Wind turbine payback period claimed to be within 8 months

An excellent site to see just how variable and ineffective wind power actually is, is the privately developed site which uses the Australian Energy Market Organisation [ AEMO ] data in graph form to show the performance or more accurately the lack of performance of the entire wind farm generation capacity of SE Australia.
To give some perspective and remembering that the conterminous states of the USA are almost identical in area to the Australian continent, the area covered is about a 1500 kms across in both east / west and north / south distances.
http://windfarmperformance.info/?date=2014-06-15
Dates can be selected as can both the combined wind generation performance of individual states as well as for individual wind farms.
[ June 16th data at time of posting appears to be down for some reason ]
Further as alluded to in an above post, wind turbines need considerable amounts of power when not operating. Power which is drawn from the grid and used for the blade angles and blade feathering motors, the motors used to turn the whole blade / gearbox / generator capsule at the top of the tower to follow the wind direction, the electronics, the heating of blades in winter ice conditions which doesn’t apply everywhere of course plus heating gearbox oil in the colder climes.
Then there is the slow turning of the blades using the generator as a motor to prevent creep in the composite fibre constructed blades due to their size and weight and to prevent distortion of the critical blade supporting bearing from the immense loads imposed by the blade weight along with the need to prevent distortion of the huge main blade support bearings due to the weight of the blade structures.
In all it appears that the wind turbines over their operating life use about 13% or more, some calculations go as high as 18% of the power they actually produce to maintain the essential operating systems of the turbines when they are not producing power due to low wind conditions or conversely when the wind conditions too strong for safe turbine operation.
This power is of course drawn back from the grid when the turbines are not operating. I
It is doubtful that this power as drawn from the grid by the non operating turbines is actually metered which if so is a 13% to 18% free kick at once again the consumers expense to the profits of the turbine companies.
Another question would be, is the entire output of an operating turbine metered and sold but even when operating, the operating power requirements of the turbine as above are drawn back from the grid rather than just deducted off the power being generated and sold?
Probably another very profitable lurk exploited by the avaricious carpet baggers of the wind turbine industry.
If we had set out to find the two most inefficient, unreliable and most costly forms of energy production achievable to power our civilisation we could not have done much better than we have with the wind and solar energy industries .
Again we have to thank the climate catastrophe cultists and the green environmental loons for once again coming up with the most expensive, most unreliable and most inefficient solution to a a non problem it is possible to dream up in our civilisation.

Remember this is the environmental payback. Ie how long it would take to replace the embodied energy of the thing. Assuming 25% uptime it becomes more like 4 years before the thing is even net positive on energy. This has nothing to do with dollars. Except of course that the financial payback is so long that no investor would ever put money into it unless it was subsidised to make the dollar payback less than 5 years at the most.

M Simon says:
June 16, 2014 at 12:43 pm
Sound power 104dB – that is VERY loud.
On a very windy day at Cape Nelson Victoria we could hear and feel the turbines 600 metres UPWIND.

Geof quotes the British nationalaized power authority witht real world experience as to real world capacity factors. They are abysmal.
And much lower than 25%. their experience repots 8% is much more accurate reality.
The wind turbine maker quotes a windspeed of 25 m/s as as cutoff. That is fantasy land. In reality, a windmill is a fatigue tester par excellence, for thrust bearings and the working windmill airfoil blades. The life expectancy of a turbine blade is not some distinct number. it is a varying number depending on the strength of the wind impulse. It might be 10 years at 12 mph, but only 8 years at 15 mph and 5 years at at 20mph. But only A FEW SECONDS At 55 mph. The last thing you want is a some two ton windmill blade tearing off and flying through the air.
The British nationalized power Authoriity,with no axe to grind, reports in that in its own user experience operating several thousand windmills, it has a Total MTBF of about 9 years. By that time the bearings, turbine blades blades and associated equipment stuck up on a pole exposed to the elements requires such a complex rebuild/maintenance cycle as to be cheaper to totally replace with a new unit, IOW, the typical unit should be scrapped! Even though the finance types estimate it is financed with a nominal life expectancy of 30 years.
The power density and intermitancy create enormous other costs. A given power grid geography is subject to ‘ringing’ and instabilities as the power sloshes about first in one direction down a high tension wire and then back. It overloads transformers and switching gear the failure of which can create wild oscillations, equipment failures, and blackouts. Indeed I did nothing else for several years except calculate the effects of adding or removing generators to a grid. This is a common professional task and effort of power Engineers. In general you can’t absorb much beyond 15-20% intermittancy into a grid without causing massive problems.
Now the green watermelons in their over–schooled and under-educated way, want to add large amounts of intermitant generators to such grids, and in their ignorance, perceive no problem.
Oh how I would like to charge the know-it-all lawyers and assorted over schooled fools with the tree costs of their folly of practicing engineering without a license.

