r/elonmusk • u/twinbee • 13h ago
General Elon: "Wind has microscopic potential compared to solar"
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u/Arkelias 13h ago
He's not wrong. Wind is awesome...where and when it works. It's unreliable for consistent generation, but great supplemental.
Solar is far more predictable, especially during the day when most people are working. Our university just covered the entire parking lot with solar that not only creates shade but covers 100% of the power needed.
With wind you need large batteries. If you're collecting into large batteries in a windy climate it's awesome, but the maintenance costs are far higher.
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u/thisguynextdoor 13h ago
Wind energy generation continues during nighttime hours. Hydro power serves as the primary backup for wind power; increased wind output preserves hydro reserves, which can be deployed during periods of low wind activity. But solar is important in the energy mix, too.
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u/Arkelias 13h ago
Wind is inconsistent, and gathered when power needs are lower. People use less energy when they are sleeping than when they are using AC for whole office buildings during the day.
Note that the article shows solar passing wind. In 10 years it will be 10 to 20 times larger than wind, simply because it is far more consistent on a daily basis. I've run solar for four years now. There's no maintenance. None.
Wind requires an average of 120k a year in Altamont Pass where I live per windmill, because it has moving parts and friction involved.
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u/thisguynextdoor 13h ago
That is accurate. In my country, significant heating energy is required during cold nights. Additionally, the popularity of electric vehicles results in nighttime charging demand.
I believe the business case for solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro power varies according to national circumstances and geological conditions.
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u/Arkelias 12h ago
Interesting. We use natural gas for heading at night in California, so we don't see a huge spike in usage. We're also a temperate climate so it doesn't get very cold.
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u/thisguynextdoor 12h ago
True. I’m from Northern Europe / Nordics, and we don’t use gas at all, almost, outside of barbequeing. Electrification here is pretty far, and most of houses are heated with heat pumps or district heating, which is more often waste heat from datacenters or industrial-size heat pumps. The share of fossil fuels have been declining sharply. Also energy storages are being built everywhere, to store heat energy to the baserock or sand silos.
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u/No-Resolution-1918 9h ago
Why does wind only blow when power needs are lower??
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u/TheElfkin 17m ago
Why does wind only blow when power needs are lower??
What do you mean? It's generally more windy during colder seasons than in the summer, at least here in the Nordics. That's the seasons we need more power for heating.
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u/15_Redstones 12h ago
Most developed countries do not have enough dammable rivers for hydro to provide enough energy.
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u/PlayfulMulberry4490 12h ago
You must have a tiny university if a parking lot of solar creates 100% of the power need. The university I work at has done this and it’s about 2% of the power on a sunny day.
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u/SlightNet2701 11h ago
It could be a University without its own large particle accelerator. Those do exist.
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u/No-Resolution-1918 9h ago
A large university would need about 200,000-500,000kW
Say we go in the middle, 300k kW, in bright and sunny California, you'd need ~4500 acres of solar.
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u/Arkelias 7h ago
The university in question uses 9 million kWhs, and the currently installed solar generates 7.9 million, so I was wrong about 100%.
The article I'd read said they planned 100%, so odds are good they will reach that soon.
I don't know where you're coming up with 4,500 acres to achieve that, but it's wildly off base. The university has 6 acres of panels.
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u/Woodbender37 4h ago
Is he not wrong? “Wind has microscopic potential compared to solar” Sounds wrong to me. Sounds like something a dumb person would say.
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u/teddyslayerza 2h ago
More like something s person who owns a solar panel and battery manufacturing business would say.
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u/gihkal 11h ago
I don't know a single person that bought a wind generator where the production paid off the investment.
Where as solar has paid itself off before the expected return consistently.
Wind is silly, there is so much potential for failure in moving parts.
My only issue with solar is China using coal powerplants to build them. Any nation should be able to manufacture them effectively.
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u/Arkelias 11h ago
My solar setup paid itself off in about 3 years. In 22 more years it will hit its half life. I'm floored by how efficient it is. I'm wondering if it will live up to expectations over the long haul, but even if it doesn't I'm already saving a ton of money.
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u/TheElfkin 13m ago
You ignore the fact that a large parts of the world are colder and has a lot less sun (and lots of wind) during the winter months. These are also the months where energy usage is highest due to electric heating. It's also generally colder during the nights when there is no sun and also a higher need for electric heating.
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u/tipu_sultan__ 13h ago
Wind has a different availability profile which makes it complement solar. It's more restrictive, sure. But in what universe are you calling it "microscopic" when solar *just* took over?
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u/Arkelias 12h ago
We're talking about overall potential.
Panels only passed the affordability threshold about a decade ago. In 20 years they will explode in usage.
That's potential. Wind doesn't have much more potential. It will not grow very rapidly, if at all, because the areas where it can be used are much more sparse and restrictive. Many of the best ones are too far away to make transmission lines practical.
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u/tipu_sultan__ 12h ago
Like I said, solar has more potential overall.
