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)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYRTuWyqIsc
Let James May explain it best
@David Porter
An interesting idea.
How about this;
We run a bakery. The demand changes predictably through the week and through the year. It isn't possible to make and store even for 12 hours, the product has to be fresh. It's fatal to have no bread.
We employ Bill and Ben the bakers. Sometimes they have made all the bread we need and sit about doing crosswords, sometimes we have to pay them overtime and they go flat out. If the business was on a long term uptrend we'd look at hiring Bart and expect more xword doing in the early days.
Allen turns up and is happy to work for nothing. His contribution isn't free, because we still have to insure him and have all sorts of other admin costs. He also annoys Bill and Ben. The problem with Allen is that on average he works 1 1/2 days a week, but that's not predictable. In the busy Christmas period he's lost to us, sometimes he wants to work 24/7, usually when demand isn't there and rarely at Christmas. Employing Allen means we have to have contract baker Charlie who will turn up and bake on demand but wants a retainer and demands premium rates for when he does work. The bakery business means that we can't store bread and we can't disappoint the customers.
Allen looks like a very bad prospect and we may was well continue with Bill and Ben with a view to employing Bart and possibly entering into a contract with Charlie. Allen is basically a nuisance and an unnecessary complication.
As long as there is a day-nigt rate windmills are BS.
I am astounded at the Mott MacDonnald Report. It cites load factors for onshore wind in the range of the Danish data I saw appears to be 25% lower than this. The Civitas Report does not really take issue with this estimate.
Pharos wrote:
Well, he's applying for the top job isn't he? He needs something to point at to defend against any accusation of over-zealous plugging of the party line.
Dreadnought @ Jan 9, 2012 at 7:37 PM
Absolutely D.
I've often commented that the whole cAGW scam isn't really about science, it is about dogma, incompetence, greed and malice.
In a sense, some might excuse the antics of Jones and Mann as being driven by their dogma or quasi-religious beliefs and they have, perhaps only a sketchy idea of the consequences of their scientific incompetence and dishonesty.
But what are we to make of the architects and proponents of the "renewables"policy, consequent upon the cAGW scam?
The likes of Dr Gordon Edge, Director of policy at the lobby group RenewableUK (and indeed our very own Scots Ruinables) cannot be excused for not understanding how useless is the BigWind fraud that they serve. They absolutely must have access to the figures showing how little useful energy their whirligigs produce and how eyewateringly expensive it is.
I hope I live to see them in court accused of conspiracy to defraud and suitably punished for their malicious dishonesty and the loss and damage they have caused to a generation of their fellow citizens.
Actually, such reports aren't new.
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/
Of course, if you are adament that anyone that disagrees with you is a "krank", I guess quantitative calculations aren't very convincing.
@David Porter & cosmic
these are the type of simple analogies Joe public need, to see thru' the BS currently being served to them.
I've often thought a simple question on the street (BBC style :-) along the lines of "the planet is warming up & you & your kids are in desperate trouble because of this, am I correct? err, yes good, your reply is not really relevant & now I will take, sorry, can I have x amount of your hard earned cash please to play with because I have a good idea how to solve your problem, even if you don't agree there is a problem.
As a beancounter, I put the unit costs before anything else. The fact that you need back-up power generation for to cover the 80% of the time when the wind is not blowing, is too weak, or blowing a gale means that wind power increases the unit costs of other means. That switching gas stations on and off is less efficient than optimal running is no surprise. (Trying comparing the fuel consumption of your car between short commutes and trundling along the motorway at 60mph) So if you want to significantly reduce CO2 emissions AND help the poor by reducing fuel bills AND improve the UKs energy security, AND help boost the economy, then the best option is shale gas.
Over the next decade look out for the first sighting of the following headline:-
"An array of Albatrosses"
Martin Brumby: "I've often commented............" As well demonstrated by your ten identical posts between 11:24 pm and 11:26 pm! ;-)
We have an oversupply of Martin Brumby comments. I hope you get compensated for that sir!
