The Wind-Energy Myth

[XemaSab]

Hot? Don’t count on wind energy to cool you down. That’s the lesson emerging from the stifling heat wave that’s hammering Texas.

Over the past week or so, Texans have been consuming record-breaking quantities of electricity, and ERCOT, the state’s grid operator, has warned of rolling blackouts if customers don’t reduce their consumption.

Texas has 10,135 megawatts of installed wind-generation capacity. That’s nearly three times as much as any other state. But during three sweltering days last week, when the state set new records for electricity demand, the state’s vast herd of turbines proved incapable of producing any serious amount of power.

Consider the afternoon of August 2, when electricity demand hit 67,929 megawatts. Although electricity demand and prices were peaking, output from the state’s wind turbines was just 1,500 megawatts, or about 15 percent of their total nameplate capacity. Put another way, wind energy was able to provide only about 2.2 percent of the total power demand even though the installed capacity of Texas’s wind turbines theoretically equals nearly 15 percent of peak demand. This was no anomaly. On four days in August 2010, when electricity demand set records, wind energy was able to contribute just 1, 2, 1, and 1 percent, respectively, of total demand.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274388/wind-energy-myth-robert-bryce#

[Kennah]

1. You were expecting something different from NR?

[ChandlerJr]

5. I understand National Review being slanted

but the numbers quoted in the article are from ERCOT, do you know what their agenda is? Maybe just a State of Texas oil preference or something, you seem to be more familiar with them.

[Kennah]

8. Wind hit a record high of 6,272 MW (according to ERCOT) in March 2010

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/03/texas-sets-new-wind-power-record-6272-megawatts.php
http://ecogeek.org/wind-power/3098-texas-wind-is-more-than-grid-can-handle

Problem is the transmission lines can't handle it so they slow or shut down some turbines on windy days.

They want the wind. They can't handle the wind!

[ChandlerJr]

12. When demand hits 67,929 megawatts

That still seems pretty puny, less than 1% and March wouldn't exactly produce peak demand.

If the transmission lines can handle almost 68,000 megawatts why would less than 1% additional be a problem?

Dosen't make any sense at all.

[Kennah]

16. I'm not following you at all

August 2011
1,500 MW from wind
67,929 MW consumed
2.2% from wind

Late February 2010
6,242 MW from wind
28,372 MW consumed (est.)
22% from wind

It would seem that February/March is windier than August in Texas.

http://www.seco.cpa.state.tx.us/re_wind-transmission.htm

The turbines are concentrated together in CREZs (Competitive Renewable Energy Zones) so in and around the turbines would be a "hot spot" of power. Since not everyone in Texas lives just down the street from the turbines, the power has to be delivered over the transmission lines around the state. It's almost like having 1/4" copper water pipes in your house that can't move the volume needed.

It all makes perfect sense to me.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Quick, check today's Cal ISO (Independent System Operator) graphs for wind and solar.

Over a 24 hour period. Absent some storage technology, winds blow at the wrong time to meet peak demand.

Solar looks good, however!

http://www.caiso.com/Pages/TodaysOutlook.aspx

Wind:



Solar:



24-hour graphs, midnight to midnight.

:patriot:

[madrchsod]

3. thanks for the reminder.....

i try my best to forget....:evilgrin:

[Jackpine Radical]

4. Sum the 2.

Solar takes over when the wind slacks off.

[NYC_SKP]

6. And compare either, or sum, to graph of demand

[wtmusic]

20. The 'available resources' are mostly natural gas

and the solar chart is using a unit scale which is four times smaller than wind's. Wind is a drop in the bucket, and solar is a drop in wind's bucket.

[kristopher]

10. This is the overview from Cal ISO

It shows how the renewable contribution fits into the mix.
August 19,2011




http://content.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/DailyRenewablesWatch.pdf

[JDPriestly]

7. Does Texas have a lot of solar? Seems to me it should.

[Starboard Tack]

9. Need morw wind generators plus solar farms and transmission lines that can handle it all

Don't blame the existing wind generators, just because there are too few. The fossil fuel options are worse and add to the problem.

[Enthusiast]

11. Unrecommended.

Do we really need more right wing voices on DU?

[GliderGuider]

13. Reality now has a right-wing bias?

Who knew she was such a fickle bitch?

[Enthusiast]

14. I know fickle bitches.

And I can see through your ruse.

[XemaSab]

15. I beg your pardon?

:shrug:

[Nederland]

17. Then please enlighten us "bitches"

and explain how the numbers are wrong.

[bananas]

18. Reality and science have a liberal bias, the OP is by right-winger disinformer Robert Bryce

Jun 2011: Manhattan Institute disinformer Robert Bryce mangles E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x299194

Sep 2010: Debunking Robert Bryce’s power hungry gusher of lies
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x259100

Oct 2010: In defense of right-wing hucksters like Robert Bryce
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x260171

Jun 2010: Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Conservative Idiots
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x251126

[bananas]

19. Robert Bryce: senior fellow at right-wing Manhattan Institute, featured speaker at ALEC meeting

Robert Bryce is a senior fellow withe the Center for Energy Policy and the Environment at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative U.S. think tank. A biographical note states that he has "has written about the energy business for two decades" and that since 2005 "he has served as the managing editor of Energy Tribune, an online publication that focuses on the global energy sector."

<1>Contents
1 Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council
2 Critic of Carbon Capture and Storage
3 Articles and resources
3.1 References
3.2 Related SourceWatch articles
3.3 External resources
3.4 External articles


Ties to the American Legislative Exchange Council

Bryce was a featured speaker at the 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council Annual Meeting, at a Workshop titled "Unconventional Revolution: How Technological Advancements Have Transformed Energy Production in the United States." The panel served as advocacy for the controversial drilling process for natural gas, called fracking.<2>

ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line. Along with legislators, corporations have membership in ALEC. Corporations sit on all nine ALEC task forces and vote with legislators to approve “model” bills. They have their own corporate governing board which meets jointly with the legislative board. (ALEC says that corporations do not vote on the board.) They fund almost all of ALEC's operations. Participating legislators, overwhelmingly conservative Republicans, then bring those proposals home and introduce them in statehouses across the land as their own brilliant ideas and important public policy innovations—without disclosing that corporations crafted and voted on the bills. ALEC boasts that it has over 1,000 of these bills introduced by legislative members every year, with one in every five of them enacted into law. ALEC describes itself as a “unique,” “unparalleled” and “unmatched” organization. It might be right. It is as if a state legislature had been reconstituted, yet corporations had pushed the people out the door. Learn more at ALECexposed.org.