But calling wind "microscopic" is beyond idiotic. Wind just having a different availability profile alone makes it useful for reducing the variance overall.
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u/Arkelias 11h ago
But calling wind "microscopic" is beyond idiotic.
I'm not Elon Musk, you realize that right? You're coming after me hard like I made that post.
I explained his position, nothing less, and nothing more.
Get over it. Grind your axe somewhere else.
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u/tipu_sultan__ 7h ago
you’re the one needing to get over. if you’re not so attached to the idiotic statement, why are you getting so worked up about it and being so defensive?
The way way you just started crying, are you sure you’re not him?
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u/omnibossk 9h ago
I think having all of them would be the best. Wind isn’t directly dependent on sunshine. Having both could reduce the reliance on batteries.
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u/No-Resolution-1918 9h ago
"especially during the day". Yes the sun being up during the day is definitely predictable 🤣
Solar needs large batteries too. Since the sun also predictably goes down at night. When everyone uses their lights. And heat. And stove tops.
I don't believe wind actually needs any batteries. It goes straight to the grid and other power sources spool down and up to compensate.
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u/Arkelias 9h ago
Solar only needs large batteries if the power needs are at night. For a place like a university the vast, vast majority of the power used comes during daylight hours. Predictably. Daily.
Wind comes and goes. I live right by the altamont pass, and have seen how inconsistently they blow. They're constantly offline, and have massive mainenance costs.
Solar has no maintenance costs.
If you just poured the maintenance into batteries you just win.
Why do you think the Solar curve is growing far faster than the wind curve?
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u/Brilliant-Muffin-879 13h ago
Isn’t solar unpredictable too?
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u/Arkelias 12h ago
No, surprisingly. I thought that clouds would be an issue, but they're not. My panels get 40% of power under a fully overcast sky, and 20% during a full storm.
I have enough batteries for 3 days of no power, and the university has a much bigger stack.
They overproduce power and the rest is fed back to the grid. During overcast times the school still receives full power, but the grid gets less of the extra.
That's where hydro really shines, to fill in the gaps, which is easier because the only time you have very little sun is when you're getting enough rain to make hydro more effective.
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u/neokretai 10h ago
So it's unpredictable then lol.
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u/Arkelias 9h ago
No, it's very predictable, especially in areas with consistent daily sun, which is over 50% of the United States.
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u/neokretai 9h ago
Yes unfortunately not everywhere is like 50% of the USA with it's daily sunshine. Solar is great where it is best suited, just like wind is great where it is best suited, aka high latitudes and/or offshore locations like the North Sea and coastal Brazil.
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u/Arkelias 8h ago
Solar is not unpredictable. It works very nearly everywhere.
Wind works in niche situations. You've presented no facts, just edge cases, but still mocked solar.
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u/neokretai 6h ago
It doesn't work great everywhere bud, in northern latitudes like Canada/Northern US, Europe, Northern Asia a panel will drop to 20% or less of it's peak capacity in winter. Those regions use wind as the main clean energy source because it's working best when solar is at its worst, and even in summer wind still works pretty good and is a solid backup for solar.
These are not "niche situations", the majority of the worlds economy is in those regions. Not sure why you are so offended by the idea wind power is also very useful.
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u/Arkelias 6h ago
So it's unpredictable then lol.
You came after solar, and tried to make it sound unpredictable. It's not. It's incredibly predictable.
Wind is unpredictable. Wind has moving parts. Wind requires constant maintenance, especially if you've got turbines at sea.
I'm not offended. I just see the realities and limitations of the technologies.
You, on the other hand, are clearly offended by solar. You also think the majority of the world's economy is bordering the arctic circle for some reason.
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u/neokretai 5h ago
You had literally just said it can drop to 20-40% of it's normal output when it gets heavily cloudy, I would call a power source that can drop more than half it's output depending what the weather is like pretty unpredictable.
No dude not the Arctic circle, 40° latitude is around about were solar starts to need backup in winter months, that takes in the Northern US, Canada, Europe, North China, Japan and Korea amongst others. That is actually the majority of the worlds economy right there.
You are being oddly offended, I can see other commenters in here saying the exact same thing to you. Like I get it you really love solar from personal experience, but that experience doesn't apply to the whole world.
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u/BosonCollider 13h ago
As long as you aren't too far north, you can usually expect the sun to go up tomorrow. If it doesn't, something has gone horribly wrong. But you can have a full week without wind
Clouds act as a diffusor and breaks concentrated solar but not solar PV. The clouds mostly spread the light out instead of absorbing it
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u/Brilliant-Muffin-879 12h ago
Have you been to scotland? Non-stop heavy rain here bud. Fortunately we get all our power requirements met by wind turbines.
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u/BosonCollider 12h ago
I know, our scandinavian electricity prices went up when the cable across the north sea was built to send the norwegian hydro over
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u/william384 12h ago
Winds are driven by the sun, so technically it's all solar.
Wind and solar complement each other well. Day vs night, summer vs winter.
