Wind Energy

[VMarcHart]

So is that just like your project to build 4,000,000 windmills for 300 million SUV sized EVs?

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah. I'm saying it's far-fetched. You're saying it's easy, "A windmill every 6,000 acres doesn't sound too bad." I already have a good paying job in renewable development and several projects to baby-sit. You go ahead with your 165K windmills, your 300M sub-compact EVs, and keep me abreast of your progress. Please, of course.

[yesplease]

So is that just like your project to build 4,000,000 windmills for 300 million SUV sized EVs?

Nah-nah-nah-nah-nah.

Can't take your own medicine?

I'm saying it's far-fetched. You're saying it's easy, "A windmill every 6,000 acres doesn't sound too bad."

I never said it was easy, I just said that your assumptions are grossly inaccurate. People don't make enough cash to pull down that much juice from the grid for EVs. Unless costs associated w/ 'em drastically drop, we won't need your 4,000,000 windmills for 300 million SUV sized EVs.

165,000 windmills otoh is in line with the current yoy increase in wind power over the next couple decades. Granted, that's assuming a steady growth rate, so if that continues to increase, the time frame would drop, but the point remains. I apologize for pointing out when people deliberately make unrealistic comparisons, but people simply cannot afford EVs larger enough to warrant 4,000,000 windmills, regardless of how poorly you want to paint the picture.

I already have a good paying job in renewable development and several projects to baby-sit. You go ahead with your 165K windmills, your 300M sub-compact EVs, and keep me abreast of your progress. Please, of course.

Evidently you also have enough time to spread d00mcopianism! I'll be waiting on your 4,000,000 windmills and 300 million SUV size EVs btw.

[VMarcHart]

Evidently you also have enough time to spread d00mcopianism! I'll be waiting on your 4,000,000 windmills and 300 million SUV size EVs btw.

I never said there will be 4M windmills, merely, that's the number needed to replace the 20mbpd. That's a fact, not a hunch. You replied back with 165K windmills and sub-compact sized EVs. I said "go ahead, please keep me apraised". Show me wrong and we all win. Between us, I'm the energy industry veteran ... not you.

Doomcopianism? Wasn't that you had a troll thread dedicated to you?

[yesplease]

Evidently you also have enough time to spread d00mcopianism! I'll be waiting on your 4,000,000 windmills and 300 million SUV size EVs btw.

I never said there will be 4M windmills, merely, that's the number needed to replace the 20mbpd. That's a fact, not a hunch. You replied back with 165K windmills and sub-compact sized EVs. I said "go ahead, please keep me apraised". Show me wrong and we all win. Between us, I'm the energy industry veteran ... not you.

So... You're an energy industry "veteran", and think that we'll need 4M windmills to replace oil? ~50% of that is for private transportation, so lets say 2M in this aspect. That's 12+ times what the US will have in a couple decades assuming the rate of wind power expansion freezes and doesn't continue to increase which is where my assumption of EV use at ~150Wh/mile came from. The US DOE has a ~3,500lb small SUV at ~250Wh/mile over the combined cycle, so by your "veteran" estimate, we'll need around 12(150Wh/mile) times that or ~1,800Wh/mile. A Ford Expedition only weighs about twice what a RAV-4 does, so even then we would only be at ~500Wh/mile.

Your opinion as an "energy industry veteran" is that we'll all be running around in EVs almost four times the size of Ford Expeditions in the future? Seems kinda fishy to me, but it would be great for your industry I suppose.

Doomcopianism? Wasn't that you had a troll thread dedicated to you?

Not that I know of, but it could be. Coulda ya link it?

[VMarcHart]

So... You're an energy industry "veteran", and think that we'll need 4M windmills to replace oil? ~50% of that is for private transportation, so lets say 2M in this aspect. That's 12+ times what the US will have in a couple decades assuming the rate of wind power expansion freezes and doesn't continue to increase which is where my assumption of EV use at ~150Wh/mile came from. The US DOE has a ~3,500lb small SUV at ~250Wh/mile over the combined cycle, so by your "veteran" estimate, we'll need around 12(150Wh/mile) times that or ~1,800Wh/mile. A Ford Expedition only weighs about twice what a RAV-4 does, so even then we would only be at ~500Wh/mile.

Your opinion as an "energy industry veteran" is that we'll all be running around in EVs almost four times the size of Ford Expeditions in the future? Seems kinda fishy to me, but it would be great for your industry I suppose.