Back to the hydro issue in NZ -
If you have extra wind capacity, then does it "save water" in the hydro dams for later use?
We do get most of the water and the wind in the spring, so I am not sure if you'd end up spilling water from the lakes if you have extra wind capacity.
We do have problems, occasionally, of dry years where there is a danger of running out of hydro capacity.
"Then why ndo we need a .... (subsidy0 .... vblah blah blah " Well put! Obviously it is not efficient, economic or whatever t odo this stpidity of renewables.
Andy:
It depends on the size of the hydropower reservoirs and the runoff in the upstream watersheds. If the reservoirs are small relative to the watershed then they are likely to spill in the spring runoff and during rainy periods and wind turbines would be useless at that time. Here in British Columbia we have very large hydropower reservoirs and, in most years, wind power would be an effective supplement as the water saved could be stored in the reservoirs. In very wet years however the reservoirs would spill negating the value of wind turbines. I suspect that it is only in conjunction with a very large hydropower system such as we have in BC, that wind turbines would make sense - unfortunately, as I dislike the visual impacts.
Coal is free. It's just lying there in the ground for anyone to pick up.
^^^
The corollary to that being that the moment you try to turn anything into energy, you must incur costs, whether you are talking gas, coal, atoms, or wind, sun, tides, geothermal.
There's no such thing as a free (cooked) lunch.
@potentilla We do have some large hydro lakes in NZ, so maybe it's a similar situation to Canada.
However, a recent Deloitte report suggested that the lead time to profitability on a wind project is well over a decade. We don't have ROC subsidies, though the emissions trading scheme provides an indirect subsidy. Recent modeling of wind economics had CO2 trading at $50NZ and $100NZ, presumably this was presented as a carrot to potential investors in wind.
However, as of today, a ton of CO2 in NZ is trading at around $6.50NZ so the economics don't play out.
We have some other challenges here too, most notably ongoing earthquakes in and around Christchurch. Resource consent was recently given to a 67 turbine installation north of Christchurch (Mt Cass). The ridegline attracts soaring birdlife, and the proposed height of the turbine towers is twice the height of the collapsed Christchurch Cathedral. The ridgeline is also geologically active, rising at around 1cm a year.
I suspect this proposal will not go ahead in a hurry.
AndyS: "Sailing ships were normally described as being "bound for" their destinations, as in bound for Australia. Steam ships "went to" their's."
Very nice, Andy!
Life with Industrial Wind Turbines in Wisconsin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=7lEwOyyaURs#!
Wow Martin! I just changed the battery in my mouse! I thought the scroll wheel was giving trouble ;-)
@Andy Scrase Jan 10, 2012 at 1:36 AM
Wind turbines may well save you water but you wont know when or how much. Surely better to use plant that does what it says on the tin, especially since your "carbon footprint" is already incredibly low. To me the wind farm you mentioned can only be seen as a sop to the green brigade because it would have no other function.
The Dutch study will have no effect on Chris Huhne or the Green Movement in Britain. The most important thing as far as they are concerned is not to achieve real benefits but to be seen to be doing things.
Jack
"It's like buying an unreliable car and also buying a reliable car for important journeys"
:-)
When is Huhne going to get his just deserts?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/liberaldemocrats/8976836/Police-want-Chris-Huhne-and-wife-to-be-charged.html
Re. wind turbines and earthquakes. Wind turbine towers built for wind loading should easily withstand earthquakes. Here near DC we had a small earthquake last summer and the high rise I was in swayed, but only a bit more than it normally does in high winds. OTOH, the Washington Cathedral was brittle and cracked in a lot of places (while strong wind never budges it).
Here is the article referred to in the Telegraph:
http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol.html
Don, I agree - we got popcorn and everything.
And great to see you posting here. You are a hero - anyone who is interested see here for Don's submission to the Science and Technology Committee back in 2009. OT but well worth reading.
I see Nick Molho, WWF's head of energy policy, is trying to trash the report. Well, he would, wouldn't he?
