Wind Power FAIL

Anthony
It would be useful to have a reference page on wind so as to collate all these interesting posts in one place.
Good to see another example of how hopeless these things are. The public need to organise a petition seeking to ban them.

To be fair, which I admit is boring, having time to sort issues like this out is a reason for pushing pilot wind projects: the argument is that they won’t become profitable until their proved technology, but they won’t become proved technology until we really use them for a while, so they need to be subsidised for now. That’s reasonable as far as it goes.
The real objection to wind power is the sheer quantity of engineering and fragile machinery needed to produce a very small amount of power — there are bound to be better ways.

Windmill cause global cooling

What do you suppose will happen when these monuments to economic illiteracy are no longer subsidized by a gullible public and are decommissioned? My late Uncle owned a great deal of farmland in Illinois and refused multiple offers to lease land for wind turbines. His neighbors thought he was crazy as each lease pays $8K to $10K per year. His great fear was that he would end up owning them and would have to pay decommissioning costs or that the structures, if left standing, would increase his property tax rates.
He was a very wise man…….he’s been gone almost 3 years now.

Don’t worry, with Global Warming coming soon to a landscape near you, it’ll never happen again, Al says so, anyway.

A couple weeks ago, there was a post here that speculated that wind power was to blame for the rolling blackouts in Texas.
Turns out that wind power was doing just fine during the critical times in Texas; it was gas and coal units that were down.
Quoth Trip Doggett of ERCOT:

I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this time frame.

Previous to these facts coming out, the author and Anthony had pivoted with some “what I/he really meant was” talk about a hypothetical world in which the money to build wind turbines had instead been invested in coal/nukes/etc.
This was quite a pivot, given that the original post was very specific about speculating that the wind wasn’t blowing in Texas at the right times, and the word “reserve” (as in “spinning reserve”) wasn’t even mentioned in the original article.
So, we had a post about the failings of wind power, even though it was in fact fossil plants that had failed.
So, for those keeping score: At WUWT:
If a windpower source stops producing due to cold weather: Wind power fail
If fossil sources stop producing due to cold weather: Wind power fail
(PS- the article notes that these problems are specific to this wind farm, and that other more northerly wind farms don’t have this problem. Interesting).

“We can’t control the weather.”
But we can control the climate (by using wind power).

Who will take down this crap? Or will it just be left for the public to take down, like they do in California.

Maybe they could get some coal, build a power plant, install some heaters….
Oh!. Wait! What happened to all the smudge pots (aka “orchard heaters) that used to keep us in oranges and grapefruit and lemons and stuff? Do they still do the “Fruit Frost Service in Pomona” thing on KFI at 8:00 P.M.? What was his name?

I remember reading, years ago, about a coal plant that had been shutdown because the pile where coal was staged between delivery and use had been frozen solid by wet, cold weather.
Solar doesn’t work very well when it’s cloudy, and dust has to be cleaned off of the concentrators/solar cells.
Wind power also requires wind be within a range of speeds, too much wind is as bad as to little wind.
About the only three generation methods I can think of that can be weather proofed, are gas, geothermal, and nuclear.

Floyd d. Young.

People in N.B. should be hopping mad. Climatologists tell us they knew all along that the warming arctic causes cold and snow, but they never shared this with us until…..well, until after all of the cold and snow. Had they told our friends in N.B. before they installed the pinwheels that they would most likely freeze up because of the hot, then they may have installed a different energy generation scheme.

Just read the whole article. It just gets worse.
“But with energy market prices changing constantly, she says there’s no way to know if NB Power is paying more or less for replacement power.
“It can be more expensive. It can also be cheaper,” she says, but fluctuations in production at other sites can make up the difference.”
LOL! With management like this, who needs management?
“Despite running into problems in consecutive winters, Morton says NB Power doesn’t have concerns about the reliability of the supply from the Caribou Mountain site.”
How do you spell ‘denial’?
“David Coon, executive director of the Conservation Council of New Brunswick, says winter tends to bring higher winds to the province, which would push wind farms to produce more power.
He says the problems at Caribou Mountain are confusing, as other projects in cold climates haven’t had similar ice issues.”
Poor Coon. He’s confused. He thinks all “cold” climates are the same, even, presumably, the warmcold ones.

I guess the wind “farmers” are calling it rotten ice. ;->

Modern, MW-scaled wind turbines are among the most highly sophisticated and well-engineered pieces of power generating equipment on the market. If properly cared for, these devices work quite reliably for years and provide a good rate of return for the owners. The wind turbines shown are designed and supplied by a very experienced and capable company. Icing is an issue that has been addressed as well as possible for years through heaters on control anemometers, in gearboxes, etc., but blades have been a challenge. Ice reduces blade production effectiveness by a few tens of percent and can lead to deleterious vibrations due to imbalance. Typically, blades will ice up under the right environmental conditions and will often lose their ice within a day or two of an icing event – if the sun comes out. In ice-prone regions, project production and economic pro forma estimates take these factors into account. Some years, icing is worse than others. This may be a particularly bad year.

“the company that owns and operates the site, is working to return the windmills to working order”
With the help of fossil fuels, no doubt.

