How many wind turbines will it take to get to 20%? Is that 20% of current electricity production or ALL energy. I'm thinking it would take many millions of generators. The support requirement alone would be immense. It would be like the suburbia of energy production.
Let's look at the nuclear issue. Nuclear currently provides about 15-20% of total electricity usage, about 2-3% of total energy usage. Fossil fuels make up 90%+ of total energy production. If nuclear was to rise to 20%-30% of current total energy production we would need approximately 4000 more plants. There are fewer than 500 now. I don't see the world scaling up to 100's of new plants per year very soon.
Western Europe uses about half the energy per person as the U.S. Even if the U.S. became as efficient it would easily be offset by the 3+ billion in China and India.
If we can manage transport thru electricity we are still no where near equilibrium with water, atmosphere, desertification, and many other things. Peak Oil is but one of many problems and eventually we will pay the price for living so far beyond our means.
The only solution is a TOTAL solution to all our sustainability issues.
PeakOil is You
Transport fuel nonsense
by DriveElectric » Sat 28 May 2005, 07:28:23
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', 'D')rive Electric I believe you are confused. Exactly how are you going to store electricity from wind? The pumped storage thing with dams is not the same. I don't see how this could work with wind.
Did you even watch the video? Hydro pumped storage is exactly what you are saying does not exist. It is the best way to store electricity for later use. It takes low value off-peak electricity and turns it into high value peak electricity.
With wind power, if you are getting the power when needed, the grid can consume it. If the wind is blowing during off peak times, it can be directed to recharge a hydro pumped storage facility for later consumption.
Last edited by DriveElectric on Sat 28 May 2005, 07:35:33, edited 1 time in total.
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DriveElectric - Tar Sands
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by DriveElectric » Sat 28 May 2005, 07:32:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('rockdoc123', '
')BTW I have read about the possibility of storing electrical energy but as far as I know it is all vaporware currently, you speak of it as if it is common technology and being applied so perhaps I am out of date.
')BTW I have read about the possibility of storing electrical energy but as far as I know it is all vaporware currently, you speak of it as if it is common technology and being applied so perhaps I am out of date.
I am going to try this again. And hopefully you will actually click on the links this time. This is not vaporware. These are actual electricity storage facilities. The two owned by Duke Power are approximately 1,675 MW of electricity storage which can be turned on at any time during Peak periods of demand. They take low value off-peak energy (example: wind blowing at the wrong time), and store it in these types of facilities.
http://www.dukepower.com/aboutus/plants/pumpedstorage/
http://www.electricitystorage.org/tech/ ... dhydro.htm
http://www.dom.com/about/stations/hydro ... torage.wmv
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DriveElectric - Tar Sands
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by JohnDenver » Sat 28 May 2005, 07:33:10
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('0mar', 'A')ny move to alternatives is at least 20-50 years in the making.
According to Hirsch, peak oil could be completely mitigated with a 20 year program based only on the following measures:
1. Fuel efficient transportation,
2. Heavy oil/Oil sands,
3. Coal liquefaction,
4. Enhanced oil recovery,
5. Gas-to-liquids.
Note that Hirsch only considers a no-conservation, pro-sprawl, business-as-usual solution:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hirsch', 'O')ur focus is on large-scale, physical mitigation, as opposed to policy actions, e.g. tax credits, rationing, automobile speed restrictions, etc. We define physical mitigation as 1) implementation of technologies that can substantially reduce the consumption of liquid fuels (improved fuel efficiency) while still delivering comparable service and 2) the construction and operation of facilities that yield large quantities of liquid fuels.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omar', 'E')ven at the low end of this estimate, we will be running up against peak oil. With the infrastructure in place today, which is dependant on market forces, there will be no sizeable move to alternative energies, not while fossil fuels are abundant and cheap.
Omar, you don't seem to understand that "alternatives" includes fossil fuels other than oil, as indicated by Hirsch's five alternatives, indicated above. Yes, if you assume that we won't use those five alternatives, we're in big trouble. But that's a bogus assumption.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omar', 'H')ell, building a single nuclear reactor takes about a decade.
How much of that time is bureaucratic wrangling? From Hirsch's report:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Hirsch', 'W')hat used to be termed the “not-in-my-back-yard” (NIMBY) principle has evolved into the “build-absolutely-nothing-anywhere-near-anything” (BANANA) principle, which is increasingly being applied to facilities of any type, including low-income housing, cellular phone towers, prisons, sports stadiums, water treatment facilities, airports, hazardous waste facilities, and even new fire houses.99 Construction of even a single, relatively innocuous, urgently needed facility can easily take more than a decade.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Omar', 'M')r. (Dr.?) Hirsch reported in one of ASPO's newsletters a detailed summary about our current situation. The measures we are talking about now should have been in effect during the 60s and 70s. I suggest everyone who proposes an alternate style of the way things are run to read this and digest it.
