Wind and carbon emissions – Peter Lang responds

Without pre-empting Barry’s paper I believe there are possible major savings in energy storage. These are
1) unregulated wind power and direct pumped storage
2) thin film PV and compact household batteries.
Without knowing costs the scope is hard to predict so they will have evolve on their merits.

The public likes wind power so I think it should expand to its comfortable niche of x% of installed generation. That’s x% without feed-in tariffs or preferential purchasing. That way people can feel assured wind power has been given every opportunity. I recall helicopter shots of the Tour de France showing both wind farms and nuclear plants in the background. To me that looked clean and balanced. No smokestacks or grimy coal heaps.

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By the way, here are published graphs of two similar data sets – Ireland, and Western Denmark. Pretty similar.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c26/page_187.shtml

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/publications/free_new_Desc.asp?PUBS_ID=1472
(page 212)

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Oh, and that study is a comprehensive summary of the findings of studies that looked at 3 to 4 YEARS of actual wind data across the whole of the UK, and for later “super-grid” discussions across the whole of Europe.

Not 1 month with a mere 11 wind farms.

Get it?

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Hi Peter,

I would urge you to make a submission to the NSW Rural Wind Farms inquiry ->

http://parliament.nsw.gov.au/Prod/parlment/committee.nsf/0/5289EFFDED250AE4CA2575E10007D079

time is tight, submissions are due tomorrow!!! Fri 21st Aug, would have said sooner but I only just found this site. I would say at the very least put in your paper and the data/text you have written here + the Miskelly and Quirk study.

Also a very enlightening paper has just been published. The recent research and testimony to US House of Representatives of Professor Jay Apt, the executive director of the Electricity Industry Center at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business and Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy, addresses the issues of lack of emissions reduction by gas power stations used to mitigate the variability of industrial wind power stations. In a research paper co-authored with Warren Katzenstein, “Air Emissions Due To Wind and Solar Power”, Environmental Science & Technology (2009) Vol 43 No 2 pages 253-258, their research shows :

“Renewable energy emissions studies have not accounted for the change in emissions from power sources that must be paired with variable renewable generators”

“In many locations, natural gas turbines will be used to compensate for variable renewables. When turbines are quickly ramped up and down, their fuel use (and thus CO2 emissions) may be larger than when they are operated at a steady power level. Systems that mitigate other emissions such as NOx may not operate optimally when the turbines’ power level is rapidly changed.“

“Carbon dioxide emissions reductions from a wind (or solar PV) plus natural gas system are likely to be 75-80% of those presently assumed by policy makers. Nitrous oxide reduction from such a system depends strongly on the type of NOx control and how it is dispatched. For the best system we examined, NOx reductions with 20% wind or solar PV penetration are 30-50% of those expected. For the worst, emissions are increased by 2-4 times the expected reductions with a 20% RPS [Renewables Portfolio Standards] using wind or solar PV.”

“We have shown that the conventional method used to calculate displaced emissions is inaccurate, particularly for NOx emissions. A region-specific analysis can be performed with knowledge of displaced generators, dispatched compensating generators, and the transient emissions performance of the dispatched compensating generators. The results shown here indicate that at large scale variable renewable generators may require that careful attention be paid to the emissions of compensating generators to minimize additional pollution.”

The paper is available at ->

Click to access katzenstein_apt_emission_savings.pdf

In fact this chap has done a very good website, go up a level to :

http://amherstislandwindinfo.com/

You should also check out Jay Apt’s testimony :In Apt‘s testimony to U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Environment’s Hearing on The American Clean Energy Security Act of 2009 “Panel on Low Carbon Electricity, Carbon Capture and Storage, Renewables and Grid Modernization” of April 23, 2009 he states :

“Even in good areas, the wind doesn’t blow all the time. Looking at all the wind power plants in Texas in 2008, we find that in a quarter of the hours during the year Texas wind production was less than 10% of its rated capacity. That means that when a wind farm is built, some other power source of the same size must be built to provide power during those calm hours. Our research shows that natural gas turbines, that are often used to provide this fill-in power, produce more CO2 and much more nitrous oxide (as they quickly spin up and then slow down to counter the variability of wind than) than they do when they are run steadily.”

“The point is that wind and solar can lower the amount of fossil fuels used for generation, but they don’t lessen the need for spending money on always-available generation capacity, nor do we get all the air emissions benefits we once expected.”

“Wind farms can affect climate downwind, reducing precipitation. Massive reliance on wind energy would take energy out of the wind, changing the Earth’s climate. All power generation options have feet of clay. There is no generation utopia. But just because there is no free lunch doesn’t mean we can’t eat: we just have to acknowledge the issues honestly so that we are not faced with a public backlash later on.”

Apt and colleagues have recently published in the American National Academies of Science Fall 2008 on-line journal “Issues in Science and Technology” a paper titled “A National Renewable Portfolio Standard? Not Practical” covering issues regarding problems with wind energy :

“Producing sufficient wind turbines would require a major increase in manufacturing capacity. Demand (driven by state RPSs and the federal renewable production tax credit) has already stretched supplies thin, creating an 18-month delivery delay for wind machines. It has also emboldened manufactures to reduce wind turbine warranties from five years to two.”

“Among the disadvantages of wind systems are that they produce power only when the wind is strong and that they are most productive at night and during spring and fall, when electricity demand is low. The capacity factor (the percent of maximum generation potential actually generated) of the best sites for wind turbines is about 40%, and the average capacity of all the wind turbines used to generate utility power in the United States was 25% in 2007.”

“…if wind supplied 15% of the electricity, it would save less than 15% of fuel because other generators backing up the wind must often run at idle even when the wind is blowing and because their fuel economy suffers when they have to ramp up and slow down to compensate for variability in wind.”

“Variability also requires constant attention, lest it threaten the reliability of the electric system. On February 26, 2008, the power system in Texas narrowly avoided a breakdown. At 3 p.m., wind power was supplying a bit more than 5% of demand. But over the course of the next 3.5 hours, an unforecast lull caused wind power to fall from 2,000 MW to 350 MW, just as evening demand was peaking. Grid operators declared an emergency and blacked out 1,100 MW of load in a successful attempt to avoid a system collapse. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, “This was not the first or even the worst such incident in ERCOT’s area. Of 82 alerts in 2007, 27 were ‘strongly correlated to the drop in wind’.””

“Finally, wind energy is a finite resource. At large scale, slowing down the wind by using its energy to turn turbines has environmental consequences. A group of researchers at Princeton University found that wind farms may change the mixing of air near the surface, drying the soil near the site. At planetary scales, David Keith (then at Carnegie Mellon) and coworkers found that if wind supplied 10% of expected global electricity demand in 2100, the resulting change in the atmosphere’s energy might cause some regions of the world to experience temperature changes of approximately 1ºC.”

Also I highly recommend http://www.windaction.org Apt’s testimony is also available from there at -> http://www.windaction.org/documents/20988

cheers

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Quite right Barry.

Not only that, but at the fourth comment in the thread, reply was impossible (presumably because the width would have been below the minimum allowed)

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re : AEMO data. I have just found this page which is a handle into some of the data at AEMO :

http://www.landscapeguardians.org.au/data/aemo/

You can put in a from-to period and select different wind farms and other generators, its not complete but it is a quick in road into looking at the data. I loaded the data straight into excel and knocked up a few graphs of the wind farms at Cullerin Range and Capital/Bungendore very easily. I dont think we can attach pictures to these posts though ??? The graphs show very large variation in output, as you would expect from a poor quality intermittent source such as wind.

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Refer Figure 1.9 “Carbon intensity of electricity production (gCO2 per kWh of electricity)”
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/cI/page_335.shtml

Note that France (83 kg CO2/MWh) is first on the list and Denmark (881 kg CO2/MWh) is last. France has the highest proportion of electricity generated by nuclear (76%) and Denmark has the highest proportion of electricity generated by wind power (13%).

