Hi all!
Following this week’s Twitter exchange between Matt Ridley and Mark Lynas I thought a helpful fact sheet about Wind Energy would be useful. People can print it out, send to their relatives, MPs, Senators etc etc.
Thanks!
Josh
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Let’s look at that big zero in the context of world energy. According to this Bloomberg article (cited by Wikipedia) Wind power capacity now totals 238 gigawatts worldwide at end of 2011
China leads the world in installs in 2011, That figures, as they have all the rare earth metals needed.
Total world energy generation in 2011…can’t seem to find that yet. EIA/IEA reports don’t seem to be out yet for 2011. Last figure I can find from Wikipedia is:
132,000 TWh for 2008 with growth of 5% in 2010. so figure 140 Terawatt hours.
140 terawatt hours = 140 000 gigawatt hours
wind power in 2011 = 238 gigawatt hours (installed potential capacity, actual output is far less)
% of 238/140,000 = 0.16999999999999998 ~ .17 %
(Update, I misread the Wikipedia data, conflating Gigawatt hours with gigawatts, totally different. Thanks to HaroldW and others for pointing out my unit error. – Anthony
Harold W adds in comments:
The installed capacity of wind power is 238 GW.
Average efficiency is perhaps 20% (arguably a little higher or lower).
At that rate, energy produced annually is 417 TWh.
Fraction is still 0%, to the nearest whole number.)
417 TWh at 20% efficiency, calculates to 0.32% (417/132,000) This matches the Wikipedia chart below
Nearest whole number then is, zero.
Matt Ridley’s excellent essay, The beginning of the end of wind, in the first line says:
To the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero.
That links to this Wikipedia graph:
Again, the nearest whole number to 0.3% is zero. But that data is from 2006, rendered in 2008, the citation says:
An attempt at showing world energy usage types with a bar graph. (Meant to replace w:Image:Cascading Pie charts.png by User:Mierlo, which uses a pie chart with misleading numbers like 41% for solar heating, when it’s actually 41% of 9% of 14% = 0.5%.) Values are taken from the pie chart, which is originally from the data in REN21 2006 global status report on renewables and the BP 2006 Statistical review (most recent data available at http://www.bp.com/statisticalreview)
I suspect the growth in other energy sectors pushed wind back a bit since then. And remember, these numbers are for installed capacity, which assumes the wind blows and the turbine functions at 100%, which we’ve seen in practice never happens at 100%.
Joe Zwers says:
March 10, 2012 at 10:27 am
“If the output grew at a similar rate, the turbines were operating at full rated capacity. on average, closer to 1000 hours per year.”
Joe, nobody beats Betz’ law. The capacity factor is STAGNATING around 17% as the wind speeds are getting lower from year to year. This is what drove the head of RWE’s renewables arm, Fritz Vahrenholt, to examine global temperatures, discover the lack of warming in the last decade, and he went on to write the German best-selling book Die Kalte Sonne (The Cold Sun)…
RE: Bill Treuren says:
March 10, 2012 at 10:14 am
Have we now officially reached “peak wind”.
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Not really, there’s no limit to the amount of hot air coming from environmentalists promoting this abysmal technology. :-))
Carbon isn’t the only element that can oxidize and generate heat.
Magnesium burns very well.
Recycling some old Deloreans into the boiler furnace could replace coal as long as they are available…
Mandate that windmill blades be constructed out of magnesium too… then their fiery end in the furnace would actually make a reliable contribution to the electrical grid.
Why not go in that direction?
DirkH says:
March 10, 2012 at 11:09 am
Sigh, I was afraid I’d screw something trying to post something definitive quickly. I may have been trying to think in giga-kilowatt-hours, which would only confuse matters too much.
I was responding to Anthony’s:
132,000 TWh for 2008 with growth of 5% in 2010. so figure 140 Terawatt hours.
140 terawatt hours = 140 000 gigawatt hours
The first energy value, 132,000 TWh, agrees with Wiki. The 140 TWh and 140,000 GWh figures are 1/1000th of what they should be.
The Wiki figure is for total energy production, the site has a graph that shows electricity generation, about 19,000 TWh in 2008. That may have been the more meaningful comparison, but let’s stick with the 140 PWh.
I’ll agree with that. Hmm, if we use the 19,000 TWh in 2008 electrical generation, things work out to 1.74%. I suspect the 17% capacity factor includes all installed turbines, and doesn’t include those shutdown for being obsolete or caught fire, to stuff like that.
Oh – I converted all my “w”s that should have been “W”s to “W”s. Sigh.
Ric Werme says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:01 pm
“The Wiki figure is for total energy production, the site has a graph that shows electricity generation, about 19,000 TWh in 2008. That may have been the more meaningful comparison, but let’s stick with the 140 PWh.”
