http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/wind-watch.html

http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/

http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-ii/

http://www.masterresource.org/2009/12/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-iii-response-to-comments/

This work expands upon the work of Katzenstein & Apt, and others on carbon emissions due to wind. Here is the summary from part II ->

“In summary, relative to CCGT plants operating alone with the same capacity as the wind plants:

In the high range of possible annual capacity factors for wind, at 28 per cent, with the introduction of OCGT gas plants and reduced efficiency considerations for the wind shadowing/backup, the calculator shows that the presence of wind results in:

Almost zero gas savings; and
An increase in CO2 emissions of 12 per cent.

In the low range of possible annual capacity factors for wind, at 20 per cent, the above results become:

An increase in gas consumption of 10 per cent; and
An increase in CO2 emissions of 25 per cent.”

& also linked to this work is ->

http://knowledgeproblem.com/2009/11/16/reduced-air-emissions-due-to-wind-power-not-as-much-as-you-might-think/

The above research is ongoing, and I’m sure Peter will be posting some comments at BNC on this in the near future.

It is clear to me that the more we look at the issues of industrial scale wind energy & claimed carbon emissions reductions, the more impossible it is that wind will ever help in reducing emissions (certainly in the wind/gas backup context). And this work & the work of others (Peter included) is showing that industrial scale wind is really not helping in emissions reduction.

Of course the companies building the wind farms (i.e. the gas companies Origin, AGL et al) love wind, as the high spot price peaks from intermittent wind mean they’ll make a killing from their gas power stations, over and above the mandatory renewable energy credits market they are also guaranteed.

New Evidence Shows that Government Suppressed Expert Advice to Lower Wind Turbine Noise Limits Intended to Protect Residents

Summary
New evidence released by the Dept. of Energy and Climate Change under a Freedom of Information request shows that Government suppressed a recommendation by its own acoustics consultants to tighten current noise regulations on wind turbines in order to protect local residents from night time noise. This does little credit to the Department, and must be corrected immediately.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6954565.ece

& the documents are al available from this site ->

http://www.denbrookvalley.co.uk/

Further to my previous post, here are some very rough figures on the cost and some of the constraints.

A pumped hydro facility connecting the existing Tantangara and Blowering reservoirs in the Snowy Mountains scheme could produce 8 GW power and store and generate 24 GWh of energy per day. The capital cost would be roughly $15 billion.

But here are some of the issues.

1. To be economically viable, the sell price of the electricity from pumped hydro needs to be about 4 times the buy price of the electricity for pumping. This is possible with cheap off peak power from conventional baseload plants during the night. But is not viable using gas generation or wind energy.

2. The pumps need to run continuously with constant power supply for several hours at a time – e.g. 5 to 7 hours. Wind power is totally unsuited for this purpose.

To get some perspective of why this is so, consider the power required to start the mass of water flowing and to maintain it. The volume is three tunnels each 14 m diameter by 53 km length and with 900 m hydraulic head. This must be accelerated to 2.5 m/s velocity and maintained. So start and stop is not an option. This is the case even with low head pumped hydro schemes, such as Wivenhoe near Brisbane.

Gene is correct, wind and pumped hydro are not a good fit. Wind and hydro (not pumped hydro) is an excellent fit, butr Australia does not have the potential for significant hydro development where needed. There are many posts discussing pumped hydro on this thread and on these:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/13/wind-and-carbon-emissions-peter-lang-responds/

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/16/solar-power-realities-supply-demand-storage-and-costs/

http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/09/10/solar-realities-and-transmission-costs-addendum/

See some of the posts above that have discussed wind/hydro. Its really not do-able in Australia.

I was just wondering if there were any easy way of working out what the installed cost would be of installing wind plus pumped hydro storage capacity to cover Brayton cycle gas on the white start lead time.

If for example you have 1Gwe of wind @ 35% CF and you want to ensure that you get at worst that output, you could install 350MWe of pumped hydro storage for whatever the the ideal lead time was for CCGT — let’s say it was 5 hours …

so you have the cost of the wind, plus fiver hours of pumped storage plus the standby gas …

http://www.windaction.org/news/24839

http://www.windaction.org/news/24838

http://www.windaction.org/opinions/24834

also closer to home, some Australian stories :

http://www.windaction.org/news/24833

Tasmania’s $350 million Musselroe wind farm is finally under construction, after more than four years of delays.

http://www.windaction.org/news/24836

The last story is about fire danger, and the problems of firefighting when wind farms are built in bush fire prone areas.

