This morning, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced his approval of the proposed Cape Wind offshore wind energy project in the Nantucket Sound. This is an important decision, as the Cape Wind project will be the nation’s first offshore wind farm. Offshore wind power has a significant foothold in Europe, but not in the United States. This approval should finally put an end to years of delay and pitched political battles over this one little project, and could pave the way for more offshore projects. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick joined Secretary Salazar at the announcement, and commended the Administration’s decision. Senator Scott Brown (R-MA), on the other hand, followed his predecessor’s misguided opposition to the project and attacked the Administration’s decision.
Secretary Salazar’s approval is hardly a total victory for Cape Wind. The project is years behind schedule. In 2002, federal regulators predicted the project could be approved within 18-months, but it’s only now happening eight years later. In green-lighting the project, Secretary Salazar ordered it to be scaled down significantly and will require the developers to take additional steps to mitigate potential impacts of the development. These conditions, combined with the delays, increase the project’s costs, and could discourage some potential investors in offshore wind and other alternative energy projects.
Approval of Cape Wind was long overdue. If the Obama Administration is serious about promoting wind and other forms of alternative energy, it needs to do more to create a favorable regulatory climate for future projects. In particular, it needs to lay out clear standards and guidelines for future projects and prevent last-minute efforts to sabotage the approval process so investors and developers can more accurately gauge the time and costs involved in siting new facilities. The Administration appears to get this. Secretary Salazar acknowledged concerns about the time and expense involved with approving Cape Wind and highlighted administration initiatives to streamline and rationalize future permit approvals. If it follows through, there is no reason why Cape Wind should not be the first of many offshore wind projects on our shores.
Hans Bader says:
It’s a good step, but such forms of energy will always be a drop in the bucket of total U.S. energy needs.
Ironically, some environmental legislation contains environmentally-devastating provisions.
For example, the cap-and-trade global-warming bill contains ethanol subsidies, which cause deforestation and soil erosion, as well as famines and starvation in the Third World, due to displacement of food production to make way for ethanol production in breadbasket nations.
April 28, 2010, 1:56 pmChrisTS says:
Costa Rica gets tremendous value out of its wind system[s]. I love ‘Tucket Sound, too, but I really do not think modern windmills are such a terrible eyesore that this should stand in the way.
April 28, 2010, 2:12 pmLe Messurier says:
I agree that they are eyesores. I fear the day when the wind farms are on the Great Lakes. They’ve already been proposed off Chicago.
April 28, 2010, 2:15 pmEvilDave says:
Shame it took Ted Kennedy’s death to make it happen.
April 28, 2010, 2:16 pmDougInSanDiego says:
“If it follows through, there is no reason why Cape Wind should not be the first of many offshore wind projects on our shores.”
PROVIDING: no subsidies.
This form of generation is very costly and lacks any ability to deliver power when demanded. Further, nearly all serious experts concede wind power will never produce a significant percentage of needed power … so this is a lot of wrapping and not much substance.
I presume you also favor RAPID deployment of nuclear generating plants ….
ps: It is the summit of irony that environmentalists are the very people who so delay wind power.
pps: “EvilDave says: Shame it took Ted Kennedy’s death to make it happen.” ……….. as long as he remains departed all is well.
April 28, 2010, 2:20 pmSteve says:
If the Obama Administration is serious about promoting wind and other forms of alternative energy, it needs to do more to create a favorable regulatory climate for future projects. In particular, it needs to lay out clear standards and guidelines for future projects and prevent last-minute efforts to sabotage the approval process so investors and developers can more accurately gauge the time and costs involved in siting new facilities.
Exactly right. It’s not so much a question of heavy or light regulation, but of having a predictable process so people know what they have to do to get from start to finish. It’s hard to attract investors when your approval is going to drag on for an indeterminate number of years and effectively be subject to some official’s whim. People are simply going to put their time and capital elsewhere.
Preventing last-minute efforts at sabotage is more difficult, structurally, because there are very few processes in government that are immunized from political interference. It’s hard for regulators to sign off on a project if the local U.S. Senator is making a bunch of noise and throwing up roadblocks. And of course, there’s always litigation. I wonder what Prof. Adler would propose, structurally, to deal with this issue.
April 28, 2010, 2:22 pmJoe T. Guest says:
Damn…
But true. Nobody is immune from NIMBY-ism, it seems.
April 28, 2010, 2:24 pmCynical says:
The latest wind-energy survey indicates that Texas wind alone can supply all US electric energy needs. Compare to total US electric generation.
The people who are afraid of wind power are its competition. That mostly means natural gas interests and owners of gas-turbine powerplants.
April 28, 2010, 2:24 pmguy in the veal calf office says:
I don’t have the background. Why does the interior secretary have the jurisdiction over projects off Massachusetts’s coast?
April 28, 2010, 2:26 pmU.Va. Grad says:
The only objections remaning on the record were lodged by the Wampanoag Tribe, so I assume this falls under Interior’s jurisdiction over dealings with Indian nations.
April 28, 2010, 2:32 pmRobL says:
It’s easy to have an opinion supportive of Cape Wind when you’re don’t live in the area.
State and local rate payers will be forced (via. state created mandates–economic rents) to purchase its absurdly overpriced power (at least 2x to 3x market prices).
Cape Cod already pays among the highest electric rates in the nation. So by all means–lets make everyone else feel better about the environment while sticking Cape Cod residents with the majority of ongoing costs and none of the benefits (the site is in federal waters and hence will be largely exempt from state or local taxation).
April 28, 2010, 2:33 pmSteve says:
Why does the interior secretary have the jurisdiction over projects off Massachusetts’s coast?
Salazar’s announcement says the project is being built on “federal submerged lands.”
April 28, 2010, 2:37 pmEvilDave says:
Remember how 75-100 years ago hydroelectric power was supposed to solve all our problems?
April 28, 2010, 2:39 pmNow, especially in the Northwest, they are ripping out damns as fast as they can get a judge to order it done.
I can hardly wait for another 50 years to go by to hear about how horrid windmills are for the environment.
Northern Dave says:
I love that phrase. “Federal submerged lands”. There’s a whole lot in there in three simple words!
April 28, 2010, 2:41 pmIronClad says:
Wind power may be possible, but it will always be more expensive than gas or coal, since it requires backup generation facilities to be on stand by in case the wind dies down. Electricity does not store well (use it or lose it) , and until someone finds a way to bottle it, wind or solar will always have a economic penalty. Pumping water up hill or using compressed air to “store” power is inefficient. Potential power means little if it is not reliable or can be stored.
The first question to ask is: what kind of subsidy is there (or price guarantee) and how much does it cost, relative to conventional power generation means. The answer to both of those questions usually makes it clear why people don’t line up to build these things right now (much like all the ethanol plants that went bust when the subsidies collapsed).
April 28, 2010, 2:42 pmarbitrary aardvark says:
I’m under the impression that there’s a wind plant going up off delaware,
April 28, 2010, 2:45 pmbut maybe it’s not as far along as I thought.
Guest says:
The WSJ had a book review recently about a book called “Power Hungry,” which apparently has a lengthy discussion about the costs and benefits of wind farms . . . and concludes that wind is hardly the solution that some tout it as.
April 28, 2010, 2:53 pmBob from Ohio says:
Cynical, I think you need a new “nom de blog”. It doesn’t describe you very well.
A pro-wind power group releases a “survey” showing how great wind power is.
I wonder how many wind mills it will take to generate said electricity. My guess is more than can possibly be built.
And the costs? And the amount of
April 28, 2010, 2:54 pmChinese bondholderfederal and state subsidies?geokstr says:
I wonder when somebody in gov will give the green light to Cape Drilling Rig. If you’re going to spoil the view anyway, why not do it for both at the same time, inluding the one that’s already proven to actually, you know, like reliably produce fuel for energy and stuff.
