Spanish wind farms outperform 11 nuclear power stations, briefly

[n2doc]

Anupam | Nov 10 2009



Eco Factor: Wind farms generate 53% of total electricity demand.

Spanish wind farms with a theoretical maximum capacity of almost 18GW generated 11.5GW, providing about 53% of Spain’s total electricity needs. The output was a new record in a country that has the world’s third largest array of wind turbines.

The new record, which beat a 44% level set earlier, came courtesy of strong winds that battered the Iberian Peninsula. The total output of the wind farms was equivalent to that of 11 nuclear power plants. The massive output also meant that the Spanish grid had more electricity than what it requires, and all that excess energy was used by hydroelectric plants to pump water back into their dams for future electricity generation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/spain-national-record-power-windfarms

http://www.ecofriend.org/entry/eco-tech-spanish-wind-farms-outperform-11-nuclear-power-stations-with-record-output/

[twiceshy]

1. Sounds good -

We should spend that stimulus money on this kind of project. Vermont would be perfect as there are quite a few windblown peaks and mountain resevoirs to act as batteries for windless periods could be constructed. I just wonder how long the environmental groups would tie it all up in court. Honestly, how can you reconcile wanting a greener planet and blocking wind/solar/nuclear projects?

[n2doc]

3. The way they "reconcile" it is by wishing humans would just go away

That is the inconvenient truth on that matter.

[BeFree]

10. Well

A greener planet would mean that humans make less pollution, so in that sense, yes, humans should go away.

Or are you one of those who think humans should just continue on their merry way?

[n2doc]

11. No, but I am also not one who wants to go back to living in caves

We should be able to live smarter and have a smaller footprint. And in the long run we need fewer people on this planet.
But doing nothing or fighting what practical solutions we have available now is tremendously counterproductive. Telling people to make do with less doesn't work. Teaching and adaptation take time.

[BeFree]

17. 'They'

The environmentalists and you agree?

Yet you label them as wanting humans to go away. All the while they are doing what you say.

So: why doesn't telling people to make do with less, work? Is conversation now a 4 letter word?

[phantom power]

2. That's nothing...

this summer I personally witnessed an electrical storm where the lightning bolts briefly achieved a trillion watts -- equivalent to the output of one thousand nuke plants.

[Statistical]

14. someone who gets it.

Peak output is meaningless stat.

What is the GWH of generation for that plant this year?
What kind of utlization factor is that?

[no limit]

18. Lol, thanks for the laugh

[Nederland]

4. Until they start storing that energy

...brief events like this are meaningless. Right now, even when the wind is blowing hard you've got conventional plants (nuke, coal, gas) up and running just in case the wind dies down. In a small place like Spain, once wind gets to 20% of the grid, adding more capacity doesn't actually result in any conventional plants getting shut down.

[phantom power]

5. According to OP, they did store the surplus in this case (pumped hydro).

It causes me to wonder what the wattage of their pumped-hydro facilities is. Once they exceed that, adding more storage capacity gets expensive.

[Nederland]

6. "Excess was stored or exported"

I wonder how much of each?

[Statistical]

15. There is about 50% roundtrip loss in using pumped hydro

So if 20,000 kwh was stored by pumping water back that will only produce 10,000 kwh when water is used to spin turbines later.

[Dead_Parrot]

22. Nah, it's more like 80-90%

Finding the capacity for more than a few hours worth is the problem.

[Statistical]

23. Ouch. Well even worse.

[Dead_Parrot]

24. Here's a fun snippet:

Sometimes the Danish wind carpet produces maximum output when there is little demand. On other occasions it delivers no energy when demand is high. There were 54 days in 2002, for example, when wind supplied less than 1% of demand (Fig. 9). On one of those days (16 August 2002) the wind power system steering requirements exceeded output and even these are turned off completely when the wind speed exceeds 25 m/s (56 mph, force 9–10).

Ouch. That's a lot of dams...
Strangely, we don't get threads for "Wind sets new record for sucking energy out of the grid"

http://www.thomastelford.com/journals/DocumentLibrary/CIEN.158.2.66.pdf

[Fledermaus]

31. Complete nonsense

[Dead_Parrot]

41. Got some alternative data to share?

Or do you just have keyboard Tourettes?

[Fledermaus]

45. Perhaps, you could provide a link to "Wind sets new record for sucking energy out of the grid"

There your words. Tourettes...perhaps?

[Dead_Parrot]

47. Comprehension fail.

My words

we don't get threads for "Wind sets new record for sucking energy out of the grid"

are meant to impart the fact that such threads do not exist. It is therefore difficult to link to them.

Notwithstanding, If you click on the link in post #24, you will see that such events do actually happen anyway.

