4 ms·
Do any of those work on the gigawatt scale? The largest 15 plants in the world are hydro or nuclear.[1] The largest solar plant is only 550MW.[2] Wind might be
by aftbit 11y ago
Do any of those work on the gigawatt scale? The largest 15 plants in the world are hydro or nuclear.[1] The largest solar plant is only 550MW.[2] Wind might be able to handle that load, but the environmental cost of wind energy is still poorly studied.
Also, unlike coal, nuclear, hydro (to some extent), and natural gas, wind and solar are intermittant - on cloudy or calm days, they do not produce peak power. If we want to replace a stable constant base load plant, we need something that can offer the same guarantees.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations_in_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_power_stations...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topaz_Solar_Farm
[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu_Wind_Farm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gansu_Wind_Farm
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Wind_Energy_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alta_Wind_Energy_Center
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> Wind might be able to handle that load, but the environmental cost of wind energy is still poorly studied. Wind generation has minimal environmental costs (it requires no fuel, kills less birds than buildings and cats each year, and also requires no water as opposed to coal and nuclear plants): http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewable-energy/environmental-impacts-wind-power.html http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/our-energy-choices/renewa... http://energy.gov/eere/wind/environmental-impacts-and-siting-wind-projects http://energy.gov/eere/wind/environmental-impacts-and-siting... > If we want to replace a stable constant base load plant, we need something that can offer the same guarantees. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricit... http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/eos-utility-scale-battery-storage-competitive-with-gas-36444 http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/eos-utility-scale-battery-st... (utility scale battery storage already cost competitive with natural gas in 2013)
- bryanbuckley 11y agoI think the environmental cost people wonder about for wind is regarding Newton's third law. If we harness the wind, what is the effect on the rest of the system?
- giarc 11y agoTrillions of tree's blowing in the wind hasn't seemed to cause much issue.
- bryanbuckley 11y agoso we need wind harvester's which approximate trees? then we can chop down some existing trees in windy spots and drop those in? otherwise, we need a bit more study..
- giarc 11y agoI think you misunderstood my comment. The original comment was asking about the concern of wind turbines stopping the wind and what affect that would have on the environment. I was pointing out the fact that tree's currently do the same thing, only we have trillions of tree's compared to thousands of turbines.
- MaysonL 11y agoDo the math: how deep is the atmosphere, and how much of it does wind power generation affect? Most likely substantially less than skyscrapers alone, let alone the rest of cities.
- bryanbuckley 11y agoyes, someone should in fact do the math! e.g. I vaguely remember some factoid about how some significant amount of top-soil in the Amazon rain forest is attributed to top-soil/sand from Africa? Also, I just googled "deforestation affect wind" and got some interesting results.
- sorenbs 11y agoIn Denmark we sell our wind power to Norway when there is too much and buy it back when there is no wind. How can that be you might ask! The Norwegians are a clever bunch you see - they pump water when electricity is cheap and let it run backwards when the price is high. With dams holding back two years of water flow surely you are in a position to do the same.