Wind is Not the Answer to a Low-Carbon Future

[wtmusic]

"What role will natural gas play in moving Canada to a low-carbon economy that keeps our climate from warming more than two degrees? That was the question the David Suzuki Foundation and the Pembina Institute wanted to answer with their recent report, Is natural gas a climate change solution for Canada? Many people see natural gas as a key fuel to help us move away from more emissions-intensive fuels like coal and refined petroleum. The potential for natural gas seems compelling. It's commercially available, can lower our emissions and, with recent advances in our ability to exploit shale gas reserves, it won't run out any time soon.

Those are the arguments. But do they stand up to scrutiny? As we know, although natural gas is cleaner, it's still a fossil fuel and therefore emits carbon dioxide when we burn it for energy. Can we simply replace our coal power plants and gasoline vehicles with natural gas fuels and achieve emissions reductions to avoid two degree warming? The answer is no; we cannot simply shift from coal power and gasoline cars to natural gas vehicles and a natural gas fired electricity system to get emissions down to the required levels.

Natural gas is also a powerful greenhouse gas in its own right, and creates warming effects 20 times more powerful than CO2. If we increase development and exploitation we also risk more leaks and warming. We are already seeing increased fugitive emissions from natural gas development in Canada. Some recent research even indicates that fugitive leaks of gas from shale gas development could be much higher than what we currently emit from conventional natural gas wells. It is clear that natural gas is not viable if we want to reduce emissions."

http://theenergycollective.com/tylerbryant/61331/natural-gas-not-answer-low-carbon-future?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=The+Energy+Collective+%28all+posts%29

Ergo, why wind is not the answer to a low-carbon future:

"Wind Power And CO2 Emissions

Increased wind energy penetration will present additional challenges to grid managers, such as ISO-NE. Because wind energy is variable and intermittent, additional spinning, quick-ramping units, such as a mix of OCGTs (Open-Cycle Gas Turbines) and CCGTs (Combined-Cycle Gas Turbines), must be kept in 24/7/365 operation to supply and withdraw energy as required. The units must respond to changes of:

- demand of millions of users during a day.
- supply, such as from unscheduled plant outages.
- supply due to weather events, such as lightning, icing and winds knocking out power lines.
- supply from wind turbine facilities.

If these changes, especially those due to wind energy, are of high MW/min, the CCGTs may have to temporarily operate as OCGTs, because their heat recovery steam generators, HRSGs, would be damaged by the frequent, rapid, high amplitude balancing; HRSGs have lower ramp rates than OCGTs. This increased OCGT mode of operation increases fuel consumption, NOX and CO2 emissions per kWh."

<>

The above comparison of alternatives makes it abundantly clear that:

- the combination of wind facilities + balancing facilities (natural gas) is significantly less economical than using the balancing facility at rated output in base-loaded mode.
- the extremely small additional CO2 emissions reduction of Alt. No. 1 is achieved at a huge additional capital cost.
- the huge capital cost difference of $44.5 billion could be much more effectively used for investments in increased energy efficiency which would more effectively reduce energy costs and CO2 emissions per invested dollar."

http://theenergycollective.com/willem-post/57905/wind-power-and-co2-emissions

[kristopher]

nuke industry motivated bullshit.

The fact is that dedicated backup to any individual source of generation is counterproductive because it is a waste of money and unnecessary, as this peer reviewed article from the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers makes perfectly clear. The goal is preserving the balance between "production and consumption" and to do this we do not support individual generators, but manage the load as a whole.

Doesn’t Wind Power Need Backup Generation? Isn’t More Fossil Fuel Burned with Wind Than Without, Due to Backup Requirements?

...Regarding whether the addition of wind generation results in more combustion of fossil fuels, a wind-generated kilowatthour displaces a kilowatthour that would have been generated by another source—usually one that burns a fossil fuel. The wind-generated kilowatthour therefore avoids the fuel consumption and emissions associated with that fossil-fuel kilowatthour. The incremental reserves (spinning or nonspinning) required by wind’s variability and uncertainty, however, themselves consume fuel and release emissions, so the net savings are somewhat reduced. But what quantity of reserves is required? Numerous studies conducted to date—many of which have been summarized in previous wind-specific special issues of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine—have found that the reserves required by wind are only a small fraction of the aggregate wind generation and vary with the level of wind output. Generally, some of these reserves are spinning and some are nonspinning. The regulating and load-following plants could be forced to operate at a reduced level of efficiency, resulting in increased fuel consumption and increased emissions per unit of output.

