Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 11/29/2008 8:47:20 AM PST by saganite
This is not what President-elect Barack Obama's energy and climate strategists would want to hear. It would be anathema to Al Gore and other assorted luminaries touting renewable energy sources which in one giant swoop will save the world from the “tyranny” of fossil fuels and mitigate global warming. And as if these were not big enough issues, oilman T. Boone Pickens’ grandiose plan for wind farms from Texas to Canada is supposed to bring about a replacement for the natural gas now used for power generation. That move will then lead to energy independence from foreign oil.
Too good to be true? Yes, and in fact it is a lot worse.
Wind has been the cornerstone of almost all environmentalist and social engineering proclamations for more than three decades and has accelerated to a crescendo the last few years in both the United States and the European Union.
But Europe, getting a head start, has had to cope with the reality borne by experience and it is a pretty ugly picture.
Independent reports have consistently revealed an industry plagued by high construction and maintenance costs, highly volatile reliability and a voracious appetite for taxpayer subsidies. Such is the economic strain on taxpayer funds being poured into wind power by Europe's early pioneers -- Denmark, Germany and Spain – that all have recently been forced to scale back their investments.
As a result this summer, the U.K., under pressure to meet an ambitious E.U. climate target of 20 percent carbon dioxide cuts by 2020, assumed the mantle of world leader in wind power production. It did so as a direct consequence of the U.K. Government's Renewables Obligations Certificate, a financial incentive scheme for power companies to build wind farms. Thus the U.K.'s wind operation provides the ideal case study -- and one that provides the most complete conclusions.
The U.K. has all the natural advantages. It is the windiest country in Europe. It has one of the continent's longest coastlines for the more productive (and less obtrusive) offshore farms. It has a long-established national power grid. In short, if wind power is less than successful in the U.K., its success is not guaranteed anywhere.
But wind infrastructure has come at a steep price. In fiscal year 2007-08 U.K. electricity customers were forced to pay a total of over $1 billion to the owners of wind turbines. That figure is due to rise to over $6 billion a year by 2020 given the government's unprecedented plan to build a nationwide infrastructure with some 25 gigawatts of wind capacity, in a bid to shift away from fossil fuel use.
Ofgem, which regulates the U.K.'s electricity and gas markets, has already expressed its concern at the burgeoning tab being picked up by the British taxpayer which, they claim, is “grossly distorting the market” while hiding the real cost of wind power. In the past year alone, prices for electricity and natural gas in the U.K. have risen twice as fast as the European Union average according to figures released in November by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.'s energy needs.
In May 2008, a report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates warned that an over-reliance on offshore wind farms to meet European renewable energy targets would further create supply problems and drive up investor costs. No taxpayer respite there. But worse news was to come.
In June, the most in-depth independent assessment yet of Britain's expanding wind turbine industry was published. In the journal Energy Policy gas turbine expert Jim Oswald and his co-authors, came up with a series of damning conclusions: not only is wind power far more expensive and unreliable than previously thought, it cannot avoid using high levels of natural gas, which not only it will increase costs but in turn will mean far less of a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions than has been claimed.
Oswald's report highlights the key issue of load factor, the actual power generated compared to the theoretical maximum, and how critical it is to the viability of the wind power industry. In 2006, according to U.K. government statistics, the average load factor for wind turbines across the U.K. was 27.4 percent. Thus a typical 2 megawatt turbine actually produced only 0.54 MW of power on an average day. The worst performing U.K. turbine had a load factor of just 7 percent. These figures reflect a poor return on investment. But this poor return is often obscured by the subsidy system that allows turbine operators and supporters to claim they can make a profit even when turbines operate at a very low load factors. So what’s the bottom line? British consumers are paying twice over for their electricity, funding its means of production and paying for its use as end users.
