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Imagine a room full of 100 people with 100 dollars each. With every tick of the clock, every person with money gives a dollar to one randomly chosen other person. After some time progresses, how will the money be distributed?
Also how many people are evacuated if a wind turbine fails?
There has been a lot of discussions on line over that meme. Generally, there are a lot of negative environmental impacts of the total life cycle of wind turbines.
I used to work for West Texas Utilities when the Federal Fuel Use Act forced us to build our first coal-fired power station. Previously we had been natural gas (including one of first combined cycle plants built in the 1960's). I was impressed by the massive difference in the local fuel processing differences between the two:
Gas yard:
And no slag, fly-ash disposal, or SO4 scrubbers on the back end.
Coal yard:
Including acres of storage in case of a shortage of supply. For the gas plant, we had a couple of tanks of fuel oil for curtailment periods. Rarely used.
Coal Processing pulverizers (along with complex burners, pneumatic conveyors, "clinker" cleaning in the boilers, waste disposal, etc.)
Nearly 120 wind turbines catch fire each year, according to new research - ten times the number reported by the industry.
The figures, compiled by engineers at Imperial College London and the University of Edinburgh, make fire the second-largest cause of accidents after blade failure.
Gas and coal plants burn more often, but it occurs within the boilers where it's supposed to.
Agreed. The figures given are technically accurate, but fail to account for capacity factor, which is around 90% for most nuclear generating stations, and 30-35% for most US wind-turbine installations. So multiply the 260 mi^2 number by three for a true estimate of overall land-use-to-energy-production ratios.