April 28, 2010, 2:57 pmsecond history says:
Of course, wind power is a Nazi plot. /s
April 28, 2010, 3:07 pmDilan Esper says:
The reality is that we need to produce as much energy as possible as cleanly as possible, and wind power is part of that calculus (and yes, right wingers, so is nuclear– heck, FRANCE knows this, and we ought to!).
Contrast this with the coal mining accident last week– if building these wind farms moves us even a step away from more dirty, unsafe coal mines, it’s a step in the right direction.
April 28, 2010, 3:13 pmsecond history says:
I really do not think modern windmills are such a terrible eyesore that this should stand in the way.
May be not an eyesore, but you probably wouldn’t want to live near one:
April 28, 2010, 3:17 pmCynical says:
That’s the US government (look at the URL).
What makes me cynical is the nonsense that’s repeated every time something like this comes up. “You can’t get more than trivial amounts of power out of it!” (3+ times US electric consumption isn’t chicken feed.) “90% of the power is lost in transmission!” (more like 5-10% in modern HVDC lines) “They’re really, really BIG!” (no rebuttal to that except “so?”)
People’s positions on this issue are almost entirely dictated by their politics, especially where they stand with “greens”. They take the position dictated by their tribe, not the facts, and the position of the tribe is often driven by propaganda. This is why US energy policy is so effed up, and why I’m cynical.
April 28, 2010, 3:22 pmSeaDrive says:
I’m sure these folks will have no problem with wind farms all over Yellowstone and Yosemite.
An absurd description given that Nantucket Sound is essentially surrounded by the State of Massachusetts.
April 28, 2010, 3:28 pmCynical says:
I’d love to see the author’s take on coal-to-liquids, with its post-war history in apartheid S. Africa. I’m sure he’s ripped it up and down already.
Unless he’s writing on commission from fossil-fuel interests, that is. Me, cynical? Of course.
April 28, 2010, 3:31 pmChrisIowa says:
Looking at 400 foot tall windmill from 5 miles away (the closest approach to shore in the Cape Wind Project) is approximately like looking at a 12 inch ruler from 100 yards away, or from one goal line to the other on an American football field. They will be just another light on the horizon at night. Most of society won’t even notice during the daytime.
It seems extreme to classify as an eyesore something that you can’t see unless you look really hard.
April 28, 2010, 3:32 pmzuch says:
At least when you end up spilling wind in a storm, there’s no massive cleanup involved….
Cheers,
April 28, 2010, 3:36 pmdr says:
It’s a shame we can’t harness the wind that blows through the Volokh comment threads.
April 28, 2010, 3:41 pmzuch says:
… or a football from the other end of the field. Which may be important.
But your numbers are off:
1760*5/100=88.
That is, an 88 foot tower would look the same. A 400 foot tower would look like a human (5 ft) at 100 yards.
We sailed the Santa Barbara channel a week ago (at night), and we were changing course continually through the passage to avoid the massive oil rigs there. I never realised there were so many of them. My brother-in-law likened them to the alien machines in War Of The Worlds….
Cheers,
April 28, 2010, 3:43 pmzuch says:
Twice as efficient as thermal generation. It’s ~65% efficient.
Cheers,
April 28, 2010, 3:49 pmReldim says:
Not terribly surprising. My guess is that the locals on the Cape aren’t terribly keen on the idea of having this project go forward. If you look at a map of the special election results, you will see that Brown won the Cape (at least the parts that would actually be able to see anything out in Nantucket Sound). I suspect he will need to do well out in that area in 2012 if he wants to be re-elected. Given that he’s probably not going to be able to actually do anything to stop the project now, it doesn’t really hurt him to criticize the decision and appear to be on the same side as the folks on the Cape.
His statement is probably bad policy and substance – but looks like good politics.
April 28, 2010, 3:56 pmDerHahn says:
T. Boone Pickens begs to differ (and I know who I’m going to bet with). Making the US more reliant on wind power for electrical generation will be a tremendous boon to NG and gas-turbine power plants because they are the ones that can be ‘spun up’ quickly to meet demand that exceeds wind supply.
April 28, 2010, 4:07 pmStephen Lathrop says:
This is depressing. I mean the comments, not the approval. Although the approval is pretty depressing too. Wind energy is good. Cape Wind is bad.
Everybody talking about how expensive wind energy is, and comparing it to the cost of coal or something—if the fossil fuelers paid for their pollution there would be no difference, or the wind would be cheaper. The price is not that bad right now, in a place like Massachusetts, and it will continue to decline. Claims that wind is 2x to 3x the market price miss the mark in a $.14/KWH marketplace. But anyway, we subsidize fossil fuels, but hide the subsidies, so the comparisons are baloney. Everybody know that. It shouldn’t be necessary to say it.
But what’s wrong with Cape Wind? It’s in the wrong place, and nobody does anything to figure out where the right places are. That wouldn’t be hard to do. Cape Wind is being done for politics, and to make environmentalists choke on their guilt.
Wind farms are industrial sites. Putting Cape Wind in Nantucket Sound is like putting a refinery in Yellowstone. It’s idiotic.
My own coastal town, in Massachusetts, already has two giant wind turbines, owned by the town. Some residents say they like the way they look. They want more, and the town proposes 4 more, even bigger, right off the beach. The town is trying to promote the plan with propaganda about energy independence for the town. That’s baloney, of course; they plan to plug the turbines into the grid and sell the electricity for the best price they can get. If the price of electricity soars, we’ll pay the higher price like everyone else, even if we are generating our own for less. The town would make some money though.
Without some kind of policy, it won’t be too long before the normal view from every beach is wind turbines, some of them derelicts. Soon enough, people will pay big bucks for a look at an open horizon.
Policy could take that into account, and steer turbines to windy sites around agricultural areas, shopping malls, refineries, wastewater treatment plants, industrial parks, etc. The mistake is saying let’s figure out the absolute tippy-top wind site, and everything else be damned.
We probably need as much wind power as we can get. But within a policy that recognizes the environmental benefits of clean energy don’t have to mean industrialization for every natural site in the country. Energy boosters sometimes seem to think it’s an actual plus when an energy project wrecks something pristine. Probably that’s their frustration with being regulated, but I don’t get it.
April 28, 2010, 4:09 pmSeaDrive says:
Interestingly, the area south of Nantucket is one of the most useless patches of ocean off the US east coast, full of shoals that make it dangerous to transit. A wind farm there would be seen by fewer people (but they are richer so the howl would be just as loud), and I’m sure that the construction costs would be much higher. But it always seemed like a better place for a wind farm to me.
April 28, 2010, 4:29 pmTatil says:
Any discussion about energy costs that does not include the amount of money our military spend for security in the Middle East and the risk of sudden disruption of energy sources located there is incomplete.
April 28, 2010, 4:30 pmCynical says:
Pickens suggested wind power to divert gas from electric generation to vehicles (displacing oil). He thinks that wind reduces the utilization (and profits) of gas-fired turbines, and he’s right.
April 28, 2010, 4:48 pmJohn Thacker says:
Most of our military spending in the region is unnecessary to prevent disruption of energy sources. We don’t actually use our military power to break OPEC, and we used tons of military spending to prevent Iraq from selling oil under Saddam. In any case, whether we had our military there or not, they would still wish to sell the oil, and whether they sold it to us or not (and in fact, currently most of their oil is sold to Europe and Asia, as we get our oil from closer sources) it would affect the world price.
So I think that the military spending to protect oil is a red herring. Sometimes it’s a red herring used by the Right, sometimes by the Left, and sometimes by the Center.
We don’t need all that military spending in the Middle East, but by the same token, since the spending is unnecessary to protect the oil, it’s not correct to include much of it in the discussion of comparative energy costs.
And for the same reason that I don’t think that our military spending in the Middle East is necessary, I disagree with those who also oppose our presence there but claim that it’s “for oil.”
