The truth about wind turbines - how bad are they?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 ส.ค. 2020
- The truth about wind turbines - how bad are they? Go to brilliant.org/Undecided you can sign up for free. And also, the first 200 people will get 20% off their annual premium membership. The truth about wind turbines and how they are one of the most cost-effective, fastest growing and arguably underused sources of energy currently available to us. But when a wind turbine is not in operation -- meaning, getting them built and working out what to do to recycle them once they're taken down -- they do have an environmental impact. How bad are they and is there anything we can do to mitigate it?
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#windturbines #renewableenergy #truthabout #undecidedwithmattferrell - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
What do you think about wind power vs. the downsides? And if you liked this video, be sure to check out my video "The truth about nuclear fusion power - new breakthroughs": th-cam.com/video/Wc8SJqAPVaM/w-d-xo.html
Undecided with Matt Ferrell I sort of roll my eyes when the discussion devolves into the relative eco-friendliness all the way back to the manufacturering and installation process. EVERYTHING has to be manufactured and installed-- nuclear, solar (and associated batteries), wind, hydro, oil and gas. EVERYTHING has a negative global energy impact. Clearly, burning fossil fuels, every day, to actually produce the energy is the elephant in the room. Can we please stop the focus on the 1% of energy use and keep the focus on the 99%?
It’s important to make it clear that because wind is intermittent and requires 24/7/365 backup by reliable energy (normally fossil fuels), that wind and solar can’t be cost effective. If you build a 300MW wind farm, you also have to build (or keep open) a duplicate backup fossil fuel energy plant to provide energy for the 50%-100% of time wind or solar aren’t working properly. So you now are paying for 2 energy plants vs only 1 before, but all the cost estimates for solar/wind exclude the cost of the mandatory back up plant. This type of “Enron Pro-Forma Accounting” fraud is rampant in the solar/wind area. Having to pay for double the energy plants is the primary reason people are shocked by skyrocketing energy cost where ever solar/wind are added. There are no exception, everywhere solar and wind are installed, energy prices skyrocket for consumers. Solar and wind have to cost more, a lot more.
alliejr You are spot on! So many people view energy as just a “free” gust of wind or ray of sunshine, but that a very superficial understanding. Energy is the entire life cycle process from converting raw matter into reliable and affordable energy that scales, to its disposal when obsolete. When view in their full life cycle context, solar and wind are anything but green or clean...They are dirty and destructive toxic messes.
I would really like to see your take on vertical Turbines, Wind and Water(like Turbulent). I heard Vertical Windturbines are more Birdfriendly and take up less space, because the blades are not sticking out. Some claim they are even more efficient is that true?
Steve Fortuna You would IF batteries could store enough to meet base-load, avg hourly demand, peak and peak hourly demand plus days of storage, but that’s not possible given today’s current tech snd cost. Likely to change in future, but as it stands today, solar and wind only add cost and instability to grid.
I live in an area where a "wind farm" sprang up.
Initially, it wasn't bad, other than the eyesore it created. It ruined the view of the countryside, day and night.
Just very recently, a Second Phase was started, (which we were not told of, and by the time it was made public, it was finalized where the placement of the new turbines were going. Effectively, we were locked out of the process) and is nearly complete. With that Second Phase, 2 wind turbines were placed very, very close to my home (one being about 3/10's of a mile away, the other about 1/2 mile away). Literally just 4 days ago, they got them powered up, running. When they are in operation, it sounds like a jet flying high overhead in the sky, but in the same place without moving. It produces a constant sound from the blade tips passing through the air. It is very, very annoying.
I can see why people complain about them.
Have you watched the video showing what happens when those blades come off?
@@diyr791 ...
Yes, I have.
Ironically, very shortly after I posted my comment on here, a wind turbine nearly 3 miles away from my residence caught fire.
It was quite the spectacle around here, being it's a small community.
One blade fell off. The fire eventually went out.
And, as I write this comment today, that burnt out husk of the turbine is still standing. Nothing has been done to remove it.
So, now we have an additional eyesore.
@@dlopester13 Your exactly right Diego, a farm went in around me and the closest one is 3100 ft away. The view and picturesque setting of the old family farm is ruined, the noise is loud enough i can hear it in the house. our choice to move back to farm 10 years ago has now become a huge mistake in the last 3 years.
I know how you feel, well almost anyway. I'm surrounded by them now too. Even though these look like they're right over my property line, they're at least 3/4 of a mile away and most are further than that. I can't imagine them being any closer like yours are. Still, it sounds like there's heavy traffic on a non-existent highway about a mile away. That swoosh, swoosh, swoosh drives me nuts too. No more quiet evenings outside. At night it's rows of flashing red lights literally for miles in every direction. I can't wait to see what it has done to my property value now that I want to move away from my life long home (almost 60 years)!
@@30dayride67 20 year lifespan is what these are too be. If i live that long i can enjoy watching them come down. Disheartening at the least... And what brought them into the area was greedy government money hungry farmers. Thats a whole nother rant but farmers in my area r nowhere near needing assistants yet they have people hired to seek out grants, programs and assistants available to them and abuse the tax payer money.
As someone whose home has just been surrounded by a wind farm, they suck way more than those who don't live by them realize. I also went back to college for environmental sciences because I very much care about the environment, so I'm not just being crabby here. I've lived in this area nearly 60 years now. We have tons of migratory birds that pass through our numerous ponds and marshes. I guess time will tell if they manage getting past these monstrosities with whirling blades moving at around 200 mph. I know we usually have Bald Eagles, but I haven't seen a single one since the turbines went up this fall. I've loved the quiet of the night here all of these years. The masses of stars in the sky were beautiful. Now I close the drapes to stop seeing the hundreds of red flashing lights that surround my property from every direction. I hate the thought of having to keep my windows closed on beautiful spring evenings to get the sounds of the motors and the swoosh of the blades out of my head. The gravel roads are a mess of deep tire tracks and washboards. The massive power lines, poles, transformers by the dozens and of course a new power station. There will be quieter days at times when the winds are silent, but they don't tend to build these turbines in places where there are too many windless days. The turbines will also shut down in high winds which seems ironic. I can say with 100% certainty that the recorded number of birds these things kill won't come close to reality as nature's cleanup crews will leave little to no trace of the bodies by the time the sun comes up the next morning.
What have I learned about this green movement? Most people (including all political parties) want to improve our impact on the environment. Unfortunately, we are being scammed in order for certain groups to reap huge financial gains and/or power. We know there are so many cost-effective ways that are proven to work to clean up our environment. We have huge improvements coming for greener and more efficient solar and wind energy as well as battery technologies. There are also other energy sources being explored. The problem is that certain groups have invested heavily in what we have available today and they want to force us to buy it before better options replace it. The powers that be don't want to implement any of the cost effective, proven methods and I truly believe it is because they don't enrich or empower the right people. Some of the things these billionaires like Mr Gates are doing are NOT good at all. They are using chemicals to block out the sun which ends up contaminating our water and soil, but our government isn't interested in stopping him. The assault on livestock production is ridiculous. Far more energy and chemicals are used in growing plants. There are some changes that would be beneficial to make in our raising of livestock, but eating meat is not the enemy of the environment. Livestock can destroy land or it can add great benefit to the land depending on how it is managed and the land itself.
AGREE
I agree…..
There is no doubt that there are downsides to wind turbines, especially if they are sited in the wrong places that bring them into conflict with migratory bird routes and or existing land uses/iconic locations. I have my doubts about the life cycle costs of offshore wind farms and they are not free from environmental impacts either. All of that said, we need to get our energy from somewhere and I would argue that wind turbine technology can be part of that solution, BUT we need to be really clear on the impacts of where they are located and be very particular about where they are permitted to be installed.
A planet run by greed. Very simple.
What think you about Nuclear?
Just wanted to tell you that I appreciate you giving BOTH the negatives and positives of this method of energy production. Fair and balanced on this overly politicized topic is rare to find.
Left out a lot of the negatives.
Over 500 gallons of oil in each of them. Blades are being buried. Concrete 30' deep only going to be removed to 4' when they're done. They're ruining Iowa's soil. They don't restore it. It's criminal. They cause wind turbine illnesses. A blind kid could feel when they came within range. If you're for controlling CO2 (which does not determine climate) then you should know that concrete is a *huge* emitter of CO2.
Good, you pay for them.
Being subsidized doesn't make windmills affordable or cost effective as presented.
Huge amounts of money are being made by companies that are being propped up by our tax dollars. If they were cost effective they wouldn't need government subsidies.
He gave no negatives
I think the bottom line in any energy production source is that the old adage of "there's no free lunch" comes into play.
Eh have never heard of nuclear
Tell that to democrats! I still prefer a mix of solar and natural gas peaker plants with nuclear. This Country is too large with too many climates to effectively use wind and solar alone. Democrats will figure a way to tax the heck out of this as well.
@@garry8390 There's still radioactive/toxic waste to deal with there....
@@kevinkarbonik2928 Radioactive waste is less dangerous than conventional waste in landfill. It's a non issue
No...it's simply this "Energy is neither created ....nor destroyed....it just changes form or shape".....