you do know the author of the study doesn’t care if WUWT debunks their premise.
They just will repeat the lie over and over.
the blogs preach to the choir and the majority of the world don’t read the blogs …especially if dancing with the stars is on.
you do know we need to break out of this defensive reaction to the leftists / socialists / communists. we need to refer to them as communists and collectivists.
….and windmills do not make it anywhere near 20 years without 2 or 3 gearbox changes which put them done for months and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
it is a hoax and a scam and we the taxpayer and electrical rate payers are funding this.

“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.”
====
No, this article is misleading by taking the phrase out of context.
The study is looking at the grey energy involved in the production and maintenance of the turbine. It is NOT suggesting that the 500 homes will not consume conventional energy for 19 years, that is a statement that is made about the TURBINE.
The part I always get very suspicious about when seeing sort of “will power x,000 homes” type claims is they never state what this new energy unit “home” is nor whether they are using a realistic capacity factor or taking the boiler plate “power” of the installation.
That is where the real deception is likely to be
Eric Gisin says:
June 16, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Average household power use is 1KW. The windmill is 2000KW. With a capacity factor of 25%, average output is 500KW, exactly what 500 households use.
===
Where do you get that figure? What “household”. The average american household with two large refrigerators and chest freezer probably consume that much just to keep the beer cool. 😉
Seriously:
http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/average-household-electricity-consumption
From those figures US/Canada conso is about 1.3kW averaged over the year. Slightly higher than Eric’s figure. That probably means they are using a capacity factor of about 30%. Reasonable enough according to the graph Ric Werme linked to. US average seems to be in range 25-30%.
At least they are not using the boiler plate figure.
So the criticism of the article is unfounded. It is not an “inconvenient oversight”, it is simply not what the study was studying. It did not attempt to look at cost , it did not attempt to look at network infrastructure. It assessed one aspect, as it clearly stated it was doing.
That one aspect provides useful input to anyone doing a broader study.
It is pretty much a straw man argument to suggest they were studying something were not and then bash them for not doing it.

Greg Goodman says:
June 16, 2014 at 10:08 pm
“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.”
Right, which is one reason why wind turbines are not sighted just anywhere. Like a nuclear plant needs to be coastal or near a major river, to dump all the energy it wastes. Any kind of installation needs appropriate siting. There are plenty of valid arguments to be made about wind power. This article is just pointless turbine bashing and shows the author’s less than objective stance on the subject.
THEN WHY DO THEY NEED TO BE SUBSIDIZED

Oh look it uses a computer model. When will people finally learn that a computer model is great for evaluating simple closed systems but sucks at evaluating anything complex?

Will Nelson says:
“Usually contracts are set a day in advance for delivery but utilities are often forced to buy all available wind without regard to gas in the pipe. When the deal for delivery is made the gas comes out of the ground and it has to go somewhere (the utility owns it and has to take it). When short term storage at the utility is exceeded the gas is vented to ambient.”
Anybody know if this is actually true? If so it might explain why methane in the atmosphere is increasing again. It stopped rising after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when gas pipelines there begun being properly maintained, but it has started rising again in the last few years.

