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I followed Bruce's link to TOD, and i'm stunned by the amount of confusing misinformation scattered throughout the comments.  I wouldn't even know where to start unless my paid job was to deconstruct the prevalent views.

I'm thankful J posts there, but i wouldn't wish that job on anyone.  I have never seen so much false arrogance, undergirded by inappropriate statistical drivel, in years.

They got nuclear subsidies completely wrong, they have a poor understanding of capacity factors, they completely ignore externalities.  One guy posted something about Cali windparks' summer CFs, which is the opposite of 30 years of operational data.

Ultimately, this discussion is about social control, and the wealth rewarded to the winners.  It's like GE CEO Jeff Immelt writ large.  One part of his company, GE Wind, accounts for about 2% of his revenue.  In 2007, 43% market share in the US (though he has serious problems selling his mediocre technology anywhere else).  One of the few parts of GE's business which will grow in the meltdown.  But when he needs to have a personal editorial on Bloomberg, it's about how the US Congress needs to ratify the Nuclear Treaty with India, so his firm can supply the nukes necessary for an atomic sub-continent.

The reality of daily work in windpower, over three decades, shows exactly windpower's strengths and weaknesses.  To have people with virtually zero understanding of what they're talking about setting the frame is exactly like the current McCain campaign.  Bullshit rules, though it doesn't stick to the wall.

Thanks for doing what i no longer have the gumption, nor ability, to do.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 04:15:02 PM EST
[ Parent ]
How would you rank the turbines? GE is mediocre, Enercon is the best, but what about the others? Suzlon, REpower, Vestas and so on?

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
by Starvid (arvid.hallen at gmail.com) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 04:18:43 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Me curious, too!

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 04:49:18 PM EST
[ Parent ]
When one begins to analyze turbine performance across multiple resource types, one finds a host of engineering anomalies which belie given production data, power curve data, and fault trigger compilations.  Of course, the data itself is subject to unvergessbar auseinandervergesslichkeit.  This can lead to difference in opinion, despite the fact that most analysts, selbst inklusive, hab keine ahnung.

That being gestrichen, i will now list the turbines in ascending order.
the editor's controlling Crazy Horse's brain production output have taken over his account to express the notion that anyone with 100k€ can email us directly for the list.  Thank you for asking.

Well, my superiors have chastised me once again.  Therefore, i'm not able to comment on the performance results from the new W2E and GE 2.5MW turbines, nor the Siemens direct drive competitor to Enercon.  i am allowed to say, aren't i?, that if you're investing in turbines from the outstanding People's Republic of China, wear a flak vest.

Given the profit-taking in the industry, i will give my opinions for only nine-hundred ninty-nine thousand oiros, nine hundred ninety-nine plus an all-expense paid stay at the Passy Home for two weeks while i research the effect of the growth in the windpower supply chain on nightlife in the now third largest European market for windpower, Paris.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 06:11:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thanks for the heads-up on Chinese turbines ... you may have saved the lives of some Congolese.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 08:04:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
There was someone over there peddling the line that 1MW of installed wind capacity will bring two units of NG electricity online for each unit of wind capacity ... because, as I understand what I shall for the sake of argument call "the argument", to deliver the 1MW of capacity will require 1MW of wind and 1MW of NG with the NG delivering the power that the wind is not.

Why you don't enter that into baseload as 0.3MWh, with 0.3MW of NG backing up the wind, and surplus power sold to other grids when the wind is strong ... I guess because if you presume a poorly designed system, its easier to argue against the system being put into place.

The same fellow arguing that offshore wind is 3x the cost of onshore wind links to a report that gives onshore as £0.9m/MW capacity at a 30% load factor versus offshore at £1.6m/MW at a 35% load factor ... as evidence to substantiate his 3x figure!.

Astounding. Like dKos with more doom pr0n.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 05:39:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The same fellow arguing that offshore wind is 3x the cost of onshore wind links to a report that gives onshore as £0.9m/MW capacity at a 30% load factor versus offshore at £1.6m/MW at a 35% load factor ... as evidence to substantiate his 3x figure!.

I think the fingers they are counting on dont work properly

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

by ceebs (ceebs (at) eurotrib (dot) com) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 05:45:24 PM EST
[ Parent ]
... aggressive anti-public transport commentators ... cite an outrageous figure, cherry picked from a shallow source (say, a newspaper piece with a "he said / she said" approach to presenting "critics of the proposal say"), and bolstered by thicker official source that they link to but do not expect someone to be able to read through and work out how badly they are misrepresenting it.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 06:47:07 PM EST
[ Parent ]
... since its ambiguous and on a quick reading misleading, "the same fellow arguing" does not mean that the person making the 3x argument is the same as the person featured in the start ... it refers to the surprise that the person that makes the 3x claim links to as support a document that most people would point to as debunking the 3x claim.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.
by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Oct 21st, 2008 at 08:06:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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