[mousepad]

Also, I would hope you are not as, shall we say, mathematically challenged as lucky is when it comes to industry downturns.
But listening to lucky, and you

You have me confused again. I did not post a single word on the price increase and cancellation of several wind projects. I posted a video of australians dumping old windmills in ecologically sensitive woods. Didn't you realize that?

But maybe you can help answering the all important question. Do you think that solar and wind are just an extension of fossil fuels? Or do you think they can stand on their own legs. What's your thoughts on that? If possible without just listing renewable biased uni and gov studies.

[kublikhan]

You have me confused again. I did not post a single word on the price increase and cancellation of several wind projects. I posted a video of australians dumping old windmills in ecologically sensitive woods. Didn't you realize that?

You said the studies I posted showed wind was cheap and you were confused by that, right after lucky posted on how expensive offshore was. Did you forget about that already?

But maybe you can help answering the all important question. Do you think that solar and wind are just an extension of fossil fuels? Or do you think they can stand on their own legs. What's your thoughts on that? If possible without just listing renewable biased uni and gov studies.

So I should follow your lead and post studies from anti-wind lobby groups instead? Yeah, that sounds MUCH better. No biases there at all. No drop in professional standards either.

But anyway, when it comes to fossil fuels, we broadly have two options:
1. Consume them as a feedstock such as in a coal or natural gas power plant. You consume it once, and it is gone forever.
2. Use them to construct non fossil fueled energy sources: wind, solar, etc.

The second option gives you multiples of the initial fossil fuel energy used to construct the non-fossil fueled energy. Much more energy in the long term for the same amount of fossil fuels invested. Fossil fuels were 'extended' through the use of solar, wind, etc, by alot.

But IMHO, you are focusing on the wrong thing. The amount of fossil fuels used to construct 'renewables' is miniscule compared to the amount of fossil fuels burned as a feedstock. IMHO, it is a much better use of fossil fuels to construct an alternative energy system. Fossil fuels will eventually deplete one day. Digging up every last lump of coal to burn it in a coal power plant and then shrugging our shoulders when there is no more coal sounds incredibly short sighted to me. Not to mention the climate and environmental concerns.

And yes, ALL methods of power generation despoil the environment to some extent, including wind and solar PV. The giant wind turbine blades that are just getting dumped are a particular concern that needs to be addressed. And solar PV has it's own issues. But these pale in comparison to the environmental damage done by fossil fuels.

[theluckycountry]

But anyway, when it comes to fossil fuels, we broadly have two options:
1. Consume them as a feedstock such as in a coal or natural gas power plant. You consume it once, and it is gone forever.
2. Use them to construct non fossil fueled energy sources: wind, solar, etc.

And guess what? In option 2. the fossil fuels are still gone forever. This is the delusion the rebuildable energy crowd labor under. They believe that if you build enough windmills to power the world you only have to do it once, they will last forever is the underlying message. Basically you burn up all the Earths reserves in one giant push, mining ores, smelting metal, making concrete, shipping it all over the world so you can have 20 years of electricity.

Windmills cannot mine ore, diesel is the only option for that. Nor can they smelt ore aside from hopelessly inefficient arc furnace methods. How are the future replacement materials and windmills supposed to be shipped across the oceans, sail boats? The whole thing is an exercise in hopium based on flawed studies that equate windmill production to dollar costing, NOT energy consumed to actually create, ship, erect, and maintain them.

It's the reason why the corporations are backing away from them, they are a lose lose, just like solar thermal was a lose lose. Just techocopian Dreams fueled by 6 decades of science fiction shows on TV. We don't need studies either way now, the corporations have spoken and they are at the coal-face of what works and what doesn't. Think about that for a second. They are pulling out while Oil and coal Are Still relatively Cheap!

[kublikhan]

And guess what? In option 2. the fossil fuels are still gone forever. This is the delusion the rebuildable energy crowd labor under. They believe that if you build enough windmills to power the world you only have to do it once, they will last forever is the underlying message. Basically you burn up all the Earths reserves in one giant push, mining ores, smelting metal, making concrete, shipping it all over the world so you can have 20 years of electricity.

Windmills cannot mine ore, diesel is the only option for that. Nor can they smelt ore aside from hopelessly inefficient arc furnace methods. How are the future replacement materials and windmills supposed to be shipped across the oceans, sail boats? The whole thing is an exercise in hopium based on flawed studies that equate windmill production to dollar costing, NOT energy consumed to actually create, ship, erect, and maintain them.

No one said wind turbines last forever. What I said was they act as a multiplier to the amount of fossil fuel energy that was used to create them. Say X amount of fossil fuels were used to make the wind turbine. That includes mining, smelting, shipping, etc. Now the turbine lasts 20 years. Over the course of those 20 years, the turbine produced 20 times the initial fossil fuel investment. That is not hopium, that is not Sci-fi, that is cold hard facts.

And neither is it gone forever. Steel, copper, and concrete do not suddenly vaporize when it is time to decommission the turbines. They are valuable materials that are reused. All the fossil fuel energy used to make that turbine is not gone forever because much of that material is recycled. Unfortunately, this was largely not the case for the turbine blades. At least, not until recently. A bit late to the party, but they are finally making turbine blades that are easier to recycle:

Aug 2 2022 - Siemens Gamesa’s first recyclable blades are spinning on a wind turbine at the Kaskasi offshore wind farm in Germany. It’s the first commercial installation of recyclable wind turbine technology. Siemens Gamesa has a plan to make all of its wind turbine blades fully recyclable by 2030 and all of its wind turbines fully recyclable by 2040. We’ve brought the Siemens Gamesa RecyclableBlade technology to market in only 10 months: from launch in September 2021 to installation at RWE’s Kaskasi project in July 2022.

