Obama's Looming Energy Disaster

The American Spectator ^ | November 10, 2008 | William Tucker

[St. Louis Conservative]

I subscribe to an Internet newsletter called Energy Central and the news is getting more depressing every week. Every time I scan the headlines I realize I'm looking at another piece of a gathering energy debacle.

Take last Thursday's edition. Right at the top of the page was the story, "Xcel Energy, eXco Join in Major Wind Farm Developments in Minnesota, North Dakota." It's like this every day. Wind farms of sprouting up all over the country like 65-story mushrooms. The North American Reliability Council estimates we will have 175,000 megawatts of new capacity by 2017 (that's the equivalent of 175 major coal or nuclear plants). Unfortunately, it admits, "only approximately 23,000 MW…is projected to be available on peak." That means these windmills will be idle most of the time. Coal plants operate at 65 percent capacity, nuclear rims at 90 percent. But at best windmills produce only 30 percent of their "nameplate capacity" and they are almost useless on torpid summer days. California has found its windmills running at only 3 percent capacity on hot summer days.

Never mind, we are forging ahead anyway. Right under the Minnesota story is a report that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has laid down a "wind farm code of ethics" governing dealings between wind companies and municipal officials. It seems that several windmill manufacturers are following the tried-and-true pattern of bribing municipal officials by hiring them as "consultants" in seeking zoning and other approvals. Although you'd never know it, there are actually folks out there in the hinterland that don't like the idea of littering the landscape with these nearly useless monstrosities. However, those folks are being steamrolled in the march toward alternate energy utopia.

[DiogenesLaertius]

I can imagine it now. Barack Obama in a cardigan next to a fireplace asking us to “sacrifice.”

Seems oddly familiar ...

[Robert A Cook PE]

True: The steam power plants I work at try to run (baseload) at 99- 100 percent capacity. When the utilities anticipate (late afternoons and mornings) the usual increase in demands, they start up their gas turbine generators (which are usually more expensive to run) for those few hours. A modern gas turbine can be lit off and at load within 20-30 minutes of requirement notification. BUT ...

The problem with wind generators is that you CANNOT start and stop these steam plants (which require 4- 12 hours to come up on line!) that way: BUT with wind turbines, their whole load may irregularly (!) cut on and off load over whole regions of the state at the same time. So nearly 100% of the windmill’s power requires an equal amount of standby (expensive, wasteful) RUNNING conventional power at the same time.

It is this 3-12% AVAILABILITY RATE of wind power that the Gore enviro’s REFUSE to address in their green-happy environmental dreams.

And, of course, if you want power out from a machine 20% effective, you have to build 5 TIMES as many wind turbines over huge regions of the country to ASSUMER you are going ONE machine’s rated power.

[Robert A Cook PE]

I didn’t know that either. So much I don’t know. How is solar energy stored then?

It CANNOT be stored.

Solar power can be predicted a little bit better than wind power, but it CANNOT be stored in anything other than very inefficient batteries or pumped units.

An exception: solar HEAT units can store the sun's power from one afternoon into the next night, and release that heat later back into the same house, but that is only heat energy. The released heat cannot heat your neighbor's house, your car, nor light your basement that night.

Typically, you get no more than 6 hours of solar power each day. The rest of the time, you MUST have a reliable grid connection. Or a huge and lethal battery bank.

[tiki]

Our state has a mandate that we have to be using 20% renewable energy in the next few years. A company contacted us and wanted to do a study to see if it was feasible to put wind generators on top of our mountain. They studied for 9 months or so and said that it wasn’t feasible, the terrain was too rough and the costs would be prohibitive. They contacted us last month and said that they were still interested, I think they’re getting desparate.

Part of the problem is that in this part of the state, places that might be suitable, belong to the government, we are just lucky that our ancestors were hardy and decided to homestead on top of a rocky mountain top.

