Thursday, April 19, 2012
"Wind power does not help to avert climate change"
I'm sure wind power has it's niche, but as far as climate change, it will only make a very costly slight insignificant dent...
The Economic Times recntly posted this in their story about wind power:
"With its '20-20-20' policy, the EU has promised that, by 2020, it will cut its carbon emissions by 20% below 1990 levels, and increase reliance on renewables by 20%. For the UK, this needs a dramatic rise in wind power, especially offshore.
This will be surprisingly costly. The UK Carbon Trust estimates that the cost of expanding wind turbines to 40 gigawatts, in order to provide 31% of electricity by 2020, could run as high as £75 billion ($120 billion).
And the benefits, in terms of tackling global warming, would be measly: a reduction of just 86 megatons of CO2 per year for two decades. In terms of averted rise in temperature, this would be completely insignificant. Using a standard climate model, by 2100, the UK's huge outlay will have postponed global warming by just over 10 days.
Moreover, this estimate is undoubtedly too optimistic."
