113 comments on Fierce pride - yes it works! (or, first ever bank-financed offshore wind farm inaugurated!)
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113 comments on Fierce pride - yes it works! (or, first ever bank-financed offshore wind farm inaugurated!)
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1 down, 2,699,999 to go.
http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/3565
24 down - it's a 120MW installation.
For reference, the world has a little over 100GW of wind right now, which equates to about 30,000 units, with 7,000 of those added in 2007, and growth increasing.
The US DoE study sees no problem with tripling the (US) rate of installation in the next 10 years, suggesting that tripling the world rate in the next 20 should be quite achievable. Doing so, and then seeing zero growth for the rest of the century, would see 7,000 x 3 x 70 = 1.5M units installed past that time, or about 60% of the total energy you and Luis suggested would be needed.
One could push that number higher, for example by assuming a non-zero rate of growth past 2030, but it would be pointless to do so - it's unlikely that wind will be used for even half of total energy, given the probable availability of nuclear, solar, and hydro in 2100, the benefits of a diversified energy portfolio, and some of the efficiency gains that weren't taken into account (e.g., EVs use half the energy of ICEs, even after your 3:1 conversion from thermal to useful work).
(Note that neither raw materials nor manufacturing capacity are likely constraints; the DoE report examines these in more detail.)
Pitt - TOD at its best. Thanks for your contribution.
over that time period are we looking at replacement issues if the lifespan is 25 yrs?
Boris
London
Yes, and I'd actually forgotten about that in my back-of-the-envelope calculation, so thanks for pointing that out.
A 25-year lifespan means 4% yearly replacement; on 1.5M units, that's 60,000 units/yr in the final year, meaning it would dominate the installation of new units. Production would have to increase from 20,000/yr in 2030 to 80,000/yr in 2100, or an average rate of 2%/yr, which seems pretty modest.
That assumes building all-new units, though, which I suspect would be unlikely. I would imagine - and please correct me if I'm wrong - that some parts of wind turbines would wear out much faster than others; the gearing might need to be redone from scratch, for example, whereas the support tower might not have suffered much wear at all, especially for onshore installations. So I would imagine that replacing a wind turbine with an identical unit would be substantially cheaper than building the original, due to re-using and/or recycling parts, and that a wind turbine built in 2070 is likely to last longer than one built in 2007. I'd guess - guess - that the replacement costs in this scenario in 2100 would be no more than the new-unit costs.
For reference, at $2M/MW onshore, a "unit" would be $6M to build today, and 80,000 new units/yr - the maximum possible requirement - would cost $480B, or less than 1% of current world GDP, and around 5% of current world manufacturing capacity. In 2100, servicing such a large installed base of wind turbines won't be a problem; either it won't exist, or its existence will provide enough energy to keep growing the industrial base and make $480B in 2008$ an even more minor part of the world economy than it already is.
Also for reference and roughly speaking, 1.5M units @ 3MW @ 30% CF = 12,000TWh/yr = 6BT of coal @ 33% efficiency = $600B @ $100/ton, meaning that the amount of societal capacity necessary for building and maintaining the wind turbines should be roughly similar to the amount necessary for mining and providing an equivalent amount of coal at today's prices.
Towers and related electrical infrastructure (transmission lines, transformers) for on-shore projects are expected to last at least two generations for on-shore projects.
The best sites are being built out first. This will raise an interesting question, is it better to replace 2008 1 MW turbines with 2033 16 MW turbines or 1 MW turbines.
One thought is to space the new larger turbines up high (more thinly spaced) and replace 15/16s of the old 1 MW WTs with new 1 MW WTs. (Larger turbines are more thinly spaced, their wind shadow is greater).
Best Hopes for more WTs,
Alan
Great, all this effort, however...
I too have a "longevity" issue. Great having all this improved, you-beaut technology coming to the fore, but how reliable will it be? Won't the bearings alone need constant care? Sounds kind of expensive (repeat manufacture, transport, installation, service) if you have to replace this new technology every couple of decades.
