From the “fire and ice” department, Craig Kelly writes on Facebook
The entire rationale for wind turbines is to stop global warming by reducing the amount of CO2 being returned to the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
In the attached picture, recently taken in Sweden, freezing cold weather has caused the rotor blades of a wind turbine to ice up bringing the blades to a complete stop.
To fix the “problem” a helicopter is employed (burning aviation fuel) to spray hot water (which is heated in the frigid temperatures using a truck equipped with a 260 kW oil burner) on the blades of the turbine to de-ice them.
The aviation fuel, the diesel for the truck, and the oil burned to heat the water, could produce more electricity (at the right time to meet demand) than the unfrozen wind turbine could ever produce. (Before it freezes up again).
The attached picture is a metaphor of the complete insanity of the climate change debate.
In decades to come this one photo alone with sum up an era of stupidity, when rational thought, logic and commonsense was abandoned and immense wealth and resources needlessly sacrificed.
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I think they got this backwards. They should be building power plants to spin the windmills so they will cool the environment. /sarc
An alcohol fluid weep is a fairly low tech answer that has worked with wings and propellers. Applied successfully, it would do little to make windmills ‘smart’.
Low altitude aircraft only. There is also the rubber boot leading edge expansion/contraction deicing technique. My father flew both prop types for USAF. They must work, since he died of old age rather than wing icing. Some great family stories.
Wind turbines apparently fly neither. Stupid renewables.
They should use a plastic sleeve over each blade and pump it full of CO2.. Just need to keep an eye on it so they don’t damage the blades from the heat.
For f***’s sake, could people please stop attributing any portentous/pretentious quote about the universe to Einstein? This one is not from any published work by Einstein. Unlike many ‘Einstein’ quotes it does at least have an identifiable second-hand source, but not a particularly reliable one.
But it’s CUTE!
“I never said half the crap people claim I did on the Internet.” Albert Einstein
Pardon, but wasn’t it Abe Lincoln who said that?
Some days…. that could be me.
(to compare very small with great).
Okay, okay, OKAY, Knights and Brian H, “I.” It just sounds so snobbishly pedantic these days to use “I” instead of “me” that I’ve stopped using it in some contexts.
I’m confident that Moses never said it.
I am pretty sure Einstein and Abe worked together to come up with that one.
They always did work well together, those two.
Alan Robertson
January 23, 2016 at 5:51 pm
Pardon, but wasn’t it Abe Lincoln who said that?
~~
No, he said, “The problem with the internet is it’s hard to determine the veracity of a statement. That’s how WWI started.” He said that in 1885.
They don’t de-ice the blades so much in order for them to produce again energy, as to stop them from being a dangerous weapon capable of throwing away huge blades of ice as they rotate again. They are possibly spending more money that they will produce with it, but they are potentially avoiding the need to pay huge compensations.
Exactly so. It has happened that a wind turbine has hurled javelins of ice at the public.
In the future, wind turbine javelin throwing will be an Olympic sport.
In Vermont, Wind opposition is being made illegal without a law license, according to this article. Thought that it should be passed on.
http://notrickszone.com/2016/01/23/big-green-tyranny-vermont-signals-citizens-opposing-wind-energy-now-requires-license-to-practice-law/#sthash.3hkoAKgl.dpbs
And
‘Vermont’s Energy Siting Struggle Hits Crescendo’, Jan.21, 2016
What started as a letter from Rutland regarding a lack of local control over renewable energy siting has culminated in an 86-town strong “Vermont energy rebellion”.
http://www.watchdog.org/254581/vermonts-energy-siting-struggle-hits-crescendo/?preview_id=254581
Wasn’t always, but Vermont’s a Blue state. Like everyone else, let’m learn from their suffering.
R. Farrier — HOW CREEPY.
I just read this today in the Carl Sandburg biography of Abraham Lincoln:
(Source: Abraham Lincoln — The Prairie Years and the War Years One-volume Edition, 1954, p. 53)
Well, not any old opposition, but helping abutters prepare challenges to PSB (Public Service Board) meetings, something she has done on her own time and not as a lawyer. The PSB issues or denies permits for the turbines and the hearing are run like a trial. New Hampshire has the same arrangement through the Site Evaluation Committee.
