After Record 2012, World Wind Power Set to Top 300,000 Megawatts (300GW) in 2013

[kristopher]

After Record 2012, World Wind Power Set to Top 300,000 Megawatts in 2013
by J. Matthew Roney, originally published by Earth Policy Institute | APR 10, 2013
Even amid policy uncertainty in major wind power markets, wind developers still managed to set a new record for installations in 2012, with 44,000 megawatts of new wind capacity worldwide. With total capacity exceeding 280,000 megawatts, wind farms generate carbon-free electricity in more than 80 countries, 24 of which have at least 1,000 megawatts. At the European level of consumption, the world’s operating wind turbines could satisfy the residential electricity needs of 450 million people.



China installed some 13,000 megawatts of wind in 2012, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). This was a marked slowdown from the previous two years, when new installations averaged 18,000 megawatts annually. Reasons for the drop-off include concerns about project quality and inadequate electricity transmission and grid infrastructure, which prompted the government to approve fewer projects and to restrict lending. Still, all told, China leads the world with 75,000 megawatts of wind capacity: more than a quarter of the world total.

In a country more readily associated with coal-fired electricity and nuclear power ambitions, wind reached some impressive milestones in China’s energy mix in 2012. Wind-generated electricity increased more than coal-fired electricity did for the first time. Even more remarkable, the electricity produced by wind farms over the course of the year exceeded that produced by nuclear power plants. And this is just the beginning: with massive wind projects under development across its northern and eastern provinces, and 19 ultra-high-voltage transmission projects connecting windy rural areas to population centers (all to be completed by 2014), more milestones lie ahead in China. Consulting firms GTM Research and Azure International project that China will reach 140,000 megawatts of wind by 2015 and nearly 250,000 megawatts by 2020.

The U.S. wind industry made headlines too. More new wind electricity generating capacity was added in 2012 than any other generation technology, including natural gas—a record 13,100 megawatts. An incredible 5,200 megawatts, spread among 59 wind farms, came online in December alone as developers raced to qualify for the federal production tax credit before it expired at the end of the year. The United States remains second only to China, with 60,000 total megawatts of wind capacity—enough to power more than 14 million U.S. homes....

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-04-10/after-record-2012-world-wind-power-set-to-top-300-000-megawatts-in-2013

[NNadir]

1. What a coincidence! The world is also setting, by a large margin..

...a world record for increases in dangerous fossil fuel waste in its favorite waste dump, the planetary atmosphere.

From where I sit it proves what I've known all along. The wind scam is a useless front for the dangerous fossil fuel industry.

[kristopher]

2. Poor little feller...

...back to snorting the deleted uranium again? I told you it isn't good for your noggin.

[NNadir]

3. Poor dying planet...

...there's lot's of people who've been snorting God knows what who would rather talk about their useless and expensive toys than the outcome of their insane bets on them.

Today is the first day, ever, that Mauna Loa ever reported a value over 400.00 ppm, 400.07 ppm for May 13, to be precise.

Congratulations on getting the citizens planet to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on unsustainable toys that did nothing to avoid this tragedy.

You may as well keep smoking whatever it is your smoking. It won't make a shred of difference at this point.

[kristopher]

4. You don't give a rats ass about a "dying planet"

They only thing you are concerned about is that your very own 'prrrecioussssssssss' glowing treasure is forced on a public that doesn't want it.

[NNadir]

6. Um...um...um...

There's a great movie - I doubt you've seen it, since most of the people who like are, um, intellectuals - called "My Dinner with Andre," which features Wallace Shawn and Andre Gregory having a conversation over dinner.

At one point, Gregory tells Shawn about a visit to his mother's doctor, an orthopedist who is treating her for a weakened arm.

"Isn't it wonderful," the doctor tells Gregory, "how good your mother's arm looks!"

Gregory then notes to Shawn that his mother was, in fact, dying, and that it was irrelevant how are arm looked, since she was dying.

I have no doubt that the implication of this scene would go over the tiny little head of a person who is making happy face about how wonderful the wind industry is doing, having been able to squeeze money out of a planet where the atmosphere's rate of collapse has reached a new level.

The worst year in history was 1998, when the dumb fuck anti-nuke "wind and solar will save us" Joe Romm was running the climate office. The year to date at Mauna Loa in 1998 showed an average monthly increase over months of 1997 of 2.23 ppm. In 2013, the figure is 2.84 ppm over 2012, which was itself, the second worst year in history.

I am always amused when the most ignorant people on the planet - typically those who have never opened, for instance, a science book in their wasted bourgeois lives - declares that his or her dogma is the opinion of the "public."

Even if the public was as stupid as a doctor remarking on how wonderful a dying woman's arm looks, or an wind energy scammer saying how wonderful the wind industry is when the atmosphere is collapsing, that wouldn't make the public "right."

I note, with due contempt, that during the outbreak of the Bubonic Plague, the public response was to recommend going to church for prayer meetings.

That didn't work either. In fact, an argument could be made that it made it worse, sort of like betting the atmosphere on wind and solar made things worse.

Have a nice evening. Once again, congratulations on your grand victory.

You must be very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very proud.

[cprise]

7. Do you think these charts are wrong:

http://cleantechnica.com/2013/05/13/wind-solar-natural-gas-up-in-europe-coal-nuclear-down/

Coal power consumption in the US will this year reach its lowest level since 1996, according to new EIA estimates. But, somehow, despite coal’s share of energy generation in the US falling from 44% in 2010 to 42% in 2011 to a predicted 40% in 2012, the EIA’s annual energy outlook released in March predicts that coal will only fall to 39% by 2035. Why would coal not keep declining (more than 0.043% a year)? Natural gas and several sources of renewable energy are already cheaper and more flexible. The idea (or US EIA projection) that coal would only drop another percentage point in the next 23 years is absurd.

http://cleantechnica.com/2012/04/02/natural-gas-vs-renewable-energy-growth/

You may think this progress is too slow, but you should consider how one patron saint of nuclear power--Ronald Reagan--affected that trend.

Can you absorb *any* of the above?

Now I must ask: Since when has added nuclear capacity caused fossil fuel generation to subside? I am thinking about the USA in particular, because that is the business culture which drives consumer consumption the most. But any examples you supply might be instructive...

[kristopher]

5. kick.