I'm saying that to replace those 20mbpd, it will require an enormous amount of capacity and energy, as much as 750 nuclear plants or 4M windmills, and add to that, the fact that Kansas or North Dakota have each enough wind resources to supply 27% of country's electricity is a theoratical concept, not reality.

I speak from experience, not from reading websites and calculating projections. I'm an expert in siting and finance, and know tons about regulatory, legal, operation, maintenance, technology, market, etc, etc. I'm not a PhD student, I'm the real deal. In the last 5 years, I bullt 382 MWs of wind and started numerous projects that may have a chance to see the light of the day. I'm definitely doing my share towards your dream of an all-EV nation. How about you?

I share my experience with you free of charge. If you think website research yields more accurate information, go for it. If you need stories from the trenches, you know where to find me. Otherwise, I don't think I can contribute much more to this thread.

Doomcopianism? Wasn't that you had a troll thread dedicated to you?

Not that I know of, but it could be. Coulda ya link it?

Yesplease uses troll-like tactics

[yesplease]

I'm saying that to replace those 20mbpd, it will require an enormous amount of capacity and energy, as much as 750 nuclear plants or 4M windmills, and add to that, the fact that Kansas or North Dakota have each enough wind resources to supply 27% of country's electricity is a theoratical concept, not reality.

But we probably can't, and almost certainly won't, replace oil tit for tat in terms of energy w/ electricity from wind. It's a false dichotomy. What we can do is replace it's use as an energy source with other energy sources, including probably electricity from wind at some point in the future, and this almost certainly won't be on a one to one scale, as well as replace it's use as a feedstock w/ other feedstocks, which won't include energy at all, at least from the POV of electricity from wind.

I speak from experience, not from reading websites and calculating projections. I'm an expert in siting and finance, and know tons about regulatory, legal, operation, maintenance, technology, market, etc, etc. I'm not a PhD student, I'm the real deal. In the last 5 years, I bullt 382 MWs of wind and started numerous projects that may have a chance to see the light of the day. I'm definitely doing my share towards your dream of an all-EV nation. How about you?

Oh jeez, an appeal to authority now? You may have plenty of experience building windmills, and can probably show most people the ropes in that regard, but that doesn't translate into accurate assumptions regarding energy use, as was demonstrated by comparing your statement to data from the DOE. No one here is debating that we can or can't build 4,000,000 windmills in a decade or few, you're the only one who stated that we couldn't and no one contradicted you. I am contesting your assumptions that we would need 4,000,000 windmills in the first place, since it blatantly contradicts the energy consumption of likely alternatives measured by other experts in their respective fields, and according to your own statements isn't something you're an expert at.

I share my experience with you free of charge. If you think website research yields more accurate information, go for it. If you need stories from the trenches, you know where to find me. Otherwise, I don't think I can contribute much more to this thread.

Your statement isn't based on of experience, unless you also happen to be an EV builder/economist and your experience is contrary to just about every other documented instance of power consumption as well as reasonable projections for income over the next couple decades. No one here is debating what you're saying about wind power, specifically that we just can't up and make/site 4,000,000 windmills, what I'm saying is inaccurate is your assumptions regarding how many of these things we would need to replace oil, since it's replacement in most contexts is not one to one in terms of energy, and there are also economic constraints on consumer spending that would reduce the energy requirements of replacement.

Doomcopianism? Wasn't that you had a troll thread dedicated to you?

Not that I know of, but it could be. Coulda ya link it?

Yesplease uses troll-like tactics

Oh yeah, I remember that poster saying something about creating a thread. That being said, MonteQuest wasn't exactly a model member of the forum. I suppose that what's considered trolling is definitely debatable on the fringes, but I'm pretty sure that resorting to insults is considered trolling in just about every forum, even those dedicated to trolling.

[VMarcHart]

In the last 5 years, I bullt 382 MWs of wind and started numerous projects that may have a chance to see the light of the day. I'm definitely doing my share towards your dream of an all-EV nation. How about you?

Oh jeez, an appeal to authority now? You may have plenty of experience building windmills, and can probably show most people the ropes in that regard, but that doesn't translate into accurate assumptions regarding energy use, as was demonstrated by comparing your statement to data from the DOE. No one here is debating that we can or can't build 4,000,000 windmills in a decade or few, you're the only one who stated that we couldn't and no one contradicted you. I am contesting your assumptions that we would need 4,000,000 windmills in the first place, since it blatantly contradicts the energy consumption of likely alternatives measured by other experts in their respective fields, and according to your own statements isn't something you're an expert at.

