You are PRETENDING that once a wind turbine reaches 20-25 years it must be completely scrapped and rebuilt again from the ground up. That is patently absurd since ONLY the PARTS that wear out need to be replaced. Replacing generators is SOP for power plants and nothing remotely close to the same cost as the original installation. Same applies to solar panels since ONLY the panels need to be replaced on the EXISTING infrastructure. Furthermore the REPLACEMENT panels have GREATER generation abilities and LONGER lifespans.
Where did I ever say that? I said absolutely nothing even close to that. And I have absolutely no interest in even trying to have a conversation with somebody who ignores everything I say, then injects their own thoughts and opinions, implying I was the one that said it.
Remember, 20-25 years is the average. Many fail much sooner, some last longer. But the fact is that they do wear out, and simply need to be replaced. And guess what else has a lifespan of around 25 years? Passenger airliners. You can do the most meticulous maintenance in the world on it, but after around 35 years on average they have to go to the scrapyard. And for big rigs and delivery trucks, it is on average around 10 years. It just becomes a case of diminishing returns, you are simply spending more in maintenance to keep it operational then you are getting in return in power. With major constructions like dams and other more conventional plants, there is still so much invested in the original structure that rebuilding a turbine assembly is cost effective. But for a wind turbine? Nope, you just replace the entire thing. And in conventional plants, the every 25 year or so major maintenance projects generally increase the power they produce. And you may be able to salvage little from the old one. A few years ago I got a tour of the wind farm around Lawrence-Livermore, and the area was covered with old concrete pads, many dating back to the 1970s. When an old turbine was retired, the newer ones could not use the same pad so even that had to be built again from scratch.
You did - indirectly. You suggested that the many private corporations rapidly growing wind power both in the US and abroad are not considering your reasons which will cause them to fail. I firmly believe capitalism is better than that. There were attempts on this thread to directly answer your concerns, and you ignored that. So, I'm just pointing out that there are highly interested parties with skin in the game who don't accept your points as precluding success.
When I was 10 years old, the day of my first communion, we were knee deep in snow in Montreal. 44 years later, I'm knee deep in snow in Montreal... Nothing has changed really.
Snow isn't a good measure. In fact, warmer winters allow the atmosphere to carry more moisture, thus leading to MORE snow, not less. This is a feature that weather forcasters in the great lakes region watch. Of course, it's also true that the warming Earth is experiencing does not evenly cover the planet.
Hard to make the point that global warming and climate change is a thing if it doesn't happens globally. Presently the worst of it seems to be concentrated in the southern hemisphere.
Like many things, one has to look to science to determine what's happening. Nobody should suspect that their weather is indicative of what is happening the world over. Bangladesh is seeing significant flooding and other changes that impact their agriculture. India has built significnt walls against starving Bangladeshis. The city of Miami Beach is flooding, and it's getting worse - even with the major pumping stations they've been building. New Orleans is under special threat as ocean level increases while the land level sinks due to compaction of the delta and pumping of oil and water. The thing is, we need to be smart enogh to take advantage of the lead time that science gives us for reducing this problem as the impact grows.
It is happening globally, see https://www.sciencenewsforstudents....warming-unlike-last-2000-years-climate-shifts. From: Science News for Students Temperatures across 98 percent of Earth’s surface were hotter at the end of the 20th century than at any time in the previous 2,000 years. Such nearly universal warming occurred in lockstep across the planet. And it is unique to this current era, scientists report. There were other well-known cold and warm snaps in the past. They include the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Some people have cited these episodes as evidence that modern warming is nothing out of the ordinary. But those past periods were only regional, not worldwide, new research shows. Today’s warming is truly global. And nothing like it has been seen in the past 2,000 years. What’s more, temperatures are increasing now much faster than at any time in the last 2,000 years. These conclusions come from a trio of new papers. They examined temperature trends over the last 20 centuries years. The papers were published online July 24 in Nature and Nature Geoscience.
Bangladesh has been flooding for as long as I lived and way before... Both Miami and New Orleans are enginering mistake and should never have been built where they are.
There are wind turbines and solar panels and geothermal, etc. being used around the world! If it was a losing cause 'capitalism' would not invest! The problem we have today, is politics and partisanship ONLY FROM THE OIL AND COAL groups, promotes oil and coal while villainizing RE. Most oil companies are already investing heavily in RE so obviously they know how this all ends. IMO it's fine to continue oil and coal consumption in this interim period when we transition to more cost effective and renewable energies, however, capitalism will in the long term settle all of these petty disputes...
