The Dirty Truth About 'Green' Energy
Lots of good data comparing wind power to nat gas;
As of October 2015, the top 10 gas well in Washington County, Pa. were each averaging production over 12 MMcf/d. Some had been online for more than a year. The translation means it would take over 3,000 1.5 MW wind turbines to match the energy output of just these ten wells.[2] (In fairness, many of the new generation of turbines are rated at 2.5 to 3 MW of potential output, though many older ones are a lot less than 1 MW.)
Land, Construction, and Pollution
The clean energy advocacy group National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates 10 MW of wind energy output requires one square mile (640 acres) of land. So to mimic the energy output of the 10 Marcellus above mentioned gas wells would require the development of 450 square miles (288,000 acres) of virgin land.[3] That’s lots of destruction of mountain ridges, open plains, not to mention the clearing for roads and dynamiting necessary for the turbine platform site construction.
Turbines are enormous. The GE-1.5 MW model stands 328 feet tall with a total weight of 164 tons. The Danish 1.8 MW turbine reaches 410 feet tipping the scales at 267 tons. The 2 MG Spanish Gamesa G87 weighs 334 tons and measures 399 feet. Imagine building roads to accommodate trucking in 140-foot blades, a 71-ton tower or a 56-ton nacelle? A lot of nature must be obliterated with very questionable returns.
The platforms made to anchor the turbine tower require more than one thousand tons of concrete and steel rebar, and depending on the land contour, are 6 to 30 feet deep. The manufacture of each one ton of cement emits 900 kg (kilograms) of CO2 into the atmosphere. That equates to uncountable millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions attributable to wind energy.
Lots more good stuff in article, in the Huffington Post of all places;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-dirty-part-of-green-energy_...
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Mike Fulper on
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Green Energy..
google.... Mikhail Gorbechev.. "Green Cross"
find out where "Green" BS comes from.... communism
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Permalink Reply by frank speaker on
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In fairness, you should make clear that only 14% of concrete is cement, and 88% of the CO2 released in concrete production is from cement. Also note that once concrete dries it begins reabsorbing CO2. You must divide the net emissions by the life of the tower, and weigh that against the CO2 and methane emissions saved over that time before you decide which is dirtier, gas oil or wind power.
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Permalink Reply by Barry D on
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frank,
Your response is based on information posted on the internet.
For example, there is no actual scientific study that concrete re-absorbs CO2 at a rate comparable to the amount of CO2 produced from it's manufacture .
Further, methane emissions is a non issue. This is another straw dog promoted by the anti oil and gas people such as yourself. Methane emissions have been on the decline since the shale revolution began. Plus, Other emissions are also on the decline. All as a result of the increased use of clean, abundant natural gas as the fuel for the production of electricity.
Use of solar and wind energy INCREASES emissions due to the processes necessary to produce the solar and wind equipment.
Finally, you ignore two important facts: first, the massive amount of acreage necessary needed for solar and wind farms. Hope you are willing to have one of these in your backyard. Second, the maintenance costs for wind and solar installations increases it's per KW cost past coal and gas fired electric generation. Are you willing to defend increased electric costs for millions of Americans in trade for fanciful (never to be realized) environmental benefits.
P.S. Another fact that you anti oil and gas folks omit is that there is no way that solar and wind can effectively replace electricity produced from the use of coal and natural gas.
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Permalink Reply by M. Magdalena on
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Lots and lots of topics touched upon in that article. A balanced assessment of all of those factors would take a couple of dictionary-sized books to write, so for the opinion piece he takes an unnecessarily biased and limited view - as one broad starting point, he compares wind negatively with gas, but looks at none of the negatives of gas and none of the positives of wind. He has valid points, but he leaves out a lot, and the points he does bring up, he compares extremes ("pristine, untouched ridgelines" as wind siting - most wind is built on working farmland and marginal prairies in west TX, OK and KS; comparing with the Marcellus/Utica gas complex [underneath your feet right now] which is temporarily the most productive and cheap gas field ever discovered, yet limited in total reserves and if you want evidence of environmental damage of fracking just yell out the window; his comparison of electric energy from wind vs thermal energy from gas - much energy is lost in the conversion of gas to useable electricity... etc etc etc. Lots of extremes, lots of cheap points to score).
The more valid broad takeaway that needs to be more widely understood is that there is no perfect energy source; and that includes wind and solar and whatever other darling-of-the-moment happens to be in the current news or public opinion. It's impossible for us even to elaborate what an ideal system would look like using current technologies - there are massive tradeoffs to be made between reliability, energy security, cost, and of course innumerable environmental metrics - from birds, ash, earthquakes, SO2, untouched views, waste heat, particulates, on and on. Who can say definitively what should be valued and what should be sacrificed? They're value judgements. Even cost is hard to measure, as costs vary hugely across physical and time scales for every technology - there is no outright "cheapest" power - there is only cheapest for a given quantity at a given time.
