This academic pushing this PNAS paper thinks wind turbines don’t break, but get obsoleted in about 30 years. Boy is she in for a reality check. That and anyone who thinks they can accurately predict wind power density 30-50 years into the future might not pay attention to details like that. I wonder what makes the great lakes special but not the upper peninsula of Michigan in between? – Anthony
Global warming won’t harm wind energy production, climate models predict
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Source Indiana University
May 2, 2011
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — The production of wind energy in the U.S. over the next 30-50 years will be largely unaffected by upward changes in global temperature, say a pair of Indiana University Bloomington scientists who analyzed output from several regional climate models to assess future wind patterns in America’s lower 48 states.
Their report — the first analysis of long-term stability of wind over the U.S. — appears in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.
“The greatest consistencies in wind density we found were over the Great Plains, which are already being used to harness wind, and over the Great Lakes, which the U.S. and Canada are looking at right now,” said Provost’s Professor of Atmospheric Science Sara Pryor, the project’s principal investigator. “Areas where the model predicts decreases in wind density are quite limited, and many of the areas where wind density is predicted to decrease are off limits for wind farms anyway.”
Coauthor Rebecca Barthelmie, also a professor of atmospheric science, said the present study begins to address a major dearth of information about the long-term stability of wind as an energy resource. Questions have lingered about whether a warmer atmosphere might lead to decreases in wind density or changes in wind patterns.
“We decided it was time someone did a thorough analysis of long term-patterns in wind density,” Barthelmie said. “There are a lot of myths out there about the stability of wind patterns, and industry and government also want more information before making decisions to expand it.”
Pryor and Barthelmie examined three different regional climate models in terms of wind density changes in a future U.S. experiencing modest but noticeable climate change (warming of about 2 degrees Celsius relative to the end of the last century).
The scientists found the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CRCM) did the best job modeling the current wind climate, but included results from Regional Climate Model 3 (created in Italy but now developed in the U.S.) and the Hadley Centre Model (developed in the U.K.) for the sake of academic robustness and to see whether the different models agreed or disagreed when seeded with the same parameters.
All three state-of-the-art regional climate models were chained to output from one of four atmospheric-ocean general circulation models to derive a complete picture of wind density changes throughout the study area — the lower 48 United States and a portion of northern Mexico.
Comparing model predictions for 2041-2062 to past observations of wind density (1979-2000), most areas were predicted to see little or no change. The areas expected to see continuing high wind density — and therefore greater opportunities for wind energy production — are atop the Great Lakes, eastern New Mexico, southwestern Ohio, southern Texas, and large swaths of several Mexican states, including Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, Chihuahua, and Durango.
“There was quite a bit of variability in predicted wind densities, but interestingly, that variability was very similar to the variability we observe in current wind patterns,” Pryor said.
The Great Lakes — Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Erie in particular — consistently showed high wind density no matter what model was used.
Such predictions should prove crucial to American policymakers and energy producers, many of whom have pledged to make wind energy 20 percent of America’s total energy production by 2030. Currently only about 2 percent of American energy comes from wind.
“There have been questions about the stability of wind energy over the long term, ” Barthelmie said. “So we are focusing on providing the best science available to help decision makers.” Pryor added that ‘this is the first assessment of its type, so the results have to be considered preliminary. Climate models are evolving and improving all the time, so we intend to continue this assessment as new models become available.’
Wind farms are nearly carbon neutral, and studies show that a turbine pays for itself after only three months of energy production. A typical turbine lasts about 30 years, Pryor says, not because parts break, but because advances in technology make it desirable to replace turbines with newer versions.
“Wind speed increases with height, so turbines are also getting taller,” Pryor said. “One of our future projects will be to assess the benefit of deploying bigger turbines that extend farther from the ground.”
This is also the week of the annual Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, the largest such energy conference in the world, which has increasingly focused on offshore wind energy production in recent years.
Last month, Pryor was appointed to the National Climate Assessment and Development Committee, convened by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to help the U.S. government prepare for and deal with climate change. She also contributed to a special report used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Barthelmie is a widely respected expert on wind energy, particularly in northern Europe, whose wind farms she has studied for years. She was the winner of the European Academy of Wind Energy’s 2009 Academy Science Award. Both Pryor and Barthelmie are faculty in the IU Bloomington Department of Geography, a division of the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Research in Environmental Science.
Pryor and Barthelmie’s work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (BCS 1019603), the International Atomic Energy Authority, and the IU Center for Research in Environmental Sciences. The model output they analyzed were provided by the North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program (NARCCAP). NARCCAP is funded by the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development.
===============================================================
The full paper: Barthelmie- nas-wind-paper
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@walt man says: May 2, 2011 at 6:27 pm
@walt man says: May 2, 2011 at 8:01 pm
I’m sorry walt man. But you are mind bogglingly naive or you have a direct financial interest in BigWind.
