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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.
Hop Lite:
You conclude your post saying June 17, 2014 at 2:54 am
I deny it because it is not true.
The output from windfarms increases fuel use and, therefore, emissions from thermal power stations which the windfarms displace from the grid when the windfarms operate. This reduces the efficiency of the thermal power stations so they use MORE fuel to produce less electricity.
When David Tolley was Head of Networks and Ancillary Services of Innogy (a subsidiary of the German energy consortium RWE) he said of windfarms in the UK
(NETA is the New Electricity Trading Arrangements in the UK)
Richard
“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.”
Much as I hate the idea of “Smart Meters”, they could deal with the above without needing a second grid. Simply arrange for any household signed up to a “Green” tariff to lose their supply when insufficient wind and/or solar power is being produced. The rest of us continue to get a supply.
It wouldn’t take very long for reality to set in…
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.
chuck says:
June 16, 2014 at 2:36 pm
Given the amount of uranium is so small for the energy produced (less than a millionth the weight of coal to produce the same thermal output), the land area devoted to uranium mining and refining has to be minor when compared to that of even a single gigawatt wind farm (if the figure supplied by Col Mosby above is correct), but I do not have exact figures.
@ur momisugly 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.
Solar and wind energy should only be considered as “additive” energy sources and not “replacement” or” alternative” sources when shutting down base grid power sources like coal . If US is thinking of replacing the 25000 MW of coal generated electricity lost due to the latest EPA regulation changes with wind and solar, there could be major blackouts coming for many areas affected . It will be difficult to control the grid with such a large variable power component constantly fluctuating .Mixed major power grids are less efficient as any of the efficiencies gained by the use of renewable sources are soon lost by the inefficiencies caused to the back up sources which have to operate at less than the peak or efficient level for standby purposes.
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 will say anything to mine the tax credits or reinstate them.
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.
Energy, smenergy. I would argue that dollar costs more closely approximate total energy costs of any project than will any other detailed computation.
Take labor costs of construction, just as one example. Labor requires regular feeding, housing, transport, etc. Each of these has an energy component, and when you really get down to it, most of the cost of anything is energy in the end. Is the rent for growing food an energy cost? Why not, since the entire purpose of that rent is to control the land that allows the capture of all that “free” sunshine so that crops will grow. Try growing them inside and watch energy bills escalate. (Pot growers are the experts; ask them.)
Labor requires transport. Does the energy calculation in this article include the energy to fuel that transport, or the energy required to build that transport and the energy required to mine the materials in that transport?
It’s silly to try to do an energy calculation of the sort done in this article. Just break it down in terms of dollars and cents and that will tell you whether you’re coming out ahead or behind. Then, as others have said, deduct the subsidies to see where you really stand.
Hydraulic hybrids on UPS trucks and big trash collection trucks are expensive and the payback time is on the order of 10 or more years, it just does not pay. People will go green if it pays green.
Roger Sowell says:
June 16, 2014 at 6:00 pm
Is that 25 percent in terms of installed max capacity or in terms of actual production? When I see those numbers, the source is either one that I don’t trust to know the difference, or the language is not clear enough to tell.
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 .
Fossil fuel production is also subsidized. I would imagine we could come up with an average cost of tax money (including the energy costs to make a dollar to give to energy companies) being given to this industry per watt generated. I would also imagine that this administration is happily giving a bunch more money to wind and solar per watt than the fossil fuel industry is getting. But I have no data so it is only speculation.
Next, I wonder how you would calculate the btu’s of a single tower versus fossil fuel btu’s? I can convert fossil fuel btu’s into watts and use that as the unit. By determining the watts generated by a single tower I could then determine how much fossil fuel I would need to generate the same amount of watts.
Now having equivalent watts produced I would then calculate the total energy cost needed to produce the same amount of watts, including energy to do maintenance over say 50 years, and including subsidy energy cost for each watt produced. Simple comparison would reveal which is the more energy expensive watt unit to produce over a 50 year time span.
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.
I have never had any use for these monster wind mills, but I was unaware that the maximum sound level produced by these things was rated at 104 dB! If you lived within any reasonable range of these “farms,” I would think the noise level every time the wind blew hard enough to wind these things up near capacity would deafen you over time.
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.
An essential element of this analysis is “sustainable electricity production especially if coupled to high-capacity storage for times when the wind speed is either side of their working range.” Unfortunately for that scenario there is no such thing as “high-capacity storage for times when the wind speed is either side of their working range.” Nice to know that academics still work on virtual solutions to problems then promote those as viable and can find an outlet to publish their ruminations. It is the kind of puff that keeps them in business.
Pamela Gray:
It seems you are overlooking an important point in your post at June 17, 2014 at 8:27 am which attempts to compare costs of fossil fuel electricity and windfarm electricity.
1.
The fossil fuel or other conventional plant is necessary to provide all the electricity needs of a grid whether or not the windfarms exist.
2.
Windfarms provide an additional electricity supply to the grid which displaces some of the conventional plant when the wind is sufficiently strong but not too strong for the windfarms to operate.
3.
Therefore, the cost of the fossil fuel or other conventional plant is needed whether or not the windfarms exist.
