By Roger Sowell (1)
Figure 1 Artist’s Depiction – Hywind Scotland credit Statoil ASA Environmental Statement
Background
This article is the result of a request by Charles The Moderator (ctm) for me to write a more in-depth piece on my views of wind energy systems. About one week ago, WUWT had an article bashing the Hywind Scotland wind farm (7/28/2017, see link) on which article I offered a few comments. I also added a link on the Tips and Notes page to the Hywind Scotland project’s Environmental Statement (ES). That ES is the rough equivalent to an Environmental Impact Report in the US. Many technical details are included in the ES. That note in Tips and Notes prompted ctm to ask me to write this article.
Having withstood for several years the slings and arrows (including libel) of many commenters and guest bloggers at WUWT, I was reluctant to write a positive piece on wind energy. I reserve such articles for my own blog. But, ctm is a persuasive and charming fellow, and I agreed to write this. I have attempted to use plentiful references and citations throughout, and those only from reputable sources. For example, Statoil’s claims to 40 years offshore experience, built and operated more than 40 offshore oil and gas structures, some of those offshore structures are powered from shore by undersea cables, and the details of their Troll platform, are from Statoil’s own documents online. If those facts are in error, the fault is theirs. However, those facts also align with my memories of working with Statoil guys over the years.
Forging ahead, it should be remembered that another article of mine is online at WUWT (and my own blog), on the serious consequences of breaking the libel laws online. See link to “Climate Science, Free Speech and Legal Liability – Part 1.” In plain English, it is OK to disagree, but argue your points with facts, and argue politely.
Introduction
This article’s overall topic is part of the questions, what should a modern civilization do to look to its future electrical energy needs? Then, what steps should be taken now to ensure a safe, reliable, environmentally responsible, and cost-effective supply of electricity will be available in the future? These questions have no easy answers; they occupy a very great deal of time, energy, and written words.
More to the point, what should an advanced society do in the present, when it is very clear that two of the primary sources of electric power will be removed from the generating fleet with 20 years, and half of that removed within 10 years?
Two scenarios are discussed: first the world electric generating situation, then that in the United States.
The basic facts are these: at present, worldwide electricity is provided by six primary sources: coal burning, natural gas burning, nuclear fission, hydroelectric, oil burning, and a mix of renewable energy systems. Of the renewables, most of the power is from wind turbine generators (WTG), second is solar power, and the rest is from a few other sources that include geothermal, biomass, biogas, and others. (source: EIA and other reputable entities). For approximate percentages, in 2012 the world’s electric power was provided by Coal 39.6, Natural Gas 22, Hydroelectric 17.6, Nuclear 10.7, Oil 5, Wind 2.4, Solar 0.5, and Other 2.1. Figures for different countries are available from various references.
In the United States, however, the mix of energy sources is changing rapidly over the next two decades. The essential facts in the US are a great number of nuclear plants will retire; many coal-fired plants will retire, many natural gas plants will be built; and a great number of wind turbine generators will be built. Within 20 years, almost every one of the 98 nuclear plants in the US will retire. Half of those will be shut down within 10 years. That is most significant, because coal plants produce 30 percent and nuclear plants produce 18 to 19 percent of all the electricity in the US. With most of those shut down in 20 years, the US is facing a deficit of almost one-half of the electricity supply. In energy terms, coal and nuclear provide approximately 2,000 million MWh per year. (EIA for 2016). For the shorter term, ten years from now, one-half of those shutdowns will occur, leaving a shortfall of 1,000 million MWh per year.
An aside to look more closely at coal burning power plants and their rapid closures in the US. Coal is no longer king, no matter what anyone says about the matter. The fact is, as I have long stated and written, that coal burning power plants were intentionally given a pass on environmental issues. They were not forced to comply with many of the environmental requirements of the US Clean Air Act. Instead, the coal industry found ways to “perform maintenance” that added capacity, while retaining the grandfathered status. Only a few coal burning power plants were required to comply with the pollution laws. Recently, that all changed. Now, coal burning power plants are closing in record numbers because the owners cannot afford to install the expensive pollution control equipment. (Reference: MIT paper, 2016, MITEI-WP-2016-01; also see http://www.law.nyu.edu/sites/default/files/2016-ELI_Grandfathering.Coal_..Power_.Plant_.Regulation.Under_.the_.CAA_.pdf) I am aware that this is a controversial statement at WUWT, having made this statement before and receiving blistering comments on that. Yet, facts are very stubborn things; they do not care one bit what anyone thinks of them. Facts just are.
The facts of US nuclear power plants are just as plain: the fleet of 98 plants is aging. Almost half, 47 out of 98 still running, are between 40 and 47 years old. (reference: https://www.eia.gov/nuclear/spent_fuel/ussnftab2.php ) Within 10 years, it is almost certain that all of those reactors will be shut down permanently and retired. Many of the nuclear plants are losing money and have done so for a few years. Some have received direct government subsidies recently to keep running. These direct payments are in addition to the numerous other subsidies that US nuclear plants receive, such as for indemnity from radiation releases, federal guarantees on construction loans, softening of safety regulations, laws prohibiting lawsuits during construction, and others. .
In the arena of electricity generation at grid-scale, conventional and new technologies contend for market share. Over the past decade, new technologies that use renewable energy as the motive force have become more prevalent. Wind and solar technologies are two that are presently at the forefront of market share and development effort. As the traditional mix of generating technology changes in the next two decades, wind energy will certainly play a greater and greater role. In early 2017, combined output from hydroelectric and renewable sources slightly exceeded nuclear power plant output (Figure 1 from EIA, figures in billion kWh per month). Also notable from Figure 2 is the almost complete absence of energy from wind (dark green area) before 2010.
Figure 2 US Renewables with Hydro v Nuclear
The growth of wind energy has been substantial in only 7 years, from almost zero percent to 7.5 percent of US total electricity. The growth in wind energy is shown also in Figure 3, where wind energy, for the first time, was the same as the output of hydroelectric plants in 2014-2015. As an aside, Figure 3 is the real hockey stick. The data is from EIA, but the graph is my own. This graph made quite a splash on Twitter on 5/2/2016 among the #windenergy crowd. (@rsowell is my handle)
Figure 3 US Hydro v Wind Energy
The US has more than adequate wind resources and natural gas resources to fill the generating gap from retired nuclear and coal power plants. Onshore wind capacity at present stands at a bit more than 84,000 MW, (windexchange reference) with another 25,000 MW under construction. Natural gas power plants of 190 GW could easily be built to meet the need. Wind turbines of 170 GW could be installed and remain well below 20 percent of all electricity generated annually. The added 170 GW of wind is well below the estimated 11,000 GW of wind capacity that exists onshore in the US.(Lopez, A. et. al. Technical Report NREL/TP-6A20-51946, July 2012) These figures, 190 GW for natural gas, and 170 GW for wind energy are found as follows. The need is for new natural gas power plants to generate 1,000 million MWh per year. By dividing 1000 million by 8766 hours per year we obtain 114,076 MW (and multiply by 1 million). By then dividing by 0.6, the natural gas power plant capacity factor, we obtain 190,127 MW or 190 GW to install.
The 170 GW of wind capacity to install over the next decade is found similarly, but using 0.35 as the capacity factor. The desired result is to have wind energy make up 20 percent of the total electricity in the US annually, the “penetration” as it is known. With existing wind energy already at 7 percent penetration, the need then is for 13 percent from new wind turbines. Multiplying 0.13 times 4,000 million MWh/y we obtain 520 million MWh/y. As before, we divide by 8766 and multiply by 1 million to obtain 59,320 MW. This divided by the capacity factor of 0.35 gives 169,486 MW, which is rounded nicely to 170 GW of new wind capacity.
The nice result here is that total installed natural gas power plant capacity would exceed wind plant capacity. Therefore, when wind speed declines below generating speed, the natural gas power plants have plenty of capacity to make up the power deficit. Wind generating capacity at present is approximately 84 GW, and the new capacity to install is 170 GW. The total of 250 GW is less than existing natural gas power plant of approximately 260 GW. When the new natural gas power plant is added, there is 260 (old capacity) plus 190 (new capacity) which yields 450 GW of natural gas power plant capacity.
This gives a viable solution for the first ten years. Natural gas capacity would be 450 GW total, wind would be 250 GW total, and wind penetration would be a nice, round figure of 20 percent.
The second decade would require similar added capacity. An additional 170 GW of wind capacity would add 13 percent more to the penetration. That would then be 20 plus 13 for 33 percent total. That would present almost zero problems on the national grid. Total wind capacity would then be 250 GW plus 170 GW, which yields 420 GW. (reference DOE Wind Vision site states slightly more than 420 GW can be added by 2050 in their analysis. https://energy.gov/eere/wind/maps/wind-vision ) Natural gas capacity would be another 190 GW, for a total then of 450 plus 190 to yield 640 GW. With 640 being comfortably greater than 420, there is adequate natural gas power plant capacity to take over when the wind speed declines.
