either you’re deliberately trolling or you don’t understand the concept of diminishing returns.

also a big chunk of the thread seems to have disappeared

as for “why?”, well, there’s your explanation. the returns trail off rapidly. building a 200km wind turbine would produce only ten times as much power as a 200m one, assuming air in space of course.

Electricity + heating oil + gas for cooking/heating/hot water?

Clearly we can replace heating oil with geothermal and the other functions with electricity and biofuels. In the case of water heating, a large percentage can be done with solar-direct.

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How can you state that the Danish wind industry has stalled when output has been increasing?

Electricity generated in TWh
2009 6.72
2010 7.81
2011 9.77
2012 10.27

That is a 52.8% increase in the last three years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Denmark#History

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“the returns on wind power diminish exponentially with size”

Were that true then wind farms would be installing smaller, not larger turbines. Obviously you have that backwards.

im an idiot also but i realize that upgrading existing plants is inherently limited and the danish wind industry has effectively stagnated even if there little pips in growth here and there.

the returns on wind power diminish exponentially with size. good luck fighting that.

sure they’re upgrading their windfarms so they require less construction labor per unit power, but how long can that go on? already there are blades as long as skyscrapers. the actual number of turbines installed is falling.

Are you now simply slinging stuff against the wall to see if something might stick?

Yes, they are installing less onshore wind in Denmark. That could be due to a lack of sufficient space to expand or due to some financial factor.

Offshore is going like gang busters. Perhaps offshore is preferable?

Does this mean that wind in Denmark has failed. Does this mean, as you earlier claimed “the wind industry has already stagnated in high adoption countries… as another example denmark and other countries’ wind production has stagnated”?

No, it means that you are continuing to post crap.

I’ll try to help you out here. Quit, absolutely cold-turkey-quit getting your info from anti-renewable sites. They cherry-pick and lie.

I can’t say it any clearer than that.

I gave you a graph earlier that shows that Danish wind is not stalled. Yes, they are installing offshore rather than onshore, but that’s going to be the case going forward for a lot of places.

Offshore generally provides better wind, especially during the day when electricity is in higher demand. There are fewer NIMBY problems with offshore. And there’s a tremendous amount of real estate available. Look to Germany and the UK as other places where offshore will grow much faster than onshore.

It may even happen in the US a few years from now. We’ve got excellent offshore potential and it’s much closer to our population concentrations.

Now, how about Denmark post 2011 when my graph terminated?

“On March 18, Dong Energy’s Anholt offshore wind farm connected its 36th Siemens 3.6 megawatt (MW) turbine to the electric grid, thereby bringing the total of Denmark’s connected offshore wind to 1 gigawatt (1,000
megawatts). This capacity covers the equivalent of about 1 million Danish households’ electricity consumption.

The Anholt complex itself will include 400 megawatts of capacity when completed.

And Denmark has no plans to stop there, recently announcing that it will invite bids for an additional 1,500 MW of offshore wind.

Denmark now gets almost 25% of its electricity from wind power, and this country of 5.5 million inhabitants is planning to double that number to 50% by 2020.”

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterdetwiler/2013/03/26/denmark-1000-megawatts-of-offshore-wind-and-no-signs-of-slowing-down/

https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/danish-wind-power-stalled-since-2002/

Note that 2002 was the last year that any substantial on-shore wind power was erected in Denmark. The small changes since then have mostly been due to replacing existing machines with larger ones.

Off-shore, after the Horns Rev facility in 2002 and Nysted (Rødsand) in 2003, there was no development until the addition of Horns Rev II in 2009. Rødsand II (200 MW) may be completed in 2010.

Denmark’s installed wind hasn’t grown since 1999? You didn’t pay any attention to the first graph and the wind farms that came on line post 1999?

Wind “failed” a long time ago in high adoption countries?

You’re simply posting absurd stuff.

Here – I’ll give you a graph of how Denmark’s wind industry as “stalled”.

wind already failed a long time ago in high adoption countries, the only growth we’re seeing is in some countries that had a late start.

Last time I looked at a wind farm it was made up of individual units.

Now, if you’re claiming that some units are dropping in performance over ten years while farm performance is staying high then it must be the case that some units are increasing in performance? Somehow I don’t think that is happening.

Or might it might be that Hughes has posted a pile of crap? And there is, in fact, no 10 year death spiral for wind turbines?

If there is a 10 year wind turbine death spiral why isn’t it all over the web? Why are we building wind farms if they are falling apart in 10 years?

You believe there’s a great conspiracy that involves millions of people who are keeping a secret that only Gordon Hughes has penetrated?

Or could it be something else? For example, Hughes is simply making stuff up….

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Why do you have your bloomers in a bunch over the fact that the demand for turbines is outstripping the training of wind techs?

As your link states wind installations are booming. There’s a need for more workers. That, IMHO, is a good thing.

Are you simply looking for some reason to criticize wind? Criticize it for being successful? That’s rare.

ignore his data if you want but we’re seeing it happen. the graphs you just presented show how the wind industry has already stagnated in high adoption countries.

Where’s the 10 year failure in the 20 year old Danish farm? In the 15 year old Danish farm? In the 11 year old UK farms?

Look closely at the graphs. See if you can find 10 year failure.

What you may well find, aside from the graphs, is that some European farms are being repowered after 15 to 20 years. That is not because performance has dropped. It’s because they are somewhat space limited and newer turbines are much superior to the older models.

They are taking down older, smaller turbines and replacing them with new, larger, taller units in order to get significantly more output from the same real estate.

Altamont Pass is being repowered with significantly fewer turbines but the total output will be much higher.

Those removed turbines are being refurbished and sold to countries just beginning to develop their wind industry. In those countries space is not at a premium and they can get a refurbished turbine at a much better price than a new one.

Most likely, since those turbines have been refurbished with things such as new bearings they will perform just fine for a few decades.

http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-US_installed_wind_solar_power_capacities

Again, where’s the fall off?

He claims that performance drops off over time. That’s BS.

Here’s a plot of Danish offshore wind farms. Using the same database Hughes supposedly used for his paper.

Do you see a fall off?