America's Offshore Wind Potential is Huge but Untapped (theverge.com) 142
A new analysis "shows that over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential is available along the U.S. coastline," capable of fulfilling up to 25% of U.S. energy demand in 2050. (And it could also add $1.8 trillion in economy-boosting investment, while employing up to 390,000 workers.)
This new analysis comes from Berkeley researchers, who worked with nonprofit clean energy research firm GridLab and climate policy think tank Energy Innovation, reports the Verge: The Biden administration has committed to halving the nation's emissions by the end of the decade and has plans to source electricity completely from carbon pollution-free energy by 2035. Adding to that urgency, U.S. electricity demand is forecast to nearly triple by 2050, according to the Berkeley report. On top of a growing economy, the clean energy transition means electrifying more vehicles and homes — all of which put more stress on the power grid unless more power supply comes online at a similar pace.
To meet that demand and hit its climate goals, the report says the U.S. has to add 27 gigawatts of offshore wind and 85 GW of land-based wind and solar each year between 2035 and 2050. That timeline might still seem far away, but it's a big escalation of the Biden administration's current goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030. Europe, with an electricity grid about 70% the size of the U.S., already has about as much offshore wind capacity as the Biden administration hopes to build up by the end of the decade. Right now, wind energy makes up just over 10% of the U.S. electricity mix, and nearly all of that comes from land-based turbines...
For now, the U.S. has just two small wind farms off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia. Construction started on the foundations for the nation's first commercial-scale wind farm off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in June... Project costs have gone up with higher interest rates and rising prices for key commodities like steel, Heatmap reports. That's led to power purchase agreements falling through for some projects in early development, including plans in Rhode Island for an 884-megawatt wind farm that alone would have added more than 20 times as much generation capacity as the U.S. has today from offshore wind. Developers are struggling to make projects profitable without passing costs on to consumers...
The study found a modest 2 to 3 percent increase in wholesale electricity costs with ambitious renewable energy deployment. But renewable energy costs have fallen so dramatically in the past that the researchers think those costs could wind up being smaller over time.
The report points out that wind energy complements solar, by producing the most wind energy right when demand is peaking (in the summertime on the West Coast, and during the winter on the East Coast).
This new analysis comes from Berkeley researchers, who worked with nonprofit clean energy research firm GridLab and climate policy think tank Energy Innovation, reports the Verge: The Biden administration has committed to halving the nation's emissions by the end of the decade and has plans to source electricity completely from carbon pollution-free energy by 2035. Adding to that urgency, U.S. electricity demand is forecast to nearly triple by 2050, according to the Berkeley report. On top of a growing economy, the clean energy transition means electrifying more vehicles and homes — all of which put more stress on the power grid unless more power supply comes online at a similar pace.
To meet that demand and hit its climate goals, the report says the U.S. has to add 27 gigawatts of offshore wind and 85 GW of land-based wind and solar each year between 2035 and 2050. That timeline might still seem far away, but it's a big escalation of the Biden administration's current goal of deploying 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030. Europe, with an electricity grid about 70% the size of the U.S., already has about as much offshore wind capacity as the Biden administration hopes to build up by the end of the decade. Right now, wind energy makes up just over 10% of the U.S. electricity mix, and nearly all of that comes from land-based turbines...
For now, the U.S. has just two small wind farms off the coasts of Rhode Island and Virginia. Construction started on the foundations for the nation's first commercial-scale wind farm off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in June... Project costs have gone up with higher interest rates and rising prices for key commodities like steel, Heatmap reports. That's led to power purchase agreements falling through for some projects in early development, including plans in Rhode Island for an 884-megawatt wind farm that alone would have added more than 20 times as much generation capacity as the U.S. has today from offshore wind. Developers are struggling to make projects profitable without passing costs on to consumers...
The study found a modest 2 to 3 percent increase in wholesale electricity costs with ambitious renewable energy deployment. But renewable energy costs have fallen so dramatically in the past that the researchers think those costs could wind up being smaller over time.