In Australia, we're being asked to seriously consider plastic water tanks/bladders to battle our drought woes; yet they come with a ten year warranty at best. Repair or replace?
One of my so-called 8000 hour energy-saver globes failed last night after six months occasional use (the desk-lamp was bought at the same time).
Peak iron-ore, peak coal... Aren't these also future realities? I mean, surely we don't have enough stuff in the ground to keep building millions of these things, several times each century! It's fingers in a leaky boat stuff.
The ONLY solution to our growing woes is to move to a more sustainable human population (no I'm not thinking wars or culling, though there is that peanut down the street...). I was over in Bali recently, chatting with locals who came from big families and had many children themselves; so many mouths to feed. Why not begin the sustainability thing by pressing religious leaders around the globe that condoms aren't such a bad thing afterall.
Sure, may not be as easy as building a zillion ocean fans or sun-catchers, but would surely be a heck of lot less expensive!
Or maybe not.
I read somewhere, another three billion people are expected to populate this little blue-green planet by 2050. To get there, that's 75 million born on average each year, over and above the ones that replace those who die... Or 200,000 more humans each day. To feed, to clothe, to shelter.
TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE HUMANS EACH DAY!!
THIS IS NOT SUSTAINABLE!!!
Agreed, population growth is not sustainable and worsens every coming "peak x" that we face. And yet, the fact that the UN is predicting a peak in world population by 2050 is enough to convince some Peak Oilers that population is not an issue. But most Peak Oilers are remarkably silent regarding population. Both on this message board and in their presentations.
That would be me, for one.
As you say, population is expected to stop growing and level out at 9 odd billion people.
That is sustainable - which is why I don't view population as a problem - and why I take a very dim view of population doomers...
Indeed. I don't see the 9bn figure as a problem in itself. The issue is how those 9bn people behave, what they do with themselves. If the 9bn attempt to behave in the same way as today's population then we haven't got a chance, we haven't got a chance with today's population continuing to behaving the way it does today.
Short of going out with a sub-machine gun, it seems a problem which will just have to be coped with, rather than dealt with, and so discussion is moot.
I believe this type of argument is the logical fallacy referred to as a "false dilemma". Either you kill people, or you do nothing. And in fact, those are not the only two alternatives. You have birth control, which along with mother nature - which kills people for us all the time - allows you to reduce population, or stop it from growing, without using a machine gun. Now the religions that proselytize fight birth control tooth and nail. But it's time for secular organizations to fight back against this religious dogma. The longer we allow population to increase the worse it will be for people in the future - and not surprisingly, the worse it will be for us in the present - more trash to deal with, more pollution to deal with, more divying up of finite resources and often non-renewable resouces, soaring land costs, crowding, and on and on. And this is regardless of how many empty assurances we get from population Pollyannas.
Few of the world's religions have had a great effect on people's reproductive behaviour, regardless of what their official positions are.
Some of the lowest birthrates in the world are in Catholic countries.
Iran has had massive falls in birthrates, as has the Mahgreb.
Whilst birht control etc are important, actually factors like female secondary education and urbanisation correlate much better with reductions.
Immigration will likely be restricted in a post peak world, but overall I expect birth rates to fall more slowly where it counts, in the developing world as many of the factors which have led to decreases are weakened whilst it is much more difficult to provide facilities for birth control.
What I disliked intensely were people in the west chuntering on about how profligate the poor were, which has been the cry for the past two hundred years, without looking at why they actually had several children, although they were in want.
In many cases the lack of a social security net or effective financial instruments for saving made this the only effective method of providing for their old age.
So a debate by all means, although I can't imagine any here being against measures like the provision of birth control, but I do hope it doesn't veer over into the sort of snotty elitism which has been prevalent in that sort of discussion.
Big Gav,
To be concerned about where mankind is headed is surely a natural reaction, particularly to a forty-year-old Joe like myself who suddenly is made aware that obvious limits to things actually exist. As a bloke with an average IQ trying to help his kids choose the right path in life - if there is such a thing - who has been mostly influenced by MS info and business-as-usual these past decades, I simply seek answers to questions that revolve around BIG numbers that others throw up - and 200,000 EXTRA humans EACH DAY, for the next FORTY YEARS or so, seems like one of those numbers.