Wind turbines also have to be shut down when it gets too cold, too hot, and ironically, too windy.
Your point?
@@JimP226 When you need power most your wind turbines are down...
@@JimP226 @witold SzafaRyn has it exactly. On that brutal winter week, when your solar panels are producing zero, it's -20 and your grandma really, really needs her heat to work, you might as well start dividing up her assets because they're going to have to shut the wind turbines down.
It's rare to shut it down because it's too cold or hot. You'd have to have very strong gusts over 25m/sec. The irony is that if there's a power outtage they won't work, they need power to get started.
I have a PhD in wind energy, and have worked in the industry the last decade, designing wind turbine blades and other systems for major wind turbine manufacturers.
Wind turbines are usually designed to operate in a temperature range of minus 20 to plus 40 degrees. Survival temperatures are usually minus 30 to plus 50. I worked on a turbine designed for northern Sweden where it gets very cold, and in situations like that the customer will request a special low-temperature package. So the operating temperature for that project was minus 30 and the survival temperature even lower.
Wind turbines do stop operating and turn their blades out of the wind in gale-force winds. You have that part correct.
Another commenter replying to this comment said they need electricity supply to start up and that is not true. The blades are rotated so that they can catch the wind when they need to start up in low wind speeds. There is some electricity supply for auxiliary equipment like the control cabinets or heating in cold climates, and that generally comes from the grid. But if there is a power outage separating the turbines from the grid, then that would mean that the electricity produced by the turbine would have nowhere to go and of course then they couldn't operate anyway.
We have thousands of windmills in our part of the country and they only run about 20% of the time
where are you located?
@@daverichards1990 south west corner of Alberta
interesting because it is more than 40 percent of the state of Iowa's energy portfolio.
Your in trouble windmills and solar panels don't work ask Texas but if anyone figures out how to build an battery efficient enough and large enough to power a small city then you will be getting somewhere until then you need a traditional power grid
@@donturner9510 the reason the ones in Texas didn’t work is because they were never designed to be in that cold. Wind power isn’t reserved for warm places. You gotta remember that storms like that are extremely rare.
I was a tourist in the States in 1983 and came across a disused wind turbine farm in the middle of California. My host told me it was too expensive to demolish so it hadn’t been demolished yet.
I was toured through that area or one similar, it was incredible and beyond belief that such things were allowed, just a disgraceful eyesore. I do wonder if these really big new machines will suffer a similar fate as they require massive infrastructure and machines to build, they will need all of that and more to dismantle and dispose of. Will that in turn simply lead to an abandon in place mentality like Gen I turbines you describe.
@Sussell Your friend was partially right ..teachers unions and other invested in building these and getting large tax breaks.. after they were no longer profitable to run which was in some cases less than 10 yrs they were abandoned by their owners leaving the tax payer with the bill for removing them ...as you have seen removing them is not easy and if you even tried to remove the concrete base which is too small to be reused then the carbon footprint would be = to a small war ...as usual it's a lose lose for the taxpayer...we paid for those tax breaks we paid for the elec produced and we will be paying for the removal and disposal to landfills
The concrete pads alone are typically 10-20 feet thick and 60 feet in diameter. Removing that would be incredibly expensive. So I bet in 20-30 years there's going to be a lot of giant concrete circles left in the environment.
@@lindsaydempsey5683
How many old coal power stations sit there because there to expensive to remove 🤣
@@MegaRyan123456 Not a lot that I'm aware of, most governments require power station sites to be returned to a clean site at end of life. California's derelict wind turbines seem to be an outlier in this regard.
waiting you to make a Nuclear energy video on the new tech.
New breeder reactors are awesome, and immensely safer than the old reactors. And they can run off the leftover waste from the old one's...
@@amjrpain919 New technologies need to prove themselves. That said, I am also excited about the new breeder reactors.
You forgot to mention the amount of gear oil and grease that the gearboxes and bearings require . They need regular oil changes and maintenance just like any other mechanical apparatus.
And Sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), the most potent greenhouse gas that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has evaluated with a global warming potential of 23,900[28] times that of CO2 when compared over a 100-year period.
the maintenance provides jobs. large gear box oil is usually contaminated by condensation water gets in the gear lube. but as with oil pump gear boxes proper vents cut down on that. also the gear lube can be treated by heating past the boiling point of water the evaporate the water away. that heat isn't enough to harm the gear grease
Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil.
@@erniew5805 digging trenches with spoons would provide jobs for the entire nation!! Let's do it
@@r-gart they are not maintaining wind turbines with spoons.
Some years ago I came to a similar problem with a manifold of an air seeder where the seeds travelling at some speed in an air duct had to change direction to be distributed into 5 or 6 secondary ducts and to avoid smashing them we used a thin layer of poly eurathane on the surface . It also stopped the erosion of the detector that was counting the impulses of seeds passing that point. It could be used on the blade leading edge if coated thinly and with a smooth finish so as no to add drag.
Leading edge erosion is a big problem we have had with turbine blades. Its highly dependent on the location they are in, mostly due to the amount of dust in the air, west Texas is really rough on the blades while some of the northern and Eastern states have little problem with edge erosion due to less dust. 3M has a product that has been applied to the leading edge of thousands of blades. Unfortunatly I don't have the stats on whether it helps or not. My educated guess would be it works, companies will spend tens of thousands of dollars to have it applied to a single turbine. Most of the cost isn't the product, its the application process/manpower. Whatever adhesive 3M uses it is STRONG, I've seen blades with 30,000 operating hours and the leading edge tape is still holding on as good as day one!
I used to deliver cabins and containers onto wind turbine farms and was told on more than one occasion they never pay for themselves, as each full turn off the blade they get six pence, at that price they take fifty years to pay for themselves, but the turbines only last a max thirty to forty years.
Thats going to be highly varied based upon Power Purchase Agreements between the wind farm and the utility company. Some parts of the country (USA) have a wholesale PPA around $20/MWH and others have a PPA of $150/MWH, it depends of the demand for power. New construction in the USA is almost exclusively greater than 2MW per turbine (there are probably some outliers around the 1.5MW range). Let's say average PPA is $30/MWH and do some math. The cost of a turbine varies based on too many factors to account for in a YT comment, let's call it an even 2mil for tower+construction.
$30×2MW×24HR=$1440/Day
$1440×365=$525,600
$525,600×60%=$315,360/year
(60% is for the average capacity factor, wind isn't always blowing 100%)
$2,000,000÷$315,360=6.3 years to full payoff.
There are labor and maintenance costs to factor in as well but in the scheme of things they are negligible, for the sake of fairness I'll tack on an extra 0.7 years until complete payoff. Normal life expectancy is around 20 years until repower. During a repower the company will replace the major components (generator, gearbox, main bearing, etc) and turn them loose for another 20 years of operation.
If I could get 13 years of almost guaranteed profit for only 7 years of payment I would take it!
All this is without government assistance/tax credits, thats a whole can of worms in itself...
I hope putting some numbers to the mystery helped clarify things a little bit. Long story short, wind farms (at least in the USA) are generally profitable after a few years of operation.
My nephew worked on wind turbines and described the massive amount of oil lubricates leaked from most towers.
Nonsensical.... wind turbines have a huge carbon foot print along with being made of carbon and oil products. It’s damaging to the environment, Wild life habitat, kills me grating birds, butterfly’s, and bats. It’s more costly to maintain , build, and produce electricity than any hydro, coal, or natural gas power plant...outrageously more expensive. Wind, solar, and the batteries are toxic and the natural minerals needed to be minded is a disaster for the natural habitat and environment. Besides the fact...it’s unreliable and has only a small capacity to create electricity. It’s insanity!
@Leon Wilcox He’s pointing out where renwables are lacking. Such a wussy for not acknowledging the problems we currently experience with renewables. They’re not some solution you can slap on and forget when dealing with climate change. There are no solutions just setbacks. You choose the setbacks you can deal with.
@Leon Wilcox Wow, crazy, people are allowed to LIGITIMATELY criticize something. Nothing should be immune.
One day you will grow up and learn to actually communicate with people that have different views than you. I hope so at least.
@@CarriUSA You are right in some points, but not all.
Wind turbines have a very competitive Levelized Cost of Energy (embracing all costs and profits) and, of course, it makes sense economically to invest in them when the natural resource is available. Think about it, investors have been involved in it even before it was cool. They will not simply lose money, because they are vegan lefties. About wildlife and noise problems, there are already solutions for them. Also, there are many countries in the world that managed to balance their grid with renewables and non-renewables. The real challenge is indeed to find out what to do with materials after replacing them and that is what companies are trying to work around right now. It is a very young technology and there is no reason not to expect that solutions for its current problems will be found in the near future.
@John M. That lack of decommissioning is related to legislation that needs to be updated, but the lawmakers are slower than the technology. And that is everywhere, but mainly on newer or coming technologies. It has already been improved and will continue to be.
By balance the grid, I meant that the countries diversify the energy market, demanding energy from more expensive, but more stable sources when, for example, the wind drops or the sun goes down. It is way cheaper and the benchmark all around the developed world, having nothing to do with outages, which usually relate to the fact that the government was not be able to catch an increasing demand for energy.
