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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.
Doug Proctor says:
June 16, 2014 at 2:53 pm
There are two parts to the life of a wind turbine. Based on my experience, which has to do with water towers (a similar structure), the tower and the foundation of a wind turbine would have an expected life of 50 years.
The turbine itself would have an expected life of 10 to 15 years. After the turbine reached its expected life or for some reason needed repair too frequently (a lemon) it would be lifted off the tower and a new or rebuilt turbine put on. The old one would be rebuilt and placed on another tower. I know of pumps that lasted as many as 40 years, though they were rebuilt several times.
The electrical infrastructure would be similar. Parts would have very long life (wiring etc), Parts would have a lesser life (transformers, switching gear, controls). The short lived stuff would be repaired or replaced as needed, the long-lived stuff would continue in service.
The evaluation of whether it is economical to continue would be done at each major repair, and possibly more frequently. That’s why there are engineers.
“Therefore, if there is a long period when the wind is not turning the turbine then its generator operates in reverse by taking electricity from the grid and acting as a motor to turn the turbine.
Richard.”
That’ll be why one of the big Vestas that I can see from here, that has only two of its three blades intact (and has been that way for months), sometimes does a little rotation.
Let’s be addin in the energy it takes to provide the subsidy.
Kjetil Nesheim says:
June 16, 2014 at 4:26 pm
“Norway in that case is perfect,. ”
N.Z. also , only much windier.
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.
“battman says:
June 16, 2014 at 11:36 am
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.
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Do you think the school will be around in 215 years to see the payback? No math classes at that school?”
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Do the math kids. A loan of 4.3 million costing 5% per year is about 215,000 per year. So, if you borrow the money, you will spend 215,000 per year to “own” that thing, without paying off any principle. By quick calculation (feel free to check my math), to pay that thing off in 20 years would require a payment each year of about 350,000 dollars. That is, you pay 7 million dollars over 20 years. Cost savings? $400,000. This doesn’t count maintenance. Then, at the end of 20 years that thing is worthless, and you have to pay somebody to haul it away.
Now, who thinks the moon is made of cheese, Mr. O ?
.
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.
I agree. I think they are talking “energy” payback not “financial” payback. So what.
Joel Hammer,
Right. Their numbers are preposterous.
Let’s say I have $10,000 USD to invest. With a payback of 8 months, my money would double in ⅔ of a year. In 20 years I would be a multimillionaire.
Industrial power prices are lower than average in the US states with substantial wind: in cents per kWh: Iowa, 5.45, South Dakota, 7.03, Texas 6.4, and US avg 7.12 cents per kWh for industrial price in Feb 2014, latest figures from EIA. Industrial prices best represent the cost of power production, since there is very little added for transmission and distribution costs. Iowa and South Dakota each have more than 25 percent wind power on their grids at the present. Texas has only about 9 percent grid power, but has the most wind energy of any state at this time, at 12,000 MW.
Funny how that economic stuff works.
Regarding intermittency, Texas shows that a substantial portion of wind energy is sufficiently reliable to be named effective load carrying capacity. In Texas, the regulating body is ERCOT. Their considered assessment of wind energy plants in Texas is that almost 10 percent of installed wind capacity can be included as dispatchable, what they refer to as ELCC, effective load-carrying capability. This (8.7 percent) is presently at 920 MW out of an installed base of 12,000 MW wind energy. That 920 MW is non-trivial, almost equivalent to one nuclear power plant. Not much pumped storage hydropower going on in Texas.
Funny how that works.
Finally, wind is “so expensive,” many of the US nuclear plants are giving up and calling it quits. They simply cannot compete with wind or natural gas-based power. See links below.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/gone-with-wind-nuclear-bye-bye.html and
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-one.html
READ the B/S propaganda again. It says that the ENERGY expended in creating the Wind Turbine will be paid back in five to eight months. That is an absurd measurement and worthless information. It then says that it only looks at “Key Components.” Well what about the rare earth elements used in the generator? What about the “maintenance energy? what about the energy needed to operate the Win Turbine? What about the _____________ (ill in the blank?
I once worked at a facility where after using sheets of 1 inch thick 4 ft X 8 ft plywood for scaffolding flooring, they would throw it away, because the man-hour cost of removing the approximate dozen nails (that had the double heads designed for easy removal), and re-warehousing the material was more than the cost of a sheet of new material. How much “hidden” costs like this are ignored in their calculations?
Another reply to AndyZ who says:
June 16, 2014 at 11:14 am
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?
The problem, Andy Z , is that you still need to build, pay for and maintain power sources capable of supplying 100% of your needs 100% of the time as wind cannot do that. If conventional sources are capable of supplying power to the grid 100% of the time cheaper than so – called renewables you would only shift to renewables for non – economic reasons.