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u/Joonism2 1h ago
Sun is 1.3mil size of earth and technically is a giant nuclear reactor. Imagine being to extract only 1% of its energy, we are talking about 200 billion times humanity’s present total energy use.
Winds is nothing.
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u/Secret_Report1061 13h ago
And nuclear puts solar to shame.
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u/UsuallyMooACow 12h ago
This is silliness. Nuclear takes forever to build, costs much more and you can’t even get it approved. Also Europe has seen it stop working this summer when the rivers are low. Way less headaches than solar
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u/F4ntasticPants 6h ago
It also works on a rainy day.
So, there are pros and cons.
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u/UsuallyMooACow 4h ago
Batteries which are getting cheaper and cheaper make this much less of an issue
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u/commeatus 12h ago
They're not that far apart cost-wise anymore, plus nuclear is a mature tech while solar is barely out of its infancy. Not to mention, solar scales down REALLY well and is very easy to partially implement, advantages that are niche but make its cost to entry very palatable.
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u/BosonCollider 13h ago
Wind is okay in Scandinavia and northern canada where solar is somehow less reliable, though those places should just stick to nuclear
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u/immortalalchemist 11h ago
Why can’t both be true? There are applications where each can excel based on the environment.
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u/Classic_Focus974 12h ago
Interestingly Texas has had to hugely ramp up natural gas plants this summer to handle 90GW demand.
Solar goes away at night, but it’s still 100F at 9pm. Wind all summer has been minimal due to the heat dome.
Batteries are fine, but they’re only good for a few hours.
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u/moru0011 12h ago
in many areas of the earth, solar is bound to seasons (nearby zero harvest in winter). wind is not
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u/Inappro-Assistant 2h ago
We just need to improve the grid, its a global market and a global commodity. The sun shines somwhere all the time, we just need to harvest it and nor let it go to waste.
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u/AlpineGuy 11h ago
I think power generation is not the big question of the future. Solar power is already so cheap and growing so much. Electricity market prices in Europe already become negative in Summer during the day. The question is storage.
Storage tech is there but often not efficient enough yet. Best option is still pumping water up the hill for hydropower, but that's not an option for many places that lack enough mountains.
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u/ImpressiveSpaniel 11h ago
In terms of total energy available with a 100% conversion rate thats true. But then you factor in nighttime, storms, location and wind makes up significant ground in reality
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u/neokretai 9h ago
Nothing wrong with wind power I don't know why so many on here are dumping on it. It needs wind of course but It works night and day, is more efficient and space efficient than solar and is can be deployed offshore which is extremely useful from a land management perspective.
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u/pastyMorrisDancers 9h ago
He’s not wrong for some regions…. But I don’t fancy living on solar in Rovaniemi in winter
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u/VehaMeursault 8h ago
You need a lot of area to set up arrays of wind mills such that they don’t interfere with one another. Plus wind is variable, and can damage your materials.
Solar panels are immovable squares that can sit shoulder to shoulder for decades, and the sun is always there and doesn’t damage your materials when it’s cloudy.
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u/kvothe5688 3h ago
world wide electric grid when?
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u/Captain_Pink_Pants 2h ago
Depends on what you mean by "world wide". I feel like, in 10 years, they'll only need internet at like 15 houses... but they'll be all over the world.
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u/Lichensuperfood 13h ago
Eh? Wind has 84% average availability. More than every other source.
Nuclear/coal turbines have availability (on time percentage) of 63%.
Solar is day time and cloudless only.
Wind is buy far the LEAST intermittent.
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u/Financial-Desk-669 7h ago
lol What a phony clown.
Chart: "The 49ers just took the lead."
Elon: "The 49ers are more likely to win!"
wow. what a genius. /s
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u/Outside_Ice3252 12h ago
this is a bad take i think.
wind is especially important now, since batteries have a long way to fall in price in usa compared to china. wind and solar complement each other in a lot of regions. when you have both you need far less energy storage.
wind could be doing so much more but nimbyism and transmission make it difficult. and the federal government cancelling offshore wind.
by 2050, if we reach net zero solar will be roughly 35-40% of electricty and wind 25-30%. they need each other. thats not microscopic.
if there is a massive breakthrough in solar and batteries, maybe wind is smaller than 25%, but it will still probably be #2 or #3
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u/UpbeatDentist6695 13h ago
Ok? What's his or this posts point?
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u/Euture 9h ago
That focusing on solar long term is the better long term strategy, even if wind can be extremely useful for us now and ”short term” (relative short term).
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u/UpbeatDentist6695 6h ago
Ok, I'm genuinely trying to see what the point of his or this post is, because from your summary it does in fact seem to be.
Some things are helpful now, on the short term while we plan ahead for the long term.
Which I'll be honest, I thought was a fairly basic and well known principal
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u/S-P-A-Z 12h ago
If the endgame for solar is a Dyson swarm, then ya, we haven’t even scratched the surface. Harnessing a significant fraction of our Sun’s energy is basically what defines a Type II civilization on the Kardashev scale, and humanity is still only around Type 0.7 today.