etpm
Veteran Member
Last March, March 2022, in the USA lower 48 states, windpower generated more power, 2017 gigawatts, which was 19% of total power produced, than either coal or nuclear. Nuclear was just slightly less than wind and coial was at 17%. This has never happened before in the USA. To be clear, this happened for at least two reasons, there was lots of wind and nuclear power plants were producing less because of maintenance. However, this is a good harbinger of things to come.
There are many things that need to be done in order to make wind a larger producer of power. One major problem is power storage when the wind isn't blowing. Fortunately there are battery technologies that don't involve lithium that can be and are now being used for stationary energy storage. Though not as energy dense as lithium type batteries it doesn't matter because the batteries only take up space, they don't need to be hauled around. So the weight and size are not nearly as important as portable storage is. And less energy density does not necessarily mean less energy efficient.
As windpower supplies more and more of our power even less efficient methods of energy storage can still be used economically because there can often be spot surpluses of power available and instead of reducing power output of the windmills the less efficient method of power storage can be used.
This makes me happy. It will be better for our world to not burn fossil fuels. The burning and mining and processing of fossil fuels pollute our air and water. Windpower also does to a much lesser extent because of what it takes to make the windmills. And it is true that right now there is a pretty big problem disposing of the huge windmill blades that have reached their end of life and must be replaced. Some clever folks have figured out a way to use these still very strong blades in bridge construction. But that is really not going to be able to re-use all the discarded windmill blades.
So we still need to work on making windpower a less polluting energy producer but it is already much cleaner than oil or coal or natural gas. And we will as a nation benefit from cleaner and safer energy production.
Nuclear power is a whole 'nuther ball o' wax and even though I think it has its place now I also think it would be best to get rid of it just because of the waste problem. We here in USA are not dealing properly and honestly with the problem of storing the highly poisonous nuclear waste. It is not just the radioactivity either. The waste consists of materials which are extremely toxic in and of themselves and which will still be so even when the radioactivity of the materials have decayed considerably. For this and many other reasons that I do not want to get into discussing the drawbacks of nuclear power at this time.
Anyway, windpower produced very nearly one fifth of the power the lower 48 used in March. ONE FIFTH! That is truly impressive and a good thing for the nation. It bodes well for the coming generations of Americans.
Cheers,
Eric
There are many things that need to be done in order to make wind a larger producer of power. One major problem is power storage when the wind isn't blowing. Fortunately there are battery technologies that don't involve lithium that can be and are now being used for stationary energy storage. Though not as energy dense as lithium type batteries it doesn't matter because the batteries only take up space, they don't need to be hauled around. So the weight and size are not nearly as important as portable storage is. And less energy density does not necessarily mean less energy efficient.
As windpower supplies more and more of our power even less efficient methods of energy storage can still be used economically because there can often be spot surpluses of power available and instead of reducing power output of the windmills the less efficient method of power storage can be used.
This makes me happy. It will be better for our world to not burn fossil fuels. The burning and mining and processing of fossil fuels pollute our air and water. Windpower also does to a much lesser extent because of what it takes to make the windmills. And it is true that right now there is a pretty big problem disposing of the huge windmill blades that have reached their end of life and must be replaced. Some clever folks have figured out a way to use these still very strong blades in bridge construction. But that is really not going to be able to re-use all the discarded windmill blades.
So we still need to work on making windpower a less polluting energy producer but it is already much cleaner than oil or coal or natural gas. And we will as a nation benefit from cleaner and safer energy production.
Nuclear power is a whole 'nuther ball o' wax and even though I think it has its place now I also think it would be best to get rid of it just because of the waste problem. We here in USA are not dealing properly and honestly with the problem of storing the highly poisonous nuclear waste. It is not just the radioactivity either. The waste consists of materials which are extremely toxic in and of themselves and which will still be so even when the radioactivity of the materials have decayed considerably. For this and many other reasons that I do not want to get into discussing the drawbacks of nuclear power at this time.
Anyway, windpower produced very nearly one fifth of the power the lower 48 used in March. ONE FIFTH! That is truly impressive and a good thing for the nation. It bodes well for the coming generations of Americans.
Cheers,
Eric
