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2008-08-04 Home Front: Culture Wars

Enviros Flip-Flop; Worry About Wind Farms

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Posted by Bobby 2008-08-04 15:42|| || Front Page|| [11132 views ] Top

#1 OK, I've asked this before and I'll ask it again, cause I really do want to believe that this could work. How does a windfarm do ANY good in the abscence of a load shedding type powerplant? The windfarm is going to crank up and die down with the winds, demand is going to remain elevated during the day, and very slack at night. It seems to me the strain of sudden demand on their local powerplant is going to be enormous when the wind dies down. So without storage capacity, which is economically out of the question at this time, how will it provide RELIABLE power?

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-08-04 16:37|| 2008-08-04 16:37|| Front Page Top

#2 bj, the silence is deafening.

I read an extensive article on the very subject w/r to wind power in the British Isles. Power not available at peak, known periods of no winds during winter for all of UK & Europe (period of highest demand for heat), requirement for power plants for backup designed to withstand surge loads on/off (expensive and inefficient due to design requirements). Risk to health and safety if system fails.

Posted by tipover 2008-08-04 16:50|| 2008-08-04 16:50|| Front Page Top

#3 Wind is part of the answer but not the answer on its own. wind farms are foolish and wind should be used on a point basis. Got a windy town, build a windmill to suplement the power in that town. Very windy, build two or three and perhaps sell power back to the grid.

Solar areas can do the same.

This one size-fits all demand and centralized thinking is either stupid or the power companies and politicians hoping to maintain control.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-08-04 17:19|| 2008-08-04 17:19|| Front Page Top

#4 I can't see where wind farms are anything but an auxiliary or supplemental source of energy that you can't always count on. It can help but it is not the "be all end all" solution to energy problems.

I think we need to stop listening to the shrill cries of the enviros. They would have all of us riding bicycles and generating our electricity from the bicycles. Come to think of it they would probably find something wrong with bicycles also (and nuclear and solar and coal and gas and tides and water, etc.).

Posted by JohnQC 2008-08-04 17:42|| 2008-08-04 17:42|| Front Page Top

#5 bj, we'll find out the answer when wind crashes the distribution grid.

Denmark has the highest level of wind power generation at 20%, But you have to bear in mind Denmark is integrated with the German power network.

I've seen estimates for the maximum amount wind can contribute around and below 10%. Of course it doesn't mean wind is economic at any percentage.

Posted by phil_b 2008-08-04 18:55|| 2008-08-04 18:55|| Front Page Top

#6 Denmark also has the highest electricity rates in Europe, 3X the avg US rate. One guess why.

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 19:04|| 2008-08-04 19:04|| Front Page Top

#7 POST 9-11 + "GLOBALISM" + "OWG-NWO" > NOT just Multinationals, but SUPER- + GLOBAL MNCS. POST 2050-2100 > prob add "SPACE/UNIVERS CORPRORATION" + "A SPACE/UNIVERS LLC", etc to the descriptions in the future MOODY'S LIST OF SPACE/UNIVERS COMPANIES.

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-08-04 19:26|| 2008-08-04 19:26|| Front Page Top

#8 In LT these WIND FARMS will prob integrate or merge wid SOLAR- and OCEAN-BASED ENERGY COMPANIES. IMO "OCEAN" and related EnerTechs is the best option as ocean/riverine currents [dams?] are stronger and can be measurably controlled for energy purposes. MORE RELIABLE YEAR ROUND + BAD WEATHER ONLY MAKES THE GROSS ENERGY OUTPUT STRONGER.

DAMS, DIKES, CANALS, etc. > were built by our ancestors for CROP IRRIGATION [food] + RELIABLE SOURCE-NETWORK DRINKING WATER + ENERGY FOR WORKING MILLS [Food + Industry]. WINDMILLS WERE OFTEN BUILT NEXT TO WATER MILLS, etc. CORRECT???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-08-04 19:38|| 2008-08-04 19:38|| Front Page Top

#9 And, Lest we fergit, MURPHY BROWN [Candice Burgen > Murphy discovers that the Anti-Establishment, anti-Capitalist, and Anti-War Author of the Book TECHNICOLOR HIGHWAY and 1960's Hippies-Yippie Activist Counter
Revolutiona Icon had in decades since become a PRO-ESTABLISHMENT, PRO-CAPITALIST/CORPORATION, NIXONIAN? REAGAN-ESQUE? "DIRTY REPUBLICAN PIG"???

NO? howzabout THE SIMPSONS > IIRC HOMER and BART discover that the friends of HOMER's 1960's On-The-Run Radical Felon Mom not only grow marijuana, but SSSSHHHHHHHHHHHH grow marijuana to use in the various Comsumer Products they sell under their Company label???

Posted by JosephMendiola 2008-08-04 19:50|| 2008-08-04 19:50|| Front Page Top

#10 Wow Joe. Just... wow.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 20:22|| 2008-08-04 20:22|| Front Page Top

#11 I remember enviros back in the 90's worrying about the effect of windfarms on things like 'the microclimate' and migrating birds and such.

I suppose it all just depends on whose pet cause gets gored.