[Fledermaus]

50. Gosh, I have a better idea, why don't you copy the text and paste it out. Its your claim.

[Dead_Parrot]

52. Err, I did

I copied and pasted the text from the report, put it in italics to show it was a quote, and provided a link to the pdf. Shit, I'll print the whole thing out and post it to you if it will help.

I did add the bold to emphasize my point, is that a problem? :shrug:

[Fledermaus]

58. Complete nonsense

Wind farms don't suck electricity from the grid. There is no situation that they ever could.

However, that's what you claim, and you have provided no proof to your claim.

Let me put it in layman's terms so you can understand. You claim that a wind turbine/farm will turn into a giant motor pulling power from the grid. That's what you have claimed, and I have asked you to prove it. Obviously you can't.

[Dead_Parrot]

59. Still not read the PDF I'm quoting, I take it

The links in post 23. Here it is again in case you are having problems:

http://www.thomastelford.com/journals/DocumentLibrary/CIEN.158.2.66.pdf

Put the mouse over the underlined writing above and press the left mouse button. If you need a pdf reader, I suggest you go to www.adobe.com and get one.

Seriously, I'm having problems working out how you can fuck up following a link, or how I can make this any easier for you.

[Nihil]

60. Actually, you're wrong.

> Wind farms don't suck electricity from the grid.
> There is no situation that they ever could.

As you should be able to read from the PDF he linked in the
first place:

>> (16 August 2002) the wind power system
>> steering requirements exceeded
>> wind output and the wind carpet consumed
>> more power than it could produce.
>> In other words, the wind carpet
>> became a net energy consumer.

(Note: This was directly cut & pasted from page 4 of
the 7 page PDF that is, in turn, page 69 of the original
publication.)

> You claim that a wind turbine/farm will turn into a giant motor
> pulling power from the grid. That's what you have claimed, and
> I have asked you to prove it. Obviously you can't.

The reason he can't is because he did not claim that.
It is your strawman - you created it and you own it.

There has been no reference in DP's posts to "a giant motor pulling
power from the grid".

The problem is with the known set of small motors used to implement
"the wind power system steering". These will normally just sip a
little of the power that the turbines produce but - as illustrated
in the case mentioned above - if the turbines are *not* producing
power, those "sips" for the steering sub-system come from elsewhere.
i.e., as clearly stated in the referenced document, "the wind carpet
became a net energy consumer".

I hope this is clearer now. :hi:

(Now if you wanted to debate how much time can be wasted by misreading
a flippant - yet factual - comment, you are in prime position today!)
:P

[kristopher]

62. Factual but stupid as a criticism

How much *energy* do other power plants use when not in generating mode? If a coal, natural gas or nuclear plant shuts down, do all electrically operated devices related to the plant shut down? Finding, mining and extracting fuels, disposing of waste, operating a plant, getting the employees to their jobs - all these and more require energy consumption unrelated to the production schedule of the generating facility.

The criticism is stupid.

[Dead_Parrot]

64. Oh, absolutley

As I said, it's a fun snippet: 'Flippant' indeed, 'stupid' if you will, but I wouldn't make the claim that turbine steering mechanisms will be the death of us all. It doesn't happen that often.

It has been most educational to see the effect on Fledermaus, though. That's some high quality stuff.

[kristopher]

65. He was on the mark.

Your "flippancy" was an attempt to lie about the significance of the information you presented. He called you on the lie even if he failed to identify it as a lie of omission.

[Dead_Parrot]

66. What, running around flapping his arms asking for a cite I'd already given?

No, that's an ridiculous response.

And in case you've not noticed, nothing I've said is a lie, so I suggest you find a dictionary or hold your tongue.

So, what about the 50+ calm days? you've agreed storage is an insane option, what's your alternative? Gas?

[kristopher]

67. Your post misrepresented the significance of the item presented

You 'falsely stated' the import deliberately and that is what he was calling you on. Is that better?

What about the 50+ calm days? I didn't say storage was an insane option - that is another attempt to 'falsely state' the content of the discussion. Your original post:

Sometimes the Danish wind carpet produces maximum output when there is little demand. On other occasions it delivers no energy when demand is high. There were 54 days in 2002, for example, when wind supplied less than 1% of demand (Fig. 9). On one of those days (16 August 2002) the wind power system steering requirements exceeded output and even these are turned off completely when the wind speed exceeds 25 m/s (56 mph, force 9–10).

Ouch. That's a lot of dams...
Strangely, we don't get threads for "Wind sets new record for sucking energy out of the grid"

Are you now claiming that you were not communicating the insane idea that we must have develop storage medium with a continuous capacity of 54 days? Because that is refuted by your own words:

fledermaus post 33: Most pumped storage stations store sufficient water for 6-10 hours of operation.

