maintenance/depreciation costs which are hidden when you look at pure operating profit. Invenergy has huge natural gas generation and seems to want to sell every wind farm they build. I don't know why you think they're an example of a profitable wind farm operator, there isn't any evidence that they make money off it. Alstom makes nothing off it's wind either.
beaucoupfish 9y ago
Can anyone offer any advice for software engineers/product managers with a web app background, interested in moving into the renewables world? Open either to using existing experience or learning something new.
- Caveman_Coder 9y ago
  I work in that industry and have previously worked as TSO as well. There is a lot of software used for monitoring/data collection & analysis/work management/etc. that the TSOs and BAs rely on daily. The biggest issue I see with that industry though is that it is dominated by Siemens/ABB/OSI (on the SCADA/ICS/EMS side) and OSIsoft PI (database). There are some software applications that the RC will use (iTOA/Space-Time Insight/COS/EIM/ect.) that could easily be improved and don't have as much market dominance as Siemens/ABB/OSI. Also, mobile application for utilities is pretty much non-existent. Hope this helps.
  - beaucoupfish 9y ago
    Many thanks. Looks like one of the first jobs is figuring out the acronyms :) Any suggestions on where/how to go about learning the industry, and where the opportunities might be? e.g. Blogs, courses, forums, etc.
wallace_f 9y ago
Why cant we factor in the human life and geopolitical costs in to fossil fuel cost? The only valid argument in the economist's mind to regulate a market is to remedy market failures. Fossil fuel addiction create externalities like smog, global warming, and war; but no consumer has to pay for those costs at the pump. Instead, they're shouldered by the taxpayer, future generations, and direct casualties. So we have a classic, textbook market failure here. If we really add up the true cost of fossil fuels it makes wind look clearly better.
- an_account 9y ago
  That’s clearly not what this article is about. But on the subject that you’re talking about, it would be great if the US started phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    The case for wind that the article argued for can be additionally bolstered by the what I just mentioned. I dont see why that's off topic?
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    The article headline is: "Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest Sources of Electricity, and It's Getting Cheaper" But their measure of "cheapness" only takes into account direct payments. Once you account for externalities like people dying of lung diseases, global warming etc. the headline would be: "Wind Energy has been the Cheapest Source of Electricity for a while now, and It's still Getting Cheaper" Which is a different thing entirely. For example, an EU study from 2014 already found that onshore Wind was the cheapest available power source, coming in at less than half the price of coal, once you factor in health etc. Once those well established facts are recognized, the whole conversation about "when will wind be cheaper" seems a bit irrelevant. When will the so-called free market stop killing us? would be one alternative headline.
torpfactory 9y ago
It's really exciting to see wind and solar becoming so cheap to generate. As the price of wind and solar drop further, grid-scale energy storage will become more and more attractive (and necessary). Investment dollars chasing the dream of buying this cheap-to-generate electricity and sell it back to the grid at prices competitive with fossil sources.
Animats 9y ago
If only it weren't so variable. Averaging over a large area won't help. 4 to 1 daily variation in total wind generation for big grids (CAISO and PJM) is normal. We're going to need huge battery farms. Huge. Tesla is building the largest battery farm in the world, in Australia, and it will only hold about 100 MWH. The Helms Pumped Storage Plant near Fresno is at least an order of magnitude bigger.
- adrianN 9y ago
  We could also build four times as many turbines, and/or supplement with solar.
- dx034 9y ago
  Once battery prices are low enough the result is probably not huge battery farms but batteries at every wind turbine. That way you can create a fairly constant output. With batteries at homes you can also levelize input demand so that the effect is steered from both sides.
_Codemonkeyism 9y ago
Germany reached 35% wind/sun/bio energy this year.
justonepost 9y ago
Line a bunch of these bad boys along the south esst coast. Slow down those hurricanes..
known 9y ago
No way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source
- dx034 9y ago
  Wind and solar costs have fallen significantly over the past decade. They are already cheaper than the most optimistic scenarios for 2020. This creates the problem that many statistics are out of date and projects that were too expensive in 2016 can be built profitably now. I wouldn't trust Wikipedia's numbers too much for projects that are commissioned now (and therefore built in 2019/2020).
eosophos 9y ago
What about all the oil it takes to produce the turbines?
staticelf 9y ago
And is beautiful too. There are few things to see which feels high-tech and clean as a lot of windmills on a distance.
SoMisanthrope 9y ago
Ummmm it's not cheap, but it's easy to implement and the price tag per-unit is way lower than a large steam energy plant. So, very misleading headline, because the cheapest cost per MWh is by far coal or natural gas.