It appears the wind developers realized they can shut up Annette Smith by siccing the Attorney General’s office on her. She hasn’t been charged yet, but you don’t reply to a criminal investigation by the AG without spending money on lawyers.
I’ll be donating some money at https://www.gofundme.com/74kx663w
[“… helping abutters” ?? .mod]
[“… helping abutters” ?? .mod]
Hmm. Well, Baptist were originally called “Anabaptist” because they were against infant baptism. (The thinking being along the lines an infant couldn’t decide what they believed.) The “ana” meaning “against”. In Greek sometimes an “a” added to a word meant the opposite.
Perhaps he meant those that are against spewing the crap? 😎
…
abutter (redirected from abutters)
Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal.
a·but (ə-bŭt′)
v. a·but·ted, a·but·ting, a·buts
v.intr.
To touch or end at one end or side; lie adjacent.
v.tr.
1. To border upon or end at; be next to.
2. To support as an abutment.
[Middle English abutten, from Old French abouter, to border on (a-, to from Latin ad-; see ad- + bouter, to strike; see bhau- in Indo-European roots) and from Old French abuter, to end at (from but, end; see butt4).]
“Stop talking about my abutt!”
-Annette Smith
How long before opposition to “Green Crap” will be legally declared to be “Hate Crime”?
@ur momisugly R. Farrier, I wonder how many “elected” municipal councils have that requirement?
You people are all confused about the meaning of this photo.
The whole point of erecting wind turbines was to put a stop to catastrophic atmospheric warming.
And this turbine has clearly become a victim of its own success.
If it wasn’t for wind turbines like this then children wouldn’t know what a helicopter de-icing a wind turbine was…
Wait a minute – now I’ve confused myself… 🙂
Hilarious. The only problem is that the photo is from a test of a deicing system developed for wind turbines lacking integrated deicing systems, and was carried out in February 2014 at the Uljabuouda wind farm in northern Sweden just 40 miles south of the Arctic Circle.
Marc Morano failed to note this when he assembled a grab-bag of “gee it’s cold” links to reply to the warmest year on record announcement by NASA and the NOAA. I guess Marc doesn’t like extreme engineering either.
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/vindkraft/article3877156.ece
http://windren.se/WW2015/WW2015_13_312_Gedda_Deicing_helicopter.pdf
http://winterwind.se/2012/download/5b_Rudholm.pdf
Sure. You are right.
So now provide the UK National Grid wind capacity factor for that year, or since. If you dare. I think you will dare not, since the numbers are horrible.
Capacity factor of almost 26% in 2014. If you think that’s “horrible”, bear in mind the wind is free.
Magma – oil and gas is also “FREE”, you just have to drill a hole in the ground to get all that “free” energy. Like WInd turbines – the wind is free but getting it is not. Which one produces the most concentrated economical energy?
Wayne has forgotten about the costs of oil refineries, navies to defend shipping lanes, the War or Terror, and so on.
And Magma (and Felix, it appears) have forgotten that the cost of production, installation, and maintenance of a wind turbine are less than break-even BUT FOR tax and or traditional power customer rate surcharge subsidies.
GREATER “than break-even” (oh, brother)
Felix and Magma forget that concrete, steel, electronics and plastics are required in wind and solar power systems and thus NOT free! They still need to be mined, refined and produced. All the times I have dug holes in the ground I have never ever found shrink-wrapped copper cables with terminators fitted! NEVAH!
Correction, LOL! Not shrink-wrapped cables. Cables with plastic heat-shrunk (Heat-shrink – It’s really amazing stuff these days) insulation on them. Sheesh…I forget the technology sometimes.
Magma, you say “bear in mind the wind is free.” But by the same logic, petroleum is free also. It is in the harvesting and conversion of one form of energy into another that a cost is derived. Wind carries momentum that must be harvested and converted into electricity, just as petroleum has chemical energy that must be harvested and converted to electricity. This “wind is free” meme is pure nonsense, but you guys still use it since it fools the rubes. Wind may drive a sail boat, but the minute that ways to drive a ship with steam were invented was the minute that wind power of boats became untenable. Cabin cruisers might cost more to fuel than sail boats, but the sail makes it far more expensive still.