“Kit P says:
June 16, 2014 at 7:00 pm
“Here in the NW where the authors of the study live”
Last I checked there were no wind farms anywhere near Corvallis or Seattle.”
What is near? East of Seattle about 80 miles – have a look with Google Earth:
47.163, -120.7
Many more as one goes East. The Columbia river to the south has a bunch.
The energy of those that feed into the BPA can be monitored here:
http://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
Beginning Thursday, June 12, the wind in our area has been a bit much (mostly above 20 mph with gusts about twice that). This is expected to continue for 2 more days.

As for the lightning strike in year 4 – after the insurance company has declined to provide further lightning insurance cover…

When the means of generating is intermittent, like wind follies, it is deceitful to use ‘households’ supplied as a means of calculating usefulness. As clearly not one single household can rely on it’s supply in this way. The only method used should be MW’s, and this does not compare well with conventional generation.

Geez these guys don’t know how to compute payback period.
Given:
U.S. power cost = 13 cents/kwh; Wind turbine capital cost = $3.50/watt; Capacity factor = 30%
Compute payback period:
Annual operating time = 365 days x 24 hours x 30% capacity factor = 2628 hours
Energy produced per watt capacity = 1 watt/1000 x 2628 hours = 2.628 kwh/year
Cost of energy produced = 13 cents/kwh x 2.628 kwh/year = 34 cents/year
Payback period = ($3.50/watt) / (34 cents/year) = 10.2 years
So it’s over a decade without subsidy and excluding operating and maintenance costs.

There are two factors that are usually glossed over when calculating total electric energy for a given lifetime of a wind turbine , one is the degradation in actual performane over it’s lifetime, there was some discussion about it a year or two ago at the Bishop Hill website, when a Dr. Gordon Hughes came out with a report that concluded that for the first 10 years of it’s life a turbine would on the average gradually loose 3% of its generating max capacity each year, so its max generating capability at the 11’th year would only be around 2/3 of the orginal naplate capacity. Now Dr. Hughes is well known to be very critical of the wind energy bug that has infected the government of his country, and his report was soon follwed by another one from the pro-Wind camp , saying that his report’s conclusion were all wrong and not to be taken seriously as the performance degradtion was only a measly 1.6% per annum, and thus was nothing to skout out a bout !!!. But anyway both reports agreed on the conclusion tha there is an performance degradtion factor proportional to turbine age present and the only diffred on it’s magnitude, and in my mind it’s size is not insignificant at 16% over a ten year period and it should be incorporated in any lifetime enegry generation accounting.
The other factor is how much of the wind energy generated can be put to practical use , i.e. there are times when the wind turbines are working at near full capacity ,and there is no way to put their output to practical use because the timing of the production does not sync with the demand , a case in point is Denmark where there is is enough wind capacity to produce up to 40% og their total demand , and yet they have on the average only been able to successfully exploit around half of it at max production times, and so instead of feathering the turbines at such times their windfarm pump the overproduction into the grid interconnections to Sweden and Norway who have agreed to take it as a gift ( or at grealtly reduced price ) if they can put it to some use ( or dump it somwhere otherwise ) , because the feed-in money and other state subsidies to the windfarms are caluculated on basis of total output metered at the sites grid connection, regardless of if it is generated at any time where it can be usfully exploited.