Dead_Parrot post 43 as Response to post #33: exactly Bit short of 50 days, really.

Please feel free to elaborate on the ethics of your style of argumentation.

[Dead_Parrot]

68. What was "falsely stated"?

I used copy and paste, a technique you are very familiar with, and linked to the whole report for anyone who wished to read it (which evidently doesn't include Feldermouse). What would you suggest as an alternative?

I think the problem here is you are failing to see two data in one quote, to wit:
1)There are long periods of calm that needs to be factored in.
2)The turbines sometimes use more energy than they produce.

Point 1 is a rather serious issue which I note you haven't actually responded to with any substance, preferring instead to do some hair-splitting interspersed with insults: It's OK, I'd be disappointed if you didn't and I eagerly await the repeated copy-and-paste of some chunk of text that you feel makes a point.

But for the sake of form, we'll go around the merry-go-round a few more times, shall we?

What about the 50+ calm days? I didn't say storage was an insane option

Your exact words in post 49:

54 days out of 365 the wind supplied less than 1% of demand. And that means to you that we require storage with 50 straight days of capacity?

That is just plain stupid.

Are you are arguing that "plain stupid" and "insane" have subtley different meanings in his context? As you like, I personally don't see it but I won't belabour the point. It's not insane, it's just plain stupid. I stand corrected.

Alternatively, if you are saying that it is plain stupid to store energy just because we know we won't be producing any, then we either sit around reading by candlelight (not much of an option, really) or we use alternatives for production. That leads to two further options:

a) We build extra capacity in other non-fossil production. This begs the question, why don't we just use that instead? If it's there and it's reliable , why bugger around sticking up turbines? The exception is large-scale seasonal hydro, but I'm not aware of any in Spain or Denmark - feel free to enlighten me.

b) We burn natural gas. I'm not of the opinion that climate change is going to be halted by burning fossil fuels, but your are welcome to your own opinions.

Please clarify which options are plain stupid, and which are perfectly logical in your opinion.

Point 2 was highlighted for fun, of which I am having a great deal, but although it is perfectly true it's not a killer reason to dump wind. It's just amusing to watch people's heads implode.

[kristopher]

69. More of your nonsense...

You clearly stated we must have storage with a capacity of 50+ days for wind to work. That is a plainly stupid interpretation of the data you presented.

The amount of storage capacity that any given individual storage system working with renewables is variable. The amount of storage in time might range from fractions of a second to hours to a few days, however there is no one anywhere that has EVER suggested that a single storage unit must have 50 days of capacity - that is an insane belief.


You wrote:

Alternatively, if you are saying that it is plain stupid to store energy just because we know we won't be producing any, then we either sit around reading by candlelight (not much of an option, really) or we use alternatives for production. That leads to two further options:

a) We build extra capacity in other non-fossil production. This begs the question, why don't we just use that instead? If it's there and it's reliable , why bugger around sticking up turbines? The exception is large-scale seasonal hydro, but I'm not aware of any in Spain or Denmark - feel free to enlighten me.

b) We burn natural gas. I'm not of the opinion that climate change is going to be halted by burning fossil fuels, but your are welcome to your own opinions.

This doesn't make sense since it is based on a very very obvious strawman.

Please clarify what you are saying and what your question is.

[Dead_Parrot]

71. Odd, I thought if was blindingly obvious.

If you don't have storage to cover calm periods, either you let the grid go out or you use something else. If you are using something else, you are not using wind.

Sorry if this is a huge leap of logic for you.

You are right that no-one has suggested a single storage unit with 50+ days of capacity. Including me, so I'm not sure why you bring it up.

[kristopher]

72. Of course you did.

fledermaus post 33: Most pumped storage stations store sufficient water for 6-10 hours of operation.

Dead_Parrot post 43 as Response to post #33: exactly Bit short of 50 days, really.

Please feel free to elaborate on the ethics of your style of argumentation.

[Dead_Parrot]

73. "Stations" is the singular?

I had no idea. Well, you live and learn.

So, is 50+ days of grid storage perfectly feasible in you opinion?

A simple yes or no will suffice - since you've been carefully avoiding articulating your thoughts for some time, I'd hate to make it even more painful for you.

[kristopher]

74. I haven't avoided anything

I simply can't believe you persist is asking the same stupid question.

"Is 50+ days of grid storage perfectly feasible to you" is either a meaningless question or a stupidly insane question.

If we do not read it as being accomplished by a single storage entity, then it is meaningless and must be restated.
If we DO read it as being accomplished by a single storage entity then it is a stupidly insane question that has already been answered.