One question arises, then; can wind turbine generators be added at a rate necessary to achieve 170 GW over ten years? That is an average of 17 GW per year. From actual history, it is noted that in 2012, US wind capacity of a bit more than 13 GW was added. Also, 10 GW was added in 2009. It is clear, then, that 17 GW per year should be no problem. The US wind energy supply chain would be required to increase output by 4/13 or approximately 30 percent.
A second concern sometimes is expressed, as the land area required for a large number of wind turbines. That is not a problem, however. Studies of actual, modern, efficient wind farms found that on average, total land required is 85 acres per MW installed capacity. (Reference: Land Use for Wind Farms Technical Report NREL/TP-6A2-45834, August 2009 http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy09osti/45834.pdf ) The study used hectares, giving 34 h per MW. Converting appropriately, we obtain 85 acres per MW installed. The total land area, then, for 420 GW or 420,000 MW of wind capacity is 85 multiplied by 420,000 and divided by 640 acres per square mile. The result is then 55,800 square miles when rounded up a bit. For perspective, that is almost exactly the area of the state of Iowa, which has 56,272 square miles. Of course, the wind parks would be spread out over the states and not all concentrated in Iowa. Another consideration is almost all of the land with wind turbine generators can and would be used for its original purpose.
Why the focus on wind and natural gas? One might prefer to build sufficient nuclear plants or more coal power plants instead of wind and natural gas power plants. Nuclear and coal power plants are discussed below.
It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to build a sufficient number of nuclear power plants – 40 to 50 of them – in the next decade to replace those that retire. Recent news (7/31/2017) shows that the two new nuclear plants under construction in South Carolina at the V.C Summer plant have been halted with no intention to finish building them. (see https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-31/scana-to-cease-construction-of-two-reactors-in-south-carolina ) The South Carolina plants are approximately 35 percent complete, many years behind schedule and several $billion dollars over budget. The projects were halted when the revised estimate to complete showed $26 billion. In order to start up 40 to 50 nuclear plants ten years from this date, the 40 to 50 plants must be approved and under construction today also. Clearly, that has not happened. New nuclear plants also have a very high price for electricity produced.
It would also be unwise to build new coal-burning power plants since the remaining amount of US coal that can be mined at a profit is limited to 20-30 years or less at current prices. (Reference: Luppens, J.A., et al, 2015, Coal geology and assessment of coal resources and reserves in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming and Montana: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1809, 218 p., http://dx.doi.org/10.3133/pp1809 ) If coal prices rise, perhaps by increased demand or subsidies, more coal can be mined. However, high coal prices require a coal burning power plant to have higher electricity sales prices. That simply would not occur with natural gas and wind power at such very low prices as today. New coal-fired plants would lose money, just like the new nuclear plants would.
World-wide, the numbers are similar. Coal production is limited to no more than 50 years, unless some force increases the price at the mine-mouth. (Rutledge, David, “Estimating long-term world coal production with logit and probit transforms,” International Journal of Coal Geology, 85 (2011) 23-33 http://www.its.caltech.edu/~rutledge/DavidRutledgeCoalGeology.pdf )
Why onshore wind?
Why, then, the big push for wind technology? Below are listed a few reasons in support of wind power. Following that is a description in some detail the new 30 MW Hywind wind park being installed off the northeast coast of Scotland by Statoil.
Onshore wind farms have benefited greatly from private and public funding over the past decade. The wind turbine generators are already low-cost to install and operate. Projects are profitable in the Great Plains region of the US where the sales price for power is 4.3 cents per kWh. (source: 2015 Wind Technologies Market Report https://emp.lbl.gov/sites/default/files/2015-windtechreport.final_.pdf ) The federal subsidy is to end in 3-4 years. Most importantly, the installed cost has steadily decreased over the years, by a factor of 3 in the past 7 to 8 years. The low capital cost is the primary reason that wind power is being installed at 8 to 13 GW per year in the US. It must be acknowledged that the reductions in capital cost per kW occurred only because the federal and state subsidies for wind technology allowed developers to design, build, and install better and better designs. Whatever arguments there may be against subsidies, wind turbine generators have benefitted substantially from the subsidies.
Installed costs will continue to decrease as more improvements are made. Designers have several improvements yet to be implemented such as larger turbines, taller towers, and increased capacity factor. Oklahoma just announced a 2,000 MW project with 800 turbines of 2.5 MW each. Onshore wind farms will soon have the larger size at 4 MW then 6 MW turbines similar to those that are installed now in the ocean offshore.
Wind repower projects have even better economics. Repowering is the replacement of old, inefficient wind turbine generators with modern, usually much larger, and much more efficient systems. The wind will not have changed, was not used up, in the same location. In fact, the taller turbines reach higher and into better wind that typically has greater speed and more stability. The infrastructure is already in place for power lines and roads. Repowering may be able to incorporate legacy towers as the upper section of new, taller towers for larger wind turbine generators.
Wind power extends the life of natural gas wells. Wind power creates less demand for natural gas. This reduces the price of natural gas. That helps the entire economy, especially home heating bills, plus the price of electricity from burning natural gas. But, this also reduces the cost to make fertilizer that impacts food, since natural gas is the source of hydrogen that is used to make ammonia fertilizer.
Wind power is a great jobs creator. Today, there are more than 100,000 good jobs in the US wind energy industry. Many of the wind industry jobs are filled by aeronautical engineers. Instead of designing airplanes with two wings that fly in a straight line, they design wind rotors with three wings that turn in a circle. There are approximately 1.2 jobs per MW of installed capacity, with 84,000 MW and 100,000 jobs. That’s approximately the same ratio as in nuclear power plants, with 1 job per MW.
Wind provides security of energy supply. No one can impose an embargo on the wind. There are no foreign payments, and no foreign lands to protect with the US military.
Wind provides a good, drought-independent supplemental income via lease payments to thousands of families nationwide, due to the distributed nature of wind turbine projects. Almost 100 percent of the land can continue in its original activity, grazing cattle or farming. Marginal land with no economic activity now produces income for the landowner. 85 acres is required for 1 MW of WTG.
Wind power promotes grid-scale storage research and development. Wind energy generated at night during low demand periods can be stored then released when demand and prices are higher. As always, some losses occur when energy is stored and released later. Storage and release on demand has spinoff into electric car batteries. EVs will reduce or eventually eliminate gasoline consumption, and that will spell the end for OPEC. The entire world’s geopolitics will change as a result. Recently, the CEO of BP, the major international oil company, predicted that the next decade or two would bring such a surge of EVs that oil demand would peak, then decline. The CEO is right, too. When it becomes patriotic to drive an EV rather than a gas guzzler, EV sales will zoom. A gas guzzler will be seen as an OPEC enabler.
Wind power hastens nuclear plant retirements as electricity prices decline. Nuclear plants cannot compete with cheap electricity from cheap natural gas. As stated above, wind energy keeps natural gas prices low by reducing the demand for natural gas.
Power from wind is power without pollution. Wind power has no damaging health impacts from smoke, particulates, or noxious sulfur or nitrogen oxides. The American Lung Association encourages clean, pollution-free wind power.
Summary to this point.
The utility-scale power generation mix in the US will change substantially, even dramatically over the next ten and twenty years. Nuclear power will be almost non-existent. Coal power will also be greatly reduced or almost absent. Wind power will be four to five times as much capacity and generation compared to today. Natural gas power will grow to replace the nuclear and coal production, but will loaf along as wind generation occurs. Only when the wind dies down will natural gas power plants roar to life at full throttle. This describes the US situation.
Several other nations also have similar issues to face. Of the approximately 450 nuclear power plants still operating world-wide, roughly one-half will retire within 20 years, and for the same reasons as do those in the US. Old age, inability to compete, and safety concerns will shut them down. A similar analysis can be done for each major nuclear power country with aging reactors, including Japan, France, Canada, UK, and Germany. On average, with 20 years being exactly 240 months, that is roughly 1 reactor per month to be retired. The booming business of the future will be reactor decommissioning.
Next is part two, the specifics on offshore wind and the Hywind Scotland wind park.
Why, then, offshore wind?
In addition to all the benefits of onshore wind power listed above, offshore wind farms have a few benefits of their own. First, a couple of drawbacks that exist with offshore wind power. It is well-known that offshore wind power has higher costs to install, and higher operating costs due to accessibility issues when compared to onshore wind farms. However, these drawbacks are somewhat offset by the much larger wind turbine generators that can be installed, taller towers, and better wind as measured by both velocity and stability. Lease payments do not flow to private landowners, typically, but to the government that controls the local part of the ocean.
