thomas said:

And maybe it’s done more cleverly – we don’t give direct subsidies or tax priviliges for renewables – we simply guarantee a certain price which must be paid by utilites (who of course increase their prices for customers, by about 1 eurocent per KWh). Utilities must connect the generators to their grid and the guaranteed price is reduced year by year.

OKay, there’s some code words here. “guarantee a certain price which must be paid by utilites” – a utility is like any other buisiness. It pays the market price for a product it wants, and if the product is not worth its cost or is of no use then it won’t buy it. If the product is worthwhile and what it needs, it buys it.

if I own a power plant and I can provide reliable baseload electiricity when needed, a power company will buy from me volentarily. If I provide power in random bursts, then it’s all but worthless. Why should they pay the same for something they don’t want? They’ll need to still pay for reserve and if that power is sent to storage, like pumped hydro, much of it is lost. Plus, you’re forcing them to build the infrastructure to support this power source that they don’t want.

Yes, the “smart grid” can help somewhat. It can’t cure the disease, but it can at least lessen (but not eliminate) the symptoms. However, I’d like to ask why we should pay a lot of money for a grid that is full of expensive technology to solve a problem inherent to a piddle-power source to begin with.

Load following and reserve is not that simple, by the way. Constant fluxuations in power cost efficiency. A gas turbine can go from idle to full power fairly quickly, but it uses a lot more gas to spool up. Even worse, in a combined cycle system, long idle periods can result in loss of steam pressure and that means when it suddenly is demanded again, it can’t function at full efficiency until it heats up again.

Wow, 2007 data (from the eia link provided) is really old considering the rapid growth in the wind industry. According to 2009 year-end data from the AWEA, the US has 35 GW of wind installed. That’s enough to provide about 2% of our electricity. Wind energy surpassed geothermal around 2006, and I think finally passed biomass in 2009[./quote]

To adapt a quote: there are three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and nameplate capacity.

        Nathan Wilson said:

The 10GW of wind we installed last year is the equivalent of about 4 GW of nukes. How long before the nuclear industry can install at that rate? 5-10 years? The wind thing is really not so terrible as a bridge to a nuclear future.

It’s not equivalent to 4gw. It’s apples to oranges. You can’t compare the total energy output of a constantly running plant to one that provides it in unpredictable waves.

The nuclear industry could, if not held back by regulations, build a G 3+ reactor in two years. It can build more than one simultaneously, of course and some dual reactor plants were built with both reactors coming online about the same time.

If five plants were built at five different locations at the same time, you could have something like 15-18 gigawatts in two years.

        Nathan Wilson said:

all the projections say we’ll use lots of natural gas combustion turbines (simple cycle) to provide the required rapid ramp-up capability.

Ah, and there we have it. Simple cycle – the least effecient type of gas power plant and the type that the industry loves more than anything else.

        Nathan Wilson said:

That arrangement is obviously not economically justifiable, but for the moment, people love wind power in spite of the cost.

People love wind. People loved patent medicine. People continue to love homeopathy. People love religion and smooth talking politicians.

There’s a sucker born every minute.

Slick marketing and well told lies work. However, some of us would rather try to change that than just accept it.

The bottom line is that without contributing any reliable capacity, wind will nonetheless make nuclear, by far our most practical and reliable form of zero carbon energy, less profitable. Existing plants will be caught in a trap and new construction will be discouraged entirely. Already the British Nuclear Group is complaining that it can’t build any new reactors if they have to compete against subsidized wind farms. Anti-nuclear activists are turning handsprings, claiming joyously that wind is finally replacing nuclear. But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, nothing will be replacing existing capacity–namely, the coal burning plants that are one of the largest sources of carbon emissions–as demand increases in years ahead. That means carbon emissions won’t be meaningfully reduced, since coal plants will have to stay on line to provide backup.

I North America wind is nothing but a Trojan horse for gas, the very fact that the gas industry is turning itself inside out supporting it is all the indication we need that wind is going to be good for them.