I would suggest not installing wind turbines where thy might get iced up – Sweden, Norway, Finland, New Hampshire, Montana, etc….
I would agree that the wind is free, until you ask the wind to do some work. So off shore power only cost the consumer 300% (wholesale) more. I love Green Logic. If the consumers ever figure it out, they will be pissed. Well, those that have not frozen to death due to high rates.
Here is an English translation of the first link in Magma’s post.
Somebody upthread seemed to want to tell me that wind is approaching grid parity.
Then can they explain to me why we in the UK are paying £150/MWh to offshore wind energy producers – when the current wholesale price is £50/MWh.
And we are large scale adopters. At what point do those promised economies of scale actually kick in.
Because – I’ve been waiting a long time. And three times the regular electricity price doesn’t look like approaching grid parity to me…
we in the UK are paying £150/MWh to offshore wind energy producers – when the current wholesale price is £50/MWh
==========================
that would be your average wholesale price. When wind farms are producing your wholesale price probably drops to zero, or even goes negative. You end up paying £150/MWh for something that is worse less than nothing, Something similar to garbage, that other people would gladly pay you good money to simply take it off their hands.
And wind farms are not producing? Well your wholesale price probably jumps to a whole lot more than £150/MWh, and the baseline producers can take turns simply not producing and jack the prices up to the sky, and bleed the system dry. Because in the end the baseline producers now need to make their money when the wind doesn’t blow, which means they need to increase their prices to cover the times when the wind blows and they have to sit idle.
So it is a lose-lose for the taxpayer and consumer.
Here in the UK frozen and broken wind turbines would not be such a bad thing.
Provided that they are listed as operational – then the operator could potentially receive a massive payment for NOT operating them.
Which is a win win, if you happen own a dysfunctional wind turbine, which you weren’t planning on operating anyway.
And a lose lose, if you happen to be a user of grid electricity in the UK.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/wind-farms-paid-53-million-to-switch-off-last-year/
indefatigablefrog
I’m uncertain how it works in the UK, but here in the colonies, it REALLY helps if you are an Obama donor. In fact, if reported incidents are accurate, it’s almost required.
Yeah, it’s more or less the same sort of situation here. Or possible much worse.
Here, the same people who can vote in parliament for legislation also head the companies that get the hand-outs.
The same people can even stand on enquiries that dismiss allegations of manipulation of data.
Not focusing on any one member of the house of lords, in particular:
“Climate sceptics questioned whether Lord Oxburgh, chairman of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association and the wind energy company Falck Renewables, was truly independent because he led organisations that depended on climate change being seen as an urgent problem.”
http://www.thegwpf.com/lord-oxburgh-cru-inquiry-chairman-has-a-conflict-of-interest/#sthash.8TKw9EyO.dpuf
Easy, you can achieve grid parity by jacking up the cost of traditional sources (fossil fuel) with taxes, regulation, carbon surcharges, etc.
Yep – that’s clearly the plan.
To jack up the costs incurred by anyone trying to generate cheap conventional.
And to dish out heaps of free cash to anyone promising to create a renewables “miracle”.
In the end – the prices of the two will meet half-way.
Half-way between cheap and absurdly expensive.
Oh, I thought it was a typo and he meant to type “grid parody” . . 😉
Major Uh Oh.
The east coast storm has dumped several centimeters of snow on the E!Musk-SolarCity panels of home-roofs.
Problem 1) No electricity.
Problem 2) Extra weight on roof (roof designed and built in the ’60s – ’70s at sub-code standards.)
Problem 3) E!Musk High-Tech Super-Duper storage batteries at zero charge.
No worry, E!Musk “Industries” will still get their Federal and State subsides and E!Musk will still receive generous kick-back cash from State Governor’s Office and Federal Agencies.
Ha ha
PS E!Musk has Little Trouble in BIG Nevada!
I had forgotten how funny that movie is.
+10
WTF ?????
It’s important for the blades to slowly turn, in order to prevent brinelling of the turbine bearings and races. There is no known lubricant which can stay in place and provide a cushion between metal surfaces under such intense pressure, without constantly replenishing the squeezed- out lubricant, by rotating the blades.The damage increases with time, until the surface area of the indentation/bearing surface reaches equilibrium with the force causing the metal distortion. The turbine in the photo now has a diminished bearing life.
