Eminent Oxford Scientist Says Wind Power “Fails on Every Count”

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[–]ChasingEntropy 5 insightful - 3 fun5 insightful - 2 fun6 insightful - 3 fun -  (3 children)

I mean, I could have told you that with an undergraduate engineering degree. 200+MW capacity, never exceeds 50% output. Sad.

I run a solar startup, I've verified by first hand measurements that you can charge a car with an array that same footprint (10ft x 17ft). The solar panels and charging hardware are about what you would pay for 5 years of fuel. then I pay nothing to drive until the system wears out for 15 years.

[–]dicknipples 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

What's wrong with this report is that the retired Oxford teacher was obviously paid by the Global Warming Policy Foundation to criticize windfarms. Wade wrote them a short commentary to put into a glossy, colorful brochure. It's not a scientific, refereed study. It's disinformation, specifically for the purpose of helping the GWPF challenge climate change regulations.

The retired Oxford teacher wants the money because his teaching pension sucks. He'll do anything, as we can see, even at the expense of a lifetime of nuclear research. As you can see in his teeny-tiny statement in the PDF, he picked unreliable data to make one or two points.

Nothing to see here except the usual climate change denial. But thanks for posting it, as I would not have known of its existence. It's sad that there are academics willing to ruin their reputations in this way.

[–]Musky 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Ok, I think this will be a better use of chat-GPT than asking it to directly create refutations. I asked it how many batteries it would take to store enough energy to satisfy the world's energy consumption for one day. The article isn't lying about storage being a major issue. And keep in mind batteries have a lifespan, they'll need to be replaced every ten years or so.

According to the International Energy Agency, global energy consumption in 2020 was approximately 168,000 terawatt-hours (TWh). To store this amount of energy in a battery, we would need to multiply it by the number of hours in a day, which is 24. This gives us a total energy storage requirement of approximately 4,032,000 TWh.

Assuming an average battery efficiency of 90%, we would need a battery with a capacity of approximately 4,480,000 TWh to store the energy needed for one day of global energy consumption.

To put this in perspective, the world's largest battery currently in operation is the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, which has a capacity of 150 megawatt-hours (MWh). To store 4,480,000 TWh of energy, we would need approximately 29,866,666,667 of these batteries, which is an enormous number.

Keep in mind that this is a rough estimate and does not take into account many other factors, such as the type of battery technology used, the cost and availability of materials, and the feasibility of building and maintaining such a massive energy storage system.

That just isn't practical, even if we only needed a fraction of those assuming it's continually recharging. Green energy means going to a lower standard of living.

[–]ActuallyNot 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

the world's largest battery currently in operation is the Hornsdale Power Reserve in South Australia, which has a capacity of 150 megawatt-hours (MWh).

Good ole chat-GPT, huh?

Dalian has a 400 MWh battery, California has a 400 MWh battery, Florida has a 900 MWh one, Cali has a 3,320 MWh one scheduled to go online this year.

The millisecond response time of a battery is handy for stabilising the grid, but for storage of more than hours, pumped hydro still looks like a decent solution.