Global wind capacity additions surged to a record high of 118GW in 2023

A grain of sand on the beach.


The global electricity generation capacity is expected to almost double in the next three decades, surpassing 15 terawatts by 2050. In 2022, the world's installed electricity capacity stood at 8.5 terawatts.Nov 13, 2023

Electricity generation capacity global 2022-2050 - Statista

 

I recall GW Bush/Cheney making similar projections in the US in 2000. Companies went bankrupt who listened to their falsehoods (i.e. Calpine, Enron, etc.), and overexpanded. Compact fluorescents (and later LED bulbs), Smart appliances, and other Conservation techniques were overlooked. I see the same false projections today, as the "conventional" analysts are underestimating the role of rooftop solar, EV energy storage and other energy storage, retired EV batteries used on a massive scale as energy storage, pumped water storage, ETC, ETC....

Entire communities will start becoming self-sufficient with solar, wind, and retired EV batery storage. It's already happening in California, where B2U ihas built two such communities.

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/b2...sed-honda-ev-batteries-energy-storage/699749/

November 2023
B2U Storage Solutions said Tuesday it has begun operations at its second grid-connected hybrid storage facility, using hundreds of repurposed EV batteries from Honda for a 3 MW/12 MWh facility.

 

I will not try to reason you out of a view you did not reason yourself into.

 

I especially like the description of solar panels as "transmuted coal."

Unattainable Sustainability
From Heart of Liberty Portfolios
Don Harrison

It is no exaggeration to say that the realities of solar silicon fabrication mean that solar subsidies and mandates have induced eager Californians to festoon their roofs with transmuted coal…

 

Iowa wind power at work.
INSANE TORNADO PIPE Intercept with Windmills Toppled Near Greenfield, Iowa!
Reed Timmer
Massive #tornado with multiple vortices rips down windmills and damages homes in Iowa. . . .

 

Capacity is meaningless. One word - Germany.

 

Capacity is not meaningless at all. Wind turbines are installed in high, consistent wind areas. As mentioned, Iowa gets 70% of their electricity from wind - and that's not capacity - it's actual production!!!

 

I'll take a wind turbine failure over a Fukushima. How's that working out? Twelve years later, and they still have done nothing with the 3 melted cores. Oh, BTW, conventional power plants suffer a lot of failures from weather also.

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-climate-related-weather-conditions-disrupt-power.html

Heavy rainfall, heatwaves and lightning can disrupt electricity transmission and distribution networks and cause power outages.

A 2019 World Bank report showed natural shocks and climate change caused 44% of power outages in the US between 2000 and 2017 and 37% of outages in Europe between 2010 and 2017.

This cost electricity utilities, consumers and governments billions of dollars per year.

 

We have been through this before. At what total cost? Intermittent wind capacity has to be duplicated by 24/7 capacity.

 

Since “we’ve been through this before”, I’ll repeat what I’ve said before. Using a NG plant as a backup, with a wind-first philosophy (I.e. Iowa), doesn’t bother me. Why does that irk you so much? Many of our states could do the same thing and obtain 70% of their electricity from renewables. Cheaper electricity for all TODAY, and much, much cheaper TOMORROW. Example - my solar PVs and residential wind turbine have paid for themselves ( probably twice over). From here on - it’s free electricity with no inputs for life!

 

P.J. O'Rourke was talking about health care, but the principle is the same.
“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.”
― P.J. O'Rourke

 

They haven’t paid for themselves. Taxpayers have paid for them.

 

Disingenuous comment. Solar is a peak-load producer which lowers the cost of electricity for all consumers. Also, solar eliminates voltage loss, which is a major inefficiency for Utilities.

 

It does not lower price of electricity to duplicate capital investment in energy production equipment. One wird - Germany.

 

My background is Utility Engineering. Utilities often have power sources that are “phased on”, as needed. We had waste steam where I worked, and one of my projects installed a steam turbine. This was “free” energy, similar to wind and solar. Whenever available, we ramped down the fuel driven turbines, when the steam was available.

 

There is no such thing as free energy. Any engineer knows that.

 

Your opinion - when steam is vented to atmosphere, that steam has energy content, that is being wasted.

 

Where did the steam come from? How much did the steam turbine cost? What is the payback period on the capital equipment expenditure?

 

These were all calculated. The ROI was over 20%, which is very high. That’s what happens when the commodity is free.

 

Does that include the cost of the equipment which produces the steam?

 

You're really reaching on this one, aren't you?

 

No reach. The steam is produced by the original capital equipment. Therefore any excess steam is not free.

 

Environmentalism in the US has degenerated into climate-alarmist big business.
Environmentalism In America Is Dead
Robert Bryce
America needs a new generation of activists who want to spare nature, wildlife, and marine mammals by utilizing high-density, low-emission energy sources like natural gas and nuclear energy.

The movement birthed by Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in the early 1960s and Earth Day in the 1970s — a movement that once aimed to protect landscapes, wildlands, whales, and wildlife — has morphed into the NGO-corporate-industrial-climate complex. Rather than preserve wildlands and wildlife, today’s “green” NGOs have devolved into a sprawling network of nonprofit and for-profit groups aligned with big corporations, big banks, and big law firms. In the name of climate change, these NGOs want to pave vast swaths of America’s countryside with oceans of solar panels and forests of 600-foot-high wind turbines. They are also promoting the industrialization of our oceans, a move that could put hundreds of massive offshore wind turbines in the middle of some of our best fisheries and right atop known habitat of the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

The simplest way to understand how climatism and renewable energy fetishism have swamped concerns about conservation and wildlife protection is to follow the money. Over the past decade or so, the business of climate activism has become just that — a business. As I reported last year in “The Anti-Industry Industry,” the top 25 climate nonprofits are spending some $4.5 billion per year. As seen below, the gross receipts of the top 25 climate-focused NGOs now total about $4.7 billion per year.

 

Look, if you want to view steam that is being vented to atmosphere, as NOT FREE, by all means, have at it. I'll take the more logical outlook

 

All that has been done is to make the original system more efficient. The addition of the equipment to do so does not stand alone. I thought you claimed to be an engineer?