I disagree. The German greens have, after Fukushima, enforced the closure of half our nukes through protests. Now we’re burning more coal; and they protest against that as well. And we’re exploring fracking; they protest against that as well. Modern coal and gas fired power plants deliver heat as well. Also, greens promote electric vehicles, so we’d need electricity for them as well where we at the moment use oil. So, the only favored means of energy production by the greens, wind and solar (Big Hydro is evil), would necessarily have to provide for all our heating and transport as well. So the comparison with total energy consumption is fair game.
SadButMadLad says:
March 10, 2012 at 9:26 am
“Are birds that dumb that they can’t see the stonking huge turbines spinning round and round.”
The blades are moving VERY fast at the tip. Yes, they are that dumb, or at least, evolution has not prepared them to anticipate an encounter with such an unnatural object. Should we determine which animals die and which shall live based on some sort of intelligence scale?
“There is one video of a eagle being downed by a turbine but it’s a fake.”
One? All of them?
“If you want to say the turbines kill birds, then you have to get rid of cats first who kill more birds.”
Bird kills by domesticated (and feral) cats are a genuine problem. But, the birds they catch are at least generally plentiful. The birds killed by wind turbines tend to be rare and reproduce slowly.
South Dakota, and Iowa get 20% of their electricity from Wind.
The next move seems to be Solar Farms in the vicinity to take advantage of the Transmission Infrastructure already in place.
Kum Dollison says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:15 pm
“South Dakota, and Iowa get 20% of their electricity from Wind. ”
I’d easily believe an “up to 20%” – Germany manages that – but I have difficulty believing that a grid can be stabilized with an average of 20% wind – because that would mean that during peak wind times you have 100% wind. Do you have a link to production statistics by power source?
Wednesday, Mar 7, Texas got 22% of its electricity from Wind.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/09/utilities-texas-wind-idUSL2E8E9C0U20120309
Kirk, just google “wind energy – Iowa.” or, South Dakota.
The trick with wind energy is accurately predicting, and reacting to changes in wind forecasts, and having the transmission lines to “import/export.” That Texas article I linked goes into this.
Kum Dollison:
At March 10, 2012 at 12:15 pm you say;
“South Dakota, and Iowa get 20% of their electricity from Wind.”
Obviously you made a typographical error and intended to write:
“South Dakota, and Iowa get 20% of their electricity from Wind obtained when the wind is blowing fast enough but not too fast so Wind displaces thermal power plants from the grid and these plants must continue to operate while waiting for the wind to change with the result that the Wind Power provides high cost and no benefit to the electricity supply.”
There, I fixed it for you. There is no need to thank me because making the correction was a pleasure.
Richard
I have quoted these figures elsewhere but if you go to http://www.ieawind.org/annual_reports_PDF/2010.html
and check Table 3, you can see that they indicate that in 2010 there was approximately 169.7 GW of capacity that produced an estimated 298TWh of electricity. This means that the efficiency across all reporting countries was 20%. Interestingly the range in efficiency was significant with China and Germany attaining 13 and 15% respectively, while Australia, Canada, US, Greece and Portugal ran at over 25%. That spread in efficiencies strikes me as problematic assuming that similar siting criteria and target efficiencies are in place. The Danes who rely heavily on wind for electricity generation manage 23%.
Wind turbines have also created a massive toxic lake in China.
and…
In Sweden they have now found the secondlargest deposit of rare earth metals or some such, anyways, during the recent winter, starting last year in Oct/Nov, wind power did real good, really amazingly so, way above expectations. Which, of course, is trumpeted by the crazed hippies.
Thing is though wind power only did so good because of the above normal, read warm, temperature for those months at the same time most nuclear power stations was some how down for maintenance.
So, essentially, if wind power is so good so must be the warmer temps too, since they only work when its warmer, read above 0, an usual in during winter.
If this year turns out, for us in my country, to keep being a bit warmer an normal with the above normal projected precipitation, we’ll effectively get a whole extra growing season, but apparently, that’s not good according to the maniac environmentalist partists. That we spent less, hardly any, coal and oil on energy this winter, due to the slightly above normal temps for us, was apparently bad as well, I mean, since, warmer cliamte is so bad and all.
Although, they did sport the whole we “might” get a bunch of new insect species that might “could” be so bad for us it spells our doom… Apparently there’s no people living in central europe due to the horrors that theses bugs spell, oh wait they’re kind of thriving now a days less the communist yoke.
Imagine that, you green slime, that for wind power to be succesfull, we need a warmer climate come winter time. :-()
1DandyTroll says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:51 pm
“So, essentially, if wind power is so good so must be the warmer temps too, since they only work when its warmer, read above 0, an usual in during winter.”
Wind speeds increased up to 50% over the last 150 years.
http://www.seafriends.org.nz/issues/global/fletcher.htm
Reblogged this on Klein Verzet and commented:
All the talking points on the pipe dream (and a harmful one at that) that is wind-energy, gathered in one handy cartoon. Josh is a hero!
And six human beings die a day on average digging coal, and hundreds of thousands died in the wars to secure the oil supply…..
