Wind Power Milestone Reached!

Germany ist still building new transmission lines to transport the electricity from the north, where the most windmills are, to the south, where a lot of industry is placed. On some days there is too much wind electricity which can't be used, because of the missing possibility to transport it to the places where it's needed.The "Energiewende" is a process which will take time and will afford a lot of money but it is a project for decades and the majority of the population is supporting it.

Some figures from my last bill:

For a three person household, in a 160 m² house, we payed about 1000 € last year for 3200 kWh. 2 Years ago we consumed 4200 kWh. The reduction was possible without loss of any comfort.

 

A redundant grid is obvious, you need to prove why it's not necessary

 

As I stated earlier and you ignored the cost of infrastructure to bring power very long distances to transfer power from areas with wind to areas that lost wind is staggering. The other point and main issue you ignored and obviously can't deal with is once again redundancy. If you did indeed have enough windmills country wide to provide power to parts of the country that lost wind that means when wind was blowing at all sites you'd have half or more of windmills sitting idle. In essence you'd have to build maintain and service an infrastructure at least twice as big as necessary. It also begs the question of where are all these windmill farms going to be? I know in California they have bulldozed thousands of acres of desert and Joshua trees in the name of green energy. Then there's the bird issue and the slicing and dicing of God knows how many birds a year these sea to shining sea wind farms would kill. It's a pie in the ski idea you present that is based on wishful thinking and not grounded in reality. Until there's a practical and economical way to store wind power for days the wind isn't blowing wind farms will continue to need to be heavily subsidized and be nothing more than pretend power that needs our entire current power grid up and running to back it up . In some tiny windy country like Scotland it may indeed fair better but just like public transportation in tiny European countries it doesn't work so well in a huge country like ours

 

Now imagine the cost of the transmission lines between 48 mainland states in America all or most the size of your country or bigger. It's just not economically feasible here but good luck in your attempt

 

German price per kwh = 9. US price per kwh = 30. 30/9 = ~ 3.

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What did you give up to reduce consumption by ~ 25%?

 

BZZZT Wrong again!

The existing grid does not need to be replicated with a "redundant grid" as you are alleging and yes, the onus is still entirely on you to prove that it is necessary because of wind power.

 

But you will advocate a pipeline across the most valuable aquifer in the country in the name of fossil fuels, but suddenly become a tree hugging lefty when it comes to some desert trees in California.....interesting. And suddenly wind power may work in a small country (when previously it wouldn't work anywhere), but won't work in a large country.... also interesting.

 

Your regurgitation of the disinformation from the fossil fuel special interests says volumes.

In case you weren't aware the entire nation is already covered by an energy grid that has been in place for many decades now. That you aren't aware of this fact says volumes too.

You are woefully ignorant of the advances in large scale energy storage systems that has been developed to handle peaks and troughs in electricity demands.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage

 

How many dams will be built to hold all this stored energy ?? What will be the power source used by the pumps ??

 

Which simply proves the point that the point of using alternatives is to suck more money from those who likely are the least likely able to afford it on their own. Self serving cycle of then having to use government to support them, thus sucking yet more money away from those who have more to suck it from.

yes, we get it.

 

Which may be true except for the fact that we have literally thousands of pipelines already in this country, many of them already crossing said aquifers. Just being plain intolerant of the truth isn't a usually winning strategy.

 

We didn't give up anything, we still use all the electronic stuff a modern household uses. I am far away from being a radical eco activist. We had to replace two broken white goods (dryer and dishwasher) both more than ten years old. The new ones are Miele devices and have been quite expensive, but they are really low energy and the Miele devices normally have a long durability. All broken bulbs were replaced by low energy bulbs. We tested the standby usage from all devices and the fake standby devices got an extra switch, all the small devices are unplugged when they are loaded and not used. Light is switched off when you leave a room. A lot of small steps adds up.

Ok, my hard disk recorders now need up to 2 minutes to be fully ready from deep standby. That's the most annoying.

 

In a populated country like Germany it's more expensive than in a sparsely populated country. Large parts of the new long distance power grid must be underground that costs money and time.

The storage of wind and sun energy is a problem, true. Another transmission line is build to Norway, a country which covers 99% of its energy through water power. In a few years the spare energy from Germany will be used in Norway and they will use their impounding reservoirs as a gigantic battery. The actual capacity of Norway is 84 TWh.

 

Thanks - did you pay the same 1000 Euros for the 4200 kwh but now only get 3200 kwh or did the changes you made result in savings? Using the 1000 Euros and 3200 kwh I get a rate of ~ 33 cents (US) per kwh. How much did you spend for the equipment modifications? Would like to be paying ~ 10 cents per kwh?

 

The energy prices are constant and so we saved money. The switches for the fake standby devices are about 6 € each, the other stuff had to be replaced anyway.

Lower energy prices would be nice but no nuclear power plant in my neighborhood is even nicer and not a least, i prefer to spend my money for the "Energiewende" and have the hope that in some years i dont't have to buy oil from countries like Saudi Arabia anymore.

 

Thanks again. If Trump is successful in significantly increasing the petroleum production in the US you will be able to buy from the US and not the Saudies or the Ruskies. That would be a good thing. No sense funding radical jihadists or radical nationalists. Edit - hopefully thumbs up is not derogatory in Germany.

 

Looks like Trump will be getting our oil from Russia. Who is the Secretary of State nominee?

 

This is nonsense. Oil (like electricity) is a fungible commodity. Increasing the US production will have zero effect on any groups sales. Unless you are implying that someone would pay more for oil from the US just because it's "terrorist free". Are you saying that? Because if not, they will buy whatever is cheapest.

 

That's my point.

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Rex Tillerson.

 

Rex Tillerson was CEO of Exxon Mobil and Exxon has a billion dollar deal with Russia for drilling rights. But they are not able to cash in because of Obama sanctions.

 

Tillerson no longer works for Exxon and has sold all his stock.

 

You don't understand the oil markets or capitalism in general it seems. No U.S. oil company is going to provide the U.S. with domestic crude at a price higher than that of the world market, right? And no oil company is going to sell crude to U.S. refineries at prices lower than they can get on the world market, right?

So there is not going to be any isolated domestic production and utilization of crude. It will all continue to be sold on the world market at world prices. Trump is not going to change this at all. He can't.

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Riiiiiiiight. You can't really be so naive as to believe he has no financial ties to Exxon now.

 

for ever Mw of solar and wind there has to be a Mw of nuclear, gas, or coal generated electricity available to keep the grid stable. That is why countries using a lot of solar and wind are experiencing record energy price hikes. Also I noted the author of the OP neglected to mention that the UK buys a lot of it's energy from France's aging nuclear plants

 

That's why electric trains in Holland run on wind power and wind power alone.

 

Increased supply of natural gas results in lower prices which hurt the Russian economy. Combine that with sanctions on Russian natural gas exports and we have leverage on Russia.

What proof do you have that Tillerson is controlled by Exxon ??

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Agreed. Those 24/7/365 sources may already exist but they cannot be retired by building more solar/wind.

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They have solar panels and wind turbine farms supplying power 24/7/365 to the electric trains which are completely independent from the Dutch electrical grid ??