451 points by ph0rque 9y ago

And yet we have a president promising to bring back coal. If only our population could elect leaders who will keep up with the outstanding technology the US scientific community (really the global scientific community) produces. EDIT: It would be nice if folks down voting could leave a comment so I could learn what the objection is. I saw no mention in other comments about this specific challenge that America faces in terms of growing renewable energy installations.

sctb 9y ago
We started with the topic of the price of wind energy, and now we're into generic political controversy with no steps in-between. Do you see how that takes us from a concrete discussion into tedious flamewar territory? The guidelines ask us not to do that, and also not to complain about voting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- tchaffee 9y ago
  I wasn't complaining about the voting. I'm fine with getting my comments downvoted as long as I can learn why. Without an explanation it might take me a lot time to guess what I did wrong and to improve. Isn't it better for the entire community if I improve my comments quickly? > Do you see how that takes us from a concrete discussion into tedious flamewar territory? If current US politics weren't relevant to the future of renewable energy, then sure. I thought it was a relevant concern. What I wrote isn't a political opinion, it's a fact. I have read the guidelines and I do try to be careful about posting stuff that's purely a political opinion. Thanks for your comment, it was helpful even if I don't agree 100%. At least I now know which of the guidelines you think I was not following.
mchannon 9y ago
There's a lot of metallurgical coal necessary for the construction of certain high-grade steels, such as those you'd find in wind turbines. Similarly, try and make a PV solar cell without coal in the value chain. You can't (I can). Arguably, some coal jobs are green jobs. The thermal coal industry, long on the ropes, and not at all green, has not been recovering.
- jabl 9y ago
  > There's a lot of metallurgical coal necessary for the construction of certain high-grade steels, such as those you'd find in wind turbines. Sure. Though I don't see how that should preclude getting rid of coal for power and heat generation?
- Something1234 9y ago
  > Similarly, try and make a PV solar cell without coal in the value chain. You can't (I can). What do you mean by "(I can)"?
  - mchannon 9y ago
    Patent-pending technology. Email me for details.
- hwillis 9y ago
  Steel does not require coke (which can also be made from things other than coal): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron Steel is <2% of US coal consumption, too. It's basically irrelevant to coal as a pollution or economic issue. Any resource that uses coal can be replaced by a renewable source. Coal is just a carbon source, and carbon is one of the most accessible elements. Producing very pure carbon from biomaterials produces energy and is very similar to the production of coke from coal. It's very economical and the only reason it isn't used is because coal is so insanely cheap.
savanaly 9y ago
I downvote every comment that complains about being downvoted, for what it's worth. Let the chips fall where they may, the place to discuss why something is or isn't downvoted is somewhere else, never in the replies to a comment that's purportedly about something substantial.
- tchaffee 9y ago
  Downvote away. I'm more interested in learning than I am in internet points. And thank you for your comment explaining your downvote.

worldsayshi 9y ago

There's so much misinformation about renewable energy. I was quite surprised by this. So how does it compare to nuclear energy?

samcheng 9y ago
Once you factor in the costs to decommission a nuclear facility, nuclear becomes one of the most expensive options.
- virmundi 9y ago
  When you say that, does it take into account nuclear where we reuse fuel?
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Fuel sourcing and disposal is a small part of the cost. Edit: a projected cost breakdown for Hinkley Point C! https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Point-C.pdf https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Hinkley-Po... (figure 2) So fuel is not inconsiderable; 6.2bn "fuel costs", 1.8 "fuel management", 2.6 "fuel disposal". From a total of £54.8 bn. Add 10-50% to actual construction and decommissioning costs for overruns.
- worldsayshi 9y ago
  And yet still there are so many people that believe that nuclear is the only pragmatic path to a green energy future.
- RivieraKid 9y ago
  True, but nuclear energy has two important benefits. It has a stable output (so you don't have to invest in energy storage) and it takes up much less space (so it doesn't visually disrupt the landscape as much).
  - olau 9y ago
    Demand is not stable so you still need energy storage or something else to fill the peaks. The only alternative is not running the plant at full capacity, which will make it even more expensive. Less space: that's true. But you still need a fair bit of space to the nearest city. :)

