Bishop Hill The cost of wind
Jan 9, 2012 Energy: wind The action today is all on the question of wind farms. This has been prompted by the publication of a report by the thinktank Civitas, which is strongly critical of the UK's wild expenditure in this area and cites some Dutch research to back its case up.
The Telegraph reports:
A study in the Netherlands found that turning back-up gas power stations on and off to cover spells when there is little wind actually produces more carbon than a steady supply of energy from an efficient modern gas station.
The Civitas report has prompted a response from Leo Hickman in the Guardian. Lots of comments coming in saying that it's not true and that wind saves fuel for energy companies. It looks as though this will be quite a thread.
In among all the shouting though, you have to wonder - if wind saves fuel for energy companies, why do we need a "renewables obligation" to make them adopt this technology?
Reader Comments (86)
I recall reading about a Polish study which showed the energy removed from the wind by turbines was affecting weather patterns down wind of the turbines, but nobody knew to what extent
Another reason for not using these inefficient wastes of space
Mark Lynas on Twitter seems to be saying that wind energy subsidies are needed to penalise Oil Companies because of the damage to our health and the climate caused by fossil fuels.
I am not sure I follow this logic especially as wind power needs so much fossil fuel to work.
There is also the curiosity of the BBC discussing the possibility of anthropogenic CO2 deferring the next full glacial . So we have the rare novelty of Richard Black mentioning potential benefits, however fanciful and arrogant the notion that humans puny influence could ever trump natural forces, which he does not challenge.
But a refreshing change from Richard Black's standard output, and at least the spectre of the next glacial and its rather unwelcome impact is aired publically.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9002131/Carbon-emissions-to-block-next-ice-age.html
last weeks winds left a few wimmills shattered as well (all wings in the field etc)
Was this included in the irrefutable business plans and who pays for the loss
(let me guess: that will be the end customer)
so wind is competitive but only when its taxed and the others subsidised ?
lol
Kindergarten
Buff Huhns , all.
here's something for 10:10
wind energy is part sun part earth kinetic energy also
so depleting it unnaturally will slow down earth's rotation ooooooooh what now
'One of the other interesting facts about Earth is that its rotation speed is gradually slowing (Stokes 1982). We know this because some organisms preserved in the fossil record, such as corals and mollusks, lay down a daily layer of material. Many of the same organisms also show an annual variation in growth rate that allows geologists to count the number of daily layers in an annual cycle of growth. This translates directly into the number of days in a year at the time that the organism was alive. Many organisms, such as corals, also show a pattern reflecting lunar cycles.
On the basis of such data, the number of days in a year has been determined for various points of time in the geological past. For example, about 420 million years ago (during the Silurian Period) there were 420 days in a year; 300 million years ago in the Carboniferous (359-299 mya) there were 390 days per year; 80 million years ago (in the Cretaceous (145.5-65.5 mya) there were 370. Today we have 365.2524 days in a year (but our years are still shortening — at the rate of about one day every 16 million years — the world won't stop turning anytime soon.'
http://www.macroevolution.net/interesting-facts-about-earth-2.html
Why is this a matter for debate at all?
We have done the experiment. We have the data. We know what happens without wind farms. We know what happens with them.
One or the other produces more CO2. There can be no argument or opinion or 'consensus of feeling'. It is a yes/no question that has a yes/no answer.
You might then want to have a debate about the implications of the result, but the result itself...whatever it is...cannot be in doubt.
From the Telegraph article:-
"But Dr Gordon Edge, Director of policy at the lobby group RenewableUK, said much of the information was gathered from “anti-wind farm cranks”.
He explained that modern gas plants are not required to provide back-up for wind. Instead, wind is "integrated" into the existing system to act as a fuel saver, enabling the UK harness a free electricity source from the weather when it’s available. Some additional investment is required, but Dr Edge said “credible analysis” makes clear it will cost less for consumers than relying on fossil fuels, that are rising in price all the time."
I think we all know who the "cranks" are now.
There is no debate to be had, the wind is capricious and cannot be bent to man's will [we already know this and knew it when we dropped wind power before - otherwise, the Victorians would have used and bettered the 'then' technology - oh yeah....... whatever happened to the tall ships?].
Wind turbines, whatever one calls them are a complete folly, Chris Huhne liar and mountebank endorses them [reason enough] - what more needs to be said?
"The cost of wind"
Bish, we do not know "the cost of wind" and will not know until the units, especially the offshore ones, complete their design life.
@Latimer Alder,
"Why is this a matter for debate at all?"
Because it's about politics (money, power and politicians posturing) and not engineering. On any engineering basis, there's simply no way we would be wasting time and money on wind power on this scale.
