Comment by Barrin92
5 years ago
I don't understand your comparison at all. Given that the primary problem that a wind turbine seeks to solve is environmental, the environmental costs in making the turbine have to be considered.
There's no relationship to computers here, it's not a question of philosophical purity, but of correct evaluation of the costs and benefits of a technology.
> the environmental costs in making the turbine have to be considered.
Of course it is considered, and few short decades ago that was a valid counterargument. Not anymore - and not later, given the pace of development in efficiencies and breadth of applications.
> Of course it is considered...
One would certainly hope so, but lots of weird things happen on this planet.
Where could someone who is interested to learn about the degree to which this is true go to read about what is really happening on the ground? Where did you learn about it?
First, Fermi estimate. You can estimate how much something weights, costs, takes to construct etc.
Then you become particularly good in it when you read texts from this area, so you gradually replace your estimates with data. And correct your errors when they disrespect reality too much. It's harder to estimate CO2 emissions from cement production from first principles; but you may have actual numbers from typical plants, which include inefficiencies.
All of that favors data and usually requires calculations, and also often requires understanding of natural sciences - conservation laws, energy conversions, speed of processes - and some economical modeling too.
A collection of links with data and models is on Azimuth Project - https://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/HomePage .
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The raw material costs of producing and manufacturing windturbines has not been significantly reduced. You still need mostly as much stuff now to make one as you needed years ago, and the same goes for the transport of everything that goes into the turbine, because the energy density of electrical sources isn't high enough to say, power a containership.
You can't just wave away legitimate criticism by talking about "rapid innovation" that does not exist, mostly because it runs into physical limits.
> The raw material costs of producing and manufacturing windturbines has not been significantly reduced.
Perhaps, but we're talking about environmental concerns, not directly economical or material.
> You still need mostly as much stuff now to make one as you needed years ago
Suppose.
> and the same goes for the transport of everything that goes into the turbine, because the energy density of electrical sources isn't high enough to say, power a containership.
No, you're wrong here. Majority of pollutions from transport come from cars, and those demonstrated significant improvement over decades. More, there is no physical law forbidding transport ships using green energy sources - be that electrical (yes, batteries), wind (sails) or something else (hydrogen? nuclear?). And in fact we do see more and more examples of transport which runs on green sources - even planes.
Yes, batteries have lower energy density than gas. But batteries have enough energy density to be usable, and their characteristics improve lately; that's good enough for practical purposes. Not to mention, of course, theoretical possibility.
Ok, let's brainstorm - how do we build wind turbines without the 150 year history of industrialization, accumulated knowledge of how to build real, physical things that accomplish the goals of 100% renewable energy? I'm all ears. Maybe I'm missing something - always happy to hear solutions to real, extant problems.
> Given that the primary problem that a wind turbine seeks to solve is environmental
That's ridiculous. The problem 'building a wind turbine' seeks to solve is "How do I turn this money into more money".
In market societies (eg most of the west) functionally speaking, the % of 'green power' delivered by environmental projects is a rounding error; it's essentially all delivered by people with capital attempting to obtain more capital.
How does it compare the environmental costs of all the materials, equipment, research and degradation related to fracking and ocean drilling?