World’s first wind turbine with recyclable blades is up and spinning

It's the reason why the corporations are backing away from them, they are a lose lose, just like solar thermal was a lose lose. We don't need studies either way now, the corporations have spoken and they are at the coal-face of what works and what doesn't. Think about that for a second. They are pulling out while Oil and coal Are Still relatively Cheap!

Incorrect. Wind investments, installations, and generation are hitting new all-time highs:

Onshore wind capacity additions are on course to rebound by 70% in 2023 to 107 GW, an all-time record amount. This is mainly due to the commissioning of delayed projects in China following last year’s Covid-19 restrictions. Faster expansion is also expected in Europe and the United States as a result of supply chain challenges pushing project commissioning from 2022 into 2023. On the other hand, offshore wind growth is not expected to match the record expansion it achieved two years ago due to the low volume of projects under construction outside of China.

In 2022 wind electricity generation increased by a record 265 TWh (up 14%), reaching more than 2 100 TWh.

Investment
Wind power investments increased in 2022 by 20%. Investment reached a record USD 185 billion, the second largest among all power generation technologies (behind solar PV), and this is expected to grow further in the coming years thanks to ambitious government targets, policy support and high competitiveness.

Wind - IEA

The global energy crisis has triggered unprecedented momentum behind renewables, with the world set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the past 20. The global energy crisis is driving a sharp acceleration in installations of renewable power, with total capacity growth worldwide set to almost double in the next five years, overtaking coal as the largest source of electricity generation along the way.

This massive expected increase is 30% higher than the amount of growth that was forecast just a year ago, highlighting how quickly governments have thrown additional policy weight behind renewables. The report finds that renewables are set to account for over 90% of global electricity expansion over the next five years, overtaking coal to become the largest source of global electricity by early 2025.

Renewable power’s growth is being turbocharged as countries seek to strengthen energy security

[mousepad]

it is a much better use of fossil fuels to construct an alternative energy system.

Yes, no doubt. But that's not the question I was asking. I was wondering if renewables can stand on their own.
Now, there are many studies showing how renewables are in fact energy positive. But I have my doubts.

Solar and even more so wind turbines are highest high tech devices. They require advanced materials, semiconductors, trained engineers and high tech equipment to deploy and maintain. I have a feeling that those can only be provided by a high powered globalized economy and an advanced industrial nation.

There's a reason the 10 biggest wind turbine manufacturers are loacted in usa, europe and china. Same with solar. None of this is easy backwater technology that any 3rd world hole can pick up and run with.

I have my doubts that we can deploy renewable to replace the 80% of energy currently provided by fossil. I believe a significant reduction in standard of living is required to achieve carbon neutrality. Do you think a powered down society is capable to sustain production and maintenance of all them renewables?

[theluckycountry]

No one said wind turbines last forever. What I said was they act as a multiplier to the amount of fossil fuel energy that was used to create them. Say X amount of fossil fuels were used to make the wind turbine. That includes mining, smelting, shipping, etc. Now the turbine lasts 20 years. Over the course of those 20 years, the turbine produced 20 times the initial fossil fuel investment. That is not hopium, that is not Sci-fi, that is cold hard facts.

20x the investment in Electricity sold, NOT in btu or joules or any other energy measure you care for. I have read lots of papers and it's always equated in $$$$, which is meaningless. You build this tech out of energy, currently Oil and Coal and Gas. You can't build it out of dollar bills.

The cost of electricity in Germany doubled when they went all in rebuildable, here it's just gone up 40% but not because of the cost of the generation. It's because of the costs associated with repairing the GRID! That's something else and a big problem for the future. No cheap oil and coal and gas, no cheap manufacturing, no heavy machines to dig holes and lift towers and run cables. You find a paper detailing the equation in energy breakdowns and I might be persuaded, but how can they mine and process and transport ore with electricity anyway?

[theluckycountry]

Equinor pulls out of Ireland, and a $2.3B floating offshore wind farm
...Equinor has abandoned wind plans in Ireland due to “dissatisfaction with the regulatory and planning regime.”

https://electrek.co/2021/11/05/equinor- ... wind-farm/

They can make 20x the cost back in 20 years and they are worried about some regulatory issues? Bullshit! That's a 1900% profit, the entire project would be amortized in a single year. no one would throw those profits away.

rising costs are making offshore wind projects so expensive that ‘it doesn’t make sense to continue’
https://fortune.com/2023/07/22/offshore ... rgy-needs/
So where is 20x energy return here?

Blow to UK renewable plans after Vattenfall halts wind farm project
Swedish group suspends work on Norfolk Boreas offshore site after surging costs

https://www.ft.com/content/f9d0f4f9-6d9 ... 8627fd6485

But they're gonna make 2000%! It's a money tree.

...Spanish renewables firm, canceled a contract that would have enabled the firm to sell energy produced by an offshore wind farm located off the Massachusetts coast, according to Bloomberg. The firm agreed to pay nearly $50 million in fines to get out of the contract to sell offshore wind energy

https://dailycaller.com/2023/07/24/comp ... skyrocket/

Orsted, a Danish green energy company, lost its bid to generate offshore wind energy off the Rhode Island coast because costs had risen so sharply that the state’s leading utility provider determined the project to be too pricey

It's the same story all over the world. No one wants to build because costs have gone up. How much have they gone up? 500%? Of course not, and of course the touted 20x energy return is all BS too.
In a few years when all this has ground to a halt the Wind Fanboys will be blaming it on a conspiracy by the coal and oil companies

All you need to know is all these projects are being cancelled, the reasons hardly matter but if they say it's too expensive now then it will always be too expensive.