A link to an official UK site which gives electricity generated by fuel source.
http://www.geog.ox.ac.uk/~dcurtis/NETA.html
Installed wind = 4.2 GW. Note the % contribution of wind to total consumption cf to the interconnector from France (nuclear) and the % of headline installed capacity.
There must be similar information for the US.

erik sloneker says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:16 am
What do you suppose will happen when these monuments to economic illiteracy are no longer subsidized by a gullible public and are decommissioned?

It appears that they will look like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/46145831@N00/1345239056/

OK, let’s do the numbers.
Experience of (now defunct, replaced by a new name) Northern States Power:
In my tenure there, for over 10 years they had 100 MWe of wind turbines at the windiest place in the State of MN. Sys-Op recorded an average capacity of 8.7 MWe.
Thus it’s a 12:1 ratio. SO, for 100 MWe, they have 12 employees. WAIT to have a REAL 100 MWe, they’d need 12 * 12 = 144 employees.
Now if you had 1000 MWe, like a major coal plant….you’d have: 144*10 = 1440 employees.
Wait, wait..don’t tell me. We know how many employees there are at various 1000 MWe Coal plants. Approximately 300 to 350.
Therefore the labor cost of the wind power is 3.5 times that of the coal power. Now, if you work out the CAPITAL COST you come up with a factor of about 10 on that realm.
You work them ALL out and the wind power is about 15 times more expensive than the coal power. (Oh, I forgot, you do have to put in the 20% of the coal power cost that is the cost of the fuel. So the wind is only 14 times the cost of the coal power.)
SO let’ take my Mother’s, APS (Arizona Public Service) levelized cost of $60 a month. That would to up to about $1000 a month. That would leave her with NO RENT for her double wide and NO money for food.
Naughty girl she is, putting her A/C to 88 F during the summer when she’s gone (for reasons of keeping some items below 120 F in her double wide, I’ve figured the A/C runs about 1/4 as much as her neighbors. And being “comfortable” (that’s 82 F, dry) during the transition in the spring and the fall…I’m so ASHAMED of her at 90 years old, not being willing to make the SACRIFICE of letting her electric rates go up by 10 times to “save the enviroment”….
But then, what does she have to say about it? If the GREENS have their way, NOTHING. That’s why the Green Dragon needs to be slain.

Wind power isn’t hopeless. It just doesn’t make economic sense today. It has problems for two reasons: it’s new and it’s subsidized by the government. People who risk other people’s money don’t bother to be as thorough as people who risk their own money in a business venture. At some point in the future, wind power might make economic sense, but it doesn’t now.

Why do folks, even here, keep referring to these megaliths as “farms?” Farms have such things as corn, wheat, tractors, cows, etc. last time I checked. All I see are _(fill in) acres of scorched earth! I vote for “_ acre industrial complex from hell!”
Also, using some form of steam as the heat transfer fluid ensures equipment bays & people spaces remain cozy no matter what the weather outside does that day!
Always a good argument favoring heat engines versus gigantic egg-beaters!

Bill: “Typically, blades will ice up under the right environmental conditions and will often lose their ice within a day or two of an icing event – if the sun comes out.”
Why are the blades white? You’d think if they made them black solar energy would defrost them quickly.

@Al Gored,
Regardless of whether Coon is competent or foolish, the icing problem does not seem to be a major issue for wind power in general. I doubt wind power will ever be one of the larger sources of energy, but it is an option that needs to be explored and encouraged. The big push needs to be for nuclear power although switching from coal to gas can help reduce CO2 emissions in the meantime.

Wind power supremacy: Our wind turbolator generators will whack for you mostly when you don’t need power!
“We can’t control the weather,” Julie Vitek said. Well I’ll be damned, I didn’t know that.
How silly can we skeptics be, the answer is obvious! Those turbines were designed for when “global warming” hits. We won’t have anymore-cold days so there was no point in engineering for sub-zero capability operations.
Eco-engineers are a rich wise lot in deed!

Remember the picture of the fallen windmill from a week or two ago? I drove by the Foote Creek Rim where that occurred last Friday. Winds were around 40 mph according to the overhead highway signs warning of the winds, yet none of the nearly 200 turbines were turning. Same thing on the way back.
According to the BLM’s site for that project, the turbines should run in winds up to 65 mph.
I’d love to know what the ACTUAL efficiency and amount of electricity these things produce, rather than the potential capacity.
Web site for BLM: http://www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/field_offices/Rawlins/wind.html

I wonder how the windmills will be affected when the inevitable forest fire sweeps through those pines in the photo.
Is there any data of how they will respond to the 500 degree, ember laden, 100 mile an hour wind that arrives with a 300 foot conflagration in tow.

From the full article:
“The facility has enough capacity to power about 19,000 homes.”
Just not in winter.

Mike says:
February 17, 2011 at 2:22 pm
@Al Gored,

The big push needs to be for nuclear power although switching from coal to gas can help reduce CO2 emissions in the meantime.

Can you give me any reliable data that conclusively shows CO2 emissions are a problem? (Sorry, but the IPCC AR4 doesn’t count, unless you want to be laughed out of the stadium.)
Increased levels of CO2 are actually a good thing–there’s hardly a plant alive (along the animals which benefit from their largess) that would lobby for less CO2.

