Capacity Changes, Capacity Utilization, Energy Production: Wind Power in California 2001-2020.
The source data from the table below can be found by scrolling down this page from the California Energy Commissions Web Page:
Electricity From Wind Energy Statistics and Data
It is the table labeled, Total Wind Production (Annual Totals; Excludes Imports)
I have imported the table into Excel, and then did some calculations using this data. Wind turbine power ratings, which are often cited by advocates of this form of energy which has failed spectacularly to address climate change after half a century of cheering, are cited as peak power, which is the maximal power the turbine would manage under perfect windy conditions, which in practice are never observed.
It is dishonest - not that anyone cares anymore about dishonesty - to represent a wind turbine, which is dependent on whims of weather as a plant that can, in theory run continuously at full power, such as a gas plant or a coal plant, or even a plant of a type that has been observed to run at 100% (or better) of capacity, something observed only in nuclear plants.
For example, one can find the capacity utilization of all of the nuclear reactors operating in the United States as of 2020 here: EIA Nuclear Energy Page by clicking on the 2020P Excel File in the table on the right. Of 94 nuclear reactors operating the in the United States in 2020, 70 operated at 90% capacity utilization or better, and of these, 24 operated at 100% of capacity or more. Five operated at capacity utilization of less than 80%. One of these was Diablo Canyon reactor #2, which operated at 74.8% of capacity, apparently for refueling and maintenance. It produced 7,348,123 MWh of electricity, or 26.5 PetaJoules of electricity (0.0265 EJ) in one small building. Diablo Canyon #2 operated at 90.4% capacity utilization, producing 8,910,575 MWh of electricity, or 32.1 PetaJoules, or (0.0321 EJ).
In the table below, I have included a theoretical amount of energy that wind turbines would produce if they operated at 100% of capacity utilization, using the SI unit of energy, the Joule. I have also converted the power actually produced from MWh to Joule in order to calculate the ratio of the latter to the former to give capacity utilization. I have then calculated the average continuous power of all the wind turbines in California, by the number of seconds in a sidereal year, 86400 seconds/day*365.24 days/year = 31,556,736 seconds. This gives the average power in Watts, but the spreadsheet divides this number by 1,000,000 to give a MW. Theoretically, ignoring the inherent lumpiness in wind power which produces what it produces without respect to demand, this gives a feel for the capacity of a nuclear powerplant that could produce more energy than all the wind turbines in California. The next two columns give the growth or decline in name plate capacity compared to the previous year, as well the growth or decline in actual energy produced by all the wind turbines in California. Where declines occur, this reflects the short life time of wind turbines and the failure to replace those decommissioned. Renewable energy advocates love "percent talk" and so, since I'm so familiar with their patois, I've put in "percent."
The table:
There you have it folks, the total energy, produced in two small buildings, in 2020 with a total in use footprint of about 12 acres, on a 700 acre plot of largely undisturbed marine chaparral, produced 16,258,698 MWh of electricity, or 58.5 petajoules of electrical energy, more than all of wind plants in California, distributed over thousands of square km.
For reference, as of 2019, humanity was producing and consuming on the entire planet was consuming about 600 ExaJoules (EJ) of energy, dominated by an increasing share of dangerous fossil fuels.
If there's any sense to shutting the Diablo Canyon nuclear reactor, this when the entire West Coast is laced with fires, droughts, and extreme temperatures, I'm missing it.
From where I sit, anti-nukes are the exact equivalent of anti-vaxxers, inasmuch both assert arrogant ignorance to do harm.
Have a nice evening.
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