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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re: Phil (11:21:21) :
I dont get your point. They can survey sites for as long as they like it wont change the amount of wind available. It will just tell them one site has more generating potential than another. The coldest days tend to be those without any wind so wind turbines wont be generating any electricity when the demand is highest. In fact, since wind turbines need to be periodically turned when not generating electricity to avoid warping the shaft and damaging the bearings, they will be increasing the load on the grid on those days.
Here in Kansas, the movers and shakers in the state are really pushing for more wind power. Like Scotland, we often have very cold winter days with no wind and and in this part of the state, some of the hottest days of the year have no wind.
I suppose I can live longer without air conditioning in the summer than without heat in the winter, but why do I have to make that choice? The economics just don’t make any sense, especially when you remember there isn’t any viable way to store excess wind energy for when you need it. (Sure, someday there probably will be, but nothing right now).
Meanwhile, coal is a wonderful source of stored energy and it’s very affordable.
The problem with specifying the power of wind farms and solar arrays is that they use the right Dimensions, but the wrong Units. For conventional power stations, like coal fired, hydro or nuclear, after a shor time delay, it is possible to get any amount of power up the the maximum, providing there is enough “fuel” on hand. With wind you need to rely on Mother Nature, who is a bitch. The correct units to use for specifying the power of wind farms is megawatthours per year; not megawatts.
George E. Smith,
Well, okay, let’s do some ‘back of the envelope’ calcs here.
Assuming
1) we use the above turbines to meet the 20% figure
2) generously assuming they supply 50% of rated capacity.
3) Acreage requirements for the turbines are as stated in the article.
Each turbine supplies 1.65 mwatts
Total electrical demand in the US in 2007 was 764,476 mwatts (US Dept of Energy)
then, to supply 20% of that need (not accounting for increase in demand) you’d need 92,664 turbines. Each turbine requires .15168 sq miles, so 92,664 turbines would require a land area of 14,055 square miles.
Okay, so the distance from the Canadian border to Mexico is roughly 4,000 miles, so you’d be able to put 26,666 windmills in one line from Canada to Mexico. Looks to me like (based on my assumptions) you’d need one line about halfway or a little more from the Canadian border to Mexico, say about halfway through Colorado?
If the turbines deliver 25% of rate capacity it would stretch from Canada to Mexico with another line stretching about 1/4 of the way.
Using Mr. Papsdorf’s numbers, that many turbines would generate 3.892 million tons of CO2 in manufacture and maintenance.
I would wonder how long it will take to manufacture 92,000 wind turbines, not to mention transportation and assembly? I don’t know what production capacity at Siemen’s is, but I suspect it would take them a number of years to build that many windturbines. I also wonder what % of the world’s steel/aluminum production would be devoted to this endeavor.
That picture looks like western Canada today. They have a big snowstorm blowing through.
re: Phil (11:21:21) :
They survey sites for wind powered generators for at least 12 months prior to designating them as suitable.
Yes, they do. But all statistical surveys/research will tell you is how things *were*, and are never a guarantee of what will happen at any given time in the future.
I’ve posted this information before, but I suggest having a read of “Sustainable Energy – without the hot air” by David MacKay, freely available for download at http://www.withouthotair.com/ The book gives all the numbers and dispells all the myths, showing just how useless renewable energy is. Its great for the facts to counter environmentalists and greenies who think wind and solar can give us everything we need.
We need to convert to sources of clean, renewable alternative energy …
… clean, renewable alternative energy …
… clean, renewable alternative energy …
… clean, renewable alternative energy …
… clean, renewable alternative energy …
… It just sounds so perfect … and if you hear it often enough, it must be true. There’s just no escaping “the truth”.
Zeke,
But natural gas and fuel oil generate CO2. That simply isn’t an acceptable source of heat. People in Scotland could heat their houses with solar on cold, windless days, except that the sun is just above the horizon in mid-winter.
BTW – I suggest that everyone in the UK stocks up on good rain gear for the summer, since The Met Office forecast another hot one.
This seems to be (yet) another story where “capacity” is misrepresented as actual generation. The capacity is the generating potential if all conditions are perfect for maximum generation. Overall, systems rarely provide over 30% of capacity averaged over the course of a year. Most systems are closer to 10% of rated capacity in overall average annual generation. So rather than 322 megawatts, they are going to be lucky to average a third of that over the long term.
And then there is the problem of the inflated capacity numbers themselves. It turns out that wind conditions have been rated too optimistically and the actual wind potential is really much less than the amount used for capacity calculations. In many cases the wind potential for generation has been inflated by 200% or more. That is why actual generation tends to come in at around 10% of “capacity” in many cases.
Ignore the “capacity” numbers and focus on the actual generation figures. But you probably won’t be able to find them anywhere because they are generally never published. It is only when lawsuits are brought and there is a discovery process is it exposed that the wind farms don’t earn their keep.
Still in Scotland, there is a big fuss because there is a drive to build wind farms on the internationally important peat bogs. Some claim destroying the bogs will
release more carbon than the wind farm will save! Sounds a bit klike the ethical bio fuel dilemma.
http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2381294.0.bid_to_ban_peatland_wind_farms_comes_under_attack.php
Tonyb
Have you wondered that the only way to sell these silly hardware is through “tipping” (free translation=bribery).
