Guest post by Steven Goddard
The Telegraph has an article today about the latest addition to the UK wind energy grid, described as “Europe’s largest onshore wind farm at Whitelee.” The article says :
When the final array is connected to the grid later this week, there will be 140 turbines generating 322 megawatts of electricity. This is enough to power 180,000 homes.
Assuming the turbines are actually moving. The problem is that on the coldest days in winter, the air is still and the turbines don’t generate much (if any) electricity. Consider the week of February 4-10, 2009 in Glasgow.
The average temperature was -2C (29F) during the week, and there was almost no wind on most of those days. No wind means no electricity. On the coldest days, there is no wind – so wind power fails just when you need it the most. On the morning of February 4, the temperature was -7C (19F) and the wind speed was zero.
In order to keep society from lapsing into the dark ages, there has to be enough conventional (coal, natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear) capacity to provide 100% of the power requirements on any given day. Thus it becomes apparent that Britain’s push for “renewable” energy is leading the UK towards major problems in the future.
The belief that conventional capacity can be fully replaced by wind or solar is simply mistaken and based on a flawed thought process. People want to believe in renewable energy, and that desire blocks them from thinking clearly. The people of Glasgow were fortunate in February that there was still still enough conventional capacity available to keep their lights on. As the UK’s plans to “convert” to “renewable energy” proceed, this will no longer be the case.
Wind and solar can reduce the average load over a year, but they can not reduce the base or peak requirements for conventional electricity.
In the future, weather forecasts may have to include a segment like “No electricity from Wednesday through Friday. Some electricity possible over the weekend.”
BTW – You can purchase those nice fluorescent green jackets at the Claymore Filling Station in Ballachulish for about £12. I’ve got one just like it in the closet.
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As an electrician I find it great that the econazis are pushing alternative energy solutions. That will put more electricians to work since there will be no other work in North America.
Personal opinion only. LOL
PhilK
They survey sites for wind powered generators for at least 12 months prior to designating them as suitable.
Sorry but they don’t just place these things on a whim at random locations.
The problem with wind is that it has to be backed up 1:1 by conventional power generation such as gas fired, coal, oil or nuclear.
It means have to have 200% capacity to ensure 100% supply.
Does that make economic sense?
It’s pure economic lunacy.
I got an e-mail this morning from a Consultant who says for the USA to generate 20% of its electricity from wind power, would require lines of windmills from Canadian border to Mexican border with 500 ft diameter windmills spaced 500 feet apart, with the lines spaced 30 miles apart from coast to coast ?
Haven’t sanity checked the figures yet.
Oh and that also would require a constant wind speed of 24 mph.
Are there places in the world where the wind never stops blowing?
/Mr Lynn
That study was done by Westinghouse Power systems.
There’s only one solution: tax the rich. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
I wonder how long after reality asserts itself it will take the general public to do the math.
And did I not read that while a wind turbine may “SAVE” about 6 tonnes of CO2 in its lifetime, it will require about 42 tonnes of CO2 to construct and maintain the unit during its productive lifetime.
I was watching a show on energy over the weekend on a Houston station. West Texas has a lot of turbines and Texas produces more wind energy than any other state in the US (which is still not a lot of energy). It was funny though about six of the eight times they showed turbines in the show, they weren’t moving. It became comical after a while…
Wanting something to work just doesn’t cut it. We need new, viable technoligies to produce energy. I saw an interesting ad from an American company that makes small nuclear reactors, about 3′ in diam. X 5′ tall. They are selling them in Africa to generate heat for steam-powered electric generators. It is ridiculous that we can’t build our own reactors for our own use, nor refineries to process our own oil. Being enviromentally conscious does not mean we need to live in mud huts without running water nor power and with a life expectancy of 35.
Wind, the fair-weather friend – or perhaps the foul-weather friend who’s no friend in fair weather.
We visited an experimental project to harvest tidal energy today, using an orthogonal turbine with blades that adjust to maximize both lift and drag as it turns, using a really slow rotation speed with very high efficiency. This is a totally new design concept. I think tidal energy harvesting is still, unbelievably, in its infancy, and promises a lot, far more than wind power, yet few are thinking about it. The energy potential is enormous. Tidal flow is predictable, and the challenge of zero energy at the turns of the tide can be met in various ways.
