How much of this is just a kickback scheme for politicians who eagerly fund these things.
https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2010/04/08/wind-power-is-a-complete-disaster/
Wind power is a complete disaster
There is no evidence that industrial wind power is likely to have a significant impact on carbon emissions. The European experience is instructive. Denmark, the world’s most wind-intensive nation, with more than 6,000 turbines generating 19% of its electricity, has yet to close a single fossil-fuel plant. It requires 50% more coal-generated electricity to cover wind power’s unpredictability, and pollution and carbon dioxide emissions have risen (by 36% in 2006 alone).
Flemming Nissen, the head of development at West Danish generating company ELSAM (one of Denmark’s largest energy utilities) tells us that “wind turbines do not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.” The German experience is no different. Der Spiegel reports that “Germany’s CO2 emissions haven’t been reduced by even a single gram,” and additional coal- and gas-fired plants have been constructed to ensure reliable delivery.
Indeed, recent academic research shows that wind power may actually increase greenhouse gas emissions in some cases, depending on the carbon-intensity of back-up generation required because of its intermittent character. On the negative side of the environmental ledger are adverse impacts of industrial wind turbines on birdlife and other forms of wildlife, farm animals, wetlands and viewsheds...
Just look at Texas, the Lone Star State generates by far the most wind energy than any other state, and this summer the grid has been pushed to its maximum with record energy consumption.
Wind is free. Harnessing it is expensive as hell, the means now being used are unreliable, and the collateral costs (having backup natural-gas fired or coal-burning powered generation plants) are simply duplication of effort that should have been put to use WITHOUT the primarily ornamental windmill towers.
As a virtue signal, they are a monstrous display of extravagance and yes, WASTE. They have limited lifetime, and are impossible to deal with as an eyesore that may stand for decades if not centuries.
China needs more countries to buy their windmills.
Just a quibble. 52% efficiency seems a mite low for electrolysis. You might be able to do a bit better than 40% efficiency with fuel cells, which are not bound by the Carnot cycle limits.
Of course, higher efficiencies might cost more, so the total economics have to be considered.
The question we should be asking is, “who is getting the money and where are they getting it from?”
There is no such a thing as a fossil fuel
Magical Future Of Free Wind Power
The Dutch chuckle
Wind power will be free right after UHaul announces that their entire fleet is EVs. Mark your calender for the day after never.
What a holocaust of migratory birds!
In junior high school we used to say:
“The wind blows free, how much do you charge?”
In southwestern Minnesota there is a virtual forest of wind turbines along a supposedly very windy ridge. The wind turbines extend virtually from horizon to horizon. I frequently drove by this wind turbine forest and often observed times when not one of these scores of wind turbines were moving. Only rarely were all moving presumably producing electricity, but it was common even on windy days to see at least some of these turbines sitting idle producing not a single watt of electricity. To depend on such a fickle source of electric power is pure folly.
I was originally going to comment that I disagree with this statement until I realized that this would be like arguing that a rock is dumber than a hammer. Both are so stupid that such an argument is just as stupid. The fact that bureaucrats are advocating either method of energy storage places them at the same intelligence level of both rocks and hammers.
I have even read that the wind turbines contribute directly to global warming. Since they capture the wind energy, the wind speed is slower and areas downwind get warmer!
It must further be noted that the cost of oil, gas, and coal is no more or less than the cost of wind and solar. No one gets an invoice from mother earth for any of them. The price comes from harvesting each of them and getting them to the consumer in the form they are needed and at the time they are needed. In that, wind and solar are infinitely expensive since much of the time they can’t get there at all.
They think it’s free
Bahahahaha
But the little cute cartoon AOC voiced showed two or three windmills powerring an entire city. She knows how to work a national power grid...
And never a concern for what those windmills do to the surrounding climate / environments.