Wind produces more CO2 than gas - the numbers

Ever since Gordon Hughes' report noted that wind power was more likely to produce more carbon dioxide emissions than gas, I have been looking for the figures behind the claim. In the comments, someone has now posted some details that seem to meet the bill. Although these are not Hughes' own numbers -they were submitted in evidence to Parliament by an engineer -  I assume they are similar.

[A]s wind rarely produces more than 25% of its faceplate capacity it needs 75% backup - which due to the necessity of fast response times needs OCGT generation (CCGT can respond quickly but the heat-exchanger systems upon which their increased efficiency relies, cannot - so CCGT behaves like OCGT under these circumstances). CCGT produces 0.4 tonnes of CO2 per MWh, OCGT produces 0.6 tonnes. Thus 0.6 tonnes x 75% = 0.45 tonnes. Conclusion: Wind + OCGT backup produces more 0.05 tonnes of CO2 per MWh than continuous CCGT.

Now, where does the alternative view - the one proclaimed by Grantham Institute man Robert Gross - come from?

Update on Aug 19, 2012 by Bishop Hill

Tim Worstall has picked up on this post. There is an interesting exchange in the comments.

RenewableUK get desperate

Gordon Hughes' GWPF report on the costs of wind power contains the following claim:

Meeting the UK Government’s target for renewable generation in 2020 will require total wind capacity of 36 GW backed up by 13 GW of open cycle gas plants plus large complementary investments in transmission capacity – the Wind Scenario. The same electricity demand could be met from 21.5 GW of combined cycle gas plants with a capital cost of £13 billion – the Gas Scenario. Allowing for the shorter life of wind turbines, the comparative investment outlays would be about £120 billion for the Wind Scenario and a mere £13 for the Gas Scenario.

This seems clear to me. The capital cost - see the words there in the middle? -of wind energy is much higher than that of gas.

Now look at how BusinessGreen reports Hughes' work (the article is written by Maria McCaffery, the chief executive of RenewableUK (formerly the British Wind Energy Association):

Among the more absurd assertions put forward in this paper is the contention that wind energy is 10 times more expensive than gas, but his comparison is flawed. He fails to include the cost of gas itself and only includes the cost of building a gas-fired power station and the infrastructure to go with it. As most right minded people know, a gas-fired power station without any gas does not generate any electricity. Perhaps his calculations exclude the cost of gas because the costs of this fossil fuel are so difficult to predict and very volatile. The comparison is certainly not like-for-like and is very misleading.

I think we have established something about the integrity of Renewables UK.

Young report on wind

The Young Report into wind power has been around for over a year, but a link was posted the other day and it's well worth flagging up to readers here. It was commissioned by environmental NGO the John Muir Trust and aimed to answer some key questions about the viability of wind power. Here are the main conclusions:

1. Average output from wind was 27.18% of metered capacity in 2009, 21.14% in 2010, and 24.08% between November 2008 and December 2010 inclusive.
2. There were 124 separate occasions from November 2008 till December 2010 when total generation from the windfarms metered by National Grid was less than 20MW. (Average capacity over the period was in excess of 1600MW).
3. The average frequency and duration of a low wind event of 20MW or less between November 2008 and December 2010 was once every 6.38 days for a period of 4.93 hours.
4. At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.
5. The entire pumped storage hydro capacity in the UK can provide up to 2788MW for only 5 hours then it drops to 1060MW, and finally runs out of water after 22 hours.

Helmer wants answers

UKIP energy spokesman Roger Helmer is pressing the government for some answers on the vexed question of wind power. The GWPF report authored by Gordon Hughes is providing some very useful ammunition by the looks of it.

You will recall that we have corresponded on the economics of wind power, and I drew your attention to the report from Professor Gordon Hughes of Edinburgh University, “Why is Wind Power so expensive?” You will recall that Prof Hughes concluded that wind power, with the necessary conventional back-up, saved little or no CO2 emissions, and that the capital cost of wind plus back-up was around ten times that of equivalent gas capacity.

From your reply, I formed the impression that the civil servants who are advising you had not really taken the trouble to understand Prof Hughes’ work — perhaps because it was so challenging in the face of current policy assumptions.  Given the vast implications of Prof Hughes’ findings, I wonder if you could take a moment to see if we can find some common ground?