Pamela Gray says:
June 16, 2014 at 4:31 pm
Let’s be addin in the energy it takes to provide the subsidy.
____________________
A really excellent point and one that should be followed up and the energy required to produce the economic value of the wind power subsidies should be included in any calculations of wind power energy out versus external energy required to both build as well as operate a wind turbine.
The results would then be even worse, perhaps far worse for the economics of wind power than the already pretty horrendous inefficiency of wind power. These wind turbine building energy costs have to come from always on power generators producing cheap power as the processing of all the components of a wind turbine / wind farm require or demand a continuous supply of completely reliable energy for the processing of the metals and the various FRP products for blades and etc.
Then there are the energy costs of building the access roads, the concrete and steel in the foundations, the actual energy costs of the construction of the foundations and the entire mechanical components of the turbine and it’s blades, the FRP processing for the blade construction [ which is a high energy cost process for the resins and glass and carbon and kevlar fibres used in the construction of the blades ] . transport to the site, mining and processing of the copper and transformers and collectors for the power cables, installation of the power cabling systems and then the grid extensions which are not included in the economic or energy costs of the wind power as that is the problem of the grid operators and owners to provide the connections to the wind farms.
With an economic life of perhaps some 12 to 15 years maximum, the energy out from a wind Turbine compared to the energy in to build and construct and connect it to the grid and maintain it over those 12 to 15 years would have a high probability of being negative just like solar when it is installed anywhere further north or south of the Tropics of Capricorn and Cancer.
Plus of course the environmental cost in bat and bird kills [ bats are killed by the decompression of the blades passing which destroys their lungs . They don’t even have to be hit by the blades.
[ Reported to me anecdotally as the wind power companies deny everything. Locally some 4000 bats of a not very common species were found dead at a new wind farm. In the following year only about 40 kills of bats were found. The wind turbines had almost wiped the local bat population out in the first year of operation ]
From the human health aspect where it seems about 20% of the population are both physically and psychologically affected, some seriously by the very low frequency infra-sound given off the blade tip vortices every time a blades passes through at speeds of 300 or 400 kph.
If you have ever stood close to a large helicopter winding it’s rotor up to take off RPM’s and heard the rapid heavy and deep thump and whup, whup of the blades as they go past which on a helicopter are the pressure changes from the blade tip vortices where high pressure air under the lifting blade flows at close to supersonic speeds around the tip of the blade / wing to the low pressure air on top of the lifting blade or wing are often felt as much as heard, the identical effect arises but a frequencies lower than human hearing but with much, much higher energy levels from the tips of the wind turbine blades.
Aircraft have the winglets on the wing tips to gain efficiency of the wings by reducing the loss of lift from the wing tips via the tip vortices phenomena.
The turbine blades have problems fitting winglets due to the extra weight and centripetal forces and extra twisting of the blades due to aerodynamic forces which impose extra fatigue problems on the FRP construction of the blades so infra-sound problems, some serious depending on the make of turbine and therefore the aerodynamics of it’s blade profile, continue for any rural residents who are forced to live close to wind turbines.
When I see unsubsidised wind turbines being built in the wealthy, highly paid, green voting, renewable energy toting, inner city latte sipper’s precincts then I will accept wind turbines as a viable energy production technology.

GREAT! time to stop the subsidies. The only way I can see these wind turbines working as they claim without blackouts, is when the utilities have ‘smart’ appliances and meters mandated wherein the utilities can turn off our appliances as they see fit to lower demand.

@ Chris4692 –
Dammit… I always get thrown off by the fact that an English ton is 2000 of the everyday weight unit, while a metric ton is 1000 of the everyday ‘weight’ unit.
Either way, a 30 ft dia. foundation 13 feet deep doesn’t seem like it’s even remotely close to what would be required to anchor a 50 ton gen set 150 feet in the air.

Kaboom says:
“A 2 MW rated turbine will, according to data from existing installations, provide 360-480 kW of actual output.”
That is in line with the UK experience: 12-14% of nameplate rating. Most of the time it is underperforming.
If one wanted to have 100% power from wind it would require massive storage and about 8 times as much generator capacity as would otherwise be needed. That means the real cost would be 8 times as much and the repayment cost much more (because of interest or opportunity costs for the use of capital). Let’s say it paid back in 10 years. Isn’t it true these things last about 7 years on average?
Storage is only practical as water elevated to height (pumped storage). That has to be built and preferably nearby. Hydro generators have to be built as well, of equal capacity to run on that pumped water. The pumped storage system efficiency would be 70% at max so multiply everything again by 1.43. 14.3 years if nothing breaks. I don’t think this is going to work.

They left out the cost of amenity loss, ie habitat destruction, which the Greens in other cases routinely overestimate. And then there is the loss of tourism where these mostrosities are planted, and the diminution in quality of life. Add those costs and the picture starts to get a little more real.

