A North American Wind Energy Scenario
Posted by Big Gav on April 30, 2009 - 9:45am
This is a guest post from Neil Howes. Neil has recently retired from his position as an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney. Neil's previous guest posts at TOD include "A North American Energy Plan for 2030: Hydro-electricity the forgotten renewable energy resource" and "A National Electricity Grid For Australia".
Would a “50% of electricity generated by wind scenario” work in North America by 2030? In this post, I make a rough cut estimate of what might be required to make such a transition in about 20 years time.
Most proposals that are being made rely on a very big increase in carbon free energy, both to charge electric vehicles (EV’s) and to replace oil and natural gas (NG) presently used for hot water and space heating. In this post, I lay out a path by which 50% of North American energy might come from wind by 2030, including replacement of a large share of oil and natural gas use by electricity.
Quantity of Additional Low-Carbon Electricity Required
Present electrical consumption is 550 GWa. If the North American countries - Canada, Mexico and the United States - were to replace :
- 70% of their oil usage (by replacing over 90% of the oil used for heating and land transportation with electricity and 50% of the jet fuel used via a combination of conservation measures),
- 95% of the coal used for electricity production (250Gwa) and
- half of the NG used for hot water and space heating (60GWa)
They would need to generate an additional 450GWa, but would net out coal replaced of 250 GWa, for a total of 750 GWa production.
In a previous article, I have shown that hydro electricity could account for a third of this (140GWa). Other possible low carbon energy resources are solar, wind, geothermal, ocean (tidal and wave), biogas and nuclear power.
What if hydro-electricity can only be increased by 50% by 2030 (from 94 to 141GWa) rather than the 130% increase that I have previously suggested, and if other additional low carbon energy sources can only account for an additional 50GWa ?
This would mean that either more than 5% of today’s thermal coal would be needed to generate electricity or an additional 372GWa would have to come from wind power (50% of total). I am not suggesting it would be desirable to obtain more than 50% of electricity from wind, but wind capacity can be built quickly, and there do not seem to be any serious resource limitations to expanding wind (a recent report from the US Interior department noted that offshore wind alone could supply enough power to meet all US electricity needs). This level of wind power has been suggested by some (such as Repower America) as possible and practical, but many have questioned if wind could even provide 15-20% electrical energy because of the intermittency of wind energy.
For the purpose of the discussion of wind intermittency, I am assuming that an expanded North American grid extending from Alaska to Labrador in the North, and south beyond Mexico City will be built. Such an extended grid would help smooth out fluctuations.
Electricity from Wind
Although only 9GWa was generated from wind power in 2008 (26GW installed capacity), this represents 1.7% of N America’s electricity production and wind capacity addition has growing at about 30% per year over the last decade. The advantage of wind energy is that new capacity can be built quickly (1-2 years), with small incremental low risk investments. Wind energy is less site specific than hydro, has less impact on the environment, and wind energy doesn’t require cooling water. The cost of wind power capacity had been declining with technical advances, until the last 2 years with increased costs caused by rising material costs (especially steel and cement) and manufacturing capacity constraints. These costs now seem to be declining from very high levels in early 2008.
| Capacity 2008 | Average 2008 | Capacity 2030 | Average 2030 | Lowest production 2030 | |
| Hydro | 160 GWc | 94 GWa | 260 GWc | 141 GWa | 20 GW |
| Pumped storage | included in hydro | (3 GW) | included in hydro | (6 GW) | (40 GW) |
| Coal | 350 GWc | 250 GW | 100 GW (weeks) | 5 GWa (summer) | 0 |
| Natural Gas | 450 GWa | 100 GWa | 450 GWc (days) | 40 GWa | 0 |
| Wind | 26 GW | 9 GWa | 1142 GW (546 GW max) | 372 GWa | 312 GW (>98%) |
| Solar (CSP) | 0.5 GW | 0.1 GW | 50 GW | 12.5 GWa | 0 |
| Nuclear | 110 GW | 100 GWa | 130 GWc | 125 GWa | 100 GW |
| V2G (PHEV) | 0 | 0 | 50 GW (for 6h) | (100 GW) | (150 GW for 10h) |
| Oil (Mexico) | 10 GW | <10 GW | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 1056 GW | 556 GWa | 2147 GW | 780.5 GW |
Table 1: Electricity supply and grid regulating (demand) in N America 2008 and 2030
High quality wind resources (wind speeds greater than 6.9m/sec) in the US are estimated to be >5,500GWa, about x10 all of N America’s present electricity production of 550GWa. Canada’s potential appears to be similar or greater than the US, while Mexico’s wind resources are more limited (these figures do not include deep offshore resources that could be harnessed by floating wind turbines or higher altitude wind resources that could potentially be harnessed by airborne wind turbines).
For example, the Great Lakes have excellent offshore wind resources, and are close to major demand, with a potential of 321GWa in Michigan waters alone. Wind resources are widely distributed although some regions especially the SE of US, have poorer resources.
If an additional 372GWa was to be generated from wind power by 2030, this would require an expansion of today’s 26GW capacity to 1142 GWc. I am using a 0.33 capacity factor although this could well be higher as larger turbines are built and with expanded grid infrastructure, better remote wind sites will be developed including off-shore wind having a higher capacity factor. Such an expansion would require new capacity additions to rise from the 2008 level of 9GWc to 60GWc per year by 2013, and continue at that level until 2030.
This is more than the National Renewable Energy Lab's (NREL) 20% by 2030 wind power proposal that envisioned installing 16GW capacity per year, but the NREL expected much slower growth than has occurred, thus the US alone has reached 2013 expected capacity in 2008. Wind capacity would have to increase by 50% for 5 years to reach 60GW capacity additions per year by 2013, allowing an additional 1110GW capacity to be built by 2030. As the NREL study showed, wind turbine manufacture is suited to rapidly expanding capacity, providing capital and labor are available. Many components, such as large towers and turbine blades can be manufactured locally from steel plate, glass fiber and resins, or casting made using multiple molds prepared from master plugs. Foundations and electrical connects can be built using normal reinforced concrete construction methods that are used for road, bridge and multi-story construction.
Photo credit: flickr/samballew
ERoEI and Life Cycle Resources
Both hydro electricity and wind power have high ERoEI, hydro because of the long life of structures (>100years) and wind because of the fast energy payback, even assuming a 20 year life of turbines. Earlier studies of turbines built in 1990’s 100-750kW capacity had an average ERoEI of 18:1, but larger turbines (500-750kW) had >30:1. Turbines are now 1.5-3.5 MW and appear to have ERoEI of 30-200:1, with energy paybacks of a few months. Life-cycle analysis indicates that wind energy, is low FF use, and CO2 emissions (5-40 g/kWh) about 25 to 100 times less than coal-fired electricity. Oil used for road transport would be 1- 5% of energy use.
The steel required to build 60 GW capacity per year would be 6.9million tonnes (115tonnes / MW capacity), about half the amount of scrap steel that could be recovered annually from scrapped N American automobiles, using electric arc furnaces.
Integrating 50% wind energy into a continental grid.
Wind energy is variable at one location, producing less than 30% of the average output (ie. <10% capacity) about 30% of the time, but as the distance between wind farms increases the correlation between power output and locations decreases. Most studies of wind integration into grids have examined relatively small geographic regions, such as Denmark(43,000km^2), Northern Germany(<50,000km^2), and the UK(250,000km^2). A UK study looked at sites up to 800km separation (North/South), and found a low correlation between distant sites, so that >80% of the time a wind grid would be producing >30% average output.
Even more optimistic predictions were made by Archer and Jacobson, when they examined predicted output of up to 19 sites covering a 850x850 km region (700,000 km^2) in US mid-west. Better information about wind shear at heights typical of modern turbines, and the “nocturnal jet” show that more consistent wind power is available during summer evenings than originally realised. Similar studies in Australia with 9 sites in 3 states, over a 4 year period, separated by up to 1500km, showed energy output was >10% capacity 98% of the time during peak demand summer months.
Canadian wind strength - source (pdf)
Critics of wind energy can cite specific times when wind energy provided little, for example ERCOT in Texas, Feb 2008, 2992MW wind capacity only produced 300MW (6%) or in California on July24, 2006, during peak power demand, where 2377MW wind capacity only produced 333MW (12% capacity). While Texas (695,000 km^2) and California (423,000 km^2) are large by European standards, two sites in California (San Gorgonio Pass and Altamont Pass) accounted for 50% of CA capacity. North America covering > 22 million sq km, is 50 times the area of California, 100 times the area of the UK, and 500 times the land area of Denmark or Northern Germany. Furthermore, the continent has an East/West width at 50N latitude, of 4,000 km, a critical issue for wind reliability, because weather systems, such as slow moving blocking high pressure systems and low pressure storm fronts generally move from west to east at these latitudes.
There are ten major high quality wind resource regions in N America;
1) NE coast and off-shore (QC,NS,NB,NH,ME,VT, RI,SDC)
2) West coast and off-shore (CA,OR,WA, BC),
3) Pacific coast of Alaska, and Aleutian Islands
4) the Canadian prairie extending through the mid-west plains and Texas plateau (SK,ND,SD,NE,KS,OK,TX)
5) the Great Lakes off-shore and lake shore regions(ON, MN,IL,WI,MI,OH,PA,IN,NY)
6) the Appalachian Mountains(WV,KY,TN,NC,VA)
7) Rocky Mountains(NM,CO,WY,ID,MT,ALTA)
8) the Nelson River and West Hudson on-shore (MAN)
9) James Bay/ East Hudson’s Bay on-shore (Northern QC)
10) Labrador and Newfoundland on-shore(NFL).
Other more remote regions such as, the Canadian arctic (Baffin Island) also have good wind resources that are influenced by circum polar weather systems. The North American grid presently extends to nine of these major regions, the exception being the Alaskan Pacific Coast.
Source: Evaluation of Global Wind Power - Christina L Archer and Mark Z Jacobson
If an installed capacity of 1142 GW wind energy was built at widely dispersed wind locations we would expect to deliver within a range of 27-39% of capacity (expected power 372 GW) over the entire N American continent most of the time. This is a best guess estimate, based on studies of connecting multiple wind farms over much smaller regions, where more connections do not increase total power under high wind conditions but produce more power under conditions of lower wind speeds. Since the 10 regions are up to 4,000 km apart, and can extend for up to 1,500 km, it would be very unlikely for more than three of the ten regions to be producing < 5% capacity at any one time, based on the normally distributed power curve of combined sites. Seven of those 10 regions also have flexible hydro capacity so 7/10 of the wind power would be firm. The other 3 regions each extend >2,000 km (the East and West coast and Mid-West), so it would be unlikely that 2 of these regions would be producing <5% of capacity at the same time. This would mean the grid would be receiving > 27.4% of the expected 33% capacity for the installed national capacity (>312GW). Thus the grid will have to supplying up to 62GW (3.6%) additional peak power in low wind conditions, when those coincide with a peak demand period. Additional reserves of 219 GW are thus 350% larger than expected wind variability.
Generating 50% of the electrical power by wind places high demands on the grid.
Critical to any plan that involves a large expansion of renewable energy is the expansion of the N American grid with long distance HVDC connections between regions of high wind, solar and hydro electricity generation and regions of high electricity consumption. A 3,000 km UHDV link from Alaska and the Yukon to both the Western and Eastern Interconnections would be especially important to access both wind and hydro resources and would add extra stability to the grid. Losses by a 800,000V DC line would be 2% per 1,000km, less than existing 1,000km HVDC used today to bring power from Canada to the Eastern Interconnect. Good wind resources along the arctic coasts of Hudson Bay and Labrador would only need short transmission lines to connect with existing James Bay (QC), Nelson River (MAN) and Churchill Falls (NFL) hydro schemes, sharing the same HVDC lines to the eastern interconnect. A southern HVDC line from Arizona/Sonora solar power sites to Mexico City would also link into the Rocky Mountain and Mid-West wind regions.
Using 372 GWa wind power across the continent will require large amounts of electricity to be moved long distances, but not as much as may be imagined. Most of the NG peaking plants are close to demand so this power would only travel short distances. Water impounded behind a dam is the cheapest form of electric power storage, and it can be drawn upon at very high rates for short local demand peaks, reducing the demand on the HVDC interconnects. Pumped storage is 85% efficient, it can be low cost when combined with existing hydro dams, but more expensive if a purpose built facility. All regions with high wind resources, except the Prairie/mid West region also have access to one or both of these storage mechanisms, and because the wider grid will be able to replace hydro use, interconnections between regions can be of limited capacity. Care and maintenance coal-fired generators that are located near demand could be used with 24-48 hour notice, if hydro was not available (due to low water levels) or if longer low wind events persisted in one region.
| Energy Source | GW capacity | cost/kW | cost ($billion) |
| Hydro:new dams | 25GW | $6000 | 300 |
| Hydro:additional turbines | 55GW | $1000 | 55 |
| Small hydro | 20GW | $1000 | 20 |
| Solar | 50GW(av 12.5GW) | $2000 | 100 |
| Nuclear | 25GW | $6000 | 150 |
| Wind | 1115GW(372a) | $1500 | 1672 |
| Transmission | distance(km) | cost @ 1M/GW.km (billion) | |
| Alaska/Yukon to Grand Coulee | 30GW | 2000 | 60 |
| Yukon to Nelson | 10GW | 2000 | 20 |
| Nelson to ND | 20GW | 1000 | 20 |
| mid-west to SD | 45GW | ||
| SD to Chicago | 70GW | 500 | 35 |
| QC to East coast | 30GW | 1000 | 30 |
| Labrator to NE coast | 20GW | 1000 | 20 |
| Local regions | 1GW | 20000 | 20 |
| Sonora to Mexico city | 10GW | 1000 | 10 |
| Sonora/Arizona to CA | 20GW | 500 | 10 |
| Total transmission | 225 | ||
| Total cost | 2522 | ||
| cost/year | 126 |
The assumptions I have used are that the additional hydro and pumped storage capacity is built on existing dams, by adding more turbines, to provide more peak power or new remote dams are built where good wind resources (9-10m/sec) can be combined with hydro sharing the same transmission lines. In sub-arctic regions water flows are high during summer, wind is high in winter. Similarly CSP solar power located in SW of US and adjacent Sonora would provide additional peak power to Mexico, CA and TX.