The report points out that wind energy complements solar, by producing the most wind energy right when demand is peaking (in the summertime on the West Coast, and during the winter on the East Coast).
Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:1, Troll)
Based on UK real data for 2 years from their largest consolidator of renewables, offshore windfarms are more expensive than solar or onshore wind, when storage and transmission costs are included. One reason is that in the UK the correlation of wind strength between different wind farms is quite high, so they need a lot of storage, this may be less in the case of the USA.They also need expensive maintenance, and don't last very long.
Re: Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:2)
Re: Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:2)
Re:Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Offshore wind is more expensive than onshore wind, but it's also more consistent, and avoids some problems with NIMBYs. Current gen offshore wind is exceeding 50% capacity factor, for example.
And offshore wind is still much cheaper than coal/gas, and vastly cheaper than nuclear.
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Australia's plan to get to 80% renewable by 2030 has been costed at 1.5 trillion dollars by Net Zero Australia. That is 14% of GDP, every year. The final plan, 100% renewable by 2050, is costed at 8 trillion dollars. You can buy an awful lot of nuclear reactors for 8 trillion dollars. The annual cost then keeps up at the same rate as the original equipment is replaced.
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Sounds like a bargain, considering that climate change is an existential threat to Australia. If temperatures rise too much, parts of Australia will become uninhabitable, or people will have to stay indoors for much of the summer months.
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Okay Mr Fanboy, not everything is an attack on you personally. Those are the choices, excepting areas that can have hydro and geothermal. Factual information isn't trolling you.
Re:Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:4)
The discussion is about of shore wind. Nothing about nuclear power was said or brought up but you had to get a shoot in. We could be talking about martian ass plugs and I bet you would try to insert some of your anti nuclear bullshit.
"While the green martian butt plugs do come with bluetooth 8.1, its far more cheaper than a nuclear reactor."
Shut the fuck up all ready. We get it, you don't like nuclear.
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If you really want to exclude nuclear from discussions about electricity generation, be my guest.
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It's interesting that you had no problem with comparing wind power it to goal or gas power, but somehow comparing it to nuclear power is crossing a line. Huh???
mods/meta-moderators: Hint, if someone uses the phrase "green martian butt plugs" and "shut the fuck up" in a post, it's proooobably not +1 Insightful. Maybe +1 Funny??
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This is anti-nuclear propaganda, not a "set of comparaisons". Especially since all experts, reports, studies, show that no, wind/solar are not "vastly cheaper" than nuclear.
Spreading lies and misinformation is stupidjo's specialty.
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https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/a... [eia.gov] has $$4,833 per a kilowatt-hour
The report talks about kW, not kWh, so I guess they are talking about capital cost for a given capacity. This is different to how much electricity made from a given plant will cost, because you have to account for other criteria: mainly capacity factor (~90% for nuclear, 20% for solar, between 10% and 45% for wind, with CF for offshore wind being at 15.4% at the moment of writing in Europe for instance [windeurope.org]), and predictability of production (as in, are you OK to only get your elevator working when the sun is sh
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However, offshore wind, which is under discussion has much less of that issue than onshore wind, since offshore wind is often nearly constantly blowing
Nah, offshore wind is not "often nearly constantly blowing". You can check the capacity factor for offshore wind in Europe [windeurope.org] for instance: it was at 15% yesterday, 35% today. The yearly industry average is between 25% and 45%, so it DOES vary a lot (and thus is not constant).
You can disagree with the metrics used, (and your point about this not being an ideal metric for many purposes is legitimate), but that doesn't render your initial claim about their being no studies true.
Studies showing offshore wind is "vastly cheaper" than nuclear (initial claim of Amimojo I was responding to) are mostly from biased sources: for instance, I don't really count a greenpeace study as unbiased... Studies about capital costs
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The capacity factor at the point of your writing for offshore wind in Europe is 45% - approaching 50%.
No it was not. You do know WIndEurope [windeurope.org] provides archive data? But what is one more lie for you, right.