The climate where I live since 1951--cold and snowy in the winter, wet and cool in the spring, warm and sunny in the summer, pleasant and pretty in the fall. Hasn't changed a bit in 68 years. The technology--from party lines to cell phones, from phonographs to streaming sound systems, from iron boxes on wheels at 13 miles per gallon to aerodynamic steel and aluminum at 35 miles per gallon, from 20-inch horizontal cathode ray tubes to 50-inch OLED 4K, from propellers to turbine jets and spaceships, from life expectancy of 62 in 1951 to 82 in today's world, from room fans that blew hot air to air conditioners that keep the house at 68 when it's 98 outside--has been heroically incredible. The weather hasn't changed much, but human life sure has.
If human creativity is destroying the planet, why are we all living so extraordinarily well? We live longer, play better, eat better, live better than any other humans in history. Somebody is feeding us a lot of crap, and it isn't the capitalists...Bernie Sanders and his political heroes Castro and Maduro come to mind, though.
I agree Bangladesh has had problems for a long time. The point is that it is getting worse. The same is true for the city of Miami Beach. In fact, the mayor there has stated that property in his city should not be considered a good investment. The same goes in NOLA The ramifications of warming aren't even all necessarily bad. The point is that there are clear cases where climate is changing due to the warming average temperature of Earth. Again, this goes back to science - not politics, not me.
Mushroom, the same argument applies to ALL power generating system be they nuclear, solar, coal fired or water wheel etc. They all wear out and at some point have to be replaced. As far as I have read coal fired plants seem to have a useful life span the 40-50 year range, using your figure solar has somewhere around 20-25 (although improved models are coming out all the time which may change that). What matters in the initial build cost vs payback time. Power producers just don't see the payback figures for coal compared to other systems warranting the initial investment. Building a modern Coal fired plant in the 1000-2000 meg range represents a huge, long term investment and providers can track the projected cost curves for alternatives as well as everyone else can (including banks & investors). And those projections are telling power producers that coal is too expensive, maybe not in India and China for now but definitely so in the West. I repeat nothing is stopping your local energy provider investing in coal fired power except the economics.
No, I did not. I never mentioned Corporations, nor did I say they would fail. I simply believe that in the long run, it is not an effective solution as they have a rather limited life span, and they barely meet their ROI before they have to be replaced. I did not say a damned thing about corporations, nor about failure. THis is entirely you putting words into my mouth, things I never said.
But according to those charts that is changing Renewables are taking over the market because they are cheaper than coal with land based wind coming out to be rapidly becoming cheapest of all What would you rather this Or this
And that is rapidly changing New wind power interventions are changing that https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/09/20/how-to-extend-the-lifetime-of-wind-turbines/#gref
Really, geothermal? Geothermal? Are you even aware of how much energy is produced by that? Here is an idea, the US gets 0.4% of it's power that way, and that is a whopping 3GW of power. Oh, and the US represents 28% of the world's geothermal power production, and is the world's leader in that. No, Geothermal is not even a blip on the chart of energy sources. And it does not matter if it is used "around the world", it is limited to primarily a gap power source because of a great many limitations that all 3 have in their use. No, it is much more than that actually. THis all falls not into the cost of the plant itself, but also in the infrastructure invested. This causes a great change in the ROI, as well as the overall cost. Take a hydro plant. Now the plant itself is only about $100 million, and that is for a power source that works 24-7, and is not affected by things like weather. Now that may sound like a lot of money, but it is nothing compared to the value of the dam itself, at around $1 billion+. But the dam is also largely subsidized, as the dams serve multiple purposes. Flood control, holding water, recreation, irrigation, and many other uses. In fact, it is because of this that over the decades a great many older dams built entirely for flood control and irrigation have been retrofitted with turbines to produce power as well. The same with a coal plant. You have the generators. But also the buildings, the maintenance equipment, the rail lines to bring in the coal, etc. That all represents a large capital investment, and it is why when they do reach the end of their lifespan they are replaced with new generators (more and more often lately one that uses natural gas instead of coal). All the equipment and infrastructure is already in place, compared to all that cost the amount for a new generator is really not all that much. WIth wind and solar, you do not have that kind of infrastructure. And prorating the costs really does not make sense in the long term. You are in a permanent race in the hope that you get an adequite ROI before the system has to be replaced. And a disaster could quickly turn the entire investment into a black hole.
And that is rapidly changing New wind power interventions are changing that https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/2019/09/20/how-to-extend-the-lifetime-of-wind-turbines/#gref
