Windfall: When Renewable Energy is not Sustainable

[GliderGuider]

Windfall: When Renewable Energy is not Sustainable

For 20 years, the Masters of the Wind Universe have been frantically turning out War-of-the-Worlds-scale mechanical giants to decorate mountain ridges, farm fields and ocean expanses everywhere. On land, it takes a thousand tons of concrete and rebar to make the pad on which the 300-foot tower is set, to support the 60-ton generator nacelle and the three 200-foot blades weighing twelve tons each. Mountain ridges must be blasted level for the installations, major roads have to be built to them and then a major power line to transport the electricity to where it’s needed. But hey. The wind is free, all natural, even organic.

Industrial-wind flacks (in the business they’re known as windbags) trumpet the magic words: job creation, cheap electricity, no pollution. And the industry has been successful; 500 factories across the U.S. have made, and large crews have installed, 48,000 turbines in 39 states. For the last ten years, the industry has grown by more than 25% a year. The contribution of wind power to the electricity consumed by Americans has skyrocketed to, um, 1.9%.

Now comes what could be the coup de grâce: the life expectancy of a wind turbine is 20 years, and the first wave of those built in the new age of wind are now approaching that age. After that age, bearings wear out, blades fall off, towers topple. Germany, a world leader in switching to renewable sources of energy, had to tear down more than 500 elderly turbines just last year. The country is graced by 25,000 of the monsters, more than a thousand of which could face decommissioning, at huge expense, every year.

The industrial crisis of our age does not have an industrial answer. Nothing industrial is sustainable. Industry could help prolong and cushion to coming transition by encouraging rooftop solar, family-scaled wind turbines and micro-hydro. Just as we consumers could help by going off the grid and producing our own energy.

[Sherman A1]

1. Just like everything else

things wear out, need maintenance, upkeep and eventual replacement. Even coal fired and nuclear electrical generation plants require this to be done, why would we not expect a wind turbine (a mechanical device) to require the same?