I live in New Brunswick. Last week there was a letter in the Telegraph-Journal supporting wind power. I wrote a reply, which was published the 16th. I enlarged that abbreviated telegram for a free-distribution newspaper, the River Valley News, which prints anything that isn’t salacious or violent. The following is the text that I sent to the RVN. There’s nothing new to those who follow the wind power question closely, but the article might be of use to somebody.
Ian
THEIR WIND FARM, YOUR MONEY
by Ian L. McQueen
In the Feb 11 Telegraph-Journal
[http://telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com/rss/article/1379513], Peeter and Tom
Vihvelin of “Wind Dynamics Inc.” reassured us that wind turbines are a
worthwhile way to generate much of our electricity, apparently only slightly
behind sliced bread among great inventions. Unfortunately, facts and reality
are against them.
The major problem that the brothers Vihvelin did not acknowledge
was that electricity from the wind is unreliable simply because it is as
variable as…..the wind. Immutable science tells us that power output from a
wind generator varies with the cube of the wind speed- if the wind strength
doubles or halves, the output goes up…..or down…..by a factor of eight. And
there are many days with no wind whatever, often at times of maximum
electrical demand in mid-winter.
This means that wind cannot be used for our base load without a
means of storing huge amounts of electrical energy- so far that is only a
dream. The result is that every kilowatt of wind capacity must be backed up
by an equal amount of conventional thermal or hydro capacity. Wind plus
hydro is fine, because hydro electricity can be increased or decreased
quickly. But a thermal plant must be kept “hot and spinning” even if wind
were providing all required energy. (This almost never happens,
incidentally- average output from wind farms is typically only 20-30% of the
nameplate rating.) This means that fuel is being consumed even when the
plant is producing nothing, and any new wind generating capacity must be
backed up by conventional capacity of the same magnitude. Fuel savings with
wind turbines are minimal. The turbines of Denmark are often pointed to as
examples, but not a single thermal plant has been closed in that country (or
elsewhere) as a result of installing wind turbines.
Electricity must always be available from the grid at a constant
frequency and (nearly) constant voltage. But electricity generated by wind
power is irregular, erratic. Wind power advocates talk about “the grid” as
if it were able to level out variations in input from different generators.
The reality is quite different. The electrical grid must itself be protected
from instability. To prevent such instability, wind power can be fed in only
in limited quantity – definitely less than 20%. German experts prefer no
more than FOUR percent. Controlling the grid can become a nightmare with
erratic inputs.
There are other problems with wind turbines, like chopping up
flying wildlife, their stark appearance, and the health effects of
flickering light due to the blades, audible noise, and infrasound that can
be felt, disturbingly.
And if the only raison d’etre of wind power is to reduce CO2
emissions, it is a non-starter because there is no scientific proof that CO2
determines temperature or climate. Frequent repetition of a factoid does not
make it true. If that were so, then Prester John would have come to life
over the five centuries when people sent him letters to enroll his help.
Wind power has been tried and has failed to live up to
expectations in any number of places, including Denmark, Spain, Britain,
USA, Australia, and on and on. Experience with the Bricklin ($23 million),
Atcon ($50(?) million), Atlantic Yarns/Atlantic Fine Yarns (nearly $80
million), and Caisse populaire de Shippagan ($37-50 million or more) should
tell us that our governments have a poor record of picking winners. And so
it will be if the present government is persuaded to give any financial
support to wind power schemes.
Contrary to what the brothers Vihvelin assert, wind-generated
electricity is more expensive than conventional power. Quite a bit more
expensive. Every extra wind turbine raises the risk of increasing your
future electrical bill. It is not free! Unless the installers of wind farms
agree to sell electricity to NB Power at the latter’s cost of generating it,
our government should declare a moratorium on the construction of any more
wind turbines. The results of using the existing wind capacity should be
studied for several years before we even think of building more of them.
We, the electricity consumers, should not be held hostage to the
money-making desires of developers.
Ian L. McQueen
Glenwood

Wind does not compete on price unless the market is distorted and cannot be stand-alone as back-up is required for occasions such as described at the head of this post.
They are better described as subsidy farms. Subsidies can be lowered through the ballot box. Two days ago in one area of Spain there was a half-hour switch-off by households protesting at high electricity costs – a direct result of the Spanish government’s distorted market.
That is one way of voting and in large enough numbers, is bound to be noticed.

BCC says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:27 am
“A couple weeks ago, there was a post here that speculated that wind power was to blame for the rolling blackouts in Texas.
Turns out that wind power was doing just fine during the critical times in Texas; it was gas and coal units that were down.
Quoth Trip Doggett of ERCOT:
I would highlight that we put out a special word of thanks to the wind community because they did contribute significantly through this time frame.”
======
I, for one, am suprised that the output of said “wind community” is not being played up. I am sure it was near the rated capacity, and a bargain to build it.
I am suprised the cost/benefit ratio is not being pushed as an example of tax subsidies paying off, with a detailed study of money involved.
Oh wait…

Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]

AtlanticJim, I’m from the area too and that’s the first thing I thought of as well. Dry? WTF are they talking about? It’s never been dry here? It’s certainly not typical.