Variability is one of the chief criticisms levelled at wind power. When the wind drops or blows too hard, turbines stop spinning and you get no power. Wind turbine advocates have claimed that this can be avoided by the geographical spread of wind farms, perhaps by creating an international “supergrid.” But, as Oswald's report makes clear, calm conditions not only prevail on a fairly regular basis, they often extend across the country with the same conditions being experienced as far away as France and Germany. Worse still, says Oswald, long periods of calm over recent decades occurred in the dead of winter when electricity demand is highest.
Periods of low wind means a need for pumped storage and essential back-up facilities. Oswald told The Register online news service that a realistically feasible U.K. pumped-storage base would only cope with one or two days of low winds at best. As regards back-up facilities, Oswald states the only feasible systems for the planned 25 gigawatt wind system would be one that relied equally on old-style natural gas turbines. As Oswald says however, the expense of a threefold wind, pump storage and gas turbine back-up solution "would be ridiculous."
The problems don’t end there. The British report highlights what more and more wind farms would mean when it came to installing gas turbine back-ups. "Electricity operators will respond by installing lower-cost plant ($/kW) as high capital plant is not justified under low utilisation regimes."
But cheap gas turbines are far less efficient than big, properly sized base-load turbines and will not be as resilient in coping with the heavy load cycling they would experience. Cheaper, less resilient plants will mean high maintenance costs and spare back-up gas turbines to replace broken ones that would suffer regular thermal stress cracking. And of course, the increasing use of gas for the turbines would have a detrimental effect on reducing carbon dioxide emission – always one of the chief factors behind the wind revolution.
Oswald's report concludes also that the all this wear and tear will further stress the gas pipeline network and gas storage system. "High-efficiency base load plant is not designed or developed for load cycling," says Oswald. Critically, most of the issues raised in the independent report have not been factored into the cost of wind calculations. With typical British understatement, Oswald concludes that claims for wind power are "unduly optimistic."
We think they've been blown away.
The environ-weenies did not put a reality check on their dreams of wind power.
bump
THEY ARE CRAZY !
those wind farms make great cell towers
Yes, send your dollars to the arabs today.
“Windmill produced sources of power have been around for Centuries. Were it an efficient, effective alternative to Fossil Fuels the Free Market would have developed it further as Fossil Fuels have always been more costly. The Free Market has not developed it for good reason. Inefficient, and insufficient.”
There is another reason which people overlook. NIMBY. The free market cannot develop it because of political restrictions.
In the 70’s it was determined that high temperatures can burn trash with little to no emissions while at the same time creating an energy source. What killed the project? NIMBY.
Wind power can work. So can water power. So can solar power. So can nuclear power. And they do, in rural settings where liberalism hasn’t gotten their mitts on it. In urban settings where this can work, create jobs and economies, liberal politicians are afraid. So it becomes NIMBY.
That's because while ethanol can almost be classified as economically viable at the extreme margins of analysis, wind power isn't even close.
Windpower lacks ALL characteristics for being economical...tho' highly entertaining.
Coming to all of us soon, courtesy of the Messiah, who siad he will shut down the coal industry, “bankrupt” coal power plants, and cause our electric rates to “skyrocket.”
I’ not one of those conspiracy types, but it happened about the time all of their patents ran out.
Ignorant statement of the day award...
But wind infrastructure has come at a steep price. In fiscal year 2007-08 U.K. electricity customers were forced to pay a total of over $1 billion to the owners of wind turbines. That figure is due to rise to over $6 billion a year by 2020 given the government's unprecedented plan to build a nationwide infrastructure with some 25 gigawatts of wind capacity, in a bid to shift away from fossil fuel use.
This gives but a hint of the true price, and presumably includes ongoing mainteance and replacement costs; or not. More digging is necessary. The main point is that all this is "free" wind power, whose true price is hidden behind rhetoric, subsidies and taxes, in addition to skyrocketing user rates.
Ofgem, which regulates the U.K.'s electricity and gas markets, has already expressed its concern at the burgeoning tab being picked up by the British taxpayer which, they claim, is “grossly distorting the market” while hiding the real cost of wind power. In the past year alone, prices for electricity and natural gas in the U.K. have risen twice as fast as the European Union average according to figures released in November by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.'s energy needs.
