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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AAAAA physicist:
Iowa wind power = $954,000,000 per square mile per year.
are you sure that you don’t have a bunch of xtra zeros in that answer: like probably three and quite possibly six.
C
A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 2:38 pm
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity -> 350 W/m^2,
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?
—————————————
Reality check time.
Average usable/recoverable power density?
Wind farms run 20-150 acres per megawatt of installed capacity. Some engineering firms use 60 acres per megawatt for prelim calculations.
Square meters per acre? just over 4000.
Average efficiency of a wind turbine? just under 25%
Math time, 25% of a MW equals 250,000 watts and 60 acres times 4000 m2 equals 240,000.
So now tell us how many delivered watts per square meter you have, and how many years it takes to offset that insignificant coal seam your folks were sitting on.
And that, is the reason that windmills are dead if the subsidies are killed.
Donald L. Klipstein:
last a century. ygtbkn.
thesethingsare built to last until the check clears the bank.
C
Lol … You two fellahs musta overlooked my little caveat that I posted earlier … reminding folks that Iowa windmills placed too close together will start stealing each other’s wind.
Definitely I stand by my main number, which everyone can check for themselves, and is easy for the public to remember: one square mile of Iowa windblades yields, each year, one billion dollars worth of electric power.
How closely one wants to space those blades depends very strongly on how eager farmers are to lease their land for windmills; the more eager the farmers are to lease, and thus the cheaper the leases, the more widely it pays to space the windmills. And Iowa’s farmers are very eager to lease.
That’s the simple-to-understand engineering reason why Warren Buffett is tripling-down his windpower bet, and that’s why yearly US windpower generation looks just like a big ol’ Hansen/Mann hockey stick.
It seems to me this trend can’t be stopped.
Babsy wrote,
“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!”
Any excess power generated by solar panels is better used to pump/store more water instead of saved in batteries when the objective is to water livestock.The solar units I”ve installed all had generator backups. Neither wind nor solar are used as a primary drink of water…otherwise the cowboys have a 911 wreck to attend.
The wind power density does not consider any conversion efficiencies. Betz’s Law says we get at best 16/27 (59%) of the available power. Modern windmills get about 70-80% of that. Now convert to electricity (loose another 15%). Now you’re comparable to the 2.0 kW/kg for coal. Ignoring that you really only get good energy output when the wind is above average for the site, and no, you don’t get that power density 24/7. See this for all kinds of fascinating stuff:
http://css.engineering.uiowa.edu/~ie_155/Lecture/Energy_Output.pdf
And what about capital costs? Maintenance? Equivalent Life? Using your method, only an idiot wouldn’t build a nuclear power plant because the fuel is so cheap and you need so little of it. We know it’s a lot more complicated than that. Seriously, did you ever take a course in Engineering Economics?
Of course the farmers are happy, local rate payers and taxpayers across the fruited plains are handing them money by the bucket loads. If it weren’t for the subsidies and credits, Buffet wouldn’t touch this technology with a 50-foot turbine blade. Drop the corporate tax rate to 0% and see how long this scheme lasts.
“…plus blight the landscape too.”
—————————————-
Pleonasm.
“A physicist” doesn’t know what he’s talking about. 350 watts per square metre mean wind power density has got nothing whatsoever to do with real estate – this relates to the area swept out by the rotors.
Just think about it and do a sanity check – since the wind is produced from solar insolation, which at top of atmosphere averages 350 watts per square metre, and at ground is around 200 watts per square metre, and around 2% of this flux ends up as available wind power, this gives a limit of around 4 watts available wind power per square metre of real estate. Real wind farms extract around 1 watt per square metre of real estate. I very much doubt that Iowa achieves an average of better than 2 watts per square metre of farmland.
“A physicist”‘s calculations are thus at least two orders of magnitude adrift.
His ‘one year payback’ compared to coal becomes a few centuries etc etc. Thus, no-one (without massive subsidies) is going to invest in wind power when it has a payback of a few hundred years compared to readily available alternatives, and the service life of the investment is around 15 years. Obviously, our forefathers weren’t stupid in moving from wind powered mills and wind powered ships to coal powered – there was a very compelling economic case. Wind is still wind and coal is still coal, and wind will never be economic.
Don’t waste any more time on this ‘physicist’. He hasn’t a clue.