A simple "nothing" would've sufficied.

[yesplease]

In the last 5 years, I bullt 382 MWs of wind and started numerous projects that may have a chance to see the light of the day. I'm definitely doing my share towards your dream of an all-EV nation. How about you?

Oh jeez, an appeal to authority now? You may have plenty of experience building windmills, and can probably show most people the ropes in that regard, but that doesn't translate into accurate assumptions regarding energy use, as was demonstrated by comparing your statement to data from the DOE. No one here is debating that we can or can't build 4,000,000 windmills in a decade or few, you're the only one who stated that we couldn't and no one contradicted you. I am contesting your assumptions that we would need 4,000,000 windmills in the first place, since it blatantly contradicts the energy consumption of likely alternatives measured by other experts in their respective fields, and according to your own statements isn't something you're an expert at.

A simple "nothing" would've sufficied.

Again with the appeal to authority...

Well, I can't say I ain't one to flame back! In the spirit of off-topicness, I really hope your wind projects are better "bullt" than your estimates of EV energy consumption are reasoned. As long as you don't end up calling other posters idiots I suppose it's better than what we've seen in the past.

[joelcolorado]

The sky is falling

[VMarcHart]

Again with the appeal to authority...

I can play dumb if you prefer, let you quote books and studies, and you can take all the glory. I have nothing to gain or lose by either offering or holding back my authority in my field. To state we only need 162K windmills and just replace all ICEVs with EVs and voila, all problems solved, when you never installed one windmill and doesn't own one EV, it's the proverbial easier said than done. I do this for a living, and do it succesfully, and I'm willing to share (nearly) everything I know with you for free. Again, if you prefer I can play dumb.

[yesplease]

It isn't about quoting books or studies, just using reasonable assumptions. Stating that we would need 4,000,000 or even 2,000,000 windmills to replace oil's use or it's use in transportation is tremendously inaccurate. Along the same lines, any authority you may have in your field doesn't extend to any inaccurate and/or exaggerated estimates you make about any other field.

Hell, I never said it would be easy, or that it would solve all problems associated with oil depletion, just that your estimate regarding perceived use, a field that by your own admission isn't something you're an expert in, is grossly inaccurate. Who knows what we'll end up doing, that's not here or there (yet), but stating that we'll all need enough juice to run 3 trillion miles in F-650s is probably inaccurate at best and disingenuous at worst.

[VMarcHart]

It isn't about quoting books or studies, just using reasonable assumptions. Stating that we would need 4,000,000 or even 2,000,000 windmills to replace oil's use or it's use in transportation is tremendously inaccurate. Along the same lines, any authority you may have in your field doesn't extend to any inaccurate and/or exaggerated estimates you make about any other field.

Hell, I never said it would be easy, or that it would solve all problems associated with oil depletion, just that your estimate regarding perceived use, a field that by your own admission isn't something you're an expert in, is grossly inaccurate. Who knows what we'll end up doing, that's not here or there (yet), but stating that we'll all need enough juice to run 3 trillion miles in F-650s is probably inaccurate at best and disingenuous at worst.

You're all bark and no bite, yesplease. What is your field of expertise, if you have one? Are you an accountant, a nurse, or someone very book smart but without field experience? How many EVs do you own? If you knew what I know about my field, you'd be saying we need millions of windmills to replace 20mbpd. Since you know jack about either the production or the consumption, other than what you read, you should listen to the (half?) experts. There are a thousand variables at play with the development and operation of large wind farms, and you prefer to listen to the DOE. Good luck. Again, I'm doing my part, while you read and extrapolate about it. If it suits you, good for you. Please keep me abreast of your EV-nation and their 165K windmills. Unless you want to know about the challenges of wind energy development, I'm done with this thread. There's nothing else I can do to help here.

[isgota]

I'm saying that to replace those 20mbpd, it will require an enormous amount of capacity and energy, as much as 750 nuclear plants or 4M windmills, and add to that, the fact that Kansas or North Dakota have each enough wind resources to supply 27% of country's electricity is a theoratical concept, not reality.

Sorry VMarcHart and yesplease but, what unit size (MW/turbine) are both using in your estimations? For the energy output it seems to me that those are pretty small to nowadays standarts.

