By Steven Goddard
In Wednesday’s Guardian, their lead environmental story made this bold claim about The Whitelee Wind Farm:
Europe’s largest onshore wind farm, which is already powerful enough to meet Glasgow’s electricity needs
There was no discussion in the article about how Glasgow would handle extended periods of cold and calm winds, such as was often seen this past winter.
If the wind isn’t blowing, the turbines aren’t spinning and no electricity is being generated. This tends to happen on the coldest days, when the electricity is needed the most.
The flaw in The Guardian’s logic is a failure to acknowledge that Glasgow needs a consistent power supply 24x7x365. The fact that Whitelee has a lot of windy days and a high annual energy potential, does no good on the cold, calm days. I’m going to try to help The Guardian out with their logic using a few analogies they should understand.
- On average, there is lots of ice in the Arctic during the year – but that doesn’t stop The Guardian from being concerned about the possibility of a few ice-free days.
- Penguin chicks may get plenty to eat most of the year, but during the times when they don’t, many of them starve to death.
- Getting a pay check nine months a year would not pay the bills for the other three.
- Having toilets available only five days a week would not be satisfactory to most people.
- Having only five days a week without being in an automobile crash would not be satisfactory to most people.
- The rainy season in Australia may produce floods, but that doesn’t stop animals from dying of dehydration during the dry season.
- Having your watch functional 90% of the time would not be adequate.
- The fact that a restaurant is not responsible for food poisoning on most nights, may not make you want to eat there.
- Being careful on the edge of the Grand Canyon 90% of the time may not be enough.
- Practicing safe sex 90% of the time is not recommended.
It would be disastrous for Glasgow if they did not have the ability to obtain 100% of their energy from conventional sources on any given day of the year, when the wind isn’t blowing. If The Guardian is attempting to propose that Glasgow could cut off their supply of conventional electricity sources, they should just come out and say that. The implication is both clear and incorrect. “already powerful enough to meet Glasgow’s electricity needs”
Is The Guardian part of the Climate Industrial Complex?
Retired engineer:
I hope you were not a nuclear engineer, Plutonium is so radioactive that with some tungsten carbide bricks or half spheres of beryllium stacked about ( to reflect the neutrons back it will go critical, and produce lethal radiation:
Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin found out the hard way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_K._Daghlian,_Jr.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Slotin
Steven Goddard:
I did not know the Weather Underground has wind speed measurements at 80m and 100m ??
Most weather stations (unless they are a lighthouse) measure wind speed at 5m or 10m height, or at a height not significantly different.
The hub height of modern new installation wind turbines is usually ~80m.
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:gPLB1FJXaHAJ:www.energyscience.org.au/FS01%2520Economics.pdf+uk+nuclear+capacity+factor&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk
when the UK electricity industry was privatised the British Government had to impose a Fossil Fuel Levy to subsidise nuclear electricity through the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO). In the 1990s this subsidy peaked at £1.3 billion per year, equivalent to a subsidy of 3 pence for every kWh of nuclear electricity generated, making the total cost of nuclear power about 6 p/kWh . The last British nuclear power station to be built, Sizewell B, ended up with a capital cost of £2500/kW in 2005 British currency
New build proposal:
http://www.cumbria.gov.uk/elibrary/Content/Internet/538/755/2146/38832122637.pdf
The second key driver of nuclear generation is how many hours per year each
plant is operational (measured by the “availability factor”). Figure 3.6 shows
that this factor has increased significantly over the past 15 years. The increase
from 71.0 percent to 83.2 percent from 1990-2004 is equivalent to an increase of 17 percent in capacity.
The capacity factor of UK nuclear plant is shown in Figure 3.12. The period
1975-1990 showed capacity of just over 50 percent, which is low by
international standards and is not high enough for nuclear to generate
electricity competitively. The introduction of competition into the electricity
industry, and the retirement of some of the worst performing plant (the
Magnox GCRs), has led to this figure improving significantly (it averagesapproximately 75 percent since 1993).
OT (but media related so maybe not)
SHOCK HORROR! BBC manages to cover an Antarctic story without blaming or even mentioning Global warming !
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8066991.stm
Today a windmill in the Netherlands lost a blade.
The blade landed on the A6 highway without hitting a single car.
That’s what I call luck.
http://www.nu.nl/algemeen/1970377/wiek-van-windmolen-valt-op-snelweg.html
It looks like the exploding windmills and breaking blades make a continuing hazard that won’t be solved in the near future.
It shows that wind energy is unreliable, not only from it’s dependance on weather conditions but also from a technological point of view.
The lis of incidents is growing.
Sorry, I only saw the tennis boobs video link further down the page. 😉
From Bloomberg:
Exxon Mobil Says Transition From Oil Is Century Away (Update1)
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By Joe Carroll
May 27 (Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp., the world’s largest refiner, said the transition away from oil-derived fuels is probably 100 years away.
Petroleum-based fuels including gasoline and diesel, as well as hydrocarbons such as coal and natural gas, will remain the dominant sources of energy for factories, offices, homes and cars for decades because there are no viable alternatives, Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told reporters today after Exxon Mobil’s annual shareholders meeting in Dallas.
In the U.S., which burns a quarter of global oil supplies, consumers probably face higher fuel prices if lawmakers impose greenhouse-gas rules that inflate fuel-production costs, Tillerson said. A plan introduced by Democrats this month would allocate a limited number of emission credits to refiners and electricity producers, with the aim of curbing greenhouse gases.
“The oil-gas-refining side of the business received a very, very small amount of the allocations, which means that sector will bear more of the costs more immediately,” Tillerson said. “If we’re going to place a price on carbon, let’s do that in the most efficient way. A carbon tax is more efficient than a tax that’s applied by way of a cap-and-trade mechanism.”
Tillerson, 57, said lawmakers are hurrying to restrict greenhouse gases when many scientific questions surrounding the global warming issue remain unresolved.
“The point of conflict that I find more often than not are the projections that some make regarding how serious the problem may become and at what pace of acceleration it may occur,” Tillerson told investors at the shareholders meeting. “All of those models have deficiencies in the way they’re constructed and the assumptions that go into the models and the limitations of the data.”
Tillerson, a University of Texas-trained engineer, said climate change is a “serious risk-management issue” for Exxon Mobil. The company will continue to fund scientific research into climate science and the impact of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere, he said.
“We’re going to be very forthright in not accepting something that is not completely scientifically proven,” Tillerson said. “We’re not skeptics. We’re just approaching this the way we would approach any scientific challenge, and it’s a serious challenge.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at jcarroll8@bloomberg.net
Nice post. Looks like wind power is really starting to get some serious consideration in Australia now.