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Permalink Reply by Barry D on
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M.
Spoken like a true environmental leftist, all nonsensical rhetoric.
Just as one point of reference of your nonsense - there are few if any grid connections from the areas most useful for wind and solar sites. Whereas, the infrastructure for natural gas is easily accessible. Meaning that millions of Americans will have access to inexpensive, abundant electricity within a reasonable amount of time. The same cannot be said for wind and solar.
As for the trade offs you mention, they are worth inexpensive, abundant electricity.
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Permalink Reply by Dan on
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Nuclear power is the only energy production that has to account for almost every aspect that goes into it and the waste after. This raises the cost of it even more. It will be interesting to see in the future as the "true" cost of different forms of energy wil be accounted for.
The IEA says hydro power has the greatest loss of human lives per terra watt produced. Who would a thought.
Curios to see how much coal is burned to produce these windmills and the rebar under them.
Barry, M's remarks are about as level headed as can be. If you debate any farther from the extreme right your going to fall off the table.
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Permalink Reply by frank speaker on
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Barry's remarks do not seem level-headed to me as they start off right away as insulting and provocative. But to respond to his point about the infrastructure of natural gas being easily accessible, this has, and is, taking tens of billions of dollars to achieve, and by the way, dollars translate into energy, which requires CO2 and methane release. Funny how this is completely ignored in a topic concerning the release of CO2 in the construction of infrastructure.
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Permalink Reply by Barry D on
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frank,
CO2 is a natural component of our environment, an essential component.
Without it life on our planet ceases to exist.
It is not a "green house gas".
The development of oil and gas is not the major source of methane leaks in the U.S., agriculture is. Should we ban farming, the raising of livestock ?
As the development, production and use of natural gas has increased, the instance of "fugitive" methane (leaks) has decreased, and will continue to decline. Natural gas that leaks can't be sold. Methane "leaks" related to the development of shale is a non-issue.
Yes, it takes a great deal of money to develop and produce shale formations. That investment creates tens of thousands of jobs, creates tax income for local towns and cities. Finally, it provides a clean abundant fuel for the creation of inexpensive electricity. Our economy and society are built on abundant inexpensive sources of energy.
Do you advocate destroying our American way of life? Because this fanatical obsession with conversion to wind and solar would cause that destruction.
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Permalink Reply by frank speaker on
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No, I'm not interested in destroying the "American way of life" unless that way is destroying the way of life, and in fact the very lives of millions of people on this Earth. We need to change and moderate our ways to limit the greenhouse gases we emit. Its just that simple. I have no use for jobs which are destructive, just those which meet our real needs.
If you think that CO2 emissions do not cause a greenhouse effect on sunlight simply because plants absorb CO2, then you are not understanding the basic principles involved. You can understand this very easily by simple study. Greenhouse gases were in balance and human populated areas developed over the millenia to grow food and livestock in concert with this balance. Only over the last few centuries have we unknowingly distorted this balance through technologies which allowed enormous population growth and wealth, and through the digging up and burning of the stored energy of billions of years of plant growth. Now those population centers are in serious danger of being swallowed by rising sea levels. Migrations lead to fear and poverty, which lead to terrorism, arms races, tax increases and warfare. That effects you and me, whether or what you choose to believe.
The key word is balance.
The economically useful life of a horizontal gas well is about eight years, by some estimates. The future drilling of new wells is in serious doubt unless gas becomes permanently expensive enough to allow investors to take the risk of financing them.
That fact puts in doubt the entire investment in pipelines and well pads. Jobs are drying up, and boom towns are becoming ghost towns.
We will always need some quantity gas and oil to provide energy and materials for our way of life and that of the rest of the world. But we need to put our energies, our knowledge, and our wealth toward preserving what we have, and not turning to an obsession with ignorance.
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Permalink Reply by craig on
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Sounds like your thinking was on the right track for awhile but then took a wrong turn. There is a lot more to the picture than what you posted.
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Permalink Reply by Dan on
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The full carbon footprint of a 6-pak of Fat Tyre Amber Ale. I prefer a good IPA. We can all do our small part by keeping the CO2 that is sequestered in the bottle from escaping to the atmosphere by not burping after downing a bottle.
http://www.newbelgium.com/files/the-carbon-footprint-of-fat-tire-am...
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