(Quoting a technical report from Vestas does rather give the game away.)
Amongst all the other bold assertions and bare faced porkies in your two comments, I’d like to focus on just a couple of little points.
Firstly you say “According to Vestas 80% of a turbine can be recycled.” You don’t say whether this is by weight, volume or value.
Well, if you turn to the Vestas’s propaganda to which you gave a link, you will find at Table 9 that they actually claim recyclability of METALS by weight to be >90%. Well, no surprise there then. I would expect almost 100% of metals to be recyclable in almost any large plant item or structure. But they also suggest 28% of polymers by weight to be recyclable. This is a bit more improbable but may be right if you are looking at stuff which is physically capable of being recycled regardless of cost.
But, you know, walt man, there is something missing. Can anyone guess?
Well, how about the foundations for the tower, for a start. That’s likely to be at least 100 cu.m. of heavily reinforced structural concrete, below ground level. How much of that is going to get recycled and at what cost?
And that’s before you even start to look at the access and maintenance roads to the turbine.
My (informed) guess is that you can ‘recycle’ as much or probably much more of a coal fired power station or even a nuclear plant than you can a wind (=subsidy) farm. And much more economically and with less environmental damage whilst you are doing it.
Now lets take a look at another of your sales pitches:-
“The reseve (sic) is required to back up 1GW nuclear stations which can cause a sudden loss on the grid when it scrams. In comparison the spinning reserve for a Turbine is 3MW!!”
Well, stripe me surprised! Just one tiny detail. Shouldn’t you be comparing the spinning reserve for several wind farms (in the UK for all 3,100 turbines across the entire country, if you look at December 2010) when you compare with a 1GW nuclear station? And just how often does a nuclear station “scram”, anyway? You have figures for that? Whereas anyone who is interested can download the generation data and see for themselves how often spinning reserve has to come to the rescue when BigWind output crashes.
If BigWind is so good, how come it only gets built by Government Diktat and / or financed by enormous hidden subsidies from taxes and electricity bills?
Was this paper peer reviewed? If it was, you have to ask why no-one questioned some of the more ludicrous claims such as a three month payback on investment.
Do a search for “off-shore wind turbine foundation failures” and then tell me that these windmills will last 20 years without maintenance or repair.
Don K: Are you the evil twin or am I? We think alike, at least on this subject. If the pay-back time is so short, why the need for subsidies?
That paper is very funny. I like a good laugh first thing in the morning.
Not a word, though, on why the predictions for wind power generation based on current data have all exceeded reality. That’s also funny, but funny peculiar.
Interestingly, the UK government has quietly (why quietly..?) reduced its proposals for offshore wind farms in 2020 from 30GW to 12GW. No explanation – but their pie chart for the makeup of generating capacity in 2020 still contains a HUGE slice of ‘renewables’…
Fairy breath, elf dancing and nubile virgin sacrifices, perhaps..??
walt man:
At May 2, 2011 at 5:00 pm I said:
So, according to a prediction of a climate model that has yet to demonstrate predictive ability, wind farms that don’t work will not be affected by climate changes.
And before the climate trolls and the shills for windpower companies jump in, I point out the following.
….
Windfarms are expensive, polluting, environmentally damaging bird swatters that produce no useful electricity at any time: they merely displace power stations onto standby mode (when the power stations continue to consume their fuel and to produce their emissions) during the periods when the wind is strong enough but not too strong for the wind turbines to generate electricity.”
But you could not resist jumping in, so at May 2, 2011 at 6:27 pm
You assert and ask me:
“What do you not understand about conservation of resources. A power station runing without producing power (spinning reserve, warm start) consumes very little energy to when fully loaded. This surely is obvious? Otherwise where does the excess fuel energy go?”
Your question displays as great an ignorance of the subject as is demonstrated by Kum Dollinson .
I answer;
It goes OUT OF THE COOLING TOWERS along with most of the energy from the fuel whether or not the power station is generating electricity.
I have twice explained the matter on this blog during the past week, but you members of the windpower lobby keep ignoring it and posting twaddle in hope that ‘new’ readers will be fooled.
My most recent explanation of the matter on this blog was on the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/30/why-windmills-won%e2%80%99t-wash/
and was as follows.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
April 30, 2011 at 11:22 am
Kum Dollinson:
It is bad form to repeat a post from another thread. However I write to conduct such bad form because
(a) your comments in this thread pretend that I did not refute them earlier
and
(b) several commentators have mentioned the issue of my previous post.
Please note that above (at April 30, 2011 at 9:12 am) the Noble Lord has pointed out that the matter is not directly pertinent to the analysis in his article above, but my previous post answers both your point and questions from several others.
My previous refutation of your spurious assertions was in the thread at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/27/blown-promises/
and it was as follows.