[kublikhan]

I have my doubts that we can deploy renewable to replace the 80% of energy currently provided by fossil. I believe a significant reduction in standard of living is required to achieve carbon neutrality. Do you think a powered down society is capable to sustain production and maintenance of all them renewables?

I have my doubts we will ever voluntarily lower our standard of living in order to achieve carbon neutrality. Now what about involuntary lower consumption? The Great Depression lowered US GDP by a third. What happened to energy investments and production during that time? There was actually substantial energy and infrastructure programs during this time despite the overall level of consumption falling. I can see the same thing happening in the future if we get whacked with another great depression like scenario.

During the Great Depression, US President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal put a priority on infrastructure and energy. The Tennessee Valley Authority, set up in 1933, built dams and hydroelectric power stations through the south-east. The Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, then the world’s largest hydroelectric dam, was finished in 1936. The Rural Electrification Administration, established in 1935, took the share of farms with electricity from 10 per cent to 90 per cent by Mr Roosevelt’s death in 1945.

Before the coronavirus crisis, two New Deal-inspired environmental investment programmes had been proposed - the Green New Deal by some Democratic politicians in the US, and the European Green Deal to make the European Union carbon-neutral by 2050. The Democrats’ agenda includes energy efficiency, smart grids, a move towards all renewable power, public transport, high-speed rail and clean manufacturing. The European plan covers not just energy but also forest management and support to ensure farmers store carbon in soil, revitalise rural areas and revive natural habitats. It also includes carbon tariffs on imports from countries not managing their greenhouse gas emissions. Solar, wind and efficient gas power are now cheaper than coal in most locations. Nevertheless, coal power will continue to operate unless the funds are there to replace it. Coal mines provide local jobs and fund governments.

Investing in energy and projects helped pave the way out of the Great Depression: it can now help build a greener world

[kublikhan]

20x the investment in Electricity sold, NOT in btu or joules or any other energy measure you care for. I have read lots of papers and it's always equated in $$$$, which is meaningless. You build this tech out of energy, currently Oil and Coal and Gas. You can't build it out of dollar bills.

No, not the cost of electricity sold. The GWh of energy generated.

Study assumptions
* Power plant lifetime: the power plant lifetime is a dominant factor when determining the impacts of the electricity production per kWh. This LCA assumes a turbine lifetime of 20 years which matches the standard design life. Nonetheless, the wind turbine industry is still young (starting for Vestas in 1979), and few turbines have ever been disposed, with some turbines reaching operational lives of 30 years and over, for other Vestas turbine models. Although variations occur, the design lifetime for this study of 20 years for a ‘typical’ plant, is considered reasonable.

* Electricity production: the electricity production per kWh is substantially affected by the wind plant siting and site-specific wind conditions that the turbine operates under (i.e. low, medium or high wind classes defined by the IEC). Vestas wind turbines are designed to match these different wind classes and wind speeds, so it is not always the size of the rotor or the generator rating (in MW) that determines the electricity production of the turbine; but wind class is a dominant factor. Nonetheless, electricity production is very accurately measured for Vestas turbines when the wind speed and conditions are known. The V150-4.2 MW turbine assessed in this LCA is designed for the low wind class, and has been assessed for low wind conditions, which fairly reflects a ‘typical’ power plant.

Vestas operates sophisticated real-time diagnostic tools and sensors which measure individual turbine performance, power output and health status (such as fatigue loading and turbine condition). These systems operate on over 36,800 wind turbines around the world, correlating to over 79.6GW total capacity, which represents around 13 per cent of current worldwide installed wind capacity (WWEA, 2019). This provides highly detailed and valuable data for specific turbine performance and site operating conditions, which allows the above assumptions relating to the turbine to be carefully understood and reflected in the LCA.

3.4.2 Electricity production
A typical site for a V150-4.2 MW turbine with a low wind of 7.0 m/s at an 155m hub height is assessed for the LCA, which represents, for example, a realistic site placement in Germany. Table 2 shows the electricity production from the power plant. Based on typical low wind speed curves, the electricity production from a 100MW onshore wind power plant of V150-4.2 MW turbines is 7052 GWh over 20 years (equivalent to 14692 MWh per turbine per year)

Following the net-energy approach, as defined above, the breakeven time of the onshore V150-4.2 MW is 7.6 months for low wind. This may be interpreted that over the life cycle of the V150-4.2 MW wind power plant, the plant will return 31 times (low wind) more energy back than it consumed over the plant life cycle.

Wind Life Cycle Assessment

The cost of electricity in Germany doubled when they went all in rebuildable,

Germany had 2 disadvantages in going renewables:
1. They started their energy transition when renewables were much more expensive. Now their large deployments of expensive renewables spurred producers to increase their output and lower costs, giving the rest of us free rider benefits. But the Germans had to foot the bill for that:

A new study published by the Öko-Institut investigates Germany’s historical expenses for renewable electricity – and solar power in particular. In passing, the study highlights Germany’s contribution to the current low price of solar power worldwide.

Increasingly, Germany’s commitment to wind and, in particular, solar power back in the years when these energy sources were more expensive is seen internationally as a contribution to Germany’s development policy. “The Germans were not really buying power — they were buying a price decline.” This outcome was intentional; the Germans understood what they were doing all along: “We are responsible for this problem [of climate change] and should not shrug this responsibility by only thinking of ourselves.” “We can afford this — we are a rich country. It’s a gift to the world.”