Then there is Tim Edwards, editor of 'The Week' (who always loves a story that promotes the AGW meme) who has written an article entitled 'Top scientist savages think tank's wind power hatchet job'. The 'top scientist' is Dr Robert Gross, Director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology at Imperial College (ICEPT) and Senior Lecturer in Energy and Environmental Policy at Imperial, who also runs the Technology and Policy Assessment theme of the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). Gross says that the report "ignores the findings of a large body of credible, peer reviewed and professional analyses and selects extreme estimates which have not been peer reviewed, do not emerge from credible engineering/economic simulations or models and are widely out of step with the scientific consensus."
Pot calling kettle black: Gross was a contributor to the Stern Review, which is economically bogus and incredible, and this makes his criticism of this latest report as using 'extreme estimates which...do not emerge from credible engineering/economic simulations or models' sound extremely hollow and hypocritical.
Ah, but then he can call upon the tyranny of the 'scientific consensus'.
When we look at Robert Gross we find that he is no disinterested commentator. He is Chair of a Technical Advisory Group of the Carbon Trust, which has as its objective 'commercialising low carbon technologies'. UKERC itself, set up at the initiation of Sir David King, has a vested interest in promoting the sillier means of power generation, so that it can get the generous research handouts associated therewith. ICEPT, by its own admission, is in collaboration with the Grantham Institute, and is heavily biased towards attracting funding for non-carbon or low-carbon generation.
Any institution can freely decide what it wants to research, of course, but people associated with such institutions may not be properly objective. The old carnard about oil shills, that taking funds from oil companies generated reports and findings that favoured fossil fuels, should come crashing down on the heads of the likes of those academics who are looking for the state-funded and other well supplied feeding troughs to stick their snouts in.
I see Robert Gross' funders include the Carbon Trust and also (in the past) BP - does that make him an oil shill? What irony!
His research interests are energy policy and climate change; economics of low carbon energy technologies; the integration of renewable energy; the evolution of energy infrastructure towards low carbon technologies; emerging technologies, particularly low carbon and greenhouse gas mitigation.
Well, someone has to specialize in these fields, but just looking at the descriptions reveals that he has swallowed the 'anthropogenic climate change' meme.
It is very difficult for someone trying to attract funding for study of rubbishy power generation not to overstate the benefits of the rubbish - they have to give some expectation that the research will be profitable. There are case studies that show that academics deliberately talk up their unpromising research fields and talk down much more promising research fields (effectively defunding them) in order to get their hands on available funding. This way academics can hinder progress and, wasting taxpayers' money, impede economic development. This is especially the case where academics get 'captured' by wrong ideas.
'Anti wind farm cranks'...
What about: 'PRO wind farm cranks'...?
Works much better for me - because, in the grand scheme of things, they are..!
By the way - that Dutch survey which shows that wind farms actually increase CO2, has been around for several years...
@ David Porter
"Wind turbines may well save you water but you wont know when or how much."
If you have large enough hydropower reservoirs it does not matter when or how much. When the wind farm generates power, the dam operators stop releasing water through the turbines and the water thus saved goes into storage. That water is then used to generate power later as required. The wind power essentially makes the reservoir storage more effective.
Regardless of carbon footprint, wind power can make sense in conjunction with large hydropower systems. The issues are the real costs and the relative impacts: impacts of wind farm construction and operation compared with additional hydropower dams.
(Jan 10, 2012 at 10:59 AM | Wijnand)
The paper linked by Wijnand here refers to an analysis by Fred Udo.
I was able to obtain data from Eirgrid (2010-11-01 - 2012-01-08) and preliminary analysis suggests that every kWh wind energy spares them ~120g CO2.
Potentilla /Jan 10, 2012 at 5:02 PM
I see your point. Need to watch my bias caused by a dislike of these bloody wind turbines
Re my previous post:
There must be an error somewhere in my calc, this result simply _isn't plausible_. Will be back as soon as I've nailed this down.