There is no known lubricant
=============
the ugly truth about size. double the size, 4 times the area but 8 times the weight and therefore double the pressure. as turbines get bigger the bearing pressure increases until no material can withstand the pressure.
windmills are like hard disks. The manufacturer’s quote MTBF of 1 million hours, when in reality the devices have a life expectancy more like 50 thousand hours, similar to other mechanical devices.
mtbf of a wind turbine is around 6 weeks about 750 hours.
And lets not forget brinelling of idle bearings leading to failure.
“ferdberple
January 23, 2016 at 6:18 pm
The manufacturer’s quote MTBF…”
An often misquoted and misunderstood measure of reliability (Mean Time Before Failure – MTBF). Most Mfg’s quote this for an individual component. Once you start putting them together to make something useful the MTBF figure drastically reduces. It’s not a very useful index on reliability IMO. It’s a bit like global average temperature. Rather meaningless but a nice “feel good” factor.
ive wondered a lot about why the hell dont they use the upright Venturi style drum rotors
would sort the bearings off kilter issue wouldnt it?
and theyd still spin if icy
and NOT wipe out birds
Vertical-axis turbines “look cool” but have poor efficiency. The problem is fundamental, because at any given time half the blades are being pushed by the turbine Into the wind.
Most obviously, that means that only half the blades can be doing useful work. But that’s only part of the problem.
The relative airspeed seen by the blades going the “wrong” direction is higher than the airspeed seen by the blades which are capturing useful wind energy. Since wind resistance is proportional to the square of the wind velocity, the faster the turbine spins the less efficient it is, because the rate at which the blades going the wrong direction waste energy increases faster than the rate at which the blades going the right direction capture energy.
(It’s not clear whether vertical axis turbines are really any better for birds, either.)
Because they are even less efficient than the 3 blade up-wind pattern.
as wind is a low density resource the unit needs to be big & high to capture max amount of turbulence free air, those requirements bring ‘challenges’ .
For a reliable output those ‘challenges’ maybe worth the effort,
For an unreliable intermittent output…definitely not.
For a vertical axis turbine to have the same swept area that a 3 MW Horizontal axis turbine does, lessee, https://www.vestas.com/en/products_and_services/turbines/v90-3_0_mw says 6,362 m^2. That’s 1.6 acres or 0,6 hectares. A typical cross section has a height that’s twice the width, say 60 x 120 m (that’s a little high, but even with adjustable blades, you can’t get peak energy out of the geometry, I think you need something much larger).
That’s just about the size of a football or soccer field. So I’ll let you figure out a design for the cylinder and find bearings that will support a center axis.
Hmm. I think my analysis is hopelessly broken. That Vestas machine has a tip velocity between 100 and 200 mph. If we need speeds like that, how can a vertical axis system possibly scale up to that size?
Wind power- a medieval failed technology being foisted on a gullible world by rent seeking cronies.
Nice epigram, Hunter. +1
Wicked giants! Don Quixote was RIGHT!
It was not a failed technology, in it’s day. It ground grains for bread making on a large scale. It also drained low lying lands such as in Holland. It made it’s mark, but we have better technology now. But power derived from wind is several steps back from where we are to where we once were. Wind and solar have their place in small and remote areas, but large scale base load? Nah! There is only ONE genuine “CO2 free” large scale power generating technology we have available today, and that is nuclear. And that won’t happen (Until the decision makers wake up).
I agree, Patrick. Obsolete would be a better adjective there.
And, GO, NUCLEAR POWER!
In the medieval, it may have been the best available. But it ain’t now.
I sincerely hope that “CAGW” inspired regulations don’t make it so.
Wind turbines use the hefty equivalent of between 8% to 14% of the electrical power they profess to produce as a drawback from the Grid when they are not generating power themselves.
This drawback of [ fossil fueled ] electrical grid power is carefully concealed and never publicized by wind farm operators and is not metered nor paid for by the wind farm operators.
It is used to run the electronics, to maintain the correct temperatures in the various oils used in hydraulics and bearings and gearboxes.
It is used to both brake and maintain the braking of the blades and for turning the turbine into or out of wind when not operating and for altering the blade pitch.