samcheng 9y ago

It's cheap in the places that are windy. One big challenge (mentioned tangentially in the article) is in moving this cheap energy from the windy center of the continent to the populated coasts. The coolest project to tackle this problem (in my opinion) is Tres Amigas, a superconducting interchange between the west coast grid and the (wind-heavy) Texas grid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tres_Amigas_SuperStation

jessaustin 9y ago
Lots of coastline is plenty windy. Why isn't there more offshore wind generation in USA like there is in other nations? My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast have no taste and think that offshore wind generation is an eyesore.
- strictnein 9y ago
  > "My impression is that rich people who own land on the coast..." Yep. An example: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index.html http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/04/20/cape.cod.wind.farm/index....
- ccorda 9y ago
  At least with respect to the west coast: > Unlike the Atlantic Ocean, where offshore wind farms can be bolted into the seabed in relatively shallow water, the West Coast's continental shelf plunges quickly and steeply. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703-snap-story.html http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-offshore-wind-20160703...
  - olau 9y ago
    There are efforts underway to develop floating foundations, but I believe it's still in the test phase with only a few turbines deployed.
    - nicktelford 9y ago

mrfusion 9y ago

How close are we to mass deployment of rooftop turbines? Seems like the installation could be way cheaper than solar.

jabl 9y ago
Very far? In wind turbines, bigger is better, as bigger turbines are mounted on higher towers and thus get stronger and more consistent winds.
RALaBarge 9y ago
As jabl says, it is a question of the surface area of the blades. Another consideration is the noise that they make. I am from rural Michigan initially, and the main push back from the residents (aside from seeing them) is hearing the constant / woosh woosh woosh / noise that you can hear if you live close enough. That said again that noise would be proportional to the area of the blades themselves. I presume they become part of the background noise as these people have no complaints about the huge trucks that air break down the 2 lane highway connecting these areas to civilization and I notice it when I am back in the area.
- eloff 9y ago
  Plus you'd need a way to clean up the dead birds. I know my mother loves all her birds that come to her bird feeders (she names them!), she'd never install a wind turbine around her house.
  - pjc50 9y ago
    Turbines are about as dangerous as windows. Although you can alleviate that with stickers. https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/ https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/
- Tuna-Fish 9y ago
  > As jabl says, it is a question of the surface area of the blades. Not just the surface area, but also altitude from ground. Unlike solar panels, wind turbines really want to be big. The cost/watt goes down rapidly as the size of the unit increases -- the reason for the cost of wind electricity being driven as low as it is is basically that the turbines have been made larger.

mrfusion 9y ago

I wonder how many turbines we'd need to be able to run them inreverse and affect the weather. Edit: I know we're no where close to doing this but how far is it. Are we 1% of the way there?

horsecaptin 9y ago
Wind wars?
Retric 9y ago
Even a small fan slightly changes the weather. But let's say you want a 5MPH light breeze across the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale The atmosphere is really heavy. 14.696 pounds per square inch, but you don't need to alter it all call it the bottom 10 pounds * (5280mile/foot * 12foot / inch)^2 * 3.797 million square miles across the US. = 1.5 ^ 17 pounds. That is 1.25 x 10 ^ 17 joules. Let's say your doing this over 1 hour that's 35,000 GW vs 82 GW of actual wind power generation. Of course a 50MPH wind (strong gale) needs 100 times as much power and drag is going prevent this from being even close to 100% efficient. PS: I suspect I am really messing up the units here.
- snovv_crash 9y ago
  This assumes the wind is flowing over a frictionless surface with no protrusions. In reality trees, mountains etc cause drag below, and other atmosphere causes drag above. Drag is proportional to the cube of speed, so I really don't think a wind turbine will be able to affect wind speed much. Well, not more than reforestation would, and wind turbines don't even cause local temperature or humidity differences like a forest would.
  - Retric 9y ago
    Turbines actively extract energy which may give them larger impact than say a building of the same size. Anyway, as I said drag is going to be an issue. But, I think a larger issue air is never calm. So it's going to be hard to notice at low speeds because winds are often much stronger than that and going in random directions. Still, IMO that's on the order of magnitude you would need to do things like shift a hurricane's path slightly.

abpavel 9y ago

Sure, instead of destroying climate indirectly by heating atmosphere, let's destroy it directly by blocking wind paths. Last time it happened, it created the largest desert in the world - just look at the effect Himalayas had on Sahara.

