Wind energy blowing away nuclear power

[jpak]

http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15903703,00.html

Wind energy supplies 3 percent of global electricity needs and will soon supply more electricity than nuclear power. In 2011, some 50 billion euros were invested in wind, leading some to say it's cheap and creates jobs.

Wind energy is booming and it is gaining in significance worldwide. It supplies some 20 percent of electricity in Spain and Denmark as well as about 10 percent in Germany. By 2020, the share of wind energy will have risen to between 20 percent and 25 percent in Germany, according to estimates.

Last year, new wind power plants with a total capacity of some 40 gigawatts (GW) were installed worldwide, according to the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA). This puts wind energy's global capacity at 237 GW by the end of 2011- the equivalent of what some 280 nuclear power plants generate. Currently, there are some 380 nuclear power plants producing electricity worldwide.

Wind energy has expanded at a remarkable speed worldwide, WWEA said. There has been an annual 20 percent increase in wind turbine installations. The WWEA said it expects a four-time increase in wind power capacity by 2020, bringing performance up to more than 1,000 GW.

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[Champion Jack]

1. K&R

[redqueen]

2. K&R

I wonder how large a part cronyism and or corruption played in it taking so long to develop and implement this technology.

[liberal N proud]

3. That's encouraging!

[blackspade]

4. Take that, nuclear power!

[Overseas]

5. K&R. Glad to hear it.

[exboyfil]

6. In Iowa they are pushing for a new reactor

I am against it. The Wind Energy Association states we can get 570,000 megawatts if we fully utilize wind in Iowa (I think the number is high but it can start a conversation). The new reactor is proposed to yield 540 megawatts. We still don't have a place for the used nuclear material (after 60+ years).

[valerief]

7. The hot air in the House could fuel this country for 100 years. But it's time for a cool breeze

to energize us.

[stonecutter357]

8. K&R...

[NickB79]

9. And here in the US, fracked natural gas blows them both away

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/02/146297284/could-cheap-gas-slow-growth-of-renewable-energy

The boom in cheap natural gas in this country is good news for the environment, because relatively clean gas is replacing dirty coal-fired power plants. But in the long run, cheap natural gas could slow the growth of even cleaner sources of energy, such as wind and solar power.

Which would really, really suck

[Agony]

10. even so full life cycle natural gas isn't necessarily cleaner than coal

especially on a 20 year time line according to Howarth.

"Keep in mind that while methane doesn’t last in the atmosphere as long as carbon dioxide, it is a far more potent heat trapper than carbon dioxide while it’s around — roughly 25 times more potent over a 100-years time frame.

Over a 20-year time horizon, methane is 72 times more potent a greenhouse gas, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But Mr. Howarth and company took things even further, incorporating data from Drew T. Shindell at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who published a study in 2009 in the journal Science that suggested that the interaction of methane with certain atmospheric aerosols might well amplify the global warming potential of methane, rendering it up to 105 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the 20-year time frame."

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/12/fugitive-methane-stirs-debate-on-natural-gas/?partner=rss&emc=rss

[NickB79]

11. Preaching to the choir here

Cheap natural gas from fracking will the the dirtiest "clean" energy revolution in the history of mankind (unless we commercially start tapping methane hydrate reserves).