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by cinntaile 1757 days ago
> First, it only refers to the US, while the headline makes no such qualification.

Yes the title should be "Land-Based Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition Released" but it still won't say US cause it's not in the title.

> Second, this refers only to electricity generation, which is roughly 25% of US energy use, or 20% if you include energy embedded in imports, mostly fueled by fossil fuels in China.

Of course it's only about electricity generation?

> Third, this refers only to gros capacity. For those who have been asleep, the effective energy capacity is far lower for renewables than for stable power sources due to intermittency.

That's what you usually mention when you build something that generates energy. Nothing unusual here either.

> inb4 By referring to facts you have shown you are clearly on the wrong team.

What's with this unhealthy polarization? What teams are you talking about?

1 comments

Worth noting that one of the standard anti-renewable talking points is to compare electrical energy production with the energy output by burning fossil fuels.

This latter number is about 3x higher than the useful output since if you need something other than heat, say a car to move, or grid electricity then 2/3rds of the energy will be lost as heat while converting the energy to motion (and then to electricity).

And if you do need heat, then an electric heat pump will provide 2-5 times the heat if you feed it one unit of energy.

This is why electrification of everything that can be electrified will reduce total energy requirements substantially (while increasing the amount of electrical energy we need slightly).

I assumed (generously) that they were talking about capacity factor. Most wind power plants have a capacity factor between 0.25 and 0.5, which has been increasing over time. We are now able to build taller towers with longer blades, and that makes a difference. From the PDF:

> The average 2020 capacity factor among projects built from 2014 to 2019 was 41.4%, compared to an average of 29.0% among projects built from 2004 to 2011, and 25.2% among projects built from 1998 to 2001. This improvement among more-recently built projects has pushed the cumulative fleet-wide capacity factor higher over time, reaching 36% in 2020.