April 28, 2010, 4:50 pmBob from Ohio says:
I stand corrected. But it pushes wind power very hard. Not a good source for un-biased info.
April 28, 2010, 5:14 pmwfjag says:
Wind power, “clean”? Poppycock! For the last 10 to 15 years Denmark has been building wind farms as fast as possible. The effect on its use of carbon fuels? Almost zero. Why? It’s simple: The wind farms only produce electricity when the wind is blowing strong enough. At all other times, you need to have “conventional” (i.e. coal or natural gas fired) power plants warmed up and ready to be brought immediately on line to supply the demand for electricity. The carbon based fuel needed to keep them ready to bring on line immediately negates any “clean” effects.
The situation will be worse in the U.S. Sure, you can build wind turbines all over Texas — but, then you have to build the power transmission lines to get the electricity to where it is to be used. And, given the “line loss” (the electricity flowing through the lines encounters resistance which generates heat, causing power loss — which become very significant over hundreds of miles). Meanwhile, the wind isn’t always blowing in Texas (and, you have to shut down when endangered species of birds or bats are in the area). So, the back-up coal and natural gas power plants have to be kept warmed up so they can be immediately brought on line when there isn’t enough electricity coming through the power lines crossing the U.S. from Texas to big cities on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Accordingly, it’s quite likely that your “clean” energy will generate more CO2 than just building coal and natural gas powered electric plants near the population centers that need the electricity.
Or, as you mentioned — build nuclear power plants. No emissions and you don’t have to worry about how often or strong the wind blows (or bird or bat migration patterns), and a lot of other factors, when deciding where to locate the nuclear power plant. (But, NIMBY will again come into play).
April 28, 2010, 5:22 pmDan Weber says:
My impression was that, while land-based windfarms are not very predictable, off-shore wind is more-or-less constant. Our coast cities could get quite a bit of their base load from them.
Also: more nuclear please.
April 28, 2010, 5:22 pmDr. T says:
How about the fact that wind-generated electric power has never been economically viable. The efficiency of wind-generated electric power is poor, the initial capital costs are high, maintenance costs are moderate, and the total costs of the electricity are much higher than at coal-, oil-, or natural gas-powered electric plants. Germany has invested heavily in wind power, but it gets less than 10% efficiency from its wind turbines, and it relies on coal-powered electric plants for almost all of its electricity. Offshore wind farms will generate somewhat more electricity than land-based ones, but the startup and maintenance costs are much higher. (Think about what continual salt spray exposure will do to the moving parts and to the electricity-generating components.)
Taxpayer-financed grants, subsidies, and tax breaks and consumer-funded “green electricity” purchases at multiples of the going rate for electricity are the only factors that allow solar- or wind-powered electricity generation to be economically viable for the builders.
“Green” electricity is a bad deal when it costs 2-5 times as much as electricity from conventional sources.
April 28, 2010, 5:42 pmDr. T says:
Cynical says: “The latest wind-energy survey indicates that Texas wind alone can supply all US electric energy needs.”
Bullshit. The Texas wind turbines, which are ugly as sin, provide only a small fraction of local needs. I drove through Texas last year. Most of the turbines were not moving because winds were less than 10 mph. On a very windy day in March 2010, Texas wind turbines set a new record for power generation, but they produced only 19% of the power that Texas needed. On a typical day, the wind turbines produce less than 5% of needed power. Because wind power fluctuates, the conventional power plants still must run at nearly full capacity. Backing off a little on windy days saves very little money, and those savings are lost because of the high costs of buying the wind power when it’s available.
April 28, 2010, 5:55 pmMike McDougal says:
Now Idaho gets almost all its power from dams without much problem.
April 28, 2010, 6:15 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Don’t forget those that fear outsized electricity bills and an unreliable power source.
April 28, 2010, 6:18 pmTatil says:
I disagree. We station troops there to keep the regimes there stable. Any uprising, skirmish or war would cause a disruption. The new regime may eventually start selling oil again, but in the meantime our economy would be screwed. Besides, an easy financial source like oil that does not require any good governance allows unsavory, corrupt and even incompetent regimes to finance terrorists groups etc. If oil was not as important for us or if it was not bringing in as much easy revenue, we would care about Middle East just as much as we do about sub Saharan Africa. The military spending is definitely a fixed subsidy to the oil based energy infrastructure.
April 28, 2010, 6:28 pmDoctor Gator says:
What is so much better about looking at 150 wind turbines on the ocean horizon than looking at a dozen oil rigs??
April 28, 2010, 6:42 pmAlanW says:
You don’t read the news much, do you?
April 28, 2010, 6:48 pmStephen Lathrop says:
You mean no problem other than the extinction of the salmon runs in Idaho, right?
April 28, 2010, 7:24 pmzuch says:
I explained that above.
Cheers,
April 28, 2010, 7:31 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Much being made of the unreliability of wind power. The two turbines in my town run almost constantly. But obviously they do stop sometimes. That’s why wind power is such an obvious fit for electric vehicles. When you park electric cars you gain a giant fleet of batteries for the grid. Very nice solution to the storage problem.
Wind power can’t be your only power, but there is no reason it can’t be used efficiently and economically, completely displacing the fossil fuels that would otherwise be used to generate equivalent energy.
April 28, 2010, 7:33 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Don’t know who’s right.
April 28, 2010, 7:44 pmEvilDave says:
And I thank you for making my point.
April 28, 2010, 7:47 pmDilan Esper says:
Wind power, “clean”? Poppycock! For the last 10 to 15 years Denmark has been building wind farms as fast as possible. The effect on its use of carbon fuels? Almost zero. Why? It’s simple: The wind farms only produce electricity when the wind is blowing strong enough. At all other times, you need to have “conventional” (i.e. coal or natural gas fired) power plants warmed up and ready to be brought immediately on line to supply the demand for electricity.
Let’s say in the future I own two cars, one solar powered and one gasoline powered. Your argument would be like saying that I can’t save gas by using the solar powered car in the daytime.
April 28, 2010, 7:54 pmnibbles says:
Nope. Wind may be a threat to coal, but it will increase the consumption of natural gas for electricity production.
A coal plant (or nuclear for that matter) takes a long time to bring on line (more like days than minutes). That’s why there’s natural gas “peaker plants” – basically a large jet engine spinning a generator. Peaker plants are idle most of the time, as they’re the most expensive way to produce power. But when the grid needs power in a hurry to prevent a brownout, they’re the ones that can spin up and provide it – at an exorbitant price.
Because wind strength (and therefore wind power output) varies dramatically over time, the more wind power on the grid, the more the peaker plants will run. And the more natural gas will be burnt.
Wind power + natural gas can replace coal.
Wind power on its own means frequent rolling blackouts.
April 28, 2010, 7:55 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Not right.
And don’t forget about night time. They put strobes on these guys that make you think you saw a lightning bolt if you catch it out of the corner of your eye. One reason I oppose Cape Wind is because I expect it to diminish the view of the night sky all along the south shore of the Cape, one of the last places near Boston where you can still see the Milky Way.
April 28, 2010, 7:58 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Wind power and electrical output are not directly correlated. Wind turbines are designed to produce maximum power output at moderate wind speeds. After that optimal speed is reached, any increase doesn’t get used. Most wind turbines produce the same power output most of the time, or at least the ones in my town do.
April 28, 2010, 8:05 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Maybe you should make your point in so many words, because I’m pretty sure I don’t understand you. You aren’t suggesting that wiping out the Idaho salmon runs is a trivial problem, are you?
April 28, 2010, 8:09 pmOrenWithAnE says:
The point is that you couldn’t use the solar powered car on any day where there was a chance of clouds because you would be stranded on the road, thus greatly diminishing the saving.
The power grid has no batteries, 99% of the power is consumed within 1 second of generation.
April 28, 2010, 8:22 pmnibbles says:
What, ya got an ammeter on them?