For areas that do not have the very good onshore wind that exists in the interior of the US, offshore may be an ideal place to develop wind energy.
Larger turbine designs for offshore wind projects can be evaluated and adapted for onshore projects.
Much of the world’s population lives in cities near the ocean. Transmission lines to bring the energy from the offshore wind turbine generators to the cities may be shorter, compared to running long distances overland.
For those who cannot see the beauty in a technologically advanced wind farm, an offshore wind farm can place the systems out of sight.
The marine industries get a boost with offshore wind farms.
Offshore wind farms are ideally situated for a few forms of grid-scale storage. In particular, one of those is pumped storage hydroelectric with the ocean as the lower reservoir and a dedicated lake higher up onshore. Another form is the MIT submerged storage spheres.
Offshore wind farms very recently, Spring of 2017, won an auction in Germany that contained zero government subsidy as part of the bid. With more and more advances in the technology, the era of subsidized offshore wind farms may be over. Time will tell.
Offshore wind farms bring additional capacity to play. Using the US for example, the government estimates 11,000 GW of wind capacity is economically feasible onshore. An additional 4,000 GW of wind capacity is economically feasible offshore. Offshore wind power increases the US total by a bit more than one-third.
Finally, offshore wind power brings affordable electricity to islands that presently have very expensive electricity due to burning oil in power plants, or diesel in piston-engine generators. Offshore wind power is a mainstay of Hawaii’s plan to obtain 100 percent of the electricity in the islands from renewable sources. Some storage will be necessary to balance out the fluctuations in demand.
The Hywind Scotland floating wind farm uses the moored spar technology, appropriately modified for the single-tower system of a wind turbine generator.
Hywind Scotland Project
Figure 4 Conceptual Layout From Hywind Environmental Statement
Technology
As depicted in Figure 4, Hywind Scotland has five floating, seabed-moored spar-type wind turbine generators rated at 6 MW each for 30 MW installed capacity. Note, these are the same size as the offshore wind park in Rhode Island in the US. Block Island system offshore Rhode Island started production in 2016. Note, however, the Block Island system’s towers are not floating, but are anchored to the ocean floor.
Each Hywind Scotland WTG has three mooring lines anchored to the seabed. These mooring lines split into two, so there are six anchor points on the floating tower. (ES 4-5) see Figure 5 below.
Figure 5 Undersea Mooring Schematic – from ES
WTG has a proprietary motion compensation system to ease the load on critical bearings. (ES 3-1)
WTG has three rotor blades. The rotor blades are pitch-controlled. Rotating speed varies with wind strength, from 4-13 RPM (ES 4-19).
The WTG are provided by Siemens, a major vendor of offshore wind turbine generators. The model is SWT-6.0-154. Access is available by boat and a ladder system inside each tower.
Hub height for the WTG is 101 meters above sealevel.
Cut-in wind speed where power generation begins is 3-4 m/s. Cut-out wind speed for WTG protection is higher than 25 m/s. (6.6 mph – 55 mph) (ES 4-19) See Figure 6 for wind direction and range of speeds at the site. Wind speed is higher than cut-in speed more than 95 percent of the time.
Figure 6 Wind Rose Showing Direction/Speed – from ES
Power is collected from the 5 WTGs and brought to shore via a single cable along the seabed, length approximately 25 to 35 km. The power is tied into the national grid. Power is at 33 KV, 50 HZ and AC. Undersea power cable to shore is armoured and 0.5 m diameter. Power can be drawn from shore if the need arises. Diesel-powered generators can also be used at any WTG (ES 4-6)
Each WTG is connected via inter-array cable, 33 kV at 50 HZ and AC. Cables are armoured and approximately 0.5 m diameter. The temporary loss of any one WTG for repairs or maintenance will not affect the output of the others. (ES 4-5)
A smaller floating WTG prototype operated 10 km off the west coast of Norway since 2009 to 2014 and withstood 20 m waves and 40 m/s winds (approximately 88 mph). The prototype was a single WTG with 2.3 MW capacity. (ES xi and 3-1)
Seafloor area required is 15 km-2. With capacity of 30 MW, the ratio is 2 MW per km-2. (ES 4-2)
Water depth is 95 – 120 meters (ES 8-8)
Each of the WTG Units will be equipped with code-compliant navigational lights for marine operations and aviation that will automatically turn on in the dark. (ES 4-7)
Statoil ASA, a Norwegian oil and gas company, is the designer, and investor. Statoil has more than 40 years of offshore oil and gas experience with more than 40 separate offshore installations, most of which are in the harsh conditions of the North Sea. Statoil designed and built the world’s largest object that was ever moved over the Earth’s surface, the Troll A platform. Troll A was designed in the late 1980s, approximately 30 years ago. It began operating in 1996. Troll A is a complex concrete and steel structure that sits on the ocean floor in more than 300 meter deep water. The platform itself is far above the ocean surface. Troll A is more than 470 meters from top to bottom. Statoil also has long experience with power cables along the ocean floor from shore to offshore structures.
Hywind Economics
Economics are improved over the initial one-turbine, 2.3 MW prototype. The prototype generated 40 GWh over several years and demonstrated a 50 percent annual capacity factor during one year. Lessons learned at Hywind Scotland’s 30 MW system will be employed in future, large-scale wind parks. Hywind Scotland’s installed cost is GB £210 million (approximately US$276 million. $/kW = 9210.) But, this includes undersea cables. Note, this is just a bit less than the Block Island 30 MW system in the US, which cost US$300 million.
The unsubsidized economics for the small, 30 MW Hywind Scotland system gives a sales price of electricity at $215 per MWh sold for a 12 year simple project payout. This is based on 45 percent annual capacity factor and investment as above. Revenue would be an average of $23 million per year. With public funding sources as described in the Environmental Statement, the economics are very likely substantially better. This price point, $215 per MWh, is competitive with peaker power prices.
With economy of scale and 60 percent reduction in installed cost for a larger 600 MW park, and 12 year simple project payout, no subsidies, the electricity could be sold at $89 per MWh. At that price point, offshore wind becomes competitive with baseload natural gas power with LNG at $10 per MMBtu as the fuel used.
Bird Collisions
The environmental impact on numerous species are included in the Environmental Statement. The impact on birds is summarized here.
Avian collision mortality was predicted in the Environmental Statement for species that commonly fly at rotor height (101 m) using a range of modelling scenarios. This showed that the predicted additional mortality was negligible compared to the numbers of birds that die from existing background mortality causes. (ES 11-1)
With one exception, predictions of the size and duration of potential impacts shows that for all species for all times of year effects would have negligible impact on receptor populations. The exception is razorbill, for which a potential disturbance effect of low impact for the breeding population is identified owing to the very high densities sometimes present in August, a period when individuals of this species have heightened vulnerability to disturbance. This impact is nevertheless judged not significant. (ES 11-1)
The negligible impact conclusion is consistent with studies in the US on bird mortality from wind turbines. In the US, approximately 1 billion birds die annually from various causes. Ninety-six percent of those are caused by collisions with buildings, power lines, automobiles, and encounters with cats. Less than 0.003 percent were due to wind turbine impacts. (Erickson et.al, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-GTR-191 (2005), Table 2 https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/documents/psw_gtr191/psw_gtr191_1029-1042_erickson.pdf ) In addition, bird fatalities decline as older, truss-style support towers are demolished and modern, monopole support towers are installed.
Conclusion
There is a need for electric power generation technologies to replace the rapidly aging and retiring nuclear power plants in several countries within the next decade. Also, coal at today’s prices has a limited horizon of 20 to 50 years. In the US, coal power plants are shutting down due to pollution equipment costs. It is prudent to develop safe, reliable, and affordable means of generating power. Wind power has improved dramatically in the past decade to take its place as such – safe, reliable, and affordable. More improvements are identified and already in the pipeline. In addition, wind as an energy source is eternally renewable and sustainable. The benefits of reduced natural gas demand, lower natural gas price, less air pollution, improved human health from lung diseases, economic benefits for land owners with wind farm leases, increased jobs, increased domestic manufacturing and service businesses, all make wind energy desirable.
The offshore, 30 MW Hywind Scotland floating spar wind energy system is built and backed by the very experienced Norwegian company, Statoil ASA. Even though it has subsidies, the project’s unsubsidized economics would make it attractive against peaker power plants. The improved economics due to economy of scale will make this competitive with main gas-powered plants where LNG is imported for fuel. The Hywind Scotland technology for wind turbine generators, floating moored spar supports, and undersea power cables is already proven. The location chosen, off the eastern seaboard of Scotland, has excellent wind with 40 to 50 percent capacity factor.
