Not so Green Stuff-wonder if this is mentioned at cop 28,2950

Craig1 · Guru

Not so Green Stuff-wonder if this is mentioned at cop 28,2950

BasilB · Veteran Member

"a single 3MW wind turbine will produce over 330GWh of electricity over its lifetime. The same amount of power using coal would require 172,000 tonnes of coal to be burnt." certainly makes you think.

Aussie1 · Guru

Nuclear Power, only way to go, in my opinion.

Cassie63 · Senior Member

Nuclear second that motion

Gundog · Guru

BasilB wrote:
"a single 3MW wind turbine will produce over 330GWh of electricity over its lifetime.

Somehow I think these numbers are a bit rubbery, 330Gwh that lifetime is approx 20 years thats about 16.5Gwh per year, thats about 45Mwh per day, I could be wrong but that would mean it would have to be generating 3MW for 15 hours every day for 20 years
Maybe I'm totally wrong !

peter67 · Guru

Craig, don't forget the many miles of traffic chaos when they truck them from the wharf...

dorian · Guru

This wind farm is producing the equivalent of 8 hours of full output per turbine per day:

mtmercerwindfarm.com.au/

Blues Man · Guru

I think we're sprialling out of control at a very fast rate of knots. Our poor great grandchildren . cry

BasilB · Veteran Member

Gundog wrote:
BasilB wrote:
"a single 3MW wind turbine will produce over 330GWh of electricity over its lifetime.

Somehow I think these numbers are a bit rubbery, 330Gwh that lifetime is approx 20 years thats about 16.5Gwh per year, thats about 45Mwh per day, I could be wrong but that would mean it would have to be generating 3MW for 15 hours every day for 20 years

he did start with a 30 year lifespan.

peter67 · Guru

And I believe it's 20 or less.

dorian · Guru

https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7875513/the-ultimate-recycling-turning-turbine-blades-into-a-tasty-treat/

"The expected lifetime for a wind turbine is up to 30 years. Ten Mile Lagoon in Western Australia was Australia's first commercial wind farm of note having been established in 1993.

It is still operating now and could keep operating for a number of years. The nine turbines produce just over 2MW. Modern wind turbines start at 3MW per individual turbine."

So the actual lifetime is 30+ years.

As for a coal-fired power station ...

"The average lifespan of a coal-fired power station is 29 years. I rarely hear people ask what we will do with the old power station at the end of its life."

-- Edited by dorian on Tuesday 5th of December 2023 03:31:27 AM

peter67 · Guru

Well we've already seen in Craig's post picture what they are doing with turbine blades, and why sneakily cut them up and bury them in the bush when you could transport them to a controlled landfill site in the cities?...scared the zealot green energy followers would actually see their mistaken windfarm ideology passing their own front doors???
That picture should have past greenies spinning in their graves.

Lets not forget that EV batteries and solar panels are not a commercially recyclable proposition for ANY company, do I hear the words GOVERNMENT SUSIDIES again?? this is on top of the collapse of soft plastic recycling in Aussie, that's all going in to landfill as well. As yobarr would say, NO cheers here.

Are We Lost · Guru

dorian wrote:

"The average lifespan of a coal-fired power station is 29 years.

Eraring is Australia's largest power station. From Origin Energy's website:

"In February 2022 Origin notified the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) of the potential early retirement of Eraring in August 2025"

It was commissioned in 1982 with all four coal powered generators coming online in 1984. So it may be shut down early, some 43 years after commissioning.

A quick look at the list of power stations shows that 29 year lifespan to be totally false. In fact the larger ones are typically over 50 years.

Wkipedia: Australia's power stations

The Travelling Dillberries · Guru

A rubbish thread in more ways than one. A pretty serious inaccurate dealing with the facts as In the US (and will follow in other countries) Veolia are currently recycling blades, ( contrary to the op), grinding them down to produce a significant strengthening additive in concrete. A central depot has been set up to handle the blades.

dorian · Guru

Yallourn's power stations were built before the climate crisis, so the decommissioning decisions would have been based on purely engineering factors. Admittedly they would be old technology, but the life varies between 28 and 39 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yallourn_Power_Station

Commission date

Yallourn A: 1928
Yallourn B: 1932
Yallourn C: 1954
Yallourn D: 1957
Yallourn E: 1961
Yallourn W: 1973-1982

Decommission date

A: 1969 - 39 years
B: 1970 - 38 years
C: 1985 - 29 years
D: 1986 - 29 years
E: 1989 - 28 years

The earlier Wikipedia article states that in 2017 75% of Australia's power stations were operating beyond their design life. What is to say that wind farms cannot achieve similar longevity?