4.
And the windfarms provide cost which is an unnecessary additional cost to the cost of the electricity which is and could be provided by the fossil fuel or other conventional plant.
Richard
richardscourtney on June 17, 2014 at 1:17 am:
Thank you for your response. I suspect we are not that far apart in actual substance.
You write:
“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.”
Yes, I agree that in certain circumstances intermittency is unacceptable. We obviously cannot have a grid that is completely composed of intermittent sources. Probably not even one that is half composed of intermittent sources. Yet the fact remains that several thousand megawatts of wind and solar are being integrated into the California grid system every single day. Intermittence has not, and is not, a deal killer for that integration.
Are they going to be able to get to the 1/3 renewables goal the state has mandated? I don’t know. Doing so would probably require more and better capabilities of fast-start/fast-stop conventional generation. They are already reaching close to 1/3 renewables at the peak renewables output. I haven’t run the numbers to see what that amounts to across the 24-hour period — just eyeballing the daily graph CAISO puts out, I would say maybe 10-12%. Perhaps your 20% limitation is accurate and the state’s goal of 1/3 is completely out of reach. But even if that is true, we still haven’t gotten to your 20% yet, so the system can almost certainly still handle more wind/solar.
Again, are there legitimate issues with integrating intermittent sources into the grid? Sure. Is there a limit to the % of intermittent generation that can be handled? Almost certainly. Are people who dream of a 100% renewable grid out to lunch? Definitely. (Unless they are willing to start counting large hydro, nuclear, etc. as renewable).
But the immediate and vociferous complaints about the evils of intermittence that skeptics seem to harp on whenever a large wind or solar project is announced go beyond the mark and, frankly, distract from more salient points. Beyond recognizing that intermittent sources can only compose a certain % of total production — a point you make well and that most careful thinkers, including proponents of intermittent sources accept — much more significant issues can be raised on the economic side of the equation. No-one is realistically proposing a 100% intermittent-sourced grid, so the issue comes down to percentages, technological feasibility of fast-start/fast-stop conventional backup, ability to forecast supply and demand — issues that are much more nuanced than a simple “intermittent sources are bad” mentality.
You also write (a second time):
“Perhaps you would be willing to provide your explanation of why oil tankers are not sailing ships?”
I didn’t address it the first time, because, pardon me, it is just silly.
No rational person is suggesting that there is no place for conventional fossil fuel use in the world’s energy mix. No-one is saying that if one wind turbine is accepted then we have to use wind for everything in the world. No-one is claiming that large ships or airplanes can run solely on wind power. Your question is a complete red herring.
The question is whether intermittent sources can make a meaningful contribution to the overall energy mix. And if so, what are the challenges, technologically and economically, of doing so. Those are legitimate and more nuanced questions that deserve careful thought.
General complaints about intermittence or red herring questions about sailing ships do not serve the discussion well.
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.
tadchem says:
June 17, 2014 at 8:28 am
The wind speed record is available for any NOAA site that records it, and is summarized as a “wind rose”. I have no problem finding a wind rose in my area, though it is from a site derived from NOAA data, and not from NOAA itself. Sometimes temporary towers are put up to monitor wind speed at height in evaluation of a specific site, though that would be proprietary.
Civil Engineering structures (water towers, stoplights, etc) here (US midwest) are routinely designed for a 100 mph wind. Beyond that there is only so much that can be economically done in design. That may vary regionally: check the building code. Building codes do apply to wind towers.
In the case of a tornado as applied to a wind farm, It is not economical to construct a wind turbine, radio tower, water tower, or a structure of similar size to reliably withstand a direct hit by a tornado. Coal and other power generating facilities are also subject to being hit by such an extreme event. In the case of a tornado hitting a wind farm, a monster tornado is a mile wide, most tornadoes are much smaller. A wind farm is many miles wide, so only a small part of the area would be affected. Similarly a downburst also tends to affect an area smaller than the size of a wind farm.
Tom O says:
June 17, 2014 at 8:44 am
I have been around wind farms, driven through on a transect, getting out and stopping occasionally, trying to find that noise. I have never experienced it at any easily noticeable level. There may be some conditions where it exists, but it isn’t all conditions all the time.
Chris 4692 at June 17, 2014 at 7:12 am:
I was skeptical too, but Roger may be correct. Look at the “Electricity” generation tab on the relevant states at:
http://www.eia.gov/state/
climatereflections:
Your reply to me at June 17, 2014 at 9:24 am says
I do not “pardon” your attempt to evade my clear and rational point by saying it is “silly” then ignoring the argument which poses the question.
I present the argument to you for the third time so onlookers can have no suspicion that you are accidentally missing it.
The intermittence provides need for back-up and combines with the little power available in normal winds to make it very difficult for windpower to recover its capital costs in the absence of subsidies.
Windpower was used to power shipping and to operate mills for millenia. But windpower was displaced when the steam engine enabled use of greater energy intensity in fossil fuels to provide greater and continuous and controllable power.
If windpower were economic and reliable then oil tankers would be sailing ships.
Perhaps you would be willing to provide your explanation of why oil tankers are not sailing ships?
Richard