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re: You didn't answer my question
EnergyExpert — (archived)

How many aerosapce engineers are able to dance on the top of a rocket? It makes about as much sense.

What don't you understadn about the term Energy Mix? Wind will be just ONE part of the mix of the nation's energy mix. Nuclear will be one part. Solar will be one part, Clean coal another part.

But to answer YOUR STUPID question and assuming wind power is the ONLY source allowed.

It takes about 8 k/h to make the H2 equivalent of one gallon of gas. NO hidden numbers like Ethanol, just straight energy. To replace the 140 billion gallons of gas used for petroleum it will take 1, 120 Gwh. Let’s round it up to 1,200 Gwh. For the new 5 Mwh units that would equal just under 657,534 turbines. Using the average turbine efficiency of 33% that would make it 1,992, 528 turbines. Round up to 2 million. Using the current price of wind turbines that would equal an one time investment of 2 trillion amortized over 20 years. Add another $2 trillion for operation costs and repairs over that 20 year period. The cost of the 140 billion dollars of gasoline over that 20 year timeframe at $2.50/gal would be $7 trillion, $3 trillion more. Ethanol costs about $1.50 gallon, but you need two gallons to do the work of one gallon of gasoline. So Ethanol costs over the same 20 years would be 8.4 trillion dollars, over twice as much as the H2 transformers. Of course as I already showed there is just not enough farm land for the biomass needed to produce that much ethanol, so it’s a moot point.

Since the nation’s wind energy potential is estimated at 12,000 Gwh (conservative) you would only be using about 10% of it to generate your energy. And although easterners don’t like wind turbines they are a big business on the great plains. SO the same states that would benefit from ethanol will benefit from the turbines WITHOUT destroying their environment.

But of course, as I pointed out, it won’t be only Wind Turbines. Any source of electrical energy will do. Solar, Tidal, nuclear, clean coal. It doesn’t matter and so its likely to be a mix. Also you wouldn’t need to add the entire 1,200 Gwh as petroleum refining, like ethanol distillation, is a major consumer of electricity 300 Gwh a year WHICH you wouldn’t need anymore with an H2 economy. This would reduce the number of 5 Mwh wind turbines to 1.5 million and costs to $3 trillion over the 20 year period. And your CO2 output would be ZERO.

Of course there are other ways to get the 1,200 Gwh number down further - but why torture you with reality and the numbers are already clear. The Electrical generation capacity needed is NOT a barrier to an hydrogen economy like the farmland needed is to Ethanol.

Besides you guys are all space cadets. What do you think you are going to run your cars on Mars with? Ethanol? From all the martiain cornfields? It will be a hydrogen economy on Mars as well. Best get used to it and work the bugs out here on Earth. Or are you just afraid that Ford will build better Martian hot rods than Boeing?

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