Here, we see not the market share in terms of panels produced, but in terms of those installed. From 2008 until today, PV markets have come and gone (Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy, etc.), but the German market remained the buyer of last resort throughout those years. Germany was the only country that could be relied on to soak up all of the excess capacity built starting in around 2008.

Germany’s deployment of wind and solar when the technologies were expensive is now widely celebrated as the reason why significant production capacity has been set up worldwide, leading to plummeting prices for the benefit of developing countries in particular.

How Germany helped bring down the cost of PV

2. Germany has poor resources for solar and wind. Compared to Germany, the US produces 50% more wind energy per GW installed and nearly double the energy per GW of Solar PV installed. It's like comparing the cheap oil of Saudi Arabia to the Canadian tar sands. The US and Australia have much better solar resources than Germany does.

They can make 20x the cost back in 20 years and they are worried about some regulatory issues? Bullshit!
But they're gonna make 2000%! It's a money tree.

20x was ENERGY return, not monetary return.

All you need to know is all these projects are being cancelled, the reasons hardly matter but if they say it's too expensive now then it will always be too expensive.

Forest for the trees. A few cancelled projects do not change the fact that wind and renewables are growing faster than ever:

Onshore wind capacity additions are on course to rebound by 70% in 2023 to 107 GW, an all-time record amount. This is mainly due to the commissioning of delayed projects in China following last year’s Covid-19 restrictions. Faster expansion is also expected in Europe and the United States as a result of supply chain challenges pushing project commissioning from 2022 into 2023. On the other hand, offshore wind growth is not expected to match the record expansion it achieved two years ago due to the low volume of projects under construction outside of China.

In 2022 wind electricity generation increased by a record 265 TWh (up 14%), reaching more than 2 100 TWh.

Investment
Wind power investments increased in 2022 by 20%. Investment reached a record USD 185 billion, the second largest among all power generation technologies (behind solar PV), and this is expected to grow further in the coming years thanks to ambitious government targets, policy support and high competitiveness.

Wind - IEA

The global energy crisis has triggered unprecedented momentum behind renewables, with the world set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the past 20. The global energy crisis is driving a sharp acceleration in installations of renewable power, with total capacity growth worldwide set to almost double in the next five years, overtaking coal as the largest source of electricity generation along the way.

This massive expected increase is 30% higher than the amount of growth that was forecast just a year ago, highlighting how quickly governments have thrown additional policy weight behind renewables. The report finds that renewables are set to account for over 90% of global electricity expansion over the next five years, overtaking coal to become the largest source of global electricity by early 2025.

Renewable power’s growth is being turbocharged as countries seek to strengthen energy security

[theluckycountry]

20x the investment in Electricity sold, NOT in btu or joules or any other energy measure you care for. I have read lots of papers and it's always equated in $$$$, which is meaningless

No, not the cost of electricity sold. The GWh of energy generated. [QUOTE]

Which is easily convertible to the dollar cost anyway. But you didn't answer my question, which is "Equate the energy cost of the wind power output over 20 years to the total energy cost (in btu/joules etc) of the fossil fuels used to produce it."

You can't, and no one has even bothered to try because the combined fossil fuel side of the equation is too complex, and gets more energy intensive every year as ore grades diminish. There is no proof therefore that windmills and solar panels can replace themselves. Just an innate belief in a techno future. And you tactfully ignored my statements about how you are going to mine and refine all the materials needed with electricity alone? What electric vehicles are you assuming will replace the desiel powered D9's and scrapers and mammoth tippers used in mining today? On mine sites hundreds of miles from the grid often.

[theluckycountry]

The Great Depression lowered US GDP by a third. What happened to energy investments and production during that time? There was actually substantial energy and infrastructure programs during this time despite the overall level of consumption falling.

Those depression era programs were self powering, EROEI was 100:1 with oil and probably something similar with coal. It was almost free energy. But windmills are not free, if they were why are all the global corporations pulling out?

You say a lot kubli but you don't address the issues, you just post links to propaganda articles from the iea. Political statements basically, vague references to future build-outs of wind and solar. That's not proof of anything other than the bodies desire to look good in the eyes of it's masters.

The IEA is a registered educational and research charity. The organization states that it is funded by "voluntary donations from individuals, companies and foundations.
There is your first clue Sherlock, "companies and foundations". It's basically a law unto itself with no accountability, much like the WEF. The IEA will say whatever the people paying their salaries want said.

[AdamB]

The Great Depression lowered US GDP by a third. What happened to energy investments and production during that time? There was actually substantial energy and infrastructure programs during this time despite the overall level of consumption falling.

Those depression era programs were self powering, EROEI was 100:1 with oil and probably something similar with coal. It was almost free energy.

Do you even know the difference between energy and money? Because a low EROEI energy metric has zero requirement to correlate with the value of said energy.

[kublikhan]

Which is easily convertible to the dollar cost anyway. But you didn't answer my question, which is "Equate the energy cost of the wind power output over 20 years to the total energy cost (in btu/joules etc) of the fossil fuels used to produce it."

You can't, and no one has even bothered to try because the combined fossil fuel side of the equation is too complex, and gets more energy intensive every year as ore grades diminish. There is no proof therefore that windmills and solar panels can replace themselves. Just an innate belief in a techno future.

And you tactfully ignored my statements about how you are going to mine and refine all the materials needed with electricity alone? What electric vehicles are you assuming will replace the desiel powered D9's and scrapers and mammoth tippers used in mining today? On mine sites hundreds of miles from the grid often.