bdamm 9y ago
Seems ok to me. If anything we ought to be removing some of the energy we're so enthusiastically adding to the atmosphere.
- abpavel 9y ago
  If you mean temperature, then wind turbines actually increase temperature (friction, inefficiencies...) of locale climate. Solar panels cool the Earth, not turbines. Wind is a byproduct of solar power. Why not derive energy from the primary source (solar) instead of going for secondary (wind). Edit: really curious about downvotes. There is nothing in the above that's controversial. I've also provided data below: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/044.. http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/044.... "Specifically, we discovered that operational wind turbines raised air temperature by 0.18 °C"
usaphp 9y ago
Do you think solar panels also change climate by taking the sunlight away from the otherwise heated earth?
- abpavel 9y ago
  Nothing is going to grow underneath the solar panels. At least with solar panels you can selectivaly decide where nothing should grow. With roofs it's already an easy decision. With wind paths - not so much.
  - eropple 9y ago
    I assume, before posting this very serious set of comments, that you have exhaustively researched exactly how much turbine surface area would be needed to cause climactic impacts and are prepared to show your work, especially around how a sub-percent surface area of the Himalayas would cause such drastic results in a desert a continent away. I would love to see this sterling research I'm certain you have conducted. Please educate all of us so that we can be enlightened as to the turbine menace.

mabbo 9y ago

The only problem is variability. I know that many places have fairly stable wind 99% if the time, but it's the absolute lowest you need to worry about. If we are to rely on wind as a power source, we either have to only rely on its lowest output or else rely on its typical output, but have a second source that can be easily scaled up and down. The problem is that the good sources of energy that can scale up and down well and cheaply are coal and natural gas. Nuclear, by contrast, works best when is outputting constant amounts of energy.

eru 9y ago
Some alternatives for quick scaling up and down: - finding some big consumers (like aluminium smelters) that can scale down. - batteries (both as scalable consumers and suppliers); widespread electric car usage might accidentally help her
- krrrh 9y ago
  > batteries (both as scalable consumers and suppliers); widespread electric car usage might accidentally help her I've been in a some jurisdictions that have periods of low water supply where you can't water your lawn or garden on certain days, or sometimes based on whether your house has an odd or even number. Imagine the same applied to fueling up your car. Not enough wind and sun this week, sorry you'll have to stretch out the capacity you put into your car last week. Obviously demand could be shaped with spot pricing, but it's interesting to imagine how rolling brownouts would affect mobility and transportation.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Restrictions like these have been used on electricity for roughly as long as they have on water. They're slightly different in that with electricity it's often the peak usage that they care about rather than total usage, but some people are ordered or paid to reduce usage at certain times where this is considered cheaper/better than building a coal plant that's only used 1 day a year. Due to the nature of modern electricity generation, electric car batteries will help the grid rather than harm it, as they can be (and are) set to use off-peak power to avoid increasing the peaks, while getting best usage of the grid at other times.

tomcam 9y ago

Does no one care that thousands of birds get shredded every year regardless of endangered status?

haeffin 9y ago
Illustration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-AYhMoLorI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-AYhMoLorI
komaromy 9y ago
Maybe if it was millions, but thousands of birds is a rounding error.
pjc50 9y ago
No, they don't; this is only ever brought up in the context of wind, and not any of the other risks to birds: https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/ https://abcbirds.org/program/glass-collisions/
peteretep 9y ago
No.
stinos 9y ago
I do think people care. But you should realize that in comparision with the hundreds of millions (!) of shredded birds because of cars/pesticides/powerlines/... this is peanuts.
russdill 9y ago
Go look at this chart: http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/ http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mort... Come back and tell me about how people bringing up bird strikes is relation to wind power are being intellectually honest and not pushing an agenda of some kind.
- matthewmarkus 9y ago
  That chart is based on data from 2003! Recently, for one Scottish installation, government reports indicated "that more than 1,000 gannets would perish in the turbines each week, along with a similar number of puffins and hundreds of kittiwakes [1]." Many birders and environmentalists are very concerned about this issue [2]. The video footage of a bird attracted to a turbine's blades is fascinating. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/20/scotland-birds-at-risk-windfarms-gannets-kittiwakes-puffins https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/20/scotland-bir... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMfyJmSuOGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMfyJmSuOGM

freddref 9y ago

Could someone comment on solid state solutions to harnessing wind energy?