Can an individual windmill produce enough energy in its lifetime to cover the energy required for its materials, the transport of those materials, the assembly and maintenance?

Posted by eLarson 2008-08-04 20:40|| 2008-08-04 20:40|| Front Page Top

#12 The key for wind and solar is that it all needs to be grid connected, large numbers and large geographic dispersal.

For large amounts of wind power connected to the grid from several geographically dispersed wind farms, total wind power generally varies smoothly and therefore cannot be described accurately as "intermittent". Thus, the variability of large-scale dispersed wind power is unlike that of a single wind turbine. Nevertheless, it may require some additional back-up, I don't dispute that.

The question is can you build enough of them, far enough dispersed, so that they will provide enough power on a stable basis to add to current generation capability, and to do wo without using the backup natural gas turbines more than 30%.

Furthermore, consider the time and geography separation of east, wes and central wind farms, not just N-S distribution.

And consider that agains the typical variations in demand versus day (of the week) and time, as well as season.

Remember that even coal fired plants have down time.

So you guys are making a serious error when you confuse a single turbine or single area with an entire grid-connected array, spread acoss the continent.

The purpose isnt to completely displace conventional and nuclear power, its to add generative capacity that reduces the need to import fuel.

As for cost? Subsidize it as a matter of national defense. Same goes for nukes, and solar-thermal (with storage) and geothermal.

Wind is part of the answer, as well as drilling the OCS and ANWR, oil shales, clean coal, solar-thermal, hydro-electric (screw the snail darters), geothermal, natural gas, solar-electric, nukes, hybrid vehicles, electrical vehicles, etc.

This either-or is bullshit, whether it comes from ignorance on the right, or obstinance on the left.

Use every club in the bag.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 20:49|| 2008-08-04 20:49|| Front Page Top

#13 We don't import fuel to generate electricity. Coal, nuclear and even nat gas is comestic. The problem with wind power is cost (3X coal) and intermittentcy, which requires backup generation (expensive nat gas) as well as expensive power grid conditioning. Someone (you and I) have to pay for that.

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 20:54|| 2008-08-04 20:54|| Front Page Top

#14 comestic - domestic..

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 20:55|| 2008-08-04 20:55|| Front Page Top

#15 Read the engineering studies.

Power generation is not a flat "make this much" item, despite your notions to the contrary. It requires a large mix of capacities, of reliabilites, and costs. This is a neccesarily complex thing to model and to control.

Even coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power stations are not 100% reliable. To achieve this level of reliability with any single technology would require an infinite amount of back-up and hence an infinite cost. In practice, a generating system has a limited amount of back-up and a specified reliability. This can be measured in terms of the average number of hours per year that supply fails to meet demand or by the frequency and duration of failures to meet demand. Wind can be factored into this, like any other source, once the variaiblity is known and sufficient backup is provided as part of the system.

For intermediate load using widely dispersed wind farms, the back-up capacity only has to be one-fifth to one-third of the wind capacity. In the special case when all the wind power is concentrated at a single site, the required back-up is about half the wind capacity. (Martin & Diesendorf 1982; Grubb 1988a & b; ILEX 2002; Carbon Trust & DTI 2004; Dale et al. 2004; UKERC 2006).

To replace the electricity generated by a 1000 megawatt (MW) coal-fired power station, with annual average power output of about 850 MW, a group of wind farms with capacity (rated power) of about 2600 MW, located in windy sites, is required. The higher wind capacity allows for the variations in wind power and is taken into account in the economics of wind power.

Although this substitution involves a large number of wind turbines (for example, 1300 turbines, each rated at 2 MW), they are grouped and seperated by large distances to offset localized weather events.

Also, remember base load is typically the lowest normal demand, intermediate load is typical daytime average, and peak is specifically high demand, like a heat wave in summer, or cold snap in winter.

Furthermore, because the back-up can be used as a peak-load plant, it does not have to be run continuously while the wind is blowing. Instead the gas turbines can be switched on and off quickly when necessary. Since the gas turbine has low capital cost and low fuel use, it may be considered to be reliability insurance with a small premium.

One size does not fit all, and wind power can and should be a solid part of the mix.

Same as geothermal, solar-thermal, drilling, shales, nukes, etc.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 21:03|| 2008-08-04 21:03|| Front Page Top

#16 And you are wrong - we use oil (petroleum) to generate power. Not as mcuh as coal (50%+ of our power), but its still there.

In 2007, the USA produced than 7,000 Thousand-MW-hours of electrical power from petroleum, per the US Dept Of Energy.

That's why its important to do this and make natural gas the primary transportation fuel.

And that in turn is why wind power makes sense as part of an overall solution. Replace all natural gas and petroleum generation capacity with wind while we bring the nukes online. Use the gas as the standby/back and peak capacity. Use coal as the backbone, that we do now, while we build up nukes for future capacity.

Push the automatkers to proviude dual-fuel vehicles, and subsidize nat gas distribution to fuel centers (via tax policy).

That will drop the need to import large amounts of oil for transportation, and buy us the time we need to get off oil as a fuel, and drilkl our own productively.

