Ice Age is coming, and very swiftly.
There’s no time to waste
Well that isn’t remotely true. Lots of wind farms for sure (heavily subsidized) but there’s certainly not may solar farms.
The only thing that makes either solar or wind viable is the heavy subsidies, particularly solar.
Of course if you actually cared about a cleaner planet the enormous amounts of pollution from the production of both wind and solar tech would be alarming as hell.
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Oh know, you too have been ignored. That’s Monte’s solution to people that repeatedly hand her ass to here buy pointing out the BS and outright lies she peddles daily.
There is an interesting chart here which shows that from 2015 to 2018 China’s installed wind generating capacity doubled. In the same period the installed PV generating capacity quadrupled. Their PV capacity is now (2018) about half their wind capacity.
As far as pollution from creating the renewable tech is concerned, I made a calculation a couple of years back when somebody raised the same objection. The time it takes for a 2MW turbine to generate the power equivalent to that used to make its concrete base is measured in days. Less than a week IIRC. You could do the same calculation for the steel etc used in the construction of the turbine. Now consider the effect of not using wind, except for hydro you are burning huge quantities of coal and gas to produce the power … and then there is the energy used to construct those facilities.
As far as PV is concerned the production equipment for semiconductors runs on electric power. So depending upon your power source there may be ZERO pollution from that. That leaves the aluminium frames (electric production) and the glass overlays (fossil fuel powered) and all the wiring (a mix of electric and fossil fuel).
It is not the ogre that some are painting it.
I’m not talking about the energy requirements, I’m talking about all of the toxic substances required to produce them.
You do bring up a good point though, it takes a tremendous amount of petroleum just to make the blades and generator housings since they are made almost excursively from petroleum based composts and plastics.
Cement is produced by blowing hot gas over limestone, the hot gas is typically produced by burning Natural Gas. I think the gas-mix is rich to make it a reducing agent.
Steel/iron is produced by burning coke, not as toxic as running a coal-fired power station. Steel is produced by burning the (molten) pig iron with an oxygen lance.
Turbine blades … yeah, I imagine a fair few VOCs come off those.
You’re stuck on CO2 which has nothig to do with this equation.
To stick with your wind turbines for a moment though the steel cylinders that make up the towers are coated inside and out with a heavy layer of epoxy, the blades are made from Kevlar and epoxy with a steel core. The generator housings are composites and steel. All of the wiring is coated with plastics all produced from petroleum.
Batter production requires enormous amounts of highly toxic chemicals as to solar collectors and photo cells.
Both the batteries and photo cells have a very limited useful lifespan then you have massive amounts of high toxic garbage to deal with in attempting to recycle/reprocess the constituents.
I am not stuck on CO2, and I do not regard CO2 as a pollutant.
I did not mention batteries, I am considering only alternative forms of power production. However since you mention it, yes batteries can be pretty horrible things.
Solar cells are made from Silicon, which is a naturally occurring, abundant and non-toxic substance found all around the world. It is doped with Boron and/or Phosphorus to produce semiconductors, the amount present in doped semiconductors is tiny and much less than 1%. Both of these doping chemicals are essential minerals to most life forms including humans. The electrical connections are made using aluminium (other metals have been tried including copper) which gives the most reliable performance over time. The surface of any semiconductors are usually passivated with glass, another well-known life-form and human friendly substance.
As for other constructional materials either the infrastructure is considered undesirable or not. Similar infrastructure is required with other forms of power generation. Since all of our society is based upon the use and cheapness of power the questions revert to ‘which is the most environmentally friendly production method?’ Of the forms which have been and continue to be used, coal burning is the worst since it produces enormous amounts of toxic output.
You seem to be forgetting the rest of what goes into making solar cells/panels.
Any of these green alternatives also require batteries for the home/building they are supporting to be completely off grid.
If Hillary had employed those authors a few years ago she might have been running for a 2nd term now.
My home does not have, and never has had, batteries for the storage of power.
Batteries are not necessary for the efficient use of wind and solar power.
Get off the battery kick, it is a distraction.
Then your home is not off grid. Neither wind nor solar nor any combination of both can produce power 24/7.
… Agreed
Churchill, Canada, has been plagued by polar bears for decades.
And it could get worse
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Time to break out the Polar Bear Fur Coats.
Poor polar bears, They sure have great fur.
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When the 20 million UK commuters of the future all get home from work and plug their electric car into the grid and the grid overloads, the heating goes off and the oven shuts down what exactly are we gonna do?
Blame Elon Musk …!!
Look at the UK population for 2025. (#47. From 65 million to whopping 14 million).
http://www.deagel.com/country/forecast.aspx?pag=2&sort=GDP&ord=DESC
What do they know?
That will be mild compared to what happens after a cyber attack or an EMP knocks out the power grid for months.
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