A 600 MW or larger offshore wind farm using the Hywind Scotland design can be expected in the next decade. Wind energy technology continues to improve with demonstrated, year-over-year reductions in cost to install.
Additional References:
http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/hywind-scotland-pilot-park-united-kingdom-uk76.html
Abbreviated in this article as ES: https://www.statoil.com/content/dam/statoil/documents/impact-assessment/Hywind/Statoil-Environmental%20Statement%20April%202015.pdf
Footnotes
(1) Roger Sowell is an attorney in Science and Technology Law. Since earning a BS in Chemical Engineering in 1977, he has performed a great many engineering consulting assignments worldwide for independent and major energy companies, chemical companies, and governments. Cumulative benefits to clients from his consulting advice exceeds US$1.3 billion. Increased revenues to clients are at least five times that amount. He regularly makes public speeches to professional engineering groups and lay audiences. He is a regular speaker on a variety of topics to engineering students at University of California campuses – UCLA and UC-Irvine. He is a founding member of Chemical Engineers for Climate Realism, a “red-team” style think-tank for experienced chemical engineers in Southern California. He is also a Council Member with the Gerson Lehrman Group that provides advice to entities on Wall Street. He publishes SowellsLawBlog; which at present has more than 450 articles on technical and legal topics. His widely-heralded Truth About Nuclear Power series of 30 articles has garnered more than 25,000 views to date. Recently (2016), he was requested to defend climate-change skeptics against an action under the United States RICO statutes.
Molten-Salt Thorium reactors. Hundreds of them. ASAP.
Wind turbines, not so much.
Amen,
Dan Kurt
Yes…this will be the eventual solution to the world needing more, cheap electricity, but there are still engineering problems that are significant. From what I understand, the Chinese seem to be in the best position to solve the issues.
Will we have viable thorium reactors in the next 10-20 years? If we do, it completely changes the playing field for all electricity suppliers, and not in their favor. Wind, solar, coal and traditional nuclear will fade away, but the idiotic practice of converting food to fuel will hopefully stop immediately.
The biggest issue with thorium may be the resistance of the current energy suppliers, from big oil all the way down to your local farmer. The propaganda and lobbying against thorium may be extremely intense for a while.
Wind power requires ~100% conventional backup due to intermittency and lack of practical grid-scale storage.
I do not believe grid-connected wind power is practical or economic at this time, because of intermittency, lack of economic storage and other problems.
Forcing expensive, intermittent, non-dispatchable wind power into the grid ahead of cheaper, more reliable and dispatchable conventional power appears to be nonsensical.
I would be pleased if someone could prove that I am wrong – but I require credible evidence, not the usual arm-waving.
Regards, Allan
You are 100% correct.
I South Australia they’re beginning to work that out-
http://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-output-constrained-in-south-australia-as-it-blows-above-1200mw-20078/
Then recently as only one example which you may or may not be aware of. Australia has a wind capacity of over 4000 mws. it has dipped to low as 25 mws total with existing coal power flat out to keep the lights on.
observa wrote on August 5, 2017 at 9:05 am
“In South Australia they’re beginning to work that out”
I read your reference and I see this as just more energy nonsense. If they want to drive up electricity cost and reduce grid reliability, this is a good way to accomplish that dubious achievement.
The entire scheme does not make sense – it should be scrapped, not tweaked.
Let wind prove itself in a market free from renewable mandates and other ham fisted government interventions.
If wind is competitive, it will not need any help to dominate the market.
But I strongly suspect the only thing keeping the wind turbines operating is BS, policy favouritism and taxpayer subsidies.
and the same is true of salty thoriums.
Wind supporters and bird poachers always cite bird kills by cats as justification for bird kills. Cats don’t kill eagles wind turbines do.
Wind farms have overtaken all other causes for mass mortality events for bats since 2000. Bats are the primary natural defense against mosquitoes as diseases like Zika, West Nile Virus etc. spread across the US and Europe.
Wind farms are a subsidy driven environmental disaster.
Support for your bat claim:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bat-killings-by-wind-energy-turbines-continue/
But on birds, cats kill ~2bn small birds per year. Even in America, eagles are not the only birds that matter.
I agree – all birds matter – outdoor cats and feral cats are a separate problem. Support for my claim about wind farms have overtaken all other causes for mass mortality events is from a Mammal Review paper in Jan. 2016″Multiple Mortality Events in Bats – A Global review”, O’Shea, Cryan, et al.
If the cats didn’t get them something else would.
Two points:
1/. I t needs around a 90% mortality of birds before breeding age to keep the populations stable.
2/. A cat with a dead bird in its mouth doesn’t mean it killed it.
My cat prefers to kill rabbits, easier to catch and no doubt much tastier.
Leo does that apply to raptors? So a bird dies in a settling pound all hell breaks out. Let a bird especially a raptor gets sliced and diced well nothing to see here but it may feed a fox. A positive in world.
Small birds are plentiful, and reproduce rapidly. Eagles are not, and do not.
Griff sounds like a PR guy for big wind companies.
After working for years trying to get wind farms to reduce cut in speeds (to reduce mortality of birds and bats) and then watching as nothing changed.
He said this:
“Distortions of truth are rampant. For example, in 2015 AWEA announced a voluntary plan to raise turbine cut-in speads in a manner that was made to sound like it would solve the problem of bats, which primarly occur on low-wind nights. But the moment I saw the word “voluntary” I knew that the largest companies would ignore it.
you may have missed an important element hidden in the article re bird deaths:
“In addition, bird fatalities decline as older, truss-style support towers are demolished and modern, monopole support towers are installed.”
The high bird fatalities in the US are only in a very small number of old multiple small turbine on trestle tower 1980s designs -principly the extraordinarily badly site Altamont Pass.
The bird deaths from this well studied site are extrapolated to all US wind turbines, when newer, better sited, non trestle designs have very low bird mortality indeed.
Additionally it may not be obvious from sections of the Statoil farm quoted that in UK waters detailed surveys have to be made to ensure siting does not harm birds…
Currently the Aliment wind farm is being reworked. Older turbines are being replaced with new once with monopoles. The wind farm exceeded its design life. In addition to killing fewer bird the new turbines will produce more power, need less maintenance and fewer wind turbines will be needed.
Griff
We leave the harming of birds to cats….
Tonyb
Griff,
please stop presenting your ignorance for all to see.
Bird deaths from offshore windfarms can’t be established because the carcasses either float away or sink.
And birds are well acquainted with static trusses, multiple or otherwise, it’s the moving turbine blades they have a problem with.
However, personally, I think it’s a non problem and not worth discussing. The real problem is that wind power is presented as the solution to the non problem of CO2 killing humans, not birds.
Tweetie Pie will be around long after humans have gone, they survived the dinosaurs, in fact, I believe they are dinosaurs.
Griff what you miss is that killing birds is bad, killing bats is worse from a disease prevention viewpoint.
Bats are the primary natural defense that keeps mosquito populations in check.
Have you heard about Zika , West Nile Virus etc.
Larger more powerful wind turbines are not safer for birds and kill greater numbers of bats and birds,about 2 bats for each bird murder. The latest wind turbine blade tip speed is faster than a table saw blade tip at 180 mph.
Greenies have created a frankenstein monster that’s destroying wildlife.
Really sick!
New Obama Admin. Death Panel – for Eagles
The Fish and Wildlife concluded that the population of roughly 40,000 golden eagles in the United States could withstand the loss of about 2,000 birds annually. Bald eagles, estimated at more than 140,000, could sustain as many as 4,200 fatalities a year without endangering the species, it found.
They gave wind farms a 30 year waiver for killing eagles – unbelievable!
hot scot
There has been a detailed study using both observers and lidar of 2 offshore wind farms in Denmark…
Here are the results:
http://www.folkecenter.net/mediafiles/folkecenter/pdf/final_results_of_bird_studies_at_the_offshore_wind_farms_at_nysted_and_horns_rev_denmark.pdf
In addition, before a UK/EU wind farm goes up offshore, there have to be detailed year long surveys of the bird life: several wind farms refused or modified due to potential bird impact (to pass, you need to have low/no impact)
The pylon type wind turbines caused casualties because birds perched on them… shown by studies in California and Spain.
tom
wind is more of a potential problem in the Us because of the nature of its migratory bat population – nevertheless, mitigation strategies are already in place.
Read the whole thing and picked off the following:
The fewer jobs it provides translates into less expensive power. Can you say spin? Besides, what’s the comparison to natural gas and coal, not just nuclear?
Easier said than done.
I’ll drive one when it makes sense, not because I want to wave a flag.
I would love to have a small two door electric hatch back to zip around in.
Yes, wind is free but giant wind mills are not.
No link to whatever those are.
