Posted on 03/18/2012 3:28:45 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Efforts to stem global warming have nurtured a strong urge worldwide to deploy renewable energy. As a result, the use of wind turbines has increased 10-fold over the past decade, with wind power often touted as the most cost-effective green opportunity.
While wind energy is cheaper than other, more ineffective renewables, such as solar, tidal and ethanol, it is nowhere near competitive. If it were, we wouldn't have to keep spending significant sums to subsidise it.
Using the UK Electricity Generation Costs 2010 update and measuring in cost per produced kw-hour, wind is still 20-200% more expensive than the cheapest fossil-fuel options. And this is a significant underestimate.
The UK Carbon Trust estimates that the cost of expanding wind turbines to 40 gigawatts, in order to provide 31% of electricity by 2020, could run as high as £75 billion ($120 billion).
And the benefits, in terms of tackling global warming, would be measly: a reduction of just 86 megatons of CO2 per year for two decades. In terms of averted rise in temperature, this would be completely insignificant. Using a standard climate model, by 2100, the UK's huge outlay will have postponed global warming by just over 10 days.
(Excerpt) Read more at economictimes.indiatimes.com ...
They need to have a chat with John Casey, author of Cold Sun. Mr. Casey could explane to them that the EARTH HAS BEEN COOLING FOR THE PAST DECADE!
problem with wind power, when it ie needed the most, like during a heat wave, there is no wind to turn the turbines.
A small wind turbine installed at home as a back-up source of power might make sense.To try to power the grid with wind turbines is lunacy.
winter 2010 drove through west Texas Minnesota and Wisconsin all were only functioning next to Highway one Row the rest were just there not spinning.. In UK when they had cold spell they got zip from Windmills in North Seas oh well
winter 2010 drove through west Texas Minnesota and Wisconsin all were only functioning next to Highway one Row the rest were just there not spinning.. In UK when they had cold spell they got zip from Windmills in North Seas oh well
How interesting that ALL your punctuation keys malfunctioned simultaneously!
actually, an emergency generator is more economical. a wind turbine big enough for my house costs 40k, that’s a LOT of time for payback. a generator big enough runs about four grand.
I was thinking about a small wind turbine and some deep cycle batteries as a source of emergency power for small essential items only.We have a PTO driven generator big enough to power the whole house,but in a prolonged emergency I worry about running out of fuel.
usually one can obtain fuel by going to an unaffected area. if there is enough damage to disrupt the power supply dfor a long term, wouldn’t it also affect the windwill? all this green windmill/solar/algae stuff does is to move money from the poskect of the people , into the pockets of the greenies.
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