About subsidies, the government may subsidize flourishing markets like wind or even still key ones like fossil fuels.
And about batteries, yeah that is real, but it is a known issue after the whole digitalization. The rare minerals are in all our telecommunication, computers, smartphones, everywhere. For wind turbines, there are many solutions that are already at work, at the top of my head I remember storage as hydro and hydrogen-source power.
th-cam.com/video/7qGZlBXcEeg/w-d-xo.html
www.energy.gov/eere/water/pumped-storage-hydropower
Im thinking nuclear is the way to go. Really.
Think again
@@hizzlemobizzle - Elaborate.
REALLY ,LOL .
Nuclear Decommissioning Authority ownership
On 1 April 2005 the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) became the owner of the site, with the UKAEA remaining as operator. Decommissioning of Dounreay was initially planned to bring the site to an interim care and surveillance state by 2036, and as a brownfield site by 2336, at a total cost of £2.9 billion.[24]
A new company called Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) was formed as a subsidiary of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to handle the decommissioning process. By May 2008, decommissioning cost estimates had been revised. Removal of all waste from the site was expected to take until the late 2070s to complete and the end-point of the project was scheduled for 2300.[25]
Apart from decommissioning the reactors, reprocessing plant, and associated facilities, there were five main environmental issues to be dealt with:
A 65-metre (213 ft) deep shaft used for intermediate level nuclear waste disposal was contaminating groundwater, and would be threatened by coastal erosion in about 300 years time. The shaft was never designed as a waste depository, but was used as such on a very ad-hoc and poorly monitored basis, without reliable waste disposal records being kept. It was originally used to construct a tunnel for the sea discharge pipe. Later use of the shaft as a convenient waste depository had resulted in one hydrogen gas explosion[26] caused by sodium and potassium wastes reacting with water. At one time it was normal for workers to fire rifles into the shaft to sink polythene bags floating on water.[27]
Irradiated nuclear fuel particles on the seabed near the plant,[5] estimated to be about several hundreds of thousands in number,[28] caused by old fuel rod fragments being pumped into the sea.[5] The beach had been closed since 1983 due to this.[5] In 2008, a clean-up project using Geiger counter-fitted robot submarines was planned to search out and retrieve each particle individually.[5] Particles were still being washed ashore at Sandside Bay beach and one particle at a popular tourist beach at Dunnet in 2006.[29] In 2012, a two million becquerel particle was found at Sandside beach, twice as radioactive as any particle previously found.[30]
18,000 cubic metres (640,000 cu ft) of radiologically contaminated land, and 28,000 cubic metres (990,000 cu ft) of chemically contaminated land.
1,350 cubic metres (48,000 cu ft) of high and medium active liquors and 2,550 cubic metres (90,000 cu ft) of unconditioned intermediate level nuclear waste in store.
1,500 metric tons (1,500 long tons) of sodium, of which 900 metric tons (890 long tons) are radioactively contaminated from the Prototype Fast Reactor.
Historically, much of Dounreay's nuclear waste management was poor. On 18 September 2006, Norman Harrison, acting chief operating officer, predicted that more problems will be encountered from old practices at the site as the decommissioning effort continues. Some parts of the plant are being entered for the first time in 50 years.[31]
In 2007 UKAEA pleaded guilty to four charges under the Radioactive Substances Act 1960 relating to activities between 1963 and 1984, one of disposing of radioactive waste at a landfill site at the plant between 1963 and 1975, and three of illegally dumping radioactive waste and releasing nuclear fuel particles into the sea,[32][33] resulting in a fine of £140,000.[34]
In 2007 a new decommissioning plan was agreed, with a schedule of 25 years and a cost of £2.9 billion, a year later revised to 17 years at a cost of £2.6 billion.[23]
Due to the uranium and plutonium held at the site, it is considered a security risk and there is a high police presence.[5] The fuel elements, known as "exotics", are to be removed to Sellafield for reprocessing, starting in 2014 or 2015.[35][out of date]
In 2013 the detail design of the major project to decommission the intermediate level waste shaft was completed, and work was to begin later in the year. The work would include the recovery and packaging of over 1,500 tonnes of radioactive waste.[36] As of 2013, the "interim end state" planned date had been brought forward to 2022-2025.[37] In March 2014 firefighters extinguished a small fire in an area used to store low-level nuclear waste.[38]
PFR Fire
On 7 October 2014 a fire on the PFR site led to a "release of radioactivity via an unauthorised route". The Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR) concluded that "procedural non-compliances and behavioural practices" led to the fire, and served an improvement notice on Dounreay Site Restoration Limited.[39][40] In 2015 decommissioning staff expressed a lack of confidence in management at the plant and fear for their safety.[41]
In 2016 the task of dismantling the PFR core commenced.[42] Plans were also announced to move about 700 kg (1,500 lb) of waste Highly Enriched Uranium to the United States.[43][44]
On 7 June 2019, there was a low-level radioactive contamination incident which led to the evacuation of the site. A DSRL spokesman said: "There was no risk to members of the public, no increased risk to the workforce and no release to the environment".[45]
On 23 December 2019, the NDA announced completion of the transfer of all plutonium from Dounreay to Sellafield (the centre of excellence for plutonium management) where all significant UK stocks of this material are now held.[46]
On 20 August 2020 a new date for the site to become available for other uses was announced of 2333, as part of a new draft strategy for reclaimation.[47]
Framework contracts
In April 2019, Dounreay Site Restoration Limited (DSRL) awarded six framework contracts for decommissioning services at Dounreay. The total value of these contracts is estimated to be £400 million.[
NUCLEAR IS THE WAY to go lololololololololol
@@caelachyt Expensive to Build. Despite being relatively inexpensive to operate, nuclear power plants are incredibly expensive to build-and the cost keeps rising. ...
Accidents. ...
Produces Radioactive Waste. ...
Impact on the Environment. ...
Security Threat. ...
Limited Fuel Supply.
@@hizzlemobizzle - Well, that's supposed to be the panacea that is the so called Thorium Salt Reactors; those issues are greatly mitigated.
Thanks a lot for the great content ! I would love to see a video on floating wind turbines
Thank you Matt!! I watched solar and wind 👍 and subscribed 🌎🙏. Your information/presentation/charts are excellent 🤔😉
What the “F” is wrong with farming and grazing ?
See a lot of that in west Texas. Although also a lot of the land isn't used that much.
the world economic forum, and the UN think its "bad for the enviroment"
wonder what getting rid of farming and grazing would do to food supplies LOL /s
they basically want world famine.
@C7 Racehead Complex indeed--in Texas you have the issue where forests of mesquite and juniper have taken over vast swathes of land. They are very hardy trees, with the unfortunate affect of also lowering the water table and rendering a lot of land extremely difficult to use for any purpose.
Farming and grazing is great depending on how it is done. But it ain't gonna solve the energy crisis without people starving so that others can have bio-fuel in their cars.
Apparently the turbines are producing 'the brown-note'. The vibrations that people were complaining about in this report are causing indigestion and diarrhea in grazing animals, resulting in a general weakness that makes the animals uninterested in breeding. Farmers have been experiencing similar symptoms, to the point that they've had to move away from the turbines. So, realistically, the land isn't usable for farming or grazing, deepening the sense of buyer's remorse the farmers and ranchers are feeling - and this is after the 2 years they couldn't use that land while the turbine was being built.
Also, check out some of the stories of decommissioned wind turbine blades. They just cut 'em up and bury them. And they take an enormous amount of land to do so.
They can be recycled into bridges, playgrounds or ground up to use as concrete filler
No, they don't take an enormous amount of land to bury. Apparently you have cycled enough miles of this planet of ours. It's enormous.
That is not true. They are ground up and made into dildoes.
Cause digging for oil and disposing of all that crap is a piece of cake, huh Gomer.
Cause paving thousands of square miles with roads and burning tons of coal is more environmentally friendly I suppose?
Thanks for this. Appreciate your whole view. Worry about the alternate uses of spent blades - only time companies won't just throw them into a landfill is if they can make money not doing so. Would love if we went into wood! Wood is the new plastic
As long as your kids are the ones living in Florida when it goes underwater, I'm fine either way.
It is actually the old plastic of witch the early blades where made of. As blades got longer and wind farms larger, using wood was deemed unsustainable, too heavy, too expensive.Today the high quality lumber required for this kind of application is rare to non existent therefore ultra expensive. Deforestation is not any better ether. Now the use of different material within the composite is a better approach, newly developed thermoplastic resins allow for remelt of a plastic part and reuse of most components of that composite material, self healing properties can add a lot of life to the composite part. Some of these resin are high bio content and some natural fibers are getting close to fiberglass and even carbon fiber performance level. "plastic" is the new wood. It is called evolution. A lots of smart people are working hard to find solution for clean...er energy can we make it pure?
By the way, birds die in grater number from striking high rise buildings than wind turbine blades strike .Some researchers are attributing that, paradoxically, to the lack of warning noise of a building.
