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64 comments on ASPO VII - second day
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64 comments on ASPO VII - second day
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I always wonder what sort of longevity wind turbines have, in comparison to a more static technology like concentrated solar. For how long will humanity be able to service these huge whirling metal machines, themselves the products of an oil-rich society? How sustainable and viable, in terms of the centuries to come, are these giant contraptions? Would it not be better to use the tech with the lowest maintenance and replacement profile?
I understand that gearbox reliability is a problem. Obviously, gearbox is not needed. One way is to just put a crank on the mill to pump water directly, and store the output from any number of windmills to run over one big water turbine-alternator sitting nice and safely on the ground in the middle of the huge field of wind turbines, Big water turbine-alternators are very simple, very efficient and very reliable.
There we are, problem solved. Next?
PS, Think water will freeze? try freezing megatons of water being pumped around a multimegawatt loop.
PPS Always wondered why our noble arctic explorrers who ended up dead did not use all that wind they kept complaining about. Even one little one could have kept them toasty. Stronger the wind, toastier the toast. Without imagination, the people perish.
PPS Always wondered why our noble arctic explorrers who ended up dead did not use all that wind they kept complaining about.
They certainly use the wind for ski-sailing :)
Onshore wind projects have been commissioned with a projected 20 year lifetime. Here in Portugal the companies working in the business are saying that the infrastructure will surely last much more than this, although large they are simple in concept and don't show signs of degradation after more than a decade of operation. Changing the gearbox oil is essentially all the service they need.
The big dependence of fossil fossil is during the erecting stage, after that things go relatively smoothly. Farm operators say that a wind farm is easier to maintain that a solar farm that often requires cleaning.
As for offshore I'd say it might be too early to have a good idea of what the maintenance will be.
None of the solar/wind stuff will last even 20 years. When the highways fail due to a lack of maintenance, which is due to VERY expensive oil, then we can't maintain the power grid, and down goes Humpty Dumpty.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty together again.
And the wind/solar stuff just generates electricity, which we now have plenty of, as the malls, stores, airports, and factories are closing.
There is tons of scientific data to show all of this, but most of the conference participants and folks on this site apparently have not read it.
Most of us will live to see the whole shebang collapse, and then we can look at those useless solar panels and wind turbines sitting idle, after wasting much fossil energy in their manufacture, production, distribution, and maintenance. They will be a permanent monument to our collective stupidity!
Oh, do you say electric transportation will save the day? Too late folks, Peak Oil is here today.
Oh, do you say algal diesel? Sniff sniff, er... I smell gas.
It is time to think about Surviving Peak Oil, instead of trying to squeeze more energy out of Mother Earth.
Cheers,
Cliff Wirth
Morning Cliff,
Sorry you're grumpy today.
When the whole shebang collapses I'll come around and collect those worthless solar panels from you. I'll have to use the electric car, hard to carry panels on a scooter. Grid going down? 40 years of electricity from those panels should serve me well. It may look like the panels are just sitting idly, but they'll be working.
Various electric gizmos should be cheap, and I'll have enough panels to do just about anything I please. Heck, I could just sit around making Hydrogen.
Batteries aren't so great but they are optional, and I read some good stuff here about long term storage of battery components. Pull the crap out of your basement, mix together, and voila, more batteries.
I'm not sure why you're so down on viable personal solutions. Highways and the grid? Who cares, maybe it will be nice to have them gone, I'm not going to fight to save them. I'll be at the beach enjoying Mother Earth's free wave energy.
Cheers
And just what will you do with electric power without the grid?
Oh, Woe, if only it was possible to invent a more energy efficient means of transport than road and vehicles powered by internal combustion engines, as the fact that any more energy efficient transport system is physically impossible has such dire consequences.
Would you mind sending over your resources to me if you have given up?
The question is not whether they were developed in an oil-rich society, but whether they have sufficient energy return on investment to be self-sustaining in an oil-poor society.
It is the normal state of things that the bits and pieces that are the foundation of a new status quo are, inevitably, originally developed under the status quo ante.
This seems to be an effort to take the only way that change normally takes place, and turn it into an argument of change being impossible ... the fact that we originally put equipment harvesting renewable energy with the infrastructure we have, which is oil-dependent, somehow implying that we could not conceivably continue to put up equipment with substantial EROI.