It basically always was like that. We started to put wind parks into the sea, when we were confident they pay off.
Yeah sure. Until energy companies started to pull out of those deals because it was too expensive even for them:
- https://fortune.com/2023/07/22... [fortune.com]
- https://www.theguardian.com/bu... [theguardian.com]
No idea from what sources you get your idiotic claims.
Actual news, scientific papers, IPCC reports... And I happen to actually link and refer to them.
What are your sources? Oh right, when looking at your posting history, you never provide any links. I guess your gut feeling is enou
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No idea again
Yup, you got no idea, we got that.
Oh, our grid is already 50% clean
Your grid (I assume you are from Germany, hence why this is such a touchy subject for you) is one of the worst one in Europe in terms of CO2 emissions. Germany and Poland regularly fight for the first place in terms of CO2 emissions.
And yours?
Cleaner than Germany. And our economy is not in recession because of high energy prices.
But really, the comparison should be with France: they have had a low-CO2 emitting grid for the last 50 years, and completely eliminated coal from their mix
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It's also possible to builder taller power plants at sea. Wind power plants built twenty years ago were 150 m tall, while current plans are for 280 m and even 350 m.
Also note that Denmark is the leading country here and
Wrong. (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/en... [theguardian.com]
Nuclear is probably the most expensive, by a long way..
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Victoria in Australia was proposing to go to offshore wind, the contractors have now pulled out, citing maintenance, durability, and high capital costs. The weather data I got from whoever it is in the UK, costs from wiki.
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Australia could potentially export vast amounts of clean energy, but the setup cost (i.e. laying a very long undersea cable) is high.
For the domestic Australian market the issue is the availability of cheap fossil fuel generation. These people are not looking at what is best for the environment or for Australia, they are looking at short term profits.
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For the domestic Australian market the issue is the availability of cheap fossil fuel generation.
I'm lost. You keep saying in other posts that wind/solar is dirt cheap now. You are also saying that fossil fuels are even cheaper? At some point, will they reach negative prices too?
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It's the up-front cost to build new generation capacity. They have existing fossil fuel power stations, already built and operating. Developing wind requires capital investment that will take some years to pay back.
That's why they want the government to basically loan them they money cheaply, or give them free money. European governments do it sometimes, with payback in the first few years of operation.
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It's the up-front cost to build new generation capacity. They have existing fossil fuel power stations, already built and operating.p>
Coal, eh? Maybe Trump can flee to Oz where they like coal as much as he does.
That's why they want the government to basically loan them they money cheaply, or give them free money. European governments do it sometimes, with payback in the first few years of operation.
It's kind of strange that here in the land of savages, we have wind and solar sprouting up all over the place, humming along merrily.
In places with smarter people and superior governing (apparently any other country) they are having intractable issues doing what we poverty stricken, backwards and wrong headed Americans are doing offhandedly?
Come on, our betters! if we can do it, smarter people should be able to do it hella bett
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Coal, eh? Maybe Trump can flee to Oz where they like coal as much as he does.
I got a better idea. Why don't you get some help for you TDS. The article in question, and the discussion, has nothing what so ever to do with Trump. But for some reason you felt the need to us it as an excuse to talk shit about Trump. If think that everything negative in your life has something to do with Trump or that Trump is the cause of all of the worlds evils, time to get some help.
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Coal, eh? Maybe Trump can flee to Oz where they like coal as much as he does.
I got a better idea. Why don't you get some help for you TDS. The article in question, and the discussion, has nothing what so ever to do with Trump. But for some reason you felt the need to us it as an excuse to talk shit about Trump. If think that everything negative in your life has something to do with Trump or that Trump is the cause of all of the worlds evils, time to get some help.
Triggered much? I make a joke about the person who claimed he was going to restore coal in the USA, and that he could move to a place where they embrace it.