Great video. Maybe you could do one on hydro power. In Washington state, lobbyists are trying to remove dams and replace them with solar and wind farms, which makes no sense to me.
Do a video on what is actually used to make each wind tower work also cost of installing and at what point the wind tower actually starts off setting the cost of the job!
Search for LCOE, levelized cost of energy. You'll find that coal and nuclear are now double the cost of wind or solar. The first two are already going away just from economic forces.
@@pcproffy you are joking right? those sources are so skewed.
@@pcproffy th-cam.com/video/wPDr8odygJo/w-d-xo.html
@@pcproffy Very true. And cost for nuclear does not include cost for 240,000 years of waste disposal.None has been dispose do for the 75 years of commercial nuclear energy production.
Sadly in all wind farms when the carbon cost of manufacturing, instaling the mills and their infrastructure is far greater than any CO2 offset by their power generation in their 30 year life. California has become a windmill junkyard. The environmental cost has been enormas, and after billion they still have brown-outs.
As one of the owners of a 106 turbine wind farm I worked on they have a 20 year payback. The main reason they built them was for the tax breaks. The ones i worked on were 1.5 MW and cost 1.5 million bucks a piece. Keep in mind also that if the grid goes down they shut down. The sub Sonics from blades is not pleasant. The fiber glass blades are not reclaimed. And they are not simple to work on. Try working on them. I have and don’t like it.
Thanks for sharing your experience! 👍
I trust comments like these more than an analysis from politicians or TV "experts"
20-year payback. How long to the blades last?
Without the government offering massive rebates the day they go online no company would invest money into wind power. It's not really green anymore. The original generators lasted longer and need less maintenance. Now we are mass produced the parts and the quality and longevity of the parts has been thrown out with the bathwater
@@kitemanmusic I live about 3 miles from the Wild Horse Mountain Wind Farm in Oklahoma. In the year that we have lived here they have replaced 5 sets of blades and the wind farm has only been in operation since 2018. They also only spin about 8-10 hours a day, bad placement maybe? At the moment there are 5 out of the 29 turbines that never spin, I assume they are out of commission. As much as I don't like to look at them during the day they are worse at night because of the miles long string of red beacon lights that flash about every 15 seconds in unison. I agree that we need to be working towards alternative energy but, it just hard for me to believe that wind is the answer.
Thank you Matt. So glad to have found this video - your take is very refreshing and balanced
1. Hybrid power plants (using both wind and solar)
2. More offshore than onshore winf turbines
3. Coloring the wind blades so as to avoid bird strikes.
4. Finding ways to reduce the use of diesel or petrol in construction and installation of wind farms. Inr way can be using wind turbines or solar panels for constructing newer turbines and/or panels.
5. Pyrolysis is one way to reduce landfilling. The easiest manner is the use of wind turbines in cement production as well as road construction. Their are claims being made now that we have found ways to profitably extract resins from wind turbines in an electricity positive manner.
Having worked in the commercial wind farm industry for many years and powering my own house with a small wind turbine (2.4kW), I can speak the truth that bird kills by wind turbines is far, far lower than estimates and opinions say they are. A 1 year study conducted in Kansas, at a large wind farm of 200 2mW wind turbines, found only: 2 dead birds, over the year, however, the fossil fuel industry, buildings, cars/trucks, house cats, account for hundreds of millions of bird kills every year and nobody cares. I fully support much larger wind turbines and wish they'd paint them tan or green, to match the landscape but think wind will top out at around 25% of entire energy production as solar can be put on virtually every roof, parking lot and structure, and will produce the majority of our energy in the future.
" I fully support much larger wind turbines and wish they'd paint them tan or green, to match the landscape"
YES - I never understood why they need to stand out so much from their environment
@@tjampman It's because of dumb, outdated FAA rules but tall buildings, bridges and other structures can build in whatever color they want. If we had much larger and fewer wind turbines, that are painted green or tan, to blend in, people wouldn't hate them so much. We'll get there.
I Do My own micro Grid Is best For ALL & I Have 2 wind Units & solar 18kw @ My Home
White ones blend in nicely in winter. Its the vast swaths of red blinking lights that drive me crazy. At least they blink in unison
@@Windex451 agreed, the lights could be toned down. The newest turbines do use lower lights.
Great Video Matt. I’m a civil engineer with a utility company in Colorado and am just wrapping up construction on a 500MW wind farm on the eastern side of the state. I hear a lot of pretty wild theories about wind turbines and read some comments below and thought I might weigh in. The pace of innovation in this industry is staggering, and turbines efficiency and reliability is constantly improving. Production can vary but generally our farms can produce some power about 80% of the time, while this might not be full production it is substantial considering the fuel is free. Additionally there are very few issues with “overproduction” as the turbines can be shut on or off in a matter of seconds depending on demand. A big problem with conventional power plants is the amount of time it takes to ramp up, even a NG peaking plant will take up to 15 minutes to come online and often have to remain in a state of “hot standby” just in case there is a sudden demand spike.
Maintenance on windmills is substantially lower than conventional power plants as well, they operate at low RPM’s and generally only require annual service. Natural gas and coal power plants must operate at incredibly high temperatures and pressures in order to make top efficiency and require frequent service and constant monitoring. Added into this is economy of scales, where a single gas plant may take 300-500MW off the grid during an maintenance outage, wind farms can continue to operate while individual turbines are maintained on a rolling schedule. Fuel costs are a much bigger factor than people realize as well as the complicated and vulnerable infrastructure that is required to supply coal or natural gas to plants.
Wind farms definitely have their drawbacks as you have pointed out, but as they are constructed and operated we continue to make constant improvements. Thanks for the great videos!
Thank you for this explanation. I do have a question about off-shore turbines. Can the maintenance costs be astronomically higher?
I am a retired engineer living in Colorado also. Looking forward to NuScale SMR operation. I once heard Alice(Xcel) talk in the Springs, she basically warned everyone we can't get to 100% with renewables - she is correct. Renewables are way to sell natural gas plants in my opinion. So we don't install gas plants in Colorado out of a sense of "purity", well they just go over the boarder and import the electricity. Xcel needs to show up. Can't have outages. I am in favor of SMR technology first, then add whatever you want on top of that stable solution.
@@TheExumRidge Well in the UK every time someone say we can't run more than 10 % of the grid on renewable, the grid has met the challenge, then it was you can't do more than 20%, well last year the UK had several days where wind was producing 60% of our electricity and we didn't have blackouts. www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/28/storm-bella-helps-uk-record-wind-power-generation-boxing-day
An we are still adding more turbines to the grid. Billions of pounds was recently spent by energy companies buy leases to land to build more turbines. It only a matter of time before the grid is run 100% on wind and solar for days at a time. Probably before the end of this decades. An probably years before Roll Royce mini nuclear reactors start rolling off the production line.
Yes partcial correct you still need oil and gas to provide for the windmills which are not as clean as you say its killing our farmers original habitats
How do you people sleep at night
@@islandicnegro1st Maintenance costs are certainly higher and the turbines need to be much more robust. That being said production is typically much higher due to more stable wind patterns and the turbines can be much larger. 8-12MW
I've noticed on alot of old wind turbines oil running all down the sides, so when they build them offshore, where's all that oil going besides into the sea?!😳
We don't use 'old' machines in the ocean. We maintain those machines better than you maintain your own car.
@@jacoblaughbon3323 So accidents never happen? Good to know..
@@markjohnson7887 The oils we use are completely synthetic and pose little risk to the environment. Not to mention offshore machines have channels and capture points so that oil never escapes the tower. We've had machines blow gearboxes and dump a couple hundred gallons, but not one drop hits the ground. There is always risk, no matter what is done, but just because some meathead says wind turbines cause cancer, doesn't make it so.
Yep, just like the land based ones will wash lubricating oil down into the ground during rains.
We will all be living in old turbine blades eating grass and blue mussels.
How about hydro-ELECTRET power??? Electret NOT electric, just to be clear.
Why no one ever talks about Electrets honestly boarders on or honestly, strides deep into the land of conspiracy.
I mean is it a conspiracy? By definition it’s a rather strong yes, and most have come to agree on this. WHY? The Who what when where and why. Oh and were; were you ever? Have you ever? Oh whatever could it be, this electret culled key to independence.
If your from the States of Northern America’s the.man this likely will sound like some sort of word salad of imagined so called green energy…but why?
Well it seems the only mention of Electrets in your realm or sphere of existence is that of the “Electret Microphone” and even that is quite sparse. Then electret battery capacitor restrictions….
What the heck happened to the cpsc.gov???? I needed to link skmethjng.
@@Coincidence_Theorist i never heard of electret thats good i might do some research on that. But do tell so far what you know about electret and why it would be best fit alterative than this turbine
That's pretty much it.
@@Coincidence_Theorist Tasmania has hydro power. It's a good thing.
Great video, its important to be objective when evaluating the various energy sources, and really interesting at the end about the wood turbines and new techniques for disposing of the blades
If there was any objectivity left in the western world, we would be aiming for nuclear energy..
This is a great comprehensive video Matt. Thank you!
Good presentation on the topic of wind power. I did not hear mention of two variables.