Wind turbines have a “nameplate rating” (e.g. a 1.5 MW turbine). That’s essentially the maximum power output. A really well-sited turbine might make 50% of nameplate, averaged over the course of a year. Most make closer to 30%. And as time goes on, that percentage for new wind farms will go down as the best sites get developed.
Sometimes those turbines in your town are making 0% of nameplate. Sometimes they make 100%. The rest of the time they make something in between (on average closer to 0% than 100%). Most sites have different daytime and nighttime wind patterns, so you may on average make 80% of nameplate between 1PM and 8PM and 20% of nameplate the rest of the time. If you’re replacing reliable, base-load generation (for example, coal) with wind, you’ll need more peaker capacity. It’s that simple.
April 28, 2010, 8:25 pmTim Hulsey says:
Amen! In Europe, wind turbines produce at most about 30% of their capacity. Those built off shore in the UK are sinking! Electrical grids are unstable because of surges as different sources are brought on and offline, leading to brown-outs and black-outs. The zealots worry about the salmon, but don’t care about the effect of wind farms on bird populations! In Europe there is nothing steady about turbine output.
April 28, 2010, 8:25 pmIf Texas wind could power the US, why is no country in Europe even close to powering itself with wind, including Germany and Denmark where wind turbines abound? I’m pretty sure they are both smaller than the US. The environmental zealots don’t want any viable source of power! No hydroelectricity, no nuclear power plants, no coal, no oil, no natural gas! Society is not going to de-develop! CARBO-PHOBES, GET OVER IT!! And all this is based on the biggest hoax ever perpetrated: anthropogenic global warming!
No industrial country can survive on windmills and solar cells (at today’s technological level). No country or continent can become developed with wind and solar as their only means of power. What will they use as backup? NOTHING!! And they will be back in the dark where environmentalists want to keep them! It really makes me sick to see Africa held back for the amusement of Greenpeace, WWF, and other NGOs.
Maybe the carbo-phobes should all move to Antarctica where they could try to thrive on wind and solar power. They sure have some winds down there! And there isn’t any warming going on there, except in the Antarctic Peninsula which is near volcanic vents. Ice is thriving. They could all just hug, shiver, relish in their primitive state and LEAVE THE REST OF US THE HELL ALONE!!
mariner says:
You only have to look at rigs until the wells are completed. Production facilities are often less obstrusive.
April 28, 2010, 8:34 pmnoahp says:
I cannot believe a commenter on VC is falling for the wind farm fallacy. As others have pointed out its ‘use it or lose it’ with electrical power. Then an idiot or two points out that pumped storage is efficient failing to acknowledge that the orographical circumstances for such to be practical are actually quite rare.
Having debunked the prospects for storing wind (or solar) energy given current (or even imagined technology) we are left with an exorbitantly expensive intermittent energy source which when push comes to shove maintenance will be foregone. Finito.
April 28, 2010, 8:37 pmGuest Again says:
The intermittent nature of wind, the grid interconnect, the various (29) states requirements for a portion (15% to 25%)of the regulated utilities use of “clean” energy are all issues that IEEE, FERC, Sandia labs, the grid operators, the IOUs (investor owned utilities) are addressing with the certain knowledge that wind will supply a portion of the U.S. energy future. The intermittent issue does not appear – after extensive and detailed study by Sandia – to present any significant problem for systems that are only partially reliant on intermittent clean energy. The grid operators are all in the midst of upgrades that will support diverse generation. The IOUs and their state regulators are sorta but not uniformly resigned to having to charge their customers more for the clean energy element. The subsidies (a 30% tax credit or a version thereof), the lower costs of the newest generation of turbines have made the cost per MW of a wind farm nearly the same as a new coal plant. If you are a IOU CEO the decision is easy. Wind is coming whether you wring your hands over it or not. Get over it. Sure the subsidy issue tilts the table. But what about the 28% depletion allowance the oil & gas industry has had forever?
April 28, 2010, 8:52 pmThe really only unresolved issues are big ones: a national program? and cap and trade versus feed in tariff.
Nuclear is also part of the solution but doesn’t seem as far along.
noahp says:
Indeed it is quite baffling how the technocratic wunderkind of the Obama regime continue to fall for such crackpot schemes particularly in light of Spain’s experience (credit downgrade not necessarily related to their disastrous foray into green energy).
But then Romer has essentially repudiated her own scholarship re keynesian ecnomics so clearly anything is possible when power is in play!
April 28, 2010, 9:00 pmnoahp says:
“With the certain knowledge”. Aha, the regulator has spoken.
You should know that I, an American citizen, wear a green hat signifying that I have a negative carbon footprint by virtue of my minimal auto usage and ownership of 80 acres of woodlands. This drives the green weenies in my family totally bonkers!
April 28, 2010, 9:11 pmsecond history says:
“The latest wind-energy survey indicates that Texas wind alone can supply all US electric energy needs.”
I guess the survey was taken during the recent Texas governor’s race.
April 28, 2010, 9:18 pmnoahp says:
Bullcrap. As that WSJ review points out wind energy in Texas falls dramatically during the summer just when energy demand peaks!
And of course several years ago somebody calculated that the entire population of the world could fit into Texas…no thanks!
April 28, 2010, 9:29 pmDoctor Gator says:
Well if you are refering to the Gulf Oil rig, I don’t think it was visible from shore. Plus, the catastrophic eco damage, is like global warming, all projected, not yet actual. Plus, no one talks about what the place looks like when turbines lose their economic usefulness, and are abandoned. See:
“Wind Power advocate Paul Gipe, who got his start as an early 1970s environmental activist at Indiana’s Ball State University, describes a 1998 Tehachapi tour thusly:
“Our bus drove directly through the Tehachapi Gorge passing the abandoned Airtricity site with its derelict Storm Master and Wind-Matic turbines and the deserted Wind Source site with its defunct Aeroman machines. We also got a freeway-close glimpse of Zond’s wind wall with its 400 Vestas V15 turbines, the former Arbutus site on rugged Pajuela Peak where only the Bonus turbines are still in service, and steep-sided Cameron Ridge topped with FloWind’s few remaining Darrieus turbines before reaching SeaWest, our first stop.
“As we approached SeaWest from the desert town of Mojave, the old Micon 108s were spinning merrily, but the Mitsubishis with their higher start-up speed were just coming to life. SeaWest and Fluidyne had done a commendable job of cleaning the Mitsubishis of their infamous oil leaks for the tour’s arrival.”"
“In Wind Energy’s Ghosts”
April 28, 2010, 9:36 pmBy Andrew Walden
(s/t) Bankrupt Europe has a lesson for Congress about wind power.
Nobody At All says:
What do you mean? As you pointed out, “peaking” and “baseload” are terms given by the dispatch order. As it is, wind is displacing peaking units (tangentially, because they are low marginal cost, this lowers the power price throughout the auction). They are, typically (and unfortunately), natural gas. But, in any case, it simply isn’t true that replacing a peaking unit (i.e. that which is dispatched last) means that you must have more baseload (i.e. that which is dispatched first). It is a contradiction in terms.
As you also probably know, “peaking” is not the same thing as “backup” (reserve, regulation, etc.) And the amount and price of “backup” depends upon, among other things, the distpatch scheduling time frame. As it now stands, even with day-ahead scheduling, etc. wind does not – as you assert – require more spinning reserves than it produces in energy. Simply: false.
By changing the scheduling time-frame, the amount, type, and cost of spinning reserves are greatly reduced. This doesn’t depend upon any sort of technological breakthroughs – it is simple market design. The type that libertarians can get behind.
April 28, 2010, 10:01 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » THE PEOPLE VS. THE POWERFUL: Cape Wind approved. This wouldn’t have happened if Ted Kennedy were s… says:
[...] PEOPLE VS. THE POWERFUL: Cape Wind approved. This wouldn’t have happened if Ted Kennedy were still [...]
