Jon,
Something that is often overlooked in these discussions is the risks and
dangers associated with supposedly benign forms of energy conversion.
As you and Glenn pointed out, it takes an awful lot of wind turbines to make
any impact on the energy requirements. True, the wind is free, but the
labour required to keep these things serviced is not trivial. The turbines
are quite some distance from the ground and people are forever falling off
things and killing themselves. It would be interesting to see a comparison
of injuries and fatalities per TWhr (terawatt hour) produced by wind power
with those produced by more conventional energy conversion systems. Solar
panels present a similar danger: what is the risk associated with keeping
these panels clean?
There are places where wind turbines have their place and that's in very
isolated places where the wind blows a lot. Les Isles de la Madeleine in
the St. Lawrence estuary in Quebec is one place where, I believe, wind
turbines are used because the cost of providing electricity is too high.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Clarke [mailto:jdac@alphalink.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday January 23, 2001 1:58 PM
To: vandergraaft@aecl.ca
Cc: Asa@Calvin. Edu
Subject: Re: Oh boy, wind power.
Here in Oz a number of rural towns use wind turbines as a supplemental
energy
sources. This is of course hailed as a great triumph of alternative energy.
I am all for use of wind turbines, but their use is supplemental. They
cannot be
relied upon to produce base or peak load power, that capacity has to be
available
through conventional means, either diesel generators or the grid. All the
wind
turbines can do is reduce actual usage, which is important in itself of
course.
Another issue is the fact that the largest wind turbines produce not much
more than
~1 megawatt per turbine. So a thousand turbines on hill tops, coastlines,
and other
windy areas would be necessary to replace one large coal or nuclear station.
As wind
turbines are relatively noisy and visually intrusive, one could expect the
NIMBY
reflex to come into effect quite quickly.
Jon
Glenn Morton wrote:
> There was an article in the Financial Times yesterday which bears on our
> discussion of energy. Here are some quotes:
>
> "In 2000 wind power systems had a capacity to generate electricity of
> 17.57GW, according to DKW in a new report. This figure should grow to
66.93
> GW by 2006, according to the bank's forecasts, with the US having by then
> surpassed Germany as the country with the largest amount of electricity
> generated through wind power." Peter Marsh, "Wind Power Systems poised to
> Triple over Next Five Years," Financial Times 1/23/01, p. 15
> **
> "Between 2000 and 2005 the price of electricity from wind power turbines
is
> expected to drop 17 percent from $900/kW (£608/kW) of installed capacity
to
> $750/kW, reflecting improvements in technology." Peter Marsh, "Wind Power
> Systems poised to Triple over Next Five Years," Financial Times 1/23/01,
p.
> 15
>
> Sounds really great. Then you realize the following:
>
> "In 2000 wind power produced only about 0.2 percent of the total 3,300 GW
> world electricity generation capacity.
> "However, this figure is likely to rise to 1.42 per cent in 2005
and 3.11
> percent in 2010, according to Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. By 2020 the
> share could expand to 7 per cent, by which point wind energy could
generate
> a total of some 400 GW--roughly equivalent to 10 large conventional power
> stations." Peter Marsh, "Wind Power Systems poised to Triple over Next
Five
> Years," Financial Times 1/23/01, p. 15
>
> Electricity is only a small fraction of the energy that we actually use.
If
> we expect wind to be a significant player in the future, we need to cover
> the earth with turbines.
>
> glenn
>
> see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
> for lots of creation/evolution information
> anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
> personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Jan 23 2001 - 17:53:01 EST