The Required EPRs to Replace Denmark's 6,296 Wind Turbines w/Reliable Generation for 80 years.

[NNadir]

The Danish Energy Agency stopped updating the Master Data Register of Wind Turbines in March of 2022, possibly because the data therein demonstrates the unreliability and short lifetimes of the wind turbines that the Danes market.

Note that the link to the data is on the same page to links celebrating Denmark's off shore oil and gas drilling operations.

This is not a coincidence. The wind industry and the fossil fuel industry are intertwined. The fossil fuel industry doesn't really need the wind industry, except for marketing purposes since the wind industry is far more competent at generating complacency and wishful thinking, thus keeping the fossil fuel business in business. The wind industry, by contrast, cannot function without access to dangerous fossil fuels.

I showed, in this space, a little less than a year ago that the average lifetime of decommissioned wind turbines was less than 18 years:

A Commentary on Failure, Delusion and Faith: Danish Data on Big Wind Turbines and Their Lifetimes.

It is obvious that the trillions of dollars squandered on the wind industry on this planet has been ineffective at addressing climate change. At the time I wrote that post the concentration of the dangerous 419.73 ppm.

Here's where we are as of this writing:

June 01: 424.43 ppm
May 31: 424.65 ppm
May 30: 424.66 ppm
May 29: 424.76 ppm
May 28: 424.71 ppm
Last Updated: June 2, 2023

Recent Daily Average Mauna Loa CO2

Elsewhere I noted, using average continuous power figures from the spreadsheet that the Danes have stopped updating (probably for business reasons) that during the 17 year period it took to construct the now operable Olkiluoto 3 Nuclear Reactor, which has a reliable continuous uninterrupted power output of 1600 MW, the entire nation of Denmark was able to add just 979.9 MW of average unreliable wind power.

The Growth Rate of the Danish Wind Industry As Compared to the New Finnish EPR Nuclear Reactor.

The data page at the Danish Energy Agencies Website shows that the entire wind industry in the entire country produced, in 2021, the last full year for which the data was released, 16,100,589,038 kWh of electricity. A kWh is a unit of energy - one seldom used in the dishonest marketing of so called "renewable energy." Multiplying it by 3,600,000 J/kWh one finds that this is equivalent to 57.93 Petajoules. Dividing this figure with the number of seconds in a year, one finds that the average continuous power of all the wind turbines in Denmark is the equivalent, sort of, of a single 1836 MW power plant.

The "sort of" reflects that the power produced by wind turbines is unreliable, sometimes there's a fair amount of it, albeit when it's not really in high demand, and sometimes it's not available for months at a time. People who are unfamiliar with the contents of science and engineering books sometimes wish to represent that this problem can be solved with batteries and/or (worse) hydrogen, and obscenely stupid affectation, since mountains of batteries the size of the Alps would not be able to power Denmark, never mind that coal burning hellhole Germany for a month long episode of Dunkelflaute.

The "answer" such as it is, is the coal, oil and gas industry, the latter two being very important to the Danish economy.

Since the EPR has a reliable output of 1600 MWe - nuclear reactors typically operate near or at 100% capacity utilization, something the wind industry never does - and the average continuous power output of all the wind turbines in 2021 was 1836 MWe, slightly lower than the figure for 2020 (1849 MWe average continuous power), Denmark could restore all of the land now turned into industrial parks for wind turbines, and all of the seabed similarly ravaged, with just two buildings, exporting clean energy to dirty Germany. They could build three such, and be a reliable supplier of clean energy for the better part of a century.

If they build reactors better than the EPR, with very high thermal efficiency, given that Denmark juts into the North Sea that it is now so happily trashing with drilling rigs and wind turbines, reactors capable of operating in the supercritical water range, it would be in a position to use seawater to generate carbon free motor fuels.

None of this will happen of course. A lack of sense is now very, very, very, very popular on this planet, hence the readings above 424 ppm. Denmark is just one hole of popular ignorance.

Have a nice weekend.

[hlthe2b]

1. Well, that is damned depressing...

[NNadir]

2. What is depressing is that Denmark will build more wind turbines, albeit at a financial loss.

The environmental loss of this policy, as it extends far beyond Denmark, will extend to all of humanity in the form of climate change, unnecessary mining of materials, the destruction of land area, and the continued reliance on dangerous fossil fuels.