It is used in some makes of turbines to heat the blades for de-icing as our headline post depicts, a blade heating that might require 10% to 20% of a turbine’s nominal power output.
———————
[ quoted from the AWEO source as below ]
Grid power is used in;
[ magnetizing the stator — the induction generators used in most large grid-connected turbines require a “large” amount of continuous electricity from the grid to actively power the magnetic coils around the asynchronous “cage rotor” that encloses the generator shaft; at the rated wind speeds, it helps keep the rotor speed constant, and as the wind starts blowing it helps start the rotor turning (see next item); in the rated wind speeds, the stator may use power equal to 10% of the turbine’s rated capacity, in slower winds possibly much more”
&
Could it be that at times each turbine consumes more than 50% of its rated capacity in its own operation?! If so, the plant as a whole — which may produce only 25% of its rated capacity annually — would be using (for free!) twice as much electricity as it produces and sells. An unlikely situation perhaps, but the industry doesn’t publicize any data that proves otherwise; incoming power is apparently not normally recorded. ]
——————————
Grid power is used by wind turbines to very slowly turn the blades on the big wind turbines to prevent slow creeping deformation and bending of the turbine blade shaft from the weight of the blades, a similar problem to that which large stationary single or twin shafted ships propellers shafts suffer from as do the very large steam turbine shafts in the big steam powered electrical generation plants when the turbines are down for maintenance and are stationary.
That 8% to 14% estimate [ it can be much higher in some circumstances ] of grid power drawn back from the grid is never accounted for in both the claimed total output of power and the real financial costs to the public of wind turbines in the very dubious and heavily promoted propaganda of wind turbine industry.
Ref; Energy consumption in wind facilities
http://www.aweo.org/windconsumption.html
It reminds me of a story I saw about traffic lights, where they had switched to LED lights instead of incandescents and they had frozen over so you couldn’t see them, the old lights produced enough waste heat that it kept them defrosted automatically.
I wos gunna get a dgree in climit chnge but they woodn’t tak me on as I wos over qualified. I upgraded to the man hat holds the stop sing at street worxs
Wel dun. 🙂
***it is this sound advice?
22 Jan: Union of Concerned Scientists: Mid-Atlantic Blizzard to Cause Coastal Flooding
Flooding May Cause Property Damage and Power Outages, Likely to Occur More Often in Future
Meanwhile, UCS released an analysis in October that showed coastal power plants and substations—including in the Delaware Valley and Hampton Roads, Va., in the path of the blizzard—could be exposed to storm surge. If flooded, thousands of customers could lose power…
***The report also called on utilities to invest in wind and solar power coupled with energy storage that can provide power even when the electric grid goes down…
The report found that several of the utilities that may be affected by the blizzard have been dedicating insufficient attention to the present-day threat, let alone the significantly escalated future risks driven by rising seas
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/mid-atlantic-blizzard-to-cause-coastal-flooding-0661
would solar panels be providing households with much energy during the current blizzard when many of them are covered in snow?
how much energy is wind & solar sending to the grid during the blizzard?
fortunate that the blizzard has hit over the weekend when electricity demand is low, I guess.
Do they even have a clue how often they happened in the past?!? Or do they know but choose to ignore it for a present gain?
They have this idea that subsidizing renewables today is like subsidizing the railroads back in the day. That progress is inevitable. Put the pony express right out of business. What they don’t understand is that the subsidies must be judicious. Our forebears seemed to have had a better sense of that.You can’t just pick anything and call it progress.
Carbon dioxide is less than half the GHG they think it is. Their heads are squarely up their buns. In a way it is like the foolishness about Sodium. It has been well known since the seventies by anyone with a clue that Sodium is harmless and it is actually the Chlorine in table salt that causes hypertension. CO2 has become a proxy, like Sodium, for a larger agenda to get away from petroleum. A tangent of this is socialist, but my sense is this will not resonate widely.
Humans have a natural repugnance for oil. Don’t believe me? Get out there and change the oil in your car, and grease the front end while you’re at it. Slime yourself with it first with it all, it’s inevitable.
This is the larger and more resonant issue.
