The Oil Drum | Cars or Wind Turbines? Time to Choose ?

187 comments on Cars or Wind Turbines? Time to Choose ?

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freeyourmind on November 22, 2008 - 10:08am

If I had to choose between those cars and wind turbines, I'd choose the turbines every time!

Seriously though, I think that there are some vehicles we have already that can do better than those cars:

Fuel Efficiency of Trains

They're 12 times more efficient than even small cars on the road today and that doesn't even consider the possibility of building electrified rail that can be powered directly by wind turbine infrastructure.

Then it comes down to commuters. Which commute looks better to you?

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Will Stewart on November 22, 2008 - 11:54am

I'm all for trains, though the spread of suburbia means that we have low density populations outside the city, so while some rail infrastructure will work (especially if people bike to stations), there would still be some need for personal vehicles in areas impractical for rail (unless such places are abandoned). Each of the above vehicles could be used in a carpooling arrangement, further increasing their net energy efficiency.

If we had it to do all over again, this approach would be far superior. It's what I've been pushing in my county, with mixed results.

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Joe Average on November 22, 2008 - 10:29pm

Hello TODers,

I still have some concerns about all these wonderful options, primarily of scale and longevity...

Wind Turbines
Turbines have a shelf-life of a human-generation or so / we need a lot of them and a lot of crude to build and replace / even the windiest place on Earth isn't windy 100% of the time (what is the windiest place on Earth, BTW?)

Electric Cars
Batteries are expensive / many of the components may soon join the "endangered list" / battery technology moves incrementally, not exponentially / batteries have a shelf-life of one-fifth of a human generation

Time (Countdown to 2050?)
The clock's ticking... Is there enough time to scale up? / would a wind-turbine, or electric car (or solar-array, or nuclear power-station, or whatever) built today still be up and running four or five decades from now?

People
More and more people added to the system every year, wanting more and more stuff (little of which is produced locally) / we're all watching our dollars at the moment, and will for some time.

I'd like to think that a world with less than a billion people (all friendly, loving and environmentally aware, of course) might be a lovely place to live. But that's for dreamers.

Regards, Matt B
Far more concerned than this time last year

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DaveMart on November 23, 2008 - 7:02am

Hi Joe,
Some of the figures you are using seem to be a little inaccurate.

For wind turbines a commonly used lifetime by the industry to work out when they will need replacing is around 20 years I believe.
It should be borne in mind though that there will be maintenance during that time, which may include heavy expenditure if some of the major equipment goes, but OTOH when it comes time to replace it then you will already have the foundations, access roads, grid interconnect etc built in.
Maintenance for off-shore installations is likely to be more expensive.

Battery technologies have a longevity which is also pretty much as long as a piece of string, depending on the configuration and usage, and also which battery technology you are talking about.
To confine our discussion to car batteries, some of the latest lithium batteries have a life-span of over 10,000 cycles, which if you work that out means that they will probably be going strong for 20 years or so in most uses.
Even lead-acid when oversized and backed with capacitors has given plug-in hybrids a over a 100,000 mile lifetime:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/01/ultrabattery-combines-supercapacitor.html

If you have a look at Gail's article and the responses to it the real concern is if we have a high enough EROEI energy source and the infrastructure to support it, given those things then it should be possible to replace kit as it wears out.
If we don't we are screwed.

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Joe Average on November 23, 2008 - 5:37pm

Thanks, Dave.

I guess my point was, unless something's made out of stone, we'll have to keep replacing stuff forever. And forever on a finite planet with billions of non-carbon neutral consumers seems like bad math.

Regards, Matt B

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Pitt the Elder on November 23, 2008 - 7:45pm

I guess my point was, unless something's made out of stone, we'll have to keep replacing stuff forever. And forever on a finite planet with billions of non-carbon neutral consumers seems like bad math.

True, but not the most reasonable assessment, as nothing is infinitely sustainable. "Forever" is unattainable - thermodynamically - meaning that the only reasonable time horizon to look at is "long enough", which is inherently subjective.

One way to look at this is that the resource constraints of the western world are very different from the constraints it had 1,000 years ago. Very little that a government could have done in 1008AD to conserve resources would have had a significant positive effect on our available resource base today; accordingly, one wonders if our own efforts might not be too relevant to 3008AD, assuming the next thousand years pass as well as the last thousand did.

Based on that, I would argue that "sustainable for the next thousand years" is a reasonable upper bound for "long enough", at least for planning purposes, and in many cases "long enough" will be considerably shorter.

Pretty much necessarily, more detailed plans will have shorter horizons; however, one way to combine detail with longer horizons is to artificially limit the total resources budget. If, for example, a plan with a 50-year time horizon would only use up 20% of a certain resource, then it's probably reasonable to assume that that plan is sustainable (with respect to that resource) for 200-300 years, but possibly much more (if better technology or better plans are developed and adopted).

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Joe Average on November 23, 2008 - 11:06pm

Thanks Pitt for the reply,

I'm still stuck on "sustainable growth" - that is, consuming more and more of the raw materials that are finite (I realise you didn't mention growth, but it's relevant I think).

If you told me we could build a wind turbine with x resources only ONCE, then that machine could maintain/repair/replace itself hundreds of times over with zero input from elsewhere, I'd be far more optimistic. But I understand self-sustaining man-made "things" are unachievable, so I must conclude that ultimately a wind turbine (for example) IS NOT a renewable energy source.