Persisting in using that formulation doesn't demonstrate innocent miscommunication, it demonstrates the obvious attempt to create the impression of miscommunication.

ETA: The same goes for trying to hide behind whether "stations" is plural or not. You certainly recognize both now and when you replied that the amount of storage refers to what is typical of the individual units that comprise the set of "most pumped storage stations".

A truth of debate and discussion: If your position requires you to deliberately and routinely make false statements then you are defending a losing position AND you demonstrate that you are a person of low moral character.

[Dead_Parrot]

76. Actually, it hasn't been answered.

That's why I asked it. I'll ask it again:

Do you think 50+ days storage for the grid, by any means, is an option?

If your position requires you to deliberately and routinely make false statements then you are defending a losing position AND you demonstrate that you are a person of low moral character.

How very true. :)

By the way, converting a 12 hour pumped storage to a 50 day one (by dramatically reducing output) is perfectly possible. However, that's your strawman, not mine: It really is quite a straightforward question over the total amount of energy that can be stored.

[kristopher]

78. Trying to weasel your way out of facing your dishonesty eh?

Your original question, as posed in your last post minus 1, was "Is 50+ days of grid storage perfectly feasible to you".

I repied:

I simply can't believe you persist is asking the same stupid question.

"Is 50+ days of grid storage perfectly feasible to you" is either a meaningless question or a stupidly insane question.

If we do not read it as being accomplished by a single storage entity, then it is meaningless and must be restated.
If we DO read it as being accomplished by a single storage entity then it is a stupidly insane question that has already been answered.

Persisting in using that formulation doesn't demonstrate innocent miscommunication, it demonstrates the obvious attempt to create the impression of miscommunication.

ETA: The same goes for trying to hide behind whether "stations" is plural or not. You certainly recognize both now and when you replied that the amount of storage refers to what is typical of the individual units that comprise the set of "most pumped storage stations".

A truth of debate and discussion: If your position requires you to deliberately and routinely make false statements then you are defending a losing position AND you demonstrate that you are a person of low moral character.

You now ask a different question and pretend that it is the same one:
"Do you think 50+ days storage for the grid, by any means, is an option?"

Yes, of course it is an option. That doesn't mean that your question has merit, it is still a stupid question since "50 days" only applies to one instance of one location with one technology.

The question of storage is one that MUST be considered as an issue of both demand and load across both time and space with full involvement of a considerable number of alternative inputs into the grid. It is a question that is answered in the same way a grid is managed, on a minute by minute basis. There are a variety of storage mediums available and it is impossible to predict the way they will be used or distributed. But what we do know is that it can and will be done.

Sorry, but nuclear power is not a good choice for meeting our climate change and energy security needs.

http://www.electricitystorage.org/site/technologies/
http://www.electricitystorage.org/site/applications/

And my new favorite:
http://www.isentropic.co.uk/

[Dead_Parrot]

79. lol. nt

[XemaSab]

81. You of all people...

[Dead_Parrot]

83. But keas are so cute !

It's amazing how they can figure out stuff with such a small brain.

[XemaSab]

84. They may be cute and smart

but those beaks are real weapons, capable of causing serious mayhem! :o

[joshcryer]

85. Nice.

And my new favorite:
http://www.isentropic.co.uk

Nice.

[Fledermaus]

27. You obviously don't know what you are talking about. Pumped hydro has 15 to 30% losses.

Pumped hydro was first used in Italy and Switzerland in the 1890’s. By 1933 reversible pump-turbines with motor-generators were available. Adjustable speed machines are now being used to improve efficiency. Pumped hydro is available at almost any scale with discharge times ranging from several hours to a few days. Their efficiency is in the 70% to 85% range.

http://www.electricitystorage.org/site/technologies/pumped_hydro/

[Dead_Parrot]

42. Gosh, that's a huge difference.

:eyes:

[Fledermaus]

44. Gosh, you claim 20-10% efficiency and reality is 70-85%

Ma & Pa Kettle Math
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfq5kju627c

[Dead_Parrot]

48. Ahh, OK

Sorry, I should proof read a bit more - I was trying to correct statistical by saying they are 80-90% efficient, not 80-90% inefficient. Which isn't how it came out at all.

:dunce:

[Fledermaus]

33. Most pumped storage stations store sufficient water for 6-10 hours of operation.

[Dead_Parrot]

43. exactly

Bit short of 50 days, really.

[Fledermaus]

46. Why 50? is that the biggest number you could pull out of your arse?

[Dead_Parrot]

49. It's the biggest one I've seen reported

Why, Have you seen bigger?

[kristopher]

53. Are you ignorant or do you just like spreading lies?

54 days out of 365 the wind supplied less than 1% of demand. And that means to you that we require storage with 50 straight days of capacity?

