Guest essay by Eric Worrall
What power system is most likely to survive a category six superstorm?
Climate change may scuttle Caribbean’s post-hurricane plans for a renewable energy boom
MASAŌ ASHTINE, UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES, MONA CAMPUS
April 20, 2018 Updated: April 20, 2018 11:02am
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
Masaō Ashtine, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
(THE CONVERSATION) Puerto Rico lost electricity again on April 18, seven months after Hurricane Maria first knocked out the island’s power grid. For people in some remote rural areas, the blackout was more of the same. Their power had yet to be restored.
The dangerous fragility of Puerto Rico’s energy systems has put other Caribbean countries on high alert. Across the region, electric grids are dated, ailing and overburdened – making it easy work for a powerful passing storm.
Caribbean nations also rely heavily on oil and diesel imports to fuel their power plants – a dirty and expensive way to produce energy. So even before the 2017 hurricane season, Caribbean governments were trying to integrate renewable energy sources like wind and solar into their existing grids.
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Unfortunately, I believe that climate change will also complicate the region’s transition toward renewable energy. The Caribbean is comprised of island nations, which are the world’s most vulnerable places when it comes to rising seas, changing weather patterns and other effects of global warming.
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Installing more wind, solar and hydropower – the world’s most reliable and common renewable energy options – would seem to be a more obvious step in the right direction. Between 2015 and 2016, the global capacity of these green power sources rose 9 percent – nearly half of which comes from the widespread adoption of solar panels.
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But, in a Caribbean of increasing weather extremes, these green energy systems are themselves vulnerable.
Modern wind turbines, for example, were first engineered in Europe – a region that rarely experiences Category 5 hurricanes. Wind speeds above 165 mph would tear the turbines apart.
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Read more: https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Climate-change-may-scuttle-Caribbean-s-12850346.php
Coal, gas, zero emission nuclear – all these systems can be armoured. Properly constructed nuclear power plants are already heavily armoured.
Wind turbines, solar panels – not so much.
Granted Fukushima suffered a meltdown when the cooling systems were destroyed by a Tsunami, but Fukishima was old technology; modern passive safe designs like pebble bed reactors cannot melt down, even if all their cooling infrastructure is physically destroyed.
Burying the power lines should also be a no brainer. Well constructed buried power lines are not damaged by storm winds, and are more resistant to floods.
Contrast this to the blindingly obvious risk that even normal storms will smash fragile solar and wind power installations, let alone the worsening superstorms climate change is supposed to deliver, and it should be obvious to everyone except greens that renewables are a complete fail for delivering reliable electricity in storm prone regions.
The answer to supplying fossil fuels to these islands is to use LNG. I worked for a natural gas supplier and we had a proposal to supply Hawaii with LNG to get them off of Diesel and Bunker fuels used to fire the Steam, Reciprocating and Gas Turbine electrical generators. Unfortunately the governor changed during the last election cycle and the new governor David Ige cancelled the development contract and the installation of this fuel source. David Ige has stated that Hawaii will be going all renewable for their power source by 2045. Running Gas turbine generators on Diesel causes the unit to run at 95% of its name plate due to the temperature limits imposed by this fuel. Running Gas turbines on Bunker fuel can be done with larger units as used by Hawaiian Electric Company and Maui Electric Company but the units run at 85% of name plate output. Standing on Maui and looking at the black smoke coming from the exhaust stacks of these units you can see why they were built so high. It carries the smudge out to sea. I wish them luck attaining a reliable power supply from solar and windmills because when the wind did not blow and the sun goes down the turbines were ramped up to the maximum power output from 5:30 PM till 1:30 AM.
“David Ige has stated that Hawaii will be going all renewable for their power source by 2045.”
It ought to be a crime to ruin the beautiful islands of Hawaii with ugly windmills.
mmm, Hawaii is sitting on the worlds largest source of energy, Geothermal. Why import any?
The big island of Hawaii does have geothermal power.. However none of the other islands have it . the volcanoes on those islands died a long time ago and there is no geothermal heat available. You could lay power cables between the islands is possible but very expensive. So most import coal or oil to generate power. Residence of Hawaii pay $0.33 per KwHr.
Since Haleakalā had eruptions within the last 400 years, I would expect there to be some geothermal potential on Maui.