Dependability: The wind does not always blow, and a wind farm at sea would need to withstand hurricane force winds... and the capacity to capture and store that level of energy.
Transportability: Some areas do not have a stable source of wind, or if so, the land needed to capture the wind power. Wind energy may need to be sent over long distances where it may be subject to attenuation.
I am asking out of my own inexperience in hopes of better understanding the challenges of improving the use of wind power.
The wind doesn’t blow all the time, so you will never get full power out of any wind turbine 24 seven. Neither does the sun shine all the time, at least not in the same place. Geographic diversification can help with this. Using renewable energy to charge batteries and/or generate hydrogen is another workaround. If we generated hydrogen, we could burn it and generate power from it when renewable resources aren’t enough.
Regarding hurricanes, we know how to build things to withstand high wind forces. Commercial airliners routinely take off in air that is 90°F, immediately go up to 30,000 feet and fly at 500 mph through air that is -40°F, and then drop down and land somewhere. They do this all day, every day full of, hundreds of passengers
We have figured out the materials and methods needed to build offshore wind and make it reliable.
As far as distance from source goes, here in Alaska, we have an inter-tie between Anchorage and Fairbanks. It spans 350 miles. I doubt it’s the biggest one in the world but it’s one that I know about.
Good questions though, thank you!
Here we are in Texas where 35% of the grid is wind and it’s only supplying 7% of the energy needed leading to blackouts. Solar is providing 3%. It’s not reliable at all and leads to consumers having to make sacrifices
I think Thorium molten-salt reactors will be our best option for electric power generation in the future !!!
What future ?
Or just regular uranium reactors. But it has to ne nuclear
Are you sure you don't just want a free ride someone else pays for?
1 in every home!
Not from what I've heard and read online - - they say Thorium isn't fissionable, and its conversion(in a breeder reactor) to U-233 isn't practicle
9:15 Have you talked to AOC about we will never have a 100% green source of energy? I think we have about 10 or 11 years left.
What can anyone say to a young woman who already knows everything worth knowing? Add that to the fact that she's very political and lies to promote an agenda. Her claims about how much time we have left is nonsense as has been the claims made by similar thinking people who came before her. Many claimed there would no longer be snow by the year 2016... Someone forgot to tell the people in Texas.
AOC thinks Moby Dick is a venereal disease.
Just ask a Texas Republican how to run a power grid. ROFLMAO
@@davidbach7003 Or even worse, as YOU!!! ROFLPMPLMAO
Left of what? Hector, you and AOC have no idea what you are talking about.
There's always a positive and negative side, a yin and yang. Thank you for the video.
It's important to ask the question "is it worse than the current option?"
Good topic and content! What's your take on recycling challenges when it comes to solar power gen ?
There are two methods one is chemical-not green, second is with shredding machine which could be solar powered and the powder can be reused. I'm not expert this is what I've learned from British TH-cam channel "Just have a think".
SEIA, Solar Energy Industries Association, has been working on a recycling program for the last few years. Most all of a panel can be recycled or reused, especially given the large amount of silicon (sand, really) and metal used. Challenges remain, not least of all localizing those recycling facilities and monetizing them like other commercial/municipal recycling centers.
Obligatory nuclear energy comment.
Very little land use, reuse of nuclear materials, Onagawa, there's a reason France is closer in hitting their emission reduction targets than Germany, etc.
"Very little land use" is only accurate for the actual power stations. The Uranium mining for the French power stations makes a large portion of Mali uninhabitable, especially due to it's excessive use of fresh water. This is the main reason why the French Army is "helping" the Mali government against the "terrorist uprising" in their country, since the "terrorists" would prefer to use their own country to raise cattle and grow food instead of mining and exporting Uranium which only helps the upper class in the capitol.
And even in France itself the power stations have a very large impact on the fresh-water situation, and the health of the river fauna populations, since these stations require extreme amounts of cooling water.
"The Onagawa Nuclear Power Plant was the *closest* nuclear power plant to the epicenter of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, *less than half the distance of the stricken Fukushima I power plant* ... *All safety systems functioned as designed, the reactors automatically shut down without damage, and no reactor damage occurred* ... Following the tsunami, two to three hundred residents of the town who lost their homes to the tsunami took refuge in the Onagawa nuclear plant's gymnasium, as the reactor complex was the only safe area in the vicinity to evacuate to."
Obligatory no thanks response to anyone suggesting nuclear energy.
So what can be done with a nuke plant after it's experation date???
@@rcole1175 Almost all of it is contaminated and needs to be transported to nuclear waste repositories. Taking down the reactor is almost as expensive as building it up in the first place. And you can't really re-use the building for anything, since everything you would do in it would have to follow the same strict nuclear safety rules than operating the power plant does, and that makes every activity 10 times as expensive as it would have to be normally.
I'm glad we are starting to have grown-up discussions about renewable energy. I am pro wind and solar.. to a point. Now that we are having these grown-up discussions, it's important to note that nuclear has the smallest environmental footprint of all electrical generation sources per unit of energy. Especially when the infrastructure needed is factured in (extra transmission lines, batteries, etc).
When these blades are in need of decommissioning, they need to cut them into 4 foot sections, slap a cover on one side, seal it, knock it over and fill it with water and give them away as little swimming pools!
Lifespan, non-renewable materials, environmental costs, economic costs, on and on....
None of those things are limited to wind power. Every form of energy deals with those factors. You think they make nuclear reactors out of recycled materials? Wind is still our best option that leaves the least amount of destruction in it's wake.
@@michaeldougherty6036 They're just not as hyped as wind and other EPA climate projects
@@mikegilyeat3213 Of course the aren't as hyped. They've had their day. And older types of power plants got plenty of government assistance when they were getting started too.
@@michaeldougherty6036 Except that for a given volume of materials, nuclear energy produces hundreds, possibly thousands of times more units of energy.
@@randallsemrau7845 Exactly. Nuclear power is so much more energy dense than chemical energy. There's almost no comparison.
"Cost are coming down all them time with many governments now offering more incentives to encourage more uptick." If you are referring to the incentives being the reason why they are "cheaper", then this statement would not be correct. The government just subsidizes some of the cost of the wind turbines, this does not make them cheaper is it just that an enterprise has to pay less to install them. The rest of the cost is still there but is covered by the government.
I know it is a nagging statement but it is important that to understand, that just because somebody else covers part of the cost of something, that this would in turn make it "cheaper". Imagine if you want to buy a bun for 0.50 Cents and I give you 0.25 Cent. That does not mean the bun is "cheaper", somebody else just covered 50% of cost so it "appears cheaper".
Ultimately prices will only really get lower when the market would increase production while demand stays about the same or does not grow in the same manner as production does.
"The rest of the cost is still there but is covered by the government" Actually, you mean covered by the taxpayers!!
Good point.
@@BobG-eh5fc yes, I assume that everybody knows governments money = money from taxes for the most part.
Over here in Germany it is even worse
First it is subsidized thus effectively being pay for buy with taxes.
Second because of the increased cost of operation, cost for electricity in Germany is the highest of all the EU countries (according to some statistic even the highest world wide).
Third Germany actually has to pay other countries to take the overproduces electricity when there is too much energy generated by wind (and solar) to not damage the power grid.
So all in all Germany loses money by switching to renewable. So this whole things is a just a huge cost for all German citizen. There are some German parties that are against subsidizing renewable and also against shutting down working nuclear plants. But those parties (FDP, AFD) are not very popular (FDP ~ 5-6%, AFD ~ 10-15% depending on the polls).
I'm with you on alternative energy sources. As soon as you introduce climate change into the discussion you have lost me. Climate Change as it is currently embodied is just globalist socialism. Let renewable energy source make their way via the free market. The results will be far far more beneficial. Government incentives breed corruption and shoddy workmanship.
Noticed the same thing, usually anything the government “subsidizes” make it “more” expensive.
Vegetation clearance, transmission lines or cables, converter stations ... are also needed by other type of power generation.
Thanks for the presentation. Cases that are poorly covered and that are not included in the licensing process here. Amount of released bisphenol from leaf wings per year, and weigh construction through bogs, with released CO2. Nor serious noise consequences, does not seem to be taken seriously here in my country.
"bisphenol from leaf wings"?
What does that mean?
Matt, I suggest you do a similar video on the impact of aging PV panels. This video made me wonder what the current state of PV pannel recycling is. Thanks
In Rousset, France, you will find Europe’s first solar panel recycling plant - possibly the first dedicated facility in the world. It is run by Veolia and PV Cycle, and it has the capacity to process every retired solar panel in the country at the moment. Panels are dismantled by robots and each component recycled. Glass, which makes up two thirds of the panel, is ground up and returned to the glass making industry. 10-15% of the panel is aluminium, which is easily recycled. Silicon and cabling are processed for the metals. The only thing that can’t be recycled is the 10% plastic, which is burned in steel plants.
If you stop to think about it, there is a very good reason why we haven’t seen plants like this earlier. Solar PV panels last for 25 years, and have only been common and affordable for the last 15 to 20. We’re just now seeing solar panels retired in sufficient numbers for there to be a reliable supply. Commercial recycling hasn’t really been possible until now.
