In the UK, the CIVITAS group has just released an economic analysis of wind power. The scathing report confirms what we have been reporting for years here on WUWT: wind power is expensive, inefficient, does little or nothing to offset CO2, and isn’t economically viable without taxpayer funded subsidies. Oh, and they kill birds and bats, plus blight the landscape too.
They report:
[Wind-power] is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions. The renewables targets should be renegotiated with the EU. [p. 30]
Energy experts warn that unwarranted support for wind-power is hindering genuinely cleaner energy
The focus on wind-power, driven by the renewables targets, is preventing Britain from effectively reducing CO2 emissions, while crippling energy users with additional costs, according to a new Civitas report. The report finds that wind-power is unreliable and requires back-up power stations to be available in order to maintain a consistent electricity supply to households and businesses. This means that energy users pay twice: once for the window-dressing of renewables, and again for the fossil fuels that the energy sector continues to rely on. Contrary to the implied message of the Government’s approach, the analysis shows that wind-power is not a low-cost way of reducing emissions.
Electricity Costs: the folly of wind-power, by economist Ruth Lea, uses Government-commissioned estimates of the costs of electricity generation in the UK to calculate the most cost-effective technologies. When all costs are included, gas-fired power is the most cost-efficient method of generating electricity in the short-term, while nuclear power stations become the most cost-efficient in the medium-term.
…
Besides the prohibitive costs, the report shows that wind-power, backed by conventional gas-fired generation, can emit more CO2 than the most efficient gas turbines running alone:
In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on “normal windy days” in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines. Ironically and paradoxically the use of wind farms therefore actually increased CO2 emissions, compared with using efficient gas-fired combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) at full power. [p. 30]
This means that the cost of having wind is not just carried by consumers but by the environment as well.
…
The report concludes:
[Wind-power] is expensive and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions. If it were not for the renewables targets set by the Renewables Directive, wind-power would not even be entertained as a cost-effective way of generating electricity or cutting emissions. The renewables targets should be renegotiated with the EU. [p. 30]
More here (and the report itself):
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prleaelectricityprices.htm
h/t to Brian H.
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My problems with wind power is that it is a fragile source of power and aren’t particularly environmentally friendly. Turbine generally don’t last 5 years before they experience a gear box failure, lightning strike, or other failure. A major storm can take out a regions entire wind generation capacity. This subject was the topic of conversation on another blog yesterday and it was pointed out that lightning is such a major issue that it causes many insurance companies to pull out of insuring the turbines in Germany:
http://www.nachi.org/wind-turbines-lightning.htm
Tad says:
January 10, 2012 at 7:38 am
“It makes no sense to me that they compare wind coupled with old-fashioned gas generation against the latest gas-turbine generation to measure CO2. Was there a reason for that? To me, it would make more sense to compare wind-with-gas-turbine against gas-turbine alone.”
The “latest” (combined-cycle) gas turbines, which are highly efficient (up to 60% these days) cannot easily be ramped up and down as other supplies vary. They are suited to base-load supply, but not peaking supply. The “old-fashioned” single-cycle gas turbines are much easier to vary, but have a much lower efficiency — around 40% now when really generating. To be ready for a really quick response, though, they must be idling like a car engine at rest, with very low efficiency during that time, bringing down the overall efficiency of the system. This is why the report’s comparison is valid.
I like to point out to windpower enthusiasts that many utilities do not consider wind-produced electricity as any kind of supply, base-load or peaking, due to its high unpredictability. Instead, they consider it a “negative variable load”, just as air conditioning is the classic (positive) variable load.
“and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions”
Why haven’t we been able to put to rest the useless notion that a minuscule rise in CO2 is bad???
We must stop making irrational and important decisions based on CO2 !!!!
Matthew W says:
January 10, 2012 at 8:52 am
“and yet it is not effective in cutting CO2 emissions”
Why haven’t we been able to put to rest the useless notion that a minuscule rise in CO2 is bad???
We must stop making irrational and important decisions based on CO2 !!!!
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Matthew, I don’t think that’s what they were trying to convey. I think they were merely addressing the original impetus for the reliance on wind generation. Perhaps it should have included a caveat, something along the lines, ‘even if you believed the nonsense about CO2,’ the whirlygigs don’t decrease CO2 emissions. Or something similar.