In fact, the countries (on this list) with the highest proportion of wind energy are the worst CO2 emitters from electricity.

CO2 emissions from electricity generation (kg CO2/MWh)
France 83
Sweden 87
Canada 220
Austria 250
Belgium 335
European Union 353
Finland 399
Spain 408
Japan 483
Portugal 525
United Kingdom 580
Luxembourg 590
Germany 601
USA 613
Netherlands 652
Italy 667
Ireland 784
Greece 864
Denmark 881

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Is it possible to upload images here? If not I can send you the figs I made for Cullerin Range and Capital Bungendore. They have only just come online so its only really possible to look at about 1 and half months. The July 20 to August 20 period shows close in time lulls + very fast peaks and dips using 5 min data intervals. I’m not sure how far apart geographically they are, at least an hours drive perhaps more… I would have to check. Bungendore is outside of Canberra and Cullerin Range is on the side of the Hume Highway between Yass and Goulburn.

I agree that politics are behind these industrial wind power stations (they are power stations not farms). A misinformed public happily drive past them and think “somethings being done”. Also having experienced the divisive tactics and downright lies of the wind industry first hand in rural NSW, with these companies trying to get farmers to sign onerous long term lease agreements, the reason for these things being built is crystal clear : ITS ALL ABOUT THE MONEY! i.e. the guaranteed market the gov makes with OUR tax dollars for them. I dont really want to get bogged down in politics, in any case the real facts on industrial wind power stations speak for themselves.

I agree, thats a great book by David MacKay I’ve been reading bits of it since about March, but still have to get through it all. I hadn’t spotted that fig. its well worth knowing.

He covers fluctuation and storage too, in particular wind see ->

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c26/page_187.shtml

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c26/page_188.shtml

the whole chapter is a good read. He also has a number of chapters just on wind energy. I would say that anyone looking at pages of this book read his 10 page synopsis first ->

Click to access synopsis10.pdf

the whole book can be downloaded for free as a pdf, see the homepage ->

http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html

well done on him I say. I dont agree with his comments about birds and cats in the wind energy chapter, there is no breakdown of species or location. This is something the wind industry happily trots out, but I haven’t seen any studies. Personally I dont see many domestic house cats roaming around the countryside. I’ll forgive him that though as the rest of the book is excellent. In any case the domestic cats etc v birds is another smokescreen from the wind industry to divert attention away from the real issue which is the ineffectiveness of wind energy to significantly reduce emissions or provide reliable electricity supply.

For another excellent study check out these papers and links at ->

http://amherstislandwindinfo.com/co2.htm

in particular the Tom Adam’s papers ->

Click to access keynote-for-peo-may-2009-transforming-ontario_s-power-system.pdf

Tom’s wind energy research is at ->

http://tomadamsenergy.com/?cat=3

I’ll quote a few interesting points below.

—–

Tom Adams and Francois Cadieux “Wind Power In Ontario: Quantifying The Benefits Of Geographic Diversity” presented at the 2nd Climate Change Technology Conference, May 12-15 2009 which specifically looks at the aggregated output of multiple industrial wind power stations states :

“Average wind output is high in winter and low during the summer, whereas demand is highest in summer. This imbalance represents a key limitation with respect to reliance on wind power in Ontario. The seasonal wind output pattern observed in Ontario is very similar to that of wind farms across Canada and throughout central and northern Europe.”

“Measurements presented here based on wind outputs from major wind developments in and near Ontario indicate that distances over 250 km between wind farms are required for hourly output correlations to drop to 50%, and distances over 350 km are required for daily correlations to drop to 50%. Moreover, the results presented here suggest that correlation coefficients will be positive over distances greater than 800 km and are not likely to be negative over conceivable distances within the province. The modest benefit of diversifying locations is illustrated when one large wind farm located more than 360 km away from another group of nearly equal capacity was added: the standard deviation in output decreased by only 2.7% of installed capacity. Other studies present similar results for Europe, although distance appears to be less effective in mitigating variability in Ontario than in Europe.”

“Thus, to meet the policy objective of maximizing wind’s penetration of Ontario’s electricity generation mix while minimizing grid impacts, any new wind power capacity should thus be installed far away from other wind farms. Conversely, allowing concentrated wind development, either by co-locating wind farms or building relatively large farms, reduces the total wind capacity the system can accommodate within a given level of load balancing expenditure.”

Although adding a distant wind farm to an existing fleet fills the valleys of average output and drops the standard deviation of output by a small fraction, it also increases the magnitude of overall output swings. Large overall wind output swings are inevitable because wind farms within the province are statistically more prone to increase and decrease generation synchronously due to the nature and size of the meteorological fronts that largely drive wind speeds. In other words, if wind power output swings or peaks challenge the load balancing capacity of the power system, distance between wind farms does not help.

“Ontario has made a policy commitment to encourage extensive wind power development supported by only a preliminary understanding of the potential power system impacts of a large wind power fleet. Wind power’s consumer impacts – incremental transmission, energy storage, ramping generation requirements, and grid reliability service costs such as automatic generation control and operating reserve – may be insignificant at low wind penetration of the overall electricity supply but will rise as wind capacity rises and may become significant. Additional research on the output variability of wind power, grid reliability mitigation measures, and the load carrying capacity of wind power is thus necessary.”

—–

Adam’s Keynote Address for the Professional Engineers of Ontario Annual General Meeting May 9, 2009 “Transforming Ontario’s Electricity Paradigm:
Lessons Arising from Wind Power Integration” also reports on this Canadian research :

“Advocates and sometimes even government engineers assure us that wind power is
decentralized energy, that wind power can help replace coal, that wind volatility is
smoothed by distance, and that wind can supply a large fraction of our electricity needs
without imposing significant indirect costs on consumers. Although I wish it were
otherwise, the data is uncomplimentary to this loose talk.”

“Getting wind power to consumers when they want it will be a challenge. Unfortunately
wind and load are out of sync across several dimensions.”

“Other researchers have identified that Ontario tends to get most of our wind output at
the wrong time of day and that the daily wind pattern tends to decline in morning when
load is rising and ramp up in evening when load is declining.”

“Unfortunately distance provides little smoothing benefit:

Considering hourly correlation coefficients, 250 km cuts the cross correlation by only
50%. No matter how far apart they are, wind farms in Ontario east of Wawa will be
positively correlated. This means that the more wind capacity we add, the more output
volatility the aggregate fleet will yield. Adding a distant wind farm fills the valleys of
average output and drops the standard deviation of output a little but also increases the peaks of output. If output swings or peaks are challenging the system, distance
doesn’t help.”

“Some of these factors are also significant in terms of wind power’s ultimate
environmental footprint. No one in Ontario can realistically estimate these factors
right now, in part because the commercial impact of the GEA [Green Energy Act] is still very difficult to estimate but also in part because much more technical
homework is needed.”

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RE : post 150

One thing that a lot of the world should be doing is promoting people to exercise more, not just switch from petrol to electric and continue on with their unhealthy reliance on wheels instead of feet in urban areas. Urban planning should be gearing towards more pedestrianisation. I dont mean people should walk everywhere, of course people need vehicles, but how many people do you see driving to the newsagent down the road etc…? Of course walking is free, but obviously we pay for the upkeep of pavements through our hard earned tax dollars.

There are a lot of “ifs” in the EV’s powered from unpredictable & intermittent renewables idea. Its a lovely thought and another unproven idea that the wind industry trots out all the time. When the wind IS blowing it is still highly variable and unpredictable. Wishful thinking and computer forcasting however does not change the “actual” weather.

The most recent study I know of in this electric vehicles on the grid area is again at Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Centre. If you sign up to their system they send you links to the latest papers, and you can then download all their working papers etc.