Those numbers are in the study I linked to, which you would know if you had bothered to read it. And I did answered your other question earlier when it was brought up. I said that in their current form, renewables extend fossil fuels. That means renewables are created with fossil fuels, transported with fossil fuels, raw materials are mined with fossil fuels, etc. They do not currently "replace themselves". And that is perfectly fine as that is how everything is made today. To expect a parallel production system to suddenly spring into place that is completely fossil fuel free is ridiculous. And even if they did cover 100% of the energy needs for every step of their production, they still would not "replace themselves" because raw materials are needed to make them. I'm not sure why you are so hung up on this ridiculous notion. So yes, fossil fuels are needed to make renewables. And even with that limitation, there are still worth pursuing. A small investment of fossil fuels used in their construction pays out multiple times the energy that went into them. Plus other benefits such as: climate, the environment, energy security, etc. Anyway here is the study again. I converted the input and output energy units to kWh so they are easier for you to compare.

3. Scope of the study
This study is a cradle-to-grave LCA, assessing the potential environmental impacts associated with electricity generated from a 100MW onshore wind power plant comprising of Vestas V150-4.2 MW wind turbines over the full life cycle. This includes extraction of raw materials from the environment through to manufacturing of components, production of the assembled wind turbines, logistics, power plant maintenance, and end-of-life management to the point at which the power plant is disposed and returned to the environment (or is reused or recycled).

The following processes have been considered:
• Production of all parts of the wind plant: (a description of main components can be found in Annex B). This includes parts that are manufactured by Vestas’ factories as well as supplier fabricated parts. Most of the information on parts and components (materials, weights, manufacturing operations, scrap rates) was obtained from bills of materials, design drawings and supplier data, covering over 99.9% of the turbine mass.
• Manufacturing processes at Vestas’ sites: which includes both the Vestas global production factories (i.e. for casting, machining, tower production, generator production, nacelle assembly and blades production), as well as other Vestas activities (e.g. sales, servicing, etc.)
• Transport: of turbine components to wind plant site and other stages of the life cycle including, incoming raw materials to production and transport from the power plant site to end of-life disposal;
• Installation and erection: of the turbines at the wind power plant site, including usage of cranes, onsite vehicles, diggers and generators;
• Site servicing and operations (including transport): serviced parts, such as oil and filters, and replaced components (due to wear and tear of moving parts within the lifetime of a wind turbine) are included;
• Use-phase electricity production: including wind turbine availability (the capability of the turbine to operate when wind is blowing), wake losses (arising from the decreased wind power generation capacity of wind a certain distance downwind of a turbine in its wake) and transmission losses; and
• End-of-life treatment: of the entire power plant including decommissioning activities.

energy output of wind turbine over 20 years: 293,833,333 kwh
input energy to construct wind turbine(includes mining, transportation, assembly, maintenance, disassembly, etc)
.12 MJ per kWh generated, or .03333 kWh
.0333333333 kwh * 293,833,333 kwh = 9,794,444 kwh
EROI = 293,833,333 kwh / 9,794,444 kwh = 30 EROI

Wind Life Cycle Assessment

Those depression era programs were self powering, EROEI was 100:1 with oil and probably something similar with coal. It was almost free energy. But windmills are not free, if they were why are all the global corporations pulling out?

Do you understand that some individual projects can be cancelled, and yet the industry as a whole can still be growing? This happens all the time, even with fossil fuels. Say under a certain set of economical and political circumstances, it makes sense to develop a certain oil field. But now the price of oil crashed. Or costs are skyrocketing. Or there is a labor shortage. Or the new political party blocked that pipeline that was critical to the project. In the current environment, it no longer makes sense to pursue the project. Does that mean oil was nothing but a scam all along? No. It just means that for that particular project, at this particular time, going forward no longer makes sense. You accuse me of ignoring points. Yet you have repeatedly ignored the fact that the industry as a whole is growing. While at the same time you cherry pick a few cancelled projects and present that as proof that the industry as a whole is collapsing.

You say a lot kubli but you don't address the issues, you just post links to propaganda articles from the iea.

*Sigh* I have to spoon feed everything to you don't I? I will say it again, I did not "tactfully ignore your statements" that renewables don't reproduce themselves. I said earlier they were an extension of fossil fuels. What exactly is your expectation here? That all of the materials used to build renewables comes straight out of a star trek style replicator, a wind mill sits atop every vehicle used to transport them, etc? You complain an awful lot about people watching TV and coming away with fanciful sci-fi ideas. Yet you are the one who appears to hold some crazy sc-fi expectations for renewables.

Political statements basically, vague references to future build-outs of wind and solar. That's not proof of anything other than the bodies desire to look good in the eyes of it's masters.

Actually, I posted real hard data for 2022, 2023, and yes some near term forecasts of the industry outlook going forward. I find it ironic that you hand wave away near term forecasts if they are positive, but you yourself make such forecasts all the time. I guess you think if the forecasts are positive they are false, but if they are dire they are true? Well even if you want to hand wave away the forecasts, there is still the actual data from last year and this year that shows renewables are still growing strong. This is not a political statement. This is not a vague reference. this is real, hard data. And it runs contrary to the narrative you are trying to spin about renewables in decline.

[AdamB]

You say a lot kubli but you don't address the issues, you just post links to propaganda articles from the iea.

*Sigh* I have to spoon feed everything to you don't I?

And you expect something else when dealing with infants?

The characteristic I find most ridiculous, and one that played out during the peak oil days as well, are the folks who can't or won't learn. Selective use of information(cherry picking), speculating in rather complex topics without a shred of knowledge in underlying fundamentals, no interest in learning anything about the topic beyond what they already know or assume, and using their opinion in lieu of facts, data, logic, use of previously discredited sources or ideas, and not a single neuron of desire to see, learn, hear or read anything contradicting their firmly held beliefs.