Thus wind and hydro electricity from Alaska and sub-arctic Canada (Nelson River, James Bay and Labrador) would be 100% reliable, with hydro replacing wind during low wind periods, and water stored during high wind periods. The capacity of the transmission lines from these 4 regions could be 145GWa shared power, from 280GW wind capacity and 135GWc hydro. The mid-west prairie region could share connections to the Great Lakes (sharing Nelson River power), and share solar connections to CA via Arizona or south to Mexico. Thus, the major consuming regions would produce about 60% wind and hydro power locally and import 200GW, representing 26% of total power but < 10% of peak power capacity. Thus if in the future a major consuming region (W coast) were to lose 95% of local wind power capacity of 150GWc (say only have 7GW of expected 50GWa) for 6 hours it would require at most to import about 1/4 of the lost production (11GW) via the HVDC grid from several other regions (Alaska, Rocky Mountains, Mid-West), moving an additional 0.5% of national peak power capacity. The other 32GW, would come from short distances (NG peak, hydro) using existing infrastructure as it does today. Over1-4 days this loss (192GWh) could be restored by continued higher imports (2-8GW), during off peak periods, allowing local hydro to be accumulated.
A smart grid would enable short term demand reduction reducing refrigerator, A/C or heating demand by short term on/off cycling. Real cost pricing of peak power would encourage consumers to reduce activities such as dish or cloths washing during peak times. Hot water heating using CO2 heat pumps is especially suitable for grid load management, because of the potential to store energy as hot water over the peak period. Vehicle to grid (V2G) can provide short term spinning reserve power (pdf) and could provide longer term storage to help reduce long distance power transfers, using as little as 500Wh transfer in vehicles that had completed the days journey (100M vehicles) providing up to 50GWh towards a demand peak due to grid failure, with only a minor change to available EV range.
Photo credit: flickr/kevindooley
Another potential energy resource is a reduction in electricity consumption due to more efficient utilization. One-third of today’s electricity consumption could be saved if all states used electricity as efficiently as the ten highest GDP/kWh states (pdf). Perhaps N America doesn’t really need to rely on more than 50% of its electricity from wind power. Others could make a reasonable case that solar could also provide up to 50% of N America’s power.
The most urgent problem is the arrival of “Peak Oil”. No amount of low carbon electrical energy is going to directly replace oil used in transport or oil and condensate used for chemical synthesis. Abundant low carbon electricity, however, will allow a lot of additional options during the transition to a low oil economy.
References and related posts
Archer & Jacobson - Evaluation of global wind power (pdf)
Danish Wind Power - Wind power diurnal variation
Peak Energy - The World’s Largest Wind Turbine
The Oil Drum - Offshore Wind
The Oil Drum - Making the case for wind, again
The Oil Drum - Advice to Pres. Obama (# 4): Go for Wind Power, Seriously
The Oil Drum - Energy from Wind: A Discussion of the EROI Research
The Oil Drum - Floating Offshore Wind Power
The Oil Drum - Alternative Wind Power Experiments - SkySails and Airborne Wind Turbines (Peak Energy)
Peak Energy - Saul Griffith: Inventing a super-kite to tap the energy of high-altitude wind
Contact
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- Tech support: support at theoildrum dot com
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
This is a rough-cut proposal. Is there any chance North America would have funds (and resources of other types) to pay for something like this?
Clearly, if one were going this route, one would first have to put together a plan. Then one would have to get the buy-in of Canada and Mexico.
One would really need to know the routes of all of the transmission lines to do a reasonable cost estimate, I would guess.
If one is doing this, one would also need to develop electric cars, electric trucks, and electric equipment of all kinds. The cost of developing all of the technology for all of these vehicles, and then producing them, is likely to be very large as well.
There are huge hurdles just to expanding the grid just in the USA. For one thing, no one wants transmission wires going through their back yard. One would need to change the regulatory framework, to make it easier to get transmission lines installed, for any chance of a transmission plan like this going through. Somehow, cost for paying for this would need to be transferred back to electricity purchasers.
Once all of the lines are in place, they would need to be maintained. They are subject to various kinds of problems. For example, wild fires underneath them can cause outages. Avalanches in areas subject to snow can also be problem.
Gav and I thought the readers would be interested is seeing this, as an idea of what might be possible, if enough resources were available, and enough planning were done. Let us hear what you think.
This is a rough-cut proposal.
I'm rather surprised you would say this. The article is much more detailed that any of your positions on wind power, so let's not attempt to 'poison the well'.
Is there any chance North America would have funds (and resources of other types) to pay for something like this?
I seen no evidence that there is no chance NA would have the funds to pay for something like this. Different mixes of solar, geothermal, etc. would be more likely than just the "50% from wind" hypothetical thesis (which the author acknowledged). Shades of likelihood would require deeper analysis.
If one is doing this, one would also need to develop electric cars, electric trucks, and electric equipment of all kinds. The cost of developing all of the technology for all of these vehicles, and then producing them, is likely to be very large as well.
The technology exists now, and many electric cars models will be coming off of assembly lines in the next couple of years. Of course, electric buses, subways, and trains (noting ammonia is another fuel alternative from renewable electricity sources) would be a better way to move large numbers of people.
Once all of the lines are in place, they would need to be maintained. They are subject to various kinds of problems. For example, wild fires underneath them can cause outages. Avalanches in areas subject to snow can also be problem.
Gail, you are quibbling by focusing on the outliers. Also, what is the basis for your knowledge of grid maintenance? On the other side of the coin, you have suggested that we would be firing coal power plants with coal miners with picks and mule-drawn carts, which I cannot bring myself to consider as a feasible scenario.
There are huge hurdles just to expanding the grid just in the USA.
There will be huge hurdles to doing anything to mitigate PO, but that doesn't mean we cast it in a purely negative light, waiting only for a perfect solution that will never arrive. As WWII started to unfold, the United States, Roosevelt said, was planning to produce 45,000 tanks, 60,000 planes, 20,000 anti-aircraft guns, and 6 million tons of merchant shipping.A number of industry leaders were shocked by this. Roosevelt said, "Let no man say 'it can't be done'". And guess what? The United States far exceeded the initial goal of 60,000 planes, turning out 229,600 aircraft, a fleet so vast it is hard even today to visualize it. Equally impressive, by the end of the war more than 5,000 ships were added to the 1,000 or so that made up the American Merchant Fleet in 1939.
You seem to have an attitude against renewable energy that is reflected in continual negative postings on the matter. I'm puzzled about how you acquired the basis for the perceptions you hold.
The point is that if you have a new proposal like this you look at it closely.
Based on your comments on this and many other posts, a person gets the impression you uncritically accept any new energy proposal, and criticize any comment I make on the subject. I get rather tired of your comments, quite frankly.
I have no problem with looking closely at proposals. The points your raise, however, are always negative with respect to renewable energy sources, and often over-emphasize relatively minor points while missing the much larger positive ones. I could come up with hundreds of reasons why making it to the moon in the 1960s would seem insurmountable. Or why Wilbur and Orville wouldn't be able to get their contraption off the ground.
There are massive lifestyle changes coming, so people will either be moved outside their current comfort zone proactively on their own volition, or reactively by clinging to forms of BAU. No doubt some people tire of hearing this, but that doesn't mean PO or AGW will simply disappear because they are unwelcome changes.
Gail/Will -- I'll take a chance on being perceived as rude and jump into the middle of your debate. Gail, I think you should immediately prepare a full apology to Will. Have it at the ready so you can post it just as soon as we start seeing someone actually start spending the many 10’s of billions of dollars to significantly expand wind energy in the US. You can ignore the little gains as their net effect is lost as we sink deeper into PO. I know you are an honorable person Gail and will accept my proposal.
Rockman,
I have tremendous respect for your knowledge of petroleum exploration, discovery, and development. On a different matter, what are your preferred solutions with respect to the electrical generation and transmission infrastructure? On Powerdown overall?
Will -- I don't really have a background that would allow such analysis. I depend on folks like you here to generate those ideas. Beleive me: I don't find fault with you're analysis of what might be technical solutions. Just lately I'm on a tear about the apparent inability of society to apply such solutions. I know my comment sounded a little catty but that just represents my frustration with our inability to act in a sound and moral way. You just happened to present an opening for a little rant on my part...nothing personal. I do appreciate the thoughts and efforts of folks like you here to devise answers. So many interesting ideas which will never be tested IMO. In a way, the valid concepts I read here only create greater angst since they appear to be missed opportunties that our gov't/society will just pay lip service until we reach the point where the only ready solution will be a true resource war. Been there...done that...and wouldn't wish it on our youth.
And besides, I always like sucking up to Gail. I have no idea other then she may represent the mother figure I've lacked in my life.
Rockman,
I think you have hit the nail on the head.
If we had infinite money to spend, and were willing to spend it, these proposals would be great. As it is, money for new infrastructure is a huge obstacle. It doesn't seem like more "printed" money will do it either--it needs to be real money.
I will be happy to issue Will an apology, once I see the $10s of billions (probably more than that) start getting spent on new proposals, to actually get things going along these lines.
Green Grid.
There is an excelent article in the New Scientist 14th March on long distance DC power transfers across Europe, North Africa and Asia.
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/12/plans-for-a-...
One of the studies was sponsored by the Club of Rome.
I guess it is inevitable, given civilisation survives.
Super cooled conductors.
I really don't understand how any person living in the United States in 2008-9 could raise money as an objection to any large project, whether it be renewables, a Mars landing, or whatever. The economic crisis has shown that when pushed, the elites can find trillions.
The only question is whether they decide to do it. And that's politics. What is "politics"? "The process by which groups of people make decisions." How is that done in the West? By elections, by letters to representatives and candidates, by lobby groups, by bribes and threats, and so on.
No amount of money could get Bernie Madoff elected; no spending of money was required to get Nixon to resign, nor to get US troops to withdraw from Vietnam, or block new nuclear after Three Mile Island. The voice of the people will be heard, but only if they bother speaking.
So if you say, "politics stops it", what you really mean is "the people don't really want it." I happen to believe in democracy, so if the people don't want it, it shouldn't happen. But part of democracy is also some people trying to persuade others that it should happen.
This takes time and effort. Segregation didn't end the day after the first march against it. If you want change, make it known to the world. "Politics" is not some abstract unarguable force like gravity, only the sum of everyone's voices and silence.
You want change, make a noise about it.
The problem is that they are not really finding trillions. I think when all is said and done, they are printing trillions.
You need real concrete and steel and other materials to make wind turbines. As far as I know, you can't print these. We are quite a bit poorer now than we were before, but this has not yet sunk in to TPTB.
I have serious misgivings on where the financial situation is headed.
Have you withdrawn all your money from the bank to turn it into non-perishable assets yet? If not, why not? You say the currency is worthless, yet you still trust it, which means you don't really believe it's worthless. You have faith in the currency's value.
When you see your bank balance at the ATM, you have faith in the value of the money there. When it comes time to spend that money on building renewable energy, suddenly you don't believe in the currency anymore, it's worthless. Why the difference?
This is what was being said to you just the other day - as soon as any positive plan is mentioned, suddenly you have a different point of view about everything. The money which has value when you buy lunch suddenly loses its value when it buys a wind turbine maker's lunch. Why?
Double standards and a mutable set of ideas, so as to keep a doomerish worldview. "The world will continue with Business As Usual, and Nothing Can Be Done, it's hopeless." Maybe so - but we won't be worse off if we try.
To say "they're just printing money" is meaningless in itself; what matters is whether people still accept the currency as being worth something.
As the US currency has not collapsed into hyperinflation, people obviously still have faith in it. If they have faith in it when it's part of the assets for the fractional reserve of a dodgy bank, they'll have faith in it when it pays someone for putting up a wind turbine or building an oil refinery or whatever you like.
If the US suffers a run on the banks or hyperinflation, then we can talk about the currency being worthless.
To use Orlov's boxing metaphor, nobody really knows why the Soviet Union "took a dive". Some bits, surprisingly continued to work. Whither now the USA? Hyperinflation as you rightly point out is a specter for western world, but meanwhile we can arrange our money. Here in the UK I anticipated both the end of 'our' housing bubble and a 'Peak Oil perception moment' and we withdrew in-time our remaining personal saving from the stock market. We intend to spend most of this, by our standards, considerable 'electronic sum' on a 'legacy' reconstruction of our house that will reduce to zero our dependence on heating oil and lower our demand for electricity by 40-50%, (with potential for going much lower). We hope that the house might provide for 2 families who can live low-cost and if necessary grow >80% of basic calories and protein plus surplus of high nutritional value fruit and vegetables on adjoining 2 acres. The materials are easily maintained and stretch to a legacy of direct value over centuries. We will not be self-sufficient, but this 'spend' we hope is better than the extended waste of resources in a 'Care Home' that is the conventional expectation (for sure) over our next (with luck remaining) 20 years. We hope the youngsters who build the facility will learn and enjoy while they are supported by the wages they earn during construction. I would like to secure a sufficient electrical power source of high future reliability - and that means that we hope for sufficient technological assets available from a surrounding functioning 'society', whether in the case of electricity we derive it from a grid or from local supply, and the assets had better be 90% renewable.
Kiashu nailed it.
Gail,
"You need real concrete and steel and other materials to make wind turbines. As far as I know, you can't print these."
Any idle steel mills or cement works in the US would be happy to start up with a down-payment of $US paper. You may have a case if US currency some time in the future is not accepted by a Chinese or European supplier.
If we return to a fully operating economy, then printing money will be limited by it's inflationary impact. Is that what you are concerned about, full employment and a shortage of steel and concrete? Building 20,000 x 3MW turbines per year will employ a lot of people.
