This seems like a candidate for the FAIL blog, hence my caption.
Here’s the story:
“We can’t control the weather,” Julie Vitek said in an interview from company headquarters in Houston, Texas. “We’re looking to see if we can cope with it more effectively, through the testing of a couple of techniques.”
She says the conditions in northern New Brunswick have wreaked havoc on the wind farm this winter.
“For us, cold and dry weather is good and that’s what’s typical in the region. Cold and wet weather can be a problem without any warmer days to prompt thawing, which has been the case this year.
“This weather pattern has been particularly challenging.”
Full article here
h/t to a whole bunch of WUWT readers, “TomRude” being the first.
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.
Ya, I live in NB and feel embarrassed by all this stupidity. There is plenty of hydroelectric power and also loads of uranium and coal to mine.
But what do we do??? This crap. Makes me sick.
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.
Looks like the enviros got their windmills before going belly up.
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!
@ur momisugly Bill: “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. ”
And yet, almost no power is produced, so really, that’s all beside the point, isn’t it. No one cares how fancy the gear is, if it doesn’t do the job.
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.
tarpon says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:42 am
No worries! Scrappers will take care of these monuments to climsci insanity, and they will work at night pro bono.
@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.
Ken S says:
February 17, 2011 at 11:37 am
If these wind turbines have been completely shut down for several weeks the blades will most likely warp. I understand that they are slowly rotated when there isn’t enough wind so that the blades don’t warp!
Ken-
It is my understanding that turbines are turned slowly when there is no wind in order to prevent the shaft from taking a “set”. (The same thing is done with the generator at our local nuclear power plant during a shutdown, and it is probably standard procedure at all power plants.) I don’t think it is as likely that the blades would warp if kept idle.
There is a story of a festival – maybe in California – to celebrate the opening of a new wind farm. What the attendees didn’t know was that the turbines were being driven in the wind-free conditions by electricity from a nuclear power plant
IanM
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!
When I have a generator which will not start, I trash it and buy a new one.
What part of “reliable” do they think is not needed for a power source?
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
They knew the numbers before they even built the stupid things………
Not profitable, vastly expensive to maintain, just a handful of jobs created, etc
…and we are paying for them, just like everything else the government does, out of our pockets
and even when they know the costs, we will still be paying out of our pockets to maintain then and keep them running – forever
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.
@Bill
“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. ”
Sophisticated? Yes they’d have to be to support the design that has been chosen. But for ease of maintenance and maintenance cost (and noise) it is a poor design, and that just adds to it having to be very sophisticated. The US space shuttle is very sophisticated however the cheaper soviet designed rockets are more reliable to get the job done. So things being sophisticated superbly engineering doesn’t necessarily mean much other than that it has to be superbly engineering to be working sophisticated hardware. :p
They will, if, and only if, it is economically feasible, work for as long as the economical life time has been chosen to be. Which, weirdly, uhu, just happens to be for the maximum amount of years one can get subsidizes for. I believe it is 20 years in EU now, down from 25. Apparently they downed it because no commercial viable wind farm has yet to make it for even 20 years. Ironically the physical life expectancy went down to 15 years, although one has to take this with a grain of salt for it only means it is not economically to maintain after 15 years, but even after 10 years it is too costly (wind mills can only change to new generators if they fit the old design and what not, apparently even the foundations set today won’t be able to handle a larger version in the future.) so when new updated hardware hits the scene they can’t be interchanged for the old crap and who wants to keep squandering maintenance money for stuff that keep generating less for each revolution?
So yes, of course wind power is very lucrative for the . . . owner! Especially in EU where they get subsidies for generating electricity, for not generating electricity, for not being able to generate electricity, and even for just thinking about expanding the business.
A Swedish power company is helping putting up a wind farm in East Anglia, no less, and will take part of the £100 million per year hand out for 20 years. However in a short period of time since the project is expanding the subsidies also expands to £200 million per year.
Thanks to the ever so kind hearted british tax payer a 100% foreign 100% wholly state owned power company will be receiving about three times more than the cost of building the whooping number of all of the 341 green mills without even generating one single watt, and on top of that they get general EU subsidies as well.
The only reason for why that state owned company are building wind mills in the british isles is to reduce its own CO2 foot print, and by doing so, being 100% state owned, reduces the CO2 foot print, not the British isles CO2 foot print, but that of Sweden and the beauty is it’s all being payed for by the bleeding micks themselves. It’s the socialists wet dream: if there’s no more taxing of your own people start taxing the foreigners in their own countries. o_O
From the full article:
“The facility has enough capacity to power about 19,000 homes.”
Just not in winter.
Look at the energy that 1200 MW of turbines in Ireland is creating today.
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/windgeneration/
What is the cost? According to this wind industry article 1.2 to 2.6 million per MW. http://www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost
So that is about 2 billion dollars worth of equipment sitting completely idle in Ireland today. Well, I guess it depends on how you look at it. Because for sure the turbines might not be spinning but the money is still flowing. Out of the consumers and citizens pockets and into the scammers pockets.
Mike says:
February 17, 2011 at 2:22 pm
@Al Gored,
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.
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?
—————-
And this
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
Look at Tehachapi’s dead turbines – that is the goal of the post normal environmentalists. That’s the legacy we will be leaving our wide-eyed children to deal with and pay for in 30 years.
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
Paint them black and the sunlight can warm them.
Well, we know that the nukes had absolutely no problem that day (so in a ‘hypothetical world’ we would have been better off having one more base-load nuke on line since they didn’t kick off-line like the ‘conventionals’ did) ; while their are ERCOT confidentiality agreements (I can quote chapter and verse if you like) that restrict the information about what conventional generating coal and nat gas plants were on line that day and failed the information about the nuke plant status is federally regulated and available near real-time (1) on the nrc.gov website.
(1) Current Power Reactor Status Report: http://www.nrc.gov/reading-rm/doc-collections/event-status/reactor-status/ps.html
.
Al Gored perceptively said:
“LOL! With management like this, who needs management?”
Profound, as much as funny.
Kinda like California’s Energy ventures lately and what we have to face.
Hang on tight for the ride we are going to be on shortly.
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.