I'm in local politics. Tell me about windturbine energy.
Are windturbines economically viable / profitable ?
Are they efficient?
Can they still be improved?
No, go with nuclear. Or invest in tidal power
the good
>they can take the load of some powerplants
The bad
>ugly as fuck, destroys the view of landscapes
>it cant work without wind
>too much wind can burn it out
>very high price to build it
>it has a lot of materials that are probably from china where they dont give a fuck about nature
>it cost a lot to maintain it.
Nuclear is still the only real solution to all our problems.
>>7728978
Solar would be a better investment.
>>7728984
>meme power
lol
>>7728978
>I'm in local politics
Maybe asking a bunch of edgy teenagers is n9t the best source of information to base policy on.
>>7728978
It really depends on the location, wind turbines can be hugely profitable for investors if they can install them in very specific areas with high average wind speeds. Maximum efficiency is extracting around 59% of the momentum of the air, this is known as the betz limit. well designed turbines can operate at 80% of the betz limit or a total efficiency of around 45%. this is pretty much as good as they are going to get. improvements can still be made to reduce the material costs.
downsides
> typically the best locations are 'scenic' area
> they create a shit ton of noise, and its not a constant hum like a freeway but a very disrupting sound for people within a certain radius
>>7728984
In some cases this is true but not always, especially in high northern latitudes or near the coast that don't get much solar exposure
>>7729000
>dis is a meme degree
>dat is meme power
gtfo and come back when u got something to contribute other than this worthless pile what you call a reply. this is making me sick to my stomache.
BTT:
I don't think they are efficient enough to become profitable OP.
fusion and solar are the way to go and will have more than 80% efficiency im sure.
>>7729025
Reddit called, they want their meme opinions back.
In terms of efficiency of transducing energy from its 'fuel' source, wind energy is one of the best options there is because with many technologies fuel must is in the form of chemical energy which must first be converted to thermal energy and subsequently to mechanical energy before it can be captured and transduced by genenator. More interactions between matter necessary translates into more energy lost from friction and transformation into em radiation, or simply opportunities for it not to be captured.
![Thats_just_your_opinion[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/OotGqe2.jpg "Thats_just_your_opinion[1].jpg")
>>7728983
>ugly as fuck, destroys the view of landscapes
See pic related
>it cant work without wind
Really? Wow! Is that why they built them in places where there is a lot of wind?
>too much wind can burn it out
They have fail save mechanisms
>very high price to build it
>it cost a lot to maintain it.
Supply and demand, nigger. The more you make/sell them the cheaper they get. And the cheaper they are to maintain and/or replace.
>it has a lot of materials that are probably from china where they dont give a fuck about nature
Same goes for that computer/tablet/phone you are using right now. Maybe not buy those anymore? Also nuclear fuel has pretty much the same problem, being dependent on not-so-nice governments
>>7729004
>I disagree with your view therefore you must be a shill
Retard
>>7728978
Wind is intermittent and has low capacity factors. Until we have low cost energy storage and they drop in price enough to make up for the low capacity factors we won't be using them to replace baseload power any time soon.
At the moment we have batteries (about 50c/kWhr over their life on top of the energy price) and hydro pumped storage (10c/kWhr and dependent on the correct location). Neither are solutions.
The only real solutions to climate change are going to be nuclear and carbon capture and storage 9as much as I wish the latter wasn't true).
>>7729114
Cont
Rereading what you said, at the moment, with low market penetration and with the standard Western subsidies they are viable. As soon as the subsidise go and the grid instabilities appear then they'll go out the window.
I agree, Solar, Nuclear and Wind are the way to go. Coal and Oil need to go.
>>7728978
Urk detected...
This entire discussion may very well be irrelevant within a few years. There are several startups currently advancing the technology of nuclear fusion, and if any of them succeed in getting nuclear fusion to produce more energy than is put into it, then that is the only power source we actually need anymore. That being said, I think offshore wind farms address many of the aesthetic concerns that people have with wind power, and that it is a viable means of generating power for some areas
You don't have to worry about what to invest in. If it's worth selling, people will sell it.
Worry more about what to make more expensive i.e. pollution.
