4 ms·

What is even more bizarre to me, is that: 1. Wind turbines look really slick in my opinion 2. These people don't complain about power transmission pylons, whi

What is even more bizarre to me, is that: 1. Wind turbines look really slick in my opinion 2. These people don't complain about power transmission pylons, which are uglier to look at!

throwaway894345 4y ago
It took me a bit to come around to windmills, but I got used to them. It would be pretty tragic if the landscape was homogeneously windmills though (of course, if that's the only way to stave off climate change, so be it).
- martin_a 4y ago
  Look here, this is what coal has brought us: 50.90272214735486, 6.530962108759532 Lovely. Would take loooooots of windmills instead.
- martinald 4y ago
  It's clearly not th e only solution though, nuclear can and is providing that.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    It did in the past, and could in the far future, but nuclear is incredibly expensive, and the construction logistics are so difficult and slow that it is not a feasible solution for the energy interchange. Perhaps in 2060 or 2070, we could build enough. Our ability to manufacture has so outpaced our ability to construct that nuclear doesn't really fit modern economies very well.
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      I probably agree with this for traditional reactors, but I'm not sure if this holds for small modular reactors. A lot of our nuclear dialogue assumes a very narrow kind of nuclear. I don't think nuclear needs to be the only approach, but we should definitely diversify even if one of the options is more expensive.
      - epistasis 4y ago
        If we allow SMRs as a feasible tech, that aren't shipping and have no reliable cost estimates, we may as well also assume that advanced storage tech that isn't even shipping will be feasible. Storage companies have a far better track record of delivering on their promises than the nuclear industry does, so the we must assume that engineering of nuclear is too difficult to provide reliable cost estimates ahead of time.
        throwaway894345 4y ago
        > If we allow SMRs as a feasible tech, that aren't shipping and have no reliable cost estimates, we may as well also assume that advanced storage tech that isn't even shipping will be feasible. Yes, we should invest in both SMRs and advanced storage, not because we are assuming feasibility, but because we can't know their feasibility without trying them. > Storage companies have a far better track record of delivering on their promises than the nuclear industry does I disagree, and anyway I'm not saying "invest in SMRs instead of storage" but rather in addition to because it increases our odds of finding a viable solution and moreover a diverse grid is a robust grid (different energy sources are likely to have different failure modes, such that we have a fallback in case one source experiences a catastrophic failure).
      - caoilte 4y ago
        We are researching SMRs, but they're not ready and they may never be. Just this week some research came out showing they make the nuclear waste worse than large scale reactors which would have serious cost implications. https://www.powermag.com/researchers-say-smrs-will-produce-more-waste-than-large-nuclear-reactors-nuscale-disputes-claim/ https://www.powermag.com/researchers-say-smrs-will-produce-m...
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I agree that it's not the only solution, I was just trying to deter replies like "wOuLd YoU pReFeR dEaD pOlArBeArS?!" or something.
turbinerneiter 4y ago
They do complain about those, Germany desperately needs a connector from north (off-shore windparks) to the south (Bavarian industry), but it is not getting done because people don't like the idea of seeing the practical necessities that make their modern lives possible.
- martin_a 4y ago
  At some point, we'll just cut power to Bavaria and see how long their candle reserves last. Then the north-south line will happen. :-D
- universa1 4y ago
  iirc(!!!!) parts of the transmission line is planned as "earth" cable, so there will be no poles. This is going to be more expensive and you need to dig trenches(? not sure it is the correct word) in something like a 80-100m wide path. Again iirc(!), line operators get a guaranteed return of 8%, while land-owners get a low one-time payment. And maybe the crisis will finally push this, but my guess is, this will take plenty more years until finally being built fully.
  - turbinerneiter 4y ago
    Yeah, the earth cables are pretty insane, I think they came up with that to overcome the opposition. They are expensive, but I also don't hate it. If we can reduce the impact of infrastructure on people, we should do it.
bamboozled 4y ago
What’s not nice to look at is sick dying polar bears or penguins clinging on to a small piece of melting icecap… The pylons, no one complains because they’re used to them. No kid will grow up complaining about turbines.
- CuriousSkeptic 4y ago
  While things probably aren’t that great for the local wildlife. Consider also the effect on the weather systems for the rest of globe when all that energy that usually goes towards melting ice has no more ice to melt.
  - bamboozled 4y ago
    …oh I agree
jl6 4y ago
I agree - wind turbines look great. They’re a visible symbol of technology, progress, and elegance. Some people complain that birds will fly into them, as if climate change won’t kill 1000x as many birds as turbines ever will.
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > They’re a visible symbol of technology, progress, and elegance. They're a visible symbol of non-progress, we had windmills for centuries and it's literally one of the most low-tech ways to produce power.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    Simple, cheap, clean, and effective are pretty much the best metrics to optimize technology for. "New" is not a desirable attribute in a technology. Though I would argue that current wind is extremely new, in the advanced manufacturing methods for such massive structures, in the design of blades and placement on wind farms. And for flaring offshore wind, the engineering is truly impressive. Thinking that modern wind turbines are centuries old tech is like thinking that nuclear power is centuries old tech because it boils water to generate mechanical force. But again, "new" is not the desirable property, it's only a means to other better attributes.
- layer8 4y ago
  > wind turbines look great. They’re a visible symbol of technology, progress, and elegance. Exactly. Since watching Macross Plus when I was young, wind turbines instill a deep nostalgia in me. Though Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack is likely partly to blame. :)
jansan 4y ago
It is not only about the looks, but also about the sound. You can hear wind turbines quite clear, and since they emit defined frequencies (as opposed to white noise), the noise can be quite annoying. I would not want to live close to a wind turbine even if I could not see it.
- Brometheus 4y ago
  No they really don't. I have been standing in a farm of Enercon turbines on nearly full load and it's actually rather quite. The wind in the trees is louder.
- usrusr 4y ago
  General rule of thumb with wind turbines: the bigger they are, the less annoying the noise (and the drop shadows). They are designed for about the same tip speed from smallest to largest (basically: highest rpm that doesn't make tips go too close to transonic), so rpm is inversely proportional to size. I believe that if turbine size was only constrained by structural engineering and not by transport, they'd be almost as imperceptible as jets passing by at cruising altitude (visible from "everywhere" and also audible if everything else is quiet, but perfectly ignorable ambience). Perhaps your memory of turbine perception is dominated by some examples that weren't quite as big as you might have thought? It's really difficult to judge the size of those things (they are all "much bigger than a house") if you don't deliberately focus on rpm (this little trick only works in reasonably high wind conditions of course)

