YES! Finally! Wind is getting it’s due!
August 27th, 2008
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I’m absolutely delighted, tickled pink even to read this post on slashdot: The Power Grid Can’t Handle Wind Farms
But I’m even happier to read the New York Times Article it links to!
Okay, I’ll admit that the article paints a far more rosey picture of wind power than things really are. The article does describe the power grid issues it also seems to suggest that some of them could be at least partially solved by improving the electric grid. On this I think it might be a little too optimistic. The fact is that no electric grid, no matter how advanced can ever deliver more power than is being generated unless it has massive storage capacity, and storage of utility scale energy is always extremely lossy and generally extremely expensive.
Really, what we’re dealing with here is far more than a grid that is unsuited to deliver wind energy but rather an energy source that is inherently extremely difficult to manage and utilize. The article states:
“We need an interstate transmission superhighway system,” said Suedeen G. Kelly, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
No. What we really need is that plus millions and millions of tons of sodium-sulfur batteries, about ten times the pumped hydro storage we have, at least four times as much wind nameplate capacity as we actually plan on drawing, a few thousand enormous flywheels, a grid management system that would make NORAD look like a joke, power lines made out of silver and a little magic too.
I shouldn’t complain though. I’m glad to see that wind energy is finally getting some of the criticism it deserves in the mainstream media. Just like biofuels started getting called on its various empty claims a couple of months ago, the wind is shifting on wind power (pun intended). It had to happen though. Something like wind power can only get away with misleading the public before eventually someone starts to notice that despite the enormous expenditure and the turbines spinning all over the countryside, there is no apparent benefit in terms of electric rates or fossil fuel consumption.
The honeymoon is over. The jig is up. The scam is being exposed and it’s finally getting some attention. Lets hope this trend continues.
Solar thermal: You’re next.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 8:45 pm and is filed under Bad Science, Enviornment, Good Science, Politics, media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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August 27th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I liked the quote: “Without a clear way of recovering the costs and earning a profit, and with little leadership on the issue from the federal government, no company or organization has offered to fight the political battles necessary to get such a transmission backbone built.” (emphasis mine)
In other news: pain hurts.
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August 27th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
DV82XL said:
They make it sound like a regulatory issue but I’m not so sure. Do we really need new power line right of ways? I’m more inclined to think that the grid could be upgraded pretty significantly by beefing up the existing routes by adding more cables or towers.
The way I see it the one thing that is universal is that if you have a resource and a demand for it, someone will invest what is needed to take it to market. In other words, the fact that no transmission lines are being built is because the power companies gain nothing from tapping the horribly intermittent source of wind. Who the hell wants to build a huge series of power lines to a wind farm that is small and unreliable ontop of that?
So what is the answer? have the government bleed out some more money to foot the fees? I hope not.
The power companies have not built new lines in the past 30 years because they have not been allowed to build new power plants as a rule and they have not been given any incentive to build power lines because we have backed them into a corner and told them they can’t have any reasonable new plants.
The other stupid thing is that people say the way to conserve power is to “decouple profits from power usage” which is just to institute a crazy billing and taxation system that means power companies can’t benefit from more product delivered. Why the hell would anyone bother improving their infrastructure in such circumstances?
Loose the wind power and then maybe then the power companies won’t be bankrupt half the time and they’ll actually have the funds to improve things. What a concept!
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August 27th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Pretty much the extent of it. If wind generated valuable energy then there would be someone to bring it to market. The alaska pipeline being an example of where private companies rushed to construct a transport system to get the valuable energy (oil) to a market.
Wind energy is piddly and has almost no value and all a wind farm is good for is as a tax shelter due to the subsidies it gets left and right.
That is the problem.
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August 27th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
For awhile I’ve thought–terrestrial wind will soon be the political equivalent of corn ethanol.
Especially as politicians anoint it as “the answer” and pour billions into the new wind farms, and as the wind turbines crash the grid a few times and cause a few tens of billions in lost productivity.
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:13 am
What do you have against wind? If it needs more power lines then fine we should build more. Nuclear and coal and oil all have problems and big ones. I’m not saying wind is everything but it is part of it.