I received this via email just this morning :
—–

The Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center has posted a new Working Paper on its website (http://www.cmu.edu/electricity)

POSTED ON: 8/21/2009

TITLE: The Economics of Using PHEV Battery Packs for Grid Storage
AUTHOR: Scott Peterson, Jay Apt, and Jay Whitacre
ABSTRACT: We examine the potential economic implications of using vehicle batteries to store grid electricity generated at off-peak hours for off-vehicle use during peak hours. Hourly electricity prices in three U.S. cities were used to arrive at daily profit values, while the economic losses associated with battery degradation were calculated based on data collected from A123 Systems LiFePO4/Graphite cells tested under combined driving and off-vehicle electricity utilization. For a 16 kWh vehicle battery pack, the maximum annual profit with perfect market information and no battery degradation cost ranged from ~$140 to $250 in the three cities. If the measured battery degradation is applied, however, the maximum annual profit (if battery pack replacement costs fall to $5,000 for a 16 kWh battery) decreases to ~$10-$120. It appears unlikely that these profits alone will provide sufficient incentive to the vehicle owner to use the battery pack for electricity storage and later off-vehicle use. We also estimate grid net social welfare benefits from avoiding the construction and use of peaking generators that may accrue to the owner, finding that these are similar in magnitude to the energy arbitrage profit.

—–

I got a copy of the paper, its at the draft stage of a working paper which requests that quotations or citations from the paper not be made, so I have only posted what they have said in the email abstract (this is abstract is posted on the web link below so is ok to repeat, just not the content in the paper). Note there is no link to this paper yet from their publications page, they probably will update that page in the coming week.

You have to sign up to get a password to download their files, which is easy. The best way is to go to this link ->

http://wpweb2.tepper.cmu.edu/ceic/papers/ceic-09-03.asp

which takes you to the paper abstract and you click on a link that page to get a password request page. Its very easy you just supply your email address and you get your password pretty much immediately.

I haven’t had time to read the paper yet, just a quick glance at the conclusions, which are not very hopeful of it being cost effective. I would be interested to hear of other studies, I know also that David MacKay discusses this in his Without Hot Air book.

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Hopefully not too off topic here as the title of this page is wind and carbon emissions, but what the hell…

The “homes powered” figures that are constantly portrayed by the wind industry, government and in the media are very misleading for the general public.

e.g. MacKay in his book (2008) “Sustainable Energy — without the hot air”, UIT Cambridge Ltd discusses this problem :

“The “home” is commonly used when describing the power of renewable facilities. For example, “The £300 million Whitelee wind farm’s 140 turbines will generate 322 MW – enough to power 200 000 homes.” The “home” is defined by the British Wind Energy Association to be a power of 4700 kWh per year.”

The “home” annoys me because I worry that people confuse it with the total power consumption of the occupants of a home – but the latter is actually about 24 times bigger. The “home” covers the average domestic electricity consumption of a household, only. Not the household’s home heating. Nor their workplace. Nor their transport. Nor all the energy-consuming things that society does for them.“

+ from the REF site ->

In the UK the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the Rt Hon Ed Miliband MP recently published a prominent article in The Times (27.04.09) regarding number of homes powered by wind energy. Following an enquiry from a member of the public, REF wrote an open letter (07.05.09) to Mr Miliband with regard to this, and published the correspondence on the REF website at : http://www.ref.org.uk/PublicationDetails/52 Mr Milliband stated in his article that :

“To all those who scoff at the idea of wind making a difference, my reply is that last
year enough power for all the electricity for two million homes came from wind
power.”

Some of the REF’s comments help to clarify matters :

begin the quotes from this correspondence —->

“…you should not in any case use the homes equivalent figure, which is misleading to the public since domestic houses typically use only 30% of national electricity, and because the comparison suggests that the turbines could take this many houses off-grid, which is not the case.”

“… so1.8 million homes equivalent rather than 2 million. (Incidentally, most of this increase appears to be from offshore wind, confirming a long-standing REF argument that given the capacity limit for wind in the UK system, perhaps 10 GW, it makes sense to seek high yielding sites.)”

“However, the real issue is that there are good reasons for not employing the homes equivalent calculation and presentation method:

Explaining Energy Quantities to the Public

In fact, the concluding and main point of my letter goes unaddressed in your response.

I wrote:

8. Further, in my view, you should not in any case use the homes equivalent figure,
which is misleading to the public since domestic houses typically use only 30% of
national electricity, and because the comparison suggests that the turbines could take
this many houses off-grid, which is not the case.

9. It would be much more accurate to express the significance of wind’s generation in
terms of national consumption (roughly 390 TWh in 2007):

5,777,249 /390,000,000 = 0.015.

My point was that “in any case”, i.e. regardless of what exact figure is used, 1.2m,
1.8m, 2m, the “homes equivalent” calculation is potentially very misleading
and not helpful in giving clear guidance as to progress towards meeting the
2020 targets.

Specifically, the “homes equivalent” figure is likely to lead to a misperception of significance, and particularly so should the public wish to understand the value for money offered by the Renewables Obligation. Assuming a ROC price of about £48 in 2007, wind cost the consumer about £278 million in indirect subsidy, a very substantial sum, so it is important to be clear about the scale of the value returned.”

“In my view, and I know this view is shared by many observers, a better method of expressing the output of a generator, any generator in fact, is as a fraction of total electrical energy generation, as noted above. (Despatchable generators can also be described as a fraction of peak load, as a means of estimating their national significance, but this option is not open to wind in any straightforward way.)

Some would go further and say that since electrical energy is only roughly a third of total
national energy consumption, it would be best to express the wind energy generated as a fraction of Final Energy Consumption (i.e. all energy, heat, electricity, and transport), which is very roughly 1,745 TWh per year at present. Taking the 2007 figure for wind generation we can calculate:

5,777,249 MWh / 1,745,000,000 MWh = 0.0033

In other words wind generated 0.3% of UK Final Energy Consumption in 2007, at a
cost in subsidy of £278 million.”

“I hope you will agree that this is a great deal less misleading than any homes equivalent figure which I really hope you or your department won’t use again, however calculated.”

—-

This correspondence puts things in perspective a bit more when considering what all these industrial wind power stations are contributing to the big picture i.e not much in this case.

However, wind turbines are very visible to the voting general public when they drive around the countryside, and as they drive home I assume a warm feeling of “something being done” settles in their mind as they park the car, flick on the kettle and turn on the TV.

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+ a final question and thoughts from me before i go to bed….

-> Specifically Michael Goggin of the AWEA

You posted some bold statements on the 14th August in post 9.

You are a member of the AWEA and have pointed us to 2 advertorial type documents you have written which claim wind energy’s greatness. How about a bit of substantiation of those bold claims. Provide us with some empirical evidence / hard data that emissions are meaningfully reduced by industrial scale wind power stations, not just figures plucked randomly out of the air.

What are your views on the recent paper by Jay Apt and colleagues?

We haven’t heard a peep from you since. Are your taking part in this discussion?

Here are some more laws of physics and wind turbine facts and information you may want to add to your factsheets and some information you may want to take on board (along with previous posts on this page) ->

The “nameplate” capacity of a wind turbine represents the theoretical maximum MW output. In order to estimate the actual output of each turbine a Load Factor (LF) figure of 20 to 30% of nameplate capacity is often suggested, due to the high variability of wind speed and the turbines power curve. It should be stressed that 20 to 30% is a very generous estimate of efficiency, and the majority of wind installations do not reach this capacity, especially those with relatively poor wind resources such as inland NSW. It is highly unlikely that NSW industrial wind power stations will attain a 30% Load Factor.

