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originally posted by: unHolyGrail
a reply to: neformore
top secret fart joke? How does this relate to Don Quixote?
originally posted by: BoscoMoney
Yes, what we need are more dismantled old non recyclable wind turbine blades in our landfills. You are a certified GENIUS! No, really, I'm totally serious!
originally posted by: neformore
I don't normally do mud pit threads but.....
originally posted by: chr0naut
originally posted by: Oleandra88
originally posted by: chr0naut
originally posted by: burdman30ott6
a reply to: neformore
He's not wrong.
economics21.org...
Wind power is a fool's errand on anything beyond individual unit scale.
You can make a windmill out of wood and cloth sails. Once it is turning, it is just as efficient as anything else that can turn a generator.
If your design is reasonably good, it just generates power, which we all pay a lot for, from wind, which we don't pay for at all.
May I inject because I work in the energy sector, looking at data and figuring out the best ways so the grid is staying stable.
That is all nice and good on a individual scale, like the poster you answer to wrote. But if you do not want the grid to collapse every time the wind settles, you need stable base loads.
We are buffering this by running a stable base load on coal and nuclear power plants. Then we have gas plants that can jump in relative fast. Solar power input is a leading factor.
Wind turbines: we shut them off in the first order. They are unreliable. Then solar power is regulated down but most often and this has to do with the price of the single energy sources, it is not and a gas plant is powered down. Or we know the upcoming load.
Pump storage water power plants are on call 24/7 to feather huge grid loads, when we know they will happen beforehand. The water that is pumped up and stored is pumped up during the night or during phases where energy prices go negative.
That means we get money for pumping water around that we later use to discard it down the hill to generate power that we in turn sell to you (the customer).
"we" as in, the energy distribution sector / business
Storage has always been a problem. But tidal forces such as wind and water, alongside hydro and geothermal are all relatively perpetual.
If the intent was there we could have all sorts of energy storage that would be effective. The thing is it take a little investment and power companies would rather upfront profit. So they stay with 80 year old and relatively dirty technology because who care what the future holds.