Other than that, it was a well written sales pitch.
MIT submerged storage = giant underwater gas tanks, using sea water to provide pressure and a thermal reservoir.
Not easy to build. Not easy to maintain. Pitiful energy density. Likely problems with ice buildup when drawing down the reservoir.
Fill ’em with gas and they would float or at least lose much of their anchoring mass. That’s so simple that I would think the egg heads who came up with the idea considered that, but you never know.
We are told at the link for the Storage Spheres:
The spheres with their 3-meter thick concrete walls would weigh thousands of tons each, which would also make them suitable to anchor the wind turbines in place.
Filled with compressed gas they would have only 15% of the weight of the concrete for anchoring due to buoyancy.
After a short search:
Concrete spheres could deliver feasible
energy storage for offshore wind turbines
Key word is could as in might maybe perhaps etc.
I “could” find a winning powerball ticket on the ground.
The manufacture of all the 100-ton concrete anchors for windmills already makes a mockery of the above fantasies.
It’s hard to believe that this poster seems to consider himself someone who’s knowledgeable about energy, present and future, considering his ignorant, misleading statements about nuclear power. As an aside, he seems to consider hydroelectric a “non-renewable” for some reason. “Renewability” is an almost meaningless characteristic to use in selecting energy sources. If the article wants low carbon emission sources, then it should say so, and not equate renewable with low (or no) carbon. Renewables certainly are nowhere near being no-carbon. Agreed that one might argue that renewable energy (wind,solar,hydro) will be around always, but that doesn’t have any particular significance when selecting an energy producer when their fuel will outlast the lifespan of the extraction apparatus. We select on the basis of emissions (harmful emissions, not CO2) and especially , economics. Actually, solar and wind generators have particularly short lifespans compared to the typical 60 plus years for a nuclear plant, for example. Back to nuclear. The article makes the claim that nuclear plants are receiving govt subsidies and have been losing money the past several years. As a general statement that is pure fiction. SOME nuclear plants have been losing money, always because the utilities have been forced to accept solar and wind into the grid whenever available (toxifying, potentially destabilizing the grid in the process). This means that the grid does not buy all of the power a baseload nuclear plant produces. These plants were designed and have always been operated as baseload plants – their typical operating capacities are over 90% overall and often at or above 100% during time spans when they are not shut down for refueling (during low-demand periods) So not buying their ooutput does not lower their operating costs, it only redcues their income, hence the losses.
Our state’s nuclear plants for the most recent quarter, produced power cheaper than our coal and gas fired plants. Not only does the unasked-for acceptance of wind/solar power into the grid result in losses for nuclear plants, but it also increases the costs of the power they produce, sicne they are not operating at their normal capacity , caapcity having an enormous effect on output costs, especaily for nuclear.
So THAT is the reason some nuclear plants (those on a grid that accepts large amounts of wind/solar) lose money. And the reason govts (NY state, for one) had to subsidize these nuclear plants is not from the goodness of their heart, but because the nuclear plant owners threatened to shut them down and force the grid to rely heavilly on wind/solar – Yikes !!! Notice that it was wind and solar power and stupid rules that force the grid to accept any and all solar/wind power and reject nuclear power that caused all these all of these problems. And the higher costs this all creates is yet another delightful side effect on allowing unreliable power onto the grid – in this case mainly wind and solar. While I believe that the LWR (Light Water Reactor) nuclear technology is about to be replaced by molten salt uranium/Thorium reactors for a whole host of reasons (speed of factory built construction, minor site preparation,safety,energy extraction from fuel, ability to load-follow, and ESPECIALLY low cost – levelized cost of less than 4 cents per kWhr, build costs less than $2 per watt), that DOES NOT mean that traditional LWR reactors are out of the picture. While the article is more or less in line with reality as to this country’s nuclear plants, that situation is quite different elsewhere on our planet. China and India and Russia and Korea are building LWR plants both for themselves and others. As I recall, currently over 70 plants are under construction, only a few plagued by the cost overruns that have killed our Westinghouse AP1000 reactors (due ,not to the nuclear company, but to this country’s inability to fabricate and weld steel, a century old-technology that has been lost by our non-manufacturing country). China and Russia can guarantee (and finance) reactors as low as $4 to $5 billion per 1 1/2 gigawatt and are contracted to build thoughout the Middle East. I would guess that plans are for well over 200 reactors, although I fully expect the majority of those contracts will disappear with the appearance of a commercialized molten salt reactor.
Both China and India, and half a dozen private companies are developing various versions of molten salt reactors. Our Dept of Energy recently provided lab assistance and outright grants to two of these companies. Amongst the experts, discussions of future energy technologies does not include wind/solar or hydro, all of which embody 18th century technology. It is all about molten salt technology, which might commercialize as early as 2020 (Moltex Energy). I have to smile at the recent enthusiasm for batteries by the wind/solar folks, who foolishly believe that this will make their non-dispatchable power dispatchable. Someone please inform these folks that batteries only store (finite amounts) of energy – they cannot produce energy, nor recharge themselves. They also aren’t cheap and don’t last very long,as power generation equipment goes. Economics alone will result in molten salt reactor dominance in the energy arena. The same is true of electric cars – they will dominate and it has nothing to do with emissions.
This isn’t rocket science, you know.
They better build a lot of those 600 MW off shore wind farms, 20 times larger than the one in Scotland, to replace those retiring nuclear plants. The “average” nuclear plant produces 508 MW in a 24hr period.
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=104&t=3
In the end, the most efficient sources of energy will win.
No amount of subsidies, guilt or other backwards thinking will change that fact.
Attempts to harness the fickle flow of the wind, pale in comparison to the energy released by splitting the atom.
Why are we even still discussing this ?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=104&t=3
u.k.(us)
+
Roger,
Do you concede that the estimated construction cost of new nuclear has been artificially inflated by bureaucratic regulatory imposts?
Would you reach a different conclusion to your essay if you modelled new nuclear on actual, present Chinese construction costs? The issue is not academic, since it is plausible that the Trump government has been making noises consistent with such a scenario.
Geoff
Well, hello, Geoff Sherrington! Hopefully, today we can exchange views without the rancor.
“Do you concede that the estimated construction cost of new nuclear has been artificially inflated by bureaucratic regulatory imposts?”
No. After decades of study and actual experience, the facts are that regulatory requirements for nuclear power plants, as currently licensed, built, and operated, are not excessive. A few things should be noted on this. First, I highly recommend all the nuclear proponents to read the study on nuclear construction costs by Craig Severance from 2009. And, my article TANP – part six http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-six.html
The Severance article is referenced here: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-three.html
“Would you reach a different conclusion to your essay if you modelled new nuclear on actual, present Chinese construction costs? The issue is not academic, since it is plausible that the Trump government has been making noises consistent with such a scenario.”
It must be noted that Chinese costs for building new nuclear power plants are lower than in EU, UK, and the US. The reasons for that are the lower labor rates in China, and the lower material costs in China. And, it may be that the Chinese’ total control of government information does not disclose the true costs of anything over there. Finally, my Chinese-American engineering associates, and I, all shudder when we are reminded that China is building new nuclear plants. We can only hope that their nuclear plants use appropriate materials, construction techniques, and competent, impartial inspectors with authority to reject substandard work. Based on some of the recent disasters in other areas of their infrastructure, the world should be holding its collective breath over the Chinese nuclear plants. The fact is, everybody may need a full face mask to filter out the radioactive particles, and very soon.
It would be be illegal for President Trump to bring Chinese laborers to the US, pay them Chinese wages, and import Chinese-built parts to make nuclear plants in the US. The best the US can find, Westinghouse and their subcontractors, just botched 4 reactors under construction in South Carolina and Georgia.
Even if Trump did authorize Chinese-designed nuclear plants (and the NRC must take years to give approval), the workers would be paid according to US labor laws. But, it would be fun to watch. A Chinese construction force working in Georgia.
The point of this essay is, we simply do not have any time left to build nuclear. Not of any type. In 10 years, 50,000 MW of nuclear power will be off the grid. In 20 years, 100,000 MW are gone. We would need to license, get financed, and start construction on 100 nuclear power plants within the next 5 years to change that. Not even the Chinese have such an ambitious nuclear building program. More importantly, we would need to finish building 100 plants within 20 years.
Roger, I suspect you are right about safety at Chinese nuclear plants…
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/25/china-nuclear-power-plants-expansion-he-zuoxiu
Roger
“The fact is, everybody may need a full face mask to filter out the radioactive particles, and very soon.”
Oh dear God, the next green supported scare story.
Griff
The Guardian? Seriously?
Both you and I know they are at the top of the list for Politburo propaganda of the SSUK.
Even you visit the right wing WUWT party to have some sense knocked into you.