Why would anyone dismiss it? Wind is great. More wind means less coal and less pollution. And if you think it can’t do it all and nuclear is part of it then okay, as long as you can figure out how to do it safely. I just can’t see why anyone would have anything against wind. If someone else wants to build a wind farm and build power lines why would you try to stop them? Why would you not support any clean energy? This makes no sense!
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:19 am
It’s been known for some time that these installations are like Cuisinarts on birds, but apparently wind turbines are hard on bats too. Hundreds of bats found dead each year around wind farms have suffered blown lungs from a sudden drop in air pressure near the turbine blades, according to new research by a University of Calgary research team looking for reasons behind the slaughter.
See the details on the University of Calgary website: Bat deaths from wind turbines explained
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August 28th, 2008 at 12:20 am
Seth, if wind stood on its own two feet and it was private money, private land, privatly operated and the power companies bought the power willingly then I’d have no problem with it. Wind power, however, is built primarily with government subsidies. Even T. Boon admitted that without tax credits and subsidies it would not ever happen. Nobody would do it without government support.
That’s money from the taxpayers. That’s money that can be saved or used to do something much more useful.
Wind power electricity, most utilities don’t want it. It’s of little use to them. They might buy it at a low rate to save some reserve, but that’s not how it works. They are FORCED to buy it and buy it at full market price even if it is useless to them. That’s more money out of every rate payer’s pocket. That’s money that is a burden on the electric companies and makes their service worse.
I’m fine with the government spending public money on useful things that it has to in order to improve life or protect us or have better economic conditions. If the government needs to subsidize something that is of enormous importance and has a high return that’s fine. Wind power is wasted money and lots of it. It generates very little useful energy compared to other sources and it’s super expensive.
That equates to a horrible ROI or Return on Investment. The Cost/Benefit ratio is tipped heavily toward cost. Lots of money spent. Lots of land ruined. Lots of homes made less valuable. The return is money that is just about burned. It only makes power worse.
That’s why.
BTW: I’m not 100% anti-wind. It has its place like when paired directly with some hydro locations or for use in remote areas to charge batteries or for pumping water for irrigating areas from wells. That’s all okay, but for the grid it’s just a terrible return on investment.
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August 28th, 2008 at 4:37 am
It drives me batty to hear people like Seth defending the wind energy money grab. The prevailing concept that utilities should be forced to buy wind at “current market prices”, that taxpayers should be subsidizing the turbine operation and that someone – either the government or the utilities – should build whatever transmission system is required to deliver the power that the turbines produce is ludicrous.
It is something that only a GE – which sells about $3 billion worth of turbines each year and also has a huge investment in “smart grid” transmission technology or a Siemens – with a similar product line – could love.
I keep asking people who seem to like being considered a left leaning environmentalist how they like their unpaid service in GE’s marketing department.
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August 28th, 2008 at 8:35 am
I liked the article in Wednesday’s New York Times.
Power must come from other sources when the wind is not blowing. Would we have intermittent idle transmission capacity [and and idle capital investment] when the wind does not blow? And idle standby baseload generation capacity [and capital] when it does?
Distributed power generation, with sources near consumers, would reduce the terrorist-vulnerability and cost of a Interstate-highway-model grid.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:15 am
Rod Adams said:
GAA! “Smart Grid” NO! That’s idiotic. The grid does certainly need to be upgraded and it needs it badly and adding more advanced switching and control will help a lot, but “smart grid” has come to mean “magic bullet” because no matter how “Smart” your grid is, as the author states, you can’t ever deliver more power than you have generators for and no matter how smart your grid is an intermittent source always needs some kind of immediately avaliable reserve (spinning).
Face reality! You’re going to need more than grid upgrades. You’ll need big flywheels and many of them along with a lot of pumped hydro all around the country and you’ll need a lot more wind power to justify that kind of expenditure and thus you’ll need a lot more money.
There are no simple answers. There is no easy or inexpensive way to do this. It’s not just an issue of a “smarter” grid.
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August 28th, 2008 at 11:57 am
Engineering Edgar said:
I think some people think that with a smart grid the power can just be transmitted around in a loop forever and that through this method power can be “stored” on the grid. That seems to be a common misconception.
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August 28th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
After more than 25 years of building windmills, according to the IPCC, wind is producing only 1/2 of 1% of the world’s energy. And we expect to head off Global Warming with windmills?
Pumped electricity can make wind all it can be – which will never be much.
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August 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Seth:
What do we have against wind energy?
Nothing.
It just does not, and cannot, fulfill the promises that it makes. And, without government subsidies, no organization would take on installing a wind farm. Government dangling something like $25M at them will make it a lot sweeter, and whether it works or not is not their problem. The built it and sold it to the local utility. Made their money and scrammed.
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August 28th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
So maybe instead of wasting our time tilting against windmills, we should sell them.
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August 28th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Chuck:
This might sound weird, but I would not sell anything that I do not believe in, even if it is a lucrative occupation.
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August 28th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
Rod Adams said:
Doesn’t sound like weirdness to me Rod – sounds more like ethics.
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August 29th, 2008 at 4:50 am
…or “Impressive Wind Power Gains Stymied by Inadequate Grid Investment and Management”.
I was horrified to read in the NYT that the US grid is “balkanized” and in the hands of 500 different companies. Well – there’s your problem, wind power or no – that’s just no way to operate a strategically important national infrastructure resource.
BTW, aren’t the kids in the photo at the head of the NYT article really fat! Almost put me off my porridge!
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August 29th, 2008 at 5:01 am
Concerning T Boon Pickens Reason for Wind Development……this should rumple some feathers….
I don’t know the true Texas term, but Horn-Swaggler comes to mind…and others that can’t be printed here.
Pickens Gives New Meaning to ‘Self-Government’
From: http://junkscience.com/ByTheJunkman/20080731.html
By Steven Milloy
July 31, 2008
The more you learn about T. Boone Pickens’ plan to switch America to wind power, the more you realize that he seems willing to say and do just about anything to make another billion or two.
This column previously discussed the plan’s technical and economic shortcomings and marketing ruses. Today, we’ll look into the diabolical machinations behind it.
Simply put, Pickens’ pitch is “embrace wind power to help break our ‘addiction’ to foreign oil.” There is, however, another intriguing component to Pickens’ plan that goes unmentioned in his TV commercials, media interviews and web site — water rights, which he owns more of than any other American.
Pickens hopes that his recent $100 million investment in 200,000 acres worth of groundwater rights in Roberts County, Texas, located over the Ogallala Aquifer, will earn him $1 billion. But there’s more to earning such a profit than simply acquiring the water. Rights-of-way must be purchased to install pipelines, and opposition from anti-development environmental groups must be overcome. Here’s where it gets interesting, according to information compiled by the Water Research Group, a small grassroots group focusing on local water issues in Texas.
Purchasing rights-of-way is often expensive and time-consuming — and what if landowners won’t sell? While private entities may be frustrated, governments can exercise eminent domain to compel sales. This is Pickens’ route of choice. But wait, you say, Pickens is not a government entity. How can he use eminent domain? Are you sitting down?
At Pickens’ behest, the Texas legislature changed state law to allow the two residents of an 8-acre parcel of land in Roberts County to vote to create a municipal water district, a government agency with eminent domain powers. Who were the voters? They were Pickens’ wife and the manager of Pickens’ nearby ranch. And who sits on the board of directors of this water district? They are the parcel’s three other non-resident landowners, all Pickens’ employees.
A member of a local water conservation board told Bloomberg News that, “[Pickens has] obtained the right of eminent domain like he was a big city. It’s supposed to be for the public good, not a private company.”
What’s this got to do with Pickens’ wind-power plan? Just as he needs pipelines to sell his water, he also needs transmission lines to sell his wind-generated power. Rights of way for transmission lines are also acquired through eminent domain — and, once again, the Texas legislature has come to Pickens’ aid.
Earlier this year, Texas changed its law to allow renewable energy projects (like Pickens’ wind farm) to obtain rights-of-way by piggybacking on a water district’s eminent domain power. So Pickens can now use his water district’s authority to also condemn land for his future wind farm’s transmission lines.
Who will pay for the rights-of-way and the transmission lines and pipelines? Thanks to another gift from Texas politicians, Pickens’ water district can sell tax-free, taxpayer-guaranteed municipal bonds to finance the $2.2 billion cost of the water pipeline. And then earlier this month, the Texas legislature voted to spend $4.93 billion for wind farm transmission lines. While Pickens has denied that this money is earmarked for him, he nevertheless is building the largest wind farm in the world.
Despite this legislative largesse, a fly in the ointment remains.
Although Pickens hopes to sell as much as $165 million worth of water annually to Dallas alone, no city in Texas has signed up yet — partly because they don’t yet need the water and partly because of resentment against water profiteering.
Enter the Sierra Club.
While Green groups support wind power, “the privatization of water is an entirely different thing,” says the Sierra Club. Moreover, the activist group has long opposed further exploitation of the very groundwater Pickens wants to use — the Ogallala Aquifer.
“The source of drinking water and irrigation for Plains residents from Nebraska to Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer is one of the world’s largest — as well as one of the most rapidly dissipating… If current irrigation practices continue, agribusiness will deplete the Ogallala Aquifer in the next century,” says the Sierra Club.
In March 2002, the Sierra Club opposed the construction of a slaughterhouse in Pampa, Texas, because it would require a mere 275 million gallons per year from the Ogallala Aquifer. Yet Pickens wants to sell 65 billion gallons of water per year — to Dallas alone. In a 2004 lamentation about local government facilitation of Pickens’ plan for the Ogallala, the Sierra Club slammed Pickens as a “junk bond dealer” who wanted to make “Blue Gold” from the Ogallala.
But while the Sierra Club can’t seem to do anything about Pickens’ influence with state legislators, they do have enough influence to make his water politically unpotable. This opposition may soon abate, however, now that Pickens has buddied up with Sierra Club president Carl Pope.
As noted last week, Pope now flies in Pickens’ private jet and publicly lauds him. The two are newly-minted “friends,” since Pope needs the famous Republican oilman to lend propaganda value to the Sierra Club’s anti-oil agenda and Pickens needs Pope to ease up on the Ogallala water opposition.
This alliance isn’t sitting well with everyone on the Left.
A TreeHugger.com writer recently observed, “… I am left asking myself why the green media have neglected [the water] aspect of Pickens’ wind-farm plans? Have we been so distracted by the prospect of Texas’ renewable energy portfolio growing by 4000 megawatts that we are willing to overlook some potentially dodgy aspects to the project?”
It shouldn’t sit well with the rest of us either. Pickens has gamed Texas for his own ends, and now he’s trying to game the rest of us, too. Worse, his gamesmanship includes lending his billionaire resources, prominent stature and feudal powers bestowed upon him by the Texas legislature to help the Greens gain control over the U.S. energy supply.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and DemandDebate.com. He is a junk science expert, and advocate of free enterprise and an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
SEE http://www.aninconvenientguilttrip.com/
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As a side note, a Texas water lobby expert was consulted about where Boone’s water district was created. He says it was an amendment to Senate Bill 3, the omnibus water bill which was passed in either the 2001 or 2003 session. The amendment is nearly impossible to pick out unless you know exactly what you’re looking for. The actual vote is also impossible to figure out unless you can find the exact vote on the amendment. You still remember this technique don’t you?
He also says that Senators Duncan and Selliger have promised to change the law and remove Boone’s district’s power of eminent domain. Duncan passed a bill during the 2007 session which was vetoed by Governor Perry. Perry has now promised Duncan he will sign a bill if Duncan can get it through the 2009 session.
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August 29th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Retired Power Engineer,
You cite Steven Milloy of The Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is funded by Ford Motor Company, Texaco, The Amoco Foundation, General Motors and the API, amongst others.
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August 29th, 2008 at 10:58 pm
Mr McGlashan, Thanks, and your point is?
This is a common method of demonizing others, pointing to where funding is obtained.
I assume at that point that you are factual in your claim…but ask, what difference does your comment make?
My point was to show there is an agenda that is not well known. The claim about Mr Pickens activities was investigaged, found to be true, and corrective actions are being taken in Texas law. Where Mr Steven Milloy of the Competitive Enterprise Institute gets funding is of little interest to me, if he posts truthful claims.
Mr Pickens, may appear “true blue”, but he never got his $$ from doing anything stupid (for him or his company).
Some call this brilliant. Others call it misrepresentation, among other terms.
What Mr Pickens says, that wind power will release natural gas for use as auto fuel, is a nice one indeed.
It just so happens that his company wants to market natural gas. The more gas he sells, the more money he makes. Good show! Since the USA presently IMPORTS about 17% of its natural gas needs, getting onto Boone Pickens’ Wind Power will indeed help our market in several ways (reduce imports, increase available supply, etc)
Couple that desire for water rights and sale of water to Dallas, and you have a slam dunk winner.
The ever expanding Dallas needs water. Many, predect that drinkable water will become more valuable than gold. Today, one billion people lack adequate water supplies, and will grow beyond 2.5 billion by 2025 (Source: The World Energy Council)
I am not saying we dont need the wind power, or the supposed “newly available” gas, but when other market entrants have to compete against others who have supposedly tricked others to obtain market advantage…well….I have to take exception.
Like we read in the newspapers all the time, wind power is **good**.
What we NEVER read is that wind power is intermittant, and hardly ever coencides with peak electrical load demands (ie, wind is blowing when you dont need power and never or seldom blows when you do).
We NEVER read how wind energy is variable, and is not available in the levels needed…you have to take what is available, when available.
We NEVER read how wind energy’s cost is not that economical, when compared with more controllable resources.
People always talk of the economies of wind, but NEVER speak of the cost of the back-up system required.
That’s right, when the wind is not blowing, or not blowing enough, the power system must ramp up traditional power sources–if that did not happen, lights would go out, and people just like you, would be very angry at not having electricity.
So with wind power, you pay for the wind system, and you pay for the backup system.
Two system costs for one result. This does not need a PHd analysis to tell anyone it can not be economical.
Operating an electric system with varying and non-predictable wind power is an experience from hell.
Each day, each utility must nominate (pre-specify) the amount of natural gas it needs. If they estimate too little and need more, it results in an “overage”, and prices rise substantially. If they estimate too high, and need less, it results in an “underage” and penalities are applied. Now add a variable output wind unit to the picture, and maybe people can see the problem….it becomes exceedingly more difficult to nominate with any accuracy, the next day’s natural gas.
Also, as a power system operates, it must either absorb excess power or produce more power, at the speed of light…there is no storage.
The existing generators must ramp up and ramp down to follow both the variable electric customer demand, and the variable wind power availability. This action causes more operational costs (wear and tear) on the units. Further, if those units can not ramp fast enough, the utility will “lean on its ties” to other utilities, and yes, there is a penality price for doing that too, because they have to nominate the next day ahead electrical needs, including imports and exports.
Another problem with wind, is it really practical? As an example (at the risk of repeating what others may have said) assume the following (for illustrative purposes):
In 2005, USA used 4 billion MWH/year, so avg power demand is 456,000 MW/h (4 B MWh/8760 hours/yr).
In 2030, USA is expected to need 319,000 MW of new generation capacity (this is a forcasted amount for USA and can vary, so just accept this as a ball park figure for comparitive purposes)
RENEWABLES:
Wind — Average output “capacity factor” for wind turbines is 35% or less, so large turbines (1.5MW, rotor-tip height ~ 450 ft) would average 0.525 MW (that’s 1.5 MW * 0.35). Most wind turbines will be 31% or less.
In 2005, would need……… 870,000 windmill turbines
In 2030, will need total of 1,476,190 windmill turbines — That’s a lot of fan blades!!!!
Solar Photovoltaic – Average USA insolation is around 5.5 KWH/m2/day, or 2 MWH/m2/year. With a 20% efficiency, output would be 0.4 MWH/m2/year.
In 2005, will need 3861 sq miles of solar panels
In 2030, will need 6562 sq miles of solar panels, enough for a panel 2.6 miles wide, running from San Diego to Boston (2584 miles) — I wonder how they will cross the Grand Canyon!
Direct Solar (like Nevada Solar One) –
In 2005, will need 7,125 installations & 2,137,500 acres land
In 2030, will need 12,109 installations & 3,632,812 acres land (where is room for any people now or lack of sunlight to ground below?)
