tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post3278680802142906787..comments2024-02-16T17:52:44.944-06:00Comments on The Nuclear Green Revolution: No Help with Global Warming: Wind and gasCharles Bartonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01125297013064527425noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-47763550179851354092011-01-31T01:14:18.861-06:002011-01-31T01:14:18.861-06:00People once used wind power to move water and grin...People once used wind power to move water and grind grain. There was great energy loss in its nearly direct application to do useful work, mainly because, compared to today, mechanical bits were inefficiently designed. But often only one transformation ensued: wind ~~> mechanical.<br /><br />Then wind was replaced by coal, and then electric engines, since they allowed higher efficiencies of time, reliability, and maintainance costs, against some greater losses of thermodynamic efficiency.<br /><br />Now people want to use to wind to produce electricity (resulting in energy loss), transmit it to places of work (resulting in loss), and finally let it do useful work (resulting in loss). If you want to store it, so that it can used when actually needed, add two more energy-sapping transformations.<br /><br />In the olden-days, there was one energy sapping step before wind energy was put to useful work. Nowadays, there's three or more energy sapping steps. This is not progress.<br /><br />The result will be wind power being used substantially less efficiently in our modern economy than it was in the economy of the 18th century and earlier!<br /><br />If people really want wind to be useful, they should learn to appreciate the way wind was first employed industrially. <br />1) Use energy from wind near to where wind energy is captured.<br />2) Do you need to attach it to the grid, or can you use the mechanical energy, or electricity directly?<br />3) Develop industrial processes that do not need a constant supply of energy, and can use wind's discontinous and spiky supply.<br /><br />The main goal held by wind power advocates and companies of attaching it to the grid is emphasizing wind's weakest points, de-emphasizing its strengths, and leading to underinvestment in technologies and processes which could most make use of the discontinuous nature of wind power. Right now, the push to grid-connect wind risks long term harm to wind-energy, much like a parasite in seriously harming its host limits its own evolutionary viability.crfhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10726414637021391906noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7597656451205429515.post-81645135181829151892011-01-29T15:23:25.796-06:002011-01-29T15:23:25.796-06:00It is factually incorrect that wind displaces NG f...It is factually incorrect that wind displaces NG fuel. Wind must be balanced with low efficiency fast spooling natural gas plants. Less gas would be used at a tiny fraction of the cost if high efficiency but slow spool up CCGT gas plant was built instead.<br /><br />http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2010/06/kent-hawkins-offers-reasonable-doubt.html.sethnoreply@blogger.com