[chimera]

In the electricity management business the ability to "switch on" and "switch off" on short notice a generating asset goes to the issue of dispatchability. As the demand curve varies you want to be able to meet the demand as best you can. Some things are better than others for doing this. Gas turbines can be brought fairly quickly from fully shutdown to being online, but they are often designed for temporary duty, to meet upward surges in demand but then be shut down when demand drops. Other things are best for chugging along meeting the demand that is always there. Larger units using nuclear or coal are generally best for this.

Wind presents a problem because we have no control over when it will or will not be available. When it is available, you can and probably want to use it, but that may not be when you need it. There is that potential mismatch between available supply and what the demand on the grid is at any given time. In that sense, wind is a somewhat ancient technology, going back to essentially the Middle Ages. Mankind has labored mightily over the centuries to be free of reliance on the capricious and often chaotic nature of natural phenomena. Environmental control in buildings, damming of rivers, automotive transport, irrigation for agriculture, and energy supply are examples of this. We should try to live in harmony with nature as best we can, but our well-being and safety are often enhanced if we don't depend to heavily on things we can't control.

[tiki]

I agree, they are appealing to the emotions of saving the world environment but people aren’t going to like the costs.

[lady lawyer]

Yesterday, the top story on the Utah news stations was that an Obama spokesman made it clear that they were going to do everything they could to prevent new natural gas and oil production in “sensitive places like Utah.” Interesting. The Dems can combine their desire to keep us weak and energy dependent with their desire to slap us Mormon Cracker Republicans, just like Clinton did when he shut down production in the nation’s biggest reserve of clean coal, which also is located in Utah.

[VanShuyten]

The governor of Maryland came out this morning and said brownouts were a real possibility there. They had regulated power, so the companies wouldn’t build new plants. Then they deregulated power, but still discouraged power plants. Then they complained about the increased prices due to providers having to buy power from other producers. Now, they’re talking about re-regulating power to “encourage new production, especially environmentally safe production.” Mandatory conservation through rationing is next, I believe.

[sionnsar]

Partially true. The only feasible "source" storage is pumped hydropower -- essentially two dams at different heights. You pump up when you have excess electricity, and recover when you need electricity. About 75% of the energy is recoverable, but these systems require a LOT of capital (and concrete) to build.

Some end-use applications can provide storage of excess energy. The classic example is chilled-water storage for building or campus A/C, in which a large water tank is chilled at night when energy is less expensive and that water is used for the A/C in the day. Such systems can be brought online relatively quickly, any time of day, to absorb grid excess.

But, to be blunt, relatively little electric power goes into such applications.

[count-your-change]

There’s the real use of solar, heating water and building space. Even on cloudy days solar heat is available and a well insulated building could probably use it as a sole means of heating most of the time.
Since installing solar heat isn’t complicated or difficult to install during construction I would think the payback time wouldn’t be too long.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Concur with your summary about the limits of pumped storage: Worked in the control room of one controlled from south Philly, and on the electronic cabinets of a second in the northwest GA mountians.

Siting is the problem: there just aren’t too many places left where you can locate a dam in the valley AND a second dam up the hill in the mountain where the pipes can connect both.

Lots of inefficiencies in pumped storage: electricity-to-motor conversion, pump-to-water-movement-uphill conversion,water-resistance-both-ways losses,water-movement-downhill-to-water-generator-rotation conversion, water-generator-back-to-electricity conversion, and finally, the losses in the power lines to and from the pump storage unit.

Pump storage requires that the cost of power at night (when water is pumped uphill) be much less than that of power when it is needed in the early evenings and mornings - but it usually is - unless there is a drought.

And, of course, overhead losses, labor costs, and construction costs, repair costs, land costs, EPA restrictions.....

All are relatively low, but every erg is power lost.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Concur with your summary about the limits of pumped storage: Worked in the control room of one controlled from south Philly, and on the electronic cabinets of a second in the northwest GA mountians.

Siting is the problem: there just aren’t too many places left where you can locate a dam in the valley AND a second dam up the hill in the mountain where the pipes can connect both.