From DirkH on February 17, 2011 at 1:08 pm:

(…) So wind power is obviously incapable of stopping AGW. Same for snowed-in PV panels.
Leaves only nuclear and man-sized hamster wheels.

Thus I think of One Great Benefit of having a home alternative power system, with inverter and batteries and electricity stored from PV or wind or whatever.
Instead of having home exercise equipment that blows air, makes heat from friction, or even uses electricity like a motor-driven treadmill, you can have equipment that drives a inexpensive DC generator and directly charges the batteries.
Heck, that can even be scaled up. Want to fight the obesity epidemic? How about an exercise center where people can work out for free, maybe even make some pocket change, and get healthy? Just divert the government money wasted on wind turbines, build those exercise centers, and the economy will be saving lots of money.
Those man-sized hamster wheels don’t sound all that bad.
☺

Split atoms, Not birds.

I’m seriously torn. I can’t decide which is the the more foolish, wasteful and destructive pursuit – ethanol or wind. No sane engineer would recommend either. I am in vehement, passionate opposition to ethanol (except in adult beverages) but wind power may be even more foolish. I moved to Amarillo, TX when I was 27 and lived there until I was 38. I wear hard contact lenses and I swear the wind blew incessantly. This is one very windy area. I always thought that harnessing the wind would make perfect sense. In close proximity to the fabled “Cadillac Ranch” on old Route 66 one of the Texas Universities had a large, vertical ‘eggbeater’ wind turbine. In ten years I never saw that sucker turning but apparently the prospect of wind power had been explored long before I ever moved there (back in the late 80s). I had to move away, grow older and wiser before I realized why wind power was folly.
If one had the means one could set up a personal household array of a wind turbine and banks of PV cells with extensive banks of batteries, charge controllers and voltage inverters and live the life of an energy pig free of charge and completely off the grid. Those without $100K in up front investment capital and hours and hours of spare time to service their system were out of luck. Wind works. Especially in Amarillo. But in the real world it just isn’t practical. Wind sucks for commercial energy generation for a lot of obvious reasons. Even under the best of conditions it is intermittent and diffuse and the necessary equipment and infrastructure is (usually) prohibitively expensive.
Wind power is the demon spawn of crony capitalism, PC and political clout exerted by environmentalist concerns. In practical terms it is sheer stupidity. It’s a classic example of “you can’t there from here”.

RoHa says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
__________________________________________________________
While you’re at it you might want to work on “there, their and they’re”, “your, you’re and yore” and “to, too and two”…I have little hope for effect and affect…not to mention the most despised verb, “impacted” (as in colon).

From RoHa on February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm:

Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?

After you wreak havoc, you have wrought havoc.
Noun substitution:
After you wreak iron, you have wrought iron.
Something seems off there…
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/wrought

A past tense and a past participle of work.

Collins English Dictionary entry:

Usage: Wrought is sometimes used as if it were the past tense and past participle of wreak as in the hurricane wrought havoc in coastal areas. Many people think this use is incorrect

I would normally use wreaked myself, unless going for an effect as with really old wording: What windswept madness hast thou green fools wrought?
[REPLY – What hath God reeked? ~ Evan]

Quoting about the Texas rolling blackouts:
” Wind was blowing, and we had often 3,500 megawatts of wind generation during that morning peak, which certainly helped us in this situation.”
Commenting:
Texas has the largest wind power capacity of any state – more than #2 and #3 combined. That capacity is touted as over 10,000 Megawatts. So, if the coal, natural gas and nuclear plants were producing at 1/3 of their capactities, would that “certainly help…in this situation”?

I support the proposal to have a new reference page in WUWT on “renewable energy”. I used the above picture in my new article, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/02/energy-rationing-and-climate-alarmism.html. Thanks.

#
#
Dr. Dave says:
February 17, 2011 at 5:26 pm
RoHa says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
__________________________________________________________
While you’re at it you might want to work on “there, their and they’re”, “your, you’re and yore” and “to, too and two”…I have little hope for effect and affect…not to mention the most despised verb, “impacted” (as in colon).
————————
OOOOps!!!
You’d better check that whole “knowing” thing. You don’t wreak iron to make a fancy fence.

Oliver Ramsay says:
February 17, 2011 at 6:43 pm
“OOOOps!!!
You’d better check that whole “knowing” thing. You don’t wreak iron to make a fancy fence.”
__________________________________________________________
Damn it! Now I have to tear down my wreacked iron fence. I wonder what ‘affect’ it will have on me. This is to much to bare. Their is going to be hell to pay. Your going to have to bare with me…

Again, for all the nay-sayers on wind-power. It works, where properly located and where properly designed. California’s Banning Pass (near Palm Springs on Interstate 10) is a prime example. It has worked in California for decades. Note that the wind-turbines here generally don’t contend with ice or snow. At least, not yet. Stay tuned on that one.
One can click on this link to see the variations in wind power for the day in California.
http://caiso.com/outlook/SystemStatus.html This graph is updated daily.
Or, click here to see the daily MW generated by the several forms of renewable energy in California. Wind on 1/16/2011 produced just more than 4 percent of the total power.
http://www.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/DailyRenewablesWatch.pdf
Wind does not create undue stress on the natural-gas fired power plants here. Greater stresses are created when 30 million people turn on the lights at roughly the same time each morning, and when automatic systems turn off millions of street lights when the sun rises. See the red “blip” at approximately 5:15 a.m. on the System Status link above.
Wind is also not intended to be a replacement for fossil-fueled power because “everyone” knows that wind is intermittent. Only when wind is coupled completely to an energy storage system will that type of power be reliable.

