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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Wind energy on itself is not a bad thing, it lead to a very prosperous time for the Netherlands which we call the “Golden Century”, but yes it was that we did not need windpower constantly, but given the efficiency of those wooden windmills we still needed quite a lot of them for indeed milling water to keep our feet dry, milling grain and stuff. Sawing wood into planks, using windpower kicked of shipbuilding during the 16th and 17th century making that small collection of provinces called the states of holland a global naval player and economic powerhouse.
Still too much wind and a failing brake and this will happen (note: this is a watermilling type, the grainmills are a lot taller and the woodmills are usually build on top of large shed),
http://youtu.be/7lkRI3CLpg0
the UK just had terrible winter storms if I remember correctly. How many of their new beaut turbine were damaged, destroyed, put out of commission I wonder? and at what cost to the consumer and the environment
Well I am on record for some fairly opinionated statements; which I will defend: –
1/ We get NO “heat” from the sun.
2/ It should be a felony offense to use electricity to heat.
3/ Most energy is used to heat, so solar energy should be gathered and stored and used as “heat”.
Hey Mate ! what the hell happened to #1 ?
Ooops !
So there is the secret. Theoretically, in principle, if not yet in practice, it is possible to convert 100% of the solar electromagnetic radiation energy that arrives at the earth surface (1kW/m^2) into ELECTRICITY. Well gimme a break Mack; of course there’s always going to be a little bit of slippage.
So what about those cheese mixers/ wind turbines ? They don’t run on electricity do they; they are supposed to put out electricity, not use electricity to make wind.
Wind is made from “heat”; and we don’t get any of that from the sun (#1). We get damn good electromagnetic radiation from the sun, and we immediately waste most of it, by burying it in the oceans and rocks and stuff, so we end up with just a few dregs of waste “heat”, which messes with the atmosphere and eventually makes WIND for our turbines.
A wind turbine, is basically a gas turbine engine. You have a working fluid (air) which you HEAT; Pacific ocean does that for us Californians out of what is left when it gobbles up all that nice solar EM radiation energy and simply wastes it. The heated wind comes whooshing through the Golden Gate, over San Francisco and Berkeley, and thousands of acres to the rotor of our turbine, and it exits out the back as a cooler waste exhaust wind after having dropped 1/2 mv^2 of kinetic energy in the rotor, into more thousands of acres of open unusable ground.
You can’t use the Gosinta or Gosouta ground for high rise sky scrapers, because that would mess up the streamlined wind flow. You can grow rabbits on it though.
Give a little thought to the Carnot efficiency of this gas turbine engine, and try to decide whether the energy losses from the sunlight are 99% or maybe 99.9%. Well whichever, this is a very INEFFICIENT use of that original beautiful, pristine electromagnetic radiation energy which we received from the sun, and simply wasted.
Yes we get NO “heat” from the sun; we simply make all we have, right here on earth by wasting the EM radiant energy, instead of convering it, in theory or in principle; or as best we can into electricity, using the Photo-electric effect.
The only thing that matters in solar energy, is conversion efficiency (to electricity), and wind turbines are a long winded round about way of doing that. It is inherently impossible, no matter what, to convert 100% of “heat” into electricity, so even the finest solar boiler steam turbine type solar energy plants, will always be limited to something in the 40% range; and not really even that, because you have space between the reflectors, so they don’t shadow each other, so in reality the conversion is nowhere near 40%, as you can’t use the land in between the mirrors for anything.
Wind energy is suitable for occasionally stirring cheese, or pumping water, when you have both water, and wind.
A physicist says:
iowaFarmArea -> theSizeOfTheFarmIsIrrelevant,
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity -> 350 W/m^2,
iowaCoalSeamThickness -> 1 meter,
iowaCoalEnergyDensity -> 2.0 kW hour/kg,
iowaCoalDensity -> 1506 kg/m^3
350 W/m2? Really? 24 hours per day? 7 days a week?
Doesn’t really matter. Instead of comparing energy output, try comparing dollar output. 1 KW hour = $0.12 retail. How long does the windmill have to turn before it is paid out?
One aspect of these relative value calculations that never gets much mention is the very significant transmission line losses between generation and end user. This makes a certain amount of sense since the losses are pretty much the same for all sources, depending only on the distance between generator and user. But it is potentially a large positive for modern high efficiency gas generation because, unlike almost all of the other alternatives. they can be done with a small enough footprint and level of environmental innocuousness that they can be deployed directly in areas of high population and high usage thereby eliminating much of transmission line losses from their total cost.