Note that in the recent NSW inquiry a couple of the submissions detailed issues with aviation, and of course the lack of ability to fire bomb bush fires from the air near & within wind farms :

No. 79, Aerial Agricultural Association of Australia Ltd, represents Australia’s aerial application industry, including crop protection spraying, fertilizer application and firebombing. Specifically addresses aircraft/pilot safety issues and economic impact on aerial applicators :

http://parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/DD456D071FAF4B99CA2576260026D7C2

No. 76, Superair Australia Lonoaks Pty Ltd, largest aerial top dressing company in Australia. Covers the negative impacts of industrial wind turbine developments to their industry regarding reduction in safety, loss of income, loss of jobs, decrease in efficiency and accuracy of aerial spraying, decrease in pasture productivity as result of decreased spraying accuracy, increase of flying time and costs, additional expense to property owners for aerial spraying near industrial wind turbines, failure of wind industry and environmental assessment firms to discuss these issues :

http://parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/EF39338B0AA059D0CA25762600266914

Thanks for those figures. I was being generous on purpose really, just to show that even being generous the figures are just astoundingly poor!!

Indeed I agree, why bother with wind, its a pure waste of time.

Also, even with those generous figures I gave above, the % GHG reductions that wind would achieve are not even lifted out of the “noise floor” of +/-3% error of the Australian govs figures!!

According to the section titled “Uncertainty Analysis” on Page 16 of “State and Territory Greenhouse Gas Inventories 2007″ available at ->

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/climate-change/emissions.aspx

this states that :

“Uncertainty is inherent within any kind of estimation. Uncertainty assessments at a sectoral level are
reported in the National Inventory report. Overall, at the national inventory level, the uncertainty of the
emissions estimates has been assessed at ±3%. While no quantitative estimates have been produced, the
Department assesses that the uncertainties for emission estimates for these inventories, particularly the
smaller states and territories, will be somewhat higher than for the national inventory. ”

Regarding LCA of wind farms, at some point in the future I would like to discuss these further, as they are highly optimistic to say the least.

I believe you are being overly generous regarding the emissions avoided by wind generation with gas back up.

The emissions factors for the fossil fuel generators in the Australian Electricity Market (NEM) are provided here:
http://www.aemo.com.au/planning/419-0035.pdf

The emissions avoided wind with gas back up can be estimated with this calculator:
http://www.masterresource.org/2009/11/wind-integration-incremental-emissions-from-back-up-generation-cycling-part-i-a-framework-and-calculator/

This paper has some major simplifying assumptions:
http://amherstislandwindinfo.com/katzenstein_apt_full_report.pdf

For example, it assumes the same generator with and without wind. That is not the situation that will occur in practice. If we do not have an MRET or any other form of policy intervention to distort the market, then the most efficient gas generators (i.e CCGT) will be built to supply power for the intermediate load. If we have an MRET, investors will invest much more in OCGT than in CCGT. That means we invest in OCGT with emissions intensity of about 0.75 kg CO2-e/kWh rather than CCGT with emissions intensity of about 0.45 kg CO2-e/kWh.

By the way, I think your emissions intensity figures are too low. I’d suggest you use the emissions intensity ‘sent out’ electricity.

Based on these sources, the emissions avoided by wind are much less than you have calculated, and perhaps zero or negative.

It is also interesting to calculate the cost of emissions avoided.

Nuclear avoids close to 1 kg CO2-e/kWh compared with existing Black coal fired power stations. The capital cost (settled down cost after about the first 5 reactors have been commissioned) is estimated at about $4000/kW.

Let’s compare this with wind and gas back up.

To produce the same average power with wind and gas back up would cost:

Wind = $2611/kW
Transmission = $1000/kw
OCGT = $985/kW (say 50%)
CCGT = $1368/kW (say 50%)
Total capital cost = $4787/kWh

So the capital cost of wind power with gas back up is more than for nuclear power. Wind provides low quality power (unreliable, intermittent power with power and frequency fluctuations). Wind with gas back up emits some 50 times more CO2 than nuclear on an LCA basis.

So why bother with wind?

http://www.climatechange.gov.au/en/climate-change/emissions.aspx

Also I would urge people (especially Australians) to read these pages in David MacKay’s book ->

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c1/page_14.shtml

This page discusses the “causer pays principle” which it should be noted is cited in planning apps and also in the recent NSW Inquiry into Rural Wind Farms as a reason for building wind farms.

From MacKay page 14 :

“But it isn’t the rate of CO2 pollution that matters, it’s
the cumulative total emissions; much of the emitted carbon dioxide (about
one third of it) will hang around in the atmosphere for at least 50 or 100
years. If we accept the ethical idea that “the polluter should pay” then
we should ask how big is each country’s historical footprint.”

From MacKay page 21 note 14

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c1/page_21.shtml ->

“In total terms the biggest historical emitters are, in order, USA (322 GtCO2), Russian Federation (90 GtCO2),
China (89 GtCO2), Germany (78 GtCO2), UK (62 GtCO2), Japan (43 GtCO2), France (30 GtCO2), India (25 GtCO2), and
Canada (24 GtCO2). The per-capita order is: Luxembourg, USA, United Kingdom, Czech Republic, Belgium, Germany,
Estonia, Qatar, and Canada.”

Note the massive change from the world leader (USA) to the 2nd place (Russia). As yet I have not located information for Australia’s historical emissions to get an idea of where we are in the “causer pays” ranking. Does anyone have a figure on that?