April 28, 2010, 11:16 pmSteve says:
You can learn a lot from these threads at the VC. Around 60-70% of what you learn is wrong, but still.
April 28, 2010, 11:17 pmElliot says:
Easier to make coal mines safe than cover the coutry with windmills.
April 28, 2010, 11:54 pmSenatorX says:
If the Obama Administration is serious about promoting wind and other forms of alternative energy, it needs to do more to create a favorable regulatory climate for future projects. In particular, it needs to lay out clear standards and guidelines for future projects and prevent last-minute efforts to sabotage the approval process so investors and developers can more accurately gauge the time and costs involved in siting new facilities.
Steve : Exactly right. It’s not so much a question of heavy or light regulation, but of having a predictable process so people know what they have to do to get from start to finish.
I think wind energy is a joke but what you describe is correct in regards to the rule of law. And better a bad rule following the rule of law than arbitrary law.
April 29, 2010, 12:12 amGreg F says:
Wind power is a great idea in a comic book world. Unfortunately we live in the real world. Wind power peaks in the spring and fall, electricity demand peaks in the winter and summer. Highest demand is during heat waves and cold snaps. One only needs to look at the national wind maps during a heat wave or cold snap to realize there is trivial generation potential nation wide at these times. At present the EIA shows that wind generators average 30% of nameplate capacity nation wide. This will, as someone else pointed out, go down as the potential sites become less optimal. One of the basic mistakes wind power advocates make is using averages as it hides the underlying problems with wind power. Intermittency. The high demand times require that, for all practical purposes, all the generation is from traditional sources.
The savings in fossil fuel is also overstated when the wind is blowing. The traditional plants that provide peak power have to ramp up and down to track the changes in wind generator changes. Running heat engines under these conditions results in a significant loss in efficiency. It is the equivalent of driving your car at a constant speed in opposition to doing jack rabbit starts and stops. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that jack rabbit starts and stops reduce the MPG as well as causing additional wear and tear on the engine. When the percentage of power generated by wind plants gets around 10% this becomes a significant issue.
Wind generators are not built with pixy dust. One essential element to a wind generator is Neodymium magnets. Neodymium is a rare earth element that isn’t exactly abundant. Something like 90% comes from China. Not sure how that would make us energy independent.
Infrastructure is also ignored by the wind power advocates. Most people don’t realize the transformers that feed their house are designed to cool down at night when demand drops. The idea that your going to charge batteries fails to take into account the capitol cost of replacing a whole lot of distribution transformers. Even more significant is the distribution lines. Traditional power plants are built where the power is needed. Wind power is built in remote locations requiring significant investment in distribution lines.
The battery storage in an electric car to store wind power ultimately comes up in these discussions. The main problem with this argument is the batteries don’t exist. Under the best conditions the electric cars get 100 miles. In a climate where winter includes white stuff falling from the sky the electric car is a long way from being practical. The best batteries use lithium another element that isn’t exactly abundant. Millions of cars? Forget it, not going to happen.
The only long term viable solution is nuclear. It doesn’t require any imaginary technology that doesn’t exist and doesn’t require huge infrastructure changes.
April 29, 2010, 12:35 amDave M. (now in S. Korea) says:
I openly weep for the soon to be scarred pristine views from Hyanassport. Oh the humanity!
April 29, 2010, 1:30 amDilan Esper says:
The point is that you couldn’t use the solar powered car on any day where there was a chance of clouds because you would be stranded on the road, thus greatly diminishing the saving. The power grid has no batteries, 99% of the power is consumed within 1 second of generation.
For some reason, conservatives turn into idiots when the subject turns to energy conservation.
So long as you have sources of energy that function 24/7, they can be SUPPLEMENTED with more temporal sources even if electricity can’t be stored.
Seriously, I am speaking to a bunch of ideological brick walls. In the real world, every little bit of clean energy helps.
April 29, 2010, 1:47 amDilan Esper says:
Easier to make coal mines safe than cover the coutry with windmills.
Only a person who knows nothing about the barriers to mine safety would say this.
April 29, 2010, 1:49 amMark E. Horning says:
It’s 4 to 10 miles offshore. Standing on the beach that means it’s beyond the horizon.
April 29, 2010, 3:01 amnoahp says:
If Al Gore makes a personal choice to spend his money on a extravagant personal lifestyle…more power to him. My problem arises when his advocacy costs me money.
Last summer, I flew (at my own expense) all over this great nation. On the home leg I flew past a giant windmill farm East of LA in a pass between the Mojave desert and the central valley…I estimate crudely a thousand windmills but only a handfull actually turning!
My grandchildren will pay dearly for the baubles of the preening greenies.
April 29, 2010, 4:25 amStephen Lathrop says:
That gives you a negative carbon footprint just so long as you’re the guy who invented plants.
April 29, 2010, 5:03 amStephen Lathrop says:
Actually, that just means the very bottom of the tower is beyond the horizon. For anyone else who doesn’t understand the math, the distance to the horizon should be computed not from height of eye on the beach, but as if the observer were standing on the highest point on the blades, or the highest point on the tower. Approximately 20-40 miles in the case of Cape Wind. At night, the loom of the flashing strobes at the tops of the towers will extend beyond the horizon distance.
April 29, 2010, 5:12 amStephen Lathrop says:
Actually it does. The technology to reliably dispose of nuclear waste remains imaginary.
Also, general assertions about seasonal wind distribution are misleading. In some parts of the country summer and winter are windier than spring and fall. That is true where I live in Massachusetts. Practical grid designers can take advantage of the fact that wind supplies don’t have to correlate with local demand to be useful. Energy can be transmitted. The cost of transmission seems manageable, even slight.
Wind energy seems to be one of those subjects where you get detailed discussions of practical topics from people who seem to have taken a vow of abstinence with regard to practicality.
April 29, 2010, 5:29 amDavid Schwartz says:
The problem is that payoff curve takes a steep dive at a certain point. At first, every watt of additional wind power is one less watt of energy you have to make from fossil fuels, regardless of when you get it. But at some point, you will have enough wind power when the wind is really going that you don’t need all of it, and that power will have to be either stored or wasted, reducing the payoff for the ability to generate that power.
Essentially, wind has a high payoff so long as the maximum energy you can ever produce from wind is greater than the minimum energy you ever need from fossil fuels. As soon as your maximum wind generation capability exceeds your minimum demand, the revenue per watt produced starts to nosedive.
More efficient and longer range distribution can push the knee to the right somewhat, but it can’t alter this fundamental. And low-cost steady power production (like nuclear) makes this worse as it effectively reduces the minimum demand.
The same logic applies to solar power.
April 29, 2010, 6:16 amRobert F says:
The wind energy survey is meaningless. What matters is whether the power is there when you need it, and the reliability of the equipment. Recently, Texas had a wind “blackout” when winds diminished statewide. In addition, impartial surveys of wind installations, most notably in places with good winds like the Netherlands, have shown that they perform far below expectations. Three main reasons: Inconsistent winds, mechanical failure, and the previously unappreciated affects of the massive turbulence that makes turbines placed even a considerable distance behind others far less efficient.
April 29, 2010, 6:35 amlawschooldrunk says:
Quick- let’s find some more native americans who have standing under Lujan!
And, the submerged land act, I believe, gives the first 3 miles of ocean floor to the states, and the federal government controls the outer shelf, from 3 to 6 miles out.
April 29, 2010, 7:49 amTim says:
From one idiot to another, “more temporal sources” = coal/natural gas/nuclear! Which is what several of us have mentioned. You have to have a double system! “Under my plan, energy costs will, of course, …skyrocket.” Obama (emphasis added). Liberals turn into idiots when the subject turns to cost!