Large wind farms and photovoltaic plants are on the other end of this factor. Most must of necessity be deployed at considerable distance from end users and when you add the transmission losses that result along with their already dismal production ratios the negative verdict on their ultimate utility is strongly reinforced.
kadaka (KD Knoebel) says:
January 10, 2012 at 12:28 pm
“You know, you don’t seem to understand economics much.”
A leftie’s budget is always funded with other people’s money. When they need more money, instead of creating wealth as the rest of us have to do by being producing something of value, they simply demand more from the producers. It *IS* for the greater good, don’tyaknow! LOL!
Yes, that is indeed the Iowa wind-power number, Russ, averaged 24/7 as per your question.
To see that it’s a reasonable number, ask how yourself “How much electric power would I need to run an electric fan powerful enough to make the wind blow 24/7, at some moderate speed, within a 1×1 meter column of air, 50 meters high?”
Gee, maybe Anthony should have titled his post: “There’s a reason the modern age moved on from coal”. 🙂
So, Russ, what is your next question? 🙂
Question: which method produces cheaper electricity? Iowa windfarms or Iowa treadmills driven by Iowa mice?
Answer: it depends upon the government subsidy.
It’s a whole lot simpler than that, Alan.
Iowa’s average wind energy potential is (about) 350 Watts per square meter. And under one square meter of our Iowa farm, there’s enough coal to provide 350 Watts of electrical power for exactly … one year.
So over any time span longer than just one year, Iowa wind power makes a whole lot more energy sense than mining that Iowa coal. Not to mention, Iowa’s farmland doesn’t get destroyed!
===========================================================
Oh…… .my…….. goodness…….. that’s the dumbest…..
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!
First of all, energy potential and energy realized are two entirely different things.
Secondly, and again, you are confusing energy and energy over time!!! STOP DOING THAT! It’s that sort of expression that confused people into believing this babbling bs.! But, worse than that, you’re starting in the middle of the equation! Its the force that does the work that generates the energy.
I would have thought someone purporting to be a physicist would have known this. Physl, once you’ve gotten your head around what I’ve just shared with you, you can then come back and I’ll explain how windmills work. Their energy output doesn’t correlate with average anything. So, even disregarding your confusion of energy potential and energy over time, you’re still wrong. I think you’re going for a record on the amount of levels a person can be wrong on, in just a couple of simple statements.
A physicist says:
So, Russ, what is your next question? 🙂
I have already asked it.
1 KW hour = $0.12 retail. How long does the windmill have to turn before it is paid out?
“It’s an ill-wind that blows no good!” I look forward to quite a few photos of blazing and wildly flailing windmills just prior to their explosion, before the whole scam grinds to a halt. Someone should come up with a use for all those abandoned rusting windmill ruins in the future.
Well, James, at least you and I agree on this: someone’s calculations are goofy. 🙂
And my bet is, those goofy calculations are Ruth Lea’s. `Cuz definitely I trust the economic common sense of Iowa farmers — as verified by my plain, simple, and easily checked calculations — much more readily than I trust the long-and-fancy arguments in Ruth’s oh-so-complicated white paper.
A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Coal energy density is not your wikipedia figure of 2kWh/kg; that figure is given for a coal plant with 30% efficiency. The correct figure is around 5 times the figure you have used.
Your wind energy potential is just that; potential. To extract all that potential your windmill would have to have a blade swept area around an order of magnitude greater than the area of your farm.
Good luck with that.
The picture that starts this thread hurts me because it is deceptive. The old windmills are loved very much in Holland, there are still plenty of them around and maintained for their beauty and historical value. Having both sailed on a ship and been inside a working windmill – they are still used sporadic for practical uses – there was this similarity, staying in this working windmill gave me the sensation of being inside a big sailing ship – this big wooden construction cracking and moving along with the changing wind. Yes, it is a fixed construction, but also it moves somehow. It was an amazing experience. As for the new onces, these giant three-bladed monsters for electricity, they also are everywhere in our landscape now. I just hate their ugly shape, with or without economic calculation. The old windmills were pretty efficient, as all they did do was transform one form of kinetic energy (wind) directly into another by mechanical means. Pumping water, grinding wheat, sawing wood… For this reason you cannot compare them with the modern mills for creating electricity. There is this fundamental difference. But even on the outer appearance of being a windmill there is not much similarity with the modern turbines. It’s not only these three blades (would have been very difficult to construct like that with wood) – they are just plain ugly monsters. Does that tell something also? Reading the calculations here there is still hope they will be gone one day.