Since it's about politics, and I'd say a form of religion, ridiculous arguments have been fielded and accepted by continual repetition.
The wind is free.
The wind is always blowing somewhere.
It's a technology which is in the early stages of development and problems such as energy storage will be overcome.
@cosmic
I don't doubt that you can have a debate about the implications and policy and politics of whatever the anser may be, but the fundamental question
'Does an energy system using wind mills generate more or less carbon dioxide than one without?' is a simple yes/no question. You need to get the answer to that first.
IMO the fact that it is still unclear - after twenty-odd years of spending money on wind farms - suggests that the argument that wind mills reduce CO2 output is not a strong one. And without that, there are few (if any) reasons to think that they are a good idea.
The EU is taking views on Renewable Energy, including wind power. If you haven't already responded, public consultation ends on 7th February. Detailed scientific and economic argumentation must be sent in by all of us opposed to the current misguided policies of the EU.
http://ec.europa.eu/energy/renewables/consultations/20120207_renewable_energy_strategy_en.htm
Note that there are detailed instructions to be followed, including registration requirements if your views are to be included in the report.
It is actually worse than all that. They are talking of using gas turbine power which is peak load equipment. It is basically a jet engine and very expensive to use to generate power as compared to fossil fuel plants what just chug a long.
"Whatever happened to the tall ships?". Sailing ships were normally described as being "bound for" their destinations, as in bound for Australia. Steam ships "went to" their's. QED.
@Latimer Alder,
You have to look into the reasons the government wants to do this. There are a few. Box ticking something that meets the narrow qualifications to tick the box is one. Bear in mind that there's very little scientific or engineering expertise amongst our politicians.
Given that they do want it and that this thing now has inertia and the costs have been introduced stealthily, the rest becomes messaging. Rather like advertising, the intention is to suggest something but you are not intended to deconstruct the message. The fact that the costs have been introduced stealthily says much.
"Wind turbines obviously reduce carbon dioxide emissions because the wind blows and they produce electricity". "Wind turbines are obviously clean, green and healthy".
Positioning. You then have to attack the position by talking about spinning backup and all the rest. It isn't about having a debate, the intention is to make assertions and avoid a debate.
Most people are inclined to trust the government as, like it or not, advertising claims and implied claims, have an effect.
Because of efficiency losses the value of the energy taken out of the wind is always less than the value of that energy left in the wind to modulate the weather and the climate. There is a large class downwind.
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Funny, the Yanks seem to have done it right back in 1941 with the Smith-Putnam wind generator. It's been years since I read about it but if I recall correctly Bellows Falls Light & Power also had a hydroelectric generating plant on the Connecticut River. When the wind blew, they closed the sluice gates on the dam and let the water accumulate; when the wind stopped, they drew on the stored energy from the increased head behind the dam by simply opening the sluice gates. It was a simple and elegant solution for a 1.25 MW facility which, unfortunately, probably doesn't scale well for 500 MW plants.
@Pharos
The BBC swing into action to assist public understanding, and bring in one of the authors of the paper, to explain how the disaster predicted by one set of models - but contradicted by empirical data - have mitigated against the predicted effects of another numerical model that predicts disaster.
We are truly fortunate!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0194dj5/Today_09_01_2012/ (skip to 2hr 48min)
I'd be very interested to know what efforts were made to accomodate the "clarification" from Dr Luke Skinner, lest additional funding should be endangered.
I think the quote from Dr Edge is significant:
If your arguments are robust enough and you have the facts on your side you don't need to worry about cranks.Note also a subtle shift of emphasis here. Until now the argument has centred on the idea that we need conventional power stations to back up close to 100% of the output of unreliable power producers which makes the whole idea of spending inordinate amounts of money on such follies patently idiotic.
I mean if you are going to have power stations that are capable of producing all the power you need why waste money building unreliable power sources you don't need?
Now, however, it seems that Edge is touting his bird mincers as something that can be used to save money when the wind is blowing and that conventional power stations will continue to be the norm but whenever there is a bit of a breeze we can save ourselves a bob or two. Turns the argument on its head.
Seductive reasoning which could catch on. Question still is: in what way do we benefit by spending money on an inefficient, expensive (to the consumer) and archaic power source instead of providing cheap energy and investing in the sort of R&D which will continue to provide cheap energy in the future?
The Telegraph is also reporting that wind farms were paid £1M to shut down over the windy Xmas and new year period.
[HT Lapogus unthreaded]
I wonder whether Leo Hickman or any of the 200 commenters at the Guardian have read Ruth Lea's 49-page report. The le Pair study he is attacking only appears as a minor comment right at the end, on page 30.
