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From Inderscience Publishers , something sure to make greens go “See, I told you!”, except for that little fatal mistake at the end. Read on.
Wind turbine payback
US researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the US Pacific Northwest. Writing in the International Journal of Sustainable Manufacturing, they conclude that in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online.
Wind turbines are frequently touted as the answer to sustainable electricity production especially if coupled to high-capacity storage for times when the wind speed is either side of their working range. They offer a power source that has essentially zero carbon emissions.
Coupled lifecycle cost and environmental assessment in terms of energy use and emissions of manufacturing, installation, maintenance and turbine end-of-life processing seems to be limited in the discussions for and against these devices. “All forms of energy generation require the conversion of natural resource inputs, which are attendant with environmental impacts and costs that must be quantified to make appropriate energy system development decisions,” explain Karl Haapala and Preedanood Prempreeda of Oregon State University, in Corvallis.
The pair has carried out a life cycle assessment (LCA) of 2MW wind turbines in order to identify the net environmental impact of the production and use of such devices for electricity production. An LCA takes into account sourcing of key raw materials (steel, copper, fiberglass, plastics, concrete, and other materials), transport, manufacturing, installation of the turbine, ongoing maintenance through its anticipated two decades of useful life and, finally, the impacts of recycling and disposal at end-of-life.
Their analysis shows that the vast majority of predicted environmental impacts would be caused by materials production and manufacturing processes. However, the payback for the associated energy use is within about 6 months, the team found. It is likely that even in a worst case scenario, lifetime energy requirements for each turbine will be subsumed by the first year of active use. Thus, for the 19 subsequent years, each turbine will, in effect, power over 500 households without consuming electricity generated using conventional energy sources.
Haapala, K.R. and Prempreeda, P. (2014) ‘Comparative life cycle assessment of 2.0 MW wind turbines’, Int. J. Sustainable Manufacturing, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.170-185.
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The mistake, or some might call it an inconvenient oversight:
Thus, for the 19 subsequent years, each turbine will, in effect, power over 500 households without consuming electricity generated using conventional energy sources.
The problem here is the assumption that a wind turbine is the equivalent of a conventional coal or nuclear power plant. It isn’t, and as we know wind is not a constant thing:
“My biggest fear is if you see 20 percent wind on your system, and then it comes off at a time period where you don’t have resources to replace it — that’s going to, could, result in a blackout situation,” he says.
If there was not a backup power source that could be controlled 24/7/365 for those 500 homes, they would be in the dark when the wind falls below minimum levels needed to operate the wind turbine.
For example, a popular wind Turbine, the Vesas V90-2.0 2 megawatt turbine says in the technical specifications:
4 meters per second is equal to 8.9 miles per hour. By my own observation, I can say there are quite a number of days where wind is lower than that at ground level and even at tower height. Today for example, there is quite a number of areas with low or no wind in the United States. The blues are the low wind speed colors.
Source: http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/03/26/0900Z/wind/surface/level/equirectangular=-96.36,44.28,879
As we have seen before, when power is needed most, we can’t always count on the wind to blow at a level that will keep a wind turbine producing, requiring another power source to back it up. Thus, it is a blatant fallacy to claim:
…each turbine will, in effect, power over 500 households without consuming electricity generated using conventional energy sources.
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“Thus, it is a blatant fallacy to claim…”
Too polite. I’d call it a lie.
“…a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online.”
————
Yeah right.
Wind turbine payback is a mofo.
Perhaps there should be two grids. One for wind turbine advocates, and one for old fossil fuel fools, with no interconnectors. Then we would see the true capabilities of the bird choppers.
A 2 MW rated turbine will, according to data from existing installations, provide 360-480 kW of actual output.
in the dark when the wind falls below minimum levels needed to operate the wind turbine….
…or above
It has to be in the sweet spot to work
If the payback period is only 5-8 months, why do these things need a subsidy? In my business days, 12 months to positive returns was considered sufficient in many cases.
Great news! Then the taxpayers no longer need to subsidize these engines of death so destructive to the environment.
I am a complete layman when it comes to wind power and power grids in general… It obviously can’t function as a replacement for traditional power sources, but the article seems to imply that a backup energy source can be used (as I would assume it could be) when the energy is unavailable. I give no credence to AGW on scientific grounds, but is there any downside to relying on this source of energy when it is temporarily available?
They somehow forgot to work in capacity factor, which for wind turbine has been 25% typically, historically. Also just using energy costs leaves out a lot of the production costs, like transportation, engineering, overhead, tooling and other costs that add quite a bit to the costs. Frankly the best clue to how impractical wind turbines are is that when subsidies go away, so do the people who own the turbines, leaving nothing but rusty towers.
