BNC community analysis of the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Report

Right now I don’t have time to comb through the report so I was drawn to page 121 where electricity prices are discussed. Apparently you good folks are paying about 0.20 Australian dollars per KWAh and the plan will increase this by about one third.

Thankfully I live in Florida where the electricity costs only 60% of what you are paying. The main power company here (Florida Power & Light) operates a large solar mirror plant and a 75 MW photo-voltaic that is currently the largest in the USA.

Even though the PV project is currently the largest in the USA it is a financial joke among FPL executives. They already know that these solar plants are a waste of time; they would never have been built without government subsidies.

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The zero carbon 2020 report is basically a conceptual document. Now what is needed are the details. We need specific projects with time tables and cash flows to be developed. New solar plants and new wind farms must be constructed. Financing must be arranged. Integration into the existing grid will take careful and rather detailed planning. Personally I think it will be more difficult than the authors have stated. I doubt the economics will flow smoothly. Also, I wonder if there is enough water to keep the solar panels clean? Good luck to the authors. You have just done the first step, which is to create the vision.

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Did anyone note the assumptions about motor vehicles and trains (page 16/17) :

“replacement of the present petroleum-fuelled fleet with
electric vehicles, comprising ‘plug-in, battery swap’
models and plug-in hybrid-electric vehicles, using liquid
biofuels to extend the driving range;”

This would require retiring the 12 million current vehicles plus all those that are sold between now and the target date, and substituting with 6 million electric vehicles plus public transport.

This type of assumption beggars belief and does an injustice to the legitimate advocacy of renewables and the realistic role that they could perform in the coming decades.

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Bryen,
Your example of 5min output from one wind farm( ranging from 0-10% of capacity) gives zero indication of what 5min variation is on the 18 wind farms connected to NEM grid. These figures are available, not a large range in 5min versus 30 min output. Changes occur over hours, and thats with a relatively small area compared with what is proposed.
Hopefully OZ-wind modeling will give better information on this point.
I thought it was strange that no wind farms are sited in TAS when in fact this has some of the best wind resources ( and lots of back-up hdyro)

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I was disappointed that the ZCA 2020 plan put so much emphasis on solar with thermal storage. I think the reason wind power was limited to 40% stationary power was due to a basic miss-understanding of Australia’s hydro storage resources and potential to add very significant pumped storage onto existing dams.
The value of solar with thermal storage is the high efficiency of storing a few days output, excellent for managing peaks and managing short term valuations in wind power. The value of existing hydro resources is in long term storage(seasonal), and the value of large storage capacity pumped storage is for days to weeks storage needs because the major cost is capacity not storage amounts. Existing pumped storage is being used to insure against short term exceptional demand spikes, and is not indicative of how pumped storage could be used with renewable energy such as wind.

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Neil Howes,

I think the reason wind power was limited to 40% stationary power was due to a basic miss-understanding of Australia’s hydro storage resources and potential to add very significant pumped storage onto existing dams.
…

The value of existing hydro resources is in long term storage(seasonal), and the value of large storage capacity pumped storage is for days to weeks storage needs because the major cost is capacity not storage amounts. Existing pumped storage is being used to insure against short term exceptional demand spikes, and is not indicative of how pumped storage could be used with renewable energy such as wind.

You keep repeating this bunkum statement as if by doing so you can make it come true. It has been debunked repeatedly, so why keep repeating it? Why haven’t you responded to this post: https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/06/30/ozea-bucket-wind-model/#comment-80281 ?

Is the lack of response by the RE advocates to this post a case of cognitive dissonance?

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John Newlands,

We’ve been doing these sorts of demo projects for 30+ years (eg the solar thermal power station at Whitecliffs, NSW in about 1983). David Mills (solar thermal) has been extracting his booty from the public purse for even longer. All these projects are “just about to be economically viable, if only the government could see the light and give more subsidies”.

The same story has been going on for decades. These rip-off merchants keep convincing new and gullible young people and new and gullible politicians that they have the silver bullet if they could just have a bit more government funding.

Will we ever learn? I don’t think so.

I can see we will fund some more of these “demo projects”. And that will further delay us making the rational decisions.

It’s all spin and no substance.

No proper cost benefit analyses by people competent to do so.

Which brings me to the list of people who endorsed the ZCA2020 report. Basically it is a list of renewable energy advocates and wishful thinkers. There are no senior, competent electricity industry insiders. The only name I saw who does know something is Keith Orchison, and he was pretty careful with his words; read between the lines.

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This is a good idea John, and analogous to the idea of commissioning renewables to try to replace Hazelwood. Let renewables have the money they think they need to power one sizeable community — say at least 20,000 people in a rural area for one year. The community gets to vote on it (minimum 75% support and quorum) and gets their energy free. When the facility is ready, it comes online and the grid is disconnected.

The local hospital and petrol stations get their own generators, water treatement and pumping as standby and if they are deployed, this is recorded. We record load shedding. We answer the question of whether there is any point to to renewables at all.

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Response to Peter Lang. You are right. I’m not going to give you a full forensic analysis today. It may take a few weeks but some initial comments on the CST proposal.

They do seem to have attempted to analyse the impact of contemporaneous cloud cover and wind loss. My concerns would be around geographic analysis. As you say an analysis would be needed in each region unless all the inter-regional links can handle 100% of demand in the region (with zero or very low local generation). I haven’t checked this in their proposal but it would seem to be a possible exposure.

I am also concerned about the biomass back-up. CSP plants are usually built in low rainfall locations (high insolation) so local fuel supply may be an issue. Transporting pelletised crop waste is not like piping gas. Maybe the crop waste could be gassified at the growing site for transportation? I didn’t see any reference to the emission impact of transporting biomass (someone might be able to correct that). Will just 2% biomass back-up be enough? Not intuitively everywhere.