Hey, Griff! re August 5, 2017 at 10:10 am
Keep up the good work. You know you are winning, when the other side resorts to slings and arrows.
I don’t usually respond, but would like you to know that I agree with just about everything I have read that you wrote.
All the best,
Roger
Roger
The lower labour costs are aided in China because there are fewer people involved at levels like law, approval, lawyering, regulatory enforcement, legal matters, regulatory compliance, illegal objection, legality, insurance, forward provisions for spent fuel management, legal compliance with international conventions, forward provision for hypothetical damage and the like. This is part of my earlier cost assertion, that China does it better.
On the occasions when I did business in China, I quickly formed an impression that the overall intelligence at the levels I worked, was higher there than in western countries. I guess it is a mild proof that they in China have conducted an economic revolution, including an energy revolution, far more efficiently than elsewhere. Thus, China has a vibrant nuclear industry while the USA struggles, France is about to suicide, UK is constipated and my home Australia remains virginal.
Seen in this context, where energy policy is a measure of National success, now do you understand my earlier questions better?
The Chinese are on track for 100 plants in 20 years. Is this what concerns you?
Geoff
PS. Face masks for filtering radioactivity? Aphysical for much that matters. Radioactivity safety is built on distance separation.
hotscot
The guardian reports that stuff, while the Mail or the Sun or Fox news doesn’t. Which is why so often it gets cited.
The fact that’s where the report is does not mean it is any less reliable.
And you can find similar reports elsewhere, if you bothered to look instead of the tired old ‘its the Guardian/BBC/etc’ response.
For Geoff Sherrington, re August 6, 2017 at 5:43 am
“PS. Face masks for filtering radioactivity? Aphysical for much that matters. Radioactivity safety is built on distance separation.”
Are they? Then, do you conclude the NRC’s 166 page “Manual of Respiratory Protection against Airborne Radioactive Material” was just a waste of time and paper and ink?
https://www.orau.org/documents/ivhp/health-physics/nureg0041.PDF
The NRC seems to have great concern about radiation exposure due to humans inhaling airborne particles of “radioactive material.”
Are they concerned about a phantom, a non-issue?
It would be simpler, cheaper and better for the environment to build gas fired power stations and forget all about wind and solar. They are just unnecessary redundant generators.
They are just unnecessary redundant generators.
The Greens are like kids who want the toy they’ve seen advertised on TV for Christmas. Once they get it and discover that it really isn’t that much fun, it sits in the bottom of the toy chest and finally tossed.
Do the dead condors and bats and robins revive? Save some DNA samples.
Cheaper to build yes. But it is not cheap fuel them over the next 40 years. Adding wind to take at least some of the load would reduce the need for gas substantially.
steven F
http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/wind-still-making-zero-energy/
One beef I have about solar and wind cost calculations is that the cost for back up power is ignored. I have heard estimates that this nearly doubles the cost of renewables.
Natural gas turbines seem to be the best solution for back up power. Hopefully a good storage solution will come along.
Well, rather than looking at backup, look at how the UK manages its grid around renewables.
Remember in the UK the available wind power (and solar) is reliably calculated 24 hours in advance… this allows planned spin up or down of gas plant, plus deployment of pumped storage and hydro and in the near future grid storage. The need for spinning reserve and extra load on the gas plant is minimised.
Wind is not the only available power -there’s also 10GW of installed UK solar power (and rising) plus interconnectors to France, Netherlands and (building) Norway, Germany and additional link to France.
The UK already has the gas plant – much of which is idle outside 4 winter months – and which is paid for under the ‘contract for difference’ system.
Which explains the sudden rush for dirty diesel backup power in the UK.
The STOR programme was originally intended for grid outages… when a cable goes or a power station shuts down – and much of the diesel is still dedicated to that, not to demand surge or frequency response. It has extremely limited operating hours…
anyway, grid storage does a better, quicker job on demand/frequency response and the diesel will, I predict, rapidly become history.
You mean when wind power failed 2 years ago?
And how much of that storage cost is included in the cost of wind and solar? Yeah, that’s what I thought.
So the power imported on those interconnectors is only wind and solar sourced, okay then.
Griff
stop being a pillock.
A couple of weeks ago I was told by the BBC at 9am on a Sunday morning that the second British Superbike race at Brands Hatch less than 7 hours later would be a washout, thunderstorms etc.
It was dry as a bone.
The Met office employed a multi million pound computer to manufacture that forecast. My wife went out our back door at 8am and told me to take sun block.
“Remember in the UK the available wind power (and solar) is reliably calculated 24 hours in advance… ”
Hah!
“there’s also 10GW of installed UK solar power (and rising)”
Which barely works north of the Watford Gap, and is attracting the attention of regulators for miss selling, already!
“plus interconnectors to France, Netherlands and (building) Norway, Germany and additional link to France.”
So much for British energy security.
“The UK already has the gas plant – much of which is idle outside 4 winter months – and which is paid for under the ‘contract for difference’ system.”
Good example. Gas plants, designed to run 24/7/365 at 85% capacity forced to lie idle to accommodate windfarms. And the ‘contract for difference’? yet another taxpayer funded means of supporting an idle gas power station to make windfarms seem a viable solution.
Birds , not bits.
Although if the green fanatics are to be consistent ” all birds life’s matter”.
Griff,
Are the interconnectors you reference supplied only by wind and solar? If not, is your motto, renewables for me but not for thee? How are you going to insure that these countries don’t max out their renewables also and won’t be available to “backup” your renewables?
For some reason you seem to present that as a positive.
BINGO!
Like, famously, issuing ditch-diggers teaspoons instead of shovels.
I gather it takes 70 renewable workers to produce the same energy as a single coal worker.
Break out the teaspoons.
There’s an ongoing assumption of virtually limitless fracked natural gas… this is a dubious assumption.
https://www.nature.com/news/natural-gas-the-fracking-fallacy-1.16430
Coal- nuclear seems the best net. But there has to be economies of scale. Building an artisan nuclear power plant will, naturally, be enormously expensive. There has to be a guaranteed demand stream for prices to fall. Spent rods need to be recycled.
There are also new designs for fusion energy that are extremely cheap. Some effort has to be made in this direction.
lppfusion.com
Why wind power for Hawaii? It would seem geothermal would be simpler and the infrastructure would outlast any wind power install.
Only the big island has geothermal energy . The volcanos on the other island have been extinct for a very long time. They are no longer over the volcanic hot spot that supplies geothermal every to the big island. It is possible to export some via submerged cables to the other islands but at a cost and with some limitations.. And it is an open question as to how much Geothermal energy can be extracted on the big island.
The wind is extremely stable and fairly strong in Hawaii. Of all 50 states, Hawaii has the best annual capacity factor. That, high capacity factor, is a crucial variable in making wind power economic. The state has a 100 percent renewable energy plan with the various elements described. They give themselves a bit more than 20 years to do this, with 100 percent renewables by 2040.
Hello Roger.
To be fair I have to say that I did not go through all of your article.
So in the case of any wrong understanding or a guff of mine in this comment please do accept my beforehand apology, and please do not mind and do tolerate any grammar or linguistic errors.
Said all this, I must point out that your position and stand as per your blog post seems to me to be biased, significantly enough, which could get the whole argument to enough imbalance over time where the highlighted and proposed solution to the highlighted problem will end up and rendered as a “no solution”, with no much chance to be accepted as a possibly of solving the problem.
And from this approached prospect ending up rejected instead of it being accepted as possibly realistic.
It is obvious that your position favors wind turbines as a significant part of a solution to such a problem.
Simply favoring or being in favor of something, whatever that be, is not a problem or wrong, or unacceptable, or biased. And simply looking only from that angle does not help much with a detection of any possible biases or significant problems.
In a way favoring leads to biases, and the degree of favoring and the feverishness about it dictates to how much biased is a position towards a given condition….
In a perfect world the biases suppose to be perfectly small and with no any consequences or side effect.
But far we are still from that perfect world…….which actually makes our real one even more beautiful, so to speak…. 🙂
And I know trying to evaluate the degree of favoring and favoritism seems to be complicated and may end up to be very complicated and messy, very much so indeed……….but I still use this simple mechanism to “analyze’ through it, with as less possible mess and complexity….
You see, too me, favoritism and discrimination are Yin and Yang of each other, for not saying the same thing……
So if I identify a position of favor towards the solution, I just have to check for any possibility of any discrimination in or towards the problem as per the way of it’s description…..
And in the case of this blog post I find a discriminatory position in the highlighting of the problem,
a significant
enough one that may point to unacceptable biased position, when considering such as proposed solution, as in your case.
Saying that coal is no “King” any longer, does not necessary mean that coal is dead……..and still it is more efficient, far much more stable, and much more realistic as a part of a solution for the energy problem than wind turbines….under any circumstances.
