Non Renewable Renewable Energy Harvesters

[Default0ptions]

I’m not sure that anyone has done the maths on this but, over its working lifetime, does either a wind turbine or a solar panel actually provide enough energy to replace itself?

Or are they actually energy sinks?

I’m interested in hard facts here, not just flag waving for renewables.

At the moment every single stage of manufacturing and erecting a new wind turbine or solar panel depends totally on fossil fuels.

So are they actually green?

https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2023 ... the-water/

[northernmonkey]

The EROEI numbers, in totality, are very hard to come by (I've looked). Which makes me suspect those numbers are not good.

[Default0ptions]

The question is still worth asking: can a wind turbine or a solar panel actually produce more energy in it’s working lifetime than it took to make it?

If it can’t even produce enough energy to reproduce it’s self once - it’s game over for renewables

[adam2]

Wind power is now cheaper than most other sources. It is often said that energy=money. This is only approximately true due to taxes, grants and subsidies, but it remains a useful guide.
A modern wind turbine pays for itself in about 6 months, which suggests ENERGY payback in a roughly similar time.

Pv modules also repay the costs of installation in a year or two, suggesting ENERGY payback in about the same time. The working life of PV modules is very long, possibly a century or so.
In off grid premises, PV is often replacing small petrol driven generators, or oil lamps, an even greater gain than replacing large scale and efficient CCGT power stations.

[Default0ptions]

I’m really not sure that if you take into account the energy investment at each stage from grubbing up the rare earths and lithium, refining them, transporting them, manufacturing the drive train, fossil fuels for all concrete and turbine blades, transporting everything to the site, erecting it, adding to the grid infrastructure to be able to get the power out . . .

Then add in storage - so more materials need to be mined, processed, transported and then assembled.

And you need an alternative generation capacity for every megawatt for when the wind doesn’t shine and the sun won’t blow . . .

Basic case: if you have only one wind turbine - can you build another from the energy you get from the first?

[Default0ptions]

I do struggle with some of the figures involved in renewables sorry. But this surely isn’t good?

If wind power is low cost and efficient, why do these companies “repeatedly say that the maximum price the state would pay for electricity was set too low to make the projects economically viable”?

“UK subsidies for offshore windfarms likely to increase amid rising costs”

“Concerns reached a peak after none of the companies hoping to build offshore windfarms in the UK took part in the government’s most recent annual clean energy auction, having repeatedly said that the maximum price the state would pay for electricity was set too low to make the projects economically viable.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/20 ... sing-costs

Why would a cheap and low cost option need subsidies at all?

I’m just interested sorry.

[Ralphw2]

The price the government was offering was substantially less than that for any other source of electricity, and was set before general inflation hit 10% and energy intensive inflation was far higher. Since then the government has increased the offer price, and oil and gas prices have fallen again as the global market rebalances after the Ukraine invasion.

[Default0ptions]

The price the government was offering was substantially less than that for any other source of electricity, and was set before general inflation hit 10% and energy intensive inflation was far higher. Since then the government has increased the offer price, and oil and gas prices have fallen again as the global market rebalances after the Ukraine invasion.

Adam: “Wind power is now cheaper than most other sources.”

I’m still struggling to see how an option that’s cheaper than most other sources needs to be subsidised though.

[clv101]

Nuclear get bigger subsidies. Gas gets a free pass on the largest externality in human history.

Energy is like food, it's all subsidised, very hard to know what any kind of 'free market' price is.

[Default0ptions]

Nuclear get bigger subsidies. Gas gets a free pass on the largest externality in human history.

Energy is like food, it's all subsidised, very hard to know what any kind of 'free market' price is.

Yeah nuclear energy was going to be ‘too cheap to meter’. So do renewables need subsidising because all the other sources are subsidised then?

They’re not actually game-changingly cheaper?

And what about intermittency? And are wind turbines and solar panels recyclable?

“Welcome to the wind turbine graveyard”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-51325101

Obsolete wind turbines: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=obsolete+wind ... &ia=images

Once the offshore fields become obsolete they will be a massive maritime hazard.

Then we have solar panels:

“Challenge to stop solar panels becoming a 'waste mountain'”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65602519

[Ralphw2]

Offshore turbines may one day be a hazard to shipping but they will almost certainly be excellent artificial reefs for sea life, and fish nurseries protected from the massive ove fishing the UK waters have suffered for many decades or centuries. North Sea trawler fishing has done massive harm to the marine environment.

Abandoned oil rigs can also be artificial reefs, except they are usually so full of toxic sludge as to be highly hazardous to life.

As yet, practical recycling of wind turbine blades is difficult. The towers, however, in most cases are expected to be reusable in situ after the first generation of turbine is end of life.

Solar panels are likely to be at least partially recycled, to recover structural aluminium frames, and probably copper. the bulk of the remainder is silicon dioxide, or processed sand. it should not represent a siginificant hazard if it does end up in landfill. A lot less than most coal mine slag heaps, for example.

[Default0ptions]

I’m pretty sure that as we move into an uncertain future the only renewable renewable energy harvesters will be of the well tried and tested, low tech, proven windmills of wood and stone and canvas.

High tech alternatives look good only in a world in which high tech alternatives are possible.

The windmills that still work a hundred years from now, when the incredible bounty of stored energy in fossil fuels has long since gone, will be made of wood and stone and canvas.

If we were a sensible species we should be doing all that we possibly could with the last remaining fossil fuels at our disposal to fix up and even improve our canal network, and maybe our railways.

I expect however that our brave leaders will squander the dregs that could ready us for that future on a bonfire of vanities.

I’m doing quite well so far, collapsing before the rush :)

[Default0ptions]

Offshore turbines may one day be a hazard to shipping but they will almost certainly be excellent artificial reefs for sea life, and fish nurseries protected from the massive ove fishing the UK waters have suffered for many decades or centuries. North Sea trawler fishing has done massive harm to the marine environment.

Abandoned oil rigs can also be artificial reefs, except they are usually so full of toxic sludge as to be highly hazardous to life.

As yet, practical recycling of wind turbine blades is difficult. The towers, however, in most cases are expected to be reusable in situ after the first generation of turbine is end of life.

Solar panels are likely to be at least partially recycled, to recover structural aluminium frames, and probably copper. the bulk of the remainder is silicon dioxide, or processed sand. it should not represent a siginificant hazard if it does end up in landfill. A lot less than most coal mine slag heaps, for example.

My problem with high tech renewables is that - they are totally dependent on high tech.

I don’t see any way in a future of less energy and tech that the current high tech dependent wind turbines and solar panels will be anything more than navigation hazards and landfill.

I’m all in favour of personally collapsing now to avoid the rush.

We should really be doing this as a nation.

High tech solutions fail in lockstep with the technology affordable at the time.

The long term winners will be those who ‘KISS’ - Keep It Simple Stupid!

[BritDownUnder]

Wind turbines are supposedly EROEI of 10 or more. Solar I think is a little less 5 to 10. This compares badly with EROEI of gas plants of about 50 to 80.

Wind turbines except the blades are probably quite recyclable. Solar panels less so.

As Tainter said, becoming more sustainable may require more complexity, not less and have a greater cost but is probably better than collapse. Don't expect a better standard of living by going renewable. It will probably be a lot worse for the great majority of people.

On personal collapse I am happy to live more frugally. My parents went on a lot of cruises during their retirement but I have no desire to travel anywhere quite frankly.

I do like the increases in technology, internet, streaming TV, computer technology and games, and EV technology that was not present during my childhood. Gardening still gives the greatest pleasure though.