Steve Keohane (11:35:57) said :
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.
(A) my father-in-law, MechE and Harvard MBA, has advocated Home Nuclear Piles for decades. He sees an added benefit in the Darwinian nature of such a distributed power source; after a couple of generations, the gene pool (albeit smaller) would be 100% technically literate.
[Imagined New Yorker Cartoon: Housewife with measuring cup standing at neighbor’s front door: “Hi, Alice, can you spare a few grams of Cesium? Our Nuclear Pile is on the fritz again.”]
(B) I want one. What isotope does it use? What’s installed cost? What’s refueling cost? Rated power (kw)? Cost per kw-hr?
I assume that permitting in the USA would be impossible, but if it WERE allowed, existing power laws require that the power utility BUY BACK your co-gen power, which while not terribly lucrative would reduce the cost by say 1/3 to 1/2.
If anyone wants to know what the wind is doing at any time in the UK, see:
http://www.xcweather.co.uk/
“On the morning of February 4, the temperature was -7C (19F) and the wind speed was zero.”
Strangely, when I look at the graph, it looks very much like the wind speed averaged about 2.5mph on the morning of February 4th, and only dropped to zero for short intervals. Are you looking at something else?
dhogaza (11:47:40) :
If the enviro lobby cared about 1,000+ raptors killed every year at a single location like Altamont, they would oppose windmills, period. But their unspoken agenda requires that they promote windmills — so the eagles and hawks are just collateral damage to them. The greens don’t really care about the birds.
“Thought to be less visible,” eh? Keep telling yourself that, and pretty soon you’ll start believing it.
I drive the Altamont Pass quite often, and anyone who believes that those windmills are much less visible to a sharp-eyed raptor than a larger windmill is simply saying that to justify the wholesale slaughter of hawks and eagles.
But then enviros aren’t conservationists. Greens are just red leftists with an agenda, who have discovered that it’s effective to beat the public over the head with pictures of polar bears and baby harp seals.
Ok guys, Dont knock the wind. some of us may be glad of it if the Russian gas gets turned off. Western europe is very vulnerable when it comes to energy security. Generating electricity from wind is still in it’s infancy. Getting the supply curve to suit the demand curve is only an engineering problem, that will be sorted with power storage either with large scale batteries, or or pumping water back to higher levels for hydro power.
As for killing birds, my kitchen window probably kills more.
“I drive the Altamont Pass quite often”
I drive over that pass, too, though not often. I don’t believe I have seen more than half the units turning at any given time.
I agree that wind power plants are a visual pollution and they are noisy too, but I don’t see any problem in having to back them 1:1.
If you are a large company (like those owners of wind mills), you surely are into other power generation systems. If you make your purchased gas or coal reserves last longer by switching partially to wind, you are effectively using cheaper fuel the longer you delay the use (on “normal” market conditions), so it adds profitability to your backing system.
If you are a country which relies on imports of fossil fuels (like most countries), wind will reduce (slightly) your foreign dependency. If you are European and Russia cuts your natural gas supplies whenever she has a row with Ukraine, then making your gas storages last longer and using wind whenever available is a very good idea.
I don’t think wind is an overall solution, but I don’t see anything wrong in developing renewable energies, especially if solar could be used one day to its full potential.
Steve Keohane, I think you refer to Hyperion nuclear reactors. They look pretty amazing. I wonder why we don’t see more research and investment in that direction: http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com./
These 140 turbines, sitting on 55 square kilometres of land, and generate 322MW’s of electricity, which at 25% efficiency means about 80 MW’s. To produce the same output as one medium sized power station of 1 gigawatt, of whatever type, would therefore require an area of 660 square kilometres, which is approximately 256 square miles, or 16 miles square.
This area must be close to the area of Glasgow and Edinburgh plus many other Scottish cities combined.
When is this form of energy going to be put into context. I don’t disagree that wind shouldn’t form a part of the grid but to portray it as the panacea for all our future energy requirements needs to be stopped before we do serious damage to our economies. That it is, remains a disturbing mystery to me,
Somebody I know went to a conference on at wind power. He said they last 8 years, but the time required to make a profit is 25 years. So it’s a non starter.
Have you realized that only the “first world” countries are engaged in this nonsense?. “Third world” countries would involved in such a madness only if “first world” tax payers pay for it.
Sorry for slight OT, but this story is quite amusing: Eco-sailors were rescued by oil tanker – http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/8034027.stm.
Well, it happens when eco-lunatics have to face harsh reality of the environment (and physics). In similar way the eco-sailors were rescued by the “filthy” oil tanker (symbol of evil for the greens), our energy supply has to be secured by the coal, oil, gas or nuclear. I bet no supporter of the greens would like to be dependent only on the “green” energy.
D Carroll,
Russia turned off the gas in the middle of the Siberian Cold Front which made the air cold and still. Triple whammy.
Perhaps Scotland can rely on global warming to keep warm?
Lucy Skywalker,
This is no place for outrageous orthaganol views. Yes, in Europe they got a few wave machines – at water parks. Must remember you’re at WWUT.
Vader