[tiredofcareer]

He didn't write that wind power doesn't make sense for the United States. He wrote that it doesn't make sense, period. You just put words in his comment, then used the words you invented to dispute me instead. I loathe when people do that. You might argue that contextually, given the comment he was responding to, I should have inferred some kind of Americentric context but he goes on to write "nuclear power is better," so there you have it.

You might see that as pedantry, but since I'm an American I'm acutely aware of how Americans like to say "that would never work" when what they actually mean "that would never work for Americans." The United States is enormous and the #1 consumer of electric energy, yes, and we need to plan accordingly. That doesn't mean ideas are bad in the general, it just means things won't work for us due to our size, as you astutely observe. Google could never scale PostgreSQL to handle their index; does that make PostgreSQL silly? You're automatically writing off all future development that you could never possibly know when you dismiss a technology because it doesn't work in one case.

I like to use every opportunity I get to point that out, so my fellow Americans will stop doing it and making us look like self-absorbed, spoiled people internationally, an assumption reinforced by our general diplomatic and military behavior on the world stage.

[penny500]

Calm down. No one put words into his mouth. You, however, did put words into my mouth, which I find quite astonishing.

Those windmills currently cover 1 million people. The world has 7 billion people and growing quickly. You really think windmills are feasible for Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, Russia, India, Pakistan, Vietnam, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, Turkey, Colombia, Ukraine, or South Korea? (I can list several more if you want.)

Get real.

[tiredofcareer]

> Calm down. No one put words into your mouth.

I am quite calm, and I never wrote that anybody did.

> You, however, did put words into my mouth, which I find quite astonishing.

I think you need to look up what "putting words in someone's mouth" means, because I did nothing of the sort.

> Those windmills currently cover 1 million people. The world has 7 billion people and growing quickly. You really think windmills are feasible for Brazil, China, England, France, Germany, Russia, India, Pakistan, Japan, Mexico, Indonesia, South Africa, Spain, Argentina, or South Korea?

If power consumption had any sort of meaningful relationship with population, I might consider your argument remotely plausible. You're basing your entire argument on the flawed assumption that power consumption scales linearly with population. It doesn't, and you have reading to do[1].

Just as one example, the United States is the world's #1 electric energy consumer, beating both the whole European Union and China, but China has more than quadruple our population. As another example, India's population is quadruple ours, as well, yet about one-quarter our electric energy demand[2].

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption

[2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_energy_consumption

[penny500]

This is completely economically illiterate. China is a developing country. As a result, it uses less electricity than its developed counterparts. As China grows, it will be using much more electricity. Just look at their energy consumption trend since the late 70s. That applies to India, Russia, Indonesia, and any other developing country in growth mode.

Oh, and guess what. China passed the USA in energy consumption in 2010.

[jussij]

> As China grows, it will be using much more electricity.

Funnily enough, China is also planning a massive investment in wind energy.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-04/10/c_1322989...

Even better link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jackperkowski/2012/07/27/china-l...

[GHFigs]

China is also planning a massive investment in nuclear energy. And hydro. And even coal. There really is no one solution.

[tiredofcareer]

> As a result, they use less electricity than its developed counterparts.

It's almost like that's valuable information when we're discussing an electricity generation technology. You wrote this without qualification in terms of what you meant:

"Those windmills currently cover 1 million people. The world has 7 billion people and growing quickly."

I replied to exactly that, and you're calling me economically illiterate for pointing out the economic illiteracy in your original comment? You cannot be that stupid. There is absolutely no way. You have to be a troll.

> China passed the USA in energy consumption in 2010.

Total energy consumption, notably oil due to the sudden increase in automobiles in China since the 1990s once private citizens became able to own automobiles. China currently builds more automobiles than all of Europe, because demand is absolutely through the roof. So it would make sense that China passed the United States in total energy consumption rather quickly. We're discussing electric energy, remember?

[GHFigs]

You cannot be that stupid. There is absolutely no way. You have to be a troll.

I think it is more likely that you simply misunderstood the point he was trying to make, which is that the growth curve[1] matters.

We're discussing electric energy, remember?

You're right to point out the demand for automobiles in China, but that has a great deal to do with rapid urbanization and economic growth, which has had a similar effect on electricity consumption.

[1] http://www.eia.gov/countries/img/charts_png/CH_elecon_img.pn...

[penny500]

There's no reply button for me underneath your threads initially until some time passes. I guess that's how HN works for some. I'll respond to your latest comment here.

> If you say things like "we have a lot of people, so wind power won't work for us,"

Don't you just hate it when people put words into your mouth? Yeah, point me specifically to where I said or implied that.

[penny500]

tiredofcareer, thanks for calling me stupid. This conversation has surely turned professional. It's quite funny when you espouse economically illiterate statements, then question the intelligence of others.

Electricity consumption depends on GDP. Just google those phrases, and you'll find a plethora of sources to confirm the relationship. I listed a graph for you [1]. Because China is growing at 7%, its electrical consumption will only continue to increase. Yes, if two countries of have similar GDPs, the one with the higher population will consume more electricity.

[1] http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Caryl1.gi...