Posted on 10/09/2006 9:52:33 AM PDT by thackney
Source?
I'd bet you're confusing nameplate capacity with actual generation. (Take the total wind installed base nameplate rating and multiply by .26, the average capacity factor.) That is why capacity factor is such an important measure.
Now, compound that with the fact that historically, electric demand has grown around 2-3 percent per year, you just can't build wind farms fast enough to keep up with new demand.
Homer Simpson’s jelly doughnut squirted onto the control panel?
Nuclear power makes up 20% and is considered base load. IOW it stays on all the time because of its low generation costs. Gas turbines are considered peak plants because they have high costs and can turned on and off as needed. Wind power doesn't really enter in to the grid operation equation because you don't know when it is going to be there.
Ok- but my point was there is usually flying debris (as you experienced) or noise and fireworks. At the very least smell and smoke.The article made it sound like some magic spell came over the place and suspended physics.
Please don't tell me Jimmy Carter is near a plant!
I also recall one that was talked about 30 years ago --- using ocean gradient temperatures as a generation source. Sounds cool, but the technical challenges are awesome.
With wind, we know it works and has for hundreds of years. It's simply not practicable for grid operations but as a stand alone source that does not require high levels of availability, it is fine.
You've just come to my original point. Since nukes have to be shut down for refueling and maintenance, they are no better than windpower. Those poor poor grid operators must deal with those very inconvenient shutdowns and the nukes have to be backed by some other power generation.
If the country is now using 4 quads per year rather than 3 I have to recalculate. I'll check into it. Thanks.
Yes, nuclear plants must shut down periodically, for maintenance, refueling, etc. So do coal plants. So do oil-fired units. So do gas peakers. So do solar installations. So do windmills.
But you're missing a crucial, crucial point. Outages for things like refueling a nuclear plant can be very precisely predicted and planned. The burnup codes I have used allow prediction of fuel life down into the range of hours. So you can plan ahead and know if you're going to be offline, and make arrangements for your other units to be online to fill the gap. You can also make adjustments online to extend the cycle duration if you're in need of capacity during the planned outage. This might require operational changes, like loading your units into the grid in a different order, but it does allow you some measure of flexibility, because you know your capacity will be available.
You cannot predict meteorological phenomena with that kind of precision. And even if you could, there isn't much you can do about it, because Mother Nature is going to follow her own whims regardless of your needs or desires. You are totally at the mercy of inherently variable and unpredictable natural forces.
That is why California would have been in a world of hurt if they relied in a significant way on their wind capacity during their recent high demand period when that had their heat wave back in July. The wind generation capacity factor was 5%. If you had a utility company with that kind of capacity factor for all of their generating assets, you'd be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail. That's why the smart companies had the nuclear units, like Diablo Canyon, online with a 100% capacity factor during the time it was needed most, or SONGS, in the range of 99+%. Now, compare 100% capacity factor against 5%. Which of those sources would you want to rely on when you really, really needed the electricity?
The point is that the back-up must exist and be on the same grid and will not be used after refueling/maintenance.
Now, before you say "but you can do the same for wind capacity", remember that a key feature here is predictability. It's one thing to plan ahead by 24 months for a nuke unit to be down for refueling, and another for wind capacity to drop from 25% to 5% CF over the course of a day, as happened in CA during the heat storm last July. In such a case, if a large portion of your capacity is wind-based, you're absolutely, positively going to have to shed load (i.e., blackout), because you probably won't be able to bring reserve capacity in quickly enough or perhaps not to the extent required. As it was, CA was able to manage the 5% wind CF, because, first, they didn't rely all that much on the wind capacity, and, second, they had those nuke units running at 100% capacity factor. That buys you a lot of reserve margin.
I think this experience teaches us one fundamental truth, and that is, if wind energy is successfully exploited in the future, it has to be viewed as an energy source, not a source of generating capacity. Baseload capacity has to be there, available on demand, in a reliable and predictable manner, as-needed in the quantities needed. Wind-based capacity, because of the inherent variable nature of the primary energy source, can't do that. And you can't run an industrialized, technologically advanced economy and society without a reliable source of electrical energy.
If you really, really want to exploit the potential of wind energy in a manner that gets around the problem of inherent variability, you should work towards the goal of transitioning to a hydrogen-based infrastructure, particularly in the transport fuel sector. That way, you can have a lot of sources, including variable ones, producing hydrogen, storing it up, building up reserves to smooth out any variations in production rates from the variable sources, and then dispensing it as needed to displace some of the foreign-sourced petroleum-based fuels. You still won't be able to rely totally on wind as a source of hydrogen, since you will always need a steady trickle of product coming into service (i.e., the demand curve never goes to zero), but the storage feature of producing an energy carrier helps you at least address the issue of low capacity factor.
The proper termonology is Reserve Margin which historically has been 20% above than peak demand. Last year, I believe that nation wide reserve margin was in the 15% range which is pushing the boundries and in some regions was actually lower than that. Utilities plan major maintenance outages around both demand projections (usually spring and fall when demand is lower) and the amount of reserve available. One of the problems with wind is that it is diffuicult to even count it among reserve margin since you can't plan ahead a year, a month or even a day on it being there when you need it.
That 15 percent reserve margin must be from peak demand, right? You are right, wind predictions are only good for a few days or hours in advance.
You are absolutely right. A recent issue of Windpower monthly lamented the decision made by some country to build up both nuclear and wind. The reason is that Wind is not available on demand and nukes are not flexible as peakers, they are base load and run best at 100 percent power all the time. The two are not compatible without additional peaking plants for the various stages of reserve.
Juggling wind into a grid does pose new challenges. Wind is not completely unpredictable though and grid operators are finding that it is not as big a pain as they first thought, especially in places like Spain, Germany and Denmark where they have a lot of wind which greatly reduces the amount of fluctuation of wind output.
There are some important driving forces that are pushing the development of windpower. People flat out love it. Usually a region is 70 percent favorable to wind power being developed until after it has been done. Then the same region becomes about 90 percent favorable. Martha's vineyard is the exception. Also, when given a choice people will opt for renewable power over every source and people are being given that choice more and more.
Show me a naval reactor that runs at anywhere near the capacity factor of a commercial nuclear power station.
I for one, have worked in and around both for almost 25 years, and can state categorically that you will not find a naval reactor that runs at full rated thermal power greater than 90% of the time. I'm not talking about the "Battle Short" rating or some other such foolishness, either. Just its normal peacetime "Middies on a kiddie cruse" thermal power rating.
Correct. But that is why electricity is different than other commodities. There is no inventory of it. The system has to be built to meet the peak and every year, the peaks keep growing. Electricity is created on demand and if demand is higher than what can be generated at any given moment we have our choice of local blackouts to reduce demand or total grid collapse. Neither are good things.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.