Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/07/2008 10:08:33 PM PDT by Libloather
Research: Wind power pricier, emits more CO2 than thought
'Windfarm output is never zero. Sometimes it's less'
By Lewis Page
Published Thursday 3rd July 2008 10:02 GMT
Fresh contenders have entered the UK wind power debate, as a turbines expert funded by the Renewable Energy Foundation publishes an investigation into a hotly-disputed subject - the variability in output to be expected of a large UK windfarm base.
In a just-released article for the journal Energy Policy, titled Will British weather provide reliable electricity?, consulting engineer Jim Oswald and his co-authors model the output to be expected from a large, 25+ gigawatt UK windfarm collection of the type the government says it would like to see in service by 2020. Wind is generally seen as the renewable technology best suited to the UK climate, and so it forms the bulk of most renewables plans for Blighty.
One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at wind power is variability. That is, when the wind drops (or blows too hard) the windmills stop spinning and you get no power. To begin with, Oswald simulates the output rises and falls that might result from a lot of windfarms distributed around the UK by using Met Office archived data from different points up and down the land. Many wind advocates have argued that with enough windfarms, widely enough distributed, you would get more reliable power output as some windmills would always have wind.
Oswald's analysis says this isn't true, with calm conditions across pretty much all the UK being fairly regular events.
Analysis from 1996 to 2005 shows similar results: large, rapid, and frequent changes of power output being common occurrences ... any national power system has to manage under the worst case conditions likely to occur ...
(Excerpt) Read more at theregister.co.uk ...
And I make plenty of wind, late at night, under my covers. My wife hates it.
I think windmills are cool.
However, the carbon shell game is the 21st century equivelant of buying indulgences. They are being bought and sold for very similar reasons, by similar characters.
CO2 from windmills? First I have heard of this.
That’s it, we just mount a windmill on every car...... /s
Of course, any storage system would cost extra — but, what the hey; it's just money. We've got a planet to save. /emoting like a Gorebot
They need to have powered windmills that blow air to each wind turbine generator to keep it spinning.
Please, take video for those of us who can’t be there, so we may laugh at Code Pink.
Paging all “new energy economy” rats. The new energy economy is just the old energy economy with some very costly windmills reducing demand from a large number of new expensive gas turbines. The power generation variability, transmission capacity cost (not mentioned in the article), and maintenance on the gas turbines makes windfarms huge boondoggles. The models in this article do not involve US windfarms. I believe the wind farms here will have more problems because of unreliable wind on hot summer afternoons.
Who cares about bad news like this study? The rats will find a way to make their windfarm dreams come true. The rest of us can just suffer the consequences of an energy meltdown.
That’s the idea. We could build a reservoir up on Storm King Mtn on the Hudson and pump water up and then generate hydo when we need it.
.Actually the green movement got its start shooting that idea down in the 70’s. Kills fishes.
The power that a windmill produces is directly proportional to the windspeed cubed (windspeed to the 3rd power). Thats a problem because a 20% loss in windspeed can relate to a 50% loss in power. Thus its necessary to keep some “spinning reserve” online at all times to pick up the slack when the windspeed drops. I think we are probably better off just using the power from the powerplants that we keep as “spinning reserve”.
They’re called sails. We have them now on many boats. (/s)
We have one in the next town. It serves a small manufacturing complex. Small, quiet and efficient. We can get windpower through our local utility "monopoly" but they tag on an extra $5.00 a month.
It seems to be saying that because the wind is variable, gas turbines are needed as a backup, and that the gas turbines emit CO2.
The windmills don’t emit CO2.
Fresh contenders have entered the UK wind power debate, as a turbines expert funded by the Renewable Energy Foundation ... Wind is generally seen as the renewable technology best suited to the UK climateOkay, I'll bite. How does one renew 'wind'.
Has the wind only blown once where you live?
No, it actually blows all the time. But the point that 'wind' is some kind of "renewable" energy defies the definition of renewable. There ain't a darn thing we can do about the wind and we sure as heck can't "renew" it.
And Solar power isn't "renewable" either. We have one Sun and its got about another 'good' 4.5 Billion years then boom, we be gone when it goes Red Giant on us and turns us into crispy critters.
Most people are interested in more applicable time scales. You sound like President Clinton trying to redefine words.
Perhaps wind-power needs to be accompanied with some sort of energy storage, to even out the output.
The extra power should be fed into batteries that are used for golf carts. This would bring down the cost to rent a cart for a round of golf.
By bringing down the cost, more minorities would be able to play making the sport more diverse.
If any power was still left over, it could be sold to buy plaid pants and white belts for the minority golfers.
Somebody tell T. Boone Pickens, quick!
Where is PETA on this?
What about the reports that windmills kill birds by the millions?
Windfarms also have a warming effect. They cause a turbulence that mixes the dry air aloft with the semi-saturated air at ground level, increasing the moisture in the air, which when the sun comes up causes increased “greenhouse effect”.
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