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wind farms
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Edited May 03, 2006, 12:42
Re: wind farms
May 03, 2006, 12:40
Bonzo, nuclear energy is a non-starter unless you can tell me where we get the uranium from. According to the Australian government (who possess the largest reserves of uranium ore) there's less than 50 years of the stuff left at current consumption rates.

As for "hydrogen" based stations... where do you get the hydrogen from? 98% of the world's hydrogen is produced using a technique called "steam methane reformation". The word "methane" gives it away somewhat... it's a product of natural gas.

It makes percisely zero sense to convert natural gas into hydrogen (incurring energy losses) and then using the hydrogen to generate electricity; given that you can use the natural gas to produce electricity directly.

The reason we face an energy crisis is because we are reaching a point where demand for fossil fuels (oil and gas) is outstripping supply. The decision to go nuclear involves switching to another resource which is rapidly depleting. The decision to convert to hydrogen is merely a decision to use our remaining fossil fuels in a less efficient way.

Neither seem like sensible suggestions to me.

As for wind-farms... it's certainly true that they are inefficient, but they are energy-positive and they are renewable. According to the IWEA (Irish Wind Energy Association) in a report called "Geographical dispersal of wind power output", the total output of Irish windfarms never falls below 60% of rated output (with farms in Donegal taking up the slack on calm days in Cork and vice versa). This simulation was based upon a data-set containing ten years of wind-speed and direction information. The full report (PDF) can be accessed here:

http://www.iwea.com/publications/Ecofys2.pdf

Wind power is the fastest growing method of electricity generation in the United States. Sweden currently generates over 25% of its electricity using a combination of wind and tidal power (mostly wind) with Norway quickly gaining ground.

If a modern western government like Sweden (paricularly one with a harsh climate) can generate more than a quarter of its power using the wind and tide (and plan to have 100% of the grid supplied from these sources by 2020) then there's clearly no engineering problem involved... merely a political one.
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