There’s a lot I don’t like on this comic.
Killing birds and bats … any human technology causes unadapted specimens to die out in the area and make room for adapted ones. Wind turbines are no exception and I believe they are not even the worst ones in that.
Built in areas of outstanding natural beauty – there are only three kinds of areas in the world, city areas, industrial areas, and beautiful areas. And as you can’t really build any new industry (including wind) in the city or where some industry already exists, you use the beautiful ones.
They are noisy – that’s true but there are lots of other industry branches that are noisy as well, it’s only about proper selection of location.
They require permanent fossil fuel back up – not really. They require permanent backup, that’s it. But it does not really have to be fossil fuel based, actually nuclear plants are better suitable as backups.
They use precious rare earth minerals – that’s true but they don’t burn them.
I don’t really understand the point about deforesting so I skip that. And I agree with jobs and fuel powerty.
Now a little bit about 0%:
I am quite sure they’re responsible for 0% of bird and bat deaths compared to other bird and bat death causes all over the world.
And they sure take up 0% of world’s beautiful areas.
They’re also responsible for 0% of world population being exposed to increased noise.
And there’s only 0% of world’s power they need as backup.
This is a kind of propaganda I dislike. An attempt to beat an opponent with his own weapons. I can understand it but I can’t agree with it.
SadButMadLad says:
March 10, 2012 at 9:26 am
“A few points.
“Turbines might kill a few birds, but a few birds were also killed by high voltage power lines. Are birds that dumb that they can’t see the stonking huge turbines spinning round and round. There is one video of a eagle being downed by a turbine but it’s a fake. If you want to say the turbines kill birds, then you have to get rid of cats first who kill more birds.”
One little problem with this argument. Wind is advertized as eco friendly. Cats, vehicles and powerlines are not advertized as eco friendly.
SadButMadLad said, “Turbines aren’t that noisy. I’ve stood under some big ones and there was more wind noise than turbine noise.”
We do not live under them, where the sound is projected away, duh!. We live near them, and the noise is terrible. Street noise is better as it is more like white noise. Turbine noise is a constant drum beat that has all of the aspects of something coming at you, woosh, woosh, woosh. It is mind numbing and louder upwind than downwind. Furthermore, as wind varies in direction, the sound comes and goes from day to day, or day after day.
The tips of the big turbines (140 m blades) can almost reach the speed of sound (700 mph) at 650 mph. Often running at 200 mph, birds have no conception of these speeds and cannot avoid the blades.
This is just like deer and cars. They are wired to look across a glen at a cougar, assess its body language, and flee it it’s not good—there is time to stop, look, and flee as the cougar has a limited top speed. They do the same with cars but have no clue that the car can be on top of them so quickly.
Phil Clarke says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:14 pm
“And six human beings die a day on average digging coal…”
Really? I would have thought that number would be in the news…
…oh, I get it. You’re including China, India, Russia, etc. Not the U.S., Canada and Western Europe.
. . .
And SadButMadLad,
You’re mad. Sad. You’re also fabricating. This is not a “fake”.
Kum Dollison says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:31 pm
Wednesday, Mar 7, Texas got 22% of its electricity from Wind.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/09/utilities-texas-wind-idUSL2E8E9C0U20120309
******
From the ERCOT (The Electric Reliability Council of Texas) website: http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/show/495
“At the time of Wednesday’s record, wind was supplying 22 percent of the total system load, 34,318 MW.”
******
Kum, I think you’re confusing peak load with total usage. Wind contributed 8.5% of 2011 energy used on the ERCOT grid (note: the grid only covers 75% of Texas users).
The bigger point, of course, is what was the un-subsidized cost of that energy?
Phil Clarke says:
March 10, 2012 at 1:14 pm
“And six human beings die a day on average digging coal, and hundreds of thousands died in the wars to secure the oil supply…..”
Very good point, let’s compare the mortality in different energy sources, shall we? Hmmm… What measurement would be fair? How about… deaths per TWH, yeah, that sounds ok.
http://notrickszone.com/2011/03/24/nuclear-is-the-safest-form-of-energy-opposition-is-a-glaring-denial-of-reality/
You were right, at least for coal diggers. The hundreds of thousands dying in “the” wars to secure the oil supply I don’t know, could you provide a source for that? And what wars are “the” wars, BTW?
Bart says:
March 10, 2012 at 12:14 pm
“The blades are moving VERY fast at the tip. Yes, they are that dumb, or at least, evolution has not prepared them to anticipate an encounter with such an unnatural object”.
The stats for the largest turbine I can find are for the Northern Power Systems of Vermont NP100 Turbine; a 100kW design with a 21 metre rotor diameter and a maximum safe rotation of 59 rpm. I make that a tip speed of about 60 metres/sec, or about 135mph.
No cheap Chinese imports in the US huh Smokey?
DirkH. We could start with Iraq. http://web.mit.edu/CIS/pdf/Human_Cost_of_War.pdf