April 29, 2010, 8:55 amGaining energy independence is a goal we should strive for. R&D in all new effective energy technology should be promoted, but for reasons of national interest, not pipe dreams like AGW!
wfjag says:
The exact problem run into by Denmark, Germany, and everywhere else that tries to rely on wind power. You have to have “supplemental” power plants — coal, gas or nuclear — on line and immediately ready to provide cover the power demand when the wind powered electrical generatoring facilities won’t cover the demand. Keeping those “supplemental” power plants ready nearly negates reduction in emissions from “clean” energy sources. When you look at the total picture, any claim that trying to rely on wind power to any significant degree to get “clean” energy is Poppycock.
April 29, 2010, 9:38 amJohn says:
Correct, I live in the area and expect to see 10% to 15% increase in my electric rates from this. Consider the story last week from Spain, a solar power plant was caught generating power with a diesel generator, putting the power on the grid and getting paid back at the rates allowed “alternate power sources”. In Spain, there is an almost 400% higher rate paid to solar producers than the cost per KW charged to the end user. (In theory you could make a profit selling line power back to the utility if you could convince them the power was solar, perhaps two houses side by side with a decoy solar panel on the roof?)
April 29, 2010, 9:51 ammary says:
All this talk of aesthetics and costs, and no one has even mentioned those poor birds that get all dead and dismembered flying into the blades??? It’s been a hot topic for environmentalists in California for years. With all these wind farms, the avian migratory patterns will get all jumbled and distorted. Well, at least the surviving birds will be a smarter bunch.
Sometimes “green” is ugly and cruel, I tell you.
April 29, 2010, 10:23 amOrson Buggeigh says:
“Cape Wind is being done for politics, and to make environmentalists choke on their guilt.”
That’s not a bug, it’s a feature to some of us. We’ve had 40 years of environmentalists trying to force the end of fossil fuel use or the end of nuclear power. It is time for the environmentalists to put up or shut up. As for the NIMBYs, my answer is simple: If you want lights and computers, you can generate the power to operate them in your own back yard, and stop putting it somewhere ‘out of sight, out of mind.’ Once Cape Wind is completed, we should declare it a monument to Senator Edward M. Kennedy. It would be a very fitting memorial for a man of his talents and abilities.
April 29, 2010, 10:28 amcaliforniamom says:
Why is it that farmers in the Central Valley of California can’t get water and can’t grow crops because a small fish is endangered but a wind farm can chew up migratory birds and isn’t deemed to be an environmental threat.
The Wampanoag tribe is going to challenge this in court. Seems the Cape Wind farm is a threat to their tribal religious practices. Same thing is going to happen if solar ‘farms’ are put in the Mojave desert. The solar farms are going to be challenged by the tribes as threatening to the glyphs in the desert. They also threaten desert tortoises and other wildlife.
April 29, 2010, 10:45 amKirk Parker says:
How can that possibly be? Peaking-unit usage is load-demand driven, isn’t it?
April 29, 2010, 10:55 amflyovertard says:
Wind requires 100% instantaneous backup
Well, actually not provided:
- Widespread implementation of smart grid technology
- Hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission capability is added
- Wind provides less than 7% of total needs.
If the conditions are met, the “grid” can absorb power fluctuations due to inconsistent wind and backup is not needed.
If the all the conditions are not met, 100% instantaneous backup is needed.
Seems kinda pie in the sky to me.
April 29, 2010, 11:03 amAngus says:
Most conservative opposition is based on two false premises:
1. A belief that global climate changes is vast conspiracy/hoax by scientists
2. A belief that fossil fuel sources are infinite
Since rational people recognize that both premises are wrong, why should we listed to conservative opponents?
April 29, 2010, 12:03 pmnoahp says:
@angus would you care to cite any evidence that I believe the propositions you cite?
Talk about strawman argumentation!
April 29, 2010, 12:16 pmnibbles says:
I didn’t assert that.
What I am asserting is that the more wind power on the grid, the more natural gas will be burned, contrary to T. Boone Pickens’ assertion.
While in theory, low cost wind will squeeze out the high cost producers (i.e. natural gas turbines), in practice those are the producers who can cope with wind power’s irregularities.
Changing the scheduling time-frame doesn’t help. Shrink the time-frame, and there’s not enough time to bring the traditional plants online – or at least a significant cost associated with doing so. Stretch the time-frame, and you need more reserves in case the wind forecast is wrong, or mechanical failure at any of the producers.
April 29, 2010, 12:18 pmElliot says:
I disagree. I speak with several years experience actually working in underground mines. Fascinating place.
First, there is no industrial activity that is 100% safe. That includes both windmill construction and mining.
But, take a look at mine safety for a variety of individual US mines. The striking fact is that there is a huge variance in death and lost time injuries. Some mines have excellent records, while some have dismal records.
Our experience demonstrates we can operate large scale pit and UG mines in a safe manner. There certainly are barriers to mine safety, but we know how to deal with them. The fact that a barrier exists is no reason to presume it cannot be overcome. This is demonstarted in many mines everyday.
We face barriers in just about everything we do. So what?
April 29, 2010, 12:25 pmElliot says:
Who says that?
April 29, 2010, 12:30 pmDon Miller says:
I had too much physics in college.
On a small scale, I see no problem with wind, but on large scale, I wonder what will happen to weather patterns.
Windmills extract energy from changing weather patterns. If those weather patterns are less strong, how will it change their distribution. Will we see increased rainfall downwind, but close behind large windfarms with decreased rainfall for areas further away?
Energy has to balance. When it is used in one place, it isn’t available to be used somewhere else. I don’t have the time, education, or money to model what will happen. But something will happen. It might be such a miniscule effect that even large widespread wind use will have little apparent effect. But it might be enough to change long term weather patterns years into the future. Weather patterns are highly chaotic and small miniscule changes can have large impacts later. The atmosphere contains enormous amounts of energy, so I might me wondering about something that isn’t worth thinking about.
Disclaimer: Former Navy Nuclear Power Technician. I like nuclear power long term. But I really have no axe to grind with wind.
April 29, 2010, 12:49 pmStephen Lathrop says:
Several assert that there is an unavoidable need to match wind power with fossil or nuclear backup, nearly watt for watt, because wind is unreliable. If wind power is coming from multiple sources where available power varies independently, doesn’t the size of the backup depend on the degree of unreliability? And can’t you envisage a wind system sufficiently large and diverse that a predictable level of highly reliable (comparable to fossil fuel reliability) power production is assured?
Couldn’t a system of that sort, coupled with a diverse car battery grid to soak up the excess, be used efficiently? Seems like the management problems include understanding the statistical characteristics of the grid, meteorological predictions, and diversifying and managing load. None of that ought to cost an amount comparable to maintaining massive backup.
But note as well, even with massive backup you save fuel and pollution at the expense of investing in power generating equipment. Can anyone now reliably quantify that tradeoff, and compare it to the cost of currently needed conventional generating redundancy?
Aren’t wind power critics using a double standard? They seem to assume 100% of current capacity as necessary, but deny that assumption to wind power. Redundancy is needed for either system, and the costs of redundancy are part of the costs of a power grid. Why can’t current redundant capacity be used to back up wind power instead of conventional sources? What am I missing?
More generally, does anyone really know whether a national wind power grid would require a massive backup or something much smaller? Isn’t that a question that still needs answering?
April 29, 2010, 1:19 pmKirk Parker says:
Stephen Lathrop,
Sure, but what you suggest implies a vastly larger and more robust grid.
April 29, 2010, 1:25 pmDilan Esper says:
From one idiot to another, “more temporal sources” = coal/natural gas/nuclear!
Yes, but the whole point is that you don’t need to consume as much fossil fuels if the wind power helps out. And that simple point apparently is impossible for some conservatives with ideological blinders to grasp.
Nobody’s talking about consuming zero fossil fuels, certainly not in the short term. But can temporal sources of energy reduce somewhat our reliance on fossil fuels? Sure. And that means less pollution, less CO2 in the atmosphere, and less mining accidents.