ajross 9y ago
An electrical generator is 100% solid state up to the output wire (battery storage may not be). Not sure what your question is.
- WJW 9y ago
  Except for the spinning parts you mean? Those bearings run out and need maintenance. Ontopic: There are some preliminary design for electrostatic wind energy converters: see for example http://www.wired.co.uk/article/bladeless-wind-turbine-ewicon http://www.wired.co.uk/article/bladeless-wind-turbine-ewicon
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  I think "solid state" is being used as meaning "no moving parts".
TeMPOraL 9y ago
Are there any? I can't imagine how one would harvest kinetic energy without moving parts...
andrewl 9y ago
This is the closest thing I'm aware of, but I'm not educated in this field: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930552-600-plastic-grass-could-cover-buildings-to-produce-energy-from-wind/ https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22930552-600-plastic-... The "grass" generates electricity when it waves back and forth in the wind.

falcolas 9y ago

I think they buried the lede: wind is so cheap because of tax credits. Once those are taken out, it's simply competitive with the LNG power generation, and about 2/3 of coal. Turbines require a ton of high risk maintenance, and have limited lifespans due to the stresses they are put through. Still very good, but not as good as the headline and the first half of the article claims.

whyenot 9y ago
Fossil fuels in the US also receive government subsidies, at least indirectly, don't they? If you take out wind's tax credits, shouldn't you also account for those as well?
the_why_of_y 9y ago
Wind needs some subsidies so it can compete with the huge subsidies for carbon based fuels. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0 http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42940.0

nikolay 9y ago

The current method to harness wind energy is primitive and leads to visual pollution of the landscape. We're swimming in a vast ocean of endless energy, and, yet, we use very primitive mechanical means to harness it!

yuliyp 9y ago
OK... What is a better mechanism? that'll look better to you?
- nikolay 9y ago
  Let's say, thorium reactors.
  - adrianN 9y ago
    I'm not sure I understand how Thorium reactors capture wind energy...
    - nikolay 9y ago
      I'm not sure why do you think that in my comment I expressed any interest in this primitive mean of harnessing the ocean of energy that we swim into. Wind and solar are possibly the most primitive ones and not a bit more advanced than burning fossil fuels. Nuclear energy is the only intelligent mean we have invented so far - everything else is savagery.
      - sumedh 9y ago
        > Nuclear energy is the only intelligent mean we have invented so far Do you want a nuclear plant in your backyard?
        adrianN 9y ago
        Do you want a wind turbine in your backyard?

k__ 9y ago

Yet people hate it from the bottom of their heart, it seems. A friend of mine works for a company that builds these things in Germany and he says most people hate it. And even those who like it say, they can't allow them to build on their property, because their neighbours would hate them for it. People say these things are loud, ugly, kill birds and bats etc. pp. They could have done so much to decentralise energy production, somehow the most are built and owned by big energy corps so they can tell the world how "green" they are...

anon_dev_123456 9y ago
They suck! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc - No one I know would enjoy living in this conditions.
Xylakant 9y ago
Having lived in viewing distance of two nuclear power plants in germany, I can tell you I vastly prefer wind turbines. Coal power plants are not exactly beautiful either. Germany is a densely populated country, there's practically no space where you can build anything without disturbing someone. I'm afraid we'll have to disturb someone if we want electricity.
- deusex_ 9y ago
  That's one of the advantages of off shore turbines, no disturbing.
- k__ 9y ago
  Yes, same here. I lived in viewing distance to AKW Biblis, the sun basically set behind it in the evening, kinda surreal picture, haha. I also regularly go on vacation on a farm that has multiple wind turbines in viewing and hearing distance, find them kinda soothing.
  - Xylakant 9y ago
    The Rhine valley is crazy with nuclear plants. A few kilometers upstream from Biblis is Philippsburg and then there's Fessenheim on the French side and Leibstadt in Switzerland. That makes 4 nuclear plants on 350km of Europes largest river valley.

fit2rule 9y ago

I'd be quite happy stepping off the grid and having my own small suite of power-harvestors, out on the property and so on, and generally share the overage of the system with any other nomad who needed to charge their suit, so to speak. I've sort of come to the personal belief that the way to solve the power crisis is for us all to be harvesting it from the most local sources, and .. perhaps .. become less dependent on mass/social- infrastructure, reducing our group load, decomposing cities, &etc. The technology is there. I could easily live off the stream and wind energy in most of the world, personally. I just don't quite have the harvesting device. I wonder what an "iEnergyHarvester", y'know .. the cool new disruptive kind .. would look like?