-- Edited by dorian on Tuesday 5th of December 2023 02:07:50 PM

Are We Lost · Guru

Dorian you singled out Yallourn, cherrypicking to justify your point. And even then, more than 29 year lives. But those decommissioned ones were all at least 60 year old technology and small in scale. The current one, Yallourn W has been in operation for 50 years. Another 5 years to go if it does not get extended.

-- Edited by Are We Lost on Tuesday 5th of December 2023 12:43:04 PM

Plain Truth · Guru

dorian · Guru

This project cuts emissions by putting data centres inside wind turbines:

https://edition.cnn.com/world/windcores-data-center-wind-turbines-climate-scn-spc-c2e/index.html

Accounting for up to 1.5% of global electricity use, data centers are fueling the climate crisis. Currently, there are estimated to be more than 8,000 data centers worldwide, with more being planned every year to power the rise in global digital services.

While there have been efforts to reduce their carbon footprint using wind energy, a new German-based project takes it one step further.

WindCORES, a subsidiary of German renewable electricity company WestfalenWIND, operates data centers inside wind turbines located in a wind park in the Paderborn district in western Germany, which the company says makes the centers almost carbon neutral.

According to Asim Hussain, chairperson and executive director of the non-profit Green Software Foundation, the windCORES concept is "quite clever" because it battles one of the biggest issues in renewable energy: curtailment.

"When there's more electricity being generated than people are consuming, you can't store it, there's no big batteries -- so you just have to throw it away; that's curtailment," he explained. "Now, it doesn't matter even if they're [windCORES] told to throw electricity away [by the electricity grid], they've got their own data center to power"

peter67 · Guru

The Travelling Dillberries wrote:
A rubbish thread in more ways than one. A pretty serious inaccurate dealing with the facts as In the US (and will follow in other countries) Veolia are currently recycling blades, ( contrary to the op), grinding them down to produce a significant strengthening additive in concrete. A central depot has been set up to handle the blades.

Out of interest I looked at Veolia US website and Business Insider who reviewed their operation. The turbine blade manufacturer, GE Renewable Energy (US Government subsidies) PAYS Veolia to recycle the blades as FUEL for the limestone kilns used in concrete manufacturing plants. Veolia then PAYS the cement manufacturing companies to use it as fuel in their kilns saying it burns cleaner then coal, no percentage cleaner is stated. If there was a big gain in cleaner than coal me thinks they would be trumpeting that. I say again, it is not a commercially viable business.

I include a picture of their "central depot"

Craig1 · Guru

And such safe working practices, goes with the dump yard I guess. Wind would blow the waste away. Operator contracts " Bladeosous " as well as the looker on.

Gundog · Guru

Craig1 wrote:
And such safe working practices, goes with the dump yard I guess. Wind would blow the waste away. Operator contracts " Bladeosous " as well as the looker on.

SWP's here and unions would not allow this to occur.

Alas Far Nth Qld has piles of used turbine baldes just chucked in the bush

Aussie1 · Guru

Yep, definitely Nuclear. Only and best way to go.

dogbox · Guru

peter67 wrote:

The Travelling Dillberries wrote:
A rubbish thread in more ways than one. A pretty serious inaccurate dealing with the facts as In the US (and will follow in other countries) Veolia are currently recycling blades, ( contrary to the op), grinding them down to produce a significant strengthening additive in concrete. A central depot has been set up to handle the blades.

Out of interest I looked at Veolia US website and Business Insider who reviewed their operation. The turbine blade manufacturer, GE Renewable Energy (US Government subsidies) PAYS Veolia to recycle the blades as FUEL for the limestone kilns used in concrete manufacturing plants. Veolia then PAYS the cement manufacturing companies to use it as fuel in their kilns saying it burns cleaner then coal, no percentage cleaner is stated. If there was a big gain in cleaner than coal me thinks they would be trumpeting that. I say again, it is not a commercially viable business.
I include a picture of their "central depot"

I do believe that asbestos was also used as a strengthening agent in concrete and we know were that went, could this be the next big problem after manufactured stone drops out of the head lines? I do notice that safety(PPE) doesn't rate very high in the photo, so if they are not concerned about their own health and safety i would not be thinking that they would be worried about anyone else's either.