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This is better by a significant margin than any fossil fuel use the turbine is offsetting. Yes, some material will be wasted, but it is a tiny fraction of the f
by gibolt 7y ago
This is better by a significant margin than any fossil fuel use the turbine is offsetting. Yes, some material will be wasted, but it is a tiny fraction of the far worse alternative.
I've seen this as a reason not to switch several times, without anyone considering the sheer physical quantity of fuel any one consumer burns into the atmosphere.
- onetimemanytime 7y agoThe lesser evil by an order of magnitude (I think.) Even building a hut in Amazon disturbs nature but it beats a lot of other things, so let's encourage building huts (you get the idea)
- IanDrake 7y agoSo we should live in huts?
- isoskeles 7y agoNo, not us, them. You know, those people, for whom hut-living is appropriate. They shouldn’t move into homes like the ones we live in, a hut in the Amazon near some really big snakes will do just fine.
- IanDrake 7y agoI'm glad someone here gets it.
- ahoy 7y agoHi, this seems to be your first time encountering the concept of "Analogy." I've included a link that I hope will be helpful *https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/analogy https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/analo...
- jascii 7y agoI think it is pretty clear the previous poster was making a hypothetical statement and I have a bit of a hard time believing you are sincere in your statement. Please prove me wrong.
- imtringued 7y agoIf you don't have anything better than living in huts.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- etrautmann 7y agoIt seems like this is a completely manageable amount of safe physical waste to bury. I am curious, however, about the lifecycle analysis for the blades and the energy and emissions that go into producing them. One would think that they could be repaired somewhat indefinitely, but perhaps this is naive.
- eru 7y agoYou can't really repair big fibreglass pieces, I suspect. So you could probably keep the steel tower and put new blades on it (and repair/replace the generators etc), but the blade probably has to be replaced as one.
- torpfactory 7y agoIf anyone is interested, here is a back-of-the-envelope mass calculation: Energy content of natural gas: 53.6MJ/kg=14.8kWh/kg Efficiency of combined cycle plant: ~50% Energy/Mass Ratio = 7.445kWh/kg Mass of wind turbine: ~150 tons Max power: 1.5MW Capacity factor: 0.4 Lifespan: 25 years Energy/Mass Ratio = 876kWh/kg Obviously refining the materials for a wind turbine requires more energy than making natural gas. Also obviously didn't include the mass of the natural gas plant itself. Also obviously natural gas leaks are very problematic for climate. Also obviously if only the blades are discarded (and these are typically a small percentage of the weight), you could imagine continuing to use the tower, nacelle, generator, etc...
- gibolt 7y agoIs that 150 tons for the whole wind turbine, or just the blades? Most parts other than the blades should be reusable or recycleable. Could result in a 1-2 order of magnitude increase in efficiency.
- torpfactory 7y ago150 tons for the whole thing. Blades are like 5 tons each according to the source I looked at. Mind you this isn’t a terribly large turbine by today’s standards.
- perl4ever 7y agoI read it wrong at first, but I think the point is that the wind turbine is producing about 2 orders of magnitude more power per kg anyway, with assumptions biased towards natural gas.