While I agree with your sentiment in general your example of janitors and repairmen totally fails to illustrate it. The better example would be “a society of insurance salesmen and hedge fund managers”. Those are truly the types who truly produce absolutely nothing at all. Repairmen are simply second tier manufacturers whether it’s a new roof for your house or solenoid on your washing machine. There’s not much difference between producing something new or restoring something that already exists – both have more value than what you started with.
Less so with janitors but their service is far more essential than insurance. If there were no janitors then ~somebody~ else would have to do the work or we’d all eventually end up in a big pile of ****. If there was no such thing as insurance – life would would go on for most and they might be a little more careful about it as well. Insurance took the place of charity but charity always did a better job at helping those who really need it.
Citation? Source? Link?
I cannot judge the veracity of your statements as you provide no sources to back them up. If there are problems with the report that are “without question,” citations should be easy to provide.
The simple answer to the pro-wind campaigners is — if the report is wrong, then do it without the subsidies and prove it incorrect. Adam Smith’s Hand is stern taskmaster.
Wind power has some small uses – the problem is really government interference. Non government wind power was low-tech and worked on pumping water where variability in wind strength wasn’t a problem. Once government added monetary incentives to promote “wind-power” then “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” take over and wind-power’s failures and limitations become more and more obvious.
Where I grew up there had in previous centuries been dozens of factories running on water power. The water continues to flow yet there is now ZERO usage of it as an energy source, absolutely no power is being taken from a river that runs fairly consistently all year round. For negligible environmental “damage” many small manufacturing businesses could be run on the old factory sites, using updated technology akin to the old factories. It would difficult to find a more easily obtainable “green” tech – yet its not even being considered! Instead, in accord with true bureaucratic genius, the countryside has sprouted lots of grant aided bird choppers.
Since wind energy is solely based on formula that includes a varible “v” that can be zero, how can anyone over estimate inefficiency. What percent of time is v=0? Actually there is a minimum that velocity must be attained before output is larger than requirement to run internal electronics of the wind mill itself, etc.
If wind turbines are so wonderful (as per the BWEA), why can’t or don’t they support themselves. Why don’t they do ‘useful work’, as intimated by Pamela Gray above in the comment about ‘on site’.
Somewhere, a wee while ago, I read that 30% of all UK electricity goes into crushing rocks or compressing gas(es). So why aren’t the wind turbines put at roadstone/building stone/cement works to crush these rocks. They could work when the wind blows and hopefully be suitably sized to cover demand for crushed rock when the wind doesn’t blow. The pile of roadstone/aggregate/cement would be effectively your method of storing energy. Nopt very romantic or newsworthy but very practical/useful/sensible.
Likewise with compressed gas, presumably liquid nitrogen, oxygen argon etc for medicine/industry and agriculture. Get the turbines to make plenty for when the wind doesn’t blow – liquid nitrogen only ‘goes off’ very slowly and compressed bottles last forever. A major by-product air-distillation would be Dry Ice – give the stuff away to supermarkets and other big food stores to lighten the load on their refrigeration plant. Even give the stuff to shoppers – a home fridge need only be an insulated box that you feed with dry ice every week or so. No need for electrickery at all.
Doing things like that would take a huge load off the grid and be an effective store for surplus energy when the wind is blowing strongly.
I guess they don’t do things like that because they’ve no imagination, crushing rocks is not exciting enough or – It Doesn’t Pay
Therein is the problem, Government interference. Why else does a 5kW wind turbine, delivered from China via Seattle cost about £5,000 and a similar turbine coming 100 miles from Glasgow cost £30,000? Ans: The latter is ‘approved’ for the Feed in Tariff scheme. That speaks volumes don’t it, but getting anyone on the ‘wind side’ to admit it is harder than getting blood from a stone.
How ironic. A non-profit “think tank” decries wind power economics on the same week that arch-capitalist Warren Buffet lays down a huge business bet in the opposite direction:
Hmmm … working the numbers, it appears that Buffett’s Iowa wind turbines are sufficiently reliable and profitable, as to induce Buffett to triple his 2011 investment in Iowa wind power. WUWT, indeed?