Wind: a zero-sum industry

Christopher Booker has a devastating critique of the government's energy policy today. The numbers speak for themselves.

At one point last week, Britain’s 3,500 turbines were contributing 12 megawatts (MW) to the 38,000MW of electricity we were using. (The Neta website, which carries official electricity statistics, registered this as “0.0 per cent”).

It is 10 years since I first pointed out here how crazy it is to centre our energy policy on wind. It was pure wishful thinking then and is even more obviously so now, when the Government in its latest energy statement talks of providing, on average, 12,300MW of power from “renewables” by 2020.

Everything about this is delusional.

Wind payback period "several millennia"

ConsumerReport.org is reporting that home wind turbines are a rip-off:

The Honeywell costs $11,000 installed, comes with a five-year warranty and has a 20-year expected product life. But having a thorough site analysis by a manufacturer-authorized installer, backed by your own research on websites such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, is vital.

At the rate the WT6500 is delivering power at our test site, it would take several millennia for the product to pay for itself in savings—not the 56 years it would take even with the 1,155 kWh quote we received.

Gordon Hughes on the economics of wind power

Gordon Hughes has authored a submission to the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee on behalf of GWPF. The subject is wind power. It makes for horrifying reading.

Meeting the UK Government’s target for renewable generation in 2020 will require total wind capacity of 36 GW backed up by 21 GW of open cycle gas plants plus large complementary investments in transmission capacity. Allowing for the shorter life of wind turbines, the investment outlay for this Wind scenario will be about £124 bilion. The same electricity demand could be met from 21.5 GW of combined cycle gas plants with a capital cost of £13 billion.

Or what about this?

Under the most favourable assumptions for wind power, the Wind scenario will reduce emissions of CO2 relative to the Gas scenario by 21 million metric tons in 2020 - 2.6% of the 1990 baseline at an average cost of about £415 per metric ton at 2009 prices. The average cost is far higher than the average price under the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme or the floor carbon prices that have been proposed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change. If this is typical of the cost of reducing carbon emissions to meet the UK’s 2020 target, then the total cost of meeting the target would be £120 billion in 2020, or about 6.8% of GDP.

I don't think that anyone expects the committee to even bat an eyelid, let alone pay any attention.

Your life in their hands

The House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee began its inquiry into the economics of wind power last week, taking its first oral evidence. It was a fairly typical set of witnesses, with the panels constructed to ensure that the desired answer was received. The only dissenting voice among the nine witnesses was Gordon Hughes, author of the GWPF report on the same subject.

It is strangely compelling viewing, with something of the air of a disaster movie. The idea that UK energy policy is influenced by a forum like this is quite terrifying. It's interesting to see, however, how the tone of the inquiry moves from the platitudes of David Kennedy of the Climate Change Committee, to the zealotry of Robert Gross of Imperial, before everybody rather seems to give way to Hughes' authority.

So long, and Fanks for all the corrections

More quotes from Sam Fankhauser, carbon economist, and Gordon Hughes, energy economist:

Much has been made of the intermittent nature of wind, which cannot produce electricity reliably on demand. However, the cost penalty and grid system challenges of intermittency are often exaggerated. There are ways of compensating for this variability, such as additional capacity from fossil fuel power plants to meet balancing requirements at peak demand, bulk storage of electricity, greater interconnection, and a more diversified mix of renewable sources, as well as measures to manage demand, like smart grids and improved load management.

Sam Fankhauser, carbon economist

And now Gordon Hughes, energy economist, on additional capacity from fossil fuel backup:

Wind power is intermittent and requires backup sources of power – either gas or coal. These backup sources achieve much lower levels of thermal efficiency – defined as the proportion of the energy content of the fuel that is converted into electricity - than conventional power plants using the same fuel which operate all or most of the time. The loss in thermal efficiency is even greater if the backup sources have to run for extended periods as spinning reserve, using fuel but not delivering power to the grid, in order to smooth fluctuations in either demand or supply from wind sources. Hence, the loss in thermal efficiency when plants run as backup sources may outweigh the reduction in the total amount of power generated from fossil fuels when wind generation is added to the system...

Click to read more ...