9 billion people worries me (there's alarming congestion even now).
85 million barrels a day worries me.
4200 planes IN THE AIR over the US at the time of 9/11 worried me.
Trillions spent on war-efforts.
100 million sharks destroyed every year.
And on and on...
My point in contrast to this topic - 24 propellers, each with a short, 20 year life-span - even though large in scale themselves, that the NUMBER OF THEM and HOW LONG THEY LAST seems "kinda small" (again, thanks to the builders for the effort and no offense intended). And surely there must be more practical ways to plan for a less-is-more future. Present ALL the options, like stop having babies for a while (in Australia, we hand out $6000 baby bonus'!). Instead of simply blowing billions on things that soon need to be replaced.
To be honest Big Gav, I'm offended at being called a "doomster", nay-sayer, whatever (bit like hopping on-board an environmental project, receiving a government subsidy and being called an "opportunist". It's simply not fair). 'Cause to me, much of this - both questions and answers - still doesn't make a great deal of sense for the long haul.
Or maybe I just need a calculator with more digits on it so the big numbers don't seem as scary.
Regards, Matt B from Melbourne
Joe,
A lot of us here have been considering these issues, including population increase, for some time - in my case around 40 years, so it really doesn't move things forward to shout at us with BIG PRINT.
Regardless of the monies paid as a baby bonus, most of the developed world has a static or falling birth rate.
The real remaining problem is in the developing world, where unfortunately they have no pension plans, and so in rural areas security of a sort is only to be bought by making sure that you have sons and hoping they take care of you.
Unfortunately whilst economic recession is likely to reduce birth rates still further in the developed world if past experience is any guide, still harsher conditions in poorer areas may well slow the rate of female higher education and urbanisation, often critical factors in fertility reduction.
The way out of this may be difficult to see, but the fact that it is rarely discussed here should not be taken as indicating unawareness of the issue, but perhaps an acknowledgement of it's intractability.
Fair enough. Just don't see how a few big fans and sun-catchers, each with a use-by date, are going to make much of a difference. And sorry about the big print: Lots of things I learn these days seem to have (or warrant) an exclamation mark. Afterall, I've been oblivious up until recently...
Regards, Matt B
It's like anything else: a few will make a small difference; a lot will make a large difference.
There were over 10,000 turbines installed last year, and the industry's been growing at 25%/yr for a decade. More wind capacity was installed in the EU than any other type of generating capacity last year, and it generates about 4% of the EU's overall electricity.
It's far beyond the level of "a few big fans". It is, at this point, a mature and mainstream generating technology.
On this board we frequently see main posts and comments that say that we are in trouble. Not enough oil and soon, not enough coal and natural gas, for our current population. Each time someone says something like that, we need you to make your case that there is nothing to worry about. Rebut each of their concerns and arguments.
No, it's not sustainable. While I love TOD, posting here amounts to little more than fiddling while Rome burns. Precisely as there's nothing which can be done about the exploding population, the root cause of our dilemma. Of course a die-back is in the future. It's arrogance and hubris which thinks otherwise. Hopefully complete extinction can be avoided.
Besides, imagine how boring things would be without a little doom on tap. Infinite growth - not possible, and a long cycle of decay looms.
Precisely as there's nothing which can be done about the exploding population, the root cause of our dilemma.
I think birth control and ending government subsidy of children are very viable solutions. And in the case of the US exploding population, which is mostly from immigration and births of immigrants, stopping immigration is also viable. And it will stop, just as it did during the great depression. Either a new depression or the peaking of coal and natural gas will turn off the "we would collapse without immigration" rhetoric.
