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What I’m more worry about those Renewables stuff is their ressource footprint , when you look at how much « rare earth » « composite » material is needed to bui
by asien 5y ago
What I’m more worry about those Renewables stuff is their ressource footprint , when you look at how much « rare earth » « composite » material is needed to build just one its seems like a nonsense to use wind their are many documentaries on this topic. Today the vast majority of those turbines are not recycled.
On top of that wind being intermittent you need gas power plant to provide.
France power provider RTE estimated that if the country moved to 100% renewable it would need 12 times its gas capacity or 10% of ALL lithium available on earth for battery.
1st gen renewable are far from a panacea.
- jokoon 5y agoSo you're also being downvoted for raising a good question. Nuclear is much greener that renewables, nuclear emits less CO2 per watt. Building a wind turbine on a large floor of concrete, building batteries and solar panels all the material that comes with it... Fossil fuel benefits from renewables.
- tamaharbor 5y agoOne similar thing regarding both nuclear and wind power plants is no one wants one in their backyard.
- jokoon 5y agoI'd love to have a nuclear plant in my backyard. Also it might be a cloudy area.
- avmich 5y agoI'm sure the provider isn't interested in anything but the scientific truth here. /s
- deepnotderp 5y agoFrance runs mostly on nuclear, producing less carbon and more energy for less money than Germany which tried (and failed) to move its grid to solar and wind
- adrianN 5y agoGermany has not failed to move the grid to solar and wind, the process is still ongoing.
- cycomanic 5y agoFrance does run mostly on nuclear, but the less money claim needs some serious evidence. The reason why France can export energy more cheaply is because the cost of nuclear is pretty much all capex, so now that they have their plants it makes sense to constantly (nuclear plants can't easily be adjusted to load) run them at a high output and export excess energy. However, the overall cost is very likely much higher (the main reason why nobody wants to build new nuclear plants). France nuclear industry was (and still is?) heavily subsidised because nuclear capability (in particular military) is regarded of strategic importance.
- vivacious 5y agoAren't renewables heavily subsidised?
- Gwypaas 5y agoThe LCOE of unsubsidized newbuilt renewables are currently getting below the marginal cost of existing nuclear and fossil infrastructure. https://www.lazard.com/media/451446/grphx_lcoe-07-07.jpg https://www.lazard.com/media/451446/grphx_lcoe-07-07.jpg From: https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-levelized-cost-of-storage-and-levelized-cost-of-hydrogen/ https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-energy-...
- deepnotderp 5y agoThis assumes that for some reason you don’t need electricity at night
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- adrianN 5y ago12 times its gas capacity doesn't sound like very much. France doesn't have a lot of gas capacity today afaik.
- kumarvvr 5y agoI guess one solution is smart devices and processess that can be optimized to load whwn there is peak power. Some industrial processess, such as smelting, crushing, etc can be incentivized to do that. At domestic levels, its more difficult
- wumpus 5y agoOne easy one is charging electric cars. If they can be plugged in both at work and at home, there's a huge opportunity to charge when there's excess production.
- dukeyukey 5y agoI can imagine settings where you can define when to charge e.g. "Charge to 20%, then only at peak excess energy times", like how people set the dryer to go overnight when there's excess energy
- lovemenot 5y ago>> At domestic levels, its more difficult Not sure if this is correct. Once power cost is reduced, the cost of investing equipment dominates still further. Industrial processes are designed to operate 24/7 and when they don't, they are uneconomic. Domestic power consumption is never 24/7 on any major device and there is some discretion over scheduling. Even fridge/freezer has some flexibility
- creato 5y ago> Today the vast majority of those turbines are not recycled. I really doubt this is true in any meaningful sense. First of all, I'd expect the majority of all turbines ever produced to still be in their useful service life. Second, many of the materials are valuable as scrap. It would be blatantly idiotic to just destroy and bury these materials, even if your goal is to spite environmentalists. Third, even the unsubsidized cost of wind turbines is not that high. These materials don't just appear out of thin air, they're accounted for in the costs.
- techpression 5y agoYou would be very wrong unfortunately. There’s currently no way to recycle or reuse the blades and it’s a big problem that nobody seems to care about. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turb... “Companies are searching for ways to deal with the tens of thousands of blades that have reached the end of their lives.” In Sweden we are making wind power company owners very rich with heavily subsidies, wind power is far from cost effective and at least here it’s not even close to covering its own.
- shusaku 5y ago> Wind power is carbon-free and about 85% of turbine components, including steel, copper wire, electronics and gearing can be recycled or reused. That’s a far cry from “no way”.
- jopsen 5y ago> material is needed to build just one its seems like a nonsense to use wind their are many documentaries on this topic. [citation needed], careful you're not falling for a disinformation campaign. The counter argument is clearly made here: https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/06/whats-the-carbon-footprint-of-a-wind-turbine/ https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/06/whats-the-carbon-...
- deepnotderp 5y agoOP is referring to pollution in the form of toxic metals and things like that, your link only refers to the co2. Lithium ion batteries don’t grow on trees…
- einpoklum 5y agoWell, recycling that stuff is a challenge, for sure. But is it unrealistic to expect that they _can_ be recycled? Also, what about wind turbines that use less/almost no rare-earth materials? Could these be produced at sub-optimal efficiency but still be viable?
- philipkglass 5y agoThe great majority of installed wind turbines are already built using electromagnets. Only a minority of turbines use rare earth permanent magnets. Permanent magnet designs cost more but are lower maintenance, so they are mostly used offshore where maintenance is more costly.
- fy20 5y agoWind turbines take less than a year to become CO2 neutral - generating enough electricity to offset the embodied CO2 used to produce, transport and construct the turbine. https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg24332461-400-what-is-the-carbon-payback-period-for-a-wind-turbine/ https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg24332461-400-what-is... This will likely go down over time though, as steel and concrete (which are both very much recyclable today) are big parts of wind turbines so as those become "greener" so will the wind turbines. Yes the blades are not currently recycled, but like most things, this is because it's cheaper to produce new than to recycle. If it became economically viable or government's mandated it, then it would happen. There are already some processes to recycle glass fibre composites: https://www.materialstoday.com/carbon-fiber/features/recycling-glass-fibre-reinforced-composites/ https://www.materialstoday.com/carbon-fiber/features/recycli...
- jokoon 5y agoYou mean comparing the CO2 emitted by gas or coal?
- imtringued 5y agoFossil fuel exhaust in the atmosphere? good Inert wind turbines in the ground? bad