Posted on 06/27/2017 11:12:16 AM PDT by Thalean
Between 2013 and 2014, using IEA data, global demand for energy grew by 2,000 terawatt hours.
Let’s figure out how many wind turbines we’d need to build to meet this growing demand—we’ll ignore the fact that “environmentalists” would like us to simultaneously replace existing generating capacity.
Given that a standard two-megawatt wind turbine can produce 0.005 terawatt hours per year, we’d need to build some 350,000 wind turbines to meet this demand.
That’s 50% more turbines than we’ve build since the year 2000.
And it gets worse: at a standard density of 1 megawatt per 50 acres of land, we’d need to cover an area the size of the British Isles (the UK and Ireland together) with wind turbines—and that’s just to meet the demand for one year.
Our energy demands increase every year—at an accelerating pace.
And of course, better turbines won’t save us: the Betz limit imposes a physical restriction on the potential efficiency of a wind turbine.
Likewise, there’s only so-much energy that can be harvested from a fluid anyways—and each additional turbine (imperceptibly) reduces the efficiency of every other turbine in the region. Each turbine adds resistance.
Putting all that aside, it’s impossible, in practical terms, for us to erect enough turbines to meet our growing energy demands—even if we wanted to.
A two-megawatt wind turbine weighs some 250 tons. It’s made of steel
Given that it takes half a ton of coal to make a ton of steal (a source of carbon is needed), and add to that the coal needed to make the cement, each turbine requires some 150 tons of coal to build.
Multiplied by 350,000 turbines, this means we’d need some 50 million tons of coal per year—nearly half of Europe’s annual coal production...
(Excerpt) Read more at nationaleconomicseditorial.com ...
yep they said it ,”it’s a total waste of money”
Who gives a crap about what the world does?
In the US, wind generates 5% of our electricity. It’s not “the” solution but it is part of the solution. The industry knows that subsidies are going away and that the technology has evolved to the point producers can make money selling power at competitive rates without it.
The dumbnification about wind energy is rampant.
Perpetual motion?
Something for nothing?
Liberal delusion?
The math is entirely doable with half of Eu’s coal production and another 350000 wind turbines.
Thats all kinds of efficient compared to the eight years of carbon emissions required to manufacture just one Li-ion battery for a car designed to last half that long.
Math is fun!!
It shows you who the idiots are.
Windmills are cenruries old tech, replaced by better tech.
Battery tech still lags needs.
Without efficient storage, peak power demands are quite problematic. Same with solar power.
And then there’s all the dead eagles... and hawks, and owls, and falcons, and bats, and song birds....
Thorium molten salt reactors are the answer- not windmills. I might consider solar panels on my roof if I lived in the south west though.
Wind turbines are 21st Century man’s cathedrals.
Built in worship of the global warming death cult of Mother gaia.
I was in Palm Springs in May, and even though the wind was raging through the wind tunnel there, only about 2/3 of the turbines were spinning...
A local in the know added... “even most of the spinning ones never see their power hit the grid”.
One day, a lack of “new money” will bankrupt the makers and suppliers.
Then, there will be no parts....
A wind energy colleague once calculated the temperature drop caused by meeting the entire world’s energy needs with wind and removing all that energy from the atmosphere. I don’t remember his result, but it wasn’t trivial.
Good article! Thanks for posting.
Soon, coming to a theater to you.... the cleaning up of the eye pollution and environmental pollution of abandoned windmill farms...
Somewhere I read that a windmill would never produce as much energy as it takes to build the windmill in the first place. Anyone else read that?
Internet searches suggest it takes less than a year and as little as 5 months.
But the windmills are great bird mincers, and who knows the effects of sucking all that energy out of the atmosphere? The ultra low frequency sounds are bad for humans too and unfortunately not just liberals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_energy_consumption
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