Yer question ain’t hard to answer, Russ. Let’s take a one-section farm (one square mile). What’s the annual dollar value of the energy in the wind potential of that Iowa farm? And how many windmills will that annual dollar value buy?
————————————–
windPowerEconomicsRules = {
farmRevenuePerYear -> 1 year * iowaFarmArea *
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity * iowaRetailPowerPrice,
mile -> 5280 * 12 * 2.54 cm,
iowaFarmArea -> (1 mile)^2,
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity -> 350 W/m^2,
iowaRetailPowerPrice -> 0.12 dollar/(kW hour)
};
farmRevenuePerYear//
ReplaceRepeated[#,windPowerEconomicsRules]&//
ConvertToSI[#/(10^6 dollar)]&//Round//
Print[“Iowa wind power = $”,#,”,000,000 per square mile per year”]&
Iowa wind power = $954,000,000 per square mile per year
————————————–
Now, it’s true that windmills placed too close together start stealing each other’s wind. Nonetheless, that nine hundred million dollars per year leaves plenty of economic headroom, eh?
So, Russ, maybe Warren Buffett ain’t so dumb to triple-down his Iowa windpower investment, eh?
Crosspatch says on January 10, 2012 at 8:43 am, that lightning damage is a major cause of damage to wind turbines.
This sounds to me fairly easy to solve. Perhaps with suitable conductors along and within the blades, and suitable brushes on a suitable grounded ring. Or with a lightning rod that reaches higher than the blades do. Or with whatever engineers who are actually involved in protection from lightning would actually use …
Don’t the builders of wind turbines consult experts in protection of structures from the weather hazards that structures will be subject to?
There is still the matter of gearbox failures, getting people into high places for replacement of wear items and any lubrication and dust/debris removal, and ability to survive the various severe thunderstorm winds when they hit once-per-century class. If windmills can’t survive 100 year class wind gusts, then a majority of them will be blown down within a century.
“A physicist”: “Seriously, there’s not a single farmer in Iowa who wouldn’t appreciate that Warren Buffett’s energy company is offering a terrific deal.”
Yea, for farmers, who just love subsidies. Yea, I think the farmers in Iowa just love all those subsidies for ethanol as well. They are in on the scam as are all those who own vast tracts of land that they can prostitute to perpetuate the scam. Of course, Buffett has to throw you a few crumbs to keep you sweet. But look at the bigger picture – you’re reaming the backside out of your country. Taking bribes to destroy your nation’s inheritance and its capital.
OMG … it’s a US windpower hockey stick! Yah know, maybe America won’t be needing so many of those new stripmines and coal plants after all. 🙂
Reply to Pete-in-Cumbria.
Sorry to spoil the concept but modern air separation does not produce CO2 as a by-product. Intake air is drawn through molecular sieve beds which trap CO2 and moisture. The beds are regenerated alternately and the captured gases are vented back to atmosphere.
A physicist says:
“Iowa’s average wind energy potential is (about) 350 Watts per square meter. And under one square meter of our Iowa farm, there’s enough coal to provide 350 Watts of electrical power for exactly … one year.”
The potential might be 350 Watts/m^2 but in our beloved reality of today Iowa only produce, what, some 0.03 Watt/m^2.
Romney is the same as Obama going back to ENRON..
First Wind Secures $376M For UT Project
http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2009/04/22/first-wind-secures-376m-for-ut-project/
“A physicist” is neither a physicist or an economist. And certainly not an engineer.
Responding to his peurile, ignorant taunts is a waste of time (I know, I know).
He doesn’t seem to know the difference between power and energy. He doesn’t understand the difference between exploitable and marginal resources (and neither do many of the respondents here).
He probably doesn’t know (as does anyone in the power industry) that the true cost per kWh of primary energy (base load) for a modern 2000 MW coal-fired plant (without taxes and other penalties) will be about 2cents/kWh. The best that you can do with wind (secondary energy – back-up required) is 10 times as much.
Obviously, nobody is going to develop an non-viable coal resource when it would be cheaper to import from Australia. Equally, nobody would develop wind power anywhere that can be attached to a regional grid with a mix of of coal/gas/hydro.