So, whom should WUWT readers heed? Ruth Lea’s skeptical “nay” or Warren Buffett’s nonskeptical “aye”?
Funny note but my son had to do a renewable energy presentation in school. He wanted a subject that was different than all the other kids were doing so I told him to look up LFTR and gave him the Google Tech Talk video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZR0UKxNPh8&feature=player_embedded).
When the presentation was done and the class was asking questions he was told that thorium wasn’t renewable and his comeback was “it is as renewable as the magnets in the wind turbines, the silicone in solar cells and the lithium in batteries”. He got an A 🙂
As long as you need base load to cover for the intermittent nature of wind & solar you save nothing. If you can come up with a cheap, scalable, long term (days) method of storing the energy for them they may be workable in some cases.
What a fallacy to imply that wind power would consume more fossil fuels than without it. And to say not to use it because it’s not always available. Next, you’ll say solar is no good because it doesn’t provide electricity at night. Appropriate use where wind, sun, and waterflow is local and plentiful will and should offset the use of dwindling oil supplies which need transportation.
I live in west Texas and there are THOUSANDS of windmills out here. Unfortunately, at the present time, they are incapable of self support. Until they can be erected and integrated PROFITABLY (no gubbmint subsidy) into the existing grid, they are USELESS
” You can make windmills with steel, but you cannot make steel with windmills”
Great idea! Then I can start a business delivering it in a wagon pulled from my solar powered horsey! Think of all the new jobs that will create for hay, fly squatters and nose clips?
A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 9:40 am
“So, whom should WUWT readers heed? Ruth Lea’s skeptical “nay” or Warren Buffett’s nonskeptical “aye”?”
Ahh yes, the corrupt Mr Buffet. The man who makes the brunt of his money off of capital gains rather than a salary, then complains that his income tax is lower than his secretary… who is salaried.
Lying sack of [expletive deleted] comes to mind.
I am a still-working hydro engineer with 45 year experience. Naturally, I despise the obsession with taxpayer/consumer subsidised power supply options. (Biofuels are another and more despicable matter).
Nevertheless, what we need are facts and stats. E.g: for a few given systems with substantial wind/solar installations what are the following:
– installed capacities (nameplate) – should be a bit more precise that the usual “enough to supply 560 billion homes)
– what is this as % of system capacity
– real costs (including transmission and distribution lines, substations, subsidies, etc)
– energy generated in an average year in GWh and as % of system generation
– actual capital and annual (maintenance) cost in $US/MWh:
– availability
– payments to not produce
– bird kill figures
– loss of tourism revenue
– incremental cost of summlementary generation to meet peaks,
– % of time when system is unable to meet peaks (brown-outs).
Etc., etc.: – just saying its bad and too cheap is no argument. One can easily say same about nuclear.
“Hmmm … working the numbers, it appears that Buffett’s Iowa wind turbines are sufficiently reliable and profitable, as to induce Buffett to triple his 2011 investment in Iowa wind power. WUWT, indeed? – A Physicist”
There is no doubt that Buffet’s Iowa wind turbines are profitable FOR HIM. Our concerns should be with the rest of us. I live just across the border, in Southern Minnesota, a place ripe with the folly of wind turbines and our power bill would shock the average consumer – that is WITH all of Buffet’s generous subsidies.
Face it, “sustainable energy” is not economically sustainable.
Mike P, get a clue. If wind power was worth the money wasted on it, the free market would have already provided windmills. But as we all know, except in extremely unique situations, windmills cannot exist without taxpayer subsidies.
Let us not forget that Holland’s windmills were employed in processes where intermittent power availability was ok. You pump water out of swamp land, or grind grain into flour. when the wind blows. If it doesn’t blow, you do something else that day. Wind is great when urgency is low.
Moving a commercial ship with with wind (a windjammer) only works when the wind blows in the general direction of your travels. Wind doesn’t blow or blows in a headwind, you loose money.
To generate electricity 24/7/365 at 60 Hz frequence locked to the grid is asking wind to do precisely what it is most ill suited.
Wind could be used for pumped storage of hydropower, but the places where you have wind and sufficient reservoir capacity are few, and irronically, hydropower is not considered a renewable under Califormia Law.