Huh? I bet a lot of folks on this site have (or maybe still do) change the oil on their vehicles. I live in the country. I am not about to load a few thousand pounds of equipment on a trailer just to change the oil, nor am I going to take my quad or other farm implements to town for maintenance. And yes I grease my tractor but my truck and car have greaseless front ends – truck has one grease fitting on front drive (I am not sure I like that as it seems that you end up replacing the parts instead of servicing them.) At 69, I can still maintain my machinery – but then I live 25 miles from the nearest small town and 60 miles from a major centre. I keep oil and grease on hand like everyone else in this part of the country. Nuthin’ like the smell of a little oil and grease to whet a lunch time appetite.
Good for you! A couple years younger, I do the same, but it doesn’t whet my appetite for anything but a hot shower.
The problem can be easily resolved using an existing patented electrothermal nanocoating on the blades to keep them heated to above freezing.
Yes, indeed. Industrial wind turbines will be seen in the future as a monument to the stupidly of today’s main stream media and their obedient servants in government – see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gliVowu7xCo
Maybe not . . things could change. I say start taking parts out at random, and putting parts in at random, and get the power of Evolution working for us ; )
Build hot wind tunnels around them. At least the birds won’t get spliced.
Having thought more deeply about this problem since writing a few minutes ago… the wind tunnel can blow hot or cold according to the weather. Our Prime Minister Turnbull is running on Innovation. This should get me a big fat grant.
If occasionally needing to use combustion devices to de-ice them was anywhere close to being the biggest problem in replacing combustion devices with wind turbines for grid power, such replacement would almost make sense.
I agree that the above photo is ridiculous indeed but I see some strange things being said on this forum about wind so I’d like to share these results I did some time ago after a row here with Richard S Courtney who said that wind turbines are net consumers not producers of electricity (based on a conversation he had with a NGUK manager at a conference years ago!). I gather he is not the only one here who believes that.
I used the national load data for the Republic of Ireland and the wind production data. In the table I rescaled things to kW but in reality they are in GW (rescaled by a factor of 100,000 – 1.8GW of wind in ROI in 2014 and scaled here to 18kW). Can’t quite remember why I did that but it has no impact on the point I am making (just read the values as GW/10). In 2014 19.6% of all electrical power consumption nationally was from wind. I haven’t yet updated my figures for 2015. The capacity factor of wind in ROI in the period 2001-2013 is 29% with a median of 29.4% (this is about twice that of Germany from memory). Min annual wind production remains a 0MW much to the annoyance of the wind industry here. The spatial diversity they had pinned their hopes on hasn’t worked (known well in advance that winter blocking anti-cyclones would cause such results).
I also got data for CCGTs and their inefficiencies at part loads (they reduce as it is loaded less). From the table below you will see the effect of doubling and trebling the amount of wind capacity in the Republic of Ireland. The model I built curtails wind to the load (loss of production). In reality the CCGT efficiency figures are better as you would be dealing with a portfolio of generation plants and not a single one as I modeled here. Portfolios run more efficiently than single plants at part load.
From the result you will see that the amount of fossil fuel burnt is indeed less (last row). I accept for other fossil fuel technologies such as coal these gains would be much less as coal burning plant is much less suitable for pairing with wind as CCGT. Please note the results are calculated form real world measured values and not model projections/predictions/whatever!
http://s19.postimg.org/mnoso31pf/Wind_Scenario_Table.jpg
I just hope that these real world results show some here that wind does indeed produce real electricity and reduces fossil fuel consumption (NB: I am making no claims here re the economics of wind power which, experience has shown, requires 100% backup – storage, interconnector or OC peaking plant).
I just hope that these real world results
These are not real world results. These are claims made by extrapolating 2X and 3X wind from 1X data. These are exactly that, extrapolations, not “real world results”.
show some here that wind does indeed produce real electricity
Well of course they do, I recall nobody saying otherwise.
and reduces fossil fuel consumption
Again, of course it does, but by what amount? The direct reductions are off set by the very factors you admit to next:
(NB: I am making no claims here re the economics of wind power which, experience has shown, requires 100% backup – storage, interconnector or OC peaking plant).