Richard
Richard S Courtney says:
April 27, 2011 at 3:27 pm
Kum Dollinson:
Wind turbines operate when the wind is sufficiently strong but not too strong. Hence, there are significant periods when they do not operate because the wind is not in the appropriate range of wind speeds.
To date no country has managed to operate its wind turbines for more than 30% of a year, but at April 27, 2011 at 1:24 pm you assert;
“Okay, when all else fails, do the research. It seems like Iowa generates about 52 Million Megawatt Hrs (According to EIA.)
It looks like they’re producing 10.7 Million Megawatt Hrs of Wind, which would be about 20.6%.”
OK. That suggests
(a) the turbines are providing all – or almost all – of Iowa’s electricity at times
or
(b) the turbines are operating for significantly more than 30% of the time.
Either of these performances by Iowa’s wind turbines is an amazing achievement: all countries with large numbers of wind turbines would be interested to know how it was achieved.
Importantly, the wind power was an extravagant, expensive waste whatever the proportion of Iowa’s electricity was supplied by the wind turbines.
The wind power displaced thermal power stations from the grid, but the power stations continued to operate – and, therefore, to burn their fuel and to make their emissions – while waiting for the wind turbines to stop providing electricity when the wind changed. That fuel would have provided electricity if the wind turbines were absent.
Thermal power stations take days to start from cold so cannot be shut down while waiting for the wind to change. Therefore, they have to operate at reduced output or on standby while waiting for the wind to change.
Thermal power stations usually operate at optimum efficiency. If a power station is required to provide less electricity then its efficiency reduces so it provides less electricity but consumes MORE fuel (this is like trying to drive a car at 10 mph in fifth gear: it can be done but it uses a lot of fuel). And a power station operates at optimum efficiency when on standby, so it then uses similar fuel to that needed for it to efficiently provide electricity (although it provides no electricity when on standby).
In other words, the only effects of the wind turbines are to increase the fuel consumption and the emissions of the power stations which provide the electricity when the wind turbines don’t. And those power stations would have provided the electricity if the wind turbines had not. Also, it should be noted that the increased emissions from power generation are caused by the wind turbines although those increased emissions are from the power stations.
So, the wind turbines provided no useful power but provided significant additional cost to the power generation and additional emissions from the power generation. This is true wherever wind turbines are used to provide electricity to a grid supply.
Richard
Wind Power! not only oxymoronic but the biggest waste of resources ever invented!
If, and it’s probably a big if, there are any smart politicians out there, they have a glorious opportunity to use their favourite trick and move the goal posts. Having signed up to producing X % of power use, by renewables, by a certain date, they could simply use the turbine team’s trick of refering to installed capacity all the time and thereby reduce the number of windmills needed by 75%.
There’s only one windmill operator that I have any trust in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camberwick_Green
Willis put it brilliantly a short while ago; ‘Models all the way down’. Not even a hint of field work or even a brief glimpse of the cruelly negative reality of the actual costs of extracting energy from wind and supplying electricity to a grid-based reticulation system. The idea of a mere three-month period to amortise total installment costs has no basis in fact, despite the bizarrely irrational pleadings of wind-power enthusiasts on this thread.
Richard S Courtney says:
May 3, 2011 at 1:45 am
Richard
Perhaps the conventional turbines, whilst idling, could be used to power big electric fans upwind of the windmills, thereby guaranteeing a reliable source of wind for them and ensuring the energy doesn’t go to waste!
I’m sure the logic of this suggestion would appeal to the “green” mentality.
And looking up synoyms for green I found:
green
adj
………..
3 conservationist, ecological, ecologically sound, environment-friendly, non-polluting, ozone-friendly
4 callow, credulous, gullible, ignorant, immature, inexperienced, inexpert, ingenuous, innocent, naive, new, raw, unpolished, unpractised, unskilful, unsophisticated, untrained, unversed, wet behind the ears (informal)
5 covetous, envious, grudging, jealous, resentful
………..
Take your pick.
Wishing the two scientists that they are sitting in 2062 on the Lakes enjoying their prediction that there is still wind blowing comes to life.
On the biased view on wind energy paying off after three months etc. and some comments here (e.g. by “walt man”) – big wind should not ask for governmental support, nor any kind of cross-funding that this paid by the customer. If the Vestas,
Greenpeace or whatever story is true, wind energy will be cheaper than anything, and despite the ugly views, other side effects be the key source. But it is not, withouit government funding, subventions etc there would be nothing but the wind blowing
over Lake Michigan. Why is that, is reality false, or a type of evil blocking green today.
I am from Germany, which is advanced on its green path into the future…. The only thing you can see when passing by these giant parks is that most turbines are not working – availability is low, and when they are working the grid gets stability problems – certainly everyone would understand that local environmental activists are blocking efforts to construct additional grid lines to balance that off. Wind energy is a joke – but a costly one. Allows follow the money, the interests of the people involved.