K.de Groot &C.le Pair in a study called THE HIDDEN COSTS OF WIND GENERATED ELECTRICITY said
“Wind generated electricity requires back-up capacity of conventional power stations. This capacity is required to deliver electricity to consumers when wind supply is falling short. To have the non-wind power stations ramp up or down to compensate for the stochastic wind variations causes extra efficiency loss for such power stations. How much efficiency is lost in this way and how much extra fuel is required for this extra balancing of supply and demand is unknown. In this article we attempt to make an educated guess.
The extra fuel required for the efficiency loss must be added to the fuel required for building and installing the wind turbines and the additions to the power cable network. While these extra requirements may be too small to notice when the installed wind power is a small fraction of the total capacity, matters change when wind capacity becomes significant. Based on the German situation with 23 GW of installed wind power, we show that it becomes doubtful whether wind energy results in any fuel saving and CO2 emission reduction. What remains are the extra investments in wind energy. ”
Their study showed that if the efficiency the conventional plants that provide back up power to the wind turbines drops below 45%, the fuel savings could become negative and there is an extra fossil fuel demand and wind produced electricity now requires the production of extra co2 . In some cases, if the back up source is gas turbine , the efficiencies can fall as low as 30%, the article claims . Each case is different and it is not wise to generalize , but the exercise illustrates what can happen, namely that without the proper and complete analysis, . wind generated gains both in co2 and fuel usage can be voided by losses at back up plants. .making the entire use of wind turbines a negative cost upgrade .

I would expect that site selection would include obtaining a ‘typical’ 24/365 wind speed record in order to 8estimate8 the amount of time that the system would be on and working productively, as well as an estimate of the possibility of a catastrophic wind speed event. I have not been able to find either on any site.
The latter is NOT trivial. I lived in Amarillo TX for 13 years, and in that time I personally saw at least 4 separate events involving funnel clouds within city limits. Destructive downburst winds were even more common. A funnel cloud doesn’t need to become a tornado to destroy a wind-catcher 125m high. Debris from one rotor could easily become a missile to destroy another rotor. If I were an insurer, the premium on a wind turbine in such areas would be large enough to seriously impact the payback period.

Steve Keohane:
“Energy payback is a meaningless metric. I would bet they made it up, hoping the public can’t discern the difference.”
They didn’t make it up.
LCA (Life Cycle Analysis) based on an energy payback metric is a common analysis done on renewable energy projects. How useful the energy payback number may be is a separate question.
I think energy payback time is an interesting data point; and it may even be useful in certain situations. Often though, it is swamped by the much more significant — and pressing — economic LCA, with the energy payback being little more than a ‘feel-good’ footnote.
I fear you may be correct, however, that the public generally doesn’t understand the difference. That leaves the door open for certain proponents of renewables to make claims that sound really good, but that don’t mean much in the larger scheme of things.

The give away is in para two “especially if coupled to high-capacity storage”. This means the analysis is based on perfect utility. All energy between 4-25 mph winds (tech statement) is utilized.
The entire problem of energy when needed is avoided. No such technology exists. Decades and billions in research has occurred and no such technology is even on the horizon. (better flashlight batteries don’t count.) Perhaps they can do a followup paper examining the benefits of Star Trek dilithium crystals.

