Well. I don't agree. There are for instance plans to create a 1.5 gigawatt wind farm out in ocean of western Norway. That's only a few hundred megawatts shy of the average nuclear plant, and represents about 4% of Norway's total energy consumption. That makes wind a real alternative in my book, even if it has a higher initial- and maintenance-cost than nuclear. You can't power the world off if of course, but it certainly works as one among many energy sources. Betting it all on one silver bullet solving the world's energy problems isn't wise anyway. We need diversity, and there's a lot of windy ocean out there ready for the taking.
The plans above probably won't go anywhere though, as too many locals complain about the aesthetics. Can't ruin that beautiful view of water, now can we?
Wind turbines do create net energy over their lifetime but their power output is so small it's not even funny. This means that you need loads of space to get any decent amount out of them which is incompatible with the fact that they are hideous.
To put this into perspective I just did some comparisons. Did you know that this
makes 6 times as much power as this
and 90 times as much power as this
and a whopping 160 times as much power as this entire wind park?
To add some data to the pictures the first is the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear power plant (5700 MW, 1 km^2). The second is the coal power plant Heilbronn (950 MW, 0.5 km^2), the third is the Nevada Solar One (64 MW, 1.5 km^2) and the last is the Windpark Lichtenau consisting of 52 Turbines (36 MW, 4 km^2).
In terms of power per space the wind farm gets pwned by a factor of 500! And that's assuming that the turbines run at max power all the time, which of course they don't even get close to.
In short I think it's a case of using whatever sucks the least. Currently that means to me we should get rid of fossil power, use mainly nuclear, get wind and water power from the oceans and hope that solar gets efficient soon so that we can plaster the Sahara and get rid of Nuclear.
Sadly, though, the main achievement of the environmentalists has been to keep fossil power alive.
Oh, and cool vid by the way.
EDIT: another fun fact I just came up with: if you wanted to expand the above mentioned wind farm to a size where it can output the same amount of power as the most powerful nuclear plant, you'd need an area the size of Heidelberg (100 km^2).
Surely spending the money on a nuclear plant would result in far lower maintenance costs, and likely setup costs as well and would have no effect on the environment, either visual or to wildlife.
As far as I've been able to tell; if you're building here in Norway a wind farm with current technology will come out at about 0.25 NOK/kWh while hydro and nuclear will end up at about 0.05 NOK/kWh (rough numbers based on skimming a few reports). A big difference, but still not as bad as a lot of people will have you believe.
As you, I would prefer nuclear, but I don't like the thought of going 100% nuclear either. Alternative sources are important to limit the damage that could happen if for instance uranium/torium/whateverium prices go up or supply is somehow hindered (wars etc.). The dependence we have on oil today is scary enough without adding another dependency.
Yep, it looks interesting. It even floats, which simplifies construction a lot compared to something locked to the seabed. The technology isn't quite there yet though, so it's still a bit of a question mark whether they can pull it off on such a scale. Still in the hands of the lawmakers though.
one problem with wind (and solar) that many like to ignore (or are just ignorant about) is that you will always end up building fossile plants that can be ramped up quickly (like gas turbines) with at least the same amount of power output to mean out varying weather conditions
You can also use hydro to do that if the conditions are there, but hydro too is dependent on weather so it won't solve the problem entirely. It can be stored for a while in dams though and put to use when needed, so it'll smooth out some of the kinks if combined with wind or solar. We already do that here by filling up the dams in the fall and then emptying them over the duration of the winter (when the water falls as snow in the mountains). Still isn't enough to keep us self-sufficient though. We do import a lot of fossil fuel power during the winter.
Well, actually, If you were to use these new mega-turbines (like the one I posted) you would need 'only' 150 to generate the same power as a 1 gigawatt Nuclear power plant. Granted, wind energy does not provide a CONSTANT flow of energy, and the turbines would not be operating at 100% output, but still - that's the raw numbers. So more like 500. The point is not to replace coal plants in major areas, where that much power is required, but more to replace those dirty, old plants in the remote areas of the world where you don't need to power an enormous, power-hungry city.
Solar power is also going to play a big role in the future. The efficiency of solar cells is consistently increasing (last I heard, there were plans to solar cells that could operate at 80% efficiency, vs the 40% which the best cells can generate right now. Couple that with hydro-power and some nuclear power plants and you've got an almost entirely green system to power most of what you need!
That's not the argument. The argument is how many turbines would be required to replace a typical power plant. As the technology get's better, and turbine output increases, you will need less and less to match the output of a coal plant.
hmm! well actually I work for wind farm construction and the minimum design has to survive the '100 year' wave and last for 25 years, i've not read all the posts so i'll get back to you experts on this
OK I've read the posts and can see that this was a bad design (****ing awfull) (siemens have the best designed turbines that I know off), this will NOT happen again. I can assure you that the legislation has changed considerably since those days> jees i feel embarassed watching that video.
I'm willing to concede that my figures for Wind farm energy COSTS > Energy Gained are based on figures of about 10 years old, and as such are probably a bit wrong now. I haven't done any research on the matter recently, and you know what it's like - you find some facts and tend to believe them as fact for years. Finding the information to research from is rather more difficult these days however, as a lot of information is, for some reason, hidden from public view. Makes me wonder why.
But I do agree with the current solar power situation, and I do agree with the need for more work on nuclear power, be it fission or (ideally) fusion.
Due to the recent huge investement in offshore windfarm construction the the energy company operators now have extensive recently gathered data to evaluate, with regard to costs vs energy.
The associated development costs can now probably be accurately predicted in terms of capital and operational expenditure for any given project?
I agree with what you say about Nuclear and Solar Power, also there are plans to develop subsea wave hubs, using energy provided by the sea to create power that cabled to the UK National grid.
There are for instance plans to create a 1.5 gigawatt wind farm out in ocean of western Norway. That's only a few hundred megawatts shy of the average nuclear plant, and represents about 4% of Norway's total energy consumption. That makes wind a real alternative in my book, even if it has a higher initial- and maintenance-cost than nuclear. You can't power the world off if of course, but it certainly works as one among many energy sources. Betting it all on one silver bullet solving the world's energy problems isn't wise anyway. We need diversity, and there's a lot of windy ocean out there ready for the taking.