I have recently become acquainted with Alzheimers and some of the characteristics are similar, every day is a new day, but the characteristic I am describing appears to be voluntary rather than medical, and appears based on the core belief of the individual that they just KNOW, are quite informed and smart (and sometimes they are), therefore there is no need to learn. A closed mind is just closed.

Lucky has the characteristic emblazoned on his forehead and carries it with pride. So good luck with the spoon feeding, but it doesn't work either against this personality type.

[theluckycountry]

comprising of Vestas V150-4.2 MW wind turbines over the full life cycle. This includes extraction of raw materials from the environment through to manufacturing of components, production of the assembled wind turbines, logistics, power plant maintenance...

Yes I downloaded your windy pdf, "LCA of Electricity Production from an onshore". I didn't read much, but I searched it. Mining results=0. Then I searched Concrete= lots, even some transport figures but nothing regarding the cost even of manufacturing concrete clinker, which is hugely energy intensive.

I've read all this before, and the basis for an in-depth one (which your isn't) is always dollar cost comparisons.. Let's cut to the chase Kublkhan, just post up a couple of paragraphs of the actual cost in energy of some of those, or just the first two, Mining and Processing of the ores, even say just the rare earths used in the magnets. Or post a link to the paper they are numerated in.

I have no time for obfuscation, or speeches, just the facts please, the Energy (not money) it takes for these processes so we can equate that to the Energy the windmills produce over their lifetime.

Wind turbines cost about $1.3 million per MW.
It is well known that one gallon of Diesel contains roughly 40 kWh of energy. That equates to 25 gallons of Diesel per MW of energy. A D9 consumes about 8 gallons of fuel per hour under normal working conditions. So they use 320,000 MW of energy per hour, One third the output of the wind turbine above. They have a 254 gallon tank btw and cost $1 million, and they need to be replaced after 7 to 10 years. So that's comparable to the total cost of two 1MW Wind generators over their lifespan.

This gives you an idea of the complexity of the calculations. Assuming you were mining the ore by wind power you'd need a wind-farm of dozens of these units to power a single typical open cut mine with all it's plant and crushers and associated processing equipment. I once worked in a blue sky titanium mine in West Australia and the pumps alone consumed an enormous amount of electricity. It ran 24/7 and every month produced a couple of thousand metric tons of refined sands that were then railed to the port of Geraldton 150km north and then shipped by sea to the US for the very expensive process of turning it into titanium metal.

Can you produce any numbers equating Wind to mining and processing, MW to MW?


https://www.answers.com/zoology/What_is ... _bulldozer
https://thompsontractor.com/blog/averag ... equipment/

[theluckycountry]

And yes they have stopped offshore because it's too expensive. But that's just the first shoe to drop. Readers, ask yourself why they went ahead with offshore in the first place if it was too expensive? Were they that stupid? And then ask yourself if it's possible On-shore is similarly too expensive given the energy return on investment?

These projects are like modern Hollywood movies, the people making them don't have the money so they go and grab investors and bank money with trumped up estimates of the profits expected to roll in. If they had have funded the projects themselves they never would have gone ahead. The bright Green future was a good sell and many average people will lose billions, probably trillions by the time the dust settles on this stupidity.

Yes wind power is cool, and very useful, and even efficient under certain conditions. But it will not power our future because it's too expensive in energy inputs.

Decades ago I rode through the small town of Esperance in WA, it was entirely powered by wind turbines. Why? Because it was 1000km from the nearest fuel distribution hub and it made sense to build them rather than ship the diesel all that way by truck every week. A one off.







ESPERANCE, AUSTRALIA - Feb 04, 2020: A display of original nacelle and propellor from the Salmon Beach wind farm in Esperance, Western Australia

1987 – The first wind farm in Australia and WA

The Salmon Beach Wind Farm near Esperance was the first wind farm in Australia, with six turbines that operated for nearly 15 years. The asset was decommissioned in 2002 due to the age of the turbines and larger, more cost-effective units that had since become available.

https://www.synergy.net.au/Blog/2018/07 ... arms-in-WA

Not even 15 years. Better luck next time eh? Especially with junk Chinese made product...

Esperance is an isolated town and it is not connected to the electricity grid. Before the installation of wind turbines, the electrical needs of Esperance town and surrounding districts were supplied solely from a diesel power station. The Ten Mile Lagoon wind farm serves the Esperance community in conjunction with the power station and complements the electricity generated by the gas turbines

See! You still need fossil fuels, even though it blows a gale down there.

[mousepad]

I have my doubts that we can deploy renewable to replace the 80% of energy currently provided by fossil. I believe a significant reduction in standard of living is required to achieve carbon neutrality. Do you think a powered down society is capable to sustain production and maintenance of all them renewables?

I have my doubts we will ever voluntarily lower our standard of living in order to achieve carbon neutrality. Now what about involuntary lower consumption? The Great Depression lowered US GDP by a third. What happened to energy investments and production during that time? There was actually substantial energy and infrastructure programs during this time despite the overall level of consumption falling. I can see the same thing happening in the future if we get whacked with another great depression like scenario.

I'm not sure if you answered my question. Do you agree with me that a reduction of standard of living is inevitable to achieve 0 carbon? Or do you think it will be possible to eventually replace the 80% of total energy provided by fossil fuels with renewables?