And there is where the argument for wind comes off the rails. Not only is it not economical, but as the percentage of wind power increases, it must become even LESS economical. The larger your % of production is wind power, the larger your investment in the building and maintaining of backup, storage, interconnector, etc. It isn’t a straight line. A grid with 10% wind power can adapt to wild fluctuation in wind with some careful management, one that is 50% wind would require massive investment in idle infrastructure, making the whole thing less economical, not more. Those negative economic impacts must be recouped somewhere, and the only place that they can be recouped in from non wind energy sources.
Having see richardscourtney in action on matters such as this, my guess is that you would do well to review what he said with an open mind.
‘These are not real world results. These are claims made by extrapolating 2X and 3X wind from 1X data.’
Firstly the 1x data is real and it shows the fossil fuel reduction. The extrapolation to 2x and 3x is reasonable and is based entirely on real world results – that is what I meant. Just because modeling has been used and abused in climate science doesn’t mean that calculating things on a reasonable basis is invalid.
‘Well of course they do, I recall nobody saying otherwise.’ – as I said Richard S Courtney said so many times and believes so. I have seen other references here to wind being a consumer not producer of electricity. Good to see you don’t buy that nonsense!
‘Again, of course it does, but by what amount? The direct reductions are off set by the very factors you admit to next:’
In terms of fuel savings on production was the main point I was making. You now are going at the total energy costs of wind aspect. I haven’t studied that here but it has been studied in much detail even back to the energy to mine the materials to build the turbines. It too shows a positive energy production. From memory, I recall that mid sized turbines were net energy positive after about 7 years. It would be shorter for modern larger ones.
Wind has been very lucky in the development of OCGT and CCGT plants alongside it as it has matured. They are ideal partners for it. Distillate fired OC plants are low on capex but expensive on running costs. On a life cycle basis they are good backup for wind and minimise the backup costs.
However, I did say I wasn’t addressing economics in my post just the impact of wind on fossil fuel plants and claims made here that they caused more energy to be lost due to increased inefficiency that they do energy produced. I have shown through real world actual demand and production data from 2013 in Ireland that that is nonsense.
I know wind is expensive but the argument for it is more about energy security for Ireland than anything else. Ireland relies on a very very long pipeline from Eastern Europe to supply most of its generation plant and using indigenous energy resources makes sense for us from a security perspective. Also we get at least twice the output from a turbine compared to many other locations in Europe. The cost to electricity consumers in Ireland for wind energy is quite reasonable and we are now close to producing nearly 25% of all electrical demand from wind. I know the savings reduce and the table shows that clearly (particularly for 3x).
here’s real world and not pretty –
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/07/germany-2014-report-card-is-in-its-25000-wind-turbines-get-an-f-averaged-only-14-8-of-rated-capacity/#sthash.AQdV3SsA.dpbs
Bubba – Those figures confirm what I recollected that Ireland’s capacity factor is about twice that of Germany. I am surprised Germany is so enthusiastic about it as it really doesn’t have a very good wind resource at all. 2014 was a reasonable performance year in Ireland but the annual cf has varied from under 22% to over 36% (they are the 95% CI actually too).
EIA report that typical capacity factors for fossil fuel plants range from 31-60% in the various regions around the world. Hydro power ranges from 15% to 57% and nuclear from 48% to 90%. I’ll try to see if I can calculate weighted averages for these. Ireland’s cf of 29% is higher than the highest regions in the world (US & Africa @ur momisugly 27%) going by the figures in their report.
Hopilte;
I know wind is expensive but the argument for it is more about energy security for Ireland than anything else. Ireland relies on a very very long pipeline from Eastern Europe
Ah. You go to great lengths to demonstrate that that using windmills reduces CO2 production, but when challenged on the economics suddenly it is about energy security. You explain carefully how wind can be combined with OCGT and CCGT for backup, leaving your energy security 100% relying on the exact same very very long pipeline from Eastern Europe. Further, if the goal is energy security, then there are other options more economical than wind.
I begin to have a sense for why richardscourtney would have gotten frustrated with you. Me, I’m just amused.
No David you appear to be unable to read and comprehend what you read. First off I SPECIFICALLY stated I wasn’t discussing the economics but the issue that some people believe wind is not a producer but a consumer of electricity. That AND THAT ALONE was the point of my post. You alone here don’t seem to have understood that.
