The girl in the mirror - alexqueerchick: itmustbelupe: theeconomist: ...

6th February 2011

Photo reblogged from Just a beaver with an agenda with 138 notes

alexqueerchick:

itmustbelupe:

theeconomist:

Daily chart: the windy world. In 2010 China overtook America as the world leader in wind power, and now accounts for 22% of the world’s total wind power capacity. Globally, however, the installation of new wind power facilities has started to slow.

I would suggest a few reasons for this.
First of all, whilst wind power is great, it’s not really that useful in a country-wide power grid - it’s too variable and unpredictable in a system that follows patterns.
Secondly, China has a huge power grid that means that on average wind power is going to be usable because somewhere is always likely to be producing power.

I would suggest that having the y-axis in terms of unit power as opposed to unit power/land area, or wind power/overall power means that graph isn’t all that useful.

I think that’s a different metric to the one that is being shown here, but still an interesting one. I wonder if the economist will pick this up and produce one?
The thing shown here is installed capacity, since this is a good measure of the number of units installed, and thus the investment made, both in terms of money or resources.
Something interesting I saw recently, whilst we’re on the subject of renewable energy, is forthcoming use of molten salt in solar thermal stations. This should be really good for the effectiveness, because it means you can put much more heat into the tower, and get more energy out.
Also on the subject of molten salt, and none-CO2-producing energy, I have heard word that China is investigating the use of thorium based nuclear reactors, using molten salt coolant. Absolutely wonderful news in my opinion :) Thorium is a good material for this, and molten salt means you can build smaller reactors. Should be interesting if they start becoming world leaders in the technology.

itmustbelupe:

theeconomist:

Daily chart: the windy world. In 2010 China overtook America as the world leader in wind power, and now accounts for 22% of the world’s total wind power capacity. Globally, however, the installation of new wind power facilities has started to slow.

I would suggest a few reasons for this.

First of all, whilst wind power is great, it’s not really that useful in a country-wide power grid - it’s too variable and unpredictable in a system that follows patterns.

Secondly, China has a huge power grid that means that on average wind power is going to be usable because somewhere is always likely to be producing power.

I would suggest that having the y-axis in terms of unit power as opposed to unit power/land area, or wind power/overall power means that graph isn’t all that useful.

I think that’s a different metric to the one that is being shown here, but still an interesting one. I wonder if the economist will pick this up and produce one?

The thing shown here is installed capacity, since this is a good measure of the number of units installed, and thus the investment made, both in terms of money or resources.

Something interesting I saw recently, whilst we’re on the subject of renewable energy, is forthcoming use of molten salt in solar thermal stations. This should be really good for the effectiveness, because it means you can put much more heat into the tower, and get more energy out.

Also on the subject of molten salt, and none-CO2-producing energy, I have heard word that China is investigating the use of thorium based nuclear reactors, using molten salt coolant. Absolutely wonderful news in my opinion :) Thorium is a good material for this, and molten salt means you can build smaller reactors. Should be interesting if they start becoming world leaders in the technology.

Source: economist.com