Real, productive people need real, industrial-sized power and that will never come from wind, and since it has to come from nuclear energy, why would we build windfarms at all?

However nuclear is way to go from environmental point of view, since its high density, and low land use compared to other options. Wind and already build hydro may supplant it with solar but main base load should be nuclear.

PS. We need to get to ZERO CO2 emissions eventually, and nuclear seems to be only reasonable way to get there while “green hippie” methods should be researched and implemented if they become reasonable.

So no, I don’t expect the wind industry to increase in size by 50 to 100x in 20 years. I expect it to increase in size by 5x. If we continue installing turbines at the 2009 rate (10GW/year), then in 14 years we will pass that mark. More likely, I think the installation rate will increase to 20GW/year, then crash suddenly (with wind supplying about 8-12% of our electricity).

The 10GW of wind we installed last year is the equivalent of about 4 GW of nukes. How long before the nuclear industry can install at that rate? 5-10 years? The wind thing is really not so terrible as a bridge to a nuclear future.

I’m inclined to believe the DOE when that say that even at 20% contribution from wind, the fossil fuel plants do an ok job of cutting fuel use when the wind is blowing. They don’t have to keep the coal plants running, all the projections say we’ll use lots of natural gas combustion turbines (simple cycle) to provide the required rapid ramp-up capability.

Anyway, we won’t be able to continute pushing the fossil fuel consumption down with all that wind on the system unless we add storage. And the cheapest form of storage will most likely be thermal storage at Gen IV nuclear plant (e.g. hot salt). That arrangement is obviously not economically justifiable, but for the moment, people love wind power in spite of the cost.

Storage/smart grids remain problems with much research and experimentation going on.

(How fire can be domesticated)

        Nathan Wilson said:

I agree that nuclear is better than wind, but I think some of Dr. Buzzo’s comments about wind are excessively pessimistic, and in fact fail to explain the recent rapid growth in the wind industry. Even the most pessimistic projections from the dept. of Energy forecast wind overtaking hydro as the largest renewable electricity source, in the next decade or so.

The DOE is not immune to the political climate. As of 2007, the net electricity production in the US was about 6-8% That’s total energy, not baseload capacity. Actually we’ve had some fairly poor years recently, because on good years, hydroelectric accounts for more than 10% of gigawatt hours.

It depends on how you measure it though. That’s production in the US. If you take into account the net import/export on the North American power grid, the hydroelectric power numbers are higher because of the power bought from Canada. Thus depending on how you measure it it’s at worst 6-7% and at best maybe 14%

Wind, however, is so small that most DOE charts don’t even have a category for it. It’s filed under “other renewable” which accounts for at most, about 2.5%.

However, if you look at that category, you’ll find that the number one source of “other renewable” is biomass and refuse to energy – accounting for more than half of it.

Even by nameplate, wind is less than half that of petroleum burners.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelelectric.html

How do you propose that wind power would be able to increase by a factor of 50-100 in the nest 20 years? Considering how much has been spent in the past ten!

Well, coal plants need to burn a considerable amount to just keep a constant head of steam up. They don’t save very much in reserve mode. Combined cycle gas is better, but it still is not as good as you might think, especially given that many plants have supply contracts that basically force them to burn gas because of the constant supply being fed – there’s no place to store the excess gas. But even without that, they need to stay at a high idle for immediate dispatch.

The bottom line is that wind works fine (in the US) when it is diluted 3:1 with dispatchable (i.e. fossil fueled) power. That limitation will not impede the growth in the wind industry for several years.

The other serious problem with wind is that unlike coal or nuclear baseload plants which produce really cheap power after their construction loans are paid off, wind power will be expensive forever (due to the 20 year service life limitation).

The decision makers in the utility industry and government understand this, so I believe that it is very unlikely that we will adopt a renewable portfolio standard like the wind industry wants. So I’m not worried.