On Thu, 27 Jul 2006 14:19:01 +0200, Stephen M Baines
Just wait - or you could ask the Finns. Britain was "supposed" to be decommissioning nuclear power until reality dawned. It never was really. Governments have had detailed plans for years and have just been waiting for public opinion to swing. My neutral prediction was always that public opinion would swing 10 mins into the first power cut - but it didn't take that long.
Renewables are heavily driven by vested interests and hopeful ideology. It doesn't mean all renewables are quite that useless - but ask your government some searching questions about where the energy is really going to come from, given that there's no appebreaste for energy reduction.
...and never mind the mere laws of physics. Sadly, you can't extract energy that isn't there.
They need a strong, constant wind - otherwise the blades are just turning uselessly for effect. Full power needs a 30mph wind and drops away dramatically below that. In less than 10mph output is nil. Above about 60mph (or less) they have to shut down. Wind at that height is about 40% above that at ground level - so you can track it for yourself. In Britain average output is only a claimed 27% of capacity (latest Government figure) and we're supposed to be the windiest.
A 1MW wind turbine is over 100 metres tall. To replace one 1000MW power plant (and that ain't big) you'd need an average of 1000 x 100-27 such wind turbines. That's nearly 4000 - a few more than your two. And then the output would swing dramatically from zero to occasional maximum. There'd need to be some truly mbuttive instant storage capacity to benefit - it doesn't even exist. And that makes no allowance for conversion losses or the reality that 4000 turbines can't all be sited in windy places.
In practice, the system depends on the output being so low that it doesn't matter. They just plug them into the grid and leave the power stations running anyway - that's about as useless as it gets. Power stations can't just be turned on and off when the wind blows.
I've been interested in the subject since we considered our own turbine nearly 20 years ago - and nothing's changed except they've got trendy. -- Phil C.