Calm windless days in my neighbourhood are also the coldest
days in winter, and the hottest days in summer. Subjective experience
says they are far more common than days of wind ” 4 metres per
second or greater.”
Welcome back to the eighteenth century …
Electrickery? Wazzat?
And they still cost more than conventional, regardless of any electricity they may save.
In the UK offshore wind receives a guaranteed strike price of £155/MWh v the wholesale market price of about £50.
ChrisM says:
June 16, 2014 at 11:06 am
Perhaps there should be two grids. One for wind turbine advocates, and one for old fossil fuel fools, with no interconnectors. Then we would see the true capabilities of the bird choppers.
Exactly
That’s not the real mistake. The real mistake is that although the ENERGY payback for the raw materials and fabrication of the turbine may be less than 1 year, the cost of this energy is only a tiny fraction of the overall cost of the turbine. Cost payback times for wind turbines, even with massive subsidies, are typically in the 15-20 year range. Scale back the subsidies, and the payback time becomes infinite. All wind projects die out as soon as the government scales back a bit or limits purchase guarantees.
Numbers seem wildly off. For example look at the energy cost for producing 700 tons of concrete. That may be the amount of electrical energy used to produce the concrete but no way reflects the total amount of energy required. 700 tons / 6(cement ratio) x 1.4 MWh (per ton of cement, via the Columbia.edu) is a lot more than .4 MWh. I assume the other numbers are also wildly off.
It looks like they’re only comparing energy flows, not cash flows. They’re saying that the energy used in creating the turbine is similar to the amount of energy created by the turbine in 8 months, so after that the turbine is creating new energy. It is not saying that the cost in money is replaced in 8 months.
they also do not include all of the extras required for “reliability” purposes that scheduling “wind power” has burdened the rest of the energy users, most notably the person turning on the lights at home. Extras that are required and paid for by everyone but the “wind generators” so that when the “wind energy” doesn’t show up like required there will not be a brown out or black out, an under frequency situation or other unacceptable to reliable power grid situation. I would ask that all the proponents of “wind and solar power” have to use only wind and solar and be treated only at hospitals that use wind and solar as there only source of power. Might as well throw in that they can only be served by ambulances and fire trucks that use wind or solar power too.
AndyZ :
At June 16, 2014 at 11:14 am you ask
Yes!
The “downside” is more expensive electricity, more fuel used for power generation, and more emissions from electricity generation.
Windfarms for power generation provide intermittent power so they merely displace thermal power stations onto standby mode or to operate at reduced efficiency while the thermal power stations wait for the wind to change. They make no significant reduction to pollution because thermal power stations continue to use their fuel and to produce their emissions while operating in standby mode or with reduced efficiency that can increase their emissions at low output. And this need for continuously operating backup means that windfarms can only provide negligible useful electricity to electricity grid supply systems. But the large scale use of windfarms requires upgrading of an electricity grid, more complex grid management, and operation of additional thermal power stations to protect against power cuts in time of supply failure. These effects increase the cost of electricity supplied by the grid in addition to the capital, maintenance and operating costs of the windfarms themselves. And the windfarms cause significant environmental damage.
A more full explanation of these effects is provided by this
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/images/stories/papers/reprint/courtney_2006_lecture.pdf
I hope this helps.
Richard
I’m sure Spain would beg to differ about the payback time…
Summary of errors:
1. “Energy payback” doesn’t seem to properly factor in downtime with wind variability
2. The article makes it sound like there is a monetary payback, but no monetary payback is mentioned
3. No baseline was given for the time it takes a coal, nuclear, or natural gas plant to produce as much energy as it took to consume
4. Combine 2 and 3
Conclusion: The article gives meaningless information in an attempt to elicit a positive emotional response about green energy.
I guess this was their “talking Points” response to the mockery of economics.
The wind turbines will be exceptional if they return the true energy cost in their life time.
This kind of truth smarts, the scammers hate it and the eco-nasties go rabid when forced to acknowledge it.The energy costs are skewed.
Cost to mine and refine materials, check.
Cost to manufacture, check.
Cost to install, check.
Cost to maintain,
cost to remove and remediate site.
Versus actual usable electricity generated.
Using every weasel clause in the book, you get the lie promoted above.
Wasn’t there a fairly recent report which said that wind turbines life cycle energy costs were 2 to 3 times the energy they produced.
If it’s such a good deal, I hope the authors invest their entire life savings in the technology. Surely, that would be like minting money.
If backup capacity essentially equal to what would be needed without the turbines has to be maintained then the payback period would approach the event horizon; just another government black hole of graft.
It’s all really just another real-world demo of how hard it is for people to believe TANSTAAFL.
Local high school has a turbine installed about one year ago at cost of 4.3 million, said to save the school almost 20,000 per year.