A conservative example serves to illustrate the fuel-consumption and emissions impacts stemming from wind’s regulation requirements. Compare three situations: 1) a block of energy is provided by fossil-fueled plants; 2) the same block of energy is provided by wind plants that require no incremental reserves; and 3) the same block of energy is provided by wind plants that do have incremental reserve requirements. It is assumed that the average fleet fossil-fuel efficiency is unchanged between situations one and two. This might not be precisely correct, but a sophisticated operational simulation is required to address this issue quantitatively. In fact, this has been done in several studies, which bear out the general conclusions reached in this simple example.

In situation one, an amount of fuel is burned to produce the block of energy. In situation two, all of that fuel is saved and all of the associated emissions are avoided. In situation three, it is assumed that 3% of the fossil generation is needed to provide reserves, all of these reserves are spinning, and that this generation incurs a 25% efficiency penalty. The corresponding fuel consumption necessary to provide the needed reserves is then 4% of the fuel required to generate the entire block of energy. Hence, the actual fuel and emissions savings percentage in situation three relative to situation one is 96% rather than 100%. The great majority of initially estimated fuel savings does in fact occur, however, and the notion that wind’s variations would actually increase system fuel consumption does not withstand scrutiny.

A study conducted by the United Kingdom Energy Research Center (UKERC) supports this example. UKERC reviewed four studies that directly addressed whether there are greater CO2 emissions from adding wind generation due to increasing operating reserves and operating fossil-fuel plants at a reduced efficiency level. The UKERC determined that the “efficiency penalty” was negligible to 7% for wind penetrations of up to 20%.

Special Masters Presentation by International Electronic and Electrical Engineers

Wind Power Myths Debunked
november/december 2009 IEEE power & energy magazine
Digital Object Identifi er 10.1109/MPE.2009.934268
1540-7977/09/©2009 IEEE

By Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

Download this free article:
http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf

[bananas]

12. Yup - David Suzuki is anti-nuclear and pro-wind - the OP is extremely misleading.

It's a shame the nuclear industry and its supporters engage in such deception.

[kristopher]

1. dupe delete

[TheWraith]

2. Hydro > nuclear > wind > everything else.

There are ways to use wind exclusively without fossil fuel backups, but they depend on massive overbuilding, then large line losses when transmitting power from an area where it's windy to an area where it's not. In short, high inefficiency and extremely high cost.

In building out for a CO2-free future, the ranking of preferences should be hydro > nuclear > wind > everything else.

[wtmusic]

4. +1. nt

[kristopher]

5. Wind requires no more "overbuilding" than any other source of generation.

More false nuclear industry attacks on renewable energy.

These claims againse renewables aren't even debatable - they are completely discredited nonsense on a par with climate denier "science".

[TheWraith]

6. Uh, dismissing something as false doesn't actually make it false.

Unless you live somewhere that the wind blows 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, you need to overbuild wind power to account for used capacity. AND you need to overbuild to provide for line losses in moving that electricity from places where it's windy to places where it's not.

[kristopher]

7. Yeah, just like the claim that it burns more natgas to bring on wind...

whack-a-doodle nuclear blogger network bunk, all of it.

[TheWraith]

11. When you can't reply with facts, string random words together!

It'll sound almost like certainty, to people who don't know better.

[txlibdem]

14. How DARE you dismiss the Whack-a-doodle!

That is nothing but pure unadulterated Fiddle-faddle flim-flam to the Tinker's Damn Jabba-jabba... harrumph harrumph.

I'll thank you to remember that sir!

:rofl:

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[AtheistCrusader]

23. When a nuclear power plant costs upwards of 9bn dollars...

I would call that 'massive overbuilding' as well, given they go down for weeks/months at a time for inspection and refueling.

I like:

Hydro > Wind > Concentrating solar and distributed PV > geotherm/tidal

Don't really need coal or gas, or even nuclear, when you tie those cleaner power sources to always-available storage solutions like pumped hydro, compressed gas (underground caverns) etc.

[CJvR]

28. Yes...

...but mostely they can time the shutdowns to periods of low demand. You cant do that with wind.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. Sure they can.

Taking a few turbines offline for whatever repairs has a very small impact on overall power availability, compared to the impact of taking a 1gw reactor offline.

[CJvR]

33. Yeah sure...

...maintanence stops can be schedueled, calm weather cant.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Neither can tsunami.

Or on the case of the great lakes, a seiche.
Or on the case of the Mississippi, a broken dam or two during flood season.

Or or or.

It's pretty easy to predict available wind, as it has been well mapped. Truly 'dead' air conditions are not what you think 100+ feet in the air.

[CJvR]

38. Tsunamis...

...are as frequent as calm weather?
Are coastal wind-parks immune to tsunamis?

Yeah extraordinary conditions can shut down any human activity, but calm weather isn't extraordinary and comparing natural disasters to every day weather variations in a desperate effort to argue for wind reliability is just pathetic.

[AtheistCrusader]

39. As I said.

100 feet straight up, wind conditions are not what you might think, standing on the ground.

[CJvR]

40. Perhaps not...

...but I have 4 huge windplants just outside my windows and they sure stand still alot more frequently than our town get hit by tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes or asteroids.

Really! Give up, wind can never compete with non-weather based power sources for reliability.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. Distributed over a geographical area

it absolutely can. Averages count. Just because four outside your window aren't spinning, doesn't mean 40 aren't spinning within a 10 mile radius. Nor does it mean those four turbines were properly planned and sited.

Propery planned and distributed wind farms are competing with non-weather based power sources for reliability. Kristopher has linked credible information showing the intentional idling of available wind turbine capacity in favor of non-wind sources on several occasions.

[CJvR]

42. True.

But then you are back to replacing one nuclear/hydro/fossile watt with one and a half wind watts.

[kristopher]

43. Planning and pricing aren't done based on nameplate capacity.

Planning and pricing are accomplished based on actual production estimates.

Your entire premise is nonsensical.

[CJvR]

45. Are you...

...going to argue that unsubsidised wind is economicaly superior to other energy sources, and only kept down through an evil conspiracy of all energy producers and goverments on the planet?

[kristopher]

46. You made a specific claim, I explained why it was wrong.

[AtheistCrusader]

47. This was a point I did not understand

and could not get past in one of our last battle royale's. Please do hammer this point, because when making a critical estimate of whether wind is 'worth it', others will make the same mistake I did, and do 'back of the envelope' math based on base plate capacity.

[FreakinDJ]

3. Would rather see Natural Gas used for Cars

Sure Electric Cars are great but won't suffice for all applications. LNG Vehicles provide a good low emission alternative

[DCKit]

8. I couldn't disagree more

Our windmill at 40' generated well over 2x the power of the one at 30'. It does work. Ten to thirteen amps x 24... more than we could ever use.


I've got more power than I can use with 16 - 80 watt solar panels. Sure I haven't watched TV in over two months, but I really don't miss it, either - no time out in heaven for TV. Too much work to do, people to see and poopy dogs to pet. Nope. Not missing it.

[FreakinDJ]

9. so are you "Off Grid"

[DCKit]

10. Only when I'm not in DC.

But yeah. I go to sleep with the batteries 100% charged - just don't need it out there.

[bananas]

13. The OP is deceptive BS by nuclear industry hucksters.

David Suzuki and the David Suzuki Foundation are pro-wind and anti-nuclear.
The OP twists it into an anti-wind rant in order to promote nuclear.
It's an extremely deceptive tactic used by nuclear industry promoters.

[txlibdem]

15. The 2nd link is exactly right about wind *with no energy storage*

Once you add excess capacity and 24 hours of energy storage then you get a completely different economic answer.

Instead of wind power being more expensive per kWh than just running a natural gas generating plant, the cost is squarely in favor of wind with energy storage.

[wtmusic]

19. Until we know the cost of that energy storage we can't assume that.

It could be decades away, it may never come. Is the arrival of an inexpensive and reilable bulk energy storage solution what we should be banking our global future on?

