Thoughts on mega wind and solar projects

[jyoutz]

Wonder if this will be considered...we are still learning and the science is not settled.
Greenland Ice Cap Vanished Just 7,000 Years Ago

AI Summary
A 2026 GreenDrill project study revealed that Greenland's northwestern Prudhoe Dome ice cap completely melted approximately 7,000 years ago. This indicates that a significant portion of the ice sheet is highly sensitive to modest warming, with the area experiencing temperatures 3–5°C warmer than today during the early Holocene.

Caused by????

You can argue climate science forever and it’s irrelevant to me. My perspective is that coal is toxic to the air, soil, and water, and the ash must be treated as toxic waste. We also have no good long term disposal of nuclear waste.

 

[Hay Dude]

No energy religion. I’m Catholic. It’s simply factual that the renewables are now cheaper. And ignoring inflation for all forms of power generation is nonsensical. It would be ridiculous to expect no cost increases for power when labor and supplies have increased across the board for everything.

I thought you said green energy is cheaper to produce because all the infrastructure is cheaper?
Make up your mind.

 

[dodge man]

I Googled is solar and wind power cheaper? I got a lot of info saying yes it is. All of it obviously written by supporters of wind and solar. There is also some things saying it isn’t. Let’s just say in my mind it might or might not be.

 

[Eagle1]

You can argue climate science forever and it’s irrelevant to me. My perspective is that coal is toxic to the air, soil, and water, and the ash must be treated as toxic waste. We also have no good long term disposal of nuclear waste.

OK we are on the same page. Now let the cleanest cheapest tech rule the day not the most lobbied ones. If wind and solar (solar has a lot of upside) are the best source so be it. But stop with the climate change mantra because I ( Note I only) do not trust we as a species have enough knowledge to control the climate wisely..

 

[jyoutz]

OK we are on the same page. Now let the cleanest cheapest tech rule the day not the most lobbied ones. If wind and solar (solar has a lot of upside) are the best source so be it. But stop with the climate change mantra because I ( Note I only) do not trust we as a species have enough knowledge to control the climate wisely..

I have never talked about climate science.

 

[jyoutz]

I thought you said green energy is cheaper to produce because all the infrastructure is cheaper?
Make up your mind.

I don’t even follow your point? Yes renewables are generally cheaper than other options. No, nothing is cheaper or the same as 10 years ago. Inflation is still across the board. And it’s still cheaper in comparison to other options at today’s prices.

 

[dodge man]

I Googled “problems with Cardinal Point wind farm Illinois” and found some interesting data. I was thinking it would bring up mechanical problems they were having. Instead it brought up a study on the bats it’s killing. They did a count for about 3 months and the 60 turbines killed just under a 1000 bats. A few of which were endangered ones. Apparently the most kills occur late summer early fall. This doesn’t count all the birds, some of which are raptors. Chop, chop, chop. That doesn’t make me any more or less in favor of wind farms but that’s a pretty significant environmental impact. It looks like the numbers are several hundred thousand to over a million bats killed in North America every year.

 

[Hay Dude]

I Googled “problems with Cardinal Point wind farm Illinois” and found some interesting data. I was thinking it would bring up mechanical problems they were having. Instead it brought up a study on the bats it’s killing. They did a count for about 3 months and the 60 turbines killed just under a 1000 bats. A few of which were endangered ones. Apparently the most kills occur late summer early fall. This doesn’t count all the birds, some of which are raptors. Chop, chop, chop. That doesn’t make me any more or less in favor of wind farms but that’s a pretty significant environmental impact. It looks like the numbers are several hundred thousand to over a million bats killed in North America every year.

The windmills out in the oceans off the New Jersey coast are killing whales & dolphins. When they break and fall in the ocean, the water gets contaminated with millions of fiberglass splinters.
It’s great for the coastal communities when beach goers are swimming in the ocean and dead dolphins roll up.

 

[Hay Dude]

You can argue climate science forever and it’s irrelevant to me. My perspective is that coal is toxic to the air, soil, and water, and the ash must be treated as toxic waste. We also have no good long term disposal of nuclear waste.

Until we finally turn to nuclear fusion.

 

[paulsharvey]

Well, coal ash is used in the production of concrete, as well as gypsum wall board.

Nuclear waste, any seismic stable area, sealed vessels, and a deep pit.

At the same time, the talk about wind mill blades or solar panels being non recyclable is also a non issue; we know how to treat them; again, big hole, push dirt over the top.

Nothing insurmountable.

Even if you Could fully power the entire country on solar/wind, i dont know that is smart. We have 250 of years of coal, and atleast 50 years of oil, and atleast 100 years of natural gas. Not using then is a waste.

Hydro; im a 100% fan of, but people worry about the salmon or the frogs. I see it as a large net benefit; recreational lakes, irrigation, flood control, and power, but i get it needs a Lot of land, and also that it does affect ecosystems.

I get the issues of solar farms, but I think some of that is people not understanding that the US over produces food, and not every acre of farm land in the US is equally productive. Maybe that 300 bushel land is best in corn, but maybe that 85 bushel/acre is more profitable as solar. Even the 300 bushel land has water ways, swampy areas, or areas that arent turning a profit.