The two scientists are to grab the funds for senseless studies – hope their pension is invested into wind energy parks to make them rich in a couple of years, after the turbine has paid itself off. Good luck.
Apparently the technical life span of a wind turbine is 20 years.
http://www.copperinfo.co.uk/power-quality/downloads/pqug/851-wind-farm-case-study.pdf
While the wind turbine manufacturers, Vestas, puts it at 20 – 25 years. [They would say that won’t they.]
http://www.vestas.com/en/about-vestas/sustainability/wind-turbines-and-the-environment/life-cycle-assessment-%28lca%29.aspx
Karl says:
May 2, 2011 at 4:51 pm
I live and work in the Upper Peninsula. The federal and state agencies are deeply committed to the agenda as our environmental groups. One, the Lake Superior Watershed Partnership gave away free CFL light bulbs. Here’s a supposedly environmental organization that’s giving away something that could potentially contaminate our water with mercury. Then they got a grant to study the feasibility of wind power. They want to erect these monstrosities that will blight our landscape. Insane!
I also live in da UP. Every day I cross the Mackinaw Bridge to work and gaze at two windmills in Mackinaw City. The blades were removed and replaced last year so zero output for an extended period. The winds are very low during high pressure systems in the winter. So low to no output. Sheer folly of windmills.
Been looking for something all my life that pays off in three months. Never did think of of an 18th Century windmill.
I can tell you that none of the windmills in N. Iowa/S. Minnesota are producing a lick of energy right now. Dead calm. As cold high pressure settled over the area the windmills are probably using energy rather than producing it.
This follows a couple of days where the windmills were probably shut down due to high winds gusting to 40 mph at times.
May 1st set a new record low high as well and I suspect last night was very close to a record low. Thanks to coal, gas and nuclear the lights remained on.
Forgot to mention, the “gales of November”. If they can sink lake freighters da ya think they can wreck windmills?
“…a turbine pays for itself after only three months of energy production. ”
Having been involved in the installation of a 10KW wind turbine at a friend’s place in southern California I have a problem with that number.
We got a great deal on the unit. Because we bought it unused from a dealer who’d gone out of business a couple of years before. Except for the crane, and crew of riggers. We did the complete installation ourselves. And we put it on top of an 80’ monopole tower. With tax incentives, and California’s immerging renewable buy-down program, the net cost was still somewhere in the ballpark of $25,000.
10 KW is a hell of a lot more power than 1 house needs. But even if that unit were powering enough houses to run it at full capacity, the minimum buy-back time is still something like five years.
I wonder how much they need to charge for their power in order to pay off a much larger, and more expensive, machine in a matter of months.
I can’t wait for the report on the effect AGW might or might not have on sunny v. cloudy hours per year. I predict no effect and the solar energy industry will rest easy knowing they kill fewer birds than those evil wind people.
Aren’t wind turbines supposed to end global warming?
If wind is cheaper, why does my electric company want to charge me an additional premium of “$2.16 per 100 kilowatt hour block” more than if I just use the coal/natural gas plants? It’s not cheaper if the electric company can charge me more for it.
Deekaman says:
I have to wonder (and have wondered for many years) if anyone has considered the ramifications of removing that energy from the atmosphere. Will it affect weather patterns? Some other consequence not yet considered?
Deekaman – you don’t understand. NO energy will be removed from the atmosphere. Green science has managed to suspend the laws of thermodynamics. Now, not only can you break even, you can even win, as long as you’re ‘green’ enough. (but you still can’t leave the game)
Rucio says:
Aren’t wind turbines supposed to end global warming?
That’s why they put them in the CA desert – to cool it off…
@TonyG says: May 3, 2011 at 8:54 am
Yes, that’s a good point about this “paper”.
If the two Professors have gone to all this trouble to fine their three “state of the art” models to try to predict variations in wind caused by Global Warming, it begs an obvious question.
As no-one outside a padded cell would even contemplate installing wind turbines if they weren’t supposed (with absolutely zero evidence) to combat global warming, then why would BigWind be at all interested in what happens to wind if Global Warming is going to happen anyway?
“There are a lot of myths out there about the stability of wind patterns”
Yeah, that’s one thing they got right. But they forgot to mention that the myths they refer to have almost all been dreamt up by BigWind and its dishonest supporters.
Incredibly, the opening sentence of the IU news release states the production of wind energy will be unaffected by upward changes in global temperature.
Did I miss something in college? Has Boyle’s Law been repealed? Is air density a constant? sarc.
The wind turbine manufacturers assuredly rate their machines at a specific air temperature and density. Any increase in temperature or elevation higher than sea level will result in a decrease in rated wind turbine output. This loss, which could be as high as 15%, is mute, since wind turbine facilities have an EROEI of about 0.29.