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Skybird · 02-12-23, 07:50 AM

Hans Hofmann Reinicke, I qoted him before on some occasions, he is from the trade.

On wind - "renewable" energy?

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THE ROAD TO HELL

As we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The government has made the resolution to convert the country completely to renewable energies. If that were realized, Germany would be paved with windmills and photovoltaics, and it would unquestionably be a road to hell - in many ways.

What is renewable?

There are forms of energy that consume natural resources to such an extent that they will be exhausted during the next few thousand years, or even sooner; for example, coal or oil. And there are forms of energy that do not - called "renewable." Wind energy is supposedly renewable - really? I suggest we take a look.

Let's imagine Germany as it is supposed to look in the future according to the plans of the current government: wind and PV would be expanded by a factor of three compared to today. Instead of 29,000 turbines with a total of 58 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, we would have 87,000 with 174 GW. That, then, would be the hoped-for backbone of sustainable and renewable power supply.

Now, there are two important empirical facts in this context that make the neat adjectives "sustainable" and "renewable" seem questionable: First, a wind turbine has a typical life of only 20 years, and second, it has a mass of 5000 tons.

14 million cars

In a typical year, then, you would have to replace one turbine in twenty on average, so you would have to scrap 87,000 / 20 = 4350 expired turbines and replace them with new ones. The elegant technical term for this process is "repowering." So you would replace a mass of 4350 x 5000 = 21,750,000 tons of material per year - that would be the mass of 14,500,000 typical cars. Again, in words, every year there is scrap metal weighing fourteen million cars, and every year new material has to be generated on that scale. And it's quite possible that certain raw materials for this will soon be exhausted if we keep this up. In particular, the so-called rare earths, which are needed for the strong permanent magnets in the generators, are not that abundant. They're called that for some reason.

Perhaps you, dear reader, have other numbers in mind, in which case just use those to do our simple estimation for you. Perhaps you say that the lion's share of the mass is the reinforced concrete foundations, and that these will continue to exist during repowering. Maybe you object that exactly said magnets will be saved and the steel components melted down and reused. Then the result might be half as bad, but still bad enough to realize that this strategy is disastrous for our energy supply and existence in every way; it is the exact opposite of renewable or sustainable.

And another thing: a turbine blade has a mass of, say, 15 tons. A turbine has three of them and so, according to Adam Riese, that makes 15 x 3 x 4350 ≈ 200,000 tons of waste per year. For the most part, this is carbon or fiberglass-reinforced plastic. Where to put it? It's pretty nasty stuff and hard to recycle, because the fragments of the fibers can allegedly harm the respiratory tract. And the plastic content isn't exactly environmentally friendly either - the planet is supposed to be made plastic-free, after all.

Conclusion

We noted at the beginning that there are forms of energy that consume natural resources, to such an extent that they will be used up during the next few thousand years. Our brief consideration leaves no doubt that wind energy falls into just that category.

And not only that; wind energy on a planned scale would not only be an irresponsible depletion of the planet's resources. It would cause even more damage to the habitat of humans and animals than has already been done, not to mention the catastrophic economic consequences.

Maybe our government really has the honest intention to save the planet. But beware: The road to hell could be paved with windmills.

https://think-again.org/der-weg-zur-holle/

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02-12-23, 07:50 AM	#264
Skybird Soaring Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: the mental asylum named Germany Posts: 40,568 Downloads: 9 Uploads: 0	Hans Hofmann Reinicke, I qoted him before on some occasions, he is from the trade. On wind - "renewable" energy? ---------------------------- *THE ROAD TO HELL* As we all know, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The government has made the resolution to convert the country completely to renewable energies. If that were realized, Germany would be paved with windmills and photovoltaics, and it would unquestionably be a road to hell - in many ways. *What is renewable?* There are forms of energy that consume natural resources to such an extent that they will be exhausted during the next few thousand years, or even sooner; for example, coal or oil. And there are forms of energy that do not - called "renewable." Wind energy is supposedly renewable - really? I suggest we take a look. Let's imagine Germany as it is supposed to look in the future according to the plans of the current government: wind and PV would be expanded by a factor of three compared to today. Instead of 29,000 turbines with a total of 58 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity, we would have 87,000 with 174 GW. That, then, would be the hoped-for backbone of sustainable and renewable power supply. Now, there are two important empirical facts in this context that make the neat adjectives "sustainable" and "renewable" seem questionable: First, a wind turbine has a typical life of only 20 years, and second, it has a mass of 5000 tons. *14 million cars* In a typical year, then, you would have to replace one turbine in twenty on average, so you would have to scrap 87,000 / 20 = 4350 expired turbines and replace them with new ones. The elegant technical term for this process is "repowering." So you would replace a mass of 4350 x 5000 = 21,750,000 tons of material per year - that would be the mass of 14,500,000 typical cars. Again, in words, every year there is scrap metal weighing fourteen million cars, and every year new material has to be generated on that scale. And it's quite possible that certain raw materials for this will soon be exhausted if we keep this up. In particular, the so-called rare earths, which are needed for the strong permanent magnets in the generators, are not that abundant. They're called that for some reason. Perhaps you, dear reader, have other numbers in mind, in which case just use those to do our simple estimation for you. Perhaps you say that the lion's share of the mass is the reinforced concrete foundations, and that these will continue to exist during repowering. Maybe you object that exactly said magnets will be saved and the steel components melted down and reused. Then the result might be half as bad, but still bad enough to realize that this strategy is disastrous for our energy supply and existence in every way; it is the exact opposite of renewable or sustainable. And another thing: a turbine blade has a mass of, say, 15 tons. A turbine has three of them and so, according to Adam Riese, that makes 15 x 3 x 4350 ≈ 200,000 tons of waste per year. For the most part, this is carbon or fiberglass-reinforced plastic. Where to put it? It's pretty nasty stuff and hard to recycle, because the fragments of the fibers can allegedly harm the respiratory tract. And the plastic content isn't exactly environmentally friendly either - the planet is supposed to be made plastic-free, after all. Conclusion We noted at the beginning that there are forms of energy that consume natural resources, to such an extent that they will be used up during the next few thousand years. Our brief consideration leaves no doubt that wind energy falls into just that category. And not only that; wind energy on a planned scale would not only be an irresponsible depletion of the planet's resources. It would cause even more damage to the habitat of humans and animals than has already been done, not to mention the catastrophic economic consequences. Maybe our government really has the honest intention to save the planet. But beware: The road to hell could be paved with windmills. https://think-again.org/der-weg-zur-holle/ ---------------------------------- __________________ If you feel nuts, consult an expert.