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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.
When I went to work for Gulf States Utilities in Beaumont, TX in 1981, they had just installed a 25kw wind turbine at Sabine Pass on the Gulf Coast beach , one of the windiest places in the USA. It produced 7 kw average, 28% of rated capacity. Required backup fossil fuel capacity to keep the lights on costs just as much as normal power plants, and mostly just sits there idling until called upon as the wind dies. Wind turbines would bankrupt any nation competing with China/Vietnam/Myanmar/Indonesia/Malaysia and/or India! Cost, as anyone who has ever worked in industry knows, makes the success or failure of the venture…
Ric Werme,
Questionable at best! Only the people who actually are paying the bills/turning on and off the generators could certify this. Typically a utility will never reveal such important figures, wonder who gathered these numbers?
From what I have heard the cost of reforming the rare earth magnets is roughly the same as original manufacture, with similar environmental impacts.
I cited that 14,000 abandoned figure myself a year or two ago, got called on it, researched it, and discovered that it is an Internet myth. The true number is something like 900 nationwide.
richardscourtney:
“Merely “annoying”? “Not a deal killer”? Surely, you jest!”
I am cognizant of the challenges of integrating intermittent wind energy into the overall grid system. It is an important issue, and one that is often glossed over by renewable energy proponents. Solar suffers a similar problem.
That said, skeptics of wind/solar seem to go a bridge too far in their claims about the difficulties of integration. They certainly go a bridge too far if they claim integration is a deal killer. A number of large grid areas (think California) already integrate wind and solar into the mix, notwithstanding the significant intermittent nature of those two sources. Skeptics protest a bit too much when they spend a lot of energy harping on the difficulties of integration, particularly in the face of actual, existing integrated systems.
Is the integration efficient? Does it cause challenges for the grid? Does the existence of wind and solar production obviate the need for constructing additional traditional power stations, or must the intermittent sources be completely and fully backed up by traditional sources? Are some grid systems less effective at integration than others, and if so, why?
These are all interesting and important questions — technologically, economically and politically. But the fact remains that these intermittent wind and solar sources have been, and are being, integrated into grids on a large scale basis. Is it the right thing to do? Does it make economic sense? I don’t know. But the observable fact is that they are being integrated. Thus, intermittence is, not in and of itself, a deal killer for wind systems.
There are, in my humble opinion, better reasons to question the wisdom of large scale wind projects than the technological challenge of integration.
“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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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.
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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.
“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.
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
As a person who maintains these wonderful devices there are a few problems with this article.
1. The life cycle is 20 years of a 2 MW unit. We are lucky to get more than 6 years of operation or 50000 turning hours out of the windmills before a total overhaul is performed. During the overhaul we are finding that the drive shafts, head bearings and gearboxes are cheaper to replace outright rather than to refurbish. You can refurbish these parts but the are more prone to failure in a shorter time frame during the next operation cycle.
2. The wind does not blow all the time. So when the wind does not blow the windmill requires power from the grid. Oil pumps must run to lubricate the bearings. Heaters are on the heat the enclosure, the oil and the generator windings so they do not absorb moisture. There is also navigation lights and control power needed all the time.
3. The turn down of the power production is a very complex process. When the wind reaches the threshold in either direction the windmill is either started or stopped. If the wind ramps up and stays up then some other generator on the grid will be backed out to allow for the wind production to take over. This causes other more efficient and reliable power sources to be allocated to an area of operation where they are not so efficient which wastes energy. There have been cases where the wind stops or drops off fast and the only thing that is able to pick up the power production loss is smaller gas turbine units or hydro plants.
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?
Greg writes, “Like a nuclear plant needs to be coastal or near a major river, to dump all the energy it wastes.”
I have worked at many nukes that did not use river or ocean water for cooling. Furthermore no energy is wasted. A heat engine works based on the temperature difference extracting the change in kinetic energy. Hydroelectric and wind works by extracting some of the kinetic energy from water and wind. To suggest that not using all the kinetic is a waste would be silly.
The first rule of citing a power plant is to not put them near people like Greg.
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.
Greg says
“Like a nuclear plant needs to be coastal or near a major river, to dump all the energy it wastes.”
Never seen a cooling tower? You know those big funnel-like things that MSM loves to phootgraph in back lighting so it looks like it’s smoke coming out rather than pure steam.
Incidentally nukes don’t “waste” any energy in the ordinary sense. No heat engine is ever 100% efficient unless:
a) the maximum cycle temperature is infinite or:
b) the minimum cycle temperature is absolute zero or:
c) both a) and b)
Both a) and b) are currently unfeasible from an engineering standpoint and extremely likely to remain so.
“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.
I understand the power of the wind varies as the CUBE of the wind speed. Double the speed and you get EIGHT times the power. HALF the speed and you get ONE EIGHTH the power. Certainly not a linear power source. Also any turbines in the wake of other turbines suffer power loss from turbulence. Just out of curiosity, where is the oldest wind turbine installation and what is the current performance level?
As for the lightning strike in year 4 – after the insurance company has declined to provide further lightning insurance cover…
Cashton, Wisconsin
http://www.cashton.com/Greens-Wind-Farm.html
Pictures and some figures for the construction here:
http://www.cashton.com/North_Wind_Turbine_Const-DM-CS-SB-2-reduced-in-size.pdf
eg, 45 tons of re-bar in the foundations and 630 yards of cement
How much energy to build a crane to lift a 100 ton generator housing 320 feet in the air?
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.
Reblogged this on Cornwall Wind Watch and commented:
inconvenient truths about wind power generation. don’t worry though fossil fuel STOR will pick up the slack.
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.
climatereflections:
Thankyou for your reply to my post at June 16, 2014 at 2:28 pm which ishere.
In your reply at June 16, 2014 at 9:45 pm you say
Sorry, but that is misleading.
Intermittency is a means that on its own “integration is a deal killer” when the intermittent supply source approaches 20% of grid demand. This is because the problems of risk management increase exponentially when risk increases linearly. A good and simple explanation of this is provided in this thread by stas peterson in his excellent post at June 16, 2014 at 7:16 pm which is here.
But I did not say that in my post you have answered (although I explain it in my lecture which I linked for AndyZ in my post at June 16, 2014 at 11:26 am).
I wrote
Perhaps you would be willing to provide your explanation of why oil tankers are not sailing ships?
Richard
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.
Björn:
Your post at June 17, 2014 at 1:40 am (which is http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/16/wind-turbine-payback-period-claimed-to-be-within-8-months/#comment-1663858>here) provides much good information but its language misleads when it says
It matters little whether the electricity can be “usefully exploited” when its provision is not useful to meeting demand, and the intermittent power from e.g. windfarms is not useful to a grid supply system at any time.
This is because the grid has provision to obtain electricity to match demand at all times. Windfarms add to this provision only at times when the wind is enabling them to generate electricity. Therefore, the windpower displaces the power stations which need to operate when the windfarms don’t, and thermal power stations need to keep operating while the windfarms operate.
Hence, the windfarms provide no economically useful electricity at any time. Their contribution to the electricity supply system only consists of additional cost.
Richard
Pamela Gray says:
June 16, 2014 at 4:31 pm
Let’s be addin in the energy it takes to provide the subsidy.
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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.
When analysing renewable resources like wind it is always important to distinguish between power and energy. I assume they meant that in energy terms it would supply 500 homes per year.
Almost all analysis that I have seen (particularly critical ones) nearly always focuses on power and not energy as that is where renewables are weakest. But that is not exactly being very intellectually honest.
Wind is more expensive than gas per kWh produced but 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.