What is even more bizarre to me, is that: 1. Wind turbines look really slick in my opinion 2. These people don't complain about power transmission pylons, which are uglier to look at!

throwaway894345 4y ago

It took me a bit to come around to windmills, but I got used to them. It would be pretty tragic if the landscape was homogeneously windmills though (of course, if that's the only way to stave off climate change, so be it).

martin_a 4y ago
Look here, this is what coal has brought us: 50.90272214735486, 6.530962108759532 Lovely. Would take loooooots of windmills instead.
martinald 4y ago
It's clearly not th e only solution though, nuclear can and is providing that.
- epistasis 4y ago
  It did in the past, and could in the far future, but nuclear is incredibly expensive, and the construction logistics are so difficult and slow that it is not a feasible solution for the energy interchange. Perhaps in 2060 or 2070, we could build enough. Our ability to manufacture has so outpaced our ability to construct that nuclear doesn't really fit modern economies very well.
  - throwaway894345 4y ago
    I probably agree with this for traditional reactors, but I'm not sure if this holds for small modular reactors. A lot of our nuclear dialogue assumes a very narrow kind of nuclear. I don't think nuclear needs to be the only approach, but we should definitely diversify even if one of the options is more expensive.
    - epistasis 4y ago
      If we allow SMRs as a feasible tech, that aren't shipping and have no reliable cost estimates, we may as well also assume that advanced storage tech that isn't even shipping will be feasible. Storage companies have a far better track record of delivering on their promises than the nuclear industry does, so the we must assume that engineering of nuclear is too difficult to provide reliable cost estimates ahead of time.
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        > If we allow SMRs as a feasible tech, that aren't shipping and have no reliable cost estimates, we may as well also assume that advanced storage tech that isn't even shipping will be feasible. Yes, we should invest in both SMRs and advanced storage, not because we are assuming feasibility, but because we can't know their feasibility without trying them. > Storage companies have a far better track record of delivering on their promises than the nuclear industry does I disagree, and anyway I'm not saying "invest in SMRs instead of storage" but rather in addition to because it increases our odds of finding a viable solution and moreover a diverse grid is a robust grid (different energy sources are likely to have different failure modes, such that we have a fallback in case one source experiences a catastrophic failure).
    - caoilte 4y ago
      We are researching SMRs, but they're not ready and they may never be. Just this week some research came out showing they make the nuclear waste worse than large scale reactors which would have serious cost implications. https://www.powermag.com/researchers-say-smrs-will-produce-more-waste-than-large-nuclear-reactors-nuscale-disputes-claim/ https://www.powermag.com/researchers-say-smrs-will-produce-m...
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  I agree that it's not the only solution, I was just trying to deter replies like "wOuLd YoU pReFeR dEaD pOlArBeArS?!" or something.