>>7728983
I'd like to add that they're retard-tier renewable energy solutions. If there's enough of them, they'll fuck up the weather that's their very driving force.
>>7729465
Startups and fusion don't belong in the same sentence. It is a huge engineering feat to build something capable of sustaining fusion that a startup could not possibly fathom.
That German agency that just did some pilot launch of a fusion reactor was given an upwards of 2 billion dollars and it took them 9 years to get the thing running. A startup absolutely would not have that much money or time to run on nothing.
>>7728978
The people on this website aren't to be trusted. They spew whatever nonsense they believe would make them sound smarter.
I would try to contact faculty at a local university with these questions.
>>7728983
>>ugly as fuck, destroys the view of landscapes
The fact that people believe this proves that the propaganda machine is very strong.
Why the fuck do you think that wind turbines are ugly or that they destroy the view of landscapes? If anything, they're remarkably elegant. Do you think this about all power poles, too?
>>7729512
19 years, actually. It's an enormously impressive machine, but I can't help but feel that the entire methodology behind it is flawed. Any power station that requires a such a tremendous upfront cost and so much labor as the style fusion reactor that these companies are working on is going to be at a pretty big disadvantage in the marketplace. The main reason I give any credence to the start up efforts at nuclear fusion is due to the fact that I've examined the technology they're using, and it really does look like they are going to be able to solve some of the issues that have required such enormous setups, and therefore be able to create fusion in a fashion that requires millions of dollars to get started rather then many billions.
When Lockheed Martin tells you that they think they're on to something, then it's very unlikely they're fucking with you. I'm also interested in the technology behind helion energy, primarily because of its direct energy conversion technology and it's impressive forward progress in terms of prototypes.
>>7729451
shieeeeet
I said it before, i'll say it again
bulldoze africa
fill it with solar cells
power the world
i like nuclear but i don't support idiot countries who regularly get tsunamis or are on tectonic boundaries building them
Depends where you put them, depends where you put them, yes.
>>7728979
Tidal is incredibly destructive to ocean ecosystems. All that silt.
>>7728983
> too much wind can burn it out
All modern turbines have mechanisms to prevent this.
> high price to build it
With the exception of burning readily available methane from a dump or dairy farm, it's the cheapest form of new generation at the moment.
> materials from China
The last ones I saw were fabricated entirely in Washington state. You don't put a 50 m fibreglass blade on a boat and ship it across the Pacific.
> cost a lot to maintain it
The last farm I looked at had a single technician and one engineer overseeing 70-100 MW of generation. A few days a year, they'd have a lineman or an electrician come in. It's cheap as dirt
>>7728984
Solar is actually the worst investment, in terms of $/MWh.
>>7728978
Yes, they can be improved (what can't?).
Yes, they are efficient (how the fuck should they be able to produce electricity, if they weren't efficient?!).
Yes, they are profitable in the long run.
The only drawback about windpower is that you cannot control when it is windy and when it is not, so you can't rely solely on wind power, but you can rely on the fact that a windmill will produce a pretty big amount of electricity over the ´course of... let's say... a year... or any other arbitrary measurement of time
The lifetime of wind turbines is largely dictated by the fatigue resistance of their rolling bearings. Cracking as a result of rolling contact fatigue failures in the bearing steels is a frequent cause of shutdown and very costly maintenance/replacement. Unless the reliability of these transmission materials is continually improved the running costs of large windfarms for extended periods will remain largely inefficient
Also, the award for stupidest reply ITT goes to:
>>7729493
>If there's enough of them, they'll fuck up the weather
>>7729114
>Wind is intermittent
That depends very much where you are. If you have ever lived near a coast facing the North Sea or waters north of that you will know that the wind blows every day with less exceptions than one week. These exceptions are usually in the middle of the summer and lasts 1 - 2 days.
>>7730990
There aren't many places like that in the world and we'll quickly fill them up if we try to go for 100% solar/wind.
Wind turbines are actually pretty cheap for the energy they provide, and by spreading them out and picking good sites you can minimize the variations in output.
We still need better storage tech before they can be used for baseload generation, though.