Your sense of humor hormones are at a dangerously low level. Now repeat after me - Reeeee! Reee! You see, I replied to Amimojo's comment that Oz uses fossil fuels to generate much of its power. Like. Get ready for it. Coal. How about that? I suspect that Amimojo may have chuckled, but wouldn't remotely be triggered.
The fascinating thing is that it
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As long as you are getting the help you need.
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As long as you are getting the help you need.
I am! and you are providing my therapy, thanks so very much.
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Then get a clue? ... that you do not have a headache in your brain from writing all this bullshit, particularly about Germany ... makes me wonder.
I strongly suggest to delete your account and make a new one, fresh start and such.
The nonsense you wrote since you irked my eye is so astonishing
Agression is the argument of those with a poverty of mind. You should reflect about that when writing your posts.
Australia has cheap coal. One of the biggest exporters on the planet. The cheap coal using cheap coal plants are already build.
So: solar and wind is cheap when you want to build a new plant, to sell new power. Not when you want to replace a coal plant in a coal paradise.
Even when you try to look smart, you are wrong. Have a look at that chart [ourworldindata.org], showing the evolution of the share of energy consumption by source for Australia, since 1965. Guess what: since 2010, Australia coal usage steadily decreases. Except that it is being replaced by gas.
So, I reiterate my comment: if solar/wind was so cheap and could magically replace baseload and peaking plants, how come they
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Oh, you finally admitted that Germany educed its CO2 producing power plants from over 80% to below 50% Wow, took you YEARS to figure that. I guess when Germany is at 0%
Someone is triggered here. Germany mainly replaced coal by gas (while still burning ~30% coal for its electricity production). As always, you can see that here [nowtricity.com] for instance.
Your whole post is a straw man fallacy [wikipedia.org]. But keep on ranting.
As long as you as a person have not reduced your CO2 output by 40% to 50%: you do not qualify to utter critics on other countries electricity production: you, because YOU did NOTHING so far.
Actually, I did do that: no cars, vegetarian, don't fly anymore, live in a country where electricity production is at ~40g CO2eq/kWh, only buy stuff when I need it (and mostly used, like for phones). But anyway, your argument is dumb: that doesn't qualify me either to utter crit
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Blah blah blah, Germany is the greatest blah blah blah.
I get it. We get it. No point arguing further with you. You are oblivious to logic.
Re:Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Offshore wind is the most expensive solution (Score:4, Insightful)
More to the point, the dead hand of the free market only works as a reaction, it is not preemptive. Only in the U.S. is there a sizable group of people who somehow have no degrees making them knowledgeable about climate but opine like they were experts.
The models invariably predict we're headed into a very hot future with all the downsides attendant to that. The dead hand of the free market will only react once it really hits and will be too late.
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More to the point, the dead hand of the free market only works as a reaction, it is not preemptive. Only in the U.S. is there a sizable group of people who somehow have no degrees making them knowledgeable about climate but opine like they were experts.
The models invariably predict we're headed into a very hot future with all the downsides attendant to that. The dead hand of the free market will only react once it really hits and will be too late.
And yet, the real solution, reliable nuclear power, is rejected by the so-called (by themselves) smart people.
re: nuclear power (Score:2)
I agree completely.... Plus, it's "telling" how people quickly modded my comment down because they find "Capitalism" SO distasteful. Yet nothing I said was even arguing against cleaner energy solutions getting rolled out!
My whole point is, you should have plenty of reasons some of this can make long-term economic sense. What's NOT effective is government mandates/laws demanding a specific change happen by date X.
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I think a lot of people simply assume they will be dead before it really affects them, so prefer to do nothing. It doesn't help that while transitioning to renewable energy has great opportunities for jobs and economic growth, much of it helps younger people more than the older ones who tend to have more power due to voting more and having more wealth.
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More to the point, the dead hand of the free market only works as a reaction, it is not preemptive.
I do not trust you or anyone else to make preemptive decisions about something like the "market". I would rather let the pieces fall where they may and then clean up whatever broke. With how crazy people can be, anything preemptive is likely to lead to nobody doing anything because risk is always present.