That is bad, all else being equal. Devoting more work for less gain is not what has made us rich.
We understand where we are now, and the first steps of the project may be doable. The longer-term is more uncertain.
If I were doing the project, I would make certain that the as much as possible, the initial increments would be usable in themselves. Transmission would need to be added at or ahead of new wind turbines.
Later steps would depend on how much the economy could really support, and whether there really are electric vehicles and other equipment needing the electrical supply.
Well, only the transmission backbone is something that should/could be a (centrally planned) project. The rest should be done by market players without subsidies or intervention.
I agree with you 100%. What will happen depends entirely on the voice of our collective electorate. And they are saying "Hell no!" to the question of spending billions of $'s on wind expansion. We here exist in a very rarified atmosphere. Our chats on very illuminating. But those thoughts don't exist in the minds of the great unwashed majority IMO. We are not the public. I cross paths with the common denominators of the electorate on a regular basis. I here their comments when they think no one unlike them is listening (I'm very good at camoflaging my real nature... necessary for my job.)
As I've mentioned elsewhere I'm beginning to avoid the chats re: solutions to our current mess. Not that I don't hear good ideas but because there are so many valid thoughts floating around which I believe have very little chance of being implimented. I don't consider myself a doomer per se. But until I see clear evidence that our society has committed to taking appropriate actions (and not just cheer leading about fixing our problems) I'll stick with my realistic view (IMO) of the future.
"I don't consider myself a doomer per se."
I don't like the label either. But if you believe, as I do, that the political problems make any solution highly unlikely to be implemented, then, de facto, you and I are going to be labelled "doomers." Aargh! How about "realists"?
The hard problems have always been the political ones. So in one sense Neil is solving the wrong problem. But in another, he's putting the pressure back where it belongs.
My reaction to Neil's estimate was "heck, it's only two and a half trillion. That's nothing. Why aren't they doing it already?" If only more people felt the same way.
The catch is that it is not just $2.5 trillion. Even if you got all of this infrastructure going, you would also need the new electric vehicles of all types (including semi's or electric railroad), and you would have to figure out substitutes for a lot of other things that are in short supply, like asphalt and roofing material and fertilizer.
These things don't come for free. If international trade is suffering, developing all these things on our own may be difficult. Where will the material for batteries come from?
There are many challenges to mitigating PO; in one sense we can ask "where is the material for anything coming from and how do we pay for it?"
As has been mentioned before, hydrogen and ammonia can be fuels produced using electricity, so semi's and trains don't have to be electric. Note, though, that adoption (proactively or reactively) of relocalization means that BAU transportation of goods will not be anywhere near the level we have now, so a signficant drop in the number of semi miles is a pretty sure bet.
How many is many? Wind turbine investment last year was about 2 10's, vs. the roughly 10 10's we'd need to see as an average over the next 20 years. Keep in mind, the article does not appear to be arguing that the proposed expansion is happening, but that it could happen, if we wanted it to, so "it isn't happening yet" is not a reasonable criticism.
It's worth noting, moreover, that it's no longer possible to argue that wind power is not expanding significantly in the US, as last year wind accounted for more new generating capacity (after adjusting for capacity factor) than any other power source. It's also worth noting that, despite concerns about the effect of the economy on growth, nearly 3GW of wind were installed in 2009Q1, double the rate of 2008Q1.
It may be true that change to a renewable society is impossible.
It is definitely true that continuing as a fossil fuel society is impossible.
I'll take possible failure over definite failure any day of the week. The only alternative to this dilemma is despairing doomerism. But I ignore that alternative, because if the doomers are right and nothing we do can change anything, we won't be worse off from having tried.
By all means, feel free to stay on the sinking ship debating whether the lifeboats are seaworthy. I'll be hopping in and rowing hard while you dither on deck rearranging the chairs.
+500!
Kiashu -- We're not debating whether the life boats are seaworthy or not. We are discussing the probability of someone building the life boats for us. Life boats are really great when the ship is sinking. No argument there. But discussing how wonderful they would be if/when we get them doesn't save us. Debating the probability of someone building our life boats is the matter at hand. And so far I've seen no one offer a valid expectation of any major swing towards wind energy. Not that it may not be a feasible....not that it and solar might be our best chance to mitigate the worst effects of PO.
The question is: who will make that huge investment and when will it start? I don't need to hear about the viability of alternatives any more. I get it (actually got it over 20 years ago). I want to see significant proposals by folks with the capital to make it happen. So far I've seen nothing of any significant magnitude.
I'm not really ranting just at you. I've just grown increasing foul lately over the lack of action by the private sector as well as the gov't. I suspect you, as well as most of the others here, understand the time lag for anything significant to change. So far all I hear from our leaders is lip service IMO. As Gail and others have pointed out, we're a good 20 years late starting the transition process. Time is the enemy as much as any other factor. The ship is sinking by the bow and our leaders are telling us they have a plan to build our life boats. "So don't worry...we'll be getting back to you on that life boat issue as soon as we take care of some more pressing matters...such as getting re-elected."
Nothing is built unless someone wants it to be built. That someone may only be the company building it and some MP they bribed, but still, there it is.
We just have to let them know we want the stuff built.
Instead we're sitting around debating how and what and where and is it possible and do we really need ooooh oooh maybe global warming isn't really or it's actually good for us or maybe cosmic rays and anyway they'll find more oil, they'll think of something and... it's bollocks.
The point of all the quibbling is to delay action. The point of delaying action is to defend Business As Usual.
You can plan forever, hoping for the best plan. It's said that when the Greeks came to Thermopylae, they decided to build a wall to stand behind when the Persians came. Leonidas gathered all the engineers to discuss how best to do it. They argued for hours, and eventually he walked over to a boulder, picked it up and moved it to a spot that seemed about right. And then a second, and so on. Because even a crappy wall in the wrong spot was better than no wall at all, which is what planning for a perfect wall in the perfect spot would get them.
We should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. It's time to just build stuff. Wind turbines, solar PV, solar thermal, hydro, geothermal, railways, city farms, trams, even - God help us - nuclear. Just get moving, get building, do stuff.
Hubbert told us in 1956 that oil would peak around 2000. The US President's Science Committee told him in 1965 that CO2 from fossil fuels might warm the Earth with disastrous results. That was the time to start making the perfect plan. If not then, then in 1991 when we had our first proper war over oil, or in 1992 when most of the world agreed we needed to reduce carbon emissions.
That time has passed. Now we just have to build stuff as best we know how, and GET MOVING.
Success was never achieved by people sitting around in despair saying "nothing can be done." Things get done by people who just get up and do them. We stuff around too much nowadays. That's why NASA could reach the Moon in 9 years in the 1960s, but today it needs 20 years' notice to do it. The plan's gotta be perfect before we accept it.
Bugger that. Let's get moving. Write to your MP, and change your own life to the life you imagine as good for all.
I'm sick of all this doomerism. It reminds me of that scene in The Godfather.
"Boohoo! I don't know what to do!"
*slap! slap!*
"You can act like a man!"
It's time for us to ante up and kick in, or lay down our cards and walk away from the table.
"who will make that huge investment and when will it start? ... So far I've seen nothing of any significant magnitude."
It's there - you just have to listen for it.
Wind power is now the largest single source of new generation, in the US.
Toyota, the largest car manufacturer in the world, is expanding it's electric drivetrains very quickly, and plans to have all of it's models either hybrid or plug-in by 2020.
GM, the 2nd largest (even with it's current problems) is building its future around the Chevy Volt.
"There are huge hurdles just to expanding the grid just in the USA."
Why, is there a constant "drumbeat" on this blog for more, more, more? There is NO need to expand the grid. None at all. Why not work with what we have? Make it more reliable, make it more local. Make it less?
Wrong direction in building more. More waste, more carbon, more pollution, more dead people.
Because it's TOD:USA, it's cultural.
It's also that people are conservative - that is, resistant to change.
"Oh but new renewables would cost a lot!"
"So you think that if we didn't build new renewables, our spending on energy in the next thirty years would be zero?"
"Huh?"
"If we build renewables then we don't have to build more coal and gas, and don't have to import as much oil. So overall we spend the same or less."
"..."
"Well?"
"It would cost too much!"
The objection is not that it'd cost billions. If we continue business as usual, we'll build more roads and coal-fired stations and so on, and that'll cost billions, too. Whatever we do we're going to have to spend billions.
The objection is to change. We're running up against a heavy obstacle, the Unimaginable. I can empathise with that. I walk along the street and see all the cars banked up in traffic burning fuel to go nowhere, all the lights on in empty offices at night, plastic junk clogging the gutters, McDs pumping out millions of burgers a day - and I can't imagine it ever ending.
Intellectually I can imagine it, but I can't feel it as a real possibility in my heart. It's like before your first child, or when you're still in school trying to imagine working for a living, or like when my friend with a huge mortgage said to me in 2006, "but house prices must go up forever" - you just can't imagine a different way of life for yourself.
This Unimaginable is a big barrier. That's what leads to the quibbling with details, the climate change denialism, and so on.
'Imagination is more important than knowledge' Einstein
Yes and no. As I said, I can't imagine a different world, can't feel it in my gut. But I know it's technically and physically possible, so I can still work for and support it. I can hope for things I cannot imagine.
I think resolve is more important than imagination, knowledge or anything else. Nothing happens without the will to make it happen.
As I said, I can't imagine a different world
Oh, I think you're imagining it. Just because it's hard to get that gut feeling, or have an intuitive visualization of it, doesn't you aren't imagining it.
The key thing is being able to incorporate it into a personal model of the world, whether or not it has that gut feeling.
I know, it may seem like semantics, but we sometimes don't give ourselves (personally, or collectively), enough credit.
There is a qualitative difference between increasing the capacity of the regional transmission grids and increasing the range of connections between grids.
The critical need for sustainable renewable power production is the latter. Connect one wind resource region to one main consuming region, and there is inevitably a lot of variability in the power output, because weather systems move across the continent, and sometimes the wind is blowing more rapidly and sometimes less. And there are differences in average output at different times of day.
But connect the offshore Atlantic resource, the Great Lakes resource, the tallgrass prairie resource, the northern Great Plains resource, the southern Great Plains resource, and Pacific coast resources ... and the variance of the supply of the total pool is substantially lower ... being spread across four hours plus in time zones and combining onshore and offshore source leads to a smoother average output for different times of day, and that is a range that includes three or four weather patterns.
If we can be confident of having 20% of generating capacity available at any given point in time, that means that 20% of generating capacity can be treated as baseload capacity.
And that is just wind. It gets even better as newer sustainable power harvesting technologies are developed, since power generated by distinct harvesting technologies will not be tightly positively correlated with wind power.
None of this is saying that we must or even should be producing more electrical power than we are today, and that we need more total transmission capacity. That is a separate question, which could indeed be argued both ways ... on the one hand, we have been cheating on investments in transmission capacity by building peaking plants near to main consuming regions, and on the other hand, we waste egregious amounts of energy, and mining that energy inefficiency offers much of the quickest payoffs in terms of reducing CO2 emissions and Import Energy Dependence.
$126B/yr is less than 1% of GDP. Why do you suggest that this will be unaffordable?
Moreover, it isn't even all "new" costs, as the USA already spends $40B/yr on coal and $50B/yr on natural gas as fuel for power plants, plus another $20-40B/yr on new generating capacity. Simply by subtracting out fuel costs (which average out to 50% of the final savings per year, assuming a linear buildout) and new generating capacity (to avoid double-counting), the projected price is down to $50B/yr, or about one-third of one percent of North American GDP.
In terms of other resources, the steel required is roughly 0.5% of world production, or about 2% of North American consumption.
It does not appear that cost is as large of an issue as you're suggesting.
Honestly? That you were unfairly dismissive - without any evidence to back up your opinion - and got unfairly personal and hostile when someone remarked on that. As the reader guidelines say:
3) When presenting an argument, cite supporting evidence and use logical reasoning.
4) Treat members of the community with civility and respect. If you see disrespectful behavior, report it to the staff rather than further inflaming the situation.
5) Ad hominem attacks are not acceptable. If you disagree with someone, refute their statements rather than insulting them.
Please, let's address the proposal and arguments regarding it, rather than our feelings about other posters.
I would like to make a motion for the board(?) to consider.
"Henceforth, ANY cost of ANYTHING will be put in units of ratios of some well known cost we are spending now- Example, The wind-solar-HVDC energy solution will cost per year X units of the amount presently spent on soda pop, for the next Y years". This puts into units grasped by the ordinary person."
A while back I did a very rough estimate for repowering the whole USA with solar thermal, and came out with 10 years of automobile production. Every reader knows by now that during that European war we quit making private cars for about 3 years, and did it NOW, and very effectively churned out weapons with the same resources. We could do it again.
But I get the strong inference that energy/environment security is not valued by the ordinary citizen as highly as is soda pop.
I suggest a normalizing cost be "one pop".
I did a quick google and this was the first hit with a number:
In 2001, Americans spent over $61 billion on soft drinks, that's a lot of pop.
Hmm are you saying that GM, Chrysler and Ford could actually make something useful for a change? What a refreshingly brilliant idea. Not to mention all our taxpayer funded bailout contributions would be put to good use. Your not running for office are you? :-)
I ran for dog catcher at Boys State long ago--and lost.
No, in fact I am not saying GM,C,F could do it. I am saying the resources they use could do it. I used to do consulting to GM and all my brilliant ideas were tossed. Total proof those guys were stupid.
But somewhat seriously for a moment, it is a pity that we don't have the leadership, and the followership, to get things done that obviously should be done, could be done, and done fast. Takes a hard kick - Attilla the Hun, maybe-- to get us to it.
And on that point for a second. USA ain't all there is. We still have the Europeans- and the Chinese. They could do this stuff as well or better than we could- and maybe a lot faster.
"We are as the sons of rich men, unable to endure pain, or resist pleasure."
