FORUM: Wind power

The Washington Times ^ | Apr 22, 2008 | John Krenicki

[neverdem]

Earth Day 2008 is an opportunity to celebrate the progress we've made toward building a cleaner future for our world — more importantly, it is a time to rededicate ourselves to facing and solving the problems that continue to threaten the long-term health of our environment. None of those challenges is more critical than the need to find new and "greener" ways to help meet global energy demands.

The world's thirst for energy continues unabated. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, global demand for all forms of energy is expected to grow by 54 percent between now and the year 2025.

At the same time, pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is increasing worldwide. To secure its energy future while also meeting its environmental responsibilities, it is essential for our country to explore and develop all of its available energy options including nuclear, natural gas and cleaner ways to use our most abundant fuel source, coal.

While such traditional fuels remain vital to the energy and economic health of our country, it is equally clear that renewable energy must be an integral part of the 21st century energy mix. This sector holds great promise, not only for cleaner sources of energy, but also for the creation of thousands of needed U.S. "green collar" jobs.

Currently, the most commercially viable renewable energy technology is wind. A supportive policy environment has enabled the U.S. to become the global leader in new wind power installations. In 2007, the country added 5,244 megawatts of wind power, more than 25 percent of the world total and a 45 percent increase in U.S. installed capacity over the previous year, a new record. And the U.S. is on pace to surpass Germany as the global leader in installed wind power capacity in 2009...

[neverdem]

We need cheap energy, and we need to export. We import too much. All the rest is window dressing for watermelons.

[neverdem]

Technology Smooths the Way for Home Wind-Power Turbines

In Lean Times, Biotech Grains Are Less Taboo (Frankenfoods)

New TB threat: Global ties bring an ancient disease to Silicon Valley

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.

[Gene Eric]

>> All the rest is window dressing for watermelons.

or collard greens.

[verklaring]

We have it. It is called oil, enough for a couple hundred years. It is sitting in the ground, on land, in oil shale, and off the coasts. But we cannot get to it because of windmill nuts who want to kill birds with scenic propellers.

[Mark]

Nuke the windmills! Then blame it on Algore.

[PugetSoundSoldier]

I like how they talk about 54% in 2025 - that’s in 17 years! That’s around 2.1% annual increase - not much, year over year, but that’s not as exciting of a number now, is it?

[ME-262]

How about we put up some windmills out back of capitol hill and see if we can harness enough hot air to power the nation.

[steelyourfaith]

"At the same time, pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is increasing worldwide."

"Pressure" as in the caterwauling of the Church of the Warming Globe acolytes.

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[Dixie Yooper]

Currently, the most commercially viable renewable energy technology is wind.

Currently, the most commercially viable renewable energy technology is water or hydroelectric technology which we have bee using for some time. The big problem is enviromentals don't like it because dams block water ways so fish can't swim where they want. As China is finishing up the largest dam in the world, we are in the process of dismantling dams all over the country, and not allowing new ones to be built.

[Dusty Road]

If you get on the hill in my back section, you can count 122 windmills scattered across the horizon. On any given day, at least 1/4th of them are not running. Seems like they can't keep them running longer than 6 months. With the rate of failure these things have, they'll never pay themselves off. Interestingly enough we just completed a 8300 ft well that payed it's self off in 4 and 1/2 months.

[#1CTYankee]

"We have it. It is called oil, enough for a couple hundred years. It is sitting in the ground, on land, in oil shale, and off the coasts. But we cannot get to it because of windmill nuts who want to kill birds with scenic propellers."

It's just a matter of time before the drilling begins, even the greens can't stop the inevitable.

There is another source I was somewhat unaware of, geothermal.

Good link here:

http://www.rasertech.com/geothermal_modular.html

Some company called Raser Technologies is installing plants across Utah.

[RSmithOpt]

Neat thing about geothermal is it is SO GREEN!! However, not all areas of the country will have steam within cost effective reach.

[#1CTYankee]

"Neat thing about geothermal is it is SO GREEN!! However, not all areas of the country will have steam within cost effective reach."

The United Sates has 5,943 (known) hot springs, warm springs and Geothermal wells.

Until recently the heat generated had to reach 260F for effective use in power generation, technological advances has made it possible to do so at only 160F.

In addition, oil and gas also provides another possible application.
Because most oil and gas wells are quite deep, they are warmed by the natural thermal gradient of the earth.

In 2004 the U.S. produced over 5x1010 bbl (that's 2,100,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons) of “waste” water along with the oil and gas production, primarily from the Gulf States with temperatures high enough to produce electricity.