April 29, 2010, 1:39 pmKirk Parker says:
Dilan,
Forgot the “carbon is bad” for a moment, and let’s just talk about price. If you replace some of the base-load capacity with an unreliable source, you are going to end up using more peaking capacity, which is generally costs more than whatever base-load generation you replaced.
April 29, 2010, 1:48 pmCynical says:
One reason to be really cynical about this issue is that you can predict bogus objections in advance and people will still post them. They’re reading from a script of talking points which are never derailed by mere facts.
Of course, transmission lines more objectionable than gas pipelines or coal trains (and the inevitable coal-ash dumps).
It’s about 1100 miles from Amarillo to any of Atlanta, Chicago or Los Angeles. It’s about 1600 miles from Ft. Pierre SD to NYC. Line losses in modern HVDC lines are about 3% per 1000 km, so the worst-case end-to-end losses on any of those routes would be around 10%.
I bet most New Yorkers would jump at the chance to buy S. Dakota or Iowa wind power, even after the cost of amortizing the lines.
This is called “spinning reserve”, and it has to be there regardless to allow for outages of conventional plants. The output of a 150 MW wind farm can disappear in half an hour, the output of a 1200 MW nuclear plant can disappear in half a cycle (that’s 1/120 of a second for you lawyers). Wind farms do not increase spinning reserve requirements.
Emphatically not true. If you look at european electric prices, wind power cuts them even when it gets a fixed rate. It does this by pushing the most expensive-to-operate plants off the grid. If those plants are providing spinning reserve they still get paid, but only for the reserve capacity and not production (which involves a lot more fuel).
Finally, something sensible. But the timeline for building nuclear in the USA is about 10 years, and it will only get longer if the Obama administration’s cuts to the NRC budget go through. We can’t sit on our hands until it’s done.
April 29, 2010, 2:32 pmDan Weber says:
Has anyone here said that we can get completely off fossil fuels with wind? I’m not sure they have. (I’ve seen it elsewhere.) If so, they are wrong.
Our power grids already deal with changes in production and demand. A moderate amount of wind power is something the grid can manage.
Looking up references, I also found this paper, which if you are lazy you can skim for graphs. 1 wind-farm can have some variability, but over a region as small as Western Denmark (the entire country of Denmark can fit in Texas ten times), you only drop beneath 90% of the rated capacity only about 1% of the time. http://www.iea.org/papers/2005/variability.pdf
Distributed wind power doesn’t just suddenly go away, at least no more often than a coal- or nuclear-powered plant suddenly goes away.
April 29, 2010, 2:35 pmCynical says:
Or not. Pickens had to change his siting plans because he couldn’t get transmission from his first choices. Given the PTC, he has every incentive to put them where the wind is best. The capacity factor of his farms had to suffer as a result.
Aruba’s new wind farm has a 60% capacity factor.
Electric transmission is thick in population centers and very thin in the zones where wind is best. Those zones would supply great capacity factor, but few farms can be sited there before the lines are saturated. As more lines get built, the capacity factor of new wind farms will jump.
The continental shelves of the USA also have potential for high capacity factor (and a projected 900 GW of average capacity!), but there are no lines going there yet.
April 29, 2010, 2:58 pmDan Weber says:
One really good idea I saw (and nearly slapped myself for missing something so obvious) was to put new load where the wind is. Things like server farms can go near wind farms. I think Google has already done this somewhere.
April 29, 2010, 3:52 pmChrisTS says:
I’m not sure to what you are responding. But, even better if it is not an eyesore from shore.
April 29, 2010, 5:14 pmChrisTS says:
Steve Lathrop:
Thanks for pointing this out. It’s also worth noting that in a place like the Sound, wind is pretty much a round the clock phenomenon.
I no longer live on the MA shore (a harbor, in fact), but a primary memory of growing up is trying to avoid walking around to the seawall side of the house in the winter. My sister still lives in that house: she has one old pine tree that has been bent to about a 45% angle by the wind.
April 29, 2010, 5:28 pmDavid Schwartz says:
A lot of the disadvantages of both wind and solar could be removed or reduced if we could develop an efficient system that could move the demand to when the supply is available. I don’t think this is outside the realm of possibility, and most of what’s needed are things we’ll need to do anyway.
How efficient is converting electricity to hydrogen? We can make hydrogen whenever we want. How realistic are smart grid technologies where we communicate data pulses over the grid that say when power is cheap and when it’s expensive and allow endpoints to adjust their load? How much of the load is movable if we had that technology? How realistic is it to forecast an increase in that fraction? (Say, due to electric cars.)
The enabling technologies for practical large scale wind and solar power have to do with revolutionizing how the power is used.
April 29, 2010, 6:47 pmCynical says:
Hydrogen sucks, but demand-side management is a steal. Tricks like ice-storage air conditioners are already on the market. All you need is some way to make a market in real-time demand adjustment (say, allowing the utility to jitter the on and off transitions of ACs a few seconds or minutes to match demand with supply in real time) and you’ve solved a major headache of grid control.
Advanced Automotive Battery projects 900,000 grid-connected vehicles a year by 2020, but no breakdown of how many might be in the United States versus Chindia. A lot of that also depends on the public mood and who’s in Washington. Republicans tend to be knee-jerk opponents, as with the Bush administration’s killing of the PNGV program in 2001. The wrong people in control can easily lose another 10 years.
April 29, 2010, 7:33 pmAngus says:
Conservative websites typically laugh at the concept of “peak oil” and insist that using more coal and petroleum is always the correct answer, and that there will always be more to discover. In fact, “peak oil” is really no more controversial than the “Laffer curve.” Both are absolute statements of reality. All the concept of “peak oil” means is that someday there will be a peak in global production of oil, followed by a decline as new discoveries and existing oil sources dry up. However, conservatives usually dismiss this basic, commonsense idea out of hand.
April 29, 2010, 7:39 pmAngus says:
Here’s a popular right wing news site. Article: “We Will Never Run Out of Oil”
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47276
April 29, 2010, 7:43 pmNobody At All says:
Wind is displacing the most expensive/last dispatched source of generation – primarily, natural gas. This isn’t theory, it is what is happening in the dispatch order. Believe me, I would be happier if it were displacing coal, but it isn’t. Colorado just passed a law that will basically displace coal in the dispatch order with natural gas, and then wind is displacing natural gas at the top of the dispatch order. Without a carbon price (e.g. with only an RPS), that is basically the policy-play to displace coal.
You aren’t understanding the concept of scheduling time-frame. Different kinds of backup is called upon within different time increments, at different cost. When you schedule day-ahead, you can’t buy the cheapest, minute-to-minute regulation reserves; and, you have to buy a lot more than you actually need. This is something that’s googleable, and is in a million different transmission studies; so, I’ll leave you to those devices.
Also, someone on this thread mentioned that we can’t integrate more than 7%; I’ve read that Iowa is currently at 17%. For what it’s worth.
April 29, 2010, 8:21 pmGreg F says:
Stephen Lathrop says:
You can envision it like a comic book but reality will not cooperate. Again, look at the national wind maps during a heat wave or a cold snap. There is no significant wind over the continental US. None. From the wind maps we can only conclude that there will be times when there is no significant wind power over the entire country.
The batteries have not been invented yet. This is comic book reality. The best battery technology uses lithium which is not available in large enough quantities.
I would assume closer to 90%.
Again, I would assume closer to 90%.
This is a red herring. What is misleading is citing the exception over the rule. For the sake of argument assume 10% of the grid area is as you say. An equal distribution of generators will yield more power in the spring and fall then in the winter and summer. To compensate you would have to build 10 times as many windmills in areas like yours. You cannot ignore the capitol costs of such a scheme.
Nonsense. The technology exists, the political will doesn’t.
