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Comment by wavegeek | Hacker News Reader

False and misleading.

First, it only refers to the US, while the headline makes no such qualification.

Second, this refers only to electricity generation, which is roughly 25% of US energy use, or 20% if you include energy embedded in imports, mostly fueled by fossil fuels in China.

Third, this refers only to gros capacity. For those who have been asleep, the effective energy capacity is far lower for renewables than for stable power sources due to intermittency.

inb4 By referring to facts you have shown you are clearly on the wrong team.

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The first two lines of the article, emphasis added:

> The Land-Based Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition provides an overview of developments and trends in the U.S. wind power market.

> A record 16,836 megawatts (MW) of U.S. wind capacity was installed in 2020, bringing the cumulative total to 121,955 MW.

Asking a US government to put in the headline that the report is about US stuff is a bit surprising.

To be fair US government could talk about global trends.

My problem is with the title by the hackernews poster. Highly misleading, as your quotes show.

You are right, the original article is: Land-Based Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition Released.

PS: I am sorry, I was sure that HN policy is not to editorialize/change the title. I did not suspect this was done here.

> I was sure that HN policy is not to editorialize/change the title.

It is. I'm sure 'dang will fix it when he sees it :).

> First, it only refers to the US, while the headline makes no such qualification.

Yes the title should be "Land-Based Wind Market Report: 2021 Edition Released" but it still won't say US cause it's not in the title.

> Second, this refers only to electricity generation, which is roughly 25% of US energy use, or 20% if you include energy embedded in imports, mostly fueled by fossil fuels in China.

Of course it's only about electricity generation?

> Third, this refers only to gros capacity. For those who have been asleep, the effective energy capacity is far lower for renewables than for stable power sources due to intermittency.

That's what you usually mention when you build something that generates energy. Nothing unusual here either.

> inb4 By referring to facts you have shown you are clearly on the wrong team.

What's with this unhealthy polarization? What teams are you talking about?

Worth noting that one of the standard anti-renewable talking points is to compare electrical energy production with the energy output by burning fossil fuels.

This latter number is about 3x higher than the useful output since if you need something other than heat, say a car to move, or grid electricity then 2/3rds of the energy will be lost as heat while converting the energy to motion (and then to electricity).

And if you do need heat, then an electric heat pump will provide 2-5 times the heat if you feed it one unit of energy.

This is why electrification of everything that can be electrified will reduce total energy requirements substantially (while increasing the amount of electrical energy we need slightly).

I assumed (generously) that they were talking about capacity factor. Most wind power plants have a capacity factor between 0.25 and 0.5, which has been increasing over time. We are now able to build taller towers with longer blades, and that makes a difference. From the PDF:

> The average 2020 capacity factor among projects built from 2014 to 2019 was 41.4%, compared to an average of 29.0% among projects built from 2004 to 2011, and 25.2% among projects built from 1998 to 2001. This improvement among more-recently built projects has pushed the cumulative fleet-wide capacity factor higher over time, reaching 36% in 2020.

>First, it only refers to the US, while the headline makes no such qualification.

The url gives you a good hint.

> The url gives you a good hint.

True, but it is easily overlooked. A qualification in the title would be nice.

How does that help on mobile where I don't see the URL by default. The headline should specify US if it's only for US.

I'm on mobile. I see "energy.gov" just fine.

....how does seeing energy.gov help?

Even if you know that only US agencies use .gov, it's not like an American agency wouldn't publish a report on a worldwide trend, is it?

Generally no, the government isn't an academic body. .gov sites tend to focus on the American people almost exclusively.

This isn't a rule by any means but seeing .gov usually translates to "pertains to the US"

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