So as things stand, I doubt we have a thousand years of sustainability in us. Let alone "growth".

Regards, Matt B
PS. I'm not an arrow-clicker... Still trying to get my head around all this!

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scientastic on November 24, 2008 - 1:23am

Self-sustaining man-made things may be impossible, but as long as our ecosystem has a net influx of energy from the sun, it is possible to maintain a level of complexity above total entropy (chaos).

When the wind turbine reaches its end of life, if there are humans left on the planet with enough know-how, its parts and raw materials can be recycled.

You're right, anything that is a simply linear process (inputs from the environment, outputs to the landfill) is unsustainable. But if we can turn our linear process into a circular one, via recycling, then sustainability in that particular subsystem is possible.

"Sustainable growth" is an oxymoron. We do have to manage somehow to stabilize the population. That's where the scariest challenge really lies, because in all instances in the past that has been accomplished by disease and/or war.

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pragma on November 24, 2008 - 2:24am

Pitt, Joe, Sci:

This may be picky, but perhaps part of the problem is the use of oxymoron. I would include "Sustainable Development", a variant.

Similarly, Global Warming is only sound bite worthy, as it fails dismally at even suggesting the complexity of climate change. At best they are a poor choice of words, at worst, they are bait and switch or platitudes.

A meme that may be worth propagating is "sustainable change".

To me, sustainable change means that we can continue to evolve and develop but within the constraints of our resources. It may make the future more palatable, rather than the bleak prospect of picking over landfills and slopping hogs 'til the end of time. True, population is an ugly issue, but perhaps that is simply a sad part of the transition.

When I combine the remarkable things we have created over many centuries, in a highly resource limited environment, with what we have learned since, perhaps it just might be OK. Not BAU by any means, but not bleak subsistence either.

I know it's just words but think of "Yes we can". That phrase seems to have potential.

I must to stop now or I'll have to turn in my doomer membership.

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Cyril R. on November 24, 2008 - 2:26pm

We do have to manage somehow to stabilize the population. That's where the scariest challenge really lies, because in all instances in the past that has been accomplished by disease and/or war.

Most demographics agree that population will level off (or at least slow down to a very low growth rate) somewhere between 9-12 billion people, and this appears to be a result of a number of demographic and economic developments that are not actively the result of any population policy.

So there's some reason for hope on that front.

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freeyourmind on November 23, 2008 - 8:23am

Turbines have a shelf-life of a human-generation or so / we need a lot of them and a lot of crude to build and replace / even the windiest place on Earth isn't windy 100% of the time (what is the windiest place on Earth, BTW?)

It's debatable, but Mt. Washington in New Hampshire has been called the windiest place on Earth, for good reason. I've been up it, and it is extremely windy. It's also got the highest ever recorded wind speed on Earth, at 231 MPH.

Check out the weather up there right now.

And yes, it is 100% windy up there 100% of the time. Most of the buildings are literally chained to the mountaintop!

The only thing it, it would still be a terrible place for a large scale wind turbine, considering the harsh temperatures and precipitation.

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hugho on November 23, 2008 - 4:39pm

Joe: I ocean sail and I'd heard that Cape Denison(sp?) in the Antarctic south of Tasmania was the windiest and I remember hearing of an average wind speed of 50 mph, making anchoring a bit of a challenge, going ashore in the skiff potentially suicidal. I guess sustained 60 to 90 mph is not unusual.

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Bellistner on November 25, 2008 - 10:15pm

even the windiest place on Earth isn't windy 100% of the time

Which is why we need a diversified electricity generation base. Wind + pumped storage + Solar PV + Solar Thermal + Nuclear + whatever else we can get our hands on.

Batteries are expensive

There are way around this (leasing, for example).

battery technology moves incrementally, not exponentially

Like most other technologies.

batteries have a shelf-life of one-fifth of a human generation

But are almost fully recyclable. Lithium batteries, for example: when the battery is EOL (80% of original capacity), it's still usable, or, if you choose to recycle it then, all the Lithium is still in the battery, waiting for reuse.

would a wind-turbine, or electric car (or solar-array, or nuclear power-station, or whatever) built today still be up and running four or five decades from now?

Electric cars (as we know the car) won't be, for the simple reason that we won't have roads (as we know them). For personal transport, I expect we'll have lightweight vehicles like Velomobiles or regular bicycles. Backed up by 1 or 2 kW of batteries, these can take you pretty much anywhere.

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DaveMart on November 24, 2008 - 3:08pm

Actually, the illustration you chose to convey your point demonstrates why trains are not always particularly efficient.
When they run pretty empty, as is usually the case outside of rush hour, the efficiency plummets, both in energy terms and in terms of capital tied up.

What is needed is a balanced transport system rather than a 'train good, car bad' mentality.

That is not to say that the present system, with it's gross over-emphasis on the car, is not absurd, of course, especially in places like the states.

I would rather my ambulance came on four wheels, even if it is in future powered by electricity, for instance, rather than wait to be transported by horse-drawn carriage to the train.

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GRLCowan on November 24, 2008 - 3:54pm

trains are not always particularly efficient. When they run pretty empty, as is usually the case outside of rush hour, the efficiency plummets, both in energy terms and in terms of capital tied up.

But elsewhere in this thread it was demonstrated that at such times, 60 percent of the passengers are fabulous babes.

Capital tied up? Um ... OK ...

--- G.R.L. Cowan ('How fire can be tamed')
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan

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187 comments on Cars or Wind Turbines? Time to Choose ?

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