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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I’ve been reading the exchanges between APhysicist and some of more patient people on this board and LMAO. APhysicist has been highly entertaining and is a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect, not Trollish behavior.
To get in on the humor, read (or I suspect most of you will be re-reading) this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
WHY IS BRITAIN BEING BLANKETED IN WIND TURBINES? …A FEW FACTS
1.) The Prime Minister’s father-in-law is getting over £3m a year in subsidies for putting up a few bird shredders on his farm.
2.) Wind turbines need backup sources of electricity generation called “spinning capactiy” for those occasions when the turbines can’t operate, thus negating any argument that increasing the number of bird shredders decreases our dependence on fossil fuels.
3.) The costs of generating electricity in Britain can be summed up like this:
a quantity of electricity priced at £1 which has been generated from coal from conventional power stations costs £22 when generated from wind turbines.
What is being done to address this situation? …why putting up more wind farms of course!
One problem there’s no argument about: Iowans are so outstandingly successful at generating wind power, they now have to build new high-tech transmission lines to export that power.
And that’s a mighty good problem for Iowa to have, eh?
REPLY: Oh, there’s an argument. It’s like building a railroad line. You can build it, but there’s no guarantee you are going to always have enough freight to make it economically viable. Special power lines were built to to Tehachapi, Palm Springs, and South Point on the Big Island of Hawaii too. Look what happened – Anthony
wayne says:
January 10, 2012 at 11:10 pm
James Sexton, can I use your words when I get into such an argument? That is one of the best responses I have ever read.
======================================
Yes, and thank you.
A physicist says:
January 10, 2012 at 5:01 pm
Just an engineer says: Some engineering firms use 60 acres per megawatt for prelim calculations.
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:
—————————————————
iowaFarmArea -> theSizeOfTheFarmIsIrrelevant,
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity -> 1 MW/(60 acre),
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.
—————————————————————
Sorry, you are confusing “installed” capacity with energy conversion, the average energy output of the typical wind turbine is 25% or less. you will need to multiply your 83 years by at least 4. That would be somthing like 332 or more years. You can use any computer model you want but GIGO is the result when reality is ignored.
The sole benefit of wind farms is wealth transfer by way of subsidies based on science fiction driven politics.
The windmills aren’t the real problem. Rather, it’s the cranes. This problem can be overcome by the Tethered Aerostat Crane system which is described at http://www.sbir.gov/sbirsearch/detail/15955
wayne says:
January 10, 2012 at 11:10 pm
James does indeed have a way with the English language, and you are right about coal. In fact, if people were to think the system through, they’d have to agree with Limbaugh that the Chevy Volt runs on coal. Yes, I said coal, because the thing has to be plugged into the coal-fired electric grid to charge the batteries (ok, ok, there’s contribution by natural gas, nuclear, hydro, and a touch of wind farm, too).
But the energy conversion rate that eventually gets to the tires where the “rubber meets the road” is roughly 5% on the Volt. Why, the Rankine Cycle Cyclone Engine gets better than 30%, and you don’t have to worry about plugging the thing in or limitations on distance. (http://www.cyclonepower.com/works.html) Windmills and electric cars are hard to justify when you consider the whole system.
I’m happy to show my calculations, ScientistForTruth. Keep in mind that I’m computing the power generated by one square mile of windblade area, without regard for whether those windblades are close or far apart. Moreover, this time I’m putting in an efficiency factor of 1/3, to cover downtime, generator losses, etc. So check for yourself:
—————-
windPowerEconomicsRules = {
revenuePerYear -> 1 year *
generationEfficiency *
windBladeArea *
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity *
iowaRetailPowerPrice,
generationEfficiency -> 1/3,
mile -> 5280 * 12 * 2.54 cm,
windBladeArea -> (1 mile)^2,
iowaMeanWindPowerDensity -> 350 W/m^2,
iowaRetailPowerPrice -> 0.12 dollar/(kW hour)
};
revenuePerYear//
ReplaceRepeated[#,windPowerEconomicsRules]&//
ConvertToSI[#/(10^6 dollar)]&//Round//
Print[“revenue from one square mile of windblades = $”,#,”,000,000 per year”]&
revenue from one square mile of windblades = $318,000,000 per year
———————
Note the the now-assumed efficiency of 1/3 lowers the revenue to “only” three hundred million dollars per year, per square mile swept by windblades.
Gee, no wonder Warren Buffett thinks this windpower business makes sense.
ScientistForTruth, do you have any further questions?
Erinome says:
January 10, 2012 at 10:53 pm
James, yes, coal was almost certainly a net benefit to your grandmother (unless her husband died mining it).
Is that all that matters? What about other’s grandmothers? Those who lived downstream from a strip mine, or downwind from a power plant that burned coal? What of the grandmothers who died in the 2003 French heat wave, or are losing income from this year’s drought in Texas?