This hot water could be used to generate power directly, without impacting oil and gas production.
Some estimates suggest up to 5000MW of additional power could be generated in Texas alone -- that's more than 10 times the amount of power used by the entire State of Alaska.

Now I'm no greenie, however at less than 7 cents per kWh that's cool.

[FastCoyote]

“Now I’m no greenie, however at less than 7 cents per kWh that’s cool. “

I’m green, if it makes sense. Nuclear makes sense, geothermal does. Most solar and wind don’t or are marginal. The best new possibility is algae biofuel.

[upcountryhorseman]

Wind turbines are more inefficient than solar panels.
They function at unpredictable times, They are nearly impossible to repair, their output cannot be stored.
The most efficient source of energy available to man
at this time is OIL!

[mtntop3]

A Problem With Wind Power
[www.aweo.org/windbackup.html]

by Eric Rosenbloom

Output figures from wind developers are typically annual averages expressed in the vague figure of “number of homes provided for.” Homes, however, account for only a third of all electricity use, and electricity represents only a third of all energy consumption (only a fifth in Vermont). Further, home use of electricity varies widely through the day, week, and year, but wind plants generate electricity by the whims of the wind rather than the actual needs of the grid.

As averages, the figures ignore the fact that hour to hour, day to day, season to season, even the most windy sites experience periods of calm when the turbines are producing no electricity at all and cycles of slower wind when they are producing far less than their maximum capacity. When the wind is too fast, the turbines must shut down to avoid damage.

This variability, they say, is balanced by wiring up a multitude of sites, one of which at any time must surely be producing significant power. Instead of a “free and clean” source of energy, then, the necessary proposal is an expensive network of redundant installations that must fill most of our land and seascapes to make any meaningful contribution.

Despite local variabilities, however, the overall rise and fall of the wind is generally the same over the larger region. The grid must plan for the likely low point, i.e., the least power it may see from all of the attached wind plants. Large power plants cannot respond quickly to the hourly variations of the wind, so they must be already going when the power from the wind plants drops off.

There are solutions to this on a small scale, but for most grid systems, any power produced by wind plants is therefore in practice superfluous. The backup generation is already providing it.

On top of this uselessness, the turbines use a great deal of electricity themselves. Most of them cannot even run without input from the grid. Although they produce electricity intermittently, they consume it continuously. In every report I’ve seen, input from the grid is not accounted for in the figures of net output. Specifications from turbine manufacturers do not include the amount of electricity they require.

It may be that large wind turbines use as much electricity as they produce. Whether the wind is blowing in the desired range or not, they need power to keep the generator magnetized, to keep the blade and generator assembly (92 tons on a 1.5-MW GE) facing the wind, to periodically spin that assembly to unwind the cables in the tower, to heat the blades in icy conditions, to start the blades turning when the wind is just getting fast enough to keep them going, to keep the blades pitched to spin at a regular rate, and to run the lights and internal control and communication systems.

It is clear that industrial wind generation is not able to contribute anything against the problems of global warming, pollution, nuclear waste, or dependence on imports. In Denmark, with the most per-capita wind turbines in the world, the output from wind facilities equals 15%-20% of their electricity consumption. The Copenhagen newspaper Politiken reported, however, that wind provided only 1.7% of the electricity actually used in 1999. The grid manager for western Denmark reported that in 2002 84% of their wind-generated electricity had to be exported, i.e., dumped at extreme discount. The turbines are often shut down, because it is so rare that good wind coincides with peaking demand. A director of the western Denmark utility has stated that wind turbines do not reduce CO2 emissions, the primary marker of fossil fuel use.

But industrial wind facilities are not just useless. They destroy the land, birds and bats, and the lives of their neighbors. Off shore, they endanger ships and boats and their low-frequency noise is likely harmful to sea mammals. They require subsidies and regulatory favors to make investment viable. They do not move us towards more sustainable energy sources and stand instead as monuments of delusion.

— December 2004

for the complete paper, including many links, click below
“A Problem With Wind Power”
[www.aweo.org]

[curiosity]

Wind is great as an add-on bonus, but it's never going to provide basic baseload power. Only nuclear can do that.

[wolf78]

Wind turbines are more inefficient than solar panels. They function at unpredictable times, They are nearly impossible to repair, their output cannot be stored. The most efficient source of energy available to man at this time is OIL!