mythrwy 9y ago
I live in a very windy rural area and looked at getting a small wind turbine. But after researching I gave up the plan. The reason is maintenance. Every year have to find a way to get up to the thing and grease (too high and not suitable for a ladder, means renting a manlift at $300+). Also parts can go out and apparently do from time to time, it's mechanical with a lot of stress and movement. Can't buy these parts at home depot which means keeping a large inventory on hand or else potentially being down while on-line order comes in. The estimated expense barely justified the purchase (over a long period, I don't recall details but had it figured out at one point), with estimated repairs, particularly the need to reach the top every year, it just didn't add up and seemed like a fair amount of work. I believe solar is much more feasible for home installations. Also, I have seen wind turbine models similar to the size I was looking at, quite often they appear to not work and are just sitting there. Maybe there are better models, but I really think solar is just easier to deal with at a small scale.
Caveman_Coder 9y ago
> "I wonder what an "iEnergyHarvester", y'know .. the cool new disruptive kind .. would look like?" What do you mean by this? Are you simply talking about solar panels/wind turbine/etc?
- fit2rule 9y ago
  I'm talking about someone like Apple, revolutionizing the local/personal power harvesting technology, by applying to this problem a similar ethos to that of the iDevices. Like, I'd love to have a portable harvester that has a similar degree of comfort and performance as I'm used to with my laptop and phone. I'm sure they're out there - but I'd prefer an Apple-style level of quality ..

dumbfounder 9y ago

And here's why it doesn't matter for most of the US: energy companies are regulated to make a percentage of the money they spend. This incentivizes them to SPEND MORE MONEY for energy so they can make more money. Until we fix that, most of us are screwed (at least the ones who can't get off or mostly off the grid). Sources: My friend who runs an energy company and I also found it here: http://blog.aee.net/how-do-electric-utilities-make-money http://blog.aee.net/how-do-electric-utilities-make-money

cc439 9y ago
"And here's why it doesn't matter for most of the US: energy companies are regulated to make a percentage of the money they spend." This is also found in the ACA (Obamacare) in the form of a minimum medical loss ratio. Insurers must spend 80% of what they take in from premiums on direct medical care and their profit is capped at 3% of premiums. It disincentivizes cost reductions as 3% of $5 billion is a lot more than 3% of $1 billion.
- juiyout 9y ago
  Apology to bring up Taiwan again in the same thread. Taiwan's national health insurance was once praised by Michael Porter and other Nobel prize laureates. It was marveled as the best invention to bring to the masses. Basically, Taiwan congress establishes a fixed budget for health care for next year. Then no matter how many patients or how expensive it runs next year, National Health Insurance Administration pays the hospital proportionally by assigning "points" to treatments. For example, pulling one wisdom tooth is 10 points. 1 point is 1 dollar last year then 10 points earn the hospital 10 dollar last year. This year it may go down to 0.8 dollar per point then 10 points mean 8.8 dollar due to more patient visits/treatment higher cost nationally. All the while, the cost of treatment hasn't really changed. Now when NHI started out, it was indeed 1 TWD per point. Now it has gone to 0.5 TWD per point. (Detail varies, this is the gist of it). Hospital jobs are not as good as it used to be nowadays.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    What happens if the pay per point is too low to retain employees, and all the doctors move to the US? What is to discourage a doctor from doing a 6 point procedure even though a 3 point procedure has a better or same outcome for the patient?

anon_dev_123456 9y ago

They need to figure out how to keep these things away from people's homes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQksc1-5Zoc Imagine living in this constant flicker, I would go insane.

throwawayjava 9y ago
I completely agree with you. (It's worth nothing that fracking and coal mining are even worse.)
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ceejayoz 9y ago
If by "constant" you mean "for a short period of time in the morning/evening". A tree waving in the breeze creates the same effect, and people seem to live with that.
- Coincoin 9y ago
  A tree in the wind is random, a turbine is not. edit: I love wind noise, it doesn't mean I also love car alarms because they are also noise.
joveian 9y ago
Yeah, my current apartment is in the path of a small urban one for a little while in the spring and fall when the sun is in the right place. It is surprisingly annoying, but tolerable for me since it is just a short time of day for a short part of the year (and I don't get seizures, important since it seems to flash at seizure-triggering speeds). The big ones look like they are slow enough to avoid triggering seizures but would otherwise be worse, lasting longer each day and for more of the year and would be just as annoying. I never considered this side effect until it happened to me.
adrianN 9y ago
That sucks. I wonder for how many weeks a year the angle of the sun is such that the shadow hits that house.