Should people in the future have the same chances your grandmother did? Affordable energy is certainly important, but so is clean air and water. Depending on where you live, so is a stable sea level or snowpack, and so on.
====================================================
Sigh, Erinome, you really need to read up and quit believing everything you’re told. You’re basing your views on false assumptions.
Do you really believe coal plants caused the European heat wave of 2003? Or even the drought in Texas? Here is a news flash for you. Extreme weather conditions happened before, during, and will continue after we’re done using coal for electricity. If you want to see a plethora of extreme weather examples at various times in our history, go here. http://www.real-science.com/
Yes, clean water and air is important. I assert the environmental regulations imposed on the coal industries ensures the air and water is clean enough.
Here is another news flash. There has never been a time in history where the sea levels or snowpacks were stable. Never. But, while you are worrying about such stuff, go here…… http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/10/19/its-all-over-except-for-the-shouting-and-more-on-sea-level/
There you’ll see 5 1/2 years of lowering sea levels, 20 years of northern hemisphere snow extent increase and some other neat stuff. All verifiable.
The biggest determent to human health is poverty.
Matt says:
I challenge anyone on this thread pushing the idea that the oil industry receives massive subsidies from the US goverment to cite one specific subsidy unique to the oil industry.
Well, we just spent $900 billion on a war — plus 4,000 US lives and untold tens of thousands of Iraqi lives — in large part to ensure a place for oil companies to drill and profit from.
Besides that, a CBO study (http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/67xx/doc6792/10-18-Tax.pdf) released in 2005 found that capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry. (See Table 2, p. 11)
For many small and midsize oil companies, the tax on capital investments is so low that it is more than eliminated by various credits. These companies’ returns on those investments are often higher after taxes than before. (NY Times, July 4, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/04/business/04bptax.html)
Also, see the statement of Alan B. Krueger, Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist, US Department of Treasury Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure, June 10, 2009: “Current law provides a number of credits and deductions that are targeted towards certain oil and gas activities. The Administration proposes to repeal the following tax preferences that are currently available for certain non-integrated oil and gas firms: (1) the use of percentage depletion with respect to oil and gas wells; (2) the exception to passive loss limitations provided to working interests in oil and natural gas properties; and (3) two-year amortization of non-integrated producer’s geological and geophysical expenditures, instead allowing amortization over the same seven-year period as for integrated oil and gas producers.[3] Eliminating these three tax preferences is projected to raise revenues by approximately $10.3 billion from 2010 to 2019.”
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg284.aspx
Continue reading lower, too.
ScientistForTruth says:
January 11, 2012 at 2:14 am
See this page and read the comment by ‘ConservativeWanderer’:
http://pjmedia.com/blog/wasted-%E2%80%98climate-change%E2%80%99-cash-could-save-lives-instead/
James Sexton says:
Do you really believe coal plants caused the European heat wave of 2003? Or even the drought in Texas? Here is a news flash for you. Extreme weather conditions happened before, during, and will continue after we’re done using coal for electricity. If you want to see a plethora of extreme weather examples at various times in our history, go here. http://www.real-science.com/
I believe that anthropogenic factors are now influencing all extreme events, that no one can (or will ever be able to) separate any event into YES-or-NO, and that statistics show a rise in the number of such events.
Yes, clean water and air is important. I assert the environmental regulations imposed on the coal industries ensures the air and water is clean enough.
Asserting is proof of nothing. A detailed, rational analysis of the issue comes to the conclusion that power generation via coal causes more damage than value-added.
Here is another news flash. There has never been a time in history where the sea levels or snowpacks were stable. Never.
Sea-level has been relatively stable for about 5000 years, but has changed in the last 150 years and its long-term rate of change is rising too (http://www.skepticalscience.com/sea-level-rise-intermediate.htm). It is bound to rise more by the laws of science.
There you’ll see 5 1/2 years of lowering sea levels, 20 years of northern hemisphere snow extent increase and some other neat stuff. All verifiable.
Talk about a lack of thinking! 5.5 years is not a climatically significant period of time, nor it is true that sea-level is falling over that time:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/content/2011rel4-global-mean-sea-level-time-series-seasonal-signals-retained
Almost no scientists in the world agree with Nils Axel-Morner. Citing only him and failing to note the disagreement of so many others is biased reporting.
Erinome:
When you can produce EMPIRICAL proof that heat (thermal energy actually) can be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer one by radiation, then we may start listening to you on this forum.
Unless and until you can, there is absolutely no empirical evidence for any atmospheric greenhouse effect because the “explanation” of such depends upon the critical assumption that backradiation from a cooler atmosphere somehow warms the Earth’s surface.