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you're stuck hiring only people who have no fear of heights
The overwhelming majority of people are not afraid of heights. I wonder what other stupid things you're going to say.
Personally, I'll be glad when the Biden administration is out of office and (hopefully), things change with regard to some of these "clean energy mandates".
Ok I was bracing myself for a stupid post, but man I had no idea how low the bar was. I'm genuinely impressed that you think a republican government is the solution. *tips hat* Kudos to you man. Kudos.
Weather could be an issue (Score:4, Interesting)
While there is plentiful continental shelf space for offshore wind farms in the US Atlantic Coast and the Gulf of Mexico, there is however one major issue the builders need to deal with: hurricanes. The Gulf of Mexico and the US Atlantic Coast from Miami all the way up to Boston are vulnerable to a hurricane strike, and when you have storms of huge size with wind speeds of over 100 mph (160 km/h), the potential of serious damage to an offshore wind farm is very real.
Re:Weather could be an issue (Score:4, Informative)
This is the subject of intense [energy.gov] study [pbs.org]. As offshore windmills are already designed to handle gusts of up to 155 mi/h, and the potential revenues involved, I find it difficult to believe this is an insurmountable problem.
Don't be a bunch of wussies (Score:2)
Build nuclear reactors and solar FFS. That's the only solution -- even hydro is shaky.
skeptical (Score:3)
Somebody who wanted this result paid somebody else who wanted this result to get this result.
Scale (Score:2)
The part of the site with the data is down right now, but my take away from this is: wind can only provide 25% of our power, at maximum, and only after 27 years of vastly increased investment. That's... actually not great. Trying to be positive let's keep thinking: If 25% is wind, and 20% solar, and 5% hydroelectric, and 20% nuclear then...... we are still screwed. 2050 is too late. We can't build renewables fast enough, and even if we could they can only satisfy a fraction of the need. We can't build
Re: Why though? (Score:1)
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Land based turbines, on the other hand, disturbes the landscape a lot
Okay, but please tell me a very convincing story about how a giant tower with an attached turbine in the sky enacts a significant difference upon the regional (and, if you want to reach for the slam dunk, the national, or hell the global) weather patterns, when it sits upon the offshore waters as compared to when it sits upon the nearshore land.
This argument really feels like backwater trash to me. If the marine life desperately wanted shit to build upon, we could have dropped plastic nets with concrete anc
Re: Why though? (Score:2)
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This argument really feels like backwater trash to me. If the marine life desperately wanted shit to build upon, we could have dropped plastic nets with concrete anchors into the sea decades ago. Tell me how I'm wrong, because your post is currently drastically lacking.
Probably because "plastic nets" would degrade too quickly, and this would be a "single purpose" use for which there's no money to fund it.
That being said, a number of ships have been prepped and disposed of by controlled sinking to provide said shelters before. Such things have been called "artificial reefs"
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/... [noaa.gov]
Plastic isn't typically involved, tire rubber being the closest identified.
Basically, marine life might "desperately" want shit to build on - but we don't give that much
Re: Why though? (Score:2)
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Those things are nonesense. The only environmental effects of wind turbines are visual effects and noise - which affects humans directly. Animals doesn't seem to care./p Oh, by the way: They also blind radars due to high reflections - static and moving.
Don't forget that wind turbines extract energy. They slow wind down in the post turbine area. Doesn't mean all that much though. There's plenty of energy in the atmosphere.
That radar thing is correct; There are a lot of Wind turbines on the Alleghenny escarpment in PA, and they show up like tiny little thunderstorms on the weather radar. I think they may have been "removed" in the mapping software now.
Re: Why though? (Score:4)
The only thing I've read about wind turbines at sea comes from commercial fishermen. They complain that they won't be able to rape the seas of fish any more because the best wind locations are in the middle of their grounds.
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That is actually a very good idea.
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I agree that it is more expensive than land based, but not that it hurts the environment. It can even be beneficial as artificial reefs.