[mousepad]

The following processes have been considered:
• Production of all parts of the wind plant: (a description of main components can be found in Annex B). This includes parts that are manufactured by Vestas’ factories as well as supplier fabricated parts. Most of the information on parts and components (materials, weights, manufacturing operations, scrap rates) was obtained from bills of materials, design drawings and supplier data, covering over 99.9% of the turbine mass.
• Manufacturing processes at Vestas’ sites: which includes both the Vestas global production factories (i.e. for casting, machining, tower production, generator production, nacelle assembly and blades production), as well as other Vestas activities (e.g. sales, servicing, etc.)
• Transport: of turbine components to wind plant site and other stages of the life cycle including, incoming raw materials to production and transport from the power plant site to end of-life disposal;
• Installation and erection: of the turbines at the wind power plant site, including usage of cranes, onsite vehicles, diggers and generators;
• Site servicing and operations (including transport): serviced parts, such as oil and filters, and replaced components (due to wear and tear of moving parts within the lifetime of a wind turbine) are included;
• Use-phase electricity production: including wind turbine availability (the capability of the turbine to operate when wind is blowing), wake losses (arising from the decreased wind power generation capacity of wind a certain distance downwind of a turbine in its wake) and transmission losses; and
• End-of-life treatment: of the entire power plant including decommissioning activities.

That's exactly the problem. How deep into the supply chain are you going to go for a proper analysis? The list here aint' very deep. It should go down all the way to the coffee the workers are drinking.

I would like to give you an example to consider. My company supplies microchips for blade pitch controls for them windmills.
The volume is very small. The majority of those microchips are actually sold to car manufacturers for windshield wiper controls. It just happens that they are also a good fit for the windmills. Thanks to the enormous volume of chips being sold to car manufacturers, the chips are cheap and the windmill directly benefits from this. The chips are manufactured in a multi-billion dollar waferfab that also produces chips for cellphones and other consumer electronics. That makes them even cheaper because all benefit from the enormous volume of unrelated chips built in the same fab.

Let's assume society is strapped for energy, cars don't sell well anymore, cellphones neither. The volume for consumer chips shrinks but we still need those pitch control chips. That means we have to be able to still maintain, operate and rebuild the fab for the only purpose of supplying chips for the windmill. The cost will be enormous.

Solar and wind are HUGE beneficiaries of industries at scale. Once that scale is gone, the costs will explode. That's why my other question. Cost/eroi analysis assume a fully powered consumer society "helping" the renewables through their scale. I repeat my question. Do you think it's possible to maintain the scale of the consumer economy by renewables only. And if a power down is inevitable, do you think renewables are still buildable?

[kublikhan]

Yes I downloaded your windy pdf, "LCA of Electricity Production from an onshore". I didn't read much, but I searched it. Mining results=0. Then I searched Concrete= lots, even some transport figures but nothing regarding the cost even of manufacturing concrete clinker, which is hugely energy intensive.

I've read all this before, and the basis for an in-depth one (which your isn't) is always dollar cost comparisons.. Let's cut to the chase Kublkhan, just post up a couple of paragraphs of the actual cost in energy of some of those, or just the first two, Mining and Processing of the ores, even say just the rare earths used in the magnets. Or post a link to the paper they are numerated in.

I have no time for obfuscation, or speeches, just the facts please, the Energy (not money) it takes for these processes so we can equate that to the Energy the windmills produce over their lifetime.

Wind turbines cost about $1.3 million per MW.
It is well known that one gallon of Diesel contains roughly 40 kWh of energy. That equates to 25 gallons of Diesel per MW of energy. A D9 consumes about 8 gallons of fuel per hour under normal working conditions. So they use 320,000 MW of energy per hour, One third the output of the wind turbine above. They have a 254 gallon tank btw and cost $1 million, and they need to be replaced after 7 to 10 years. So that's comparable to the total cost of two 1MW Wind generators over their lifespan.

This gives you an idea of the complexity of the calculations. Assuming you were mining the ore by wind power you'd need a wind-farm of dozens of these units to power a single typical open cut mine with all it's plant and crushers and associated processing equipment. I once worked in a blue sky titanium mine in West Australia and the pumps alone consumed an enormous amount of electricity. It ran 24/7 and every month produced a couple of thousand metric tons of refined sands that were then railed to the port of Geraldton 150km north and then shipped by sea to the US for the very expensive process of turning it into titanium metal.

Can you produce any numbers equating Wind to mining and processing, MW to MW?

They use the term "extraction" instead of mining. This type of turbine does not use rare Earths. The quantities of materials used can be found in the Annex sections. The energy input figures for the various materials were taken from world leading datasets from organizations such as worldsteel, European Aluminium Association, etc. If you want to look at the detailed datasets, you can request to download the datasets yourself. But as an example, I included some overview data for steel from worldsteel below.

The V150-4.2 MW turbine does not use rare earth elements (i.e. neodymium and dysprosium) in the turbine generator, but uses a Single Fed Induction Generator (SFIG) that is primarily constructed of iron/steel and copper.

Datasets for metal production are based on established and credible industry association sources (such as those from worldsteel and the European Aluminium Association). Concrete is the other main mass-flow material, which uses industry-specific production datasets accounting for the concrete grade. Polymer materials also use established and credible industry datasets. The impacts of electronics production have been evaluated at an individual component level.

Electronics mapping: the electronics have been mapped at an individual component-level. Vestas designs its own controllers and holds details of nearly all electrical and electronic components used in the turbine, representing for this LCA around 8000 lines in the product-tree for one turbine. All these components are mapped in the current assessment.