For anyone interested, I’m going to write about this design on our website in the main section – but give me a few days. I think it’s a winner, suitable for rivers as well as slow tidal flows, extremely eco-friendly potential for schemes both big and small, that nobody has really spotted properly yet.
It is worse than that not only are these towers incredibly ugly and cover huge tracts of land these wind turbines kill birds. At Altamont Pass, California, more than 1,000 birds of prey are killed each year, along with 1,000’s more of less precious species. Of course, when a flock of ducks land on oil extraction tailings ponds due to an equipment failure and subsequently all die then the whole world hears about it.
Actually, you tend to need the most electricity during the hot days of the summer, since space heating is primarily done with natural gas or fuel oil, while all cooling uses electricity.
Also, intermittent issues from wind aren’t a huge problem if you have a large and diverse grid mix. Its only when you start getting > 30% intermittent energy that it becomes a real problem, and you need to start looking into energy storage technologies.
Each one of those turbines delivers 2.3 Megawatts? (322 megawatts/ 140 Turbines)
I looked at the specs and that figure is the optimal amount of power generated under optimal conditions. If they get what others are getting (around 25% overall) that ‘plant’ will generate around 80 megawatts on average. Will be fun to watch the draw on the other power sources when there isn’t any wind, or its too cold, etc.
“The total area covers 55 square kilometres” is an interesting follow on paragraph lead in. Devoting 55 sq kilometers of land to power 45,000 homes (180,000 *.25) is, well, in the words of Mr Spock — fascinating.
I’m sure if they actually discovered efficient wind and solar power environmentalists would be against it.
After all, their goal is not to save energy, but to curtail industrial civilization. Thus they are specifically interested in technologies that do not work.
Also when there is strong wind (in some cases above 20 m/s , and in some cases above 16 m/s) the power generation from the turbine is switched off.
So when we are freezing in the storm the wind power won’t be there either.
This is why siting studies are so important, and why conservation organizations (including the one on whose board I sat 1985-2000) have won concessions requiring pre-siting monitoring plus mortality monitoring afterwards.
Altamont – a very early windfarm – is a special case, as it was built using derrick-style towers which perch-hunting raptors such as red-tailed hawks and golden eagles are attracted to. Also the rotors themselves are much smaller than on modern mills, and thought to be less visible (or perhaps just less frightening) to such raptors.
Modern well-sited windfarms are *much* less destructive to birds, in particular raptors.
Any engineer will tell you the wind mill to backup ratio must be one to one, or else when you hit the switch, nothing will come out. Might be good to have days off for the Internet addicts, but business will need some form of generator to take the load. Can you imagine trying to operate a business only when the wind blows?
So now we have the facts about ethanol leaking out, the industry is going bankrupt, and it produces more CO2 than just gasoline — Seems they have been unable to make the corn seed hop in the ground, harvest itself and show up at the appointed distillery …
Wind power suffers variability. Or the wind blows where people don’t want to be.
There is a no alternative, except nuclear power, and of course we don’t want to do that.
If you’re suggesting that the raptor blenders at Altamont didn’t receive a lot of negative publicity when the problems became apparent you’re very mistaken.
Well, I don’t think they’re ugly; to my eye, they’re graceful and elegant, a tribute to how technology can be beautiful.
But if they’re just sitting there doing no useful work, they make very expensive sculptures.
And of course, killing birds is not useful work, usually (doubtless there are farmers who might prefer a few less crows).
/Mr Lynn
<>
Of course there are, just go to AGW HQ’s worldwide and you will find the AGW BS wind blowing not only strongly but 24.7 🙂
Damn that html filtering…
some old uk data
http://www.ref.org.uk/Files/ref.reds.wind.30.03.09.pdf
>Zeke Hausfather (11:39:28) :
Actually, you tend to need the most electricity during the hot days of the summer, since space heating is primarily done with natural gas or fuel oil, while all cooling uses electricity. <
Hi Zeke I am guessing that you may not have been to Scotland. There is no A/C apart from large poublic buildings and office block plus possibly the very occasional factory. The need for cooling is therefore extremely small however the need for heat is a constant. Glasgow is on or close to the same latitude as Moscow.
Doesn’t get as cold as Moscow because of the moderating influence of a maritime Climate. However that makes for a damp penetrating cold, very chilly.