They also create "no-fishing" zones where fish can breed in peace.
Re: Why though? (Score:2)
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There's some speculation that the vibrations or something from the windmills kills whales. I haven't seen proof, though.
Re: Why though? (Score:5, Funny)
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There's some speculation that the vibrations or something from the windmills kills whales. I haven't seen proof, though.
People will find the damndest things to speculate about. If vibrations kill whale, then ship propellers have done that murder already.
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If vibrations kill whale, then ship propellers have done that murder already.
Yes, it is a real problem, though with Orca's rather then whales here in the Pacific North West. Solutions include slower ships, modified propellers and others that I forget.
I'd assume that with wind, similar solutions can be done, design the blades such that vibrations are at better frequencies is the obvious and with modern computers, easy to design.
Or better here, put the wind turbines up a mountain instead of in the ocean, which drops off fast.
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Or just isolate the vibrations from the turbine nacelle from the mast and anchor structure that actually sits in the water.
I'm pretty sure this is already done though, as they wouldn't want the turbine shaking the whole thing apart after time.
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Good point.
Re: Why though? (Score:2)
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The cheapest by far is natural gas generation
Your info is out of date. Perhaps that was true historically, but it isn’t today or as we look forward.
The estimated unweighted LCOE for solar is about 10% less than natural gas [eia.gov] according to the US EIA (see Table 1b). 20% less if you factor in tax credits (but that’s a bit unfair, if you ask me). And the trend line is getting worse for natural gas and better for solar over time (Figure 3). And that’s without taking gas peaker plants into account (which are WAY more expensive) and with taki
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And what do I do with my yacht when you've used up all the wind?
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Solar panels do not produce power at night.
Wind does.
Coastal areas, that is what "off shore" actually means, have typical peak times of power production after sunrise and after sunset. Which compensates nicely with usage patterns of the population.
How much they can produce during daytime and night time depends on the overall weather situation. But can be quite significant.
Bottom line you would not put solar panels at sea anyway, so you have to weight land usage versus sea area usage. I would assume per MW/G
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Wind does.
Sometimes.
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Even offshore wind sometimes doesnt blow (or if you prefer, not enough for the wind turbines, or too much too sometimes). Hence why the capacity factor of offshore wind in Europe at the time of writing this is only 15%: https://windeurope.org/about-w... [windeurope.org]
Dumbass. Do you really want to make an complete idiot out of your self?
Stop projecting. You have been shown your errors countless times already. You are making a fool of yourself.
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No, you claimed: sometimes there is wind.
Now you claim sometimes there is not wind.
Make up your mind.
What part of "sometimes" don't you understand?
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No, you claimed: sometimes there is wind.
Now you claim sometimes there is not wind.
Make up your mind.
Really? You made my day just with that comment.
Sure and your common knowledge abut things is so unexistent: that you believe 15%? Lol ... just lol. Like your claim an EV produces 50% of the CO2 an ICE car does during its lifetime ... lol
It's at 32% this fine morning, and I am still using the same source: Wind Europe [windeurope.org], which is "the voice of the wind industry, actively promoting wind energy across Europe" [windeurope.org]. But I am not surprised you don't know that source, seeing as you like to rely on your gut feeling for any scientific reasoning.
Just to conclude this thread: yesterday CF was at 15%, today more like 30%, with a yearly average between 25% and 45% depending on the year. I guess that means that so
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A CF is the amount of power a plant does/did produce over a year divided by the amount *could* produce, if it would run at 100 of its nameplate. What yesterday happened or what is happening right now: is not a CF.
Nope, The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period [wikipedia.org].
You can give it another definition, and restrict it to yearly periods only, but the rest of the world doesn't have to abide by angelosphere definitions. Same as physical laws don't care how you think the real world works.
So yes, what I linked previouslyt is the daily CF for Europe. Which was at 15% yesterday, and will be aroun
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You can give it another definition, and restrict it to yearly periods only, but the rest of the world doesn't have to abide by angelosphere definitions. Same as physical laws don't care how you think the real world works.