Full disclosure-- I hate soda pop- spherically sinful. And thanks for the number. Thought it was something around there.
and Wimbi,
You know how we are. The cavalry WILL ride, at some point, maybe when the battle is on its last legs and the entrance will be suitably stunning and worthy of song. '..after exhausting all other options.' as Sir Winston said..
We're last-minute people. If we can't pull off another surprise-happy ending.. then stick a fork in us, we're done.
Bob
"Clearly, if one were going this route, one would first have to put together a plan."
But, ramping up wind doesn't really have to wait for such a plan. The long-distance transmission won't be needed up front.
"Then one would have to get the buy-in of Canada and Mexico. "
Not really. The US accounts for 450 of the 550GW in North America. The US can forge ahead, and add Mexico and Canada as it goes.
"One would really need to know the routes of all of the transmission lines to do a reasonable cost estimate, I would guess. "
That would be desirable, but most of the cost here is the wind capacity.
"If one is doing this, one would also need to develop electric cars, electric trucks, and electric equipment of all kinds."
They're mostly here, especially the Chevy Volt. Don't forget, about 75% of transportation oil consumption is light vehicles.
"The cost of developing all of the technology for all of these vehicles, and then producing them, is likely to be very large as well."
Nah. The technology of electric motors and vehicles has been around for 100 years. GM made and sold thousands of multi-ton electric trucks from 1912-1918: they were displaced by dirt-cheap gasoline/diesel, but they can compete against $2.50 gallon fuel just fine.
The only thing that's new is better batteries, and batteries that are good enough are here already.
"One would need to change the regulatory framework, to make it easier to get transmission lines installed, for any chance of a transmission plan like this going through. "
That's already been done. The FERC has the authority to override local objections.
A lot of new tech will go into these babies. Fancy magnetic materials which make electric motors much smaller and more efficient. New computer designed and controlled technologies, etc. etc. And batteries are only currently good to begin making prototypes, they still need to advance significantly. But, this shouldn't reason not to try it, most of this stuff will be enablers rather than disablers of this sort of future.
"A lot of new tech will go into these babies."
True - they're just going to keep getting better. Just keep in mind, there's no need for breakthroughs: they're "good enough" now.
"batteries are only currently good to begin making prototypes, they still need to advance significantly"
Not really. Have you looked at the A123systems batteries now being sold in great volumes for power tools (DeWalt/Black & Decker)?
Existing electric transport technology:
Passenger:
(1) Electric Express HSR
(2) Electric Regional and Emerging HSR
(3) Electric conventional intercity rail
(4) Electric regional rail
(5) Electric mass transit rail
(6) Electric conventional light rail
(7) Electric Rapid Streetcars
(8) 30mph local electric cars
(9) Electric bikes
Freight:
(1) Electric Rapid Freight Rail
(2) Electric Conventional Freight Rail
That is existing technology spans all passenger transport needs to 600 miles, and most ground freight needs over 50 miles, so the claim that new technology is required in order to replace the majority of oil-fired transport would seem to first require ignoring existing technology. But if you ignore existing technology that can do something, you would always find that new technology is required.
The question on funding seems to assume that what is required to accomplish things is not actual resources, but rather a sufficient supply of permission slips.
So the answer to that question would be simply, "funding is not a serious concern", if we were able to rely entirely on domestic resources. However, there is a chicken and an egg question here, where there will be energy resources required to start the build out and it will take two or three years into the build out before it is self sufficient and then the following year when it is a surplus.
So the answer to the funding question is, funding is not a problem, provided we get started soon enough. If we wait too long, our structural dependence on oil will lead to an external account crisis, and once the US$ is no longer a hard currency, substantially more political will would be required to ration real energy resources available in order to get the system launched. OTOH, it would be a sacrifice for a well defined period, similar in length to the WWII period and with a far better defined end point, so it would still be feasible, if harder.
Hello:
Interesting article about the promise and challenges of large-scale Wind.
Has anyone looked into the effects of all these wind-towers on climate? I saw some work done a few years back that showed that wind-towers disrupt the boundary layer at the atmosphere/earth interface and can have "non-negligible effects" on the moisture/temperature distribution down stream hundreds of miles away. (See Keith, David W., et al., "The influence of large-scale wind power on global climate," Proc Nat Acad Sci, Nov 16 2004, 16115-16120.)
It's not that I don't support Wind. It's just that 150 years ago no one thought to ask what would happen if suddenly the whole world depended on fossil fuels for energy. Obviously, no one could have done any kind of analysis on the potential effects back then, but today it's a different story.
Given fossil fuel production peaking and the potential for removing so much carbon from the energy generation sector, pursuing Wind is undoubtedly worth doing; I'd just like someone to take a look at potential environmental costs associated with large-scale wind adoption.
-Sean
Not a scientific answer: I suppose cutting down forests, building highrises, mountaintop removal, creating city heat-islands, changing the global temperature, all have much more significant effects than building wind turbines on "on the moisture/temperature distribution down stream hundreds of miles away".
I'm interested in the costs per kW installed. Is there a good referenced source for these numbers, so I can bug the remaining fans of nuclear power?
I think about 5c/kWh -- which seemed too good to be true. I know my sis is paying 18c/kWh for her electricity and I'm paying 12c/kWh... Not a bad investment for sure.
A PDF is available here.
From the conclusions:
"The direct climatic changes that are due to wind power may be beneficial because they can act to reduce, rather than increase, aggregate climate impacts. For example, assume that impacts are proportional to the local squared-deviation of temperature from preindustrial means and that a small climate change due to wind power with the pattern of response shown in Fig. 3A is superimposed on a much larger CO2-induced warming. In this case, the polar cooling and low-latitude warming from wind power tends to reduce aggregate impacts due to CO2-induced warming, which has the opposite pole-to-equator gradient, even though the average temperature change due to wind power is zero."
However:
"Suppose that use of wind power were to grow...to 2 TW....Our results suggest that the resulting peak changes in seasonal mean temperature might be 0.5 K, with RMS changes approximately one order of magnitude smaller"
The amount of wind proposed here is projected to have an RMS effect of roughly 0.05 degrees Celsius, which seems fairly modest.
Hi Neil,
Thanks for the article! Here in the upper midwest I think wind is our only viable option long term.
Do you have a reference for the claim of 30-100 EROI on larger wind turbines?
That is one I was wondering about too. Hopefully, he will get back to us when it is daytime in Australia.
Gail,
I have a student giving a final seminar this morning , but will get back to comments later in day(1st May our time).
I would like to thank Big Gav for his help with the photographs and his editorial work on this and previous articles
Gail,
You are probably thinking of Cleveland's paper giving wind an average of 18:1
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/17/18478/085
Notice that all turbines above 300KW have EROEI above 20:1 and trending higher with larger turbines. Pitt-the -Elder (above) gives a few references, the Danish study using 600KW turbines in Brazil had 30:1, Archer and Jacobson give a 6week to 20 week energy payback( 5MW modeled).
Even if the turbines are replaced every 20-30 years the towers are probably going to last much longer. Blade replacement would probably be the biggest energy use because the resins can't be recycled.
Some of the larger turbines are starting to use concrete for the lower sections of the towers, you could build a concrete plinth and use it for 2 or 3 generation of turbines, and all the steel is recyclable.
Once a wind turbine blade has reached the end of its life, you could cut it in half and possibly use it as a tidal current turbine blade.
From AWEA's FAQ:
"A wind turbine typically takes only a few months (3-8, depending on the average wind speed at its site) to "pay back" the energy needed for its fabrication, installation, operation, and retirement."
Assuming a 20-year lifespan, that's 20:0.67 to 20:0.25, or and EROEI of 30:1 to 80:1. BWEA says 3-5 months (50:1 to 80:1); DWIA says 2-3 months (80:1 - 120:1).
These are wind industry organizations, of course, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of other information available online regarding modern turbines (>1MW).
I have asked on this site on several occassions for a reasonable explaination of EROEI for wind turbines. I know that a 1.5 MW turbine costs about $2 Million to get the blades turning in the wind. I also know that they typically operate at about 25% to 40% average annual capacity, seems like 30% to 35% is fairly common. I also know that they are heavily subsidized by federal and most state governments.
By my feeble calculations, with the governmtnet subsidies, they probably do pay off in 3 to 5 years. But what about making it on their own by selling wholesale electricity and without government subsidy money?
Would really like to see a reasonable EROEI calculation provided by an unbiased source. Seems like $2 Mil. cost would take some time to pay off by selling wholesale power generated at, say, 30% to 35% capacity of the generator. So, I would like to see that EROEI without government subsidy money involved to show whether turbines are actually a viable investment for energy production or if they are so reliant on government (more of our) money that without it, are they truly a viable source of reliable energy?
The $2 Mil. cost is initial installation cost. Does not include ongoing maintenance costs, property taxes, etc. over the life of the facility.
JCS
Coal, gas, oil and nuclear generation don't exist without public subsidy. Nor do roads, bridges, canals or railways. Still less do schools or hospitals. Even shopping malls get subsidised by public money.
Why are renewables held to higher commercial standards than anything else? Why does the free market only become important once it's something a tree-hugging sandal-wearing hippy would like?
Public goods require public money. It was ever so, and ever will be.
You're confusing energy return on investment with dollars return. Because some forms of energy are cheap, and some expensive, the energy and dollars aren't directly comparable.
There are two components to this question. The first is about organic (no loans, just reinvest profits to grow). This method is too slow, perhaps we could grow a tech like wind five or ten percent a year, -the urgency of ACC and PO mean we need a growth rate of 50-100%.
The second about subsidies. Perhaps wind is now reaching the point where they are no longer needed? I'd rather not take that chance just yet, a couple more years of subsidies to insure fast >50% growth rate, is money well spent.
The reality is many complex industries require many millions -or even billions of investment over a period of years to decades before they are able to compete. It is tough to get private investment to be that patient.
Don't confuse energy with money; subsidies or lack thereof are irrelevant when it comes to energy payback.
(Just in case you were thinking of it, trying to approximate energy payback via money payback is a recipe for failure. Most money is not spent on energy, meaning that dividing the cost of a project by the cost of a btu grossly inflates the energy figure for the project. The USA uses about 8,800 btu/$ of GDP, but even taking an expensive form of energy - electricity - that implies a grossly inflated price of $0.40/kWh if you try pretending that all of the cost is due to energy, meaning that if you instead used actual prices of $0.10/kWh, you'd erroneously inflate the energy consumption by a factor of 4. It's not a remotely plausible approximation technique.)
See http://www.energypulse.net/centers/article/article_display.cfm?a_id=981 . Murray
Very Nice!
JonFreise and Gail,
The leading wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has published extensive life cycle assessments for their wind turbines (1.65 - 3 MW). The term 'life cycle assessment' encompasses, among others, what is here called EROI.
E.g. the detailed life cycle assessment of their state-of-the-art V90-3.0 MW wind turbine reveals (on page 36) that the energy pay-back time is 6.6 months when installed onshore, which corresponds to an EROI of 30-38 for a 20-25 year lifetime.
Kudos to Neil for this very informative article! I'm sure it are these kind of articles that eventually will convince even the skeptics like Gail...
If you can get the payback quickly, then it really doesn't matter if they don't have the life they are claimed to have. With peak oil here, it is hard for me to see that they will last for their full rated lifetimes.
The question then becomes one how much funds does it take and how much time does it take to get the system up and running.
I can see projects that we can get up and running (including transmission lines) in five years, because there is a reasonable chance these might be kept operating for a while before peak oil difficulties overwhelm the system.
If a project takes until 2030 to get finished, and the lifetime is supposedly another 20 to 25 years after that, it takes us out to 2050 or 2055. It seems like the chances of limits to growth issues of many kinds overwhelming the system become very great out in this period. I even have doubts about 2030.
Maybe it makes sense to spend limited resources on these things--maybe it doesn't. It depends on how much resources are available, and what other needs we should be attending to--for example, developing suitable open-pollinated seeds for the various climate areas.
I am sorry, I have been away from my desk for a while. Probably too far down in the heap now to get noticed.
Agree my question was poorly written. So, may I ask both questions? Compare energy in to energy out. How long does it take a "typical" (whatever that might be) wind turbine to generate as much energy as it required to build and install it? That would likely include some transmission lines too. And, compare dollar cost in and dollar income out. How long does it take that "typical" wind turbine to sell enough electricity, at market rates, to pay off the cost, in dollars, to construct it and install it?
To be clear, I am all for "green" and conservation and sustainability and localization, etc., etc., and I know that energy from the wind makes us feel good, but it is that nasty little 35%+- capacity factor associated with wind turbines that just knaws at my guts.
Also agree that other energy producers are subsidized, but for the most part they run in the 90%+ capacity range, and wind is far more heavily subsidized than the others. And, to Gail's point above, most others likely have a longer life span than wind turbines.
Finally, I have done considerable research on my own but I am skeptical of information provided by websites that represent the industry, i.e. the American Wind Energy Association and Vestas, etc., which is why I am asking for an "unbiased" assessment of EROEI as well as financial cost vs. recapture/income.
Finally, again, I know that the industry, turbine manufacturers, etc., tout their products as they should, but are wind turbines really a vialble source of energy in the long term? If they truly are then proceed with build out. But if the true EROEI or the true financial aspects do not at least break even, then what? Continue to proceed with build out? Wouldn't heavily subsidizing something like that be something similar to a bail out in advance?
Just asking, not trying to start a fight. As I said, I am all about "green", just can't get past that nasty little 35%+- capacity issue.
JCS
it is that nasty little 35%+- capacity factor associated with wind turbines that just knaws at my guts.
You're paying too much attention to one factor. It's not the capacity factor that's important, it's the overall system performance, as measured by $-ROI, and E-ROI. On those measures, wind does just fine.
JCS,
Natural gas has 22% capacity factor in the US.
In South Australia about 20% of the electricity is from wind(35%capacity factor) which is the same as NG.
The difference is that NG is used a few hours/day at peak demand, coal is used in summer( 24/7) but not as much in winter, wind can be any time but tends to be more in daytime.