Lots of inefficiencies in pumped storage: electricity-to-motor conversion, pump-to-water-movement-uphill conversion,water-resistance-both-ways losses,water-movement-downhill-to-water-generator-rotation conversion, water-generator-back-to-electricity conversion, and finally, the losses in the power lines to and from the pump storage unit.

Pump storage requires that the cost of power at night (when water is pumped uphill) be much less than that of power when it is needed in the early evenings and mornings - but it usually is - unless there is a drought.

And, of course, overhead losses, labor costs, and construction costs, repair costs, land costs, EPA restrictions.....

All are relatively low, but every erg is power lost.

[Minn]

Even on cloudy days solar heat is available and a well insulated building could probably use it as a sole means of heating most of the time.

You must live in the tropics.

[RJL]

The North American Reliability Council estimates we will have 175,000 megawatts of new capacity by 2017...

There is no such thing as free energy and Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction force" hasn't yet been repealed by the Democrats.

Every megawatt of electricity we put on the grid from windmills is a megawatt of energy that we take out of the circulation of the Earth's atmosphere.

As we build millions, tens of millions and hundreds of millions of windmills and slow the atmosphere's circulation it would seem likely that the equator will get warmer, the deserts both hotter and larger. At the poles, the opposite will occur, they will get colder and the ice pack larger and thicker.

I'm guessing the EPA is too involved in Al Gore's global warming redistribution of wealth to have done a study on the effect of mass use of windmills.

[count-your-change]

No at all. Space heating is the easiest use of solar energy even in below zero weather.
There are lots of designs available on the inter-net but one of the less complicated involves using solar heated water and using the stored hot water in a radiant heat floor system.

[ASOC]

if I may

Solar power can be stored - in the form of liquid salts or sodium. This is only in the big boy plant which use solar heat to run steam turbines. THe stored heat is used to run the steam turbine at night.

All have some kind of backup in the form of fuel oil or natural gas.

FOr home PV system, large battery banks are used. I have remote property that is all solar - and battery......

[Robert A Cook PE]

My own solar panels are now completely shaded by the upgrowth in the local trees over the past 8 years: our house and lot are completely shaded, so I will need some replacement strategy if we have an extended outage.

ALL of my deep cycle lead-acid batteries are degraded now - requiring replacement at around 150.00 to 175.00 EACH now.

(Notice the environmental impact of a “solar-friendly” home power units with 8 to 20 deep cycle batteries in “average” home in America. Just what you want: tons of extremely heavy batteries filled with acid, lead, and hydrogen gas mixed with high voltage DC currents in millions of basements around the country. Sure, there are other technologies now with sealed cell and low hydrogen-emitting covers: at even higher prices.)

Inverter and charger problems a few years as well. ‘Tis a problem keeping the system up and ready as a backup.

[theDentist]

Robert, check local ordinances. Some states have laws that allow homeowners to have trees trimmed which block solar panels if they are not your own (ie, pesky neighbors).

[Robert A Cook PE]

True, one could get pesky.

But the view that is preserved by keeping the trees in her yard, her 18 years companionship and her good faith, the 50-80 ft trees in the west and south and east areas of MY yard, and the freedom to let them grow - and rake leaves every autum 8<( - far outway the 15.00 dollars a month in electricity I would save.

[Kenny Bunk]

There seems to be a grave misunderstanding about the "ugliness" of oil wells. Once the well is drilled and the drilling rig is removed, the machinery is no uglier than a municipal water well. Beverly Hills is loaded with operative oil wells. There is no need for them to offend the aesthetic sensibilities of the liberals or cause a caribou to detour from its migratory route.

Oil, Natural Gas, Coal are needed to get us to the nuclear era, which the liberals and greenies have delayed in this country for 40 years. After we have accomplished the switch to nuclear powered generation for about 80% of our needs,(take about 15 years if we put our minds and backs to it) we can phase out coal powered plants and perhaps even indulge this idiotic fascination with wind power, which, as has been pointed out, needs back-up.

What a time to hand over the country to these emotional idiots!