Windmills Harm the Environment by Consuming Energy

[KissMy]

Like everything else, alternative energy on the home scale depends on a number of factors. For solar, you have to have an area that gets enough sunlight. For wind, you need to live in a wind area for a small turbine to be effective.

And, finally, if one wants the most bang for the buck, you have to be reasonably intelligent and able to follow simple construction instructions. If all of the above apply, here is where one can begin;

How To Make Solar Power Generator Panels - Build Wind Turbine Power Generator - Home Use Solar Power Electricity

The large wind generators cost over $137,000 a year each to maintain. Are they figuring in all the EROI of the parts & maintenance that it takes to maintain these wind generators.

Where on that site do you find that number?

Click on the "1.5MW @ 128 net 49%" link at the very bottom of the page.

 

[Spoonman]

Urban windmills harm the environment

A small windmill on your roof or in the garden is an attractive idea. Unfortunately, micro wind turbines deliver hardly enough energy to power a light bulb. Their financial payback time is much longer than their life expectancy and in urban areas they will not even deliver as much energy as was needed to produce them. Sad, but true.

Depends on where you live. We have some huge windfarms near us. From what I hear they are generating a ton of power. Also people along the lake power their entire houses with wind.

 

[Spoonman]

Well, I voted for President Obama and will do so again.

Now, back to the subject. Do you, Charlie and Palid Ragger have any real scientific evidence to contribute to the discussion? Or are you just going to go with the same old mindless Conservative talking points?

Do you also bang your thumb with a hammer everytime you are driving a nail?

 

[AllieBaba]

Which brings me back to corn based ethanol. More energy is used to produce the product than is released when it is used as a fuel. Which is an absolutely useless fact when confronting a politician trying to buy votes in the corn belt.

[SIZE=-1]"Alcohol is for drinking, gas is for cleaning parts, and nitro is for racing!"[/SIZE][SIZE=-1]
Don Garlits (among others)[/SIZE]

Not only that, when you take corn out of the food chain people start starving and food prices go up, up, up.

Producing ethanol also runs the risk of contaminating ground water, thanks to the way it's processed. I wrote a lengthy article on it a few years ago when our region was looking to get into it in a big way. Contamination risk factor is huge.

 

[AllieBaba]

windmills don't create enough energy to justify the huge amounts of energy it takes to build and run them. The only way the industry survives is through gargantuan subsidies. They can't support themselves.

I can't throw a rock in my area without hitting one of the stupid things. and our electricity is SKY HIGH.

 

[PoliticalChic]

windmills don't create enough energy to justify the huge amounts of energy it takes to build and run them. The only way the industry survives is through gargantuan subsidies. They can't support themselves.

I can't throw a rock in my area without hitting one of the stupid things. and our electricity is SKY HIGH.

Mind if I support that premise?

"According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA), if one includes all the capital, operating and fuel costs, electricity from wind still costs about 50 percent more than conventional coal and 100 percent more than natural gas, says Ronald Bailey, science correspondent with Reason Magazine.
Proponents point out that the costs of turbines are coming down, but the costs for the considerable infrastructure needed to manage wind are still daunting.

The wind, even at favorable sites, doesn't always blow, so the facility produces power at about 38 percent of its actual capacity, or roughly about 51 megawatt hours of electricity on average.

The Department of Energy projects that wind power production capacity will more than double by 2014, fueled by federal tax subsidies, economic recovery stimulus spending and state renewable energy mandates. This means that thousands more gleaming stately spinning towers will soon rise above the amber waves of grain in the heartland of America. Beautiful, says Bailey, but costly.

Wind Turbines Are Beautiful - Reason Magazine

 

[NYcarbineer]

I'm simply amazed. I never knew there were so many authorities on the environment, global warming, and now alternative fuels and energy on this board. I feel so inferior. I'll add my two cents to this post. You can burn cow shit if you dry it out long enough. It's grain that's been recycled down to it's lowest form and still useful. Look! I'm an energy wiz too! We're all energy nurds - or turds. Whatever.

Plus, if you put a lid over it while it drys you can get a touch of methane too.

My electric co-op is putting a generating plant on top of a landfill to run off the gases produced.

 

[Old Rocks]

The large wind generators cost over $137,000 a year each to maintain. Are they figuring in all the EROI of the parts & maintenance that it takes to maintain these wind generators.

Where on that site do you find that number?

Click on the "1.5MW @ 128 net 49%" link at the very bottom of the page.

Odd, what I find is an estimate of $25,000 per year per unit. That is rather reasonable.


https://sites.google.com/site/cbpwindturbine/1-5mw

(11)margins against failure under fatigue loads,
We do not have data for this.

(12)approx.how many installations your company has already.
For now about 200 units by our partner in China.

(13)What maintenance is required,
Check consumable components regularly.

(14)how frequent and
per month or each quarter

(15)what are average costs?
US$25000 estimated per year per unit

(16)Would you provide connection from wind mills to 20kV electricity grid including all the electric equipment, or you require this to be done by customer?
Yes, we can provide transformer with extra costs