Thank you for your well-reasoned post. Let’s use your “wide stance” sparse-spaced windmill density to compute the Iowa wind-versus-coal payout time:
—————————————————
windPowerEnergyRules = {
paybackTime -> totalCoalEnergy/
windPowerMeanCapacity,
totalCoalEnergy -> iowaFarmArea *
iowaCoalSeamThickness * iowaCoalDensity *
iowaCoalEnergyDensity,
windPowerMeanCapacity -> iowaMeanWindPowerDensity *
iowaFarmArea,
iowaFarmArea -> theSizeOfTheFarmIsIrrelevant,
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity -> 1 MW/(60 acre),
iowaCoalSeamThickness -> 1 meter,
iowaCoalEnergyDensity -> 2.0 kW hour/kg,
iowaCoalDensity -> 1506 kg/m^3,
mile -> 5280 * 12 * 2.54 cm,
acre -> (1 mile)^2/640
};
paybackTime//
ReplaceRepeated[#,windPowerEnergyRules]&//
ConvertToSI[#,year]&//
(Round[#/year] years)&//
Print[“Iowa wind power versus strip-mine-the-farm payback time = “,#]&
Iowa wind power versus strip-mine-the-farm payback time = 83 years
—————————————————
Only 83 years? Most Iowa farmers live longer than that. Heck, our farm’s been in the family for 140 years. And we intend to keep it another 140.
Not to mention, even that little 60 acre field of windmills will yield a million dollars worth of electrical power each year. So if we can negotiate a lease royalty of, say, five percent, why that will pay for every farm kid’s college education, with plenty left over—and keep the land healthy to pass on to the kids too.
So we’ll just say “yes” to Warren Buffett’s good deal, and “no” to Ruth Lea’s bad deal, eh?
That’s the way Iowa’s farmers see it, for sure.
>> A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Iowa’s average wind energy potential is (about) 350 Watts per square meter. <<
According to the link below a typical wind farm gives 0.7 watts per square meter. That assumes about 15% of full capacity. Even assuming full capacity 24/7/365 gives you less than 5 watts per square meter. Using the more realistic number takes your calculation to 500 years of wind energy to equal the energy from coal. How many times do you need to rebuild those windmills in 500 years?
http://www.energyadvocate.com/fw84.htm
If you're a physicist you just flunked your PhD qualifying exams.
.
Yes, we have been saying this for some time here on WUWT.
Here is my 2009 WUWT article ‘Renewable Energy, Our Downfall’, and this was originally written back in 2004.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/25/renewable-energy-–-our-downfall/
Clearly there were many lay-people who understood that wind power would be a disaster, so why did nobody within that huge body of ‘wisdom’ known as accademia understand this? So the question becomes, are accademics:
a. A brain-dead waste of space?
b. Eutopian fantasists with no link to reality?
c. So timid and sheep-like, that they will not tell politicians and the media the truth?
In my dealings with a renewable energy professor who is an advisor to the UK government, the answer is b., and that is probably the most scary of all the options here. Here is a respected and highly intelligent scientist, and he is telling the government lies from the bottom of his heart – and politicians are making disasterous and expensive policy descision based upon those lies. Scary.
.
>>>A Physicist
>>>So, whom should WUWT readers heed? Ruth Lea’s skeptical “nay” or
>>>Warren Buffett’s nonskeptical “aye”?
Warren Buffet is farming the governemnt subsidy, not wind energy. His investment is a sure fire bet – not because Buffet is going to generate any useful energy or save the planet, but because he is going to fleece the taxpayer.
This is the trouble with physicists – absolutely no common sense and absolutely no link to world reality.
.
if physicist is a farmer then he probably has a few cows.
if so then he does Pile it Higher and Deeper.
C
Ralph says:
January 10, 2012 at 6:04 pm
This is the trouble with physicists………….
=====================================================
He’s not a physicist. All of the ones I’ve ever known would easily spot his logical flaws and flaws in his physics, which are many. Further, most, in spite of their enormous egos acknowledge proof against their winsome posits.
A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 5:01 pm
“So we’ll just say “yes” to Warren Buffett’s good deal, and “no” to Ruth Lea’s bad deal, eh?”
You do understand that Warren is in it for the money, i.e. the subsidies, and that he wouldn’t be doing what he’s doing if there were no subsidies? Nobody questions that feeding in the public trough makes you fat, nobody, A Physicist.
“A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 2:38 pm
————————————–
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
————————————–”
I’m no physicist, but it looks like your formula converts miles into centimeters — Not Meters. So you’re off by a factor of 100 there.
Then you multiply the iowaMeanWindPowerDensity (in Watts) times the iowaRetailPowerPrice (in Kilowatts). So you’re off by a factor of a thousand there.
$954,000,000 / 100,000 = $9,540 per square mile per year.
Physicist-
I think the Wind Energy Density 350 W/ms is perpendicular to a vertical plane, i.e the plane of of the rotor disc, not the horizontal surface area of your farm. Figure out the spacing of your turbines and try again.
Would you sell the coal on order, or randomly and arbitrarily reduce or cut off the supply to your customers?
