[FilosofumRex]

Most climate change advocates naively believe that because an energy resource in renewable it must be infinite too. Simple energy balance over a given area will show how much extraction of wind energy will reduce available energy downstream.

Moreover, the economics of offshore wind farms is often commingled with state enterprises and various subsidy schemes, which makes them uneconomical even in the best of times, so a 2% capacity reduction coupled with inevitable maintenance and repair costs escalations might make many wind farms uneconomical.

Onshore wind farms are much more economical but the best locations such as Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico already have been developed.

[matthewdgreen]

I don’t know what a climate change advocate is: someone who believes in physics? But in general nobody believes that resources are infinite. We just have a lot of offshore wind area, onshore wind area, and space to fit solar panels. Not infinite, but enough to massively increase humanity’s access to energy sources and put us back on the growth path we were on before fossil fuels caused us to stagnate.

[maeil]

You're right, solar energy isn't infinite, there's merely orders of magnitudes more available than necessary to power the globe.

[half-kh-hacker]

"climate change advocate", in contrast to some "climate change opponent"?

[pjc50]

Yeah, this sounds like someone who doesn't realize that climate change is a real effect driven by CO2 emissions, regardless of the precise economics of renewable energy.

[FilosofumRex]

An Advocate/activist is someone who puts politics and policy ahead of science and economics, and it isn't limited to climate change either.

For example, it was gay advocacy/activists not heath sciences professionals who made sure more money was spent on Aids/HIV than all childhood diseases combined.

[mike_hearn]

Their assumptions are worse than that. They assume constant global rate of renewable energy production but average global wind speeds aren't constant, they appear to be slowing down. This is called "global stilling". It is often blamed on climate change, which (it is now claimed) both speeds up and slows down the wind simultaneously, although the rapid construction of wind farms and urban buildings might also be related.

https://projects.research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/en/hor...