The proof being in the pudding, if the wind turbine industry wants to convince us of its benefits there is the mechanism of the Performance Contract. The supplier of an energy saving device agrees to be remunerated from the savings he produces. The PC has been adopted by the US Navy and other institutions in the US and it seems to be working there with multi level benefits: the client pays nothing and enjoys energy and cost savings, the investor gets returns proportional to the savings his invention/device brings about.
Sounds like a win-win situation for all, so let the turbine guys go for it. Save us all the tax costs for their grants and the hikes in electricity bills. But it seems unlikely. If it were not for the humongous taxpayer financed gravy train there would not be a single turbine anywhere.
And like they say in financial circles, the definition of a financial bubble is when grant money or cheap loans are "invested" in producing something which cannot be sold an unregulated market price. Looks like the bubble is close to bursting. The real problem is who will remove the defunct tubes and their super heavy pedestals.
There is no unambiguous evidence of any CO2-AGW. Indeed, when you do proper IR physics, ignored by the IPCC, it looks likely to be slightly negative.
Real recent warming has been from an entirely different cause, also responsible for the end of end of ice ages.
So, the solution or otherwise of controlling climate is probably nothing to do with CO2.
Nik
I think operators are obliged to submit their decommissioning plans, and should, in normal circumstances, dedicate ringfenced funds in advance. But DECC, in their enthusiasm to promote wind energy, lean to a relaxed stance on the latter. After all, the taxpayer's pocket in deep.
Athelstan
The tall ships continued to sail long after they were economically viable, but they are all gone now, thank goodness.
"An old ship, The Grace Harwar had no labour saving devices such as brace and halliard winches and and she had the reputation for killing at least one man on every voyage."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUhKBZb7A7c
Re: Mike Jackson
It sounds like what Dr Edge is saying is that instead of powering up backup generators when the wind doesn't blow correctly, you power down normal generators when it is blowing correctly.
It's all semantics but this way the cost of the
backupgenerator can be ignored when calculating the costs of windpower.In order to demonstrate the true lunacy of wind-fired power stations, it seems to me that, if you propose to build an 'X' MW name plate windmill project, then surely the consent to build should include the provision, funded by the developer, of a small power station comprising 2 x 'X' MW units.
Such a power station would be located adjacent to or within the boundary of the sub-station at the point where the cables from the windmills enter the grid, and configured so that one unit is on automatic load following duty whilst the other unit is on hot standby duty i.e. already synchronised and carrying a small stable load.
In this way, as the wind goes on and off, as far as the grid is concerned, there is a steady 24/7 output of 'X' MW from the sub-station. The hot standby unit covers for failure of the duty machine.
Ideally, this power station has gas turbine driven units fired with gas-oil for which the developer provides on-site storage tanks of sufficent capacity to allow for a few weeks of running at full load, in the event of disruption to fuel oil deliveries. Natural gas is not allowed at these windmill back-up units because nobody has found a way of storing vast quantities of natural gas at gas-fired power stations.
It also means that the output from a subsidy farm becomes "despatchable" because the output can be maintained 24/7 at whatever value the grid operator requests from zero to 'X' MW.
All the running costs would be borne by the developer for the life of the project and also for its disposal at the end of its life.
Thus, for the first and only time would their stupid claims of so many homes being supplied with electricity by them be true.
Perhaps the BBC/Tyndall Centre would then produce a prime-time documentary to show the folly of this method of generating electricity, that is, showing images of two power plants of equal capacity, one wind-fired and one oil-fired, but the combination is only required to deliver the equivalent output of one power station.
FAO @aDissentient
A reminder of the grant behind the funding of the CarbonBrief, from the European Climate Foundation...
Carbon Brief United Kingdom, London Capacity Building / 2010
To support the launch of an online communications and media relations project aimed at monitoring, investigating and countering biased or inaccurate reporting of climate science in the UK.
Here is an experiment:
Allow all energy producers only expensing operating costs, depreciation of capital assets and depletion as relevant.
Let us see who stays in business.
TerryS
Except "normal generators" take hours to spin up and down. Just put a kettle on for tea and see how long it takes to get it up to steaming. Now consider the tea kettle being perhaps 10,000 gallons of water, just sitting there cold. And as for the reverse, how do you shut down the generator when the wind decides to blow.
Obviously "Dr." Edge knows nothing about power generation. Peak load generation is typically gas turbine because they can be started and stopped in about 15 minutes. Hydro is similar in start and stop times, but then you have to worry about the available head of water.