Col Mosby says:
June 16, 2014 at 12:43 pm
“—-
The environmental footprint of a wind system is apparently huge – I have seen estimates that almost 300,000 acres would normally be required to site enough turbines to produce the same gross amount of power as a 1200 MW nuclear power plant.
—-”
300 thousand acres area needed for a capacity equivalent to a 1200 MW nuclear plant is probably a very extreme case rather than a normal. At least I recall having read that in a good flat terrain with a suitable wind profile the ideal siting distance between turbines is a 10 by 3 times diameter ( = 2 x blade length) of the sweep area. Typical blade length for a 2.5 MW (nameplate power) turbine is 150 feet , thus 3 such beasts could be planted on a rectangular plot (3×300) feet x (10 x 300 )feet = 2.7 million square feet or ~ 62 acres, and that comes out as 62 / 7.5 ~ 8.3 acres per each nameplate MW , and ( optimistically ) assuming average 33% load factor triples that area for any real life MW going into the grid . so at an ideal siting you would need about 25 acres per MW which translate to 25 x 1200 = 30000 acres for 1200 MW not 300000 . And the I also remember the article ( whose title though I do not remember, unfortunately ) where I read this also stating that at not so ideal terrain the area requirement could be up to 3 times more, or 90000 acres in such cases. Mind you those area requirements though being 1/3 to 1/10 of the number you stated are by no means small , 30 thousand acres is ~ 47 square miles so ( pretending intermittency and other various drawbacks are no or minor problems ) you wanted to replace the 1 million plus MW capacity now installed in the US you would need to cover an area equal to 47×1000000/1.2 ~ 39.2 million square miles or around 2/3 of the earths total land area, if you put them all onshore or 28 % of the oceans surface if you tried to put them all offshore. And if you wanted match our world installed 5.5 billion Kw of power generating capacity with wind you would need to carpet every square mile ( and then find some extra 40000 square miles somewhere) of both the land and the oceans with the bird blenders, assuming that all areas. And that is assuming that all of the earths surface is ideally suited for turbine installment, which of course would not be the case in real life and then your area requirement shoots up to an extra earth or two. Pure Madness I think we here have!!!

Richard (yet again):
“Perhaps you would be willing to provide your explanation of why oil tankers are not sailing ships?”
Richard, I have a great respect for your opinion, the valuable insights you have posted on WUWT over the years, and your good arguments. The above is not one of them.
The question is most definitely *not* whether wind power is a good option as a *sole source, 24/7, level-power generation* for an isolated vessel traveling across the open ocean. The question is whether wind can be a *fractional contributing source to a larger energy mix* in a connected grid with other balancing sources.
Please understand the difference. Please recognize the nuance of the point. I have not argued that wind turbines are a panacea; I have not argued that it makes economic sense to build large scale wind farms; I have not argued that they save net energy when everything else is factored in.
I have simply pointed out the fact — readily available from many publicly-available sources — that intermittent sources of energy can be, and are in fact being, incorporated into the energy mix of grids. Whether this makes economic sense, whether other offsetting costs are involved, whether it is the right thing to do are all excellent questions.
Why oil tankers are not sailing ships is not.

herkimer: Each case is different and it is not wise to generalize , but the exercise illustrates what can happen, namely that without the proper and complete analysis, . wind generated gains both in co2 and fuel usage can be voided by losses at back up plants. .making the entire use of wind turbines a negative cost upgrade .

Excellent comment. Do you have a link to the paper, or a complete reference?

“Is the obsession with “climate change” turning out to be the most costly scientific
Blunder in history?”
I don’t see how, c – it’s a blunder of epic proportions (or, more likely, deliberate), but it’s hardly scientific.

Richard:
Thank you for offering me the last word. I will take the opportunity so that we can end the specific discussion on a logical note.
“Your failure to provide an alternative understanding of why shipping does not use windpower demonstrates that you know windpower is NOT economic and is NOT reliable.”
False. Complete non sequitur.
Let’s step back for a moment to some elementary logic:
Question 1: Is intermittent wind power a good sole source of energy for an isolated vessel on the open ocean that needs 24/7, level-powered energy?
Question 2: Can intermittent wind power successfully contribute to a larger energy grid mix when it is not the sole source (indeed, when it is only a fraction of the total) and when other leveling sources are available?
These are two separate questions. It is logically possible that the answer to the first question could be “No” and the answer to the second question could be “Yes.” You are conflating two very different questions with your example of oil tankers (an example you are quite fond of and have no doubt used elsewhere with just as much fanfare and zeal as in the present exchange). My apologies if no-one has ever called you on it before. But the fact remains that we can logically answer the second question with a different answer than the first. Thus, by simple force of logic, it does not follow that if wind power is a poor choice for oil tankers on the open ocean then it is also a poor choice in other applications.
(Incidentally, as another commenter noted above, we could use your oil tanker example and reference any other source of energy instead of wind — nuclear, hydro, coal, etc. — and the example would be precisely the same. This simple exercise should give us a hint that there is a fundamental logical problem with the example.)
It may well be that wind power is a terrible idea for large scale electricity grids. It may well be that building wind farms is a waste of money and resources. It may well be that no net energy is saved. If you would carefully read my comments you would see I have made no claims to the contrary.
But let’s have arguments based on the specifics of the large scale electricity grid, not some irrelevant, red-herring, non-sequitur about oil tankers not being sailing ships.
Cheers,