turbinerneiter 4y ago

They do complain about those, Germany desperately needs a connector from north (off-shore windparks) to the south (Bavarian industry), but it is not getting done because people don't like the idea of seeing the practical necessities that make their modern lives possible.

martin_a 4y ago
At some point, we'll just cut power to Bavaria and see how long their candle reserves last. Then the north-south line will happen. :-D
universa1 4y ago
iirc(!!!!) parts of the transmission line is planned as "earth" cable, so there will be no poles. This is going to be more expensive and you need to dig trenches(? not sure it is the correct word) in something like a 80-100m wide path. Again iirc(!), line operators get a guaranteed return of 8%, while land-owners get a low one-time payment. And maybe the crisis will finally push this, but my guess is, this will take plenty more years until finally being built fully.
- turbinerneiter 4y ago
  Yeah, the earth cables are pretty insane, I think they came up with that to overcome the opposition. They are expensive, but I also don't hate it. If we can reduce the impact of infrastructure on people, we should do it.

bamboozled 4y ago

What’s not nice to look at is sick dying polar bears or penguins clinging on to a small piece of melting icecap… The pylons, no one complains because they’re used to them. No kid will grow up complaining about turbines.

CuriousSkeptic 4y ago
While things probably aren’t that great for the local wildlife. Consider also the effect on the weather systems for the rest of globe when all that energy that usually goes towards melting ice has no more ice to melt.
- bamboozled 4y ago
  …oh I agree

jl6 4y ago

I agree - wind turbines look great. They’re a visible symbol of technology, progress, and elegance. Some people complain that birds will fly into them, as if climate change won’t kill 1000x as many birds as turbines ever will.

ekianjo 4y ago
> They’re a visible symbol of technology, progress, and elegance. They're a visible symbol of non-progress, we had windmills for centuries and it's literally one of the most low-tech ways to produce power.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Simple, cheap, clean, and effective are pretty much the best metrics to optimize technology for. "New" is not a desirable attribute in a technology. Though I would argue that current wind is extremely new, in the advanced manufacturing methods for such massive structures, in the design of blades and placement on wind farms. And for flaring offshore wind, the engineering is truly impressive. Thinking that modern wind turbines are centuries old tech is like thinking that nuclear power is centuries old tech because it boils water to generate mechanical force. But again, "new" is not the desirable property, it's only a means to other better attributes.
layer8 4y ago
> wind turbines look great. They’re a visible symbol of technology, progress, and elegance. Exactly. Since watching Macross Plus when I was young, wind turbines instill a deep nostalgia in me. Though Yoko Kanno’s soundtrack is likely partly to blame. :)

jansan 4y ago

It is not only about the looks, but also about the sound. You can hear wind turbines quite clear, and since they emit defined frequencies (as opposed to white noise), the noise can be quite annoying. I would not want to live close to a wind turbine even if I could not see it.

Brometheus 4y ago
No they really don't. I have been standing in a farm of Enercon turbines on nearly full load and it's actually rather quite. The wind in the trees is louder.
usrusr 4y ago
General rule of thumb with wind turbines: the bigger they are, the less annoying the noise (and the drop shadows). They are designed for about the same tip speed from smallest to largest (basically: highest rpm that doesn't make tips go too close to transonic), so rpm is inversely proportional to size. I believe that if turbine size was only constrained by structural engineering and not by transport, they'd be almost as imperceptible as jets passing by at cruising altitude (visible from "everywhere" and also audible if everything else is quiet, but perfectly ignorable ambience). Perhaps your memory of turbine perception is dominated by some examples that weren't quite as big as you might have thought? It's really difficult to judge the size of those things (they are all "much bigger than a house") if you don't deliberately focus on rpm (this little trick only works in reasonably high wind conditions of course)