Interesting numbers. Extrapolatng (always a risky business) the equivalent expenditure (to date) in the US based on population would be $30 billion a year by 2020 or, based on area, $201 billion.
This would represent only the subsidies, in addition to skyrocketing user rates.
Energy production basics 101:
50% of all energy produced in the United States is lost in transmission. This is because a large percentage of it is generated hundreds or thousands of miles from where the energy users are, in population centers.
If these losses were cut in half, the savings would exceed the pollyana estimates of the alternative energy dreamers permanently.
I believe the solution is obvious, but I'll let readers come to their own conclusions.
If tiny countries cannot make it work rationally, there isn't a prayer that a large country or area can hope to deal with the energy needs at reasonable cost any time soon.
And the current thinking never pauses to take stock in reality; they just throw more money at it, and assume increasing rates have no upper limit.
The world financial crisis of 2008 should (one would think) make even the most insane greenie take pause.
One big problem with wind power is that the wind is not where the big urban centers are that need it. So power lines have to be built for hundreds of miles. So it is not only unreliable but costly as well.
Wind power is a con job.
Environmentalists only support wind power if you are pushing a coal plant or a natgas plant. If you are actually trying to build a wind farm, they will come out and oppose that, too. They only favor wind power in theory, when thats not what you are doing. They don’t favor them in actuality, if you are trying to do it. Actually, they hate them; they kill birds, they spoil hillsides.
If you really believe in global warming, you will favor building nuke plants by the dozens. France is almost fully nuclear, to the point of exporting nuclear power. It can be done, you just have to be willing to do it.
But if you are a conman, you will ride the global warming wave to your real goal, the establishment of the carbon credit scam of the millenium, the money laundering scam to end all scams. And you will use the global warming PR hysteria to drive through complete central control of the economy. You couldn’t sell socialism under its own name, so you create a panic and present yourself as the solution.
Since most people get their news from Oprah and Comedy Central, it works.
At the end of the day, if you want to be free of carbon credit manipulation, your only choice is to move your factory to China. And set up your headquarters in Dubai.
Or, take the attitude that if you can’t beat them, join them. And hire your own carbon credit brokers and learn how to create wealth from out of thin air. We are turning our government and our economy over to the conmen, the socialists, and the socialist conmen. When government controls everything, and conmen control the government, the only free men are pirates. And half of them are sold out to the government, too.
We had a company who wanted to put from 10 to 100 turbines on our mountain. They studied the wind for a year and that’s okay but the terrain is bad. It is solid rock, it takes an hour just to drive up there so you can imagine the logistics of getting Cats, and backhoes and whatever else up there and then trying to get past the environmental laws too.
We weren’t surprised when they backed out but we are surprised because they have now approached us again.
At 5 minutes into this 7 minute video you will see a pump storage scheme.
Without massive subsidies this scheme/boondoggle is a joke.
There is another element to the conjob that is wind power.
Wind power is being presented as a solution to imported oil.
There have been countless T. Boone Pickens TV ads promoting the idea that to free us from imported oil, we have to develop wind energy.
Wind energy will do nothing at all to save us from importing oil. Nothing at all. What it will do is fill his pockets, since thats where he and evidently some of our politicians are invested. His wind empire will depend on government subsidies, though, hence the need for political support. If wind energy was economically sound, why would Pickens have to invest so many millions trying to sell it to the public? Why would he need to buy politicians? If it were viable, he’d just build them and reap the profit. But there isn’t any profit without subsidy.
And supporting wind energy allows politicians who oppose oil, oppose coal, oppose nuclear power, oppose oil shale, oppose coal liquifaction, to pretend that they are energy hawks who are going to save us. Everything they do protects the power of the oil sheiks. Promoting wind power likewise protects the oil sheiks and guarantees that we will never become energy independent.
Wind power is a con designed to provide cover for politicians who are protecting the oil sheiks by their every action.
And......
Energy loss is a function of distance.
Don't blame the search engine for this one. The poster changed the title by leaving out the word 'exposed.'
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