So getting to a discriminatory position towards coal as to favor wind turbines, may render your proposed solution as too biased to be accepted, from the outset, without any further down the road real technical and economical aspects.
And sparing both of us the pain of a hypothetical argument over this, I will point to a real life social “experiment” that has some results already out there.
It is called Germany, which was pressed to solve such or a similar problem, for not saying far more serious.
Germany did not rely on a solution of building or constructing more wind turbines as a means to fill the gap created by the Nuclear energy termination………the last time I checked…..so to speak…
Am not quite sure what actually is built or constructed to fill that gap, but definitely, as far as I know and can tell, is not in the terms of wind mills and wind power……. 🙂
Hope some one can help here with this…:)
Now all this said, I honestly recognize the value of any point and any position taken in any given aspect.
Only trying to forward my point of “criticism” about this blog post, if I may call it that.
Still my general position about it is in favor of it being a good and informative blog post, honestly……..
Thanks.
cheers
The Germans contributed mightily to the continuance of the 120 years of CO2 greening and agricultural bounty that now feeds us with their bounty of lignite-burners! Danke schön.
http://m.nasdaq.com/article/big-mhi-vestas-test-wind-turbine-on-fire-20170804-00966
No external fire damage is a plus factor for offshore turbines. 🙂
Wait till salt moisture gets into the transformers on offshore wind plant substations. It will get in via seals around bushings, explosion ports and radiators.
Lights out….
John, offshore wind farms have already run continuously for as long as 25 years with no such problems…
So the toxic fire elements falling into the ocean is off no concern to greenies, okay then.
Offshore wind failures
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=422465b6-2703-49a7-9787-d146d02697dc
scarletmacaw
this is like the bird killing argument. It makes one sound like a rabid green of the 70’s complaining spiders were killed because a road was built.
The incidence of wind turbine fires is minuscule and easy to refute. It’s a distraction.
About one per week per my findings. And that doesn’t include the non reported ones or media blackout in various countries.
P.S. I worked in the industry for years and served as a Fire Chief/ Forest Fire Warden. There is a really big and dangerous problem here. Everything from mechanical/electrical fires to lightning strikes, which include met towers.
Rural and other departments are ill equipped to deal with these issues and always will be. I know of quite a few fires that the plant operators were aware of and never notified fire services. Fortunately, passers by reported them and major forest fires were prevented.
Feel free to use industry talking points but we know professionally that fires are not rare, pose a danger to first responders who have no choice but to stand back and let it burn, and companies nit reporting them in a timely manner causing wildfires.
john
In this case the operator knew a turbine caught fire…and sent a crew out the NEXT morning. Fire officials learned of this fire later.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bangordailynews.com/2013/04/23/news/mid-maine/regulators-advocates-opponents-of-wind-energy-take-sides-after-fire-destroys-a-4-million-turbine-at-maines-largest-wind-farm/
In this case the operator knew a turbine caught fire…and sent a crew out the NEXT morning. Fire officials learned of this fire later.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bangordailynews.com/2013/04/23/news/mid-maine/regulators-advocates-opponents-of-wind-energy-take-sides-after-fire-destroys-a-4-million-turbine-at-maines-largest-wind-farm/
https://www.eastcountymagazine.org/fire-destroyed-4-million-wind-turbine-raises-serious-questions-over-lack-reporting-requirements
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.bangordailynews.com/2011/06/29/opinion/forest-fires-and-wind-turbines-the-danger-no-one-is-talking-about/
The reason nuclear power is so expensive is because we don’t haven’t built plants for 40 years. If we built plants at the rate to replace current nuclear plants and replace coal plants, the costs would fall dramatically. It is the only current feasible method of producing enough reasonably priced electricity that is CO2 free.
if we had continued to built nuclear plants we wouldn’t be facing any of these problems and the technology would be light years from where it is today.
++ for the same reasons that wind turbines have progressed in the last 10 years –
and gas turbines to back up the wind generation.
All this predicated on the claim that co2 emissions cause warming but why do we never see published, the clear definitive scientific evidence of this.
I give Roger credit for not making CO2 emissions an important factor in his discussion. It was mostly argued from the standpoint of the competitive cost of the various energy sources and the impending reduction in nuclear and coal generated electricity. Even when he was taking about pollution from burning coal and oil, he left CO2 out of it. That was wise.
It is true that increasing wind power is driven by a fear of CO2, but Mr. Sowell tried to argue in favor of wind without that bogeyman, which I found refreshing and commendable. Still, I remain unconvinced that wind can compete with other sources on a level playing field. I just wish we had level playing fields (no government machinations) to help make that determination.
jclarke341
Oh come on!
Roger comes onto WUWT, a forum predicated on the myth that CO2 causes global warming, and simply because he doesn’t mention CO2 in his submission means he’s not including it in his rational?
The concept is ridiculous as the rational for windmills themselves is based on the mistaken assumption that CO2 causes global warming.
For HotScot,
Re “Roger comes onto WUWT, a forum predicated on the myth that CO2 causes global warming, and simply because he doesn’t mention CO2 in his submission means he’s not including it in his rational?”
You may want to go back and re-read the brief bio sketch at the end of the article. Play close attention to this bit: He is a founding member of Chemical Engineers for Climate Realism, a “red-team” style think-tank for experienced chemical engineers in Southern California. and this final bit: Recently (2016), he was requested to defend climate-change skeptics against an action under the United States RICO statutes.
Then, to see my stance on global warming, try reading through this article: http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2011/09/from-man-made-global-warmist-to-skeptic.html
I have had roughly a dozen or so guest posts on WUWT over the years. You might go through the archives and read some of those, too.
Legally speaking, “CO2 is Innocent.” – Roger Sowell
From the article: “Now, coal burning power plants are closing in record numbers because the owners cannot afford to install the expensive pollution control equipment. (Reference: MIT paper, 2016, MITEI-WP-2016-01”
Part of the question is whether the regulations on coal are justified. Mercury or particulates, maybe. CO2 not likely. Even if the standards are justified, retrofitting an old plant for its remaining life is something very different economically than building new: one would not add equipment with an expected life of 30 years to a plant with a remaining expected life of 10 or 15.
If a new plant is faced with additional, unjustified CO2 standards as well as the others, it could very well be priced out of the market by the addition of very expensive technology of little value.
For Chris4692,
Well -said. I agree entirely. Toxic emissions should be scrubbed and removed. CO2 is not in any way a pollutant, not at those concentrations. It can be lethal in higher doses, of course.
Not many people understand the concept of “retrofitting an old plant for its remaining life is something very different economically than building new: one would not add equipment with an expected life of 30 years to a plant with a remaining expected life of 10 or 15.”
One cannot justify the expense, typically, and it becomes a matter of throwing away good money.
So can nitrogen
For ctm, and Anthony (wherever you are!), many thanks for posting this. I look forward to the comments and being able to respond.
If you prefer renewable then go off grid. Install your own system at your own expense and leave the rest of us poor fools to live our lives unencumbered by your expensive and out moded fantasies.
Even though it has subsidies, the project’s unsubsidized economics would make it attractive against peaker power plants.
You are not comparing like with like.
The whole point of peaker plants is that they can be quickly brought on line at times of high demand.
Wind farms cannot do that.
With economy of scale and 60 percent reduction in installed cost for a larger 600 MW park, and 12 year simple project payout, no subsidies, the electricity could be sold at $89 per MWh.
Pure guesswork. If Statoil are so confident of this , they would be buidling Hywind without subsidy, in effect writing off the cost as R&D work. Other companies do that sort of thing all the time, eg drug companies
At that price point, offshore wind becomes competitive with baseload natural gas power with LNG at $10 per MMBtu as the fuel used
Again , you are not comparing like with like. Regardless of the “cost”, wind power is intrinsically worth less than baseload power
No, but the UK has pumped storage and (incresingly) grid storage batteries to replace peaker plant.
Griff
Where is the pumped storage and the grid storage batteries? Any we do have are minuscule in comparison to the energy needed
Tonyb
climatereason
Griff’s reason facility off on it’s usual ramble.
Presently the UK has just 1 pump storage facility (Dinorwig in Wales) with an installed capacity of 1,650 GW and cost just short of £1/2 billion. It was built in 1974 to 84, and it would cost far more than that today, if it had to be built today. Another 50MW facility is presently under construction at a cost of about £120 million (assuming no over runs) and will open in 2018.
Rather expensive and unnecessary if the UK had kept to just coal and gas. Simply there are few sites that have the topography to make pump storage feasible. and the costs are prohibitive.