And agree about that Kansas or North Dakota potential is theory, but let's not forget that they aren't the only states with wind resorces. Actually, Texas and California are leading the way of wind power on USA right now.
Best.

[aahala2]

I speak from experience, not from reading websites and calculating projections. I'm an expert in siting and finance, and know tons about regulatory, legal, operation, maintenance, technology, market, etc, etc. I'm not a PhD student, I'm the real deal.

You're certainly a "wind" expert. I have expertise in a different field, based entirely upon many years of experience. I can spot it a mile away and call it what it is. Horse crap.

I'm surprised Burger King isn't on your case. I'm sure they want to maintain the exclusive title of "Home of the Whopper." I've always wondered, how does it feel to be a legend in your own mind?

[VMarcHart]

What unit size (MW/turbine) are both using in your estimations?

The GE1.5sle is the industry's standard. 1.5 MWs. Gamesa has the G80/87 2.0MW, but with problems. Vestas' V90 also comes in 2.0 MWs, is of relative good quality, but not yet widely used. Acciona has the AWP1.5, a great machine, but not yet produced in large scale like the GE1.5sle. Suzlon is not a contender. Everything else is either too small of a production scale or in prototype stages, ie, the GE2.X, AWP3.0, Liberty 2.5, etc. By the time these are reliable and well received by the developers, operators and finance community, we'll be importing 25mbpd.

Granted, you don't use the whole barrel for transportation, but when you stop importing one barrel, the non-transportation piece in that barrel needs to come from elsewhere. So you stop importing 20mbpd of on-demand and reliable energy, and the domestic 10mbpd will most certainly have to be exclusively used for non-transportation needs. So now you have zero oil for transportation and 300 million ICEVs. You then convert all those 300 million ICEVs into EVs --which I really think it's the way to go. Now try to power them with wind alone, and please remember, the US average net capacity factor is 32%, wind is predictable at best, and developers, operators and financiers don't like prototypes. It will take hundreds, thousands, perhaps 2, 3, 4 million GE1.5sle's (or equivalent) to reliabily power 300 million EVs, trains, ships, aircraft, etc. Even if you double the nameplate to 3 MWs, and thus cutting the number of installed wind mills by half, you are then faced with other problems, just to name a few, crane availability, siting issues, turbine casualty, road restrictions, reactive power, etc, etc, etc.

I think EVs are the way to go, and wind energy will play a big role in mutating our energy sources, but to think of wind as the silver bullet, and this from an industry veteran, is fool-hearted.

BTW, the solution to peak oil, overshoot, carrying capacity, etc, is powerdown.

[VMarcHart]

I have expertise in a different field, based entirely upon many years of experience. I can spot it a mile away and call it what it is. Horse crap.

Faced with such authority in its field, I can only bow my head and pray your excellence will forgive my transgressions.

What does your excellence do for a living?

[yesplease]

Well, I can't say I didn't try to discuss this reasonably. But if you wanna flame, I'm fair game.

You're all bark and no bite, yesplease. What is your field of expertise, if you have one? Are you an accountant, a nurse, or someone very book smart but without field experience? How many EVs do you own?

Better than all bark and all bullshit! Besides claiming to work on wind power and throwing around estimates that are off by more than an order of magnitude in the best case, what is your field of expertise? Are you an accountant, a nurse, or someone who isn't very book smart but without applicable field experience? How many EVs do you own?

If you knew what I know about my field, you'd be saying we need millions of windmills to replace 20mbpd.

If you knew what EV manufacturers and the DOE stated about EV power consumption, you would also know that you're full of it. Granted, ya can't be expected to bother reading these things, and even if you do, we all know that only you know the true energy consumption of EVs.

Since you know jack about either the production or the consumption, other than what you read, you should listen to the (half?) experts.

I'd rather know "jack" than claim to know more about EVs than the DOE/NREL and private companies producing 'em. If we plunk down 4,000,000 1.5MW GE turbines, they'll generate 16,820,000,000MWh per year at 32% of the nameplate capacity, or 16,820,000,000,000kWh per year. We only make a bit more than 4,000,000,000,000kWh per year, so to say that we'll need four times more electricity than we produce right now to replace oil for passenger vehicle transportation is batshitcrazy to say the least.

Even the manufacturer of the largest passenger electric vehicle so far only needs about .35kWh/mile to push their ~5,000lb vehicle down the road. Assuming we could all dig up the $50-100k needed to purchase a vehicle like this or something similar, an entire passenger vehicle fleet of electric SUVs/SUTs would still only need a bit more than a trillion kWh per year, or 25% of supply, to travel three trillion miles a year. They certainly wouldn't need 400% of supply. The only way we would need that would be driving three trillion miles a year in loaded electric garbage trucks.