@solaroid55 The video he made about it explains pretty clearly about how solar panels are recycled. Do you even do elementary research before posting your endless misinformation on here?
Thank you for the objective view of the subject.
With the beginning of any technology there's usually bumps in the road and mistakes are made, then learned from to make technology better, more efficient and cheaper to build. It's a learning process and we need to just keep improving.
Good video, thanks. Tax incentives - Investment and Production Tax Credits are a cost, but you did not mention this. This and transmission likely do not make this a real low-cost alternative. You did mention transmission, but what does that cost? Wood might make sense.
My favorite place to go camping in my van is in windmill parks because most people do not want to get near them so it is the most quiet place you can find...
"Woosh!, woosh, woosh, woosh, (on and on, all night!)
Turbine blades as cheap housing materials, green bike and foot bridges, noise barriers on freeways... I’m sure we can think of something other than landfill. Great video 👍
Definitely in the same mindset with you on this. With a little creativity we can find solutions to these problems.
@@UndecidedMF makes me think of the bill and Melinda gates foundation type of stuff, or those concrete coated tends in a bag that are filled with water and inflated to make quick structures in third world countries.
So this massive project in uk only provided 5% of energy - the future is 4th generation nuclear that’s ‘walk away safe’, has about 95% less waste (that only lasts 300 years, not thousands of years), can actually run from old nuclear waste (where only 2% of fuel was used), is low pressure (so doesn’t need massive containment vessels), is cheap to build
how long do they last 20 years a lot of co2 to replace them proberly more co2 than they save !!!
My city is powered by two huge windmills. Our electric rates are dirt cheap. Obviously, wind power is gaining traction. There of course always an upside and downside.
Really? What town is this? I live in Texas and there is a utility company called sharyland and they built many stations to tie wind farms to the power grid and their rates went through the roof, it was so bad that oncor electric had to buy them out to lower the rates since they have millions of customers from Dallas ft worth all the way to Odessa to spread the cost of those stations across.
Currently most these renewable energies are actually not cheap when compared to natural gas. And if they are it's usually due to government rebates for the most part. I'm not against renewable energy I just work with it enough to know the down sides
Eric Haynes.I do believe you are talking rubbish!
M22W64 Don't blame renewables, blame US government policy! Here in Europe wind is by far the cheapest from of power, cheaper even than gas. In the U.K. households are free to select any one of hundreds of tariffs from any one of dozens of suppliers, all of whom buy their power from the generating companies and all of whom pay the grid to transport that power. The cheapest deals are almost always from those buying 100 percent renewable power. It's quite possible to get electricity for 5 pence per kWh (6 cents approx) at night from a green supplier, usually a little less than double during the day. Alternatively you can have fixed prices at any time of around 11p. A third of our total power comes from renewables, and electricity prices have fallen in real terms over the last decade in spite of the general rise in the costs of oil and gas.
@@spencerwilton5831 if it is cheap over there it's because the government must be subsidising it like crazy.
I'm not certain of the initial cost comparisons of natural gas to wind farms but I do know the maintenance costs of wind farms after they are established far exceeds the cost of natural gas. Which makes sense you have 100s of generators with wind and with natural gas you typically have 2 generators
Costs are not coming down if government subsidies are “reducing the cost”.
Exactly, where does the government get their money you either pay it upfront or you paying on the back end you make the middle cheap it's a fallacy
Exatly, that is why we have to cut subsidies for fossil fuels in order to make renewables more competitive.
No matter how clean wind power may be the public wouldn't be as accepting if it's power came subsidy free.
Peter Breis - someone IN THIS VIDEO said that costs were coming down because of government subsidies. I didn’t make it up out of thin air. Did you even listen to the video before reciting the world according to greenies?
@Peter Breis Wind and solar are more expensive, and less reliable.
We must always keep in mind that while the source of energy is renewable, the infrastructure is not. When renewable energy can completely power our grid all the time and also we can build renewable infrastructure without fossil fuels then we'll mostly be using nuclear power. That's the reality.
renewables are still very good for domestic home use (I.e home solar panels & micro wind turbines).
hi,
wanted to ask if you (or anyone in the comments) had looked into the less explored downsides of many of the "green" energy sources.
for example the fact that windfarms litteraly take the energy out of the wind thus leading to slower windspeads, rising temperatures etc in the surrounding areas.
Or how geothermal energy is litteraly just draining energy out of the earth without a thought to what this might cause down the line.
if there are videos/articles that adress that i would much apreciate beeing pointed in their direction/linked to them.
thanks.
I wouldn't worry too much about shutting down the molten core from sucking geothermal energy from the crust. Think of all the heat loss that already happens from volcanos and undersea vents.
Several hundreds of them here locally. Years ago while in between jobs I took a fence building job. One of the many we built was for a lady out in the country. She was a secretary for a bigwig with the local wind farm company. While talking with her she said she had ask him if all of it was worth it. He said he didn't give a damn if they ever produced a single KW. Why? Because each tower was a million dollars a year in green credits they can sell to other companies. My thoughts about these local ones is this. It is over 2.5 million dollars each to build these here. That money is largely on my tax dollars as the company building these wind farms is highly subsidies. Why is any electricity produced by them not free then to tax payers? Doing the math on over 200 of them nearby we could burn dollar bills and make just as much electricity. A limited life span of these also makes me wonder the sense of them. Ever watch the vids of when these things breakdown and come flying apart? The pieces that come crashing down would easily destroy anything in their path. These things look good on paper and quell the tree hugging society but much like this vid points out if you take all things into consideration the concept needs a bit of rethinking much like nuclear power plants have undergone.
That's how every government business or transaction work.
@Peter Breis yes and the ever growing giant lake of toxic waste growing in china. As long as you line the right pockets everyone, or at least those who could make ir an issue, will look the other way. Sometimes I wonder if the mafia of the 20's just went into politics and big business instead. That is exactly how twisted things have become.
Matt Great video. I’m interested in knowing what the cost of charging electric cars is? If we say only electric cars can be used in 5 years from now could the power grid production handle the load? What is their power load compared to other household appliances? Thanks again keep up the good work.
Always follow the money on these issues.
If you look at germany, it can. we have 50 % renewable in the grid. And as recently the "Netzbetreiber" grid operator, don't see any hesitation to expand gas plant to balance more renewable energy.
@John Bryer and what resources/human workers are they using to get the batteries. My friend once sent me a link of a camp where they source lithium and it looked a bit like a slave camp. I question the ethics of the materials sourcing.
@John Bryer nearly all the materials you use today are sourced from slave camps like these in asia and africa, you're just picking out one scenario and using it to push your agenda, stop politicising real issues and start solving them instead of being an internet warrior.
Fun fact: Energy companies are exempt from liability for killing endangered birds
I remember driving through Indiana. At night the sky was filled ( I mean anywhere I looked, about every 300 feet every direction) red beacons blinked on and off. Like a grid of aliens. I wouldn't want to live under a sky filled with beacons instead of stars.
In West Texas, it ruins your view of the sky. Used to be so clear you could see the Milky Way easily on any non-full moon night. Now there's just blinky red light pollution everywhere.
I work for an electric company. No one that I work with has a problem with “renewable” energy as long as it makes sense. So far, none really do. There are a lot of pros and cons pointed out here but there are many more cons that he didn’t bring up. The energy and materials needed to mine the raw materials used in these turbines is massive. The worlds consumption of copper and steel mean that new copper and steel must constantly be mined and processed. Yes these materials are recycled after the turbine comes down but to build a new one means that nearly all the materials have to be new. There is just more need for materials than past production and recycling can provide. We, in the industry, don’t resist “green” energy, in fact, my company is a leader in replacing our older production plants with more renewables, but it needs to make better sense than it currently does. Solar and wind produce more negative effects on the planet than they eliminate. Nuclear is a good source but we haven’t updated our handling and recycling rules for contaminated materials meaning that we end up burying it all (an environmental sin that will one day haunt us all). Hydroelectric is great but many people complain about it. Nothing will satisfy everybody. We are all waiting for that breakthrough in technology that solves the energy conundrum. I ask two things of people: 1 be patient as we try to fulfill the needs of society 2 get to work on that next great idea.
Great post, I'm curious is it possible that the massive amount of satellites covering our planet like a blanket and the huge amount of space garbage out in our atmosphere create an adverse effect on our climate jet stream that could show big swings in cold or hot seasons. It would be ironic if these elite billionaires like Gates and Steyer pushing this climate scare are the cause
Exactly,thank you sir.you are spot on correct.im a retired engineer and have yelled about the how the old steel and aluminum lines loose lots of power.wind and solar needs new copper lines to be effective. You would have to rebuild the entire power grid with lo loss copper or silver copper wound transformers,and switching.the cost would be crazy expensive. As you know copper could be made smaller on lines,and still carry more amps and volts.solor power has not been good as it fatigued copper at a excelerated rate above 2000 v..the solar appears to eat the copper to make watts.dont make sence,..iv studied this junk for years,worked in 14 states over the years .retired and too old to get back into it.you be carefull,God bless you..