It's all a question of price. The idea that oil is going to be as cheap as during the 90s again is pie-in-the sky. More oil supplies only mean higher GDP growth rates in China and India. Blame it on the triumph of capitalism.

Of course wind energy can be stored, be it in batteries, using hydrogen fuel cells, as pressurized air or by pumping water uphill. But AT A PRICE, both financially and in terms of energy conversion. Wind as a base load is just more expensive than as an add-on, offset by e.g. fast reacting natural gas power stations (i.e. turbines). If the price for fossil fuels continues to climb, more alternative options will become economically feasible. That's the beauty of a market economy: It usually tends towards the most efficient solutions, and that can also be renewables. Either way, the market will decide.

Wind is great as an add-on bonus, but it's never going to provide basic baseload power. Only nuclear can do that.

Again, a question of price. Current designs using enriched U-235 are comparatively cheap, but cheaply available U-235 is also limited. Breeder reactors and other designs using more abundant Uranium isotopes are more expensive and sometimes still require lots of expensive research. While the price for renewable energy is likely to continue to fall, the same isn't necessarily guaranteed for nuclear power. In one or two decades it might be more economical to use renewables in residential and rural areas.

But thus nuclear energy and renewables don't contradict each other, they complement each other: Renewables for California homes and nuclear for industrial hubs.

One caveat in the case of the US: The abundance of coal in the US will likely lead to a slower adoption of nuclear and renewable options in favor of conventional coal power plants. However, for Europe the above mentioned scenario is quite likely for the near future (e.g. France, Germany and the U.K.).

[wolf78]

P.S.: Wikipedia has a great article on nuclear reactor designs: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_reactor_technology

[upcountryhorseman]

Europeans have been paying $7.00 to $8.00 per gallon of gas
for years. You are right about the relationship of the
price of oil to alternative energy use: let the Market
determine. You are wrong about storing wind power: hydrogen
fuel cells are energy carriers only because it takes as
much energy to produce the cells as they produce. Batteries
are not feasible to store megawatts of power.

[thackney]

Batteries are not feasible to store megawatts of power.

Feasible, Yes. Economic in most applications, No.

ABB Constructs World’s Largest Battery Energy Storage System in Fairbanks, Alaska
http://search.abb.com/library/Download.aspx?DocumentID=9AKK101130D0196&LanguageCode=en&DocumentPartID=&Action=Launch&IncludeExternalPublicLimited=True

The BESS will automatically pick up 26 megawatts of load for 15 minutes (or 40 MW for 7 minutes) in the event of power plant or transmission line equipment failure.

[chimera]

As averages, the figures ignore the fact that hour to hour, day to day, season to season, even the most windy sites experience periods of calm when the turbines are producing no electricity at all and cycles of slower wind when they are producing far less than their maximum capacity. When the wind is too fast, the turbines must shut down to avoid damage.

This is why windies are great at reporting installed capacity, but fail to mention that the average capacity factor is about 25%. That effectively turns 1000 MW of installed capacity into 250 MW of available supply.

Wind, like solar, is inherently variable and chaotic. That is why the energy it produces is considered "low value" by system operators. It is notoriously non-dispatchable (i.e., it may not be there when you need it). A good example was a few years ago when California was having their trouble with heat waves. During those periods, the average capacity factor of California-based wind power was in the range of 5%. There simply wasn't enough wind blowing at the time you needed it. The result? Blackouts...

[N. Theknow]

I’m green, if it makes sense. Nuclear makes sense, geothermal does. Most solar and wind don’t or are marginal.

Wind and solar power are the Prius' of the energy lineup.

They give you more in "snob" power than they do in kilowatts.

Are there numbers anywhere that show how large of an area would be needed for either wind or solar to equal the output of one nuke plant?

[FastCoyote]

[Are there numbers anywhere that show how large of an area would be needed for either wind or solar to equal the output of one nuke plant? ]

It’s pretty easy to figure. A big nuke plant (or two combined), puts out a gigawatt- 1,000,000,000,000 watts.

The best recovery for solar is maybe 15% and the sun at optimum radiates about 105 watts per square meter. So, call it optimistically 15 watts / m^2. Divide that by two because of the night, and probably divide by another 2 because you need land in between collector surfaces, support structure and roads. So, being generous, call it 4 watts per m^2 of land needed.

Divide 1 gigawatt by 4 watts/m^2 and you get 250 million square meters. That’s a square 15,800 meters on a side, which is about 8.5 miles. So around 65 square miles ought to do it. L.A. needs some remodeling anyway.