That is just plain stupid.

[Dead_Parrot]

55. Indeed, it's fucking insane

Glad to see you're onboard with that.

[kristopher]

56. Onboard with concluding your ethics are a bad joke...

showing a person who is so wrapped up in a personal agenda that you are willing to debase yourself to promote it.

[Dead_Parrot]

57. lol. Project much? nt

[excess_3]

7. US's grid capacity .......1000 Gw

fyi

[Statistical]

16. More importantly US power consumption is 4.2 billion GWH

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html

Wind has horrible capacity factor (<30% worldwide average is 19.1%). Utilization is annual output of plant divided by theoretical max (power rating * 24 * 365).

A 1 GW plant with 100% utilization would produce 1 * 24 *365 = 8760 GWH of generation in one year.
So our 4.2 billion GWH would require hypothetically 480 "perfect" plants nationwide all operating a 100% peak output 24/7/365.

Of course that isn't possible but nuclear is close to perfect with about 94% utilization factor. 1 GWe nuclear plant at 94% utilization produces about 8234 GWH annually.

Wind has capacity factor of around 20%. So it requires roughly 5GW in wind capacity to equal annual output of a single 1 GWH nuclear plant.

So just looking at capacity the issue is bad. When we look at generation/demand and utilization wind falls further behind.
Wind is nowhere economical enough to provide baseline power generation. Adding pumped storage to allow continual even output only raises the cost of wind on per KWH basis.

[kristopher]

29. Are you always so simpleminded?

Your so called "analysis" is riddled with factual errors and misrepresentations; it lacks even the most basic understanding of the way all grids are built around a variety of generating characteristics; but it *is* a complete success at failing to appreciate the way power generating sources work to deliver power at the lowest prices possible.

Your conclusions are therefore suspect.

[Statistical]

35. Insults are fun but you are the clueless one.

It is the variable premium on generation that allows wind to compete at all..... at the highest priced auction points. By under cutting peaking power plants which may have wholesale price double tripled and sometimes even quadruple retail price.

It is the variable pricing model that allows some wind and solar plants to be built HOWEVER as more and more plants are built they will exhaust the higher priced power and begin competing with load following plants and eventually baseline plants.

Some people delude themselves into thinking we can have 100% wind and/or solar however to do so they would need to not only compete with higher priced producers but the baseline generation plants like coal and nuclear.

The low CAPACITY FACTOR means that wind plants would need to be built at a tiny fraction of the cost of baseline plants in order to compete on kwh basis with baseload plants.

[kristopher]

36. Not even good try.

So your claim is that since wind only produces 20% (post 16) or 25% or 33% (post 13) of the maximum amount it could potentially generate, it is going to be more expensive than nuclear, which currently averages above 90% of potential peak generation, right?

You claim we must build 3X-4X (in your post 13) or 5x (in your post 16) the nameplate capacity in wind to deliver an amount of power to equal what nuclear delivers.

You also link this to the total electricity consumed (4,000 million MWH).

What is the pattern of generation that actually occurs over a 24 hour daily period? How about over the course of a week? What about monthly or seasonal variations in demand and generation profiles?

Your argument presumes that this variability in demand doesn't exist. It assumes that we need to deliver 45,662 megawatts continuously over the course of a year's 8760 hours. That isn't the case. The swing between minimal and maximum demand is extremely large. Here are two graphs that illustrate the situation:





This pattern of variability in demand strongly affects the implicit assumption of steady demand that underlies your logic behind the value of a high capacity factor argument. The fact is that we need to build enough noncarbon generation capacity to meet the peak demands of our system. This means that those sources of electricity used to meet the ramps and peak demand period are going to be operating at a much lower capacity factor than they are capable of. For example, it isn't all that unusual for a natural gas plant to operate at a capacity factor of less than 1%.

Your argument also presumes that "the variable pricing model" is only relevant as it provides an extremely limited niche for renewables. Nothing could be further from the truth. The variable pricing model is a result of the fact that our system must recompense those who build generation capacity to meet all parts of this variable demand - whether that is natural gas, wind, solar or god help us, nuclear. I mean, can you imagine the amount of capacity in nuclear that you'd have to install in order to meet peak demand? First, it would drop nuclear's capacity factor down to something similar to wind. I mean, for many of these plants you'll only turn it on for one hour per day each weekday during the hottest part of summer - maybe 60 total hours per year - right? That means you have to factor in the cost of building these plants with a 0.0068% capacity factor. Presuming this is a 1 GW nuclear plant, it is going to have to recoup its entire cost on the back of 60 GWh of electricity per year. Considering the price of a new 1 GW plant is pushing past 12 billion dollars just how much do you think the homeowner is going to have to pay to turn their AC on at 2 PM on a summer day? I'll use your number from post 13 where you state that the average nuke plant recoups its cost by selling 8234 GWhs of electricity per year. The new plants are pushing past $0.20 kwh because of the soaring costs of building them (10-12 billion/GW). That means that the electricity in those select peaking plants will run a minimum of $27 per kwh.

