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Comment by tda | Hacker News Reader

So disappointing journalists never understand the difference between power and energy. The opening sentences make me cringe so much I don't even want to read the rest of the article

> Last month the American wind industry hit a major milestone — 100 gigawatts of total installed capacity. That's enough electricity to power the state of California and New Jersey combined for one year.

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This isn't just a journalist -- this is "the director of the Special Initiative on Offshore Wind, a U.S. offshore wind energy policy and communications program based at the University of Delaware"!!

I can only hope that the insertion of "for one year" was the act of an editor, and that the author is as upset about it as we are.

I agree. I can see it now, headline:

"Massive scientific breakthrough -- 100 trillion Watts of power, enough to power all the US, from just a single AAA cell flashlight battery!!!"

Sure, but the headline omitted that the power lasts for only 10^(-100) seconds or so!

In the news business, energy and power are nearly synonymous. E.g., from sports writing we might get something like:

"On Sunday Quarterback Joe Testosteroni with his massive energy and power will come with his game face on, ready to play, and win if he possibly can."

So such sports writing is in the formula fiction pattern of the high drama of a desperate clash of titans.

Be careful: Some people writing that stuff get paid more than some readers of Hacker News!

In my life, it took me some years to accept that quite broadly the news business forgot nearly all their freshman physics! They are a lot better at some of the patterns of formula fiction. We can guess they liked literature class better than physics class. They can be really good at creating smelly bait for the ad hook.

What is wrong with that sentence? As of 2018 there was ~98k MW of installed wind capacity [1]. Reaching 100 GW of installed capacity in 2019 make perfect sense. It seems like it's you that doesn't understand the difference between power (watts) vs. energy (watt-hours / joules) yet are confident enough to call a journalist out even though they are correct.

[1](https://gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/GWEC-Global-Wind...) Page 29

You can power some number of houses with 100 MW, or you can power the same number of houses for a year with 876 GWh, but you cannot power them for a year with 100 MW. It's as wrong as saying that the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles is 60 miles per hour.

I know it's provocative to run across a comment that seems both wrong and arrogant, but please correct the former without escalating the latter. Then the thread for sure moves in a better direction.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

installed capacity equals power. That amount of power either is or isn't enough to power the states of California and New Jersey. The "for a year" part makes no sense in this context.

I guess you've read "for one year" as "in one year", but that's not what "for" means, and anyway, I'm sure it took a lot more than a year to install 100GW worth of turbines.

The sentence is literally correct, but misleading. A continuous 100GW might power those two states, but that's not what you get out of a 100GW wind installation. The capacity factor for wind is about 25-30%.

It isn't though. Thats how we talk about installed power capacity. The capacity factor is important but seperate. Nobody says we installed a 2.5 MW* wind turbine accounting for capacity factor. They say we installed a 10 MW wind turbine. It is assumed, especially given this publications audience, that the power factor is a seprate point. The person I replied to said that the sentance was so wrong it was "cringy" which is not true.

You've highlighted my essential issue with wind (and other renewables). Under the guise of "ah the dumb public won't understand", things like the actual expected output of a wind farm are hidden. It's a long enough road to renewable energy without hiding away the essential facts. The capacity factor, and resulting actual output of a wind farm, is the most important figure, along with its cost (which is a whole different debate).

Also, as has been pointed out, the loose use of terms for power and energy in the article is enough to make an engineer wince.

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