This reduction in efficiency is due to a fundamental physical law relating the electrical output to the cube of the wind speed for a wind turbines power curve, usually between about 4m/s (metres per second) and 12 m/s wind speed. This demonstrates how sensitive a turbines output is to wind speed. If the wind speed is below 4m/s (its minimum speed) no power at all is generated from the turbine. If a turbine reaches its maximum capacity at around 12m/s any further increase in wind speed will not result in more power being generated. If the wind speed eventually increases above the turbines maximum rating, often around 25m/s, the turbine is shut down to prevent mechanical damage and no power is generated. Also, if the operating temperature is above 40C wind turbines are shut down to prevent turbine failure. Or in some cases it will burst in to flames and the 200 gallons of oil or so contained in the nacelle, and similar quantities in the base will continue burning until all of said oil burns itself out. During this time a fire crew will usually watch the fireshow and attempt to put out spot fires on the ground and in the vicinity, as wind turbine manufactures advice is to let it burn itself out. After all a rural fire truck doesn’t usually come equipped with an 80m ladder, even the new one (note the singular) that the windpower co has given as a panacea to an uninformed rural fire service.

There is another fundamental physical law, derived by the German physicist Albert Betz in 1919 that further compounds the inefficiency of wind turbines. This law relates to the amount of energy in the wind that a rotor blade can convert. The power extracted from the wind can be no more than 0.59 of the total incoming wind energy. This is due to the fact that the wind is slowed down, but it is not completely stopped. This law puts a fundamental limit on the energy extracted from the wind, resulting in further losses for industrial wind energy.

David MacKay covers these basic physical laws in his Without hot air book mentioned in earlier posts -> http://www.withouthotair.com/Contents.html

These two fundamental unchanging physical laws, coupled with variability and unpredictability of the wind has prompted some illuminating studies around the world. I recommend examining documents at the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) (www.ref.org.uk) who have commissioned independent reports from leading consultants and scientists. In 2006 the REF produced the UK Renewable Energy Data files (www.ref.org.uk/Pages/4/uk_renewable_energy_data.html) which presents publicly available data regarding renewable electricity generation since 2002 (wind, biomass, hydro, landfill gas and sewage gas) in the UK. The raw data for this project is obtained from the Ofgem Renewables Obligation Certificate Register (http://www.rocregister.ofgem.gov.uk/main.asp), which publishes data concerning the issue of Renewables Obligation Certificates to renewable electricity generators. These documents present the Ofgem wind farm data in an easily readable form together with summary, review and comparison to some other European countries.

The average national Load Factor for the UK is 27.4% for 2005 to 2007 compared to Germany 22.6%, Spain 20.2% and Denmark 26.2%.

The first chapter of the Proceedings of the 2008 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “Scoping Meeting on Renewable Energy Sources” mentioned in Section 2 of this submission, “Renewable Energy and Climate Change An Overview” by William Moomaw, discusses and identifies the 3 primary categories of renewable energy sources. The 3 categories are solar, geothermal, and gravitational energy. Solar energy directly provides heat for ocean and land surfaces, drives wind and wave resources, produces biomass and fuels via photosynthesis, and provides energy for the hydrological cycle. Table 1 on page 6 of that paper gives a good overview of the potential of renewable energy sources. The annual flux of global energy use is roughly between 450 and 500 EJ per year. 1EJ = 10^18 joules. To put this in perspective, the amount of renewable energy available from solar is 3,900,000 EJ per year, for wind it is 6,000 EJ per year and for geothermal it is 140,000,000 EJ per year.

Some important points to consider with electric power, particularly in light of potential climate change effects on infrastructure, are noted on pages 7 and 8 of the IPCC chapter :

“Another important aspect of the cost of electric power production is the transmission and distribution systems. According to IEA, approximately 55% of the capital cost of electric power systems is in the “wires” and only 45% is invested in the generation technology. Hence if on-site, distributed generation is utilized (whether fossil fueled or building integrated solar or renewable technology), the transmission costs are generally zero, and the marginal cost of distribution if grid connected is much lower since most of the electricity is utilized where it is generated. This fact needs to be taken into account when comparing costs of alternatives. There are few studies to date that account for this sizable cost component.”

Wind industry developers suggest a 20 to 25 year lifespan for an industrial wind turbine, which involves continuous monitoring and maintenance requiring unlimited 24 hour / 7 days per week / 365 days per year access to the leased land. However, due to the majority of these installations being new developments, few turbines have been around to test these lifespan assumptions under real world conditions. Regarding wind turbine warranties Apt and colleagues state in the American National Academies of Science Fall 2008 on-line journal “Issues in Science and Technology” in a paper titled “A National Renewable Portfolio Standard? Not Practical” that :

“Demand (driven by state RPSs and the federal renewable production tax credit) has already stretched supplies thin, creating an 18-month delivery delay for wind machines. It has also emboldened manufactures to reduce wind turbine warranties from five years to two.”

Turbine failures and engineering problems are an occurrence that has also affected my decision not to host wind turbines. For example, TrustPower’s Snowtown installation was built and is maintained by India’s industrial wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon Energy Ltd. Suzlon have experienced problems with blade failure which has impacted on their share price recently. The 25th October 2008 Wall Street Journal article “Windmill Mishap Weighs on Suzlon” at (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122485006026866321.html) reported on a blade failure incident which drove down the Suzlon shares by 39%. This report tells of a 140ft (42.67m) long turbine blade snapping off and being thrown 150ft (45.72m) from the tower. This is a known problem with Suzlon’s turbine blades :

“Earlier this year, Suzlon, of Pune, India, said it would strengthen or replace 1,251 blades — almost the entire number it has sold to date in the U.S. — after cracks were found on more than 60 blades on turbines run by Deere and Edison International’s Edison Mission Energy.”

Suzlon has been in further trouble as seen in a recent Bloomberg news report on 16th April 2009 “Suzlon Falls Most in 3 Months on Faulty Blade Report“ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aEEY_nocEVzo). Suzlon shares fell 84% last year, with further losses already in 2009. These technical problems are experienced across the whole wind industry and are not just limited to Suzlon. An article in Business Week, 24th August 2007, “ The Dangers of Wind Power” discusses the global rise in the number of accidents and failures (http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/aug2007/gb20070824_562452.htm?chan=globalbiz_europe+index+page_top+stories). Gearboxes in wind turbines are often replaced within the first 5 years. Wind turbines can stand idle for up to 18 months waiting for replacement parts. Also in this report Jan Pohl of insurance firm Allianz in Munich, who faced about 1000 claims in 2006 stated : “an operator has to expect damage to his facility every four years, not including malfunctions and uninsured breakdowns.”

Land leases also commonly have options to renew for a further term, meaning that leases can be tied up for up to 50 or more years. This is similar to the contracts that the wind industry are currently urging landholders to sign. Leases are often on-sold to other companies, bearing in mind that a wind energy company will expect to have profited from their investment well before the lease expires (tax breaks / rapid depreciation etc).

For the landholder attempting to judge the lifetime of an industrial wind plant it is also vital to consider research on the effects of climate change on energy infrastructure. In Chapter 11 (Australia and New Zealand) of the IPCC Working Group II Contribution to the 4th Assessment Report “Climate Change 2007 – Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability” it is worth noting the following in Section 11.4.10 Energy on page 523 :

“Climate change is likely to affect energy infrastructure in Australia and New Zealand through impacts of severe weather events on wind power stations, electricity transmission and distribution networks”.

Later in the same section an assessment of potential risks for Australia found, among other risks, that :

“increased peak and average temperatures are likely to reduce electricity generation efficiency, transmission line capacity, transformer capacity and the life of switchgear and other components”.

This potential for future failures coupled with the known unreliability of wind energy further diminishes the financial returns of industrial wind turbines.

Other studies have shown that there is also the potential for climate change to impact directly on wind resource : Sailor, D.J., M. Smith, and M. Hart, 2008. “Climate change implications for wind power resources in the Northwest United States,” Renewable Energy, 33 (11), pages 2393-2406. This paper concludes that wind generated electricity in the area studied could be reduced by up to 40% through climate change. This research builds on their earlier study Breslow, P., and D.J. Sailor, (2002) “Vulnerability of Wind Power Resources to Climate Change in the Continental United States”, Renewable Energy, 27 (4), pages 585-598. In this work they estimate a 1% to 3.2% reduction in wind speeds in the area studied over the next 50 years, and a 1.4% to 4.5% reduction over the next 100 years. As mentioned above, turbine power output is greatly affected by any small change in wind speed on the power curve, so even small reductions in future wind speeds can have a significant effect on maintaining industrial wind turbine power station viability.

It seems to me Michael that industrial scale wind just doesn’t cut it as a quality emissions reducer which is supposedly why they are being built. Or in terms of security of supply. Unless of course its purely about making money from a guaranteed market that has been made for you and your industrial wind industry associates?

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Eclipsenow # 156

“I think it is misleading to argue that wind has to be able to take those 2 million homes “off grid” as if wind were the *only* power source required.”

I don’t think that is Bryen’s argument.

I think the point he was making was that claims such as – “last year enough power for all the electricity for two million homes came from windpower.” make it sound, to the general public, like they really are taking 2 million homes off the grid, when they are not. It is deceptive, deliberately so IMO.

I agree with Bryen. Talking in terms of *millions of homes* sounds very impressive, but a figure like – 0.3% of national final energy consumption – not so much.

It comes down to which you think is the more honest representation.

Marion

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Regarding Renewable Energy Targets & strategies, I would like to point readers to this briefing note from the REF. It makes the very valid point that setting targets in percentages is problematic, because these are percentages of unkown quantities. Again the REF in the UK makes this quite clear and in this briefing note in response to the UK governments 2009 strategy the issues are made quite plain. This briefing note, published on 27-07-09 is available from http://www.ref.org.uk/PublicationDetails/54

A few selected highlights I found of interest :

—-

“It should be noted this target is focused specifically on obtaining quantities of energy and does not bear directly on green house gas emissions reductions targets, though it is related at one remove with climate change policy.

“In the following discussion we show that, regrettably, the UK Government is probably
mistaken with regard to the size of the target. This error arises since the target is 15% of an unknown quantity, namely Final Energy Consumption in 2020. In our view Government estimates of FEC in 2020 are overly optimistic. The potential error is large, and the target will probably be around 20% greater than that for which the government is planning. This has significant implications for feasibility and cost.”

“At the lower levels Government admits that these targets will be very difficult to achieve. At the higher levels they are almost certainly infeasible. Indeed, there are reasonable doubts about the attainability of the lower quantities. For example, the levels of wind currently suggested (upwards of 25 GW) as necessary for the lower target would confront the UK with unprecedented balancing and grid management problems…”

“So the Renewable Energy Strategy would deliver annual savings of 7% of UK emissions and just 0.1% of current world emissions at extreme costs, and additional fiscal strain on already fragile economy. Clearly, this is not a good bargain, and reinforces the point we have often made that renewables are poor emissions reducers, whatever other virtues they might have.”

“For example, subsidised and mandated wind power on the scales currently contemplated by government will impair the economics of other plant but fail to provide compensating value. Investors in the still indispensable firm capacity needed to meet peak load (60 GW at 5.30 on a winter’s day) will have no option but to minimise their risk by seeking the least capital intensive generation, which is gas-fired.”

“…in the electricity sector the very aggressive wind policy (26GW of installed capacity) will ensure that for economic and technical reasons no other generation capacity except gas can be built, thus deepening and compounding UK gas dependency rather than alleviating it.”

“It must be emphasised that contrary to Government assertions the renewables
policy is a gas policy in disguise.”

“… renewables on the irrational and politically driven scale outlined in the Renewable Energy Strategy will become a dangerous liability. Distressed and painful policy corrections are inevitable.”

—-

I find these very interesting and valid points regarding renewable energy policy.

Also note the statement about renewables being poor emissions reducers, something that people have to recognise about wind energy. I hope that the selection of papers and reports that I’ve mentioned are taken into account when assessing Peter Lang’s paper and posts regarding industrial winds poor greenhouse gas emissions reduction. Clearly he is not alone in saying this, nor is he the only one who has done studies refuting “the wind blows everywhere” idea put out by the wind industry, as the research papers & links I have posted show.

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This article just posted today provides a short analysis of the effects of the MRET, and a move to word prices for gas, on electricity generation costs.

http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2009/08/the-costs-of-power

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Eclipsenow re post 162 :

Please contribute something useful to this discussion. All you are doing is side stepping the issue on this thread and posting future dreams. The issue under discussion is industrial wind energy (in its present form) and its lack of significant greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial scale wind turbine power stations are a real problem that has and continues affect people and the environment negatively. Even if all these dreams get built at some unspecified time in the future, it does not alter the facts regarding the negative impacts of existing industrial wind turbine technology and power stations.

And now that the NSW State Government (and other Governments around the world) have decided to fast track “wind farm” planning applications and in NSW waive the up to $3million application fees (now a mere $50k) the problems are only going to get worse. Worse because a slackening of planning laws will clearly take precedence in the aim of winning the misinformed urban “green” vote, rather than protecting the public and the environment.

For example, the decommissioning of wind turbines is laughably being passed through planning applications, both in Australia and around the world by the developers stating in their applications that decommissioning will be covered by scrap value. This is simply not true. And many farmers hosting turbines in Australia and overseas are under the impression that they will get the scrap value when the project is at the end of its useful life. But this is not the case, farmers and/or the local community will end up with a VERY LARGE BILL to remove the turbines, or has happened in other developments they will simply be abandoned on site. See this recent report that was commissioned in USA regarding the 124 turbine Beech Ridge development->

http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-decommissioning-costs-lessons-learned/

The report found that there was a $10million underestimate by the developer, and this was due to the developer trying to hide the true cost. So given the amount of industrial wind turbine developments and this is common practice by the industry to claim that decom is covered by scrap, there are going to be a heck of a lot of abandoned turbines in the future.

Here a nice picture of abandoned turbines in Hawaii ->

http://www.windaction.org/pictures/4146

To see if this practice is being perpetuated in Australia just have a look at the planning applications, for example in NSW :

Harden / Yass Preliminary Assessment document Chapter 4, Page 13, Section 4.5.3 available at
http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/page/project-sectors/transport–communications–energy—water/generation-of-electricity-or-heat-or-co-generation/?action=view_job&job_id=2765

Then go up a level and look at all the under consideration or approved applications and look up the decommissioning :

http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/page/project-sectors/transport–communications–energy—water/generation-of-electricity-or-heat-or-co-generation/

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Irrespective of whether wind-kite technology exists and may some day be developed to the stage when it is deployed :

it doesn’t change any of the facts regarding the wide scale negative impacts of industrial wind power stations. Which, sadly, do exist and are continuing to be built.

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This message, just received, relates to earlier discussions about sudden iterruptions to wind power.

Cullerin and Capital wind farms both shut down at around 02:00 this
morning as winds became gale force. This meant the sudden disappearance
of >100MW of generation (which has probably since reappeared just as
suddenly – I only have data to 4am). Once the numerous other proposed
wind farms in the area have been constructed it may mean the sudden
disappearance of several hundred megawatts.

Perhaps windy months lead not only to higher capacity factors (I expect
August will be >40% across all wind farms) but also to an increased risk
of severe intermittency problems. Difficult to forecast whether the shut
down threshold may or may not be met as well.

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Eclipsenow re post 168

re point 4) when they release some specifications and measurements we’ll all know

I think its a shame that you do not seem to take any of the real issues I have mentioned seriously.

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Eclipsenow re post 170 :

No one here is “straw-manning”.

Last time I looked the wind was nowhere near 100% wind on the grid (& neither has been proposed by gov, the wind industry or anyone else for that matter), the problems of existing and planned wind turbines on the grid however remain and industrial scale wind turbine power stations makes things worse. The wind turbines that we are discussing are the ones that are actually being deployed at present.

re : * keep blasting away about the sound when many wind farms (in Australia at least) are away from population centres,

tell that to the poor people in rural Australia and around the world who DO have to live near them (along with all the other problems they cause), just to provide a measly bit of unreliable power to population centers elsewhere, with no significant reduction in greenhouse gases to show for it.