Now it they could schedule wind blowing the way they can schedule steam generation plants, then everything would be hunky-dory.
The Scottish newspaper - "Press and Journal" in it's Energy Section, published today, has a feature on a report from the Scientific Alliance and the Adam Smith Institute ..........."the purpose of the report is to stop Britain from "sleepwalking" into a future energy system that wont work." The article is behind a pay-wall but you can get trial access for a month for free. See link below
http://www.pandjenergy.co.uk/news/UKs_wind_energy_ambitions_blasted.htm
Re: Don
The effects and costs of "powering down when the wind blows" as opposed to "powering up when it doesn't" are the same.
The difference is where the costs are assigned. In the former instance they are assigned to the costs of normal (gas/coal etc) generation and they are blamed for not being flexible enough. In the later they are assigned to wind generation and wind generation is blamed for not being consistent enough.
Dr Edge appears to be taking the "powering down when the wind blows" option and not assigning any of the costs of
backupgeneration to wind power.The fickle nature of wind itself notwithstanding, the major problem I have with wind power is its fragility. People depend on electric power for many important aspects of their lives. Wind infrastructure is vulnerable to damage from, well, wind! Other things such as ice and temperature extremes can also damage wind generating infrastructure. Over the years other problems such as the durability of the gearboxes required to transmit power from the turbine shaft to the generator have arisen with most of these failing within 5 years time.
Can we really tolerate installing a power infrastructure that could be subject to severe damage due to weather? I believe it is imperative that we have a reliable, all-weather source of energy. Having the gas backup certainly does provide that security but I don't believe total life cycle costs have been properly calculated. We are given numbers that assume a longer service life and lower maintenance cost / replacement rate than we find in actual operation. Added to this are potential generation figures that turn out to have been overly optimistic with estimated winds in various locations turning out to be far below initial estimates.
I believe wind is a viable source of power where it is not practical to use other sources. A remote location with no grid connection could be served well with a wind / solar generation scheme connected to enough storage to power through periods of low energy production (and maybe still with a fossil backup in case even that gives out).
We look at wind as some sort of panacea. We don't take into account the environmental impacts of manufacturing, siting, disposal, and damage to the local species. It is as if we close our eyes to all of wind's problems because it's wind! Yay, wind! I think the reality is that we get a fickle, fragile source of power that requires a copper mine, a rare-earths mine, other metals and smelters, kills birds and bats, and generally detracts from the environment. I can only imagine how difficult it might get to land a hot air balloon once these things are planted hither and yon across the land.
Folly, in my opinion.
Profile from the BWEA Cymru 09 website sponsored by Halcrow:
Biography
Dr. Gordon Edge has been involved in energy throughout his career, initially in academia, followed by journalism. After gaining a PhD in power systems planning from Imperial College, he undertook a research fellowship in energy and the environment at the University of East Anglia, a post sponsored by Eastern Electricity (which later became TXU Europe). Moving from there into journalism, he worked on a number of specialist electricity magazines before being recruited by Financial Times Energy in 1999 to establish and edit Renewable Energy Report, a monthly publication covering business and policy developments in the wind, solar, biomass and geothermal sectors. After five years in that role, he joined BWEA, where he initially had the role of Head of Offshore, and now works as Director of Economics and Markets. At BWEA, Gordon leads on all issues relating to economics of renewable generation, and in particular the Renewables Obligation, UK’s green power support mechanism. He also has responsibility for issues relating to delivery, supply chain and industrial development.
TerryS/Don Pablo
I agree that it's a question of semantics but if you can sell your product as something that helps save you a bit of money when the wind is blowing rather than something that needs expensive back-up for when it isn't then you've shifted the burden of proof (so to speak) onto those of us who are arguing that wind is expensive and futile.
It has a certain seductive logic to it and we need to watch out.
Dreadnought @Jan 9, 2012 at 5:20 PM
Thanks mate.
Truly awesome, and that's just the ordinary deckhands, beautiful and terrible ships, fascinating but then I think, thank heavens I didn't have to eke a living going aloft in a force 9 and it was OK running before the wind, hard work tacking against it.
Ships, sailing and windmills - Mankind has moved on, why do some insist on us turning back to tried and tested uncertainty?
Pharos (2:17 pm above) says "'One of the other interesting facts about Earth is that its rotation speed is gradually slowing (Stokes 1982)."
I wonder what impact the installation of thousands of wind plants around the world will do to increasing drag and thus reducing Earth's rotation speed? Won't it slow it down, somewhat? Where are the studies that examine this potentially catastrophic outcome of deluded green policies?
Where do we apply for a grant to study the issue?
crosspatch
Add lightning to your list
•According to a German study, lightning strikes accounted for 80% of wind turbine insurance claims.
