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This commentary is a bit humorous. Is there some purpose for which the alternative to using a wind turbine is using a herd of 3500 horses? "Horsepower" as a un
by kerkeslager 7y ago
This commentary is a bit humorous. Is there some purpose for which the alternative to using a wind turbine is using a herd of 3500 horses?
"Horsepower" as a unit made sense when it was being used to market steam engines as an alternative to horses, because it made the tradeoffs obvious: it's clearly cheaper and easier to maintain steam engine than the 20 horses needed to do the same work. It might still be relevant for something like tractors where horses would be a reasonable alternative, but something like "carbon tons" (the tons of carbon produced by fossil fuel production of the same electricity) might be a more useful comparison for wind power.
- metalliqaz 7y agohorsepower was always just marketing bunk, with no actual work equivalence
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoIt was a decent approximation of a the level of continuous work output you could expect out of a horse without taxing it too much.
- opwieurposiu 7y agoA 3500hp diesel engine will burn around 197gal (745L) of fuel per hour. One gallon of diesel when burned makes around 10.336kg of co2. So each turbine is preventing around 2 tons per hour of co2 emissions. Could be as much as 5 tons if it is replacing coal. Apologies for use of freedom units; habits are hard to break. https://barringtondieselclub.co.za/technical/fuel/diesel-fuel-consumption-nat-aspirated.pdf https://barringtondieselclub.co.za/technical/fuel/diesel-fue...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]