Your ideas on the potential for renewables to meet the needs you call "baseload" are equally full of shit.

Edited to add:
I forgot a question. You wrote (post #15): "There is about 50% roundtrip loss in using pumped hydro"
That is false. The round trip efficiency of pumped hydro is minimally around 80%.

You were corrected immediately and your reply was "Ouch. Well even worse."

In what universe does 50% efficiency outperform 80-90% efficiency?

[hunter]

61. Your "demand" graph is typical for ONE HOUSEHOLD.

Load Patterns

The graph below shows a typical demand profile of an individual household monitored every two 2 minutes.



It would be very difficult to match generating capacity to such a peaky demand profile. Fortunately the aggregate demand for all industrial and domestic consumers in a particular community tends to smooth out the overall demand profile and although the aggregate demand varies during the day and also over the course of the year, it does so in reasonably predictable patterns.

http://www.mpoweruk.com/electricity_demand.htm

The graphs do not support your argument, they refute them.

[kristopher]

63. "a typical demand profile of an individual household"

Note the word "typical" as the residential sector is comprised of homes with this type of usage pattern.

If, as you say, the graphs do not support my argument, then I'm sure you can explain precisely *why or how* they refute it.

In point of fact my argument is correct.

ETA: The total nameplate capacity of our electric generating fleet is 1,087,791 megawatts. That is roughly the amount of capacity we need to duplicate if we were to expect nuclear to provide all our continuous and peaking electric needs. That compares to the hourly average of 45,662 megawatts that was indicated by Stat's original argument (this is derived from his claim that looks at the need to produce 4,000 TWh per year as if it were the most meaningful metric by which to judge the solution to the problem).

So your claim is that since wind only produces 20% (post 16) or 25% or 33% (post 13) of the maximum amount it could potentially generate, it is going to be more expensive than nuclear, which currently averages above 90% of potential peak generation, right?

You claim we must build 3X-4X (in your post 13) or 5x (in your post 16) the nameplate capacity in wind to deliver an amount of power to equal what nuclear delivers.

You also link this to the total electricity consumed (4,000 million MWH).

What is the pattern of generation that actually occurs over a 24 hour daily period? How about over the course of a week? What about monthly or seasonal variations in demand and generation profiles?

Your argument presumes that this variability in demand doesn't exist. It assumes that we need to deliver 45,662 megawatts continuously over the course of a year's 8760 hours. That isn't the case. The swing between minimal and maximum demand is extremely large. Here are two graphs that illustrate the situation:

(SEE ORIGINAL POST ABOVE FOR GRAPHS)

This pattern of variability in demand strongly affects the implicit assumption of steady demand that underlies your logic behind the value of a high capacity factor argument. The fact is that we need to build enough noncarbon generation capacity to meet the peak demands of our system. This means that those sources of electricity used to meet the ramps and peak demand period are going to be operating at a much lower capacity factor than they are capable of. For example, it isn't all that unusual for a natural gas plant to operate at a capacity factor of less than 1%.

Your argument also presumes that "the variable pricing model" is only relevant as it provides an extremely limited niche for renewables. Nothing could be further from the truth. The variable pricing model is a result of the fact that our system must recompense those who build generation capacity to meet all parts of this variable demand - whether that is natural gas, wind, solar or god help us, nuclear. I mean, can you imagine the amount of capacity in nuclear that you'd have to install in order to meet peak demand? First, it would drop nuclear's capacity factor down to something similar to wind. I mean, for many of these plants you'll only turn it on for one hour per day each weekday during the hottest part of summer - maybe 60 total hours per year - right? That means you have to factor in the cost of building these plants with a 0.0068% capacity factor. Presuming this is a 1 GW nuclear plant, it is going to have to recoup its entire cost on the back of 60 GWh of electricity per year. Considering the price of a new 1 GW plant is pushing past 12 billion dollars just how much do you think the homeowner is going to have to pay to turn their AC on at 2 PM on a summer day? I'll use your number from post 13 where you state that the average nuke plant recoups its cost by selling 8234 GWhs of electricity per year. The new plants are pushing past $0.20 kwh because of the soaring costs of building them (10-12 billion/GW). That means that the electricity in those select peaking plants will run a minimum of $27 per kwh.

Your ideas on the potential for renewables to meet the needs you call "baseload" are equally full of shit.