You are somewhat mistaken about them being away from population areas, and plenty of people in rural towns have to live with them, and the latest one near a city is slated to go up at Adelaide fringe.

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,27574,25966853-2682,00.html

“Wind farms” have gone up on the outskirts of cities in New Zealand with much outcry. And plenty of “wind farms” have been built right next to people homes, within a few hundred metres. Just a handful of quick examples

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25970616-5005200,00.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/wellington/2776773/Ka-thunks-get-on-the-nerves-of-Makara-residents

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25964195-5013404,00.html

http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/stories/2009/08/21/1245c24084d2

See the document I mentioned by Dr Christopher Hanning MD on “Sleep Disturbance and Wind Turbine Noise”.
http://www.windaction.org/documents/22602

you might discover that industrial wind turbines are actually being inflicted on people at close range all over the world.

Regarding nuclear read David MacKay’s chapter, that will put things in perspective, it did for me, and that is my sum total knowledge of nuclear (you’ll notice I have not made a single comment regarding nuclear as I do not feel I have adeqwuately researched the subject yet) :

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c24/page_161.shtml

If you have nothing to contribute to this thread topic, then you should be posting somewhere else on what you hope will happen regarding wind energy in the future. I think geothermal and solar thermal (particularly the Lloyd Energy graphite system) have great potential, but that is a different thread and I will post my views on that elsewhere.

The topic of this thread is about wind energy and emissions reductions i.e. wind energy that is installed using present technology turbines. This is not “straw-manning” as you imply, but a real problem facing real people. If you are not happy with this, why don’t you ask Barry to set up another topic on future wind technologies? Just dont forget about the cube limit and the Betz limit :

http://www.skywindpower.com/ww/index.htm

I am honestly addressing the topic and based on the research I have read and posted about extensively above :

Industrial wind turbines in their present incarnation i.e. so called “wind farms” provide no significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and come with an additional lengthy list of real problems that need to be addressed.

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Peter re post 167 :

Thats interesting, I drove past Cullerin range on my way to Sydney today, at about 10am, and again at about 4.30pm. It has been extremely windy in the area and the blades were going round the fastest I’ve ever seen. As other readers may or may not be aware, industrial wind turbines have a limited operating wind power curve.

This is the reason the amount of output per turbine must be carefully calculated and it should be noted the “nameplate” capacity represents the theoretical maximum MW output e.g. 1MW, 2MW etc. so when you read about a 30MW “wind farm” such as Cullerin Range, it doesn’t produce 30MW all the time. In order to estimate the actual output of each turbine an average Load Factor (LF) figure of 20 to 30% of nameplate capacity is often suggested, due to the high variability of wind speed and the turbines power curve. It should be stressed that 20 to 30% is a very generous estimate of efficiency, and the majority of wind installations do not reach this capacity, especially those with relatively poor wind resources such as inland NSW. It is highly unlikely that NSW industrial wind power stations will attain a 30% Load Factor on average.

This reduction in efficiency is due to a fundamental physical law relating the electrical output to the cube of the wind speed for a wind turbines power curve, usually between about 4m/s (metres per second) and 12 m/s wind speed. This demonstrates how sensitive a turbines output is to wind speed. If the wind speed is below 4m/s (its minimum speed) no power at all is generated from the turbine. If a turbine reaches its maximum capacity at around 12m/s any further increase in wind speed will not result in more power being generated. If the wind speed continues to increase above the turbines maximum rating, often around 25m/s, the turbine is shut down to prevent mechanical damage and again no power at all is generated. Also, if the operating temperature at any time is above 40C wind turbines are shut down to prevent turbine failure.

These issues can lead to catastrophic failure, potentially resulting in fire or tower collapse for example, which does happen. The most recent turbine fire was with a brand new turbine :

http://www.windaction.org/news/22790

http://www.windaction.org/news/22666

Note that the second news story states that it is the “first of its kind” -> “What they have told us is that this particular platform, the V90 turbine, has not had a fire like this that has just happened on its own,” Edworthy said.
What they are referring to here is the model V90, Vestas have had fires with their other turbines, as have other manufacturers :

Someone caught a bit of this one on video :

http://www.windaction.org/videos/22704

There have been others, in fact one in South Australia reported in Adelaide Sunday Mail 12 February 2006 :

http://www.windaction.org/pictures/1527

Suzlon turbine failure examples :

http://www.windaction.org/pictures/14800

http://www.windaction.org/pictures/14799

http://www.windaction.org/pictures/14798

I am pretty sure the Suzlon models as shown are the same as Cullerin Range and Bungendore. Snowtown definately has the Suzlon S88 model in the photos.

It will be interesting to look at the power output for Cullerin and others in this period. I will do so when I get time. I am pretty busy with my other things, its a shame there is so little funded research.

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Re Eclipsenow posts regarding Better Place

We need a “Better Plan” for the Better Place :

http://betterplan.squarespace.com/

The Better Place sticker saying “my next car will run on the wind” should also come with a large print warning, a bit like on cigarette packets saying “Caution : Wind energy can be harmful to the public and the environment”

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Bryen – “They are a 30metre 500kw turbine, most industrial scale “wind farms” are being built with 1, 2 and higher MW turbines and are hub of height about 80 metres and total; height around 125m or higher.”

Yes they are and they have specific design features for the conditions in New Zealand. I only posted them to make the point the the cut-out wind speed is a design choice not a fundamental limit.

“I was just making sure that people realise that the stronger the wind the higher the output does have a limit. ”

I am sure that people that can look at a wind turbine output graph and interpret it can see this as it is published with every turbine sold. If farmers who are installing them do not know this then they perhaps should get some independent advice.

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Re Peters post : 167 on Cullerin & Capital shutting down

I’ve looked at the AEMO 5 minute data in Excel for the period 23-08-09 : 01:42 – 2009-08-26 : 08:42 for both Cullerin Range and Capital / Bungendore. Also of note they both simultaneously dipped earlier : Capital offline, with Cullerin offline and just beginning coming back up a few minutes earlier than Capital, on 23-08-09 at 17:55 to 20:25. In fact if you type in those dates (23-08-09 : 01:42 – 2009-08-26 : 08:42) at :

http://www.landscapeguardians.org.au/data/aemo/

and get the 5 minute data for both, plot the charts in Excel you will see these two near simultaneous off line events.

Also of note is that Capital was running at 50% anyway when it went completely offline, it was peaking flat at around 76MW, and this is a 141MW plant according to AEMO. So maybe half of it was shut down earlier in any case due to the high winds… either that or its not fully operational yet, which it is supposed to be. It definately reached around the 100MW mark very briefly. The July 20 to August 20 data shows that Capital had a very brief period around 100MW, the rest looks pretty poor. Both Cullerin and Capital were extremely variable for that July 20 to August 20 period as mentioned above in post 149.

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Eclipse Now,

Further to your post #183 and to Bryen’s reply #184, do you have any comment on post #165 here: https://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/08/does-wind-power-reduce-carbon-emissions/

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In addition to the recent studies mentioned in my earlier posts, a number of new studies I’ve just found are worth checking out ->

Click to access Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf

Part 1 covers “The real state-of-play and its hidden costs”

A quick quote : “The wind power that is exported from Denmark saves neither fossil fuel consumption nor CO2 emissions in Denmark, where it is all paid for.”