[txlibdem]

22. Energy storage saves over $2 per MWh per a study by NREL, EPRI says a 14 GW market

In the 20% wind by 2030 scenarios, the model is required to ramp up to generating 20%
of annual energy from wind by 2030 and to maintain that level thereafter. Both cases (with and
without storage), therefore, build similar amounts of wind (for this analysis, non-wind
renewables, such as solar, biopower, and geothermal, were not included). Figure 9 shows
cumulative capacity for the with-storage case.

One metric that can be used to compare the scenarios is the price of electricity, which is
lower in the storage case by more than $2/MWh by 2050, the delta having increased steadily
since the mid-2020s (see Figure 10). The price difference can be partially attributed to a

reduction in the amount of conventional capacity built (more combustion turbines are necessary
in the no-storage case to back up the wind), and in the amount of generation from those plants.
The other factor is that, with the ability to store off-peak wind, some wind farms that may have
been cheap yet undeveloped without storage—perhaps due to an unfavorable diurnal (day/night) profile
or high wind variance—may become highly desirable when storage is available. Those sites can
then be built out economically, replacing other more expensive sites.

http://www.nrel.gov/wind/systemsintegration/pdfs/2008/short_storage.pdf
...quote from pages 12 and 13 (of 18)
Note that I believe this paper low-balls the amount of storage we need by at least 3x IMO but those were the assumptions they made and storage still comes out saving money over having no storage so I'm counting it as supporting my long-standing position.

2nd Note: this study assumes zero additional storage being built until 2024. Why? The only reason I can think of is to give the technology time to develop and become cheaper.

EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) has identified 21 benefits of energy storage, including power quality, power reliability, retail time-of-use energy charges, and retail demand charges, among others. The analysis compared the present value of benefits with the estimated costs for energy storage systems installed in various regions across the United States.

The results imply that, based on the broader U.S. benefits of storage (target values), the total
energy storage market opportunity is on the order of 14 GW if energy storage systems could be
installed for about $700/kW-h and the benefits estimated could all be monetized. Actual installed
costs would need to be lower to accommodate life-cycle impacts and maintenance. Niche high-
value markets could total nearly 6 GW if energy storage systems could be installed for
$1400/kW-h and all benefits could be monetized.

Report can be downloaded, free, from: http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?Abstract_id=000000000001020676

[wtmusic]

25. It seems that compressed air storage is what they consider the most viable option

but the only utility scale plants use diabatic storage, which is 27% efficient and requires burning 1.2 MJ in natural gas for every MJ it returns.

I don't see how that's contributing to a low-carbon future. Other technologies require even more specific geology, are unproven, are prohibitively expensive, are of even lower efficiency - or all of the above.

"Diabatic storage dissipates the extra heat with intercoolers (thus approaching isothermal compression) into the atmosphere as waste. Upon removal from storage, the air must be re-heated prior to expansion in the turbine to power a generator which can be accomplished with a natural gas fired burner for utility grade storage or with a heated metal mass. The lost heat degrades efficiency, but this approach is simpler and is thus far the only system which has been implemented commercially. The McIntosh, Alabama CAES plant requires 2.5 MJ of electricity and 1.2 MJ lower heating value (LHV) of gas for each megajoule of energy output.<4> A General Electric 7FA 2x1 combined cycle plant, one of the most efficient natural gas plants in operation, uses 6.6 MJ (LHV) of gas per kW–h generated,<5> a 54% thermal efficiency comparable to the McIntosh 6.8 MJ, at 53% thermal efficiency."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage

I have no idea how they arrive at 53% thermal efficiency for McIntosh, when it requires 3.7 MJ to get each MJ back.

[txlibdem]

26. Pumped hydro is much more efficient, compressed air required perfect geology at the site

There isn't going to be one single answer to our renewable energy storage needs.

Solar PV may work well with CAES but I do not like that it needs a natural gas fired heater to prop up the efficiency.

Concentrating Solar Thermal would work best with molten salt storage. Wind works best with pumped hydro as could Solar PV.

PG&E chases renewable energy storage

There are 21.8 gigawatts of hydroelectric storage in the country, according to Energy Information Association, with nearly four gigawatts in California. It’s the only storage technology for renewable power available at any scale and it’s the lowest cost when compared to other storage technologies. Figures from the Tennessee Valley Authority estimated the cost of pumped hydroelectric storage at between $1 billion and $2 billion in 2000.