This is an earlier post I wrote that speaks (from a slightly different slant) directly to the issue of the relevance of "baseload" power.

"Baseload" is an interesting phenomenon. People tend to believe that it is an indispensable element of a power grid, but that is an assumption that requires scrutiny. Bear with me as I review some basics for those who may not be as familiar with them as I know you are.

In linguistics 'back formations" are cases of words that are culturally created through misapplications of accepted rules of grammar. For example, there is growing acceptance of the word /conversate/ in some US subcultures. Those who employ the word derive it as a verb from noun /conversation/. Standard American English (what is used by newscasters is the benchmark for SAE) of course, offers the verb /converse/. However, if that word is unknown to (or not readily recalled by) the speaker it is understandable that /conversation/ would be yield /conversate/ based on the relationship of words such as /gravitation/ and /gravitate/, or /hesitation/ and /hesitate/.

I offer that because the development of 'baseload' power as a component of the grid has followed a similar pattern. In order to meet rising demand within a central, thermal generation based grid, a natural path of development was to make the centrally located generators ever larger. Eventually the size of these generators became so large that their size related operational characteristics started affecting how power was marketed.

A large generator is a long metal shaft with a large amount of wire wrapped around it. This shaft spins within a magnetic field and generates electricity. This shaft is very long and the windings are very heavy; so heavy, in fact, that if it is allowed to stop spinning the shaft will sag in the middle and develop a curve that must be eliminated by *very slowly* commencing rotation and allowing the weight of the windings to eventually center the shaft so that power production can commence. This process can so long to accomplish that it becomes prohibitively expensive to stop one of these large turbines from spinning if it is in daily use to help meet the varying demand for power. So rather than shut down and restart, it is more economical to keep the turbine fired up.
This forms a "base"level of generation for a given locale. Another word for "generated power" is 'load'; that gives us our "baseload".

What this leads to, of course, is an oversupply of power related to demand. The natural reaction to such an oversupply is to attempt to recoup money from some of the unused power. That drives a trend in pricing that causes industry with flexibility to orient itself around the availability of this less expensive source of energy.

So our existing (and near term projected) system does rely on this structure, however it isn't the only configuration that a grid could assume and still meet the needs of an industrial society.

An alternative is to conceive of a system where the power needs of any given user, including industries, is evaluated and met independent of central power generation. For example, an auto plant may use a small (compared to the generator described above) natural gas generator to back up a large photovoltaic array on their roof. This system would work with a much more flexible grid composed of many other, similar small distributed generating set-ups to allow the investment in equipment made by the auto plant to be more fully utilized; thereby spreading around the capital costs.

So when you say that solar can't provide baseload, I would have to question the foundation of the statement. I realize the scenario I describe is where we are going, not where we currently are; however the discussion is about where we invest our scarce dollars in infrastructure investment to meet our future needs. While the existing nuclear fleet is an important part of our grid now and going forward, it isn't prudent to plow more money into nuclear generation if our goal is prompt action on climate change. Those dollars deliver much greater bang for the buck with wind and solar.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/kristopher/304

[earth mom]

8. Obama's been in office almost a year-haven't heard him doing jack shit about global warming.

:argh:

[no limit]

19. You should probably listen a little harder

http://www.cnn.com/2009/BUSINESS/01/26/obama.green/

Jsut one example, you can find more if you choose to.

[jberryhill]

9. This guy keeps messing up Spanish wind power....

[Recoverin_Republican]

12. Wind power seems to be coming along more quickly than most had anticipated. Now, what they

really need to develop is a method of storing the power. There is a company in Canada VRB Power which builds a Vanadium Redox Battery Energy Storage System (VRB-ESS) which are relatively cheap and seem to work pretty good.

Unfortunately, with the current economy and not enough orders, the company is going out of business. But my guess is someone else will come along and start selling this technology as the demand for it appears. http://www.grist.org/article/VRB-Power-files-for-bankruptcy/

I think their timing was off, just about 10 years too soon, and then the Credit Collapse killed the economy.

[Statistical]

13. Apples and oranges.

Peak power output isn't what matters. 11.5GW for a few seconds is meaningless.

Nuclear reactors key strength is uptime. In the US nuclear reactors have uptime that exceeds 94%.
So a 1GW reactor outputs a steady and constant 1GW 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year with only 4% downtime.
So 1 GW * 24 * 365 *0.94 = 8234 GWH (gigawatt hours). We call this the capacity factor. A plant with 94% capacity factor can output 94% of its theoretical max each year.

Capacity factor for most wind farms is in the <30%. Worldwide average is 19.1% in 2008. So it takes roughly 3 to 4 GW of wind farm capacity to produce annual GWH equal to that of a single 1 GW of nuclear reactor.