It appears that one of the embedded assumptions in this scheme is to replace a very significant amount of the fossil fuels used for space heating and hot water heating with electricity that would be heavily supplied by wind power.
There is something inherently retrograde in taking a high value form of energy such as electricity and then converting it into heat, a much lower value form of energy. Therefore, in my opinion it would be far better if this proposal left out that component of wind electrical generating capacity needed for space heating heating and hot water heating. It might be a better use of resources to leave both of these functions to decentralized individual or clustered solar and/or geothermal heating, both coupled with an extensive program of upgrading home energy efficiency.
In my view, this proposed scheme is way too over-ambitious by at least one order of magnitude, not just in the amount of wind power generating capacity assumed, but also in the feasibility of upgrading the grid to the point that power can be easily moved almost from one end of the continent to the other. A good reality check is to take a look at all of the political/financial machinations and plain old red tape involved in just trying to get a number of quite modest size offshore wind farms built in the Mid-Atlantic states. It is neither cheap nor easy.
Controversy still remains over how large a percentage of a grid's totally carrying capacity can be realistically supplied by wind power before chronic supply reliability problems raise their ugly head. I really don't think that upgrading the grid is going to alleviate this inherent problem beyond a certain point. What that critical percentage is I do not pretend to know, but it will become quite evident as soon as certain regions start ramping up more and more wind power. This, I think, will act as a sort of natural upper barrier to the extent that wind power can be implemented.
Not if it can be done at 250-300% efficiency.
Roughly speaking, air-source heat pumps provide 2.5-3x more heating than their energy consumption, meaning even with 30-40% conversion efficiency from fossil fuels to electricity, it's just as efficient to use a heat pump as to burn the fuel directly for heat. For non-fossil-sourced electricity, of course, it's pure win. (Ground-source heat pumps are roughly twice as efficient as air-source, of course, but are more expensive to install.)
That being said, you might well be right that passive solar and improved building insulation would provide more gains for less cost.
Ignoring the entirely accurate comment on how the plan is extremely ambitious (although I don't think it's any more ambitious than any plan at this stage which provides for humans to continue to exist) -- electric heating can theoretically be more efficient then burning fossil fuels on site to generate heat.
I assumed as you appear to have here that the losses due to generating the electricity made it untenable because the overall efficiency was limited by the plant efficiency. However, upon further research, I realized that if the power plant is 30% efficient (assuming equivalent losses for transferring electricity versus transporting natural gas, which I think is fair), and you have a heat pump with a performance factor of 3 (nearly achievable in many places, even with air cycle, according to a friend who does this sort of thing), then the overall efficiency of putting heat into the house is equivalent.
Or, even better, if you use a combined cycle power plant or do cogeneration to make use of the waste heat generated at the plant as well, you can get a net utilization of 90% of the energy in the form of either electricity or heat, and then the heat pump can turn that 30% into a net heat generation of 90% of the original fossil fuels burned... for a total of 150%!
I think that's actually extremely cool, and using air-cycle heat pumps isn't much of a technical challenge. Plus, if you do switch to wind or hydro, you now have carbon-free heating with an EROI similar to or better than natural gas, which some people think is important (like me).
Anyway, I agree with most of what you said, just figured I'd mention what I think is a moderately cool result of some calculations I played with a while back.
joule,
If you live in the mid-Atlantic states you probably get some electricity from Quebec during summer, traveling over 1500km. Similarly people in ND and MN get electricity from the Nelson river, 1000km north of the 49th parallel.
The key to low cost wind integration is having lots of hydro capacity(more turbines on existing dams) as close as possible to the wind farms, or to solar farms to share the same transmission lines. In Canada wind is best in winter, hydro in summer. In US, solar best in summer, wind best in winter.
Thanks for mentioning offshore wind in the Great Lakes! According to initial studies http://www.michiganglowcouncil.org/resources/LPIoffshore_potential9-29FI... it looks like there are over 36,000 MW of potentially available wind capacity within the Great Lakes at depths of <60 meters and located no closer than 10 km offshore. Average capacity factors for offshore wind projects are around 37% as compared to around 28% for typical land based projects.
We also have the nearby 1872 MW Ludington pumped storage facility to help store off peak wind energy. However, much of the offshore wind will likely be generated on-peak...just ask any lake michigan boater about afternoon and early evening winds that will certainly overlap the much of Michigan's peak demand periods.
In terms of back up power, with advanced wind forecasting tools they can predict wind speeds a day in advance which is time enough to bring on necessary backup combustion turbines, etc, if needed at all. The March/April 2009 issue of IEEE Power and Energy magazine has a nice article on all of this. According to the article, the cost to integrate wind into the grid, including the cost of additional operating reserves and wind forecasting errors, amounts to about $4 per MWH based on a 25% wind penetration factor. The authors go on to say that "these units maintain system balance and reliability so no new conventional generation is required as a "backup" for wind plants." see "A Mighty Wind" http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pes/public/2009/mar/index.html
On just the Great Lakes alone wind looks like a pretty interesting renewable energy opportunity.
Our Michigan Great Lakes Offshore Wind council will be undertaking a more detailed analysis of wind power opportunities though September 1, 2009. See http://www.michiganglowcouncil.org/ for lots of good reference material about off shore wind around the world.
Excellent proposal and quite do-able.
You can model distinct wind regions as a multinomial probability.
http://stattrek.com/Tables/multinomial.aspx
However more work needs to be done on how much variable power can be moved on a national HVDC grid and if it can be a bidirectional loop. I would guess that if the US government built it and told localities to close their local coal plants, they would have to GUARANTEE a constant amount of GWe at proper voltage just as the local coal or nuke plant has to, so the HVDC grid itself would need NG/or coal gasification with CCS back up and some wind electricity would not make it onto the grid(use for hydrogen or ammonia?).
I am still skeptical of a big increase in NA hydro for capacity but mainly for environmental reasons. You may recall the environmental contaimination when the Hydroquebec's dams released natural methyl mercury from the soil. Hydro is green but not without big consequences(Aral Sea, etc.) I also think that fresh water needs(agriculture but also Alberta tar sands for instance) will outweigh electricity production in the future.
http://www.hydroquebec.com/sustainable-development/documentation/mercure...
I wonder if someone could answer the following -I've just had a look at the 'worlds largest windmill' link and it strikes me the blades are going to have to be very very heavy and stiff to stop from hitting the tower as they rotate in high winds...
So why not put the blades on the other side so they flex downwind? They could be a lot thinner and lighter and like the old fable of the blade of grass and the tree, will probably survive the mightiest storm...
Nick.
I would imagine that the turbulence caused by the tower being upwind would be structurally hard on the blades especially in terms of fatigue life.
The Wind Turbine Company tried to penetrate the market with a two-blade downwind design, but I think they must have fizzled. It was a novel design in some regards, the blades were damped with hydraulic pistons thus absorbing some of the structural stress. The blades would move some but in no danger of hitting the tower because the blades were downwind. The stress reduction allowed them to reduce the mass of the tower and only having two blades reduced the mass also. The target was a low enough mass that it could be mounted by simply tilting it up, eliminating the need for a crane which would significantly reduce installation costs. They were small (the largest was 750kw) that may be one of the reasons they seem to have been left behind. I watched the company for a couple of years curious how their design would pan out, but to my knowledge they never got it into production.
From what I have read both one and two bladed wind machines although more efficient than three bladed machines have the problem of a varying moment of inertia. When a rotor with less than three blades is aligned vertically its moment of inertia in the vertical axis is very low, and a small force can change its angle easily, however when it moves to the horizontal position its moment is very large. This will place a very large torque on the tower as the blades force the generator housing back to the angle they were at the last time the blades were horizontal. On small windmills this effect is not much of a problem, but when the blades get to be five or ten tons each there are major dynamics problems. On three bladed machines the moment of inertia is constant, hence no dynamics problems.
You might put this question on the discussion site at pickens plan. In the past there have been some windmill manufactures and technicians posting on that forum. However the quality of the discussions is variable.
http://push.pickensplan.com/forum
noutram -
Picture the blades of a large wind turbine as the wings of an airplane. If the wings are too rigid, an unacceptable amount of stress can be induced at the wing root, making failure far more likely. On the other hand, if the wings are too flexible, destructive high-amplitude vibrations can be set up should the wing start resonating at its natural frequency. So, for good design there is an optimum balance between rigidity and flexibility. In other words, while you want the blades of a wind turbine to give a little, neither do you want them violently whipping back and forth. The blades are far enough away from the tower such that at maximum design wind speed they will not flex enough to hit the tower.
There are a number of reasons why having the blades on the upstream side of the tower has become the preferred configuration. I think one of the main reason is that when the blades are on the downstream side, the effect of the 'wind shadow' (where the tower itself interferes with the wind flow) is greater due to the tower being between the incoming wind and the blades. Wind shadow is one of the things that causes blade flexing, and it is desirable to minimize it. That is one of the reasons why the towers have a circular cross section.
I would expect that the upwind facing is preferred for mechanical simplicity and reliability of the hub+shaft+bearing system.
With a downwind facing of the blades a hub or bearing failure could pull the whole blade assembly out of the unit in high wind conditions, with obvious consequences.
r4ndom -
It would seem to me that there would be little difference in mechanical simplicity and shaft/bearing reliability between upstream and downstream configurations.
A total hub or bearing failure in either configuration is going to cause quite a bit of serious destruction regardless. Once that giant blade assembly gets out of balance in a high-wind conditions, it's bye bye.
No, the main reason the upstream configuration is preferred is mainly due to aerodynamic and vibrational considerations.
Thanks for all the input -there is obviously some very good reason why this has not 'evolved' as the #1 setup.
I have watched some very interesting videos on Youtube this last week concerning Vertical axis wind turbines. This would seem to be a good way to go within urban areas. I was surprised how simple it is to actually make one of these things -'open source' plans are available for everything from blades to generators. With a little carpentry and a few hundred £s/$s of components like magnets the lights can stay on and things like pumps and stuff can be run for irrigation, etc. In fact irrigation was the first use of a windmill wasn't it -and grinding corn... Nice little 'circle in the making' that... :o)
Nick.
Maybe 20 years ago I went to the local junk man and bought for near nothing a big industrial fan- like a squirrel cage exerciser- many blades sticking up on perimeter of a big disk. I stuck this thing on a vertical shaft ( one inch pipe) and had it spinning in the wind over my workshop, doing nothing but churning water for heating in the winter. Worked great, made a lot of noise from the loose bearings, and blew down in a big windstorm. Easy to do, fun to watch, and who cares about the noise in the workshop. Didn't care about wind direction. Also sort of self-limiting in speed- at high wind speed, acted like a centrifugal pump and soaked up most of the wind power.
So I will amend my vote for alcohol-spark IC as best available cheap power when TSHTF. That's good alright, but the vertical axis windmill is sure easy to do, and works when the wind blows.
Added advantage, otherwise aloof neighbors stop by to find out what that crazy guy is up to now.
Good point. At the scale of a 3MW wind turbine even a "lightweight" blade is going to be a massive piece of hardware.
Proven Energy ( www.provenenergy.co.uk ) makes a turbine with blades downwind from the mast. They have a good reputation for being robust, some are installed in the Antarctic. But they are small wind, the largest is 15kW with 9 meter diameter rotor.
I suppose that if the money could be found to build such an ambitious system,we could manage the peaking and storage problems,but not being an engineer, I am counting on you who are to keep the rest of us informed.
One thing that would really help is a comprehensive plan(although I distrust such plans in principle because they are necessarily drawn up by politicians subject to too much pressure from various groups fighting for a prime place at the trough) designed would make sure we pick the low hanging fruit first.
There is for instance a very large solar installation going in soon (?now)in North Carolina which is a good thing of course, but the same amount of solar investment would produce substantially more energy in Nevada.The payback would thus be a lot quicker,enabling the turnaround of the money faster, a fsster overall growth rate, and all the other good positive feedbacks such as faster growth in skilled manpower and manufacturing capacity.
There probably would also be a psychological positive feedback as the public ,seeing good progress made in both capacity and cost reduction,hopefully would be more likely to push harder for more renewable investment.
Another thing that should get a lot more attention is the design of integrated whole house systems that would enable homeowners to use wind and solarphotovoltaicsolar thermal at a small scale to the maximum output without large battery backups and without running meters backward.
It would be pretty easy and actually pretty cheap when building a new house to dump a few tons of crushedstone in the crawl space which could serve as additional thermal mass storage if a solar water heater was being used at less than capacity.All that would be necessary would be coil of pipe embedded in the gravel and a small radiator and pump.The radiator could supply space heat and the solar water heater might run on the heat in the gravel for several cloudy days before drawing grid power.Of course you would need to better insulate the crawl space but that wouldn't cost much either if done while building.
A couple of dedicated low voltage dc solar powered electrical circuits isolated from the ac system wouldn't cost much, but they would make it possible to run refrigerators and air conditioners equipped with either two motors or dual voltage motors and slightly more siophisticated control circuits which are already built in.If the refrigerator had a built in reservoir of about 10 gallons of water which could be frozen anytime the photovoltiacs were producing, it might go for weeks at a time in ice box mode without using any grid power or batteries.Keeping a well insulated house well cooled during the day with free solar might well reduce the cooling load in the evening to the extent that the amount of grid power needed for ac would be substantially reduced. this might be cheaper and more efficient than batteries , inverters, etc.
you would not have to wait for a smart grid to reach your house to use this system. If you have your own well it could automatically sprinkle your lawn,or refill livestock water troughs out on the farm,etc.It could run your washing machine if you left it loaded and sun comes out while you work,etc.The same sort of little chip that turns your stove on to start dinner as you leave work could turn the dryer on using grid power at say 4pm if you had a bad sun day.
So would it be cheaper than batteries ,inverters, etc? It wopuld certainly cut fossil fuel use and reduce peak loads to some extent.
I think we have the need for some "civilizaton triage" around household energy solution. I've been really captured by this idea of civilization triage that David Holmgren (founder of the permaculture movement) put forward in his recent book.
Recently I went to visit the thriving honey/bee/wax industry in Odessa Minnesota, population 130. The honey industry, by the way is doing quite well in this economy according to the owner. I stopped in this little greasy blacksmith type shop on mainstreet. The owner had on display a lot of wares from years past, including an antique rooftop turbine (wooden). It had come from his childhood home and he said that it was the source of electricity for his family-- he showed me the glass containers that held the crude batteries. It had functioned for many years, as this area was slow in getting rural electrification.
Also, there are still folks here with the memory of life before electric. I overheard a conversation in the cafe recently. A woman was talking about how her grandfather had moved to this area in the late 1800's (maybe early 1900's) from Norway. In Norway he had electricity and when he moved to the US he farmed and lived without electric for nearly 40 years. They were noodling over how hard it would be to live "backwards" technologically for so many years, having experience the comfort of electric in the old country. Uff da!
Building the windmills is the easiest and perhaps cheapest part of the plan.
Most hydroelectric dams are multipurpose facilities. There are other factors like fish and wildlife habitat, erosion, agriculture and flood control to be considered. They cannot be run up and down like a laptop battery.
True pump-storage facilities are rare industrial facilities that are ugly and must be surrounded by chain link fence due to rapid and large level changes. They require a water supply and substantial elevation change. Areas appropriate for pumped-storage tend to be places attractive to people for living and recreating, and are already largely developed.
How much additional generation is required for the losses in long distance transmission and storage energy transformations? For example using EV batteries could loose 25-30% of the energy round trip and void manufacturer’s warranties. What would the utility have to pay average Americans per kWh to plug in their car every time they park it and what would that do to the rate utilities charge the consumer?
Transmission lines supporting windmills will have a lower average capacity factor, therefore the cost per kWkm must be higher. Today most electricity is consumed less than 100km from where it is generated accounting for about 12% of cost. What will the transmission cost be if that increases to several hundred km?
You say long distance capacity is only a small fraction of total load due to short term buffering with storage. How do you handle seasonal variation? Wind is lowest in the summer when demand is highest.
What power lines are now under construction at a cost of $1.00 / kWkm? Which ones are being built on new right of way?
Existing hydro and fossil plants are at various stages in their lifecycle. They will have to be replaced with new backup plants as they time out, where is that cost?
Where are windmills being built for $1.50 / watt? The latest cost estimate for T Boon Pickens 4,000 MW wind project is $12 billion.
http://earth2tech.com/2008/06/10/cost-estimates-of-t-boones-colossal-win...
Subtracting $2 billion for transmission lines, the cost of the installed windmills is $2.50 per data plate Watt. Now factor in a capacity factor of 0.35 and it’s up to $7.14 per watt.
Offshore wind is much more expensive. Where is that estimate?
Nuclear capitol cost
$6 per watt / 0.9 capacity factor / 60 year lifetime = 11.11 cents / watt year
Wind capitol cost
$2.50 per watt / 0.33 capacity factor / 20 year lifetime = 37.88 cents / watt year
Clearly we should mass produce nuclear plants and skip the super grid / storage combo.
Here is an interesting release on the proposed 12,000 MW "Green Power Express" EHV transmission line
http://investor.itc-holdings.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=376643
Here is a story from the Economist on creating wind power transmission in the Midwest http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13... Joe Welch, President of ITC Holdings, will be talking about their proposed Green Power express at the Conference on Michigan's Future: Energy, Economy and Environment scheduled for November 2009 www.futuremichigan.com
The figures I am seeing for large offshore wind are around $4500 per KW not including on-land grid upgrades
Nuclear will likely be a part of the mix too. Here is a good website for nuclear power news http://www.cleansafeenergy.org/
Bill, you are using a discount rate of 0%. If I assume a discount rate of X and a lifetime of Y they effective lifespan for costing purposes is: the integral from 0 to y of exp(-X*t)dt
which evaluates to: (1-exp(-x*y))/x
If I assume an 8% discount rate, then x=.08 (maybe a bit high) then the lifetime to use for a 20year plant is 9.98years, and the cost for a 60year plant is 12.40years. The numbers then become:
$.54 for the Nuclear plant, and $.76 for the wind. The nuclear is still favored by this computation, but the ratio isn't overwhelming. I would still argue for a healthy nuclear buildup, if the cost can be contained.
You will note that applying discount rates reduces the perceived value of the future -that is an issue to be taken up with economists and accountants.
You might want to include an operating cost of about $.02/KWH for nuclear. I think that will bring the numbers to rough parity.
Then, you have to adjust for the 8-10 year delay in nuclear construction, and the much higher risk of project cancellation.
You might want to consider the balance of trade implications of buying plants from French (Areva) and Japanese (Westinghouse/Toshiba?) vendors, and importing most fuel.
Finally, there's the intangible of the example we're setting for countries like Iran, Egypt, and others, who are thinking about nuclear power. Nuclear power in Iran and other places makes us nervous, while those countries feel they have a pretty good right to develop nuclear just like us (a little too much like us).
Not to mention that, according to wind-power monthly, the average wind power installation cost in 2008 was about 1500 €/kW, i.e. 2000 $/kW instead of the above mentioned 2500 $/kW. Unfortunately you need a subscription to be able to check this number. However, references to older articles considering the economics of wind-power can be found here.
Fact is that e.g. in New-Zealand and Turkey, they are installing wind turbines without subsidies. With a subsidy in the U.S. of about 2 ct/kWh, more than 8000 kW of new capacity has been installed last year. Some of this wind power would also have been installed if there was no production tax credit at all. Thanks to a relatively modest production tax credit (in European terms), much more installations are profitable then would otherwise be the case.
Coincidentally, Wind farm begins to power national grid.
Dear Enemy, perhaps he isn't. $6 is an excessive estimate if capital cost aren't included. For the recent AP1000 projects that are considered in the US, it seems that the costs are more like $3-$4.5 per watt, going up to $6 if capital costs are included.
(Even those estimates are high b/c these would be the first plants for some time in the US. Costs will decrease if more are built. Also, if we apply 8% discount rates to nuclear power construction, then decommissioning and waste handling should come more or less for free.)
And I agree with Bill on wind. I think it will be prohibitively expensive to get above 20%.
Bill Hannahan,
You have raised a lot of points about the relative cost of wind and nuclear. I would be in favor of every possible new nuclear plant as long as any coal fired power is being used. The problem is not too many new nuclear plants are being built due to the long construction times and high financial risks. Meanwhile lots of new wind turbines are being constructed.
Specific points:
"Building the windmills is the easiest and perhaps cheapest part of the plan."
I have projected cost of wind turbines will be the major part of costs.
"They(hydro) cannot be run up and down like a laptop battery."
In the US, hydro is used to provide peak power and spinning reserve, and can respond very quickly to changes in demand.
"Transmission lines supporting windmills will have a lower average capacity factor, therefore the cost per kWkm must be higher."
The core of the plan is that most long distance wind power can share load with hydro power, maintaining a high capacity factor.
"Where are windmills being built for $1.50 / watt?"
These were the costs until 2007/08 price rises for steel and back-orders for turbines raised the price, these costs have now declined. Most turbines in US are still 1.5-2MW, larger turbines are lower cost/kW.
Neil
You touched lightly on a few points and skipped others.
" I have projected cost of wind turbines will be the major part of costs. "
True, but I think that is because you underestimate the balance of system cost.
" In the US, hydro is used to provide peak power and spinning reserve, and can respond very quickly to changes in demand. "
Again true, but only within the narrow range allowed by other factors. If the grand canyon flow goes to near zero rafters are stranded and fish die. If it ramps up to a rampage overnight rafters die in their tents.
" The core of the plan is that most long distance wind power can share load with hydro power, maintaining a high capacity factor. "
Then you would need hydro buffering at both ends and suffer two rounds of compound energy conversion losses (0.75 x 0.75 = 0.56 A 44% loss). This is very expensive and hydro evaporates more water per kWh than a nuclear plant with a wet cooling tower.
" These were the costs until 2007/08 price rises for steel and back-orders for turbines raised the price, these costs have now declined. Most turbines in US are still 1.5-2MW, larger turbines are lower cost/kW. "
Where in North America are they now being built for $1.50 / watt?
Questions not addressed.
How much additional generation is required for the losses in long distance transmission and storage energy transformations? For example using EV batteries could loose 25-30% of the energy round trip and void manufacturer’s warranties. What would the utility have to pay average Americans per kWh to plug in their car every time they park it and what would that do to the rate utilities charge the consumer?
Transmission lines supporting windmills will have a lower average capacity factor, therefore the cost per kWkm must be higher. Today most electricity is consumed less than 100km from where it is generated accounting for about 12% of cost. What will the transmission cost be if that increases to several hundred km?
You say long distance capacity is only a small fraction of total load due to short term buffering with storage. How do you handle seasonal variation? Wind is lowest in the summer when demand is highest.
Existing hydro and fossil plants are at various stages in their lifecycle. They will have to be replaced with new backup plants as they time out, where is that cost?
The point is that wind kWh's are not as valuable as conventional kWh's because they are not reliable, controllable or predictable. That is why they need so much additional support equipment
Denmark and other European countries have been pushing wind very hard for over 30 years and all they have to show for it are the highest electric prices in the world and a huge dependence on fossil fuel. Now we are following Europe down that path, but at the end 30 years from now we will not have cheap fossil fuel to bail us out.
A conventional nuclear power plant needs 58 pounds of uranium to make a lifetime supply of electricity, 1,550 watts for 80 years. A dirt simple Molten Salt Reactor running on a once through fuel cycle could do it on 20 pounds or less.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F0tUDJ35So&eurl=http://newenergyandfuel....
In 1942 nobody knew how to build a plutonium production reactor, but by 1944 we had a massive production reactor up and running.
Today the physics and chemistry of the MSR are far better known than the plutonium system was known in 1942. If we applied the same motivation we could have a demo reactor running within three years. It would be just a reactor dumping its heat, building the balance of plant would consume time and money without adding knowledge.
One the reactor design is proven it could be used to replace boilers at existing coal plants.
http://coal2nuclear.com/index.htm
.
Bill,
I value your constructive critique,
Questions not addressed:
Using EV for more than spinning reserve would be for emergencies only, in which case losses are not an issue. Spinning reserve would only be a few Wh/vehicle.
Wind turbines built near hydro(Southern Alaska, Hudson's Bay, Labrador, Appalachians,Great Lakes, Rocky Mountains,NW coast ) would balance each other so that nearly 100%capacity would be transmitted over >1000km distances. With HVDC losses are about 4%/1000km, with UHVDC 2%/1000km.
Season demand is met by using more hydro and solar in summer, and standby coal if needed( I know would be better to have no more coal use, but "the perfect is the enemy of the good" 5% is better than 100%. When all those new nuclear plants are completed then those coal plants could be dismantled.
Aging coal plants will last longer if only used one or two weeks a year. Hydro will need turbine upgrades about every 70years, as has been happening for dams built in 1930-1940. A lot of the Canadian far North hydro is only 20 years old.
You are absolutely correct that kWh from peak NG are much more valuable than kWh from wind or nuclear or base load coal. Fortunately solar peaks at demand peak so they will get a premium price as does NG.
As I said before Denmark produces the same wind power as Iowa, less than half Texas and is much smaller than these states. Why use Denmark as an example, they don't have very good wind, but its better than the hydro or solar they don't have either.
"A conventional nuclear power plant needs 58 pounds of uranium to make a lifetime supply of electricity, 1,550 watts for 80 years"
Show me a nuclear plant that only has 58 lbs of uranium, more like 50 tonnes or 50 tonnes of thorium( a picture would do). It's not relevant, when 250GW nuclear is built we can stop building additional wind turbines, meanwhile we need to pursue all low carbon energy options. It's not nuclear or wind its nuclear plus wind plus solar.
If you visited the graphite pile at X10, Oak Ridge, TN you will know its not exactly the safest design(prone to catch fire due to graphite radiation damage). I am not arguing that it's impossible to have a MSR in 3 years, see above, but realistically are we going to have more than 25-50GW new nuclear in 20 years, if so we need to get approvals financing in place and start digging very soon.
PS: windmills mill grain and pump water, wind turbines produce electricity.
We need to highlight those words in bright lights. I think we will end up with huge blocks of CSP as part of the solar too.
Also, the "20 year lifetime" for the wind cost is understated.
The foundation and mast, which are a significant part of the cost (>40% IIRC) could be expected to reused for 60+ years. (The Golden Gate Bridge, for example, is over 70 years old)
According to the Department of Energy the electricity costs of wind power were between 3 and 6.4 cents per kWh (2006):
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41435.pdf
According to this study electricity costs for new nuclear power are between 25 cents and 30 cents per kWh:
http://www.nirs.org/neconomics/nuclearcosts2009.pdf
Also, wind turbines do not require cooling water and
do not require foreign uranium and
do not require uranium processing and enrichment plants and
do not require waste repositories and
do not require 10 years of construction time.
And wind turbines do not generate decommissioning costs of $1 per Watt:
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=55119
No onerous depletion curve for the feedstock.
I've tried to calculate an average capital cost roughly consistent with the parameters in the article. I assume the integrated capacity factor is now 50% so the overbuild factor is 2. I believe HVDC transmission will cost more like $2m per kilometre with electronics stations but let's stick to $1m. I assume a kilometre of new transmission is required for every 1 MW of new wind nameplate. A comment above suggests $4500 per kw capital cost of new wind.
Putting it together I get
(overbuild X unit cost)+ new transmission
= 2($4.5) + $1 = $10 per watt.
That's perhaps double the cost of new nuclear using existing transmission.
The proposal is for an additional 1110 GW of wind capacity, so your 1 kilometer of transmission per 1 MW of wind would result in 1,110,000 kilometers of new transmission. A million additional kilometers of transmission lines in a country that is only 3000 miles across seems unlikely to be correct.
Seems more likely that a few HVDC lines between the regions with good wind resources and the regions with high power consumption, plus a little redundancy would be adequate.
Nuclear is not modular, but instead must be added in billion dollar increments. During the current credit crunch, I do not expect significant nuclear construction, no matter how hard the proponents argue.
Neil, I interpret your 550 GWa as 50 quads/yr near enough, which sounds about right for North American primary energy input to electricity. However for coal, nuclear and NG we can replace 3 quads of primary energy to generate electricity with 1 quad of electricity from wind or solar. So wind doesn't have to replace the 50 quads in terms of generation. If you take the wind duty factor as 33%, of course you need capacity equal to the coal/nuke/NG. I'm not sure from your write up if you have taken this factor into account. If not, wind only has to be 1/3rd of what you have given. Murray
Murray,
I have just looked at actual electricity production(GWh/year)produced by coal and NG. For replacing NG and oil I did consider that heat pumps give x2-3 more energy than joules/kWh, and that older oil heat is only 65%efficient.Some new NG furnaces are now 95%efficient but heat pumps still 250-300%.
USA only electricity out from coal, NG and nuclear in is near 12 quads per year. Unless I am making a big arithmetical error that is 130 GWa/yr. add in Canada and Mexico electricity out from coal, NG and nuclear in and that may reach 180 to 190 GWa/yr. Where do you get the 550 GWa unless you are using the primary energy in rather than the electricity out to estimate wind needs? Maybe I'm thick, but the 550 seemed to me to be electricity to be generated, not nameplate capacity to be installed. Sorry to bother you. I'm being lazy and don't want to recheck sll of your numbers. Murray
Murray,
Look at the table for 2008 (average). The EIA gives yearly values for US electricity of 4,157 Billion kWh=4,157,000GWh/8760= approx 450GWaverage. Canada has about 70GWa and Mexico about 35GWa.
The nameplate capacity installed is also given (about twice as large because NG and hydro low capacity)
I see some comments upthread about the viability of this plan. I think it's pretty clear the author is exploring the bounds of the envelope - what if we did it all with wind? The ideation and collection of statistics are a fine thing to help define the scope of the problem and the outer edges of the solution.
And lets recall I'm the mildly autistic adult here - being excessively literal is a prerogative I jealously guard.
Seems to me that there's a fixation on cost alone as a measure of whether something as stupendous in scope as this scheme can be realised.
No one has asked for example; Where will the diesel come from for all the trucks required to move such massive quantities of steel, concrete and other materials on this scale after peak oil, with its attendant shortages, price volatility and geopolitical instability, over a prolonged period of time?
It also assumes the US will long have a healthy economic and social system after peak oil, let alone the unfolding global financial crash, where such incredible debt burdens can only be incurred on the expectation of being settled by some era of future growth - growth which is dependent on an increasing, reliable and cheap supply of oil.
I fear that this, and other well meaning solutions to our energy dilemmas, are about 20 years too late.
SaturnV,
Gail has often raised the same issue about the role of diesel in transporting and for maintenance. A Danish study of life cycle carbon and energy costs of wind in Brazil attributes <5% of energy is used for transport. Since we have an EROEI of >30:1, that means transport accounts of 1/600 th of the energy costs (<2Wh per kWh).
When we are down to our last 100,000 barrels/day then might be concerned about replacing diesel transport of wind components with electric.
Already N American electricity is 38% low carbon.
Neil1947,
Thanks for replying. The problem with post-peak oil decline is that we will have shortages, price spikes and mounting international tension. All this will play havoc with many mitigation plans, however laudable they may be. Also, it does not matter what percentage of our energy is used for transport, when that transport is more than 90% dependent on oil. Finally, there is enough evidence to suggest that we will have profound social, political and economic dislocation well before we ever reached the bottom of the oil barrel.
Regards.
I made a comment up-thread about this issue. We will be reaching limits to growth issues of all kinds. This makes me uncomfortable assuming that we can keep things operating as usual for many years in the future.
It is not as simple as having a small amount of oil available--you need to have the political system intact and the financial system operating fairly usually.
Many of these transmission lines will be in remote areas. We will need helicopters to get to them. Will we have helicopters everywhere to deploy? Or roads and heavy equipment to the places needing repair? All of this requires a lot of planning and coordination.
I fear we will get part of this built, and limits to growth issues will become overwhelming.
Worse still folks with grievances will start blowing up pylons. Think Somali pirates but landlocked. Those grievances could be resentment over the appearance or intrusion of new transmission or a perception they are missing the benefits. That's why I think covering every suburban rooftop (that isn't a meth lab) with thin film solar may win out since that will reduce the need for new transmission.
Why?
They don't do so now. They haven't done so historically. Power lines aren't new. Why would they start?
Mad Max is not a plausible fantasy world.
Gail,
I accept your concerns about having a intact economy. If we look at the last big dislocation, the Great Depression, we find that lots of remote hydro and transmission lines were built without helicopters.
The US had plenty of oil, but Australia didn't and built dams using a lot more hand and horse power, stone blocks replacing some of the cement in the dam walls.
A depression creates lots of surplus labor and spare capacity to produce steel, copper,concrete etc. Although the US imports many wind components, it also manufactures a lot locally and could use idled construction workers for towers and foundations. Blade epoxy resins require NG liquids or benzene derived from oil( several tonnes/MW). These are still small amounts compared with what is used today by long distance trucking or even moving coal by rail to power plants.
A lot of the Canadian wind could be built next to existing hydro and increasing capacity of transmission lines as needed. Many hydro projects in Quebec and Manitoba are just waiting for long term contracts in US to start building. Most of the access roads and transmission corridors are in place, and its a matter of adding an additional dam.
More important than oil will be how long NG lasts, as this is critical to provide 450GW of peak power. Switching out of NG used for heat would help to stretch supplies but may not be enough, that's why I assumed only 50% of NG presently used for peak would be available(same peak but lower capacity factor).
Neil1947,
Are you assuming that there will be shortages of oil, but not for other materials? Also we need to mindful of the effects any further growth will have on the environment and the other species which co-inhabit this world with us. I fear we would be merely throwing the baby out with the bathwater, intensifying the mass species extinction currently underway, only to find, finally exhausted of the finite and critical resources necessary to maintain ourselves and our complexity, we too succumbing to the same fate.
Regards.
Saturn V ,
this plan doesn't call for any growth in energy use, it calls for less energy(oil, coal and NG) replaced by wind and hydro,nuclear and solar, but mainly wind.
More steel for 300,000 wind turbines, less to replace the present 500,000 oil wells, thousands of coal fired power plants in US.
Neil1947,
Thanks again. But the existing infrastructure has already been built, it's there, taking up space, sunk costs and all that, which will take perhaps decades to erase financially and physically. Plus won't the new infrastructure also need fossil fuels and other irreplaceable resources we are utterly dependent on to get built - the windmills, solar farms, new dams etc, all at the cost of more to the environment?
Regards.
Existing oil and NG infrastructure is aging and will need replacing. It will take decades to replace by wind(to 2030), and even then some NG and oil will be needed. Many of the coal fired plants are >40 years old and need to be replaced soon, could be phased out as wind is phased in.
duplicate deleted
Hi Gail,
I agree with your fears. One only has to look at the havoc wreaked by the global financial crisis, and the part high oil prices had to play in causing that damage, to wonder what even a modest decline of 4 or 5% off the petroleum plateau would have on the integrity of countries around the world. The way things are unfolding, I don't think we'll have all that long to wait to find out.
Regards.
You're begging the question.
Effectively, you're saying "if society has already collapsed, will society be able to build and maintain large projects?" The point of this project is to prevent society from collapsing in the first place, meaning that it's not a valid criticism to address it from the standpoint of a collapsed society. If you do, you're assuming it's already failed, in which case of course it's lacking.
The question is: can a plan like this prevent society-threatening energy shortages from developing, starting from the basis of our current society? Regardless of whether you consider our current society functional or not, the question is whether a plan like this, if implemented, would be (a) possible, and (b) successful at preventing serious energy shortages from developing in the society.
If we assume that the plan is successfully enacted, then all of your objections vanish. There's no problem with helicopters being available, because society hasn't collapsed. There's no problem with roads and heavy equipment being available, because society hasn't collapsed. There's no problem with planning and coordination, because society hasn't collapsed.
That's not at all true. The plan under discussion essentially consists of a set of physical structures, and a communist dictatorship or a set of cooperating small nations could build the very same structures as a capitalist democracy. Fundamentally, it's a question of (a) the feasibility of building a set of physical structures, and (b) the effect of those structures.
The political situation is really only a concern if we assume that society has crumbled to the extent that large-scale projects like this are no longer feasible. And if we're going to assume that large-scale projects are not feasible, then of course we're going to conclude that large-scale projects are not feasible. Circular arguments aren't very informative, though.
I fear we will get part of this built, and limits to growth issues will become overwhelming.
All of the issues you raise also pertain to nuclear and coal power generation and transmission. If the grid is a priority, then priorities will be set to assure maintenance. Of course, if severe TEOTWAWKI means everything shuts down, then it shuts down.
I've asked before based on similar statements of your's; What is the scenario you see unfolding in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? You've implied that the electrical grid will not continue after some period following PO; is there any reason to assume this is not your position?
SaturnV, it will come from the same places it has always come. You know, as PO hits us, enormous amounts of wasteful use can and will be curbed by the invisible hand of the free market. The most productive uses will remain, and this is one of those. Regardless of what the doomers say, yanks will have no real problem getting new infrastructure and alternative energy production up and running.
Also, the notion of an extended oil (or rather liquids) plateu at PO has a lot going for it. Peak oil for individual countries has always been at more or less constant prices. When prices establish themselves permanently above $80, then prospecting will shoot up again, as will coal-to-liquids projects, oil sands projects and so on.
Jeppen,
Thanks for your reply. The problem with post-peak is that there will be shortages, price spikes, increasing international tension and economic contraction, which will play havoc on your production, exports and discovery scenario. I do agree however that the price of oil, whether the economy picks up again soon or not, is bound to re-escalate simply based on inelasticity of demand, population growth and sheer constant depletion. Tar sands are constrained by natural gas, water and immense environmental destructiveness. Coal to Liquids by price and long-lead times, and deep-water mainly by long lead-times and steep depletion rates. By 2030 ASPO estimates we will be down 25 mbs p/d in liquid fuels (which I believe is conservative), which according to Robert Hirsch correlates to a 25% drop in GDP. I don't know how, under those circumstances you could still have a viable exploration, production and marketing complex, let alone economy.
Regards.
SaturnV, there is only shortages if you have price controls, otherwise, demand and supply meet at a price. The oil price need not be especially volatile b/c of peak oil. And yes, every alternative is constrained, but there are a number of them, and large amounts of waste that will be curbed. This means we will cope well and have plenty of time. 25 million barrels less won't happen by 2030, and if it does, that can be met by not commuting by one gas-guzzling monster per person and so on.
Unfortunately, college professors don't seem to have much experience in the real world. Nowhere in this proposal did I find reference to the actual production rates for wind turbine construction. I believe GE is already backlogged with orders. 100% renewable energy is clearly not possible within 10 years (as Al Gore suggests). I doubt that even 50% wind energy would be possible by 2030 with current production rates.
In a free market capitalist system, if the market is there and there is a profit to be made, GE will expand their production facilities to try to meet demand and other companies will start building wind turbines as well. It isn't a particularly complex technology so the only question really is whether the credit crunch gets in the way of raising the capital required to meet up front costs.
Limits to growth, which appear to be kicking in with a vengeance, will have the final world, rather than some vague human notion.
Which limits? Specifically, rather than some "vague notion".
Steel production? The amount needed is 0.5% of world production, and only 2% of US consumption. Concrete production? Resin production? What are the limits you're talking about here?
If you're going to complain that people shouldn't rely on "vague notions", then perhaps you should lead by example and provide evidence to support specific claims of specific problems with this proposal.
conservationist,
If you look 3 paragraphs below table 1:
"Such an expansion would require new capacity additions to rise from the 2008 level of 9GWc to 60GWc per year by 2013, and continue at that level until 2030."
The NREL study "20%wind by 2030", goes into detail about wind manufacturing capacity constraints, as discussed in the following paragraph.
Your comment:
"I doubt that even 50% wind energy would be possible by 2030 with current production rates."
I am not suggesting that current production capacity will be used, instead manufacturing capacity would have to increase by 50% per year for 4 years( as occurred with natural gas peak power plants). The manufacturing of wind turbines allows many components to be mass produced by manufacturing at different locations and combined on site or at assembly sites.
It is worthwhile to read the NREL link provided. See "US wind manufacturing workshop" this study is talking about 280GW additional wind capacity, just for US. Since this workshop( August 2008) another 8 GW of wind has been completed in US.
Backlogged orders are a good thing, allows capacity expansion. One of the issues 18 months ago was steel and resin supply, now lots of available capacity.
Interesting facts:
Industrial electricity prices (2007) before tax:
Denmark (0% nuclear power and 20% of wind power): 7.06 cents/kWh
Belgium (55% nuclear power): 9.69 cents/kWh
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-DK-07-001/EN/KS-DK-...
More importantly: Denmark exports over 90% of its wind turbines with profit in a market with a double digit growth (as opposed to nuclear power which does neither).
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKLV55678920081231
CO2 emission per capita:
Denmark (0% nuclear power and 20% wind power): 10.94 t
Belgium (55% nuclear power): 13.66 t
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/eedrb/data/DK-enemc.html
http://www.iaea.org/inisnkm/nkm/aws/eedrb/data/BE-enemc.html
Wind turbines produce more power during day time when demand is higher:
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/variab.htm
Nuclear power plants always produce the same amount of power day and night.
Wind turbines in Spain support hydro electric plants in dry winters:
http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUSL1...
On the other hand drought could shut down nuclear power plants:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22804065/
Nuclear power plants do not produce power for several days or even weeks when maintained or repaired.
Interconnected wind farms don't do that.
http://manchestertimes.micromediapubs.com/news/2009/0429/front_page/002....
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090427-702595.html
http://www.jsonline.com/newswatch/43179997.html
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7014947393
According to the department of energy average wind turbine costs were $1480 /kW in 2006:
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41435.pdf
Florida Power and Light estimates its two new nuclear plants (2.2 GW to 3 GW) will cost as much as $24 billion:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89169837
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Florida_Power_And_Light_Welcomes_Initi...
Even at 3GW that's $8000 /kW.
According to this study, HVDC costs €70/(kW 1000km):
http://www.iset.uni-kassel.de/abt/w3-w/projekte/LowCostEuropElSup_revise...
"Later steps would depend on how much the economy could really support, and whether there really are electric vehicles and other equipment needing the electrical supply."
I agree with Gail that the system needs to be incremental and that the individual increments must themselves add to the energy supply, not simply serve as a "half built building" that requires the whole enchilada in order to function.
Regarding a transportation system heavily based on electricity- it is a certainty. Simply because we won't have fuel for a fossil fuel based transportation system.
However, the exact form of a future transportation system is not clear. If electric car technology does not develop to a point where it can provide vehicles with similar capability to today's autos, at a price that we will be able to afford, in a society that will probably exist at a lower standard of living than today, well then we will be driving electric golf carts. Those exist today, and I do believe we will still be prosperous enough to afford golf carts.
My view on transportation is that we are likely to still have some degree of individual transportation, but of less capability than cars today, and thus one aspect of a sustainable future transportation system will be the partial dismantling of suburbia, but not the total collapse of it as someone like Kunstler would postulate.
Where was I?
Anyway, it seems to me the wind plan is a positive contribution, but it needs to work on an incremental basis as well as in its full blown form.
I guess the main potential obstacle to that is that in an incremental form you won't have the diverse geographic base of wind generators to smooth out the ups and downs in output depending on the weather.
Perhaps what we most need right now is some "mini energy grand plans" that propose moderate-sized renewable energy systems that are big enough to adequately address supply intermittency while not being so large as to require that we spend hundreds of billions of dollars to build a mega system and then cross our fingers and hope the whole thing plays together.
As to an incremental creation of a wind-based electricity grid, the intermittency problem is probably not a big obstacle so long as there are conventional energy plants on the grid.
So it seems like they provide the cushion to gradually transition from a power grid based primarily on fossil fuels to one primarily reliant on renewables.
At the end of the journey, if you have a grid with robust transmission links, geographically diverse wind generators, large-scale solar thermal with backup storage, you will have a system that ought to be fairly robust due to the large amount of diversity of sources.
It is a "diverse" system far different than the decentralized system that some envision where everyone has a solar panel on their roof, but I think the latter suffers from some fatal shortcomings.
With the $180 billion spent on AIG and its bonuses, one could have financed 600 Oerlikon thinfilm photovoltaic factories, which produce 96 GW per year. (That is 96 GW every single year.)
http://www.oerlikon.com/ecomaXL/index.php?site=SOLAR_EN_press_releases_d...
And these photovoltaic modules can be placed on existing roofs without requiring additional area: 120,000 km2 of the US is built. If only 10% of that area has roof area, that leads to a maximum solar power of 12,000 GW or 1,200 GW at only 10% efficiency.
Btw, thinfilm photovoltaics can produce up to 30 times more energy than is needed for their production:
www.nrel.gov/docs/fy04osti/35489.pdf
Lance,
I see room for both, local solar PV will help to reduce peak power demand on grid, the long distance grid will provide back-up for more local wind, CSP hydro. It will probably take more than 20 years for PV to contribute as much as wind energy does today, but longer term PV could be 10-20% of electricity supply.
Gosh, if the cost numbers are correct...we could have had this half done by now. If we hadn't blown the money in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US could put in a national grid that would accommodate this level of wind integration for less than one or two year's military expenditure. If we had the will, we could make this happen. Transmission would work best under a centralized government agency, allowing the grid to work as an integrated system over a wide area. Right now there is a patchwork of individual balancing authorities that complicates wind integration. BPA is working on commercial agreements to combine balancing authorities, but the main barriers to implementing this kind of grid are more social than technical. Not sure how easy it would be to maintain this grid in a degraded social environment. I was thinking that you could just homestead the right of ways. Build decent houses and offer some kind of modest subsistence living that was secure, and people would look after the lines, manage vegetation, look out for vandals (we do get vandals and blackmailers and domestic terrorists going after the lines, as well as metal thieves)
NERC has an interesting special report out on the effort to change the way the grid accommodates renewable generation:
"Accommodating High Levels of Renewable Generation"
http://www.nerc.com/files/IVGTF_Report_041609.pdf
Reading the paper will give you an idea of what transmission engineers worry about. But I think we are heading down the general path of reconfiguring the North American grid to accommodate much more wind power.
Jeff Barton
HVDC Applications Engineer
Bonneville Power Administration.
Jeff,
Thanks, this looks like a great reference document. Are there any plans to link northern hydro and wind resources?
Excellent report, Jeff, thanks.
Contrary to what the report from NREC states, there is a commercial wave power farm in operation:
http://www.pelamiswave.com/content.php?id=149
Also figure 2.4 suggests, that wind power would peak after midnight and there's no wind around noon.
This is very unusual data and almost completely contradicts to what is usually measured and experienced:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/wres/variab.htm
Recent reports say that Pelamis installed three units, had to pull them out for repairs, then ran out of cash.
Their website offers to "clarify" the situation, but when I attempt to download the company statement, it freezes at 92% downloaded - this could just be my connection or computer, if someone else can get it I'll be interested.
In either case, though, I think we need more than three units operating for six or so months at one location to really say much about the commercial viability of wave power.
So far, the only renewable energy sources demonstrated as commercially-viable are geothermal, hydroelectric, solar PV, solar thermal, tidal and wind.
Biomass in principle could be renewable, but given that around 17% of our carbon emissions come from deforestation, I'm not hopeful at our prospects of making biomass reliably renewable.
I'd love it if we could add wave power to the list, but it seems it's technically difficult, what with salt water corrosion and all.
Here's their statement http://www.pelamiswave.com/news.php?id=32:
(it's less a technical than a financial problem - but unfortunately companies that actually produce are not as forthcomingly bailed out as companies that do not produce (such as banks, insurances etc.) Also, I don't see the problems related to salt water as air craft carriers, submarines, water aircrafts, oil rigs etc. have successfully dealt with it for decades.)
PWP Statement on Portuguese Aguçadoura Project
Following some erroneous statements made by certain media regarding the Aguçadoura
Wave Farm project PWP wishes to clarify the current situation with respect to this
project.
During the summer and autumn last year, 2008, PWP successfully commissioned the
World’s First Wave Farm off the coast of Portugal. In doing so PWP proved for the first
time that wave energy could be harnessed, and transmitted to shore and into the
Portuguese grid in a fully controlled manner both locally and remotely, and using multiple
machines. PWP also proved the ability to deploy machines rapidly and cost effectively,
as well as being able to recover machines in a similar fashion, avoiding expensive and
dangerous work at sea, and using standard work boats.
The project was originally conceived by the Portuguese renewable energy company,
Enersis, which developed and financed the project and which was subsequently bought
by the Australian infrastructure company Babcock and Brown for €490m in December
2005.
Since the financial crisis accelerated in the last quarter of 2008 Babcock and Brown
Limited (the ASX quoted holding company) has had its shares suspended and has been
in a managed process of selling its assets. In November 2008 the sale of a large part of
the Enersis portfolio of wind assets was concluded.
The Aguçadoura project is owned and operated by a joint venture company called
Companhia da Energia Oceânica (CEO) which is currently 77% owned by a subsidiary
of Babcock and Brown Limited and 23% by Pelamis Wave Power Limited. Following the
official inauguration of the project in September 2008 Babcock and Brown’s intention
had been to form a joint venture with EDP and Efacec to develop several hundred MW
of wave projects in Portugal (in a consortium known as ‘Ondas de Portugal’). At the
same time it was also conceived that EDP and Efacec would also purchase part of
B&B’s stake in CEO. The intention of the parties was to develop and install the next
phase of the project – a further 25 machines. However due to the financial crises this
deal was not concluded at this time.
Discussions are continuing with interested parties regarding the acquisition of Babcock
and Brown’s stake in the project.
As would be expected in a project of this nature there a technical issues that arise from
time to time and which are tackled and solved. At present some work is being
undertaken to resolve an issue relating to the location of the machine’s bearings in their
housings. This solution has now been fully tested and is ready for deployment with all
material having now been ordered. It is expected that the machines will be ready for
deployment in the same time frame as a new partner entering into the project, which
remains the world’s first and only wave farm to have been built and entered into
operation.
Thanks for the repost of their statement!
Okay, so unfortunately it's true to say that at present wave power has not been shown to be commercially viable. If you can't get people to fund you, you're not commercially viable, by definition.
I hope some wave power project will be viable in the future. In the meantime, we can definitely say that proven commercially-viable, proven renewable energy sources are geothermal, hydroelectric, solar PV, solar thermal, and tidal.
Biomass is commercially-proven, but not proven to be renewable. Wave power is obviously renewable, but not commercially-proven.
Oh well, we've still got five to choose from, with the right mix of those five and some cunning use of grids, we ought to be able to be entirely renewable.
Ok, by that definition many car companies are not commercially viable either at present and yet their cars do exist.
The wave farm was built based on the feed in tariffs available in Portugal such as the wind farms or CSP plant in Spain were built based on feed in tariffs.
If these feed in tariffs would not have been able to cover the cost of the farm, it would never have been built in the first place.
Of course, some would argue, that anything that has been financed based on feed in tariffs is not commercially viable. In that case we might not be able to include wind energy or CSP plants either.
Um, if it were 1905 or something and Ford's T-model had been withdrawn because it wasn't working, and he needed extra money to make it work, and couldn't get it, then that argument would be relevant.
If Pelamis built wave power all around the world and then collapsed, fine, it's commercially-proven. But when they can't even get the first one going, that's a different thing.
Whether it has feed in tariffs or not doesn't matter. Almost everything bigger than a house that gets built happens with enormous public subsidies - roads, railways, coal-fired generation, wave power, space shuttles, schools, whatever.
That's just because these big things are bloody expensive, and it's hard for private enterprise to raise that much cash. Since such big projects can't happen without government co-operation (permits, etc), it's natural that they happen with government (public) money, too. That doesn't worry me.
These big projects often need a push-start. But once started, they ought to be able to keep moving under their own power.
Wave power, I don't see why it can't happen. But it hasn't happened - yet. I look forward to it happening.
Actually, with feed in tariffs its imminent that the device does work, because it only gets publically funded for each energy unit it actually produced.
It's very unlikely that a company would invest millions in an energy farm that has a high probability of not producing energy reliably, when funding is only granted with feed in tariffs. Because, if the farm doesn't produce energy it simply doesn't receive any public funding.
Also, according to the statement above the owner of the wave farm got into financial trouble due to the financial crisis (not the wave farm) and is insolvent by now which obviously also stopped the project.
Finding a new owner is naturally not easy in the current financial crisis.
And your statement:
Wave power, I don't see why it can't happen. But it hasn't happened - yet.
clearly contradicts their statement:
During the summer and autumn last year, 2008, PWP successfully commissioned the
World’s First Wave Farm off the coast of Portugal. In doing so PWP proved for the first
time that wave energy could be harnessed, and transmitted to shore and into the
Portuguese grid in a fully controlled manner both locally and remotely, and using multiple
machines.
This is not a technological problem but a political one, in getting policies in place that subsidize the sustainable renewable production of biomass feedstocks with resource husbandry payments, so that sustainable renewable production drives out unsubsidized unsustainable production.
And also, of course, in insisting that no imported fuel qualifies as a "renewable" fuel under any circumstances. Given that we have twice the biocapacity per capita as the world average, there is no way that an energy economy in which we are importing biofuels from elsewhere in the world could conceivably be a sustainable energy economy.
Indeed, one of the few elements of a sustainable energy policy we have in place (and entirely by accident) is the excise on imported ethanol, and there are misguided advocates of biofuels that complain about that excise.
Technological or political, it remains a problem. I mean, by your measure Baghdadis having the power on only for six hours a day - and a random six hours at that - well, that not a technological problem, but just a political one. And it's true - but still, the lights are out and that's that.
We've already made considerable effort to ensure sustainable forestry, yet something like 85% of all wood exported from Malaysia (for example) is illegally-logged. Like any trade issue, it becomes very complicated very quickly. Tracing the wood, corruption and incompetence everywhere, plain old practical difficulties even with entirely honest and competent people, and so on.
To my mind, the greater issue with sustainable logging is that as fossil fuels decline, there'll be more deforestation, simply because people still have to heat themselves and cook. So the particular plantation some power station in (say) Lagos buys their wood from, that may be sustainable.
But the peasants out in the countryside or the slum-dwellers, people who can't afford electricity however it's generated - they'll be out there cutting down trees for fire. See for example Haiti, deforested and in famine long before anyone thought of putting wood pellets into machines to power them.
Nice report Jeff. Have also noticed quite a few articles in the IEEE PES magazine lately about integrating renewables into the grid. This is an important topic. Was reading today in fact about how some of the Solar PV inverters can also contribute extra VAR support to the grid, if needed.
Are you familiar with the 12,000 MW "Green Power Express" EHV line being proposed by ITC Holdings here in Michigan? http://investor.itc-holdings.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=364150 Their president, Joe Welch, is going to be presenting on this topic at our Conference on Michigan's Future in November www.futuremichigan.com
You must be involved with the Pacific Intertie. I toured the Sylmar Converter station decades ago when they opened up the "valve halls" for us so we could view the three voltage levels of mercury arc rectifiers. With all of the RF shielding it was like walking into the combination of a high security prison and a spaceship. I belive the power rating for the system at the time was about 1400 MW. Know these old valves have been replaced with high power SCR's since then so it is probably quite different now.
jim