Wind is being pushed in the same way that perpetual motion machines were:
They ignore the throughput calculations.
For the reverse analogy, look at the energy consumption required to run a prop-driven airplane. Add in the cost to design, build and maintain that airplane.
For the windmill producing power, it’s a loss.
For the airplane, it’s all about accomplishing specific travel at an acknowledged high energy cost.
That’s not to say that using a windmill to accomplish a specific task is a bad idea (grinding your grain).

Here in Ontario, where ‘Green’ is king courtesy of provincial legislation, wind power must be dispatched prior to other generation. This lunacy leads to interesting times whereby we spill water at Niagara and pay importers (export at a loss) to take our power in an effort to maintain reliability. We have a chance to change government here in October of this year and, hopefully, it will invoke changes to ensure: that adequate base load and peak generation is installed; that the grid is reliable and can manage, contain and recover from contingencies; that power is produced at least cost. That is all, as a taxpayer and consumer, that I require of the government. In this environment, renewable energy may be implemented as micro projects for farm, home and business which is, given the technology, its appropriate domain.
And pigs will fly (Sigh).

In the UK the idiot Coalition Government is aiming for 50% renewables [mainly Wind as Solar is a joke in cloudy/wet Britain] All that subsidy should be going into Thorium Power. Instead we will have a landscape covered in pathetic Green Gargoyles that will have bankrupted the National Grid long before 2050!
So say the WWF and Greenpeace and a few other fundraisers [raising funds for their execs]

Mark Luedtke says:
February 17, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Wind power isn’t hopeless. It just doesn’t make economic sense today. It has problems for two reasons: it’s new and it’s subsidized by the government. People who risk other people’s money don’t bother to be as thorough as people who risk their own money in a business venture. At some point in the future, wind power might make economic sense, but it doesn’t now.
/////////////////////////////////////
It is very unlikely to make economic sense in the future since it suffers from a number of fundamental flaws. First and foremost, the unreliability and variability of wind. Second, that in relative terms, wind has little force meaning that it is necessary to have large scale farms and even then, only modest amount of energy (even when all going well is produced).
Further, unlike many other industries, there is unlikely to be much in the way of benefit of scale resulting in cost cutting. Additionally, it is relatively unlikely that there will be substantial increase in eficiency of the blades/generators.
Outside subsidies, these things will never make sense. They will never result in any significant reduction in CO2 until such time as an efficient energy storage device is produced. There is absolutely no sign that the later is on the horizon any time soon.

Roger Sowell you should read, Chas says:
February 17, 2011 at 9:34 pm

I wonder if this global rush to install failing windmills at taxpayers’ expense has anything to do with the subconscious desire to crush all those Don Quichotes out there…
It reminds me of a thievish Russian tycoon buying up some patently ugly modern art at Sotheby’s for 40 million dollars. He does it not only because he can but because it’s an ultimate insult to those honest, hard-working people who appreciate rare beauty but cannot afford it. This gives our primitive mountebank a satisfaction above any other pleasure: it is this satisfaction, not some repulsive run-of-the-mill Picasso that he is paying for.
There are sometimes amazing coincidences between literature and real life (though Sherlock Holmes would have a different opinion).
In his classic SF books written in 1960s, the blind visionary and all-American native genius, Jack Vance, invented a secretive interplanetary organization that took upon itself a responsibility for deciding, what science and technology would be beneficial to the humanity, and what breakthroughs would be dangerous, since most of the humanity hasn’t grown up enough to handle such things. Inventors of dangerous things would mysteriously disappear, their publications would not be found in libraries or databases, and those who would attempt to re-create such inventions would be dealt with quickly and ruthlessly…
Half a century ago, Jack Vance named this cosmic thought police… IPCC.

B.O.B. says:
February 17, 2011 at 6:08 pm
“Where I come from, a new $200 million industrial wind farm development was recently announced in the newspaper. Fifty new jobs for up to twenty years, don’t you know. We don’t need the power, so the $200 million, plus cost to hook up to the grid, plus return on investment to the promoter will simply get added to our our energy bills, like some big credit card.”
Where I live (Texas) we have twice as much wind power as France.
France has ten times as much nuclear power generation as Texas.
The average cost of electricity in Texas is $0.12/kwh
The average cost of electricity in France is $0.19/kwh
Any questions?
all of Canada. Average cost of electricity in Texas is $0.12/kwh which is 10% below the national average. Average cost of electricity in Canada is

Dave Springer says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:08 pm
RACookPE1978 says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:12 am
Oopsie.
A second part of the (numerous) failures of wind power’s inability to maintain generation output over time is the effect on the conventional very large power plant machinery: The turbines, generators, boilers, pumps, motors, and the extreme loss of machinery lifetimes due to excess cycles.

I cannot point you to a paper. What I can do is point out that IESO ignores wind power when it schedules its power generation in Ontario.
This has been noted by several technical people that study power generation and wind power contribution in Canada.
Have a look at one guest post here…
http://ontariowindperformance.wordpress.com/2010/09/24/chapter-3-1-powering-ontario/
See the reference to the original paper/study at the end of the article. Note that there are links to where raw data can be downloaded. All the claims can be verified against the data by using a spreadsheet or a simple program. The original paper was reviewed by power engineers and technical people.
Note that the graphs show that the Exported Power is always more than the Wind Power. Why? Even with weather modeling you can’t get output predictions for wind power exactly right… So the solution is to ignore wind power in the scheduling. Ontario always has a surplus now. The wind power contributes to the surplus at a rate of $125.00 – $195.00 per MWH (WHOLESALE RATE) cost to the Ontario consumer. This is the range of the FIT (Feed In Tariff) rate. So we pay up to eight ties the value of the power that is subsequently sold at the going wholesale rate…
This power is then sold to all of you wonderful folks in the good ol’ USA at a rate of (typically) $25- $45 per MWH. Sometimes we PAY you to take the power allowing you to shut down your generation facilities! Such a deal. We are subsidizing the power companies that then charge you $$120 to $200 per MWH.
Use the power ourselves? How? It is truly surplus power due to the scheduling algorithm which ignores contribution of wind power (and Solar Power for that matter).
I am not criticizing the decision to schedule in this manner. The wind power in Ontario is highly correlated. The output level changes across the entire province in synchrony — often with little warning. The article should make that very clear!
I suppose we should feel grateful for this opportunity — but we do not.
Google Wind Concerns Ontario and read a great deal of discussion on this and other related matters.
Cheers! …and I hope that helps people understand the frustrations in dealing with “Green Energy” — which I now refer to as “Black Energy”.

racookpe1978 says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:24 pm
““I” do not need ANYBODY else’s “peer-review” by any so-called self-interested “paid scientist” to validate the numbers and machinery destruction ”
Yeah, that’s about what I figured. Thanks.

The anti-green sentiment on this blog is more knee-jerk reactionism than cold sober analysis. It’s like anything and everything that ecoloons embrace is automatically loony. Even a blind squirrel finds an occasional acorn. In science and engineering things should be judged by their merits not by their political or religious associations. In fact it’s a well known logical fallacy called guilt by association. It’s hard to claim the high ground when this kind of behavior is so dominant. It’s no different than the CAGW camp who also automatically judge things by political and religious associations rather than by fact and reason.

I haven’t read all the postings previous to this contribution so maybe someone else has already made a similar comment. As an aeroplane pilot I am rather familiar with the effects of ice or even frost on aerofoils. Even a barely discernable layer on the wing will adversely affect lift. I’ve spent many an hour or so on a cold morning de-icing before take-off. Apart from ice, the wings get dirty and need regular cleaning to maintain efficiency. Wonder how much regular attention the aerofoils of wind generators get and at what cost.

Henry chance says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:19 pm
“Paint them black and the sunlight can warm them.”
Sorry that won’t work I’m afraid. The blades are composite and need to be protected from heat and UV hence they are painted white. Same as gliders and composite aircraft.

Dave Springer,
What you see as a “knee-jerk reactionism” is, in many cases, a very understandable exuberance of the people who are totally gagged on other sites, whenever they are trying to say something. Give them a break, they deserve it — if only because most of them have that precious commodity, common sense.
Meanwhile, there is more than enough “cold and sober analysis” on WUWT, if you care to look for it. Deepest thoughts, on the other hand, are not necessarily cold and sober. Hot and drunk people have extremely useful ideas once in a while.

Icing is usually caused by a combination of fog and wind. High humidity is unavoidable during winter near the coast. So, the wind turbines will then only work when there is no wind?

Sorry, folks – got distracted before.
As I was about to say – here in the UK, under the ‘greenest government ever’ (the irony not lost on me, but it may be on them) – I recently had an exchange of e-mails with a guy at the Department of Energy and Climate Change (the two still linked – why, I’ve no idea). He proudly announced that the UK had ‘overtaken Denmark in offshore wind farm capacity’. Well – we all know I’m sure by now, just what the Danes think of wind farms – the cost of their electricity bills; the blight on property; and the zero impact on fossil-fuelled generating capacity.
As I write, the UK is producing 1.5% of its electricity demand from wind – up from 0.8% overnight – and up from a laughable 0.1% during our coldest weather just before Christmas. Still a bit shy of the intention of 30% by 2030..!
The problem here, of course, is that – contrary to what the politicians think, isolated in the Palace of Westminster:
a) Its windy, but not THAT windy
b) Its extremely intermittent – and bears no relation whatsoever to demand.
Have they learnt nothing from history..? Have they not spotted that windmills were abandoned in a big hurry 200 years ago when steam power began to provide reliable and controllable energy..? Do they think that the wind pattern around these islands has suddenly changed to suit their policies..?

In the case of Dave Springer vs the Consumers of Ontario…
Please note that while Dave Springer wrote $.6 kWH — I think he meant $.06 per KWH which is often stated as the “Retail Price” of power. This is versus the wholesale price of power which is often $0.025 – $0.025 these days. The wind Power addition lowers the value of the power exported, while raising the price that must be charged on the home front.
http://www.ieso.ca/imoweb/infoCentre/ic_index.asp
At the time of posting…
Current hourly price: 1.97¢/kWh at 8:00 a.m. EST
… or $0.0187 per KWh —It was BELOW my stated range
I hope that that is more clear.

Dave Springer says:
February 18, 2011 at 1:33 am
Shevva says:
February 18, 2011 at 12:19 am
“Can anyone think of a world wide engineering project that will fail as bad as these wind tubines?”
Yeah, that’s an easy one. Fusion power. Fifty years of dumping money into research programs and it isn’t any closer now than it was 50 years ago. It’s perpetually 20 years away from commercial application. No one’s acheived break-even and even if they do there are no materials that can endure for anywhere near long enough in the reaction chamber to make it economically feasible.
====================
As the late Doctor Bussard humourously noted in his Google lecture – Fusion works, you only have to look up into the sky to see it, and not a single one of them is toroidal!
Doctor Bussard, like yourself, was scathing about the big fusion projects – JET and Tomahawk. After 50 years of working with toroids, he said, the one thing we’ve learned is that they are no damn good.
However. . .
Dr Bussard was working on inertial electric containment fusion – a completely different beast. So far, laboratory experiments have been promising, and the verdict on feasibility has been touted to be given in the next couple of years. If it does work, it will have proved more than anything, the prescience of Eisenhower’s farewell speech – that the nations scholars on government paychecks is indeed gravely to be regarded.

Senator Inouye – tear down this farm!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ms_baboo/4921118105/

RACookPE1978 says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:12 am
Thanks for that. I hadn’t seen that factor explicitly mentioned, only the inefficiencies of fast ramp-up/ramp-down. But it makes sense that added stress = added wear and maintenance.

Wind power Friday Funny from xcrd
http://xkcd.com/556/

Bill;
your numbers are just the wind industry’s PR.
Energy extraction from ANY low-density source requires large commitments of real estate and capital, and maintenance is a horror show just because of proliferation of units and dispersal.
(To cap it off, turbine infrasound wrecks people’s health and quality of life. Google WTS (Wind Turbine Syndrome). There’s a reason every community with actual or threatened local siting goes ballistic in opposition. )

Wind power besides being unreliable and undispatchable, is unsustainable. Wind power facilities will consume more than 3 times the amount of energy needed to design, fabricate, erect, operate, maintain and decommission than they will ever produce. Wind power is a collosal waste of resources.
Get the facts. http://www.windpowerfraud.com.

Bill,
Subsidies do not “help reduce the cost of energy.”
They are part of the cost.

@Ian L. McQueen says:
“It is my understanding that turbines are turned slowly when there is no wind in order to prevent the shaft from taking a “set”. ”
A large Indian gas powered generating station built by Bechtel, the subject of possibly the largest ever international private law suit, suffered from this fate. Realising that the increase in natural gas prices made the project econmoically unviable by the time it was commissioned, they refused to pay for it and the generators sat from some time while the gov’t of India rushed through laws forbidding payment. The generators, which can be turned by hand, large as they are, cannot sit for long in one position. No one bothered. They soon became hopelessly bent, never to run. Bechtel eventually won the suit ($500m) but the station still hasn’t run as far as I heard.
It seems the wind machines are all in this league with the major difference that they are at present hopelessly uneconomic from the get-go.

@nofreewind on February 18, 2011 at 1:40 pm
I invite you to have a look at the SONGS (San Onofre Nuclear Generating System) and its power output. Absolutely zero. Has been that way for quite a while, too, while they replace one of the steam generators.
Wind power works when the wind blows. This is nothing new, and nothing to get all excited about. Nuclear doesn’t work so well when the pieces wear out and have to be replaced.

I agree with Alex, they are indeed part of the cost of production.

Roger Sowell says:
February 18, 2011 at 9:19 pm
…
Wind power works when the wind blows. This is nothing new, and nothing to get all excited about. Nuclear doesn’t work so well when the pieces wear out and have to be replaced.

Duh. Neither does anything else. Especially wind turbines; they burn up or explode if the repair dudes don’t climb that 150-250 foot ladder with tools and parts and a few meals and a chamber pot in time. And nobody knows how long they’ll last; the first couple of generations went about half as long as expected, with wide variations.
Pricey, fussy, unproductive garbage tech on stilts.

Texas Wind Power: Reality vs. Hype (despite burdensome state mandate, only a 1.2% share projected for 2014)
by Robert Bryce
August 24, 2009
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/08/texas-wind-power-the-numbers-versus-the-hype-despite-mandates-1-2-share-by-2014/
“The first great requisite of motive power is, that it shall be wholly at our command, to be exerted when, and where, and in what degree we desire. The wind, for instance, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour, for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear.”
– William Stanley Jevons, The Coal Question (1865), p. 122.
———————–
Conclusion
The growth of windpower capacity in Texas is not the result of consumer choice and natural economics but mandates from the Texas legislature. And despite all the hype, the reality is that the Lone Star State will continue to rely on the same fuels for power generation that it has relied upon for decades: natural gas, coal, and nuclear.

Why Wind Won’t Work?
– it’s Weaker than Water.
http://carbon-sense.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/why-wind-wont-work.pdf
Executive Summary.
Wind power is very dilute, and thus a large area of land is required to gather significant energy. Wind energy needs a wide network of roads, transmission lines and turbines which degrades any area containing wind farms. It has a huge land footprint.
The operating characteristics of turbine and generator mean that only a small part of wind energy can be captured.
Wind power is also intermittent, unreliable and hard to predict. Therefore large backup or storage systems are required. This adds to the capital and operating costs and increases the instability of the network.
Wind farms are uniformly hated by neighbours and will not be willingly accepted without heavy compensation payments. Their noise, flicker, fire risk and disturbing effect on domestic and wild animals are well documented.
The wind is free but wind power is far from it. Its cost is far above all conventional methods of generating electricity. Either taxpayers or consumers will pay this bill.
Wind farms are promoted as a way to decarbonise energy generation. This is supposed to reduce global warming. There is no evidence that there is any need or benefit in chasing this rainbow.
There is no justification for continuing the complex network of subsidies, mandates and taxbreaks that currently underpin construction of wind farms in Australia. If wind power is sustainable it will be developed without these financial crutches.

Naysayers should look at the reality. Wind is not “hard to predict.” Oddly enough, we DO know how to install wind measuring devices (anemometers) a few miles ahead of the wind turbines so that it is no surprise when the wind-power output changes.
Here’s a link to California’s Energy Commission levelized cost data for 2009 installation for several types of power generation. Note the very low cost from wind, onshore. One can download the pdf at the link below, for more details.
wind, onshore class 3/4 — $77 per MWh (average)
wind, onshore class 5 — $70 per MWh (average)
Note that the only system with lower levelized cost is an upgrade to an existing hydroelectric plant, at $65 per MWh.
http://energyalmanac.ca.gov/electricity/levelized_costs.html
What is truly instructive, however, is the CEC’s information on nuclear power costs in the pdf’s graphs. The new nuke has a levelized cost of 31.4 cents per kWh ($314 per MWh) for 2018, based on a Westinghouse AP1000 of 960 MW capacity. (see Figures 13 and 14). This is consistent with what I have written on the extremely high costs of new nuclear power.
Also, for a visual depiction, see Figure 11 for Baseload Technology, and Figure 9 for Conventional Technologies cost comparisons. The new nuke is almost off the charts in Figure 11, and is easily twice the cost of natural-gas fired combined cycle technologies shown in Figure 9.
link to the pdf document:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-200-2009-017/CEC-200-2009-017-SF.PDF

RoHa says:
February 17, 2011 at 3:57 pm
“Am I the only person left who knows that the past tense of “wreak” is “wrought”?
[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
Wow, I’m glad to know you guys were even trying. Maybe you could add “practise” (verb) and “practice” (noun) to the list. I don’t hold out much hope though, considering 93.6% of Americans under 55 can’t discern between “then” and “than.”

According to this article, “…six of 104 [nuclear power plant] units were offline.”
That is during the heart of one of the most bitter, coldest winters we have had for a long while. Right when we need the power the most, nope, the old nuke is not available.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-02-14/u-s-nuclear-plant-output-falls-as-southern-shuts-alabama-unit.html
These things shut down all the time. This particular story just happened to be at the top of the search list today.

Slacko says:
February 19, 2011 at 11:52 am
“Wow, I’m glad to know you guys were even trying. Maybe you could add “practise” (verb) and “practice” (noun) to the list. I don’t hold out much hope though, considering 93.6% of Americans under 55 can’t discern between “then” and “than.”
————————
You must be a pedant of British extraction (like myself), but you are a careless one. It is “accepted” American usage to spell both the noun and the verb with a c.
What’s horrible is your mistaken use of the transitive verb ‘discern’ where you should have used an intransitive, such as ‘discriminate’, a direct object to make sense of your verb or the transitive ‘differentiate’, which has the semantic value that would impart meaning to the sentence, as long as your prepositions were adjusted accordingly.

How does this compare to nuclear power maintenance downtime periods in length?
Can you do a NUCLEAR FAIL story next time they are off the grid? Just to be fair. And no I don’t care if it is planned or unplanned, just whether they are producing power.
Andy

[Reply: Too esoteric. We’re still trying to get folks to correctly use lose/loose and effect/affect. ~dbs]
When you’ve sorted that one out, can you turn your attention to correcting the misuse of amount/number and fewer/less?
Yes, I know, I should get out more …

Oliver Ramsay says:
February 19, 2011 at 12:45 pm
“You must be a pedant of British extraction …”
Quite right, Oliver. Thankyou for your corrections.

G.K.;
Uh-huh. And then you deal with hydrogen. The tiniest of all atoms, able to slip through materials and seams like nobody’s business. Dangerously explosive, and burns with a hot, nearly-invisible flame. Huge volumes required for each mass-unit transferred or stored. (It’s actually more concentrated hanging onto a carbon in methane than in liquid or solid form.) Etc.
Hydrogen is tough for even elaborate space launch sites, with huge bucks dedicated to it, to handle. It is hopeless for commercial and consumer use.

“Watts up with that,” is cleaver, but here’s a better one, “SHINE some LIGHT on that!”
: )