Reg, that’s a reasonable concern, however the near-end routine “ConvertToSI” converts all non-metric units to metric units.
So the final result is correct: each square mile of Iowa windblades can catch one billion dollars worth of wind energy per year.
To be sure, one square mile of windblades is a lot of windblades … and that’s why Iowans are manufacturing a lot of windblades.
Which is mighty good news for Iowans, eh?
Of course, fossil fuels also are not “economically viable without taxpayer funded subsidies.” Both direct payments (about $4 billion last year in the US) and, mostly, indirect, via the damaging pollution it dumps into and onto the property of others and of the Commons. Without this massive subsidy — a form of socialism, really — fossil fuels would not be (so-called) competitive. A recent paper by Nordhaus finds that power generation by coal causes more damage than value added….
How I wish everyone would wake up to the fact that an atmospheric greenhouse effect is a physical impossibility, as Prof Claes Johnson’s “Computational Balckbody Radiation” proves. No one has proved Johnson wrong, so there is no basis for assuming carbon dioxide has any warming effect. Backradiation from a cold atmosphere cannot warm a warmer surface.
I didn’t think I’d ever quote DeWitt Payne in support of my case, but there’s a new post of his on SoD* which reads …
“If you have an IR absorbing gas in a cell and put a black body emitter at the same temperature as the gas at one end of the cell, you won’t see absorption or emission lines or bands regardless of path length. You only get absorption if the emitter has a temperature higher than the gas.. ”
… and thus gives a real life example confirming Prof Johnson’s conclusion, namely that only radiation with frequencies above a cut off frequency (determined by Wien’s Displacement Law and proportional to absolute temperature) is absorbed and converted to thermal energy. In other words, the only warming comes from direct incident solar radiation.
Let me also quote two subsequent posts on the same thread by a certain “Jack Frost” whom you will no doubt recognise.
(1) ” … The cut off frequency determines whether absorption and subsequent warming can occur, as obviously does for SW radiation. The cut-off falls approximately between the spectra of SW absorption and LW emission and, as you know, the spectra barely overlap for this very reason.
There is no proof of the contrary in any standard physics documentation. There are just wishy-washy “explanations” of the assumed greenhouse effect, none of these backed up by any proof whatsoever that radiation from a cooler source can warm a warmer surface.
It simply doesn’t happen in nature, which is why the GHE is a physical impossibility.”
(2) “Have you ever really thought about why radiated heat transfer is always from warmer to cooler bodies?
What is the actual mechanism that determines this? How does one body “know” that the other is cooler or warmer? We can easily construct examples in which the intensity of radiation from the warmer body is less than that from the cooler body, eg a polished silver warm body and a black cool one. So why doesn’t the cooler one warm the warmer one if the radiation intensity from it is the greater?
The ONLY answer lies in what Prof Johnson has proved.”
* http://scienceofdoom.com/2010/07/31/the-amazing-case-of-back-radiation-part-three/#comment-15206
An english engineer gets it.-
http://www.ingenia.org.uk/ingenia/articles.aspx?index=740)#top
Best and clearest summary i’ve seen.
W/ms should be W/m2 (Watts per square meter)
Doug Cotton: Oh, please. Arguments like Johnson’s have been debunked again and again. More importantly, there is stark evidence of the greenhouse effect: measurement of the solar spectrum at sea level compared to the top of the atmosphere, and of Earth’s outgoing spectrum at the top of the atmosphere.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar_Spectrum.png
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/
Erinome says:
“Of course, fossil fuels also are not ‘economically viable without taxpayer funded subsidies.’ Both direct payments (about $4 billion last year in the US) and, mostly, indirect, via the damaging pollution it dumps into and onto the property of others and of the Commons. Without this massive subsidy — a form of socialism, really — fossil fuels would not be (so-called) competitive.”
What a flat wrong statement. Fossil fuels are the gold standard of energy production. Everything else is compared with fossil fuels, not vice-versa. And since people must pay for energy with or without subsidies, fossil fuels will always be the energy supply of choice.
The best way to test that would be to eliminate all energy subsidies. But that won’t happen, because the immediate result would be the elimination of alternative energy sources, leaving only fossil fuel energy production. Face it, alternate energy production fails without subsidies; not so with fossil fuels, which can easily pay their way without subsidies of any kind.
Finally, subsidies are more a form of fascism than of socialism. Fascism is government control and direction of business, while socialism tends toward government redistribution of earnings and wealth. Both are the result of big government, and thus both are anti-freedom.
I see ‘A physicist’ shuffled off to hide in the wake of his numerous huge calculation errors. Maybe he’ll be back as ‘A climate scientist’ The allowance for error is much larger in that religion, as long as it is in the direction the high priests allow.