I’ve taken a lead from Anthony and installed Pv generation on our roof. My particular bugbear is the cost of new nuclear power in the UK running into many billions of pound which is being passed onto the consumer who gets none of the profits. I’d rather see tidal energy developed if we are talking of that level of cost.

richardscourtney says:
June 17, 2014 at 3:15 am
Hop Lite:
You conclude your post saying June 17, 2014 at 2:54 am
… there is no gainsaying that wind is a net producer, diversifies the electricity generation portfolio and reduces dependence on foreign imports of energy for many economies that currently rely on politically unstable energy sources such as gas in Western Europe.
I deny it because it is not true.
______________________________________________________
I have not seen any reputable study showing that having wind on a power grid increases fossil fuel usage. This point, if true, would be a devastating blow to the wind industry and completely remove its raison d’etre. Why has this study not yet been done given it is quite straightforward to do? If you know of any can you give me references to them?
Why do oil tankers not use wind power? A variety of reasons but predictability of passage times is one major reason. To successfully use a hybrid wind/oil system in the supertanker business (overcoming the predictablity issue) would require a number of hurdles to overcome including vessel design, storm survivablity, experienced crews, increased manning levels on vessels etc. They would end up more expensive for all these reasons but that doesn’t negate the fact that considerably less fuel would be used in the passage compared with oil-only powered vessel.
Wind is more expensive today than fossil fuels on electricity grids but the real issue is energy security and long term energy sustainability. For countries like Ireland or the UK using the energy sources on our doorsteps makes sense. (Unless of course you can point to a reputable study that shows that wind increases fossil fuel usage!).

Richard
I’m sorry but you are going to have to do better than that! Please indicate what study was done by him where he published it etc etc. Even global warming alarmists are not so insouciant in their style of referencing published work as you appear to be! Please provide a proper reference to a published study into this issue that demonstrates (with numbers!) that wind penetration in power gird increases fossil fuel usage. The electric power industry has had a lot of resistance to wind power as early wind turbines were poorly behaved and also it just kind of messed up the power engineers traditional world and most people dislike and resist change. I know the thinking in that industry well as I was associated with it for many years. Many of the power industry fears have proven to be unfounded.
I’m really uncertain what point you think you are winning wrt to oil tankers and sails. It really is not an analogous example and I am really confused as to how you think it is.

richardscourtney says:
June 18, 2014 at 3:23 am
Sorry Richard but you are now making absolutely no sense and posting a load of non sequitor nonsense replies to the points that I make – haven’t the time for that.
I asked you to give here an actual proper citation to your claim that grid wind power results in increased fossil fuel usage. You have not done so – I am pretty certain I know why.

dbstealey says:
June 18, 2014 at 3:51 am
Thanks db – some interesting exchanges that give me a good idea of the style of Richard. It must be hard and exhausting for him to be permanently outraged and indignant!
I see a lot of sound and fury in those exchanges but hard facts are more scarce – a shame really given the great work many are doing here exposing the GW twaddle.

RACookPE1978: That economic assessment of requirements MUST change based on the mission and the requirements:
On that, you and I agree. But I would add in other factors. Where there is no grid, for example, the problems that wind turbines cause to grids does not matter. Similarly, where there are no fuel deliveries, the intermittency of the wind is less of a problem.