And you can reduce the given period of time to something that is akin to cherry-picking statistics when it turns out you're just looking at individual data point noise. Zooming out to annualized production gives you a somewhat accurate prediction of capacity factor, because you can average out seasonal and daily variance - both above and below the mean.
It just cracks me up when people are so desperate to be right, that they end up contorting themselves into metaphorically painful positions that defy simple
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Capacity factor on a daily basis is useless, and you showed us why - it can be 15% on a Sunday, and 45% on Monday. Capacity factor on a monthly basis is a bit more useful, but still pretty useless.
Yet, people seem to not be able to follow a simple discussion thread.
Initial angelosphere assertion was that "Wind blows at night". To which I said "Sometimes" (which is true, given that if it was ALWAYS blowing at night and day, the CF would be 100%). To which angelosphere went on a rant about how he was right, because wind always blows.
Hence why I talked about daily CF: to show the variance of wind power, even for a territory as big as Europe. Unlike angelosphere keeps asserting, even offshore wind is int
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Doesn't matter: Both the fixed and recurring costs of wind are so much higher, you can easily scale solar + storage far past what you'd get investing the same money in wind. The legacy energy industry likes wind because it advances slowly, so less disruptive to fossil fuel revenues; they can charge more, so defrays more of those lost revenues; and it evolves slower, so they're not as likely to be blindsided by a random competitor's sudden advantage, w
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Doesn't matter: Both the fixed and recurring costs of wind are so much higher, you can easily scale solar + storage far past what you'd get investing the same money in wind. The legacy energy industry likes wind because it advances slowly, so less disruptive to fossil fuel revenues; they can charge more, so defrays more of those lost revenues; and it evolves slower, so they're not as likely to be blindsided by a random competitor's sudden advantage, which happens regularly in solar. And they like offshore because that's even more expensive than onshore. This is some of the most far fetched stuff I've ever read. If your premise is correct, that mysterious cabla of fossil fuel people would be pressing hard for Nuclear. double cost overruns, like the 34 billion plant in Georga, or billions sunk and not a penny's worth of power out like the 8 billion plant in South Carolina.
The final nail in your conspiracy is fossil fuels are not a competitor to wind or solar, unless you are counting the mined fuel for nuc stations as fossil fuel.
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LOL, bruh. The fossil fuel industry is as about as "mysterious" as a drug cartel. Nuclear is complicated for them because of very deep political and security implications they're not f
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I didn't propose a "conspiracy," I described an incentive. And you're correct, fossil fuels don't compete with wind or solar. They obstruct and interfere with them, because renewable energy is an existential threat to the fossil fuel industry.
It is going to happen anyway. At some point, Petrochemicals will become too expensive to burn.
So for the folks that insist on petrochemicals, they are going to have a lot less disposable cash sitting around.
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But one stat proves how insanely great solar really is: Despite
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European economies even more heavily favor wind for industrial reasons. Installing and maintaining giant moving parts creates a lot more jobs than a solar park, especially if the panels are non-moving. The German juggernaut Siemens makes colossal turbine blades, for instance. Those investments end up having an inertia of their own, where redirecting to solar would result in political resistance because jobs would be lost in the short-term.
Here in the states, we have a lot of wind turbines sprouting up. The Allegheny Escarpment in Pennsylvania running southwest to northeast is a great source of 24/7/365.25 wind, as it rises into a pretty powerful long lasting flow of air.
But we also use a fair amount of solar too. A typical use is power substation extension. In my area as new developments are built, it stresses hell out of the last substations in the power grid.
And power use being what it is, installing solar panels to assist especially at the high use times, a whole lot of money is saved over re-routing power, building new substations, or even worse issues.
So we see these solar substations popping up.
And none of the standard complaints have occurred. They don't turn the ground underneath to lifeless mud, indeed plants grow just fine under them. They don't cause animal problems, in fact, birds nest under them, and enjoy the protection from the weather.