It could take decades to recoup the cost of new hydrostorage projects, according to a 2009 brief on energy storage technologies from Duke University.

Still, Soneda said storage actually can lower the cost of renewable energy over the long-term.

“If anything, it would bring down the cost of renewable power … because you can provide it when it’s the most valuable to the customer,” Soneda said.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/02/23/story15.html

As in taking away the market for the expensive "peaking" natural gas plants that run at less than 35% efficiency due to the need for them to be rapidly deployed as in today's grid. Peaking nat gas plants provide the most polluting and most expensive power, short of coal, of any source we have.

[wtmusic]

27. I don't understand why pumped hydro is rated in watts.

What's important is how long the storage lasts (i.e., how much energy can be stored, not what its peak output is).

All of the pumped hydro in the country, when full, might be able to produce 21.8GW briefly - but then its output declines non-linearly until empty. And if the wind still isn't blowing, we can't expect everyone to just get by. That means having sufficient CCGT to back it up anyway.

[txlibdem]

34. "That means having sufficient CCGT to back it up anyway."

Gotta disagree with you on that statement.

That means having sufficient solar PV and Concentrating Solar Thermal that *also* has energy storage to back it up. And geothermal power, tidal power and wave power *with energy storage* to provide the rest of our energy needs.

Solar alone can provide 4 times the worldwide energy requirements. Geothermal can just barely cover that as well. Wind can easily provide that much and more so we can continue growing for decades without any other power source than wind.
... from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_usage
... Note that this includes energy in *all* its forms, electrical and fossil fuels and hydro, etc., as seen in this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_consumption

[XemaSab]

29. That's assuming you have water to store

If Texas was relying on pumped hydro to keep the AC on this week, how do you think that would go?

[FBaggins]

30. And somewhere to put it of course. n/t

[AtheistCrusader]

32. Closed loop? Just fine.

Don't have to do it in such a way you'd drain reservoirs or rivers to do it.

[XemaSab]

35. You'd still have evaporation

:shrug:

[AtheistCrusader]

36. Not real sure why this can't be done with covers

to minimize evaporative loss? Most of the work occurs in downhill/uphill pipes so no loss there. Cap the reservoirs. Done.

[kristopher]

44. Most reserviors are too large; but old mines can work well...

Both CAES and pumped hydro have geographic limitations that are only overcome by raising their cost prohibitively.

Ice storage and rock batteries seem to be a more versatile and inexpensive (overall) approach.

Isentropic's website has a good photo simulation comparing its rock battery to a pumped hydro facility.

[Terry in Austin]

16. Right enough

But for the wrong reasons, IMO.

You have to accept the basic premise here: we'll have a nice consumer-friendly, business-as-usual future that's also carbon-free thanks to the wonders of (insert favorite industrial-scale technology here).

So far, that seems to be an article of faith that some of us have made the leap to and some of us haven't.

The centralized, continenal-scale energy infrastructure we're talking about "greening up" evolved on a manufacturing base that demands an abundance of fossil fuel, both in the manufacture and maintenance of the infrastructure. It doesn't seem to me that any of these scenarios -- wind, solar, nuclear -- have taken sufficient account of this hidden fossil energy subsidy.

But hey, you gotta try stuff, right? Maybe on a more local scale, though.

[pscot]

17. We don't have time for this

The clock is running, and we're tinkering at the margins as though we had all the time in the world.

[Terry in Austin]

20. Also right

The trick is convincing people that they need to hear it.

This being very unlikely, the more likely outcome is that Nature "takes care of it for us," and we lose the chance to get ahead of it with any sort of comprehensive, proactive program. After all, who's going to do it? Government? They can barely answer the phone. Free market? Hardly.

More likely is a variety of localized "muddling through" efforts coping with climate change and energy scarcity on a reactive basis. It probably won't look too much like 20th-century business as usual.

Standard disclaimers apply: my crystal ball is just as cloudy as anyone else's!

[pscot]

24. Belshazar's feast

I don't have a crystal ball either, but the writing on the wall suggests we should be making other arrangements.