[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I') have a hard time seeing an EROEI of 15. How come we have these silver bullets and we're paying over $100 oil?

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'A')dding 40 GW of alternative energy a year, it would take 135 years of building to replace just the 5,400 GW from oil. 375 years to replace all of our power sources. The scale of the task is that big. The rate of alternative energy additions is increasing, but it is not a magic bullet to fix peak oil.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I')'d like to see how these calculations are made. I'm not saying you're lying or stretching the truth. I'm just puzzled. I'm in the wind industry. When I see all the energy used in the development, construction, operation and maintenance of one turbine, I have a hard time seeing an EROEI of 15. How come we have these silver bullets and we're paying over $100 oil?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'H')ere's a link that should help you out: Wind Energy EROEI Research
The EROEI of wind power really does compare favorably to other methods of power generation. And it is only getting better as technology improves and average turbine size increases (EROEI increases for bigger turbines).

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I')'d like to see how these calculations are made. I'm not saying you're lying or stretching the truth. I'm just puzzled. I'm in the wind industry. When I see all the energy used in the development, construction, operation and maintenance of one turbine, I have a hard time seeing an EROEI of 15. How come we have these silver bullets and we're paying over $100 oil?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'A')dding 40 GW of alternative energy a year, it would take 135 years of building to replace just the 5,400 GW from oil. 375 years to replace all of our power sources. The scale of the task is that big. The rate of alternative energy additions is increasing, but it is not a magic bullet to fix peak oil.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', ' ')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'T')he EROEI of electricity from wind is 15.

[lorenzo]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I')'d like to see how these calculations are made. I'm not saying you're lying or stretching the truth. I'm just puzzled. I'm in the wind industry. When I see all the energy used in the development, construction, operation and maintenance of one turbine, I have a hard time seeing an EROEI of 15. How come we have these silver bullets and we're paying over $100 oil?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'I')n its place come personal, quasi-invisible mobility "coats" that are used for short movements within urban landscapes.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I')'d like to see how these calculations are made. I'm not saying you're lying or stretching the truth. I'm just puzzled. I'm in the wind industry. When I see all the energy used in the development, construction, operation and maintenance of one turbine, I have a hard time seeing an EROEI of 15. How come we have these silver bullets and we're paying over $100 oil?

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I')'d like to see how these calculations are made. I'm not saying you're lying or stretching the truth. I'm just puzzled. I'm in the wind industry. When I see all the energy used in the development, construction, operation and maintenance of one turbine, I have a hard time seeing an EROEI of 15. How come we have these silver bullets and we're paying over $100 oil?

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'T')hanks, K. In quickly scanning the report, it didn't seem to me that pre-construction is accounted, ie, the development work per se, and all the way back at excavating the ore, rolling the towers, etc, etc. There's so much that doesn't meet the eye.
Again, I'm in the wind industry and am a big supporter of it. I've built 382 MWs and more coming this year. 15 times EROEI? That's a stretch, even for me. It's kind of every time I fly to a wind farm, there's 15 times that energy being manufactured at the wind farm. My first project, I drove 450 miles every week for 2 1/2 years. The second's ribbon cutting ceremony alone, I had 100 people coming from places as far as Europe. How much energy was used in those activities and so many others? How about the dead projects' used energy? Are they accounted in the EROEI calculation?
Some catholic friends have a neat saying: when the miracle is too great ... check the saint. Food for thought.

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'Y')ou win. I lose. You're smart. I'm ignorant. So long.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') modern Danish 600 kW wind turbine will recover all the energy spent in its manufacture, maintenance, and scrapping within some three months of its commissioning.
Within its 20-year design lifetime a wind turbine will supply at least 80 times the energy spent in its manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance and scrapping.
The scrapping of a turbine requires energy. But recycling the metal parts will recover slightly more energy than what is required for the scrapping process.
If we account for the fact that offshore wind turbines would have a longer lifetime of 25-30 years (due to less turbulence at sea, and thus lower fatigue loads), we find that an offshore wind turbine will recover the energy spent on it more than 100 times over.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yesplease', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'Y')ou win. I lose. You're smart. I'm ignorant. So long.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'K'), I'm having a hard time with 80 times. Isn't that a bit of a stretch?

[yesplease]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'Y')esplease, what can I do for you?

I've already conceded 6-7 times that you're smarter than me, and that you won the argument. Go ahead and gift every American with a Segway and install 276K GE 1.5sle's and we'll cease importing 20 mbpd. Never mind that Americans love large vehicles and that you want to install WTGs where they are "suitable" to be installed. I think your argument lacks of hands-on experience, in the sense your dividing a dividend by a divisor and obtaining a quotient that will not meet our life-style. I'm willing to pass my hands-on experience to you, even take you on field trips if you wish. That said, again, you're smarter, I'm OK with your argument, and am conceding that it's certainly better than mine. What else can I do for you? Is your harassment necessary?

If you prefer, I can add you to my Ignore List, as other users have, but it would be pretty lonely there.

[VMarcHart]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('kublikhan', 'I')f you are looking for criticisms of wind power, EROEI is not the place to look. I have read about problems of possible bird deaths, the best sites being taken already, radar shadows, intermitency, etc. But EROEI is one of wind's strengths not weaknesses.

[ROCKMAN]

If I may let me interject another perspective. I work in the oil patch and have tried to do a full cycle EROEI for drilling a simple unconventional NG well. Just like with the wind farms it gets cumbersome very fast trying to amortize various elements. On the other, no one who drills oil/NG gas wells gives a crap about EROEI. And they never will. You’re certainly free to argue the logic of that attitude but it doesn’t matter. Wells will be drilled on the basis of $’s in vs. $’s out with adjustments for risks. I can’t see the construction of wind farms being governed by any other factor unless it’s being paid for by some gov’t agency which doesn’t need to concern itself with profit and loss. And we can agree all day long that development of any alternative energy source on economic considerations and not EROEI is short sighted and potentially wasteful. But it doesn’t matter. And when I say it doesn’t matter just prove me wrong: describe one alternative energy project that has ever been built (other then with tax payer money such as the disastrous coal-to-liquids plants paid for by the American tax payer that was eventually sold for scrap metal).

EROEI is a valid concept and worth of academic discussion. But I see nothing in the future where it will be a deciding factor in alternative energy development. Again, I don’t say this to condemn the conversation. I do find it very interesting from an engineering point. But whose numbers are right isn’t too important as they’ll have little or no bearing on the course of alternative energy development, IMHO.

[kublikhan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('VMarcHart', 'I')'m in the wind industry. I'm a big advocate for wind, but I don't know about painting it as 80 x EROEI.