The Puerto Rican Government borrowed billions of dollars. “…. government’s outstanding debt exceeds $70 billion (in addition to $50 billion in pension obligations)”. What happened to that money? Maybe it is in those warehouses where the politicians put all of the disaster relief that came down from the mainland. Why isn’t Puerto Rico as rich and self sufficient as Singapore?
Singapore has no natural resources, it even imports potable water
No, it imports non-potable water from Malaysia, purifies it and then re-exports part of it to Malaysia as potable water.
The fun part is you have to turn the windmills off when there is ‘to much wind’
It may indeed be very expensive to bury power lines. The point is though, that you only have to do it once.
They are all underground in Singapore
A large and growing part is underground in Sweden too. And geological conditions here is if anything mor difficult than in Puerto Rico.
@Derek
The cable life time is 1/2 to 1/4 of above ground. Heat dissipation is an issue, and the insulation degrades more quickly for buried lines. The higher the capacity, the tougher it is.
What increasing storms?
The smarmy climate creeps always have an excuse for the inevitable failure of their ideas.
The fact that the islands are over crowded, poor, and poorly maintained is not due to “climate change”. Puerto Rico’s grid failing prior to Maria had nothing to do with “climate change”.
But the climate creeps, when their scams and cons fail, never admit their “climste change” ideas coukd be wrong.
They just make up new words like “super storm” and then lie and say that “climate change” causes particular weather events.
As others have said – it’s the distribution systems that are the weak link in tropical islands. Sort this out first, instead of wasting money on vulnerable solar panels and wind turbines. A large, stationary, diesel genset is not going to be blown away – or if it ever was there would be nothing left of any habitation! Even if the building it was installed in was destroyed, it’s unlikely that it would take much work to get one running again, and that can be accomplished with readily available tools and parts.
Large bulk carrier and tankers going for scrap have large diesel engines. While old, the structure is sound and the expense – apart from fuel – is largely in small replaceable parts such as piston rings. These, mounted on concrete blocks, could drive large alternators – or if a power take off is used to provide many power shafts, could drive many small alternators. There are plenty of marine engineers used to running these and maintaining them – many would jump at the chance of running a large Sulzer or BMW on a tropical island!
dudleyh
Plus many.
Perhaps four thousand [or so] sea-going ships are scrapped each year.
The engines [most are indeed diesel – very few steamships outside LNG Carriers] could certainly be used again.
And the hulls could make artificial reefs or breakwaters [albeit with a finite life.]
But as the nucleus of a ‘Reef’ – even for tourists – they have potential; fish farming, perhaps, too, in the void spaces of tankers, bulkers, and even box-boats.
And the accommodation blocks could be boutique hotels . . . .
Mind, victualing will need to improve for tourists.
And medical care, too, perhaps.
I have a shipmaster’s medical certificate [from about 1979 – ‘Instant Doctor; add warm water and stir’ –
but no ‘real’ doctor uis needed unless there are more than 100 seafarers, or 12 passengers . . . . .
Auto
I still do not understand how batteries produce power, I am completely foxed by that one.
The power is “virtual power”. The sort of power you have when there is no power available.
You can put energy in and get about 80% out. Similar to a closed cycle hydro electric plant.
But you have to have way more generation capacity to charge up the batteries. Only excess can be saved.
Caribbean nations should also rely heavily on wind and solar to fuel their power plants – a dirty, expensive and unreliable way to produce energy.
How can you hope to fix a problem when you can’t talk about the problem? 90% of the countries on earth are shztholes because of corruption. Everyone in a position of authority is on the take and it is a miracle that anything gets done. However in the new PC environment you are not allowed to talk about corruption. You are immediately called a racist. As a result the problem is going to get much worse before it gets better.
Notice the author’s generic fatuous;y scary sentence immediately followed by a falsely descriptive fossil fuel sentence implying the two are linked.
That false fossil fuel descriptive portion, “dirty and expensive”, immediately exposes the writers prejudice and malicious anti-fossil fuel intentions.
“I believe”, explains all.
An absurd statement is Masao’s claim that “climate change will also complicate the region’s transition toward renewable energy”.
As Latitude mentions above, Puerto Rico is mountainous. A belief that rising seas endanger mountainous regions displays ignorance and delusional.
Masao is trying to infer that an imaginary “super storm” endangers Puerto Rico’s electrical generation infrastructure.
Which obscure the fact that Puerto Rico’s energy infrastructure is destroyed by normal common storms.