architectonic 9y ago

we at energy&meteo systems https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/company.php https://www.energymeteo.com/about_us/company.php provide means for overcoming the fluctuation problem of renewable energy while offering some cool software services. Two main methods for achieving that are the virtual power plants and would class forecast of the productivity of wind and solar power plants. We're based in Germany but have customers all over the world including the US. Find out more on our website or contact us.

menacingly 9y ago

I don't really know what I'm talking about, but I bring this up when we talk about wind energy and I've never had a satisfying answer. Maybe that's due to not knowing what I'm talking about. Since the wind does other stuff beyond just feeling breezy, it stands to reason that there exists some level of wattage we could pull out of it that would have undesirable effects. If there were no wind tomorrow, we can agree that this would be bad. Are there lower levels of energy depletion where the effects would be subtler and harder to anticipate? Would pulling 0.5% of the wind's energy result in shifts in weather patterns, even if it's localized? I mean, since we're collectively so good at breaking things, maybe it's worth assuming we will fill some hypothetical area with as many contraptions to take energy from the wind as we can, and that these contraptions will get increasingly effective. EDIT: There are some great replies to this, and the minds of HN are always an awesome resource to tap. I guess I can't shake the vague spooky feeling I get from interfering with a massive system that feeds into itself in unpredictable ways, but it sounds like ruthless expansion of some massive drain on the wind system is unlikely/impossible.

throwaway613834 9y ago
I understand the amount we might ever extract pales in comparison to the amount that would upset any natural phenomena.
- juiyout 9y ago
  Is it true that we once had the same rationale with coal?
  - URSpider94 9y ago
    I would say that with coal, we never even considered the impact - carbon dioxide, much less the greenhouse effect, were unknown when we started burning coal in earnest. With wind power, smart people have at least sat down and done the math.
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shmerl 9y ago

So why aren't prices going down? On the contrary, if you subscribe to use something like Arcadia Power, you'd actually pay a bit more than regular electric bill.

zeristor 9y ago

There are plans to build a 6 km^2 island in the middle of the North Sea to act as a marshalling point for a whole new raft of wind turbines on the Doggerbank. https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/05/north-sea-wind-power-hub-offshore-wind-farm/ https://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2017/05/north-sea-wind-pow... It would also be a routing point for powerlines out to the surrounding countries. My question is which country's territory would it be? A key question since this would bestow rights on the surrounding ocean. If this is planned to be a European territory then wouldn't that in itself be novel?

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bluGill 9y ago
It would probably count as a boat/ship: some country like Panama (ie no geographical relation to the north sea) will register, and on board their laws will apply. It will account for no ownership of the sea around it other than a safety factor so boats don't collide.

jamez1 9y ago

It is cheap because it is a poor power source, the energy is delivered at inopportune times. C&I doesn't want to sign PPAs with them, which is why they have to discount heavily to get them. This article then takes that fact and pretends it means wind can undercut gas? Gas, especially gas peakers command the highest prices per MW because they run at the times when we need energy the most. That then covers the cost of having them idle for the rest of the year. Wind has low operating costs but the maintenance and depreciation are huge, so looking at it from an operating cost perspective completely undermines this. The simple litmus test we should use is that there are no profitable wind companies. It's not very hard to run one - so if this article is accurate, where the hell are they?

verelo 9y ago
I actually love that it's cheap, for the reasons you state. If nothing else this just encourages the market to look at storage more seriously, if there is money being left on the table that could be redirected to storage this might be a good means of replacing gas down the road.
dpierce9 9y ago
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30112 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=30112 If you can't get a loan to build wind farms, why was new 7.7 GW of capacity added in 2016? Also, Alstom, Invenergy? I know you are trolling but come on.
- jamez1 9y ago
  Where did I say anything about loans? You do realize renewable energy is subsidized by RECs, who wouldn't want to add capacity when the government will pay the shortfall! They aren't profitable on their own, and barely turn a profit when you look at the full life cycle of these businesses due to the maintenance/depreciation costs which are hidden when you look at pure operating profit. Invenergy has huge natural gas generation and seems to want to sell every wind farm they build. I don't know why you think they're an example of a profitable wind farm operator, there isn't any evidence that they make money off it. Alstom makes nothing off it's wind either.

beaucoupfish 9y ago

Can anyone offer any advice for software engineers/product managers with a web app background, interested in moving into the renewables world? Open either to using existing experience or learning something new.