Only an idiot believes that wind is cheaper than fossil fuels. I never said it and never believed it. I, not you, pointed out that wind still has to have 100% backup pointing out how that affects the economics. You never challenged me on any economics at all – I didn’t discuss the economics. I suspect I know a lot more about the economics of wind than you do. For your information Ireland produces >20% of its electricity from wind and it costs us an annual premium of around E100 each for it (not all of that goes to wind). Hardly what you would call gouging our eyes out, distributionism or communism! Oh, and last surveys I saw the vast majority of people are in favour of wind investment in Western countries. So, I guess it is the people’s choice and not our political masters’.
It strikes me that you are having a row with yourself. You seem to be the type that would argue with his own shadow.
Hoplite January 24, 2016 at 10:53 am
Like wow.
You’re clearly an advocate of wind.
You began by showing that wind is a net reduction of CO2. Fine. But you claimed “real world” numbers from what was clearly an extrapolation, not real world. I pointed out that efficiency and economics change considerably when wind becomes a larger part of the total production. Then, YOU said that the real reason to go wind was energy security! I pointed out you don’t achieve that by going with wind because you still need the gas pipeline for backup. Which generated a snark attack questioning my reading comprehension. Nice,
Point Hoffer.
Game, set , and match.
@David ‘from what was clearly an extrapolation, not real world.’
Unbelieveable. The x1 is real world data!!! I paired it with real world efficiency figures of a CCGT and showed it does indeed reduce fossil fuel consumption. But you still can’t get that fact. THERE’S NO EXTRAPOLATION IN THE X1 DATA!! Get it?
I’m not an advocate of wind but am certainly an advocate of the truth. I said part of the reason for wind was increasing energy security. You read that as no more fossil fuels!!! People who actually understand the complexities of these matters, know that reducing fossil fuel consumption increases energy security as the existing fuel facilities will last for longer in the event of a crisis in supply/cost or whatever.
There’s really no point in my debating this with someone who has as closed a mind as you do.
1. I didn’t say there was extrapolation in the 1x data. I said there was in the 2x and 3x data.
2. You didn’t say “part” of the reason was energy security, you said energy security was the “primary” reason.
3. Your explanation of how this improves energy security implies a fundamental misunderstanding of storage capacities and the practical use of one type of fossil fuel (coal, oil, etc) to replace the utility provided by natural gas. They simply cannot help each other on a time frame that would mitigate an energy security problem like a pipeline burst.
You end by resorting to more insults. Bye.
In New Zealand (NZ), helicopters are sometimes used to “stir” the air on frosty nights to save grapes. Much better use of the technology than spraying frozen turbine blades. Can’t eat a turbine blade, but I am sure I can down a glass of NZ sav blank from the Wairarapa!
And as an ex grape grower and a wine makers assistant up here in the (currently partly) frozen north I totally agree. A StoneLeigh Sav Blanc is one of the best, I guess Kiwi’s don’t have rocks in their heads but use them for making a great wine! ( we also use them to “dry” cherries around picking time to prevent splitting).
As we do up here in Canada, we do the same thing during our cherry harvest and blossom time to prevent early frost damage and later splitting, and your Wairarapa StoneLeigh Sav Blanc is one of the best on the planet. (I grew grapes and worked in the wine industry) It goes really well with lamb and red salmon!
Yes, we do the same up here in Canada including our soft fruits, ( For instance early frost and preventing splitting of cherries at harvest time). Stone Leigh’s Sav Blanc is great!
Yes Asybot and Tboias, having lived in the Wairarapa I can attest to the fact that is a rather nice wine indeed.
Hoplite,
To derive an ROI on a wind turbine, did you subtract (a) the energy invested on manufacture, installation, maintenance & decommissioning from (b) the anticipated total energy output of the turbine over its lifespan?
In your argument you only cite figures for energy production.
Khwarizmi
ROI = ‘Republic of Ireland’ not ‘Return on Investment’
Always best to qualify a TLA.
BTW, I lived in Waterford.
After reading this exchange, I have decided it would be a fine and dandy idea to learn to converse exclusivity by the use of three letter shorthand phrasing.
Dang autocorrect. Doh!
And these total energy costs have been done in extensive studies as I posted up above. Don’t have direct links but read them when I did these about 18 months ago.
well, with global warning no more frozen blades in sweden…we need more global warming to prevent global warming.