I would have ignored this idiot, but too many respondents were feeding the troll with incorrect answers and demonstrating a lack of understanding of energy resources, supply and economics.
I promise I will not respont to further provocation from this F***wit.
From A physicist on January 10, 2012 at 12:59 pm:
You had previously said that seam was 1 meter deep. So now you’re talking about a cubic meter of coal.
From A physicist on January 10, 2012 at 11:18 am:
By this chart you have selected the density of solid anthracite coal, which is such a “premium” coal it is not generally used for electricity generation. Anthracite has an average heat content of 29 mega-joules per kilogram. Your cubic meter of coal would yield 29*1506=43,674 Mj. Figuring with an electrical plant efficiency of 30%, that would be an electrical yield of 43,674*0.3=13,102Mj. Converting joules to watt-hours, that’s 3639 kW-hrs of electricity from that cubic meter of anthracite coal.
Now I could use your figure of wind energy potential of 350 W/m^2, except I realized you didn’t know what you were talking about.
The map you linked to shows “Wind power density at 50m”. It is explained here thusly:
So if you had a turbine whose blades swept an area of one meter mounted 50 meters off the ground, then you’d get about 350W.
By your statements, your numbers, by saying the acreage didn’t matter, it’s clear you were thinking that was 350 watts per square meter of flat ground.
Thus your calculations, subsequent statements, your defense of wind power in comparison to coal… Are meaningless. And your “knowledge” is revealed as seriously flawed.
“A physicist” ‘Iowa wind power = $954,000,000 per square mile per year’
I’m sorry, but you’ve really blown it. Real physicists don’t make such fools of themselves as that.
If you think available wind power revenue (even ‘potential’ revenue) in Iowa could be anything remotely like one billion dollars per year from a one square mile farm, and you don’t realize that you must be orders of magnitude out then you must be mighty gullible there in Iowa and in desperate need of common sense, never mind physics.
A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 2:16 pm
James Sexton says: … So over any time span longer than just one year, Iowa wind power makes a whole lot more energy sense than mining that Iowa coal. Not to mention, Iowa’s farmland doesn’t get destroyed!
James Sexton says: … Oh…… .my…….. goodness…….. that’s the dumbest….. YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG! … I think you’re going for a record on the amount of levels a person can be wrong on, in just a couple of simple statements.
Well, James, at least you and I agree on this: someone’s calculations are goofy. 🙂
And my bet is, those goofy calculations are Ruth Lea’s. `Cuz definitely I trust the economic common sense of Iowa farmers — as verified by my plain, simple, and easily checked calculations — much more readily than I trust the long-and-fancy arguments in Ruth’s oh-so-complicated white paper.
============================================================
Physl, I haven’t seen any calculations. I’ve just seen silliness on your part. your 350w/m2 doesn’t mean anything. That’s just blowing wind. As far as trusting Iowa farmers, aren’t those are the same people who told us ethanol didn’t cause food prices to rise? Kansas farmers like the windmills as well, they get paid nice lease payments. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with energy or ROI. I haven’t looked at Lea’s calculations, yet. But, I’d say they’re closer to reality than whatever you’re trying to state. But, here are some truths……
your 350w/m2 doesn’t mean anything. What’s the efficiency of turning it to real electricity?
The wind blows at varying rates. Typical wind generators have a fairly narrow band of wind speed in which it operates at optimal efficiency.
The density of coal doesn’t mean much either, because your not discussing how it get converted to useable electricity, either.
Lea is absolutely correct in that redundant gas generators are necessary to back up the windmills and they must be kept idling.
Because of wind variability, electricity providers can’t use it in the base or peak load equation. This alone renders wind energy essentially useless.
Coal is used only for base load generation. Comparing wind to coal is laughable. If we were to use wind for base load, we’d have to use exactly the same amount of coal we’re already using.
Utilizing gas to back up wind increases demand for gas. This increases the cost of gas for everything including cooking and heating. Given the newly found abundance of gas, we can thank wind advocates for ensuring natural gas prices stay higher than what they would be without wind. Thanks.
Well, there are countless more truths. Physl, here is a sincere offer. I’ve got some simple primers about our energy issues, here in the states(they would also apply abroad). If you were to wish to understand why wind and some of the other quixotic ventures are costing us, and dearly, pop by. I’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have. Here are a couple that address difficulties which I haven’t touched on here….
http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/a-primer-about-residential-energy-generation-and-net-metering/ http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/12/08/acdc-and-typical-talking-points/