@@olivertaylor8788 let's hope liberal cult followers are paying attention
@@olivertaylor8788 Copper can carry more volts and amps? Had you said just amps I would agree. I understand that copper is a better conductor than steel. I thought the only limitation on voltage was insulation to prevent arcing. High tension lines use air as an insulator. More voltage the greater the distance between lines. Spark plug wires, which carry 30,000 or more volts use heavy insulation and shielding. Please explain how copper can carry more volts.
@@optitom9033 Hush! Don't suggest such a thing. Heads will begin to pop.
Nice video, I've been a wind energy technician since 2006 and currently a project manager. I can give you insight on the details from some of your points. 1 is complaints about the noise they make; when a wind turbine blade is struck by lightning it usually crsts a whole at the tip which in turn makes it whistle, this damage is repaired within 2 months depending on severity. 2 is wildlife; before a site is built a 2 year is of the area is performed to gauge wind degree and wildlife such as birds. During the construction of the site a "birdwatcher" ison during work hours to mitigate and report our footprint. Just some info from someone who's literally built these turbines from the ground up. 👍🏽
Would like to see a side by side comparison of Nuclear power vs the various green sources
Look it up, simple. Oh, watch out, wind and solar advocates always forget to include their subsidies in their calculation, convenient huh?
I went to a very large building in North Germany that made wind turbine blades. It was closed, out of business. The energy it took to build the blades was a massive polluter.
HOFOR is doing a pilot project at the Middelgrunden Wind farm outside Copenhagen to see how much of the windmills that can be reused.
The Foundation and towers for example can last much longer than the Narcelles, Gearbox, wings etc.
Great video Matt! Thank you!
Thank you for helping to answer some of my biggest concerns about wind energy.
I still feel like I don't know enough :( how much CO2 equivalent is produced to obtain the resources? The manufacturing? Shipping? He did say something about installation... Acre per gigawatt... Service? Decommission?
The problem with wind remains that it only produces on average about 30% of rated capacity. You have to over build by a factor if 3 to 4 and pay to keep a bunch of fossil fuel plants in hot standby.
Awesome educational video but the title offsets. Also after working in the field, 4 years, many improvements still to come.
Hard to compare cost when governments subsidize them.
Don't forget, fossil fuels are also massively subsidized.
yes the state of north dakota is spending $66 million in covid funds to plug adandoned oil wells. subsidy ?
@@erniew5805 Exactly ernie. Future generations will have no choice but to bear the cost of fossil fuel useage. In an ideal world a global sales tax should have been applied, to pay for future costs, i reckon it would have quadrupled the price of a barrel. Imagine what that would have done to the success of unsubsidized nuclear and renewables. This is one of the reasons our financial state appears to get worse and worse, the actual cost of goods and services is not being revealed due to massive unaccounted for subsidies, and sooner or later someone has to pay. Also remember nuclear can be classed as fossil, due to the amount of CO2 generated in mining, refining, building etc due to our current oil based economy.
Conservative estimates put U.S. direct subsidies to the fossil fuel industry at roughly $20 billion per year; with 20 percent currently allocated to coal and 80 percent to natural gas and crude oil.
@@robertdewar1752 "due to the amount of CO2 generated in mining, refining, building etc " The same thing could be said for renewables, especially solar panel production and disposal. Using a Thorium based nuclear power generation the CO2 could be extremely minimal including any waste handling (short life and minimal) issues.
The levelized cost of electricity, which eliminates the impact of incentives and subsidies on the final prices, places wind below $40/MW-hr in 2018. The cheapest form of natural gas generation was roughly $10 more per MegaWatt-hour.
I couldn't help but notice that there was no mention about the process of dealing with the worn blades from the wind mills in the ocean. Shall we take a guess as to where those are ending up?
I hear a lot of talk about the 'cradle-to-grave' carbon footprint of electric vehicles, but not so much about the 'cradle-to-grave' carbon footprint of these windmills.
I wish you might have looked into the adverse effects of low frequency vibrations on farms. I've seen a small study where farmers were losing their livestock and even the families had to move away because of serious ailments. Seems the vibrations were causing the livestock to become ill and unable to reproduce and the farmers were unable to sleep and came down with unexplained ailments.
You might be on to something! My friends bought a farm a few years back less than a mile from a bunch of wind turbines. Some of their chickens get frostbite in the winters. Plus they go to bed by 11 and have to sleep until 7am every day. In one big vibration their truck went off the road and it got totaled.
@@fishhuntadventure wat..
Placebo is one hell of a drug
I do not know about livestock being unable to reproduce, but turbines do create hearable noise that can prevent neighbors to sleep. Nowadays, the majority of countries where the wind industry is in have legislation against night noises. I know that there are huuge fines in Germany, for example. For such a case, the turbine is set to produce less at night and therefore produce less noise.
Oh come on, they allowed them on their property for the money...
And when they burn up they do it spectacularly
Ancient info, a few early wind turbines, decades ago, did catch fire but modern wind turbines don't. Fossil fuel plants are not immune to catching fire or worse also
@@stevehayward2533 i missed the part where fossil fuels were made from fiberglass....
@@troyb3659 Troy. Don't bug little Stevie. He is a good little go greenie that thinks he can change what has gone on with the earth for four and a half billion years by paying more taxes!!!!
@@stevehayward2533 On the way to SW Texas I saw one of these "new" wind turbines engufled in flames, gearbox failure oil running down the pylon and the whole thing in flames. the blades eventually fell off and partially burned also...so hmmmmm. Was told it was not the first one that burned. Ground was Saturated with unburned oil also!
They don't do it often, nor do our machines murder 10 people at a time when they do, like oil rigs, out in the ocean. Deepwater Horizon, for example.
1. Wind turbines make little to no noise (I live next to a wind farm)
2. More birds die by cars than wind turbines.
3. If done properly, not a lot of infrastructure will need to be built to support a wind farm.
Domestic cats kill an estimated 4 billion birds annually. Kitty is a monster!
when I retired in 2010 the US was talking about Green energy and wind turbines...but I had never seen one and already there was a lot of push back on where to put them... Until I moved to China. There, one of my first impressions was the number of wind turbines everywhere and how far advanced the Chinese were in that technology!
The Chinese don't "advance". They steal tech. And in China there's no objections from the populace to having a wind farm in their back yard because the CCP owns every square foot of ground, and can do whatever it wants whenever it wants.
And if they are so advanced, why are they the world's leading builder of coal fired power plants?
Could you do video on wave generators?? Those sound very interesting
Wave power would be a great topic to learn about. It seem that it has hit a wall with development and isn’t advancing into commercial use.
Waves are wind powered. They are there when the wind blows. Same disadvantages.
Jonathan Wetherell ...So when it’s a calm day the ocean currents and tidal action stops too?
@@erikarneberg11 Those are driven by the sun and moon and are very predictable. Waves are driven by the wind. Try blowing across a bowl of water!
Wave generators sound like a no brainer, in practice the technology is very difficult, due storm damage, corrosion and contamination.
Your video summarizes very well the environmental challenges of wind power. Unfortunately, it omits a large part of the adverse environmental impact of wind turbines: that they are manufactured in some of the dirtiest and most polluted manufacturing areas on Earth, many of them in China. And the raw materials used in wind turbine manufacture, including the mining of rare earth elements for the magnetic components of turbine motors, often cause serious environmental damage through pollution that is very difficult and costly to remediate.
Good talk, giving good and bad sides, not just for or against.
the new radar that makes it so the red lights only flash if there's a plane nearby are VERY cool.
Yes ...but how many KWh of energy are used to produce and install one? and how many KWh will one produce ?
@James Smith No, it’s certainly not true. The best option by far is nuclear. We’ve had reliable reactors for 50 years with excellent control systems . The waste can go back where it came from, deep underground. Unfortunately the media and uneducated people seem to fear it for no good reason. Don’t let poor countries build dangerous reactors and have a universal guideline on where to build them ( not near fault lines or sea fronts.
Tidal power could add to this if developed properly but it doesn’t give the visual impact the green team want to virtue signal about how they are saving the planet. Saving it from what exactly ? It’s a huge rock filled with molten rock.
Overpopulation will be our downfall, that’s already clear ....how do you effectively control the population growth without being called a Nazi is the question .
@James Smith You are missing the point. A nuclear power plant can easily produce 500 MWH every hour of the day for up to 40 years!!! That is just one plant. At 0.4 cents a KW that isn't expensive at all. All green power options available right now are sun or weather dependent, which is useless at night or a calm day. Nuclear wins hands down in every aspect.
@James Smith No it was about the fact that it will never produce enough electricity to cover the cost of installation and maintenance...A nuclear reactor will produce way more in terms of supply during its life span....it's not about the initial outlay.
In other words it's just a green "show" and completely pointless. Do you know how much CO2 is produced in making the cement / concrete for a wind turbine base? it would be better not being there at all.
@James Smith Just for 1 turbine you need 30,000 tons of concrete, 65 lorry loads......because a lot are in remote locations miles of roads also have to be built. Now imagine what is involved installing them out at sea. The whole thing is insane.