So we're doing a lot of solar and wind. The wind is even performing base load now, instead of just topping load.
But one stat proves how insanely great solar really is: Despite its latitude and climate, and the political preference for wind, Germany is able to get 11% of its electricity from solar. The potential in actually sunny countries is mind-boggling.
Did you know that in many small villages in Alaska, they use solar to generate electricity during the summer? These small villages use diesel to generate power in the winter and at one time during the summer. Horribly expensive. And if they run out of fuel in the winter, it can be a real disaster.
So solar allows them to bank diesel fuel for the dark months. The installs can be a lot different, as in circular in aspect, as opposed to the normal flat installation.
Storage is still a much newer frontier than solar by itself, but there are many options, and many of them are quite simple and sustainable. One of the simplest is pumping water uphill and then letting it flow through a small hydro system at night. But you can do pretty much anything to accomplish the same thing with somewhat different tradeoffs: Charge batteries, compress air, lift weights, stretch or compress springs, spin flywheels, push a pendulum, freeze water into ice, generate renewable fuels, on and on. Hydraulic storage is in use already. It works a treat. A lot of people don't understand the issues that steam turbine plants have. You don't just install a turbine, feed it with some steam and it generates as much power as you want instantly. Power useage varies all over the place, and at different times of day.
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Interesting about Alaska is: they have a extremely huge amount of sun hours per year. It is kind of counter intuitive, considering the location/latitude.
That is true. I was in Skagway, AK a few years back, and the summers there are really interesting and gorgeous. Those really long days make for a real riot of flowers. If you can ever get to Alaska, I recommend it. The coastal areas are beautiful
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Solar panels do not produce power at night.
Battery storage has hit the same cost per kWh as solar. That's significant as you can have a solar system where power is available at night and it's not prohibitively expensive. $1748/kWh (cite [eia.gov]) for Solar PV with storage. Where as a light-water reactor is $7030/kWh and biomass generation is $4525.
Coastal areas, that is what "off shore" actually means, have typical peak times of power production after sunrise and after sunset. Which compensates nicely with usage patterns of the population.
Ultimately you want to look at total overnight costs when you compare these things, rather than base your argument on a vague hypothesis about the pros and cons of different operating situations. (land based) Wind
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Wind Energy Technologies Office (WETO) funds help pad out the "investment" so that if it fails the investors can still sell off the equipment and rights for pennies on the dollar. Taxpayer funded investment insurance. If you want a concrete example of public money going into private industry, I can provide a link [energy.gov]
The rest of your post is wrong. This topic of PV storage has been gone over many many times and I even posted a reference of where the numbers come from. Don't try to use a pithy retort in order to
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You have it ass backwards. Wind is pushed offshore by nimbys.
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Why is it that the nuclear playboys get to cry nimby forever and ever, amen but somehow it doesn't apply to wind turbines, even though literally everyone is familiar with relevant examples?
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NIMBYs exist, but wide open land is abundant in this country. Anyone claiming their wind project isn't moving forward because of NIMBYism is more than likely being disingenuous, whether as a negotiating tactic with some government agency or a PR posture to greenwash other projects.
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NIMBYs exist, but wide open land is abundant in this country. Anyone claiming their wind project isn't moving forward because of NIMBYism is more than likely being disingenuous
Total nonsense. In fact offshore wind got shut down here in Humboldt by nimbyism, but it got revived when PGE announced that they had no plans to add more capacity here. Nobody can get new service already. So now it's finally happening...
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Or it could be the fact that Humboldt County has the population of no less a metropolis than Cedar Rapids, Iowa spread over dozens of small, loosely-connected towns in a space bigger than Delaware. Not exactly a magnet for infrastructure investment
The permit was denied previously due to petition pressure. It was approved without any of that this time, because people want new service.
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That is a fair point, but this time business wants it to happen because otherwise there's no new development. As such, I anticipate it actually happening — even if this developer is a fraud, which I don't in fact believe, another one will want to do the same thing because there's a captive market.
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