[hlthe2b]

3. You are implying that wind turbines do not work at all as a climate change offset and

you don't find that at all depressing? (and no, I don't believe this is correct unless there is something only specific to Denmark's technology)

[NNadir]

5. I am stating it as a truth, and will not be convinced otherwise.

You can believe whatever you want, but I rely on something called "data."

I find this popular belief to be depressing, simply because despite all evidence, it remains popular.

I have a standard answer to this depressing and expensive claim that the wind industry has anything to do with any interest in climate change. It was never about climate change and still isn't. It's about attacking the only sustainable form of energy that has a remote chance of saving the world, nuclear energy.

The standard answer is here in a post written about the disastrous fantasy of "green hydrogen," an idiotic bait and switch game is here: I've been writing here through the accumulation 50 ppm of the dangerous fossil fuel waste CO2 in...

People who don't give a rat's ass about climate change, who just want to gaze admiringly at marketing videos of prototypes of consumer junk that will not matter to the more than 2 billion people on this planet who lack access to decent water don't look at numbers. I expect that they are incompetent to understand them, but at the end of the day, I really don't care what they think. I work at my ideas. I'm not admiringly gazing at cartoons.

Now as it happens, people who blindly and foolishly worship the wind and solar junk that has done nothing to address climate change love to cite their fellow scientific illiterates, journalists in our "but her emails" media often claiming, despite oodles of data, that solar and wind are "cheap."

Since they do not take time to read at a deep level, a level beyond comic books, they may not have a clue on how much money was spent on solar and wind junk in this century.

Since I do read on a deep level, I have that referenced data at my fingertips:

In the 21st century, we spent, invested on this reactionary fantasy, more than 3.3319 trillion dollars on solar and wind junk, almost all of which will be landfill in about 25 years. (The number 3.3319 trillion dollars refers to the period between 2004 and 2019 inclusive.)

Source: Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2020 (Figure 42, page 62).

Fifteen years, more than 3 trillion dollars spent on comic book level wishful thinking and delusion, this on a planet where 2 billion people don't have clean water, people who couldn't give a rat's ass about marketing videos of Potemkin hydrogen stations in China for cute demo hydrogen trucks, and here's where we are: In 2004, when we were convinced to embrace this trillion dollar reactionary scheme to return to the early 19th century, the mean average concentration of dangerous fossil fuel waste was 377.30 ppm.

How do I define worthless? I have no apologies for stating clearly, unambiguously, without reservation that for energy systems, those which fail to address human needs, which fail to protect the environment, that do nothing more than soak up money to satisfy the tiresome reactionary daydreams of the poorly educated bourgeoisie are, just that, worthless.

The data is in for 2021 on how much energy this worthless junk produced after soaking up trillions of dollars, not even counting the cost, environmental, economic and health of the required redundancies.



Source: 2022 IEA World Energy Outlook Table A 1a, page 435

After 50 years, half a century, of mindless cheering, the entire combined solar and wind industry at 12 Exajoules built at these trillion dollar rates, was not even able to cover the increase in the use of dangerous natural gas, coal and oil - the source of the bulk of the world's hydrogen by the way - from 2020 to 2021, an 11 Exajoule increase for dangerous oil, a 7 Exajoule increase for dangerous natural gas, and an 8 Exajoule increase in the use of dangerous coal.

Now dumb journalists and the people who cite them like to pretend like to pretend that the solar and wind industries are about dangerous fossil fuels, but clearly they aren't. Journalists in the "but her emails" media can lie all they want - and they do lie all they want - but numbers don't lie.

Twelve Exajoules of energy per year at a cost of over three trillion dollars spent on consumer junk that will need replacement every twenty years has nothing to do with my Democratic values. For me the Democratic Party that I have supported for over half a century was never about endorsing dogmatic cult thinking, even when it's popular but pernicious, particularly consumer cult thinking, "Look at my car! Look at my truck," bullshit.

The planet is on fire. Clearly there are people who don't give a shit about that, and like Repukes, they feel that they have the right to criticize those who do care, and care a great deal.

[hlthe2b]

6. I am science, medicine, and data-based and I care deeply about renewable energy.

You could explain in your field (mine is medicine) what it is about the Danish wind turbines that are different from those used in the US, but instead, you attack. That tells me you really CAN'T and thus there is no reason to take you seriously. You convince no one with angry attacks. At least you aren't purporting that wind turbines cause cancer, so there is THAT, I suppose.