Oil or gas fired plants are probably right is Alaska; Solar may be right in Utah; coal IS right in WVa; hydro is right in Tenn; and nuclear is probably good near high density population. Wind wouldnt be right in FLa; and building a nuclear plant on a fault line is probably not the answer either. Iceland, geothermal is a great answer, but it doesnt work in South Car

 

[jyoutz]

Until we finally turn to nuclear fusion.

That will be awesome. Last month a research organization announced that they are building a $1B facility in Albuquerque to develop viable nuclear fusion. Probably a decade or two away.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Ok, so, on a small scale, who would Consider adding solar, grid tied still, to their home when redoing the roof if the numbers pencil. I dont mean a political statement or virtue signaling.

You show me 50% savings on power, and an affordable system; at say $12,000, that doesnt cause insurance problems; I would Consider it. That would have a 60 month break even point, and be saving you money for the next 60 months. Tax breaks/credits would be a bonus, but its not the biggest factor.

Im not talking sized to sell power back, just reducing your grid draw. Im definitely not talking off grid, just normal people, normal house.

Right now, they just are at the point that the System pays for itself at 50% life span, for most people, without tax credits. It might reach that point eventually.

If you are looking for reduced electric bills, solar hot water seems to be overlooked. Heating water can be 50% of a well insulated house heating bill.

I have a mechanical engineer friend who installed a solar hot water system with a collector on the roof and coils on the back of his wood stove. He turned off his electric water heater 30 years ago. He has plenty of brain cells to rub together, so he installed a 250 gallon storage, thermal sensors, circ pump, programmable controllers to select the best heat source or shut down the circ, and a mixer valve to temper the water to 125 degrees for household use. He has more hot water than he can use.

If you are looking for a reduction in water heating costs, a heat pump water heater might be worth looking at too. Both of these solutions are more humble than photovoltaic, but don't require a HELOC.

That is a commonly made claim, but it is not true. The "renewables are cheaper" claim is based on a calculation called "LCOE" or levelized cost of energy. That is not a legitimate metric to use when you are talking about intermittent generation since it does not include significant costs that need to be considered when connecting to the grid. LCOE doesn't included the cost of intermittency, which is the cost of having to pay for another generation source to pick up the load when the intermittent generator fails to deliver. It also does not include the cost of extending the grid to the remote locations where solar farms and wind farms a typically located. If you are going to depend on batteries to smooth out the output variability of the intermittent generators, then the cost of those batteries would also have to be included in the cost of the renewables. FCOE or full cost of energy is a better metric for comparing generation sources. The wind and solar farms also do not supply the rotating inertia required to stabilize the voltage and frequency of the power on the grid unless they are set up with synchronous or "grid forming" inverters. Those types of inverters are typically not used due the higher cost. There are many sources of information available online that go into a great deal of detail on what is required to operate a stable and reliable grid.

Exactly. Fossil fuel backup will be necessary unless there is a massive battery buildout to compensate for down time. Another alternative is high voltage DC transmission lines that can move the power a couple of thousand miles. The wind is always blowing somewhere.

The thing that often gets ignored by fossil fuel advocates is the fact that natural gas wells don't last forever. Their production drops every year, so you have to keep drilling new wells and building the thousands of miles of pipeline every decade that gets the gas to the power plants. That infrastructure eventually has to be decommissioned and abandoned, while you can plunk another wind turbine on the old site and keep right on using the same grid connection.

That still leaves the intermittency problem for renewables. Solar can be used to cover peak daytime demand from AC and business use. It's easy to predict renewable output from weather reports and daily cycles, so bringing natural gas online as needed is not a big problem. Doubling or tripling gas well longevity is a considerable benefit. I have doubts that we will ever have adequate battery storage to completely dispense with fossil fuel generation, but believe they can be handy for storing excess power and leveling the grid during short term production/consumption mismatch.

What is apparent to me is that we can't afford to dismiss any electricity source. Google is restarting two coal fired plants in Wyoming to power their data centers. It's projected that we are only three years away from brownouts in the PNW if we have another heat dome emergency or bad winter. We need to get it in gear and start building.

 

[Larry Caldwell]

Perhaps your electric bill would have increased even more with a more costly power generation source? Inflation hits everything. No doubt that labor and supplies to generate power have increased for all power generating facilities.

Look at your bill. Generating cost is not increasing. Distribution is going through the roof, because of a number of factors. We are still using power poles that were installed in the 1950s. The one in my front yard is over 50 years old. My transformer has been replaced, but many have not. Rooftop solar is reducing the amount of power people buy, but not the cost of maintaining their grid connection. Courts are holding power companies responsible for damage that line failures cause, like wildfires. Storm damage on creaky old infrastructure is increasing too.

One thing I think they should do is when a tree goes down and damages the lines, the tree owner pays for repairs instead of charging everyone.

 

[paulsharvey]

Look at your bill. Generating cost is not increasing. Distribution is going through the roof, because of a number of factors. We are still using power poles that were installed in the 1950s. The one in my front yard is over 50 years old. My transformer has been replaced, but many have not. Rooftop solar is reducing the amount of power people buy, but not the cost of maintaining their grid connection. Courts are holding power companies responsible for damage that line failures cause, like wildfires. Storm damage on creaky old infrastructure is increasing too.

One thing I think they should do is when a tree goes down and damages the lines, the tree owner pays for repairs instead of charging everyone.

Infrastructure is a totally different topic, but the vast majority of people have Zero idea what running a small gas transmission line, or a distribution network costs. Power, aerial or UG is expensive, as is maintenance, and both still have real life spans.