Masao’s words also obscure the fact that land intensive renewable energy systems are the most vulnerable energy generation equipment to ordinary storm systems.
Sleight of hand word play typical of scam artists and snake oil salespeople.
More sleight of hand word play!
Hydropower is an extremely reliable and common source of energy generation. Lumping wind and solar along with hydropower destroys that reliability and common claim.
Another indication that Masao is operating solely upon belief, not facts.
Then there is that last sentence about solar power provision towards an increase in renewable power.
A statement that fails to recognize one of “renewable energy’s” dirty secrets.
That most of that alleged increase is dependent upon civilian installed solar power infrastructure; a vast majority of which are proven water heating systems, not electricity generation.
Nor does Masao’s renewables statement recognize that official and commercial advocates for renewable energy use those civilian installations, without official tracking mechanism, to derive their substantial annual increased energy levels.
Estimated official and unofficial stats that willfully ignore:
• end of life cycle installations,
• unmaintained installations,
• broken or unrepaired installations,
• or that hot water systems do not increase energy generation year over year.
Boston Globe jumps shark…
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2018/04/20/seas-rise-pilgrim-mulls-moving-its-nuclear-waste-higher-ground/rcrkilSqo4cGpfledFyrJJ/story.html
GE designed both Fukushima AND Pilgrim. They also make flaming wind turbines and exploding jet engines.
So, Pilgrim will be underwater, yet GE moved their HQ to THE BOSTON WATERFRONT (which flooded several times during noreasters this winter/spring). Will they be moving again??? Or will they lift the huge complex higher?
https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/ge
I have recently spent a couple of years in Puerto Rico (before the hurricane). PR has central mountains over 3,000 feet and the El Yunque National Forest is even higher.
Additional hydro dams would supply electricity and potable water to the major cities, most of which are nominally at sea level.
Most other Caribbean Islands are too small and do not have adequate elevation for much hydro power. Trinidad, near South America, is an exception.
Pumped hydro, using solar to power the pumps, is a reasonable approach for islands with adequate elevations and land area to make it feasible.
You mean like the el Hierro debacle:
http://euanmearns.com/an-independent-evaluation-of-the-el-hierro-wind-pumped-hydro-system/
The Canary Islands do not have quite the right physical conditions for a solar-pumped-hydro system. They seem to be pumping aquifer water to a storage reservoir, then running it downhill to another reservoir. Besides, they are using wind….wind has a lousy record of achieving engineered goals.
PR could pump sea water up to a sea water lake, and flow it back into the ocean — and farm fish up top. Solar is pretty dependable in PR — and a sufficient volume high lake would suffice.
It’s clear that PR fossil plants being down for so long reduced global CO2 concentration leading to cold weather in the NE US and other places…
So the place with a 45% poverty rate should have expensive electricity forced upon them. Puerto Rico’s reduction of CO2 will have 0 impact on climate but a dramatic negative impact on their lives. Happy Earth Day!
Works in Alaska
http://www.powermag.com/blue-lake-expansion-project-sitka-alaska/
Hydroelectric power, where feasible, is almost always the best way to generate electricity. The original investment cost may be high but once finished it is extremely reliable and stable, can be adjusted up and down very quickly and requires very little maintenance.
And in one of the rainiest places in the World building anything else would be plain stupidity.
I propose a new word — deludeite n. any member of the class of alarmists who delude themselves into believing that CO2 is pollution and that advancements in energy technology can be equaled by prematurely eliminating those advancements, in order to stop CO2 pollution.
Historically, places that were too expensive or dangerous to remain habitable were simply abandoned. The mythical Category Six storms would make that inevitable.
Is there any difference between ‘Climate Superstorms’ and what we have traditionally called hurricanes? No. Not in this context. If you put ‘Hurricanes’ in the title in place of ‘Climate Superstorms’ the threat to renewables is unchanged. We don’t need the climate to change to make windmills and solar panels a stupid idea for the Caribbean Islands.
Of course, the predictions of stronger hurricanes, or ‘climate superstorms’ has already been falsified by the measurement of frequency and energy of tropical cyclones for the last 48 years. There is no correlation between increasing CO2 and tropical frequency or intensity. If anything, there seems to be a slight reverse correlation – cyclone frequency and accumulated cyclone energy have been trending slightly down since the mid-1990s, as CO2 has increased rapidly.
http://wx.graphics/tropical/