The current installed wind capacity in the NEM (NSW, Vic, Tas, SA, there are none in Queensland lucky people) is 1609MW (1.6GW) see Andrew Miskelly’s excellent site :

http://windfarmperformance.info

Note this does not include the handful of small wind farms <30MW, which will be insignificant in terms of GHG reductions in any case.

Lets be generous & say they are all running at 35% Capacity Factor (CF) which gives :

0.35CF x 1609MW = 563.15MW

MWh per year :

563.15 x 8760 = 4,933,194MWh/year

To obtain the GHG reduction I will again be generous and say it is displacing gas at 0.36tCO2/MWh and not worry about the Katzenstein and Apt's recent results which state that this is now an overestimation, and NOx emissions may also increase. See : Katzenstein, W & Apt, J, “Air Emissions Due To Wind and Solar Power”, Environmental
Science & Technology (2009) Vol 43 No 2 pages 253-258

So in a year for Australian wind farms connected to the NEM that would be 0.36 x 4,933,194 = 1,775,949.84 tons of CO2 saved per year.

According to http://unfccc.int/files/ghg_emissions_data/application/pdf/aus_ghg_profile.pdf Australia's GHG emissions for 2007 without including LULUCF (Land Use, Land Use Change & Forestry) were : 541,178.7 GgCO2 equiv & Rueters have reported it at http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSSP11210320080829 as being 576 million tons. if we include LULUCF the Australian annual figure rises to 825,884 GgCO2 equiv. Lets sit somewhere in the middle of this , ignore LULUCF, and round it to 550 million tons, and express current NEM connected wind farms contribution as a percentage :

(1,775,949.84 / 550,000,000) * 100 =

A grand total of 0.32% reduction of total Australian GHG emissions (not including emissions due to LULUCF)

If we include LULUCF :

(1,775,949.84 / 825,884,000) * 100 =

A grand total of 0.21% reduction of total Australian GHG emissions

How does that stack up globally ?? According to this web page : http://www.nextgenpe.com/news/global-co2-emissions/

the world total CO2 emissions in 2006 were 29,195,000,000 tons

(1,775,949.84 / 29,195,000,000) * 100 =

A grand total of 0.006% reduction of global CO2 emissions by currently installed Australian wind farms.

Disclaimer : Dont just take my word for it, maybe I've made some mistakes here… These are quick "back of the envelope" calculations & I would welcome Peter, Barry & others to check these figures for any errors in calculation and post their results back here for discussion.

Also try the figures with additional wind capacity, e.g. NSW has about another 2GW in the approved stage or applied for in the planning dept stage. So slap another 2GW into the figures and see how it changes. 2GW = 2000MW = an additional 1000 wind turbines of 2MW capacity. Find out what is planned/approved for the remaining states in the NEM. What is installed/planned/approved outside of the NEM in WA and NT? How would these additions affect the above figures?

Also try the figures out with other more generous CO2 displacement values e.g. :

0.43t for a "mix"

heck why not even agree with the IPCC wind industry spin and try 0.6t as the mix figure, why not boost up the capacity factor to 40% or 45%.

Does this sound like good value for money for the Australian tax payers, or a sensible way of meaningfully reducing GHG emissions given the amount of *demonstrable environmental problems* created by industrial scale wind power station developments?

A final thought : When Kevin Rudd officially opened the Capital/Bungendore 132MW wind farm in NSW it was generating …… 2MW…. On many occasions since it has managed to generate 0MW for considerable periods of time. Nov and Dec have been particularly poor, have a look at the data.

Regarding state forests, I’m sure its only a matter of time… but of course when it comes time to decommission the state would be liable, rather than a landholder, so perhaps they are hedging their bets there… ?

One of the National Research Council authors of the 2007 study, Rick Webb, has made the pre-publication version of the important NRC 2007 report available for free on line at :

http://www.vawind.org/Assets/NRC/NRC_Wind.htm

Webb has also summarized his personal concerns regarding lack of emissions
reductions in SO2 and NOx, and the cumulative impacts to wildlife, available on line :

http://www.vawind.org/Assets/Docs/Perspective/Key_Points_About_Wind_Development.pdf

Rick Webb specifically states in this doc that :

Additional impacts to birds, bats, and other wildlife will occur due to forest fragmentation and habitat alteration
related to access roads, transmission corridors, and turbine sites associated with wind power development, especially
on forested ridges.

and also see :

http://www.vawind.org/Assets/Docs/Wishful-Thinking.pdf

His main website is of course :

http://www.vawind.org

My point about wind farms and state forests is that, if wind farms have no detrimental environmenta effects as is claimed by their advocates, then why dont these same advocacy groups recommed that the wind farms be sited in the state forests and heritage areas rather than in places where they cause so much havoc to the people who live where they are being sited?

Of course, the full cost of the network upgrades and the increased costs of across the entiore system that results from mandating wind energy whousl also be carried by the wind fr owners.