Part 2 covers “Wind energy’s effect on employment”

& their site is very good too :

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2008/09/26/facts-on-energy-wind/

http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/09/17/wind-lobby-all-spun-up-about-danish-case-study/

—-

This doc (Aug 2009) from Health Canada pulls up a wind developer who states that there is no peer reviewed papers on health effetcs.

http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/health-canada’s-response-to-the-digby-wind-power-project-addendum-digby-nova-scotia/

I would also add to their list of ref’s the peer reviewed papers :

Graham Harding, Pamela Harding, and Arnold Wilkins, (2008) “Wind turbines, flicker, and photosensitive epilepsy: Characterizing the flashing that may precipitate seizures and optimizing guidelines to prevent them” Epilepsia 49(6) pages 1095-1098

&

Castelo Branco NAA, Alves-Pereira M. (2007) “In-Home Wind Turbine Noise Is Conducive to Vibroacoustic Disease”, Second International Conference on Wind Turbine Noise, Lyon, France.

—-

Also on the wind-watch doc page is a good new doc (Sept 2009) just out about wind farm’s negative effect on property values :

http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-turbine-impact-study/

—-

There is also the need for research into large scale wind farms effect on local climate, to date there has been very little research :

Somnath Baidya Roy, Steve Pacala and Robert L. Walko (2004) Can Large Windfarms Affect Local Meteorology? J. Geophys. Res.-Atmos. VOL. 109, D19101.

available at http://www.atmos.uiuc.edu/~sbroy/research.htm

&

David W. Keith, Joseph F. DeCarolis, David C. Denkenberger, Donald H. Lenschow, Sergey L. Malyshev, Stephen Pacala and Philip J. Rasch (2004). The influence of large-scale wind-power on global climate. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101, p. 16115-16120.

Click to access 66.Keith.2004.WindAndClimate.e.pdf

David Keith et al were investigating whether large scale wind will affect global climate, not local climate. In terms of local climate effects Keith states on this web page :

http://www.ucalgary.ca/~keith/WindAndClimateNote.html

“It is plausible, however, that significant local climate change could occur in areas where wind farms are concentrated even if wind supplies a small fraction of global electricity demand.”

See also Jay Apt’s quotes in my earlier post #141

—-

The very recent POYROY report “Impact of Intermittency” is also very interesting reading :

A freely available summary report is here :

Click to access Intermittency%20Public%20Report%202_0.pdf

http://www.ilexenergy.com/?t=7_0Latest#IntermittencyFinal

The press release :

Click to access Poyry%20Wind%20Study%20Press%20Release.pdf

—-

Energy Sprawl, which covers issues related to renewables such as biofuel, solar, and wind among others +, nuclear + fossil fuels->

McDonald RI, Fargione J, Kiesecker J, Miller WM, Powell J, 2009 Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America. PLoS ONE 4(8): e6802. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0006802

available for free download from the Public Library of Science :

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0006802

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The latest interesting paper on negative environmental effects of industrial wind energy on wildlife is in the journal Biological Conservation :

Carrete, M., et al. Large scale risk-assessment of wind-farms on population viability of a globally endangered long-lived raptor. Biol. Conserv. (2009), doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.07.027

Abstract :

“Wind-farms receive public and governmental support as an alternative energy source mitigating air pol-
lution. However, they can have adverse effects on wildlife, particularly through collision with turbines.
Research on wind-farm effects has focused on estimating mortality rates, behavioural changes or inter-
specific differences in vulnerability. Studies dealing with their effects on endangered or rare species pop-
ulations are notably scarce. We tested the hypothesis that wind-farms increase extinction probability of
long-lived species through increments in mortality rates. For this purpose, we evaluate potential conse-
quences of wind-farms on the population dynamics of a globally endangered long-lived raptor in an area
where the species maintains its greatest stronghold and wind-farms are rapidly increasing. Nearly one-
third of all breeding territories of our model species are in wind-farm risk zones. Our intensive survey
shows that wind-farms decrease survival rates of this species differently depending on individual breed-
ing status. Consistent with population monitoring, population projections showed that all subpopulations
and the meta-population are decreasing. However, population sizes and, therefore, time to extinction sig-
nificantly decreased when wind-farm mortality was included in models. Our results represent a qualita-
tive warning exercise showing how very low reductions in survival of territorial and non-territorial birds
associated with wind-farms can strongly impact population viability of long-lived species. This highlights
the need for examining long-term impacts of wind-farms rather than focusing on short-term mortality, as
is often promoted by power companies and some wildlife agencies. Unlike other non-natural causes of
mortality difficult to eradicate or control, wind-farm fatalities can be lowered by powering down or
removing risky turbines and/or farms, and by placing them outside areas critical for endangered birds.”

This is a particularly good paper, and also particularly relevant to Australian wind energy development in view of our Wedge Tailed Eagle population that is currently in danger of such developments. It is interesting to note that should a wind turbine kill a Wedge Tailed Eagle the fine is a mere $1500, assuming it is recorded, whereas the fine for an individual would be in the order of $5000.

It is interesting to note that the wind industry constantly plays down the effect of wind turbines on birds by making such meaningless statements as “more birds are killed by cats than wind turbines” which is a completely meaningless statistic as no consideration is given to species type. Cats aren’t generally known to roam around taking out eagles.

Another good paper which looks at the real issues relating to wind energy and wildlife, and how simple statistics like mortalities per turbine do not present a meaningful picture see ->

Kuvlesky et al, (2007), “Wind Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation: Challenges and Opportunities, Journal of Wildlife Management, 71(8), pp2487-2498 (Invited)

Abstract

“Wind energy development represents significant challenges and opportunities in contemporary wildlife management. Such challenges include the large size and extensive placement of turbines that may represent potential hazards to birds and bats. However, the associated infrastructure required to support an array of turbines—such as roads and transmission lines—represents an even larger potential threat to wildlife than the turbines themselves because such infrastructure can result in extensive habitat fragmentation and can provide avenues for invasion by exotic species. There are numerous conceptual research opportunities that pertain to issues such as identifying the best and worst placement of sites for turbines that will minimize impacts on birds and bats. Unfortunately, to date very little research of this type has appeared in the peer-reviewed scientific literature; much of it exists in the form of unpublished reports and other forms of gray literature. In this paper, we summarize what is known about the potential impacts of wind farms on wildlife and identify a 3-part hierarchical approach to use the scientific method to assess these impacts. The Lower Gulf Coast (LGC) of Texas, USA, is a region currently identified as having a potentially negative impact on migratory birds and bats, with respect to wind farm development. This area is also a region of vast importance to wildlife from the standpoint of native diversity, nature tourism, and opportunities for recreational hunting. We thus use some of the emergent issues related to wind farm development in the LGC—such as siting turbines on cropland sites as opposed to on native rangelands—to illustrate the kinds of challenges and opportunities that wildlife managers must face as we balance our demand for sustainable energy with the need to conserve and sustain bird migration routes and corridors, native vertebrates, and the habitats that support them.”

Something to bear in mind when looking at the locations of the wind farm precincts in NSW that NSW Premier Nathan Rees has announced without consulting any of the local populations.

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Just for interest, have a look at this : http://www.transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx

Notice how for most of the past week, the contribution from wind power has been close to zero.

More importantly, notice that at times of peak demand (Nov, 2, 3 and 4) wind’s contribution is zero or near zero.

This is just one more example of what is being found from all over the world from the real data. Wind is intermittent, unreliable and generates near valueless energy. The theoretical analyses that researchers like Jacobson and Diesendorf have been propogating for decades, is being shown by the actual data from wind farms to be complete nonsense.

I wonder how long until this site is also removed from the web. The German wind power monitor used to show a chart like this for all Germany’s wind turbines. It was removed because it was displaying charts just like this one.

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Bryen,

Thank you for posting this. I haven’t read it yet. Does it say that ll future wind farms are to be built in State Parks, National parks and World Heritage areas. I recall a recent discussion here or elsewhaer that proposed that since they have ‘no significant ecological foot print’.