Likewise batteries. These are not needed if the UK kept to fossil fuel generation and are another expense that is being incurred purely because of the pursuit of unreliable and intermittent wind and solar. Grid sized batteries are hugely expensive and provide very little amount of storage.
If I remember correctly the grid battery being installed in Southern Australia is about US$1/2 billion and can supply full demand (ie., if the grid goes completely down as it did earlier this year) for just 4 minutes! More detail can be found on Jo Nova’s site where this has been discussed.
,b>For every 10 GW of wind, it on average only delivers some 2.3 GW of energy, and because of its intermittent and non despatchable nature requires a mixture of 10 GW of back up energy, by way of gas and/or coal generation and/or pumped storage and/or batteries, plus diesel STOR for balancing the grid.
One has to create twice the infrastructure at huge additional expense, and in view of all the back up there is little if any saving in CO2 emissions. One might like to envisage just how much CO2 was emitted in the construction of Dinorwig..
climate here is a new small plant
https://www.theengineer.co.uk/first-new-uk-pumped-hydro-scheme-for-30-years-given-go-ahead/
and this is still progressing (see panel at bottom for increased size proposed)
http://sse.com/whatwedo/ourprojectsandassets/renewables/CoireGlas/
Here’s a report on the grid storage ‘pipeline’ in the UK
https://www.cleanenergynews.co.uk/blogs/storage/the-uks-fast-moving-grid-scale-storage-pipeline
This covers how National Grid is thinking about storage:
http://nationalgridconnecting.com/thinking-positively-battery-storage/
And to compare like with like costs the only true way to establish that would be to only permit generators to ever tender electrons to the communal grid they can reasonably guarantee (ie short of unforeseen mechanical breakdown) 24/7 all year round. That would stop the unreliables engaging in what is now a pure form of dumping and relying on thermals to be their insurers without paying them their just insurance premiums. With a legislated level playing field the unreliables would either have to incur the storage costs to lift their average tender rates, or partner with thermals and pay them their required insurance premiums (actually the cost of lowering their average tender amounts). That would be a complete cost game changer as you can readily see here-
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/june
For Paul Homewood,
“You are not comparing like with like.
The whole point of peaker plants is that they can be quickly brought on line at times of high demand.
Wind farms cannot do that.”
This misses the point entirely. With wind power online, peaker plants do not have to run as much, and many times not at all. We see this over and over again here in California. Using yesterday (4 August, 2017) as a convenient example, the grid demand peaked at 1800 hours Wind power here was increasing steadily, and producing 3400 to 4000 MW between 1700 and 1900 hours. That represented 3400 to 4000 MW of incremental power, that would have been provide by the most inefficient or perhaps even peaker power plants ten years ago. And, with the wind farms being paid a flat fee, the utility pays them perhaps 12 cents per kWh, and avoids running a peaker plant at multiples of that.
“Pure guesswork. If Statoil are so confident of this , they would be buidling Hywind without subsidy, in effect writing off the cost as R&D work. Other companies do that sort of thing all the time, eg drug companies”
No. Statoil are no fools. The government has the subsidy program in place for their own reasons, and the 30 MW was deliberately chosen because the government limits the projects to that capacity. Statoil accepts the money because the government is offering it.
“Again , you are not comparing like with like. Regardless of the “cost”, wind power is intrinsically worth less than baseload power.”
That brings up a very complicated issue. Grid operators, and utilities in many areas, devote considerable time and money into computer software that tries to model and optimize their grid – generators, transmission, and loads, all over various times of the day. Part of that exercise is to determine what each generating increment is worth. It is well-known that baseload power is “worth” the least, typically commanding 4 or 5 cents per kWh. It is also true that peaking power is “worth” the most, sometimes 80 or 90 cents per kWh. One point of view is, what are my alternative means to provide power at that moment? If the only way to provide that last bit of power to avoid a blackout in a high-demand period is to fire up a simple-cycle gas turbine, then that is what the grid operator does. Wind turbine generators allow the grid operator to keep the peaker plant shut down.
There is a reason that wind power in the US is sold for 4.3 cents per kWh delivered, in the Great Plains states. The utilities use that power to avoid running costly peaker plants. The wind turbine owners use that money to make a small but reasonable profit on their investment. Less natural gas is used overall, and the utility pays less than otherwise for natural gas. Everyone wins.
Now add in the 2.3c WPTC and you begin to get the real cost of wind (still missing the intermittency subsidies due to the low CF). And my utility rates certainly haven’t benefited from added wind even aside from the option to may extra for a dedicated wind buy.
You left out tie lines to other states to rely on their thermal and what some consider non renewable hydro.
Roger Sowell
“We see this over and over again here in California.”
And so the West US bias continues. Most of Northern Europe, indeed much of Europe, and in fact probably the rest of the world doesn’t have your wonderful climatic conditions favourable to skateboarding, bikini clad bimbo’s and well tanned, six pack hunks walking on the beach waiting for a beautiful sunset with a gentle breeze and lots of sunshine most of the year.
We have winters in the UK when darkness descends at 4pm and the lights don’t go back on until 9am. And when the lights do go on in winter, it is invariably overcast, if not snowing or raining.
Our summers are an event to be enjoyed between July and August, in between summer thunderstorms. Our times of glorious sunbathing sunlight are counted in hours, not months! Our wind frequently varies between nothing, and 80mph gales, with periods in between of, well, nothing.
And what you need to appreciate is that an average of anything need not ever be actually achieved. We could swing between nothing and 80mph gales on any given day, over any given year, giving an average of an acceptable wind speed. The reality is that turbines never turn because the wind is either to low or too high.
‘Average’ is politico speak for ‘what I want things to be in my world’.
Clearly, you just don’t get that the rest of the world is not the California idyll.
To HotScot
Proper reply.
Not that I don’t like what Roger Sowell prepared.
Nice to have a civil discussion.
For HotScot,
Why the bitter comment? I’ve lived in lots of places, some quite harsh. Central Poland in the dead of winter is just one of the places. And worked for many months over several years in much of the rest of Europe, from Spain to England. I know what the weather is like over there. I add comments about California, as appropriate, to illustrate that even in this wacky place, renewable intermittent power supplies work quite well. But, as I have said already elsewhere on this piece, each country and state must deal with what nature has given to them.
We don’t have much wind at all out here. We do have lots of sunshine, though. So, we build solar panels and not many wind turbines. It works for us. It would be idiotic for Scotland or England to install massive solar panels. But, the local oceans apparently have some very steady winds at good speed to drive wind turbines.
The Statoil guys appear to be showing the Brits how to build a robust wind farm offshore. I’ll be following the Hywind Scotland project with great interest over the next few years. Cheering on the Norwegians, as it were.
What clearer statement can there be that these are just subsidy farms.
Well Roger your individual arguments stack up on their own but there’s one big macro problem with the lot of them all adding up to this-
https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=xQpKB3jM&id=CD923C2063577A72223E62E1867606957CFAE066&thid=OIP.xQpKB3jM8DBGssSp7WprvAEsDG&q=map+of+australia+over+usa&simid=607997775390967391&selectedIndex=1&ajaxhist=0
and here’s you brave new world in a nutshell-
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/august
and in June there was notable low wind right across Australia, albeit most wind farms are concentrated in my State of South Australia and you can uncheck various States and compare the outputs-
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/june
Here’s a more normal July which helps give the wind turbine industry their typical 30% of installed capacity over a year-
http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/july
Now ask yourself what sort of storage would you need to simply guarantee that average 30% of installed capacity annually? Like your country we’ve already plucked the low hanging fruit of hydro dams and I’d remind you mankind’s history of storing energy is pitiful apart from in the form of pumping water uphill or in the form of calories. That largely leaves electrochemical storage and I’d remind you our cars still sport essentially the same lead acid battery Henry was plonking in the Model T. Good luck affording portable electronics or cordless power tools with your lithium battery based electrical world on such a massive scale you envisage.
The only “improvements” in wind power economics are in their increasingly inflated capacity claims that are never realized in actual power production. Wind turbines continue to lose money even in their most favorable sitings, unless they are given subsidies or set-asides. In addition, they are a blight on the landscape, destroy acres of wildlife habitat, kill millions of birds and bats each year, cause health problems for people and animals that live nearby, and their open pit mining operations for lithium and rare-earth metals poison millions of gallons of ground water. There is nothing economic nor environmental about wind power.
Unless I missed it, I fail to see a comprehensive analysis of a routine maintenance budget along with an emergency plan for weather related destruction of these structures. Also not addressed is a security plan to protect against some nefarious leader of an evil empire who will certainly have a military plan in place to create havoc with these off shore projects.
If we install enough of these gizmos, there will be no more CO2, and soon, no weather to speak of. But does Nefarious Leader have cool, color-coordinated uniforms? What about his retirement plan? And full medical?