Caveman_Coder 9y ago
I work in that industry and have previously worked as TSO as well. There is a lot of software used for monitoring/data collection & analysis/work management/etc. that the TSOs and BAs rely on daily. The biggest issue I see with that industry though is that it is dominated by Siemens/ABB/OSI (on the SCADA/ICS/EMS side) and OSIsoft PI (database). There are some software applications that the RC will use (iTOA/Space-Time Insight/COS/EIM/ect.) that could easily be improved and don't have as much market dominance as Siemens/ABB/OSI. Also, mobile application for utilities is pretty much non-existent. Hope this helps.
- beaucoupfish 9y ago
  Many thanks. Looks like one of the first jobs is figuring out the acronyms :) Any suggestions on where/how to go about learning the industry, and where the opportunities might be? e.g. Blogs, courses, forums, etc.

wallace_f 9y ago

Why cant we factor in the human life and geopolitical costs in to fossil fuel cost? The only valid argument in the economist's mind to regulate a market is to remedy market failures. Fossil fuel addiction create externalities like smog, global warming, and war; but no consumer has to pay for those costs at the pump. Instead, they're shouldered by the taxpayer, future generations, and direct casualties. So we have a classic, textbook market failure here. If we really add up the true cost of fossil fuels it makes wind look clearly better.

an_account 9y ago
That’s clearly not what this article is about. But on the subject that you’re talking about, it would be great if the US started phasing out fossil fuel subsidies.
- wallace_f 9y ago
  The case for wind that the article argued for can be additionally bolstered by the what I just mentioned. I dont see why that's off topic?
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  The article headline is: "Wind Energy Is One of the Cheapest Sources of Electricity, and It's Getting Cheaper" But their measure of "cheapness" only takes into account direct payments. Once you account for externalities like people dying of lung diseases, global warming etc. the headline would be: "Wind Energy has been the Cheapest Source of Electricity for a while now, and It's still Getting Cheaper" Which is a different thing entirely. For example, an EU study from 2014 already found that onshore Wind was the cheapest available power source, coming in at less than half the price of coal, once you factor in health etc. Once those well established facts are recognized, the whole conversation about "when will wind be cheaper" seems a bit irrelevant. When will the so-called free market stop killing us? would be one alternative headline.

torpfactory 9y ago

It's really exciting to see wind and solar becoming so cheap to generate. As the price of wind and solar drop further, grid-scale energy storage will become more and more attractive (and necessary). Investment dollars chasing the dream of buying this cheap-to-generate electricity and sell it back to the grid at prices competitive with fossil sources.

Animats 9y ago

If only it weren't so variable. Averaging over a large area won't help. 4 to 1 daily variation in total wind generation for big grids (CAISO and PJM) is normal. We're going to need huge battery farms. Huge. Tesla is building the largest battery farm in the world, in Australia, and it will only hold about 100 MWH. The Helms Pumped Storage Plant near Fresno is at least an order of magnitude bigger.

adrianN 9y ago
We could also build four times as many turbines, and/or supplement with solar.
dx034 9y ago
Once battery prices are low enough the result is probably not huge battery farms but batteries at every wind turbine. That way you can create a fairly constant output. With batteries at homes you can also levelize input demand so that the effect is steered from both sides.

_Codemonkeyism 9y ago

Germany reached 35% wind/sun/bio energy this year.

justonepost 9y ago

Line a bunch of these bad boys along the south esst coast. Slow down those hurricanes..

known 9y ago

No way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source

dx034 9y ago
Wind and solar costs have fallen significantly over the past decade. They are already cheaper than the most optimistic scenarios for 2020. This creates the problem that many statistics are out of date and projects that were too expensive in 2016 can be built profitably now. I wouldn't trust Wikipedia's numbers too much for projects that are commissioned now (and therefore built in 2019/2020).

eosophos 9y ago

What about all the oil it takes to produce the turbines?

staticelf 9y ago

And is beautiful too. There are few things to see which feels high-tech and clean as a lot of windmills on a distance.

SoMisanthrope 9y ago

Ummmm it's not cheap, but it's easy to implement and the price tag per-unit is way lower than a large steam energy plant. So, very misleading headline, because the cheapest cost per MWh is by far coal or natural gas.