Pitt, we have a difference of opinion here, as you are well aware. I am a strong advocate of wind energy in the uk and have been following it for a long time. Not only have I kept tabs on wind projects, I have visited the blade factory on the Isle of Wight. Last year it was regularly reported that the cost of raw materials and shortage of wind turbine components was putting pressure on the industry. The UK has something like 70% of europe's wind "reserve". Throughout the 90's and beginning of this century, when you could not give steel away and oil was cheap we fiddled around with wind power and built a few wind farms using 300kW to 600kW turbines. Then came Blyth offshore using two 2MW units. This has been out of service for more years than it has been operational due to a cable fault. Now we have started to take wind seriously all the costs have risen.
The trouble now, as I see it, taking a slightly cynical view, is the world of finance seems to have discovered it is easier to make money from asset stripping companies rather than developing them. FKI and DeWind for instance.
The planning procedure is also a nightmare. It has been around 4 years now since they where talking about a wind farm just down the road from me. It has now been approved as far as I am aware, yet there is still no sign of the project taking place.
This is a quote regarding the Thames Estuary:
The chief executive of E.On UK, Paul Golby, said he was disappointed by Shell's decision.
"While we remain committed to the scheme, Shell has introduced a new element of risk into the project
which will need to be assessed."
"The current economics of the project are marginal at best - with rising steel prices, bottlenecks in
turbine supply and competition from the rest of the world all moving against us."
In my view commodity prices are likely to fall with the exception of oil as the recession bites, as the energy component is often exaggerated.
Supply constraints of turbines etc should also ease, and so it seems o me likely that costs will start falling within a year or so.
None of this alters the fact that wind, at least in it's offshore incarnation which is where most British resources are, is damnably expensive.
Up thread Jerome did not disagree to much with estimates of approaching £0.30/kwh for it, although he indicated that this was at the top of the range.
It should be noted though that the pound is likely to fall against the Euro, and so even if some costs fall in Euro terms then Britain is unlikely to benefit.
Although getting the build will take awhile, it is also massively more than the most pessimistic estimates for a similar nuclear build.
In principle (or is it principal?)this is possible. If you break down the whole supply chain, cost is down to labour and nothing else, even the cost of raw materials. The labour may be indirect, but high wages in law and finance have to be supported. I usually get shot down in flames when I say we all want too much for doing too little! What I am saying is a service economy has to be supported by raw materials being turned into usable hardware. If the financiers etc take too much out, then the materials and hardware become progressively and disproportionally more expensive. If you look at the rate at which China are building infrastructure it is obvious we can do a great deal. I think the UK was in this position say 40-50 years ago, when for example the bulk of our electrical infrastructure was built. Since then we have "sat back in the sun", "drinking" north sea oil, as if its all going to last forever.
Its time for the hard work of turning raw materials into infrastructure to begin again. I was the last mass intake of engineering apprentices in the UK, that was in 1980. After that year the numbers dwindled, manufacturing industry was asset stripped, utilities sold off to raise revenue and finance became king.
Not surprisingly; the industry has grown 25% per year for a decade, so capacity constraints are almost guaranteed in the short term. That growth rate is unlikely to continue for another decade, meaning that capacity should catch up to demand.
Moreover, I suspect you'll find that it was not shortages of raw materials that was the problem, but their price. Wind towers consume a small fraction of the world's steel output, so there are plenty of materials available if you're willing to pay for them.
For both manufacturing capacity and raw materials, my point is simply that any plausible level of wind turbine manufacturing will consume only a small fraction of the world's output of either, meaning neither one will be a hard constraint on a massive wind buildout. The question isn't the capability, it's the will.
The decreases in demand for cars and other 'consumer' goods should mean that the scarcity premium for steel, copper etc vanishes, since as you say the materials used in wind turbines are relatively little.
this is exactly what should lead to price decreases.
When I talk about material shortages, I am referring to our will. With 6% of the earth's crust made up of iron there's a limitless supply. The will comes from the financiers who want to make a profit. They will only profit if the rest of us can afford the product, in this case electricity. How it will end I havn't a clue. The UK's effort towards wind is rather poor, given our potential. I think we have 2.5GW installed to date, which is pathetic given the targets set. If you read my post above I made reference to China's progress on infrastructure construction. They do have the will.
I have not made the words below up, the BBC may have done though. (repeated above)