Excluding taxes and profits, the cost of a windmill is a measure of the energy it took to produce it. The actual raw materials themselves, such as iron and copper are free. what cost the money is the energy to get them out of the ground, refine them and shape them into a windmill. Now this energy might be human or it might be machines, but in either case the cost of using them is factored into the final price.
So no, you will not get an 8 month payback, or we would see windmills in every backyard.
for 20 years I sailed around the world. Sailboats typically use wind generators or solar panels to try and keep the batteries topped up. until you’ve actually lived off the grid you have no idea how pitiful wind and solar power is compared to diesel.
Yes, in a stiff breeze our $20 thousand dollars worth of sails could outperform our $5 thousand dollar diesel engine. But anyone that thinks the wind is free has never replaced a set of sails. It is almost always cheaper to buy diesel for the engine than to buy Dacron for the sails.
the reason you use sails is because in a small boat you cannot carry enough fuel to cross oceans. with sails you are not tied to the fuel barge. but you will spend a lot of days on deck with a needle and thread making repairs.
The WSJ had a piece about wind energy a while ago. Nobody would build these things if not for government subsidies. That’s the whole game. For utilities, it’s useless power. Utilities have to provide PEAK power. Generating power at night when power load is a minimum only works to destabilize the grid.
Try thinking of energy production as employees that you need to get on with the business that is your life.
Coal and nuclear are the union workers that work their shifts 24/7/365. However, they only work in 8 hour shifts so you have to plan accordingly. They may be crude and rough, but they do 60% of all the work that is done.
Natural Gas are the on call workers than you need when you have high demand, they are ready to work any time, day or night. They do about 27% of the work.
Wind and solar would be the the guys who show up only when the wind blows just right or the sun shines high in the sky. They do just as good a job and don’t make a mess, but when they show up on a job, the on call workers don’t get paid, but must hang around just in case the renewable guys decide to stop working.
Which guys would you center your business model around?
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.
Twenty years ago the subject of my unpublished master thesis was anaerobic digestion of dairy farm manure. I started out as a skeptic and became a believer. I did not finish my master’s degree because I turned it into a business plan for my company.
The purpose of LCA is to help to help decision makers make good environmental choices. If the same amount of money that was spent on 6000 MWe of wind turbines has been on handling manure in the semi-arid PNW, there would be a huge improvement for the environment.
The basic problem with the AGW crowd is that they suck the money away from real environmental problems that we can actually make things better.
Roger Sowell says:
June 16, 2014 at 6:00 pm
“Industrial power prices are lower than average in the US states with substantial wind: in cents per kWh: Iowa, 5.45, South Dakota, 7.03, Texas 6.4, and US avg 7.12 cents per kWh for industrial price in Feb 2014, latest figures from EIA. ….” Etc.
So are you saying (in this article) that with the cost of these windmills at ~$2,200,000 USD each, that the article is accurate, and that they pay for themselves in up to 8 months??.
I know you have a whole website about it, but my hunch is that if we had built some (a lot more) nuclear plants since the 70’s or whenever we stopped, nuclear would be a clear winner in providing cheap energy to the people of the United States. Windmills are a “white elephant” as far as I can see in providing cheap energy.
I’m talking about Initial cost, Maintenance costs, and all the other costs which others on this tread have outlined. I don’t think wind-farms would exist without government subsidies. I guess the same could be said about nuclear, but overall I think nuclear would be cheaper…
Respectfully,
JPP
After serious consideration, I think 8 months is about right: for the manufacturer!
Notice: the purchaser, hereinafter referred to as The User … (aka Sucker) is NOT
important.
Six weeks to receive, and bank cheque
Six months to receive and bank subsidies
One week to counterfeit passports
One week to withdraw cash, book plane tickets, hotels, and:
Flee.
Oops – others on this thread…
“Here in the NW where the authors of the study live”
Last I checked there were no wind farms anywhere near Corvallis or Seattle. This is case of left coast rain forest greens thinking that wind farms enhance the beauty of the semi-arid PNW. I have a sail boat 200 miles inland and the wind is great in the spring and fall when the power is need least. I have been working in the power industry for 40 years and the hard days are cold winter nights and hot summer days.
“Any clue how much land is required for the mining, refining and processing of the uranium fuel?”
Yes actually! Almost none.
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.
Here’s a nice map showing 2013 wind capacity factors by state. Not surprisingly, the highest factors are in the regions with the highest wind potential (the map background).
http://s3.amazonaws.com/windaction/attachments/2180/USWindMap-wCF.jpg
That’s from the parent post http://www.windaction.org/posts/40618-u-s-annual-capacity-factors-by-project-and-state-2011-2013
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.