I’ve just done a calculation whose result is so amazing, that I challenge WUWT readers to repeat it for themselves (because I can scarcely believe it myself).
Background: Our family’s Iowa farm is underlain by a coal seam, at shallow depth, that is one meter thick (yes really, and during the Depression our family mined that seam).
Question: If we leased our farm to Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings how long would it take Buffett’s windmills to generate electrical energy equal to the all the electricity that could be generated by strip-mining the entire farm, and burning its coal?
Hint: My answer is one of the following (but you should check it yourself!):
(a) One year (meaning, coal mining is economically senseless)
(b) Ten years (meaning, coal mining is economically senseless)
(c) One hundred years (meaning, coal mining is economically senseless)
(d) One thousand years (meaning, coal mining is debatable)
All I can say is, the numbers from my personal calculation make Warren Buffett’s investment look like genius, and Ruth Lea’s analysis look moronic.
WUWT indeed! Perhaps some wind-power engineer could weigh in with a comment? 🙂
The 19th century economist Bastiat wrote about “That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Unseen”. He used the example of a broken shop window. Passers-by see the destruction and conclude that it is not so bad because it creates work for the glazier who will repair it. But they are only looking at the immediate and visible effect of the breakage. They forget that the money that the shopkeeper must now spend with the glazier would still have been spent somewhere. The glazier’s gain is balanced by some other tradesman’s loss, but that loss is “Unseen” and therefore forgotten.
In fact there is a net loss. If the window had not been broken the shopkeeper would have had a window plus whatever he might have brought with the money that must now be spent on repairs. After the repair is done he will only have a window.
The “70,000 jobs” promised by Dr. Edge are “That Which Is Seen”. Like the work for the glazier, the new jobs are a visible benefit to a particular group of people. But somebody has to pay for all those extra workers so the price of electricity goes up. Consumers are forced to spend money on electricity that they had intended to use for something else. The turbine installer’s gain is balanced by someone else’s loss. But the gain is concentrated and visible. There are new workers and factories for politicians to be photographed with. The loss is dispersed among all the thousands of busineses that lose some of their trade so it remains “That Which Is Unseen”.
There is also a net loss in this case. If wind power was not used the consumers would have electricity plus whatever they wanted to buy with their remaining money. If wind power is used they must give up some (or all) of those things in order to have the same amount of electricity. Wind power offers all the economic benefits of a broken window.
Ray R. says:
January 10, 2012 at 8:08 am
I’ve seen a few windmills replaced with solar panels. I presume that the panel recharges some type of battery pack used to power the pump. Fortunately, it’s not too far off the highway and someone can get a generator to it to pump water if (when) it fails. Worth noting is that there are no electric power lines nearby. It is very rural!
“A physicist” asks
So, whom should WUWT readers heed? Ruth Lea’s skeptical “nay” or Warren Buffett’s nonskeptical “aye”?
Answer: Ruth Lea is showing how wasteful and uneconomic it is for the country, the ordinary taxpayer – addressing public morality, in a sense. Buffet is looking at how lucrative it is for him and his shareholders personally.
Buffet is doing it because he can cash in on huge amounts of taxpayer grants and benefits. Without that he would not touch it. Four years ago it was reported
“Warren Buffet’s MidAmerican Energy should be able to deduct from taxable income its entire $386 million capital investment in its 360 megawatt (MW) “wind farm” in Iowa during the period from 2004-2010. Assuming marginal tax rates of 35% for federal and 12% for Iowa corporate income tax, the depreciation deductions would reduce tax liability by $181 million during the period from 2004-2010. That is in addition to the roughly $300 million in tax benefits over 20 years from the project due to the federal Production Tax Credit, ($175 to $195 million) and forgiveness of Iowa property tax ($130 million)”
The Production Tax Credit, the Federal subsidy, has steadily increased to 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour. Not to mention the guaranteed markets and guaranteed higher prices mandated by law for selling all those electricity units. And the rest.
Buffet is not looking at the economic cost for the country, he is looking for the bucks he can make at the expense of the country. Sure, it’s a LEGAL scam, reaming the backside out of the American people.