I have a PhD in environmental engineering. Its easy to cut the analysis short - if anything truly is going to work it won't require subsidies - until then keep it in small scale/pilot R&D mode until it can.
You are absolutely correct! I have been trying to make that exact argument for years "If wind and solar is so profitable , then why do they get such MASSIVE subsidies from the government?" Remember Solyndra? The solar power company that was given 500 million dollars from Obama in the stimulus package, and then declared bankruptcy 6 months later? Sorry, if you can't make it when you are handed millions of dollars of free money, then you can't make it!! Ever!
That does kind of ignore that the mass production of solar has brought the cost down hugely; wind also though not to the same extent; and the environmental cost of continuing to screw up the environment... I would go so far as to say that comment contradicts fundamental principles regarding both the environment and engineering (with regards to volume production)
Exactly right, they only work with massive subsidies. This massively impacts the lower waged and the poor with 20% green taxes applied to their energy bills.
The newer turbines don't use gears, but have direct eletro-inductive systems, which I read about in "New Scientist" about twenty years ago, also if they used dynamos with enhanced conductors, then one turbine could replace up to 100 + old systems.
The ‘REALY’ smart people will be looking into creating energy that DOSEN’T include wind turbines.
Wrong. Wind and solar are neck in neck right now in terms of $/kWh. In the future itll simply come down to who can produce at the lowest cost
@@seriousbees your choice but personally I don’t like either. 👍
I wonder if the ‘REALY’ smart people can spell ‘REALLY’ correctly
The 'realy' smart people? So not you then.
They are suppressed by the green energy fairy tale Marxists
But what happens when We run out of things to make with the Recycled turbines?
@Sen Se The old wooden turbines were also less efficient
@Sen Se But would we be able to make them tall enough to reach the fast winds at high altitudes?
If only that Giant Meteor 2020 had shown up like it was supposed to, all this would be solved now.
Biden beat Trump, so they steered it away. /s
Do a segment on RTGs. Radiologic Thermoelectric Generators. A Soviet thing to power lighthouses etc. with Plutonium heat source thermocouple power. Lax oversight where these things are deployed. They look like a a BBQ grill propane tank in a steel cage and are highly deadly in any release!!
Kill one duck and you're a tailings pond "boo! boo! hiss". Kill a million ducks and you're a wind turbine "crickets".
Can the blades be strung together and attached to the seafloor to seed coral reefs?
No, I'm sorry Nunya. The blades are filled with very light weight polyurethane or polyethylene foam or balsa. They were much to buoyant to try to keep stable underwater. And the chemicals that leech out of them could be toxic as well.
@@rodofdallas Oh. The vids said they were made of carbon. Maybe they should look at another "filler" material.
@@nunya___ their skins are made of either fiberglass or are reinforced with carbon fiber. But the skins are only fractions of an inch thick. The bulk of the mass is very lightweight foam like structure. Usually one of the poly-based foams or balsa. They have to be very strong and very light at the same time.
By the time you figure cost to produce and install a turbine, cost of the land to set it up, verses the amount of generation, it is expensive. NOW, you have to decide how to dispose of old ones, which is another story. Just the carbon footprint of building, installing and maintaining is very high. A professor at UCSD a few years ago calculated the wind farm out by Palm Springs, and said the cost per kilowatt of electricity was three times higher than buying it from Southern California Edison. Wind is not the renewable energy source people think. I heard one time and scientist working on new energy source make the comment, " Until this new source can be put on a 747 and fly from LA to New York, its not a dependable energy source."
Objectively, I think that this kind of Energy still is at its early days of development.. We need some time to make this work out!!
And hundreds of billions of dollars, and Duetch-marks, and kroner, and gold, and silver!
Great presentation on the many pros and few cons of wind power. Wonderful job. Keep it up.
Few cons 😂😂 so your giving up your land to build wind and solar farms on? Didn’t think so.
There was one observation made, that making the blades black substantially reduced bird deaths as they saw them better.
?
The color black absorbs heat, which breaks down the chemicals and fibers of the blades causing premature failure and component separation(ie throwing the tons of blade hundreds of feet to kill what ever it randomly lands on.) or into the ocean to leak toxic chemicals into the water.
I do wonder why we don't see piles of dead birds at the foot of tall buildings, electricity pylons, large trees and other tall structures? Might it simply be that this "wind turbines kill birds" thing is simply a load of cobblers?
@@Brian-om2hh I suspect it is PARTLY that the “bird killer” thing is overrated. (Think of how many birds must be killed due to habitat destruction to mine and burn coal etc. and how little we hear about that.) However, buildings, pylons etc. tend to be easily visible; and they are not moving, I suspect that wind turbines, due to being light in colour, and the blades being both slender and moving are more difficult for birds to see. I do see a difference. I am still fine with wind turbines.
@@Brian-om2hh ummm, how many tall buildings, electricity pylons and trees MOVE at 150+ miles per hour... and the .gov has done multiple studies that document the environmental impacts of all structures(required by the .gov for most all major installations)... feel free to educate yourself. It is all free and online.
"So, yes, maybe wind power does come with more downsides that many of us first realized." That is because "many of us" don't listen. All of these issues were brought up 50 years ago. Next time, maybe "many of us" should wait until after these issues have been solved before making these sorts of mistakes and leaving it up to others to figure out how to fix them, while patting yourselves on the back for being so unquestionably righteous.
It really doesn't though. Thing is, no one really has access to these machines. No one gets tours inside them. Dirty Jobs did a segment on wind turbines,which to be honest, was kinda a joke. A lot more work goes into maintaining our machines than that.
We have here a basic misunderstanding of the concept known as "development". Light bulbs were developed. V-8 engines were developed. And successful developments take time and cost money.
Every single turbine made is a prototype. I work with turbines. There’s always a better way to harness the energy. You don’t make a computer mode to solve these issues. If we let computer models decide how to run the energy, the turbines aren’t safe for human interaction (the technicians doing maintenance). They’re already deathtraps for unaware people like you, which is not an insult but there are many factors that make these machines deadly. Wind turbines need to be as efficient as possible with the ability to be troubleshot and be provided maintenance to. This video is still full of the lack of knowledge it takes to understand why turbines operate the way they do. The bird problem could be solved by reducing the main culprit of growing populations of feral cats but turbines seem to be peoples choice of blame. Turbines of all kinds NEED to be built and tested. There’s no other way around it regardless of what anyone thinks. They need to prove safe, effective, and efficient before we ever stop making new kinds of turbines. Learn about them. They’re a lot more fascinating than people give them credit for.
The main problem with wind power (and solar power for that matter) is inherent intermittency, which of course works against grid stability.
Thankfully, grid level battery storage is in development. In five or ten years, grid level battery banks will be more common, and that should help.
I think its important to point out that figure about birds being killed annually by turbines is actually misleading. While the figure itself is correct (Estimated between 1 - 1.5 million now) its such a small percentage of; not only the bird population, but even of things that kill birds that we already use. Its something like 0.015% of the bird population and around 0.5% of ''human'' related bird deaths with things like mobile towers reaching far into the 8 digit range of bird deaths and even domestic cats kill approximately a billion each year. These states are global so maybe there is some regional bias based on usage of wind turbines and amount of people who own cats but i can't imagine wide adoption of wind turbines will shift the table that drastically
I heard that when a gas or coal plant is built, it just magically appears overnight!
Nobody thinks that.
But the amount of material needed to produce a MW of coal or gas is a fraction of the same amount of material needed to build a MW of wind. And it’s more reliable, too.
@@M0rmagil
If you consider the actual footprint and include mountain top removal or open pot mining the equation starts to change. When you add the rail needed to move the coal it has swing even further. A powerplants footprint must include the energy source. Every part of the energy supply. Wind turbine can be recycled including the blades. Every part of the turbine is 100% recyclable. But the real issue is the amount of fuel needed to power a coal plant. If that is ignored then the equation is invalid.
@@andrewday3206 the rails already exist.
@@isaaclang6031
So the fuel required to move the coal is magically pollution free?
@@andrewday3206 Go a day without your car, bus, or subway, don't eat all day, no water, no internet, no TV, no phone, no emergency services with a blanket and hot chocolate. Understand the things you hate so much before you criticize them.
There is a channel on here (James Biggar), and he has a step by step video series on how he built his windmill. He made the blades out of wood. The nice thing about wind too, is it can make power at night! I am honestly looking at property right now because I want to put several windmills up for power and farm crypto. Solar too!
Farming cryptos. Such a noble purpose.
James probably produces more electricity per dollar of cost than ANY wind turbine set-up.
Please keep in mind the graph shown at 1:42, is only for electrical energy produced and not total energy produced. Of total energy produced wind is sitting around 2%. This data is also only comprehensive of reporting countries. Countries that are developing (ie most countries in Africa,South America and parts of Asia) almost get no power from wind so that 2% number is much less.
I just finished this video. The one unmentioned repercussion not mentioned is the resistance of the blades and generator's effect of the overall wind/weather pattern and climate change that will occur because of it. Sure it is small but look what water can do to stone over a period of time. I would be interested in your opinion.