Wind Life Cycle Assessment

On average, 20 GJ of energy is consumed per tonne of crude steel produced globally.

worldsteel

worldsteel has also developed a global and regional life cycle inventory (LCI) database which provides “cradle-togate” environmental inputs and outputs, tracking resource use (raw materials, energy and water) and emissions to air, water and land for 17 steel products. The LCI data is available upon request through worldsteel.org

Energy inputs and associated costs
• Energy constitutes a significant portion of the cost of steel production, from 20% to 40%. Thus, improvements in energy efficiency result in reduced production costs and thereby improved competitiveness.
• The energy efficiency of steelmaking facilities varies depending on production route, type and quality of iron ore and coal used, the steel product mix, operation control technology, and material efficiency.
• Energy is also consumed indirectly for the mining, preparation, and transportation of raw materials. In the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route, this accounts for about 9% of the total energy required to produce the steel, including raw material extraction and steel production processes. In the electric arc furnace (EAF) route, this accounts for about 6% of total energy requirements (for details regarding the steelmaking routes, check out this link on worldsteel.org).
• About 89% of a BF-BOF’s energy input comes from coal, 7% from electricity, 3% from natural gas and 1% from other gases and sources. In the case of the EAF route, the energy input from coal accounts for 11%, from electricity 50%, from natural gas 38% and 1% from other sources.

Steel saves energy over product life cycles
While steel products require energy to be produced, they can also offer savings over the life cycle of the product, sometimes greater than the energy used during their production. For example, over 20 years, a three-megawatt wind turbine can deliver 80 times more energy than is used in the production and maintenance of the material used.

Energy use in the steel industry

And yes they have stopped offshore because it's too expensive.

No offshore did not "stop". Some projects got canceled, yes. But overall the industry continues:

Global offshore wind pipeline capacity 2023, by status
There were roughly 34 gigawatts of offshore wind under construction worldwide, 420 gigawatts in the pre-construction stage, and over 255 gigawatts announced. As of that same date, China topped the list of countries by offshore capacity under construction.

Capacity of offshore wind farm projects under construction

[kublikhan]

That's exactly the problem. How deep into the supply chain are you going to go for a proper analysis? The list here aint' very deep. It should go down all the way to the coffee the workers are drinking.

I would like to give you an example to consider. My company supplies microchips for blade pitch controls for them windmills.
The volume is very small. The majority of those microchips are actually sold to car manufacturers for windshield wiper controls. It just happens that they are also a good fit for the windmills. Thanks to the enormous volume of chips being sold to car manufacturers, the chips are cheap and the windmill directly benefits from this. The chips are manufactured in a multi-billion dollar waferfab that also produces chips for cellphones and other consumer electronics. That makes them even cheaper because all benefit from the enormous volume of unrelated chips built in the same fab.

Electronics are also included in the numbers, see my earlier post. I have read studies where they expand boundary conditions even deeper than that. Not just the coffee the workers are drinking, but the energy consumed by the workers' entire families. The problem with that is if you are using the numbers you get in a comparative analysis with other power sources, you have to use the same boundary conditions for those power sources as well. Or else the results you get will be meaningless. The authors of this study choose to use the same boundary conditions as other studies so the numbers can be compared.

I'm not sure if you answered my question. Do you agree with me that a reduction of standard of living is inevitable to achieve 0 carbon? Or do you think it will be possible to eventually replace the 80% of total energy provided by fossil fuels with renewables? And if a power down is inevitable, do you think renewables are still buildable?

I think renewables are still buildable in a power down, yes. Just because overall consumption falls, that does not mean we cannot allocate the same, or even more resources to energy production. We saw this happen in the great depression. As to the question of will renewables eventually replace the 80% of energy provided by fossil fuels, is that even desirable? The abundance of energy fossil fuels supply encourages a great deal of waste. Compare and contrast the energy consumption of the average US household to someone who goes off-grid. The off-grid user generates their own power. Any waste hits their pocket-book much harder than someone grid tied. So they are much more frugal in their energy consumption and consume a much smaller amount of energy. They use much lower energy but for a comparable standard of living. There is this misconception that what we want is energy when what we really want is energy services: warm homes, cold beer, etc. Energy is a cost to get those services. If we can get those same services with less energy, so much the better. I think shifting to more expensive energy, such as buffered renewables(renewables backed up with grid storage, backup power, etc) will result in lower energy consumption, more energy efficiency, less waste, etc.

1). No one WANTS energy. No one is pining to have a kilowatt-hour of electricity or a barrel of oil for its own sake. What people want are energy SERVICES: hot showers, cold beer, the ability to travel at reasonable speed and in relative comfort.

2). Energy is not a benefit, but a COST of getting energy services. The less energy we have to spend to heat the shower or cool the beer, the better off we are.

Amory and his colleagues at Rocky Mountain Institute are trying to get across the idea that more efficiency can produce the same results as more energy, for less money, with less environmental damage. If we can turn a motor, light a bulb, or cool a room with fewer watts or barrels, that’s just as good as discovering new barrels — better, actually, because a discovered barrel can be burned only once, while an insulated house or more efficient car goes on saving barrels over its whole lifetime.

“Superefficient lights, motors, appliances, and building components can together, if fully used in existing U.S. buildings and industries, SAVE ABOUT THREE-FOURTHS OF ALL ELECTRICITY NOW USED, at an average cost far below that of operating a typical coal-fired or nuclear power plant, even if building it costs nothing.” Let that one sink in slowly. We could write off 75% of our existing power plants, invest in efficiency technologies, still have our energy services, and save money. And produce no more nuclear wastes, much less acid rain, much less air pollution.

A Negabarrel Saved is a Barrel Earned