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many of the proposed/approved wind farms in NSW are in critically endangered box gum grassy woodland areas.

this page lists all the planning apps for electricity :

http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/page/project-sectors/transport–communications–energy—water/generation-of-electricity-or-heat-or-co-generation/

For example take a look at Harden / Yass / (part of the Conroys Gap development),

Epuron put Harden / Yass on exhibition for a mere 30 days :

http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/page/project-sectors/transport–communications–energy—water/generation-of-electricity-or-heat-or-co-generation/?action=view_job&job_id=2765

This project is being “Fast Tracked” under the new legislation, and the developerwould not have to pay an application fee.

Have a look at the Environmental Assessment that most people have found out about 2 weeks into that process. Hmm thats an extensive and large set of documents to get through in 2 weeks, just before Christmas!

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Re Conroys Gap I lived in that area 1994-2004. Dare I suggest there is a feelgood factor in having motorists on the Hume Highway see the blades turning as opposed to hiding them in the boondocks. When they tried to build a natural gas truck fuelling station on the highway at Yass it was knocked back. It seems imaginary carbon savings beat real ones.

On feelgood factor I wonder if the SA government has been stung by criticisms that wind power does not load follow in summer. They want solar panels on every public building regardless of cost.

On parks I think they are meant to reflect pre-European arrival. That’s why we accept the culling of cute exotic animals and weeds because they are alien. Same goes for wind turbines.

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Barry,

Bryen said:

“This project is being “Fast Tracked” under the new legislation, and the developerwould not have to pay an application fee.”

Perhaps we could suggeest that nuclear be fast tracked too. The precedent has been established: fast track electrcity generation to reduce CO2 emissions.

Here is another idea. The government has agreed to accept all the risk for CO2 leeaks for Carbon Capture and storage.

So the precendent has been set: the government accepts the commerical risk for industrial accidents for new electrcity generation technologies that reduce CO2 emissions.

These precedents, if applied, should help us to implement low-cost nuclear in Australia.

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Time frames for industrial scale power station construction often get quoted on on BNC. Some notes on the process as I’ve seen it ->

For the Conroys Gap wind farm section approval was given on 31 May 2007 by Frank Sartor MP, who was NSW Minister for Planning at the time, he is now : NSW Minister for Climate Change and the Environment Minister Assisting the Minister for Health (Cancer)

Our new NSW Premier, has also approved some, I think she did Cullerin.

As far as I’m aware no construction work has begun yet at Conroys Gap, and the Environmental Assessment (EA) and wind monitoring would have taken 1 to 2 years minimum, + the developer than has to sell it on, this one went to Origin, as did Cullerin to portfolio partner with their gas power stations presumably.

So this coming May 2010, would make that about 5 years pre-construction time (some wind farms take longer). Then it has to get built, Conroys Gap is for 15 turbines, but integrated with whole Yass wind farm of 215 turbines, construction would likely be > 2 to 3 years, in fact in the EA for Yass section alone (152 turbines) the estimate is 24 – 36 months (p70)

The reality of industrial wind is that any tinpot speculating developer can throw together an app, with no cash support whatsover or hope to build the thing, get approval, and then breeze around for a while looking for a project buyer as the planning approval gives them 3 years to begin construction (unless they write to the gov and ask for longer), see the Determination doc for Conroys Gap, see p5 “lapsing of approval” :

http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/page/project-sectors/transport–communications–energy—water/generation-of-electricity-or-heat-or-co-generation/?action=view_job&job_id=140

Prior to this process above the wind farm speculators have to trundle around the countryside signing up landholders within a turbines spin of a powerline (a process which is potentially extremely murky and is arguably a higher priority than wind resource from a developers perspective). We can easily add on another year or so for this, and wind monitoring towers require a contract of some form to be signed before they can be erected.

At present the public, local communities & affected neighbouring landholders are given 30 days public exhibition time in which to read and digest the information contained in the Environmental Assessment. In many cases it can be some time into this exhibition period before they are made aware that such a development is being proposed. I challenge anyone to receive such a document with associated Appendices, data images etc. in the midst of their life/business and be able to make a satisfactory comment in such a short space of time. All this given that the developer and the paid consultants has been involved in getting it to that stage for several years

It is important that issues of “sustainable energy” recognise the communities where they are being placed. How much electricity does the ACT consume? In the NEM, ACT appears within NSW, as yet I have not found any figure for electricity consumption in the ACT. It would be interesting to overlay the NSW RE precinct map with geographical electricity consumption seeing as how Sydney, most of the developed coast and the ACT are excluded. Perhaps then apply the Causer Pay idea and think about where things should be built.

Personally I think the Fast Tracking process is flawed and too open to abuse, as is clearly the case for industrial wind development. At the very least it needs VERY close monitoring and independant peer review / evaluation of all Environmental Assessment documents before any planning decision is made.

So lets add some of that up in a quick back of the envelope fashion & say, 1 year for negotiating with a landholder and getting a monitoring tower up, 1 year of monitoring (assuming a quick buck developer, 2 to 3 years for more reliable info), 1 year for doing & writing EA, 30 days for public comment (a blip so we can ignore this), 3 years to get buyer / funding and start construction, construction (depends on size e.g. Yass section 152 turbines @ 2.5MW = 380MW = 2 to 3 years).

= 5 to 6 years assuming immediate buyer (develop & sell)
= 8 to 9 years assuming time wasting / develop & delay strategy

note : develop & sell / develop & delay as an industrial scale wind strategy is outlined in :

Kann, S (2009) Overcoming barriers to wind project finance in Australia, Energy Policy 37 p3139-3148
This paper is from the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems @ ANU

The above development time figures are quick calcs, I encourage people to read the Planning Apps, Env Assessments and approval docs to get a realistic handle on dates to come to an independant idea of how long it takes to build industrial scale wind power stations, and some of the process involved in siting, and what the local environments/ecologies where they are constructed are composed of.

If people value critically endangered ecosystems, and the plants and wildlife they contain, peoples rights and health, particularly in Australia, I would suggest looking through some of these EA development application documents for industrial scale wind power stations. Try and assess for yourself what kind of an impact they will have. If you are not in a position to do this yourself, give yourself 30 days to find someone at your expense who can offer a critical and credible opinion that you trust.

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Bryen,

Thank you for this summary.

My reaction is this: If this is the case for wind power (and I accept it is), imagine what would be involved in getting approval to build an NPP.

It is the regulatory and approvals process we need to address in Australia if we want low-cost, low-emissions electricity any time soon.

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If you look at the end of the NSW wind farm inquiry report, Appendix 6, you will notice that ALL 3 of the ALP members of the panel dissented and did not support the 2km set backs from residences. Gives you an idea of the level of compansion floating around….

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Peter,

To answer your question about wind farms & state forest some recent announcements for wind farms are getting pretty close :

Adjungbilly wind farm, which is just down the road from Yass and all the other wind farms being proposed in NSW renewable energy ghet, er I mean Precincts. And also Shannons Flat at Cooma some details here from the developer CBD Energy (which should give you an idea how far away they will be sleeping…) :

Click to access 10:09:2009%20CBD%20Initiates%20new%20NSW%20wind%20farm.pdf

Click to access CBD%20Signs%20Wind%20Turbine%20Supply%20Agreement%20with%20Tianwei%203%20pages.pdf

Click to access 13:10:2009%20Receives%20Report%20on%20Shannons%20Flat%20Wind%20Farm.pdf

Note the agreement with China for turbine supply, hmmmm wonder if they;ll make them here or over in China, that would certainly affect any Life Cycle Analysis conducted by an independent peer reviewer. If you read the press releases, they sound pretty confident they’re going to get approved…

Yass and others are also in Critically Endangered Box Gum Grassy Woodland, along with associated flora and fauna, some of which are also endangered or otherwise on the way down…

The Molonglo Ridge one would have been very close to, but it was shelved, however with the new incentives the residents there are of course still worried as the project could of course be onsold :

http://www.mlg.org.au/

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