A reminder of madness past

Benedict Brogan's review of the Conservative party's position on windfarms is well worth a read.

In a few weeks, as part of the Energy Bill, ministers will announce a reduction of up to a quarter in the value of Renewable Obligation Certificates – or “Rocs”. Yes, I realise that’s hardly a sentence to set the pulse racing. But if one considers that Rocs are the means by which the taxpayer subsidises the wind farm industry, and that the Chancellor proposes to slash that giveaway by 25 per cent, then translated into plain English it means this: onshore wind farms will be killed stone dead.

If the ROCs cuts kills new windfarms "stone dead" then that is to be welcomed, but as Brogan goes on to note, it's not clear what effect the cuts will have on existing installations. So although he expressed the hope that the move will win votes to the Conservatives from UKIP, it may well be that the existing windfarms stay put, every day reminding ex-Tory voters of why they left the fold.

New Commons inquiry: wind power

The House of Commons Committee on Energy and Climate Change has announced that it is to hold an inquiry into the economics of wind power.

The Committee is particularly interested in the following, although written submission need not address all, of be confined to, these questions:

• What do cost benefit analyses tell us about onshore and offshore wind compared with other measures to cut carbon?
• What do the latest assessments tell us about the costs of generating electricity from wind power compared to other methods of generating electricity?
• How do the costs of onshore wind compare to offshore wind?
• What are the costs of building new transmission links to wind farms in remote areas and how are these accounted for in cost assessments of wind power?
• What are the costs associated with providing back up capacity for when the wind isn’t blowing, and how are these accounted for in cost assessments of wind power?
• How much support does wind power receive compared with other forms of renewable energy?
• Is it possible to estimate how much consumers pay towards supporting wind power in the UK? (i.e. separating out from other renewables)
• What lessons can be learned from other countries?
• What methods could be used to make onshore wind more acceptable to communities that host them?

Looks like policy-based evidence making to me.

The despair of energy policy

Simon Jenkins despairs of UK energy policy:

[T]he government wants to commit a staggering £100bn to wind farm subsidies over the next decade, almost all to rich landowners. Northamptonshire, with England's most planned wind farms per acre (and least wind), will probably have turbines visible from horizon to horizon. Will this really so impress China and India as to persuade them to change their emissions policies? It is like a primitive tribe burning its wives and treasure to awe an enemy into submission.

Swords at dawn

There is an important FOI story (or, more precisely, an EIR one) at WUWT. It concerns the compliance of the Irish government with the Aarhus Convention, an international agreement to involve the public in formulation of environmental policy, which, at the same time, requires disclosure of environmental information to the public. The convention is the reason we have the Environmental Information Regulations in the UK.

According to anti-windfarm campaigner, Pat Swords:

[T]his is an important decision, because the EU’s renewable energy programme as it currently stands is now proceeding without ‘proper authority’. The public’s right to be informed and to participate in its development and implementation has been by-passed. A process will now be started to ensure that the Committee’s recommendations are addressed; if ultimately they are not, then UNECE has the option of requiring the EU to withdraw from the UN Convention on Human and Environmental Rights.

I wonder what the implications are for the UK?

More thoughts here, where Richard Tol is active in the comments threads.

Perpetual nonsense

Holly Williams, Sky News's China correspondent, reports on a Chinese farmer who has discovered a solution to the world energy crisis. The answer, it seems, is a hybrid electric/wind powered car. Apparently, above 40mph, a wind turbine kicks in and starts to generate power for the car.

Yes, our Holly has uncovered a perpetual motion machine!

Watch the video while you can.

(H/T Niels)

Green groups funded by big wind

The Mail on Sunday (not online) carries the news that several prominent Scottish environmental groups are sponsored by wind farm companies.

Environment group WWF Scotland admitted that it had received more than £22,500 in the past year from one of the UK's biggest energy firms, Scottish and Southern Energy.

It has apparently also been revealed that Friends of the Earth Scotland are supported by Scottish Power Renewables, while the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds Scotland is also in the pay of big wind.

Amusing therefore to see this report issued jointly by the three organisations saying that fears over the reliability of wind power are overdone. Money talks, I guess.

Update on Apr 29, 2012 by Bishop Hill

There was also this RSPB study, which found that "wind farms are not bird blenders".