Bear in mind that it has been shown that the atmosphere at night is colder than the surface and is COOLING FASTER than the surface all through the night. Just click the ‘experiments’ link on this page of my site for further details on this point http://climate-change-theory.com/RadiationAbsorption.html
Veblen’s Theory Of The Leisure Class explains why efficiency and cost calculation are irrelevant to the AGW movement and why my poor Mr.Watts will never get a rational discussion by it’s proponents no matter how much science we read here. Remember,not only can global warming not be disputed in polite society,but apparently any possible remedy cannot be questioned either.Try telling a alternative medicine believer about double blind studies; it won’t work.Try telling a progressive that their bird shredders waste energy? Who cares.They don’t even accept money and cost as a marker for efficiency.
Erinome says:
January 11, 2012 at 11:10 am
Almost no scientists in the world agree with Nils Axel-Morner. Citing only him and failing to note the disagreement of so many others is biased reporting. ……..
================================================================
Erinome this is why we know you’re simply parroting without thinking. I wasn’t citing Nils Axel-Morner. I was citing the numbers from Envisat. If you’d had bother to ask or look, you would have known this. You can’t possibly be using that graph of spliced data to show sea level rise, are you? If you know someone at Colorado, would you be so kind as to tell them it isn’t proper to conflate separate data sets? Go here to see the dishonesty of conflating the data sets. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/alarmist-owes-me-a-keyboard/
You would be the first to consider an EPA report as detailed and rational.
I’d like a look at the “statistics” showing a rise in those weather events. Could you link them for me?
And no, assertion isn’t proof, but according to the EPA themselves, coal emissions are 80% cleaner than they were in 1970. Considering that people were able to pursue normal, happy, and healthy lives in 1970, and coal emissions are 80% cleaner now than then, I think we’ll be ok if they continue as they are.
Lastly, despite my better judgment I went to your link at SS. I couldn’t find a reference to 5000 years of stable sea levels. Don’t feel bad, it could be that they’ve retracted such a silly statement without saying anything about it. They do that at alarmist blogs. The sea levels have not been stable in the last 5000 years. There are many examples of once coastal cities which are now underwater and areas of land with have ocean artifacts. Instead of simply assuming climatology is correct about sea-levels, you should probably seek out archeologists and geologists. I think they are in a better position to answer that than some silly dendrophrenologist or whatnot.
[crossing my fingers; this is my first attempt at using HTML tags on this blog, using Ric Werme’s guide]
I’d love to see how this makes sense. According to the link a “Tethered Aerostat Crane” is basically a hot air balloon. Windfarms are located where there is wind. Balloons tend to move when there is wind. One major requirement for cranes is positional stability. Another is lifting capacity. In both respects under windy conditions, balloons fall flat. If not balloons, how about aerial cranes (helicopters)?
The largest lift capacity in the world is the Russian/Soviet Mil V-12 : 231,485 lb (105,000 kg). This design was deemed a failure and only two prototypes ever built; none flying today so scratch that. The replacement was the Mil Mi-26 : 123,455 lb (56,000 kg) and still in service. The largest US-built helicopter is the Sikorsky CH-53E : 73,500 lb (33,340 kg).
Details here
OK, according to another site (here), the specs on the current generation wind turbines are:
So the Mi-26 could lift the nacelle and the blade for the GE model in two separate operations, but not the tower. Nothing else flying today could lift the nacelle, and the US Sikorsky could just barely lift the blade under ideal conditions. Nothing flying today could deal with the weight of the Vestas V90 or the Gamesa G87.
It looks like part of the cost of major wind power deployments is the development of new super-lift helicopters, preferably ones that run on biofuels.
Somebody want to calculate how big a hot air balloon would be required to lift 56 tons? And how much fuel would we have to burn to maintain the necessary volume of hot air?
Then again there is a reason why the Dutch build so may of these wooden things… they actually worked.
So I guess we could argue that instead of advancing, technology has actually regressed. Since many of the modern equivalents do not appear to be working.
Alan Watt:
the crane gang is pretty cagy about heavy lifts. for the enlightened, doing a lift with a helicopter is the really neat way to go but the traditional riggers shy away from it like the plague.
they like to build roads up the hill to the site and then if its a fairly light lift put xxx number of boom extensions on the crane and then put it up there.
if its a heavy lift then they gather several of the biggest truck cranes they can get and put them all on the load at once.
bear in mind that truck cranes are rated at xxx tons lifted ten feet out from the centerpin of the machine and so if you are trying to pick a load 100 feet out then you can only get 10%of the rating.
as a result of the lifts needed for erecting windmills the crane builders have been building some truly monster machines lately.
one thing that must be taken into account is that helicopters are much more unstable than standard cranes, if the wind comes up in the middle of the lift helicopter pilots have a tendancy to drop the load to save their skins.
helicopters are fast. my company wanted to move a huge antenna from one building roof (140 feet up) to another about a mile away (180 feet up). the job was to be done at 0900 on a saturday morning. we had people on both buildings at 0855 and the helicopter showed up at 0856. the job was done and the helicopter flying away at 0915.
c
In Montana it was just announced that a $320 million loan has been arranged to build another wind turbine farm. See: http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/california_company_gets_320m_loan_for_montana_wind_farm/26123/
Funny how tax breaks are the grease to make these projects go.