Dilan Esper says:
No. The question is will you save. If you do will it be significant? A steam powered turbine is most efficient when run at close to full power. Efficiency drops off significantly at reduced power levels and the savings will be less then a simple calculation would indicate. The intermittency of the wind means the turbine generators need to operate at constantly changing output levels and the associated hit on efficiency. Think jack rabbit starts and stops with a car.
Effect on efficiency
The devil is in the details. Wind turbines require power to start. The towers require dehumidifiers that run even when the turbine is not generating. When you see a wind farm where only a couple of turbines are turning they are not generating power, they are consuming it. The purpose of doing this is so when the wind does get up to speed the ones already spinning can be switched to generator mode to supply the power to start the other turbines. Don’t assume because the blades are turning that any power is being generated. The blades will turn easier without a load due to the dynamic breaking effect that a load introduces.
April 30, 2010, 12:01 pmCynical says:
You don’t have to rely on wind for everything. MIT is working on a low-temperature Stirling engine to use solar water heaters to generate electricity during the summer. It could even power an air conditioner directly. (Of course this will be ignored by people who can’t think in more than one dimension, which is most of them.)
There are multiple efforts to store wind energy as compressed air. These will not only work during heat waves, they do not suffer reduced output at high air temperatures as gas turbines do.
Firefly Energy claimed a lead-acid technology which supplied Li-ion performance at 1/3 the cost, but the company got no money from the latest round of grants and is liquidating. It seems that the US government either hasn’t gotten the message about a lithium shortage, or it’s exaggerated.
It’s worse than that. The technology to dispose of spent PWR fuel is the fast-breeder reactor, which gets rid of the plutonium etc. instead of just burying it. Hazel O’Leary got our last effort killed in 1994.
I have to call you on this one, because you talk about steam turbines but refer to a paper on combined-cycle powerplants (gas turbine with the exhaust heat making steam for a steam turbine). The CCGT is the most efficient, but operationally it’s the worst of both worlds.
GE has an intercooled simple-cycle gas turbine which is rated at 46% efficiency. I believe it can go from cold to full load in 15 minutes. That would give you plenty of time to bring a CCGT plant up from cold shutdown.
I was surprised to read this, but it appears that it is probably only required in marine environments. A wind farm with a 60% capacity factor like Aruba’s isn’t going to notice the power spent on dehumidifiers. Redesign of the electronics for e.g. heat-pipe cooling of sealed assemblies could get rid of that too, if it was worth the expense.
April 30, 2010, 3:08 pmGreg F says:
You can’t rely on something that doesn’t exist yet. You wouldn’t buy an electric car that needed batteries that don’t exist hoping someone comes up with a solution.
Why is it that all the solutions to alternative energy shortfalls are either non existent or grossly inefficient technologies?
Grants? If by performance you mean equivalent weight – energy density then it was a scam. There is no shortage of private interests that would jump at that type of investment. They wouldn’t need no stinking government money.
Perhaps my point wasn’t clear. It isn’t the type of plant that is important. It is the “modulation test”. The intermittency of the wind means the turbine generators need to operate at constantly changing output levels and the associated hit on efficiency. The hit on efficiency is a fact for all generators. A MWH generated by wind does not save the amount of fuel it would take to generate the same power with a conventional generator. It saves less. The question is how much less. A retired electrical engineer has done an analisis on just this problem:
Wind Integration: Incremental Emissions from Back-Up Generation Cycling
It doesn’t say that at all. It says:
IOW, the problem is more acute at sea. Where I live we have this white stuff that falls from the sky during the winter. The wind farm about 50 miles down the road from me also has heaters in the towers.
Oh please not another red herring! The national average is 30% according to the EIA.
You familiar with the expression the death of a thousand cuts?
April 30, 2010, 8:09 pmTim Hulsey says:
April 30, 2010, 9:16 pmTim Hulsey says:
Your back-up sources have to be at near full power to be engaged when the wind fails. There’s not much savings there. I have no doubt that better energy technologies will develop over time. I’m certainly not married to fossil fuels. I am, however, married to economical energy whose price doesn’t “skyrocket” and to continued development. If we de-develop, as some of the zealots want, there will be no innovation! Human creativity will assure adaptation to whatever climate we encounter, just as it always has, and that resource will be here until the comet hits! Of course, if Obama succeeds in bankrupting the country, you might wish you had a little gasoline!
April 30, 2010, 9:27 pmDilan Esper says:
Your back-up sources have to be at near full power to be engaged when the wind fails. There’s not much savings there. I have no doubt that better energy technologies will develop over time. I’m certainly not married to fossil fuels. I am, however, married to economical energy whose price doesn’t “skyrocket” and to continued development. If we de-develop, as some of the zealots want, there will be no innovation! Human creativity will assure adaptation to whatever climate we encounter, just as it always has, and that resource will be here until the comet hits! Of course, if Obama succeeds in bankrupting the country, you might wish you had a little gasoline!
You might want to join the reality based community. You can’t force energy to be cheap, any more than you can with any other resource. You can only reduce demand and increase supply and hope the price stays low. Alternative energies are part of this calculus, as is energy conservation.
But I will say this. When a person goes on and on about the supposed conspiracy of millions of scientists to fool the world on global warming, and then says that what they really want is cheap energy forever, it’s pretty clear that the tail is wagging the dog.
May 1, 2010, 4:56 amEngineer-Poet says:
This is a very interesting discussion, not the least because it’s right up my alley.
I’m inclined to view Hawkins’ Master Resource paper skeptically for several reasons, both social and technical.
1. The site appears to have rather strong political leanings (not unlike The Oil Drum, which I have written for and been censored by for heretical analysis) and I would expect them to affect the conclusions.
2. The paper starts with a model of a power system running 100% on wind and gas turbines, which doesn’t exist and isn’t being proposed.
3. The paper assumes that CCGT’s would not be justified in a wind/gas power system, rather than analyzing the fuel cost and financial return.
4. The paper assumes that the grid doesn’t already require large amounts of spinning reserve, and that spinning reserve and its attendant fuel consumption can all be billed to wind generation. (I’m sure some attorneys have been caught out trying to do similar things with their overhead time.)
5. The technology is moving on rapidly. Hawkins assumes no storage of electricity when compressed air is already in use on a small scale and several major projects are under way, with the typical capacity of the air “tank” being several tens of hours. More rapid variations can be managed using smart chargers on electric vehicles, with Mitsubishi and TIT specifically working to utilize wind power for the purpose.
6. Last, and most crucial, there seems to be data out there to answer the question from actual experience, but Hawkins doesn’t use it. It only took me a few minutes to find EIA’s State Energy Data System, which has info on consumption of all major fuels by state and by sector. It shouldn’t be hard to compare fossil electric generation against total sector fuel consumption and see if the heat rate is affected negatively by increasing fraction of wind power. I’ve already started digging into it, but I don’t understand the field codes yet.
I’m probably going to get a blog post out of that last one, but probably not in time for this little back-and-forth and certainly not if I post much more than this comment.
Cynical did say Aruba, and Aruba is more representative of marine (wet) environments than e.g. the Plains states. Wikipedia cites this paper stating that the capacity factor of new US wind farms in 2004-5 was 36%. The new wind-availability spreadsheet uses 30% capacity factor as its lower cutoff point. The ancient wind farms like the ones south of San Francisco, with their tiny turbines on short lattice towers, are a small and shrinking fraction of the total.
I’m familiar with industrial and vehicular equipment design, and sealing electronics for use in severe environments is common practice (e.g. IP67 rating).
Dilan Esper: You said it.
May 1, 2010, 6:09 pmEngineer-Poet says:
It’s not as easy as I thought. The state energy databases list fuel consumption but not electric generation (much less a breakdown by fuel). I’m still looking.
May 10, 2010, 9:28 amDehumidifiers says:
Hello, good story. I just now stumbled on your blog and am already a fan.
May 21, 2010, 10:16 pm