[kristopher]

30. Capacity factor is only one consideration, and not the most important one by a wide margin

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[pnorman]

20. I have a question concerning such power sources.

They're all DC, and have to be converted to AC to go onto the power grid. But it MUST have a "sinusoidal" wave shape to be useful for that purpose. How is that accomplished with satisfactory efficiency?

Many years of shipboard experience has given me some knowledge of electricity, DC and AC. The only solution that comes to mind would be relatively ancient technology ---motor-generators. Their efficiency isn't all that bad, but I'm assuming that there is a much better and more "elegant" solution.

pnorman

[madokie]

21. I think they are overrunning the motors that are then generators and no fancy electronics needed

My neighbor has a 5 kw and it uses an ac motor and when the blades spin that motor faster than the motor is designed to run it then is connected to the grid and it then produces energy with the frequency in synch with the power line coming in. I don' tthink any of the big trubines are DC. correct me if I'm wrong

[Heywood J]

25. Typically most wind generators

either have a mechanical transmission to make sure the onboard generator stays on-frequency, or they generate in DC and use inverter stations to make this output suitable for the grid. High-voltage DC current is used all the time on the national grids, as modern semiconductors can produce large electrical pulses in small enough increments to produce a true sinusoidal wave (like drawing a curve by using a series of very small slices). It's really not that expensive, comparatively speaking, and it has no moving parts to fail.

HVDC transmission on the grid

[pnorman]

34. Thanks!

I was thinking of solar panels, but rotary devices (such as wind generators) are inherently AC. But then frequency regulation was the problem I had in mind when "paralleling" it to the grid. (Get it wrong, and the generator may be "motorized"!) But apparently, that's a 'trivial" problem.

I can grasp the idea of simulating a sinusoidal wave shape with tiny slices, but I thought that the tiny pulse "shoulders" would still create a problem. But I'm apparently wrong!

And thanks for realizing that it wasn't a "doofus" question!

pnorman

[abqmufc]

26. It is a positive step...and a good story to share to nay sayers

It is not perfect, its still flawed, but it shows a lot of hope and potential.

Personally, I love the link to 11 nuclear power plants as I'll take the woes of wind (noise, view obstruction, loss of birds/bats, etc) over the 100,000 years a nucler legacy can leave behind (mining, transport, storage).

[joshcryer]

This is why we need average output power statistics. Something like "100MWH this month produced."

Until we have that data and the population is aware of it, we won't have the innovations necessary to actually fulfill grid requirements.

Instead we'll build gas and coal plants to run when the wind isn't.

[kristopher]

32. You don't know what you are saying, Josh.

We need no significant "innovations" to restructure our grid around ALL RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES.

You seem to not understand how all of the components fit and together to fulfill our energy requirements, but that doesn't mean it won't work.

[excess_3]

37. people will not accept intermittent electricity

take AC/heat, computers, TV, away from people,
they will riot

if electric storage was easy or cheap,
it would be being done now.

Wind is nice, but it will never be more
than 'just avoided use of a natural gas electric station'.

there is some utility to that,
but limited.

[kristopher]

38. They don't need to "accept intermittent electricity"

That statement means you have no idea of what you are talking about and that your opinion has zero value.

[joshcryer]

40. Of course they don't, they have natural gas and coal. Duh.

I don't see what's wrong with his statement other than that you ignored it completely.

[kristopher]

54. Of course you don't...

[joshcryer]

39. Few people are aware that their "renewable wind" hardly met their electrical needs...

And they sit blindly by as their electricity continues to come from coal, and increasingly, natural gas.

[kristopher]

51. You must be stoned again...

[joshcryer]

28. dupe

dupe

[NNadir]

70. By what criteria? "Performance" involves reliability. Any thing that briefly does anything

and produces zero a significant period of time is not "out peforming."

Given that wind plants fall apart at a rapid rate, and that there is no provision for dealing with their wastes, including the dangerous natural gas that backs them up, this is a nonsense statement.

How come we never get notice of when wind plants "briefly" or "signiricantly" produce zero energy?

When the Spanish start turning off their lights when the wind isn't blowing, I'll be impressed.

[kristopher]

75. No new nukes for you, little buddy.

But we are going to build and install a whole passel of wind and solar facilities all over the world.

http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c
Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[Name removed]

80. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[XemaSab]

82. You, too

[kristopher]

86. Aw, is the poor itty bitty baby still pouting

because it was called on telling those big old bad fibs.

[jpak]

77. "Given that wind plants fall apart at a rapid rate" = delusional made-up make-believe bullshit

How's your (delusional) molten salt breeder coming along????

Where are your (delusional) "fabulous riches"???

:rofl: