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61 comments on Wind farms in danger

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george in vermont on February 23, 2006 - 8:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
The wind power debate here in Vermont is very active. We have many hills and valleys, and enough "wind events" to make atmospheric displacement as common a subject for conversation as the sun and the rain (e.g. trees down, power out, chimney flashings in need of repair, etc.)

Few in this state question the merit of wind power, however much of the debate seems to be falling into two camps:

  1. "I'd rather look at windmills than power lines, and anyway we would be better off using wind power than relying on oil [sic] from the Middle East.", and

  2. "Windmills should be scaled appropriately to the environment and our towns, so that we can benefit from the power without sacrificing the bucolic nature of our surroundings."

Both of these arguments may be emotionally satisfying, however they seem to be naive in the sense that they ignore the harsh reality of human nature.

By this I mean: These windfarms are being built by entrepreneurs who wish to profit by building windmills in advantageous locations and selling power through the grid to the highest bidder.

There seems to be a universal assumption that if windmills are put up in one's community, one will be the immediate beneficiary.

Clearly this is not necessarily true. I wonder if those who are so in favor of windfarms realize that they may never see a single electron? Until now, the wind developers have been currying local favor by offering cash to the community. Why not power directly?

Because eventually the local people won't be able to afford it.

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Gets IT on February 23, 2006 - 8:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Take the payment in kWh instead of USD.
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Gets IT on February 24, 2006 - 9:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I've gotta' say that I've never seen a single electron anywhere.
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GeoPoet on February 24, 2006 - 9:07am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Power is traded among utilities - you will see the power locally, but it will be through your local provider, at his rates. Too much line loss sending it very far away. They make their profit selling cheaper power to the big players in most cases, especially during the daytime peak.

The best way to insure the power remains local is for your municipality to build the power generating system. If you live in a city that generates its own power, you can get in touch with the windmill guys and they will help you sell windpower to your municipal generating company. If you get your power from a co-op, the same thing applies. If you do not have local municipal generating, you can approach your city leaders with it as a method for preventing blackouts, insuring local power, some local jobs and an additional revenue stream for your city. The windmill guys handle the financing, and a bond issue can take care of it for the city. Believe me, municipal and co-op generating companies are looking for any way out of the petroleum trap too, and if you put public support behind it, things can happen.

What they are afraid of is NIMBYism and any recoil from local people. But if it's locals asking for it, things usually go your way with enough people behind it.

My personal feeling is that there is nothing more bucolic than a bunch of windmills turning on top of a hill, especially if I know the power is heating my home!!

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Gets IT on February 24, 2006 - 9:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I'm suggesting that the local government use something simlar to an oil or gas well lease royalty and should preempt a portion of the power directly from a specific wind farm project that is built in their area by private investors.  This power would be given (in title only) to the local government, before it is metered into either the local grid or a x-country transmission line.  Thus the local government would receive the current market price for that specific power allotment at any time during the life of the windfarm for their entitled power.
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LevinK on February 24, 2006 - 9:53am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Good, but this will affect the economics of wind farms which is already not too good. In Germany for example they are subsidizing wind power with about 10 eurocents/kwth (payed by consumers). Here the federal subsidy is 1.6 c/kwth. The plans to remove subsidies are still just plans and probably will stay this way.

I'm not sure if people are aware of the price they will have to pay, especially if wind starts growing beyond 10-15%. As I discussed here the costs would be mind-boggling.

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eric blair on February 24, 2006 - 10:09am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Why are you worried about STORING power?  

As electricity moves to more of a real-time market pricing, the government woven glove over the invisible hand of the market will take care of the NEED for storage.

People can run their delayable loads when power is cheaper, things like charging the electric car, washer, dryer, et la.

If the shipping by electric rail infrastructure is constructed properly (along with tax law changes to make JIT shipping not advantatagous tax wise) when there is excess electrical power, the freight trains move.

The present POV WRT electrical power - flip a switch and its there, will just have to change.   Variable pricing based on resource aviablity will force the change is all.

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LevinK on February 24, 2006 - 10:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wind varies in an order of minutes. What you suggest would require that the price of your power changes every 5 minutes and all you do the whole day is watch the weather forecast and rush to switch your AC on and off.

Can you imagine the losses that a loss of power would cause for a aluminium factory for example? Sorry, but this is a total nonsense.

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Engineer-Poet on February 24, 2006 - 5:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
You don't switch your A/C on and off, it monitors the markets and does it for you.  You don't have any disruption of climate control because it's storing cooling as ice when power is cheap.

Besides, the variations in wind power go down the bigger the area covered by the wind farm is.

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Gets IT on February 24, 2006 - 12:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Well, don't you think consumers should be paying 12¢/kWh rather than 1.6.  Seems to me that expensive power is better than no power at all.  

If USA can finance new technologies, develop and build 2,593 F-35 fighter jets, they can afford a few new wind turbines.  All depends on which one they want the most sky power consumers or sky power producers.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=15152&rsbci=11173&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400

Wonder how long that fill up is going to last.

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Gets IT on February 24, 2006 - 12:05pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Link didn't fit in the box.
http://www.lockheedmartin.com/wms/findPage.do?dsp=fec&ci=
15152&rsbci=11173&fti=0&ti=0&sc=400
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Generaly on February 24, 2006 - 4:09pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It isn't easy to figure out how much it will cost to generate electricity - the following is one example of an attempt to compare electrical and NG space heating.  And the conclusion is: frustration...  The biggest problem is the prediction of the various fuel prices and volatilities.

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/FTPROOT/features/beamon1.pdf

My reading has convinced me that wind power isn't as "relatively" expensive as the conventional wisdom would have it.  For one thing, once it is built, the "fuel" is almost "free" and therefore, with very low price volatility (risk).  And, if you believe in peak oil, then high fuel prices and volatility will be (are?) the norm.  (How about 30-year fuel contracts?  Under huge price increases, most of the suppliers will simply go bankrupt, and the power company will then have to pay market rates.)  Capital and maintenance costs are high for wind, but no other generation method is exactly free.  The following link gives another comparison:

http://www.earthscan.co.uk/news/article/mps/UAN/71/v/3/sp/

I think that one of the reasons that the USA has been on a wind power building binge is the subsidy, but I also think that the power companies have discovered a type of a gold mine in wind, and they are taking advantage of it.  Maybe the wind power companies are pleading poor economics partly because they are attempting to milk us for more dollars.  Heck, the oil industry does this all the time, and they get billions and massive tax breaks every year!  Maybe the wind power industry is just drinking at the same trough.

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LevinK on February 24, 2006 - 4:50pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What really amazes me about wind power support is the perception that many people have that it will wean us off the power of huge corporations. I wonder on what base? Anybody here know how to install and maintain a 5 MW wind turbine?

It will be clearly the opposite IMO, and with the implied necessity of subsidies you will have to add a heightened tax burden as a nice little extra.

Regarding the cost - above 10-15% wind penetration we will have to find a way to store that wind energy and start building expensive storages in a geometric progression. Nobody included these costs in this article and noone included the costs of maintaining a fossil powered backup capacity even with penetration well below 10%. But of course who cares, what is important is to show the public that we do something to reduce fossil fuels usage. Blah.

Let us not fool ourselves, wind is not THE answer. It could be one of the answers but relying on it to replace all nuclear, gas and coal is simply not serious. I'd also say irresponsible, IMO.

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Engineer-Poet on February 24, 2006 - 6:00pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Let us not fool ourselves, wind is not THE answer.
Very true, but it appears to be the only one which is zero-emission, has few political and almost no technical hitches, is cheaper than gas-fired TODAY and can be ordered and delivered in a couple of years.
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odograph on February 24, 2006 - 8:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Well, I think the rational thing is to look at the energy mix a power company (or region) has, and how to manage both cost and risk.  Recently California (heavily fueld by natural gas) took a cost hit.  Perhaps some more wind would have balanced the portfolio, as it were.

According to my Southern California Edison stub, I got 3% of my 2004 power from wind (1% solar, 1% small hydro, 2% biomass, 9% large hydro, 11% geothermal, 18% coal, 22% nuke, 33% natural gas).

(In terms of weaning us off corporations ... the "off grid" stuff does continue to evolve with some technology overlap.)

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LevinK on February 25, 2006 - 1:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, I agree it would be wise to replace especially the natural gas production with wind. Just like oil, NG has no future as a fuel for electricity, and wasting 60% of it (probably 70% with transmission and conversion losses) is an absolute shame.

15% wind and 19% gas would look much better IMO. The obsolate NG power plants could be left as a backup for wind. All you will need is some NG storage facilities. Hope your grid is not too decentralized.

(the "off grid" stuff is doomed. we are all in the Matrix and nobody is researching red pills)

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george in vermont on February 24, 2006 - 10:35am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I agree that a sense of ownership will greatly improve the chances of windpower ("community wind"). Here in Vermont, the debate is raging in part because at least one high-profile developer is from out of state, and the local communities are not going to be the direct beneficiaries of the power generated.

Note that in our state there is a law against billboards, and there are a lot more pristine scenic views than one can find elsewhere, upstate New York for example. (I live in an absolutely gorgeous valley, that has "scenic view corridor" building restrictions.) So here, wind farms would not be just another blight on the landscape, but the only "blight".
That's also a part of the resistance.

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george in vermont on February 24, 2006 - 9:24am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry folks - I realize now that my post was off-topic.

I had just finished listening to a local radio broadcast about the past-present-future of the Vermont landscape. A very educated woman spoke authoritatively for about 30 minutes in front of a live audience about why Vermont is like it is today. Great program, very stimulating, and then right at the end she was asked what she thought about wind farms. She responded, "I'd rather look at windmills than depend on oil from the Middle East." And she got a huge round of applause!

OK, with more windmills, we'd use less coal, hydro, nuclear and natural gas to power the grid, but not oil in any appreciable way. At least not until the vehicle fleet gets converted to plug-in hybrids. Which is obviously some time off. People still don't seem to get the fact that we don't use oil for electricity generation, but for transportation.

Running out of cheap fossil energy is not going to be the problem, people's reaction to the situation will be. I think we could compare it to someone thinking they have a lot of money in the bank, and then one day their debit card gets rejected, and they find out the account is empty and the money is gone. Very upsetting! Who spent all the money! What are we going to do now! Hey you, give me some of your money!

</off topic observations>

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george in vermont on February 24, 2006 - 10:56am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Wrote this without knowing that you other folks were having the informative follow-up discussion in the meantime. Thanks for the additional information.
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61 comments on Wind farms in danger

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