Wind can be done in 3-5 years, vehicles in 10. THat puts this as the gap filler until the new drilling shows up - along with huge new amounts of natural gas that will accompany the new drilling.

That in turn buys the 20 years to get the nukes built and vehicles into some sort of electrical, reserving petroleum for military and industrial use.

And it all creates jobs HERE, and keeps the money HERE, instead of going to Hugo Chaves, the Wahabbis in Saudi, etc.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 21:18|| 2008-08-04 21:18|| Front Page Top

#17 Coal and nuclear plants operate at 90% of rated capacity or better. Outages are, well, planned in advance for maintenance and refueling.

Wind turbines average 1/3 of rated capacity. Of that capacity, only 1/3 can be classed as pseudo-baseload (10-12% of rated capacity) if and only if you have a large number of turbines spread over a large geographical area. I know of no power gird that meets that criteria. Whether pseudo-baseload conditions are met or not, that still requires the majority of wind generated capacity to have fossil fuel backup plants. Outages (and surges) can't be predicted 5 minutes in advance. That leads voltage transients that will bring down the grid if wind is a high enough percentage. Somewhere around 20% is the figure cited.

Wind replaces fuel, and expensively at that. Fed subsides are 2/3¢/kWH (production and accelerated depreciation). That's 1/2 the cost of coal or nuke power and that's not including costs of backup plants and grid reliability measures that are spread across all producers. Even then wind power sells at a premium. But fuel for electricity is the least of problems for America. We have 200 years of coal, 500 years of shale, thousands of years of transuranics. Heck even the used nuclear fuel still has 99% of its energy untapped.

Bottom line: wind is a bad use of limited resources. We can spend less money for more reliable power and use the left over billions to improve our lives in other areas.

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 21:47|| 2008-08-04 21:47|| Front Page Top

#18 In 2006 the USA produced 4,064,701 MWH of electricity. 7000 MWH is 0.17% of that. It doesn't even register in power production charts.

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 21:56|| 2008-08-04 21:56|| Front Page Top

#19 Fed subsides are 2/3¢/kWH = Fed subsides are 2.3¢/kWH

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 22:01|| 2008-08-04 22:01|| Front Page Top

#20 Missed 3 zeros.

In 2006 the USA produced 4.064,701 Trillion KWH. Thats 4,064,701,000,000 KWH or 4,064,701,000 MWH.

7,000 THOUSAND MWH is still 0.17% of that.

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 22:23|| 2008-08-04 22:23|| Front Page Top

#21 The key for wind and solar is that it all needs to be grid connected, large numbers and large geographic dispersal.

I've always thought that the best application for wind power would be millions and millions of micro-turbines at each home to supplement consumption. If we're going to subsidize someone let's subsidize homeowners to install these things, that'll have the same net immediate economic effect as subsidizing billionaires to build wind farms and provide an ongoing bump as homeowners pocket the difference on their new lower energy bills and plow that money back into the economy.

Posted by AzCat 2008-08-04 22:31|| 2008-08-04 22:31|| Front Page Top

#22 You won't want to live under the noise of turning blades. Large wind turbines also give a much better $/kWH return than small ones. That's why 5MW rated wind turbines that are 600 feet high are state of the art.

Posted by ed 2008-08-04 22:38|| 2008-08-04 22:38|| Front Page Top

#23 Granted Ed and replication of all of the necessary power conversion infrastructure millions of times over is also highly inefficient but I'd still rather see the government subsidize my neighbors than Boone Pickens.

Posted by AzCat 2008-08-04 22:43|| 2008-08-04 22:43|| Front Page Top

#24 Actually per the graph its 1.2 on their charts. And my figures were from the spreadsheet I downloaded from the eic/DOC

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 23:37|| 2008-08-04 23:37|| Front Page Top

#25 Correction to you: They said 7,000 THOUSAND MWH were produced by oil/petroleum.

Not "none" as you stated - stope with the lefty-style weaseling and changin the subject to cover your lies.

No matter how you shape it, thats still a significant amount of oil being burned for power.

You guys are fucking rediculous with the lengths you go to, to try to exclude wind.

WTF is wrong with you? You are acting as deluded as the Daily Kos people are on drilling.

Use all the tools we have - wind is viable - and yes it is enough to displace the oil we do use for power generation.

Who give a flying crap if T Boone Pickens makes a buck.

What the hell is wrong with that? Woudl you rather we keep sending it to Hugo Chaves you fecking morons?

Damn, you guys ARE as bad as the Kos and DU idiots when it comes to slagging capitalism and the things needed to secure the nation's energy supply.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 23:43|| 2008-08-04 23:43|| Front Page Top

#26 Paleolithic regressives (not progressive, not conservatives) like you are determine to not be part of the solution - to me that makes you part of the problem.

You are between us and national security.

As John Galt said: "Get out of my way!"

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-04 23:56|| 2008-08-04 23:56|| Front Page Top

23:56 OldSpook
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23:35 gromky
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22:57 bigjim-ky
22:43 AzCat
22:42 ed
22:41 JosephMendiola
22:41 AzCat
22:39 Pappy
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22:26 JosephMendiola
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