There are a thousand variables at play with the development and operation of large wind farms, and you prefer to listen to the DOE. Good luck. Again, I'm doing my part, while you read and extrapolate about it. If it suits you, good for you. Please keep me abreast of your EV-nation and their 165K windmills. Unless you want to know about the challenges of wind energy development, I'm done with this thread. There's nothing else I can do to help here.

Yup, I'm gonna listen to the DOE who wants to push forward and install enough wind power to reach 20% of the grid's output instead of someone who thinks we need enough wind power to reach 400% of the grid's output.

If you wanna "do your part" for fearmongering by pulling outrageous numbers outa your you know what, that's fine by me. Doomcopianism isn't just an outlook ya know, it's a way of life.

[yesplease]

It will take hundreds, thousands, perhaps 2, 3, 4 million GE1.5sle's (or equivalent) to reliabily power 300 million EVs, trains, ships, aircraft, etc.

So now we have EV aircraft and shipping too? And here I though that we needed energy density for those. Ah well, clearly someone w/ enough wind to put up four times the US generating capacity knows more than I...

Shoot, and why bother with precision or accuracy when we can just say it'll take hundreds, thousands, possibly millions of anything to do something. We'll be way less likely to be wrong if our estimate is smeared out over five or six orders of magnitude.

[isgota]

The GE1.5sle is the industry's standard. 1.5 MWs. Gamesa has the G80/87 2.0MW, but with problems. Vestas' V90 also comes in 2.0 MWs, is of relative good quality, but not yet widely used. Acciona has the AWP1.5, a great machine, but not yet produced in large scale like the GE1.5sle. Suzlon is not a contender. Everything else is either too small of a production scale or in prototype stages, ie, the GE2.X, AWP3.0, Liberty 2.5, etc. By the time these are reliable and well received by the developers, operators and finance community, we'll be importing 25mbpd.

Well, your wind energy association is suggesting winds of change on your industry composition: AWEA 2nd quarter market report.

I've seen a lot of manufacturers others than GE with proyects under construction with dozens of machines (Gamesa, Vestas, Clipper, Siemens, Mitsubishi...). In fact, Vestas has some proyects with 3 MW machines and Suzlon seems to be still in the game. So I guess than the average size of the turbines is going to be up over time.

Anyway, my question was because I suspected than 750 nuclear plants (of 1000 MW each) don´t match with the energy output of 4 million turbines unless they are way less 1 MW each, sorry.

And still to substitute 20 mbpd of oil you don't need so much. IMO you nor yesplease aren't near a theorical value of windmills needed. I think that you'd need about 700,000 GE 1.5MW to meet that demand (keep in mind the inneficient use of the oil in transport, of each 4 gallons of fuel on the tank you'll only get 1 on the wheels, EV are WAY BETTER).

Anyway I'm agree with you this is not realistic, wind power is not going to be our single energy source in future (fortunatelly). There are going to have a mix of different technologies, we'll see the fraction of the pie of each of them.

Best.

[yesplease]

And still to substitute 20 mbpd of oil you don't need so much. IMO you nor yesplease aren't near a theorical value of windmills needed. I think that you'd need about 700,000 GE 1.5MW to meet that demand (keep in mind the inneficient use of the oil in transport, of each 4 gallons of fuel on the tank you'll only get 1 on the wheels, EV are WAY BETTER).

I think at most we would see about half that, assuming we ended up w/ nothing but 5,000lb SUTs/SUVs for the passenger vehicle fleet. Even if we tossed every single ton-mile of freight at electric rail we would only need ~75,000 1.5MW turbines. There'll probably be an increase due to lower range (~40-60 miles) fleet/repair vehicles, but anything more than that (What's left of it after the increase in fuel costs anyway) would need the energy density of liquid fuels which would probably come from waste streams (WVO for CI stuff/cellulosic waste for SI stuff) and synfuels via fission.

Granted, 20% seems to be the upper limit to wind's grid contribution w/o demand side management or other large enough buffers right now, so in this case ~38% is too much to expect, but at the same time I also doubt everyone will drive an electric SUV/SUT in the future so something closer to 25% is probably closer to what we'll see and might be possible considering the large charging windows available for most EVs.