•During its first full year of operation, 85% of the down time experienced by one southwestern commercial wind farm was lightning-related. Total lightning-related damage exceeded $250,000.
•The German electric power company Energieerzeugungswerke Helgoland GmbH shut down and dismantled their Helgoland Island wind power plant after being denied insurance against further lightning losses. They had been in operation three years and suffered more than $540,000 (USD) in lightning-related damage.
http://www.nachi.org/wind-turbines-lightning.htm
Athelstan
I have no patience with those who talk about the romance of the tall ships; heroic or epic perhaps, but not romantic.
"They mark our passage as a race of men—
Earth will not see such ships as those again."
John Masefield
mondo
I am only a geologist, but my guess is that the wind turbines have nil effect on the rotation drag. After all, tall trees mountain ranges etc. must dissipate hugely greater kinetic energy, but it's all within the atmospheric envelope anyway. I suspect the slow planetary drag to be due to some resistance at the outside atmospheric interface, maybe cosmic wind or magnetic field, but you need to ask an astronomer, because this is probably all bullS.
The photo at the top of Hickman's piece in the Guardian must surely be disturbing for those supporting the wind-turbine industry. It is obvious that the wind-turbines are affecting the atmosphere, the weather conditions downwind and hence the local climate. As with any system, if you extract energy from it you are changing it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2012/jan/09/wind-turbines-increasing-carbon-emissions#block-7
Maybe the clouds billowing from the rotors are the result of trying to keep them cool, just like cooling towers on power plants, or maybe they are just overheating? ;-)
It is difficult for the average non technical person to argue against the seemingly obvious comment that wind is free and therefore wind turbines are to be welcomed. As a way of demonstrating, in a simple way why such a view is wrong, I would like to offer an analogy which converts the technical issue into something more understandable in this materialistic world.
“A business employs person “A” but then subsequently finds that he only works one day a week. Making matters worse is that you don't know when “A” is going to work; will it be two half days one week or three days consecutively and then none for three weeks. Then you find that person “A” is protected from normal employment rules and you can't sack him. Consequently the business must employ another person “B” for 5 days per week to cover for “A” for when “A” is not there because you do not know when he is not going to be there. So you are now paying two people to do one job. But adding insult to injury, person “A” is paid at twice the hourly rate as person “B”.
You have to admit that only a Walter Mitty could dream up such a scheme and present it as progress in creating a new industry. This new industry, it is claimed, will provide new jobs by becoming a world leader in such an advanced technology.”
Back to the padded cell for me, I need to find this mythical dream world
@Pharos
Wow, I would have thought lightning would be a rather easy mitigation. In an array of turbines, one would need only a few towers of similar construction as radio towers to act as lightning rods. The construction cost of those towers would be much less than the potential damage from lightning. Heck, if I were the insurance company, I would install them!
Can anyone think of any other power supply system that has be turned off if there is to much supply of the fuel it uses for generating power , as is the case with wind ?
And that is on top of its ability to work when there is no enough wind .
@David Porter - beat me to it! I had exactly the same analogy in my head.
However, I am interested in the arguments for/against wind here in NZ where we have 75% or so hydro, and there is a possibility of offsetting wind and hydro.
Not that I am for wind in general, it hits all the wrong buttons for me; but I am interested in engaging with pro-wind lobbyists here armed with the latest facts.
Can't read the grauniad and Komment macht Frei - gives me a headache!
Why don't we tell the laydees at, say, mumsnet, that being green and against carbon pollution means their washing machines, fridges, freezers, dishwashers and microwaves will become useless wasters-of-space because there won't be any electricity to run them on, come the 'renewables' revolution?
Might change some minds ...
Wind power/Hydro works for me where there is sufficient reservoir capacity and one could actually pump water back into the reservoir when there is excess wind power. This is essentially what allows the Danes to get away with their wind-dependent generation capacity. For the rest of us w/o efficient access to hydro, I cannot see the economic rationale under almost any fuel cost scenarios.
'Wind is free' is a comment that is used frequently. By the same token, one could suggest that coal, gas and oil are free. It depends how much they cost to harness and how efficient they are once harnessed.
@andy in NZ
The only reason for installing wind would be to cover extra demand.
So you might build 100 windmills to raise your generating output.
But you would also need to build extra hydro capacity to satisfy the extra demand when it's the wrong type of wind (too slow / too fast).
This extra hydro capacity would need to match the extra wind capacity. So why bother building the wind at all?
It's like buying an unreliable car and also buying a reliable car for important journeys.
PS: Happy New Year