From A physicist on January 11, 2012 at 9:11 am:
Decided to double-down on stupid, eh? At least you’re admitting your earlier mistake of misusing Wind Power Density as if it related to ground area instead of area swept by the turbine blades.
1 mi² = 2,589,988.110 m² (ref)
http://www.windustry.org/how-much-do-wind-turbines-cost
With those nice strong Iowa winds, the Vestas V80-2.0MW wind turbine looks like a good choice. “Swept area: 5,027 m2”
For your square mile of swept area, 2,589,988.110 m² / 5027 m² = 515.2. You would need Five Hundred and Fifteen Vestas V80-2MW wind turbines to get (very close to) that square mile of swept area.
From “Just an engineer” we get:
Using the 60 acres per MW installed figure, which you have used before, your square mile of swept area would consume 61,800 acres, which converts to 96.6 square miles.
So that would be your $318,000,000 per year divided by 96.6 square miles, yielding $3.23 million per square mile. With 1 mi² = 2,589,988.110 m², each square meter of ground would yield just $1.27 a year from wind power.
As I previously calculated, that coal under a square meter of your farm, one meter deep, would yield 3639 kW-hrs of electricity. At residential pricing of $0.12 per kW-hr, that cubic meter of anthracite coal is worth about $437 of electricity.
The coal converted to electricity is worth 344 years of wind power electricity. Looked at another way, each cubic meter of that coal is worth now what you’d get from 344 square meters of ground with wind power installed on it over a year.
That’s the real economics. It makes far more sense to dig up coal and burn it in a power plant for electricity than it does to put up windmills.
BTW, if Iowans are having such great success with wind power, why do they pay so much for electricity? The figure used here is $0.12/kW-hr for residential. Here in Pennsylvania, our local supplier PPL is charging only $0.07769 per kW-hr currently, when the rates change for the next 3-month period on March 1, residential is estimated to be only $0.07299. Of course, Pennsylvania hasn’t bought into the “promise” of “free wind energy” or renewables in general, we primitives just keep burning some coal and splitting some atoms for our dirt-cheap electricity…
>>Doug Cotton
>>When you can produce EMPIRICAL proof that heat (thermal energy
>>actually) can be transferred from a cooler body to a warmer one by
>>radiation, then we may start listening to you on this forum.
And I suppose you think that the outer shell of a thermos flask heats the interior, and that’s why the contents stay so warm…!!!
LOL, you do get them on this forum sometimes.
.
LOL … $1.27 per square meter?
Kadaka, please get back to us with an estimate of the annual value of the corn/soybeans that can be grown on one square meter of farmland.
Oh yeah … and please let us know whether you still think Warren Buffett and those Iowa farmers are making a foolish investment?
you guys that calculate the milliwatts per square mile are missing something.
farmers have a vested interest in having hundred foot high windmills at least 200 feet from the house. that is so if/when they fall down they will not destroy the house, barn, pigpen, chicken coop…….
it would seem as though that would affect the “power density” figures that some of you use.
Jess thinkin……
C
It appears the thread was hijacked by “A physicist”. So, what is the final score, here?
A physicist has made a calculation of nearly one billion dollars worth of wind energy derived from each square mile of Iowa real estate per year, a figure so far divorced from reality that a real physicist might have noticed, and then made a comparison of wind versus burning coal. Along the way he has:
1)Confused swept area of rotor with area of real estate, apparently.
2)Uses an energy density of coal that is about 1/3 the accepted average value. (Was this after some assumed efficiency of a power plant?–who knows?)
3)Over-looked all of wind energy factors, such as Betz’ limit, typical utility factor of 1/6 and so forth, but apparently applied these factors to coal. Then later tossed in an arbitrary factor of 1/3 to the wind generation to reduce his completely unbelievable figure of one-billion dollars per year, into 1/3 of an unbelievable value.
4)Did all of this at high speed using Mathematica.
Point four proves the old adage that to err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.
The study is flawed because it compared apples (wind) + rotten oranges (old gas fired technology) to fresh oranges (gas turbine technology). What is needed is a study comparing only gas turbines to wind + fewer gas turbines. And see how much wind is needed to break even or do better. Only then decide whether it’s really not worth it.