Backup System — Not shown, the “back up system” of conventional generation when wind isn’t blowing or the sun is not shining
NUCLEAR:
In 2005, will need 487 new plants (1 GW each, existing plants omitted)
In 2030, will need 319 new plants for 806 total.
Nuclear plants operate when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.
Oh, Mr McGlashan, I am retired. I am SELF funded. My views are therefore “tainted” by my own views.
I dont like it when my $$ are wasted, or stolen under false pretenses. I am sure you are the same way.
And, following your point, I therefore ask, Who funds Mr Pickens? His enterprise/company, of course, and its desire to increase their profits in an open competitive market place.
Do I dare ask who funds you?
(I really dont care, as I am sure you are a nice person)
I dont mean to be a smartass here, just wishing to be better understood, if that is possible.
Cheers and Respectivelly Yours!
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August 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
McGlashan said:
I don’t see the problem with 500 different companies as long as they have a framework and agreements to manage power in their areas and to provide good quality of service. BTW: The way it is now the generators are independent of the power operators. Someone owns the power plant and then the grid operators buy power from them and deliver it to their district. The larger backhauls are cooperative.
My phone works. All kinds of different phone companies involved running the infrastructure: AT&T, Verizon, Quest and international ones. Yet it all works fine. The railraods are independently owned and operated. The gas and petroleum pipelines.
The power companies do a very good job, IMHO, given what they have to work with. And what they have t work with is a patchwork that has not been updated and reinforced nearly as much as it should have been due to regulations and generally lack of new generating capacity.
Now as for “Impressive Wind Power Gains Stymied by Inadequate Grid Investment and Management”.
We already went over that. Grid management is nothing about it. You can have as good a grid as you want and you can not deal with power sources coming on and off at random without time to adjust to it or you loose power. The ONLY way to do it would be to have truely massive amounts of energy storage which is very expensive and it presents enormous longistical challenges.
As the author says you’d need a lot of equipment, an enormous control system and a little bit of magic too.
What would that buy you? Well with all that then wind could finally become a full 2% of electricity supply. Oh great, yeah that would be TOTALLY worth it. Now we’ve spent a half a trillion dollars and we manage to get wind from .5% to 2% Still hardly amounts to squat.
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August 30th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Ctrl Alt Del said:
One thing to keep in mind is that the existing grid is maxed out, where new capacity is needed. Since transmission lines have an economically optimized design for a given wire size and voltage, most significant changes (adding bundled conductors, or uprating the line voltage) to existing transmission lines require a near-complete rebuild, and this means taking the line out of service for an extended period of time. If the grid is maxed out this is either just not possible, or very impractical. Uprating voltage usually requires the acquisition of additional right-of-way width anyway. Building a new line on new or expanded right-of-way can be more cost-effective, and more reliable in the future, than uprating.
The one change that can be accomodated on existing structures is to reconductor with high temperature wire. I just read about one project that took a line from something like 1300 MW to 1700 MW of capacity without any changes to supporting structures. The drawback to this approach is that line losses are higher, at high loads, than an equivalently rated line constructed with regular ACSR conductor. The economic analysis tells you if you can afford the losses. But if you need additional capacity, quick, it is a good alternative.
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August 30th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Brad F said:
This is a bit of a artificial issue. Electric transmission problems are largely an artifact of the structure of the increasingly competitive bulk power market in North America. Additionally, significant impediments interfere with solving the continents electric transmission problems. These include: opposition and litigation against the construction of new log lines, uncertainty about cost recovery for investors, confusion over whose responsibility it is to build, and jurisdiction and government agency overlap for siting and permitting. Competing land uses, especially in populated areas, leads to opposition and litigation against new construction facilities.
But the bottom line is that new transmission would not be required if new, local nuclear generation were being built. The existing interconnects are adequate to handle load sharing. And I don’t mean small distributed generation, but decent sized plants that could serve fairly large areas.
The ides that vasts sums would have to be spent so a few hundreds of Megawatts could be transmitted half way across the country is idiotic, when that same money could build a 1000 MW generation facility nearer to the load.
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