Another concern is the ability of steam turbines to handle the rapid ramp rates that can be required to back-up wind. They do suggest on page 51 that this is not a problem but has this been demonstrated? It isn’t normally done today to my knowledge with steam (again perhaps someone can correct me on that as well).

More to follow ….

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This is already being done to some extent in Esperance, WA where they have a mix of wind and diesel back-up.

Not really

A new gas-fired power station, new gas pipeline and new wind farm were built to boost the town’s electricity supply. The electricity network was upgraded at the same time.

The power station has high-efficiency, low-emission gas turbine generators. It is manned, controlled and operated in Esperance and monitored remotely from Perth. Greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by up to 30% as a result the new generators.

Natural gas for the new power station is supplied via a new gas pipeline from Kambalda.

It is obvious that to some extent here means mostly not. This is simply a hybrid system with some marginal renewables in a quite small community.

The real value of renewable energy or nuclear energy is not what can be generated at one site with one technology or one reactor design, its how the nation can be powered using all of the resources available

I agree, but at the moment we have so many claims that start off saying something like “renewables could …” that I think there is a real need to be able to say “renewables have …” otherwise we are going to have analytic paralysis.

No more proof of principle projects should be done in things claiming to be able to do baseload. Let them actually show they can deliver in practice at scale and let us see what that cost is and assess the performance.

If it turns out to be adequate and cost competitive, fine. We move forward. We can roll out others in places with similar specs and scale up. But if it turns out simply to be unviable, as I strongly suspect it would, then we can discard the concept and work with something that is.

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my above comment should have read : “The story is little more involved than you described :” not your described.

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Neil Howes,

I wonder why the wind power is included at all. What does it do? It seems it is simply capital investment for no return.

Wind power can go for days at a time with negligible generation. For example, we have1609MW of wind capacity in the NEM. It is spread over an area 1200km (east-west) by 800 km (north-south). From 17 to 22 May it generated little power and sometimes zero power for hours at a time. From memory, the capacity factor was about 1% for two days. Not much better for a week. So we can go for long periods with no wind power over large regions.

The proposed CST will have 17 hours energy storage (none have yet been built anywhere in the world I understand). When the wind isn’t blowing anywhere, the CST will have to provide all the power.

So why should we waste money investing in wind power? It seems to me we need to make a strategic decisions whether to go with unproven CST (for probably in excess of $1 trillion) or proven nuclear for around $120 billion.

By the way, the cost to replace the existing generations system with nuclear is not $120 billion, it is only the extra cost of replacing existing power stations with nuclear at the end of their economic lives instead of replacing them with new coal. The additional cost for nuclear is relatively small and could be a negative cost if we remove all the impediments to nuclear.

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I’ll leave the technicals to the boffins, but I think the reply would do well to run a comparison between the nuclear scenario and the Zero Carbon Australia scenario highlighting that the nuclear is much much cheaper… and cleaner.

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I’m finding curious gaps in the report. For example 3.5.3 Zero Emissions Steel Smelting discusses electrical heating for steel refining, not how to avoid coking coal in the making of primary pig iron. Coal without CCS is mentioned with solar co-gen for the Gladstone alumina (ie oxide) refinery, not the smelter for aluminium metal.

Part 5 is supposed to discuss the rationale for a National Grid joining all States and Territories. They referred this section to consultants. I infer that the trans Nullarbor link is HVDC replicated with HVAC but the text appears to be omitted, as is any discussion of the need for redundant routes suggested upthread by Peter Lang. I think the SA-WA link could be justified on the grounds of lack of NIMBYs on the desert coast and the fact that WA will be the last place left with cheap gas. I didn’t see any discussion along those lines, only the effect of time zones.

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Cheers Peter – I more meant package it as part of the “collated document”. Don;t lose the chance to make the point that even if ZCA is 100% spot on it is still 3 times as expensive as nuclear.

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Neil

I think Paul Miskelly has adequately addressed your comments on the 5 min data.

re “I thought it was strange that no wind farms are sited in TAS when in fact this has some of the best wind resources ( and lots of back-up hdyro)”

Look a bit closer at http://windfarmperformance.info

you’ll see that Woolnorth is Tasmania’s current wind farm, which is doing a good job of pushing the endangered Tasmania Wedge-Tailed Eagle closer to extinction. In case you missed my comments on Open Thread 5 :

http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=3071

I highly recommend that link for anyone who wants to see the reality of windfarms and eagles. For Australia and the Wedge-Tail Eagle this is a major concern.

Also see :

Comment on Woolnorth eagle mortality by Stephen Debus, raptor specialist, PhD in zoology, University of New England :

Click to access Yaloak_South_Debus_comments.pdf

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Neil Howes,

You are correct that these assumptions all need to be tested. But why are we still testing these assumptions when the data is in from around the world. The real wind farm out put data from around (not the modelling and statisticians wishes) are demonstrating that we get long periods of low output from wind farms. The same has been demonstrated repeatedly in Australia.

The 15% firm power from wind is demonstrably ridiculous.

Regarding the 17 hours storage at full power per power station, this won’t be much use when we have long lulls and overcast conditions at the same time. You assume that will seldom coincide, but that is just wishful thinking – bad engineering practice. The idea of existing hydro and biomass providing backup is also wishful thinking.

Why wasn’t anyone senior and competent from the electrcity industry asked to review this. (By the way, SKM did not; they only reviewed the cost of transmission for the given power supply sites).

I just can’t get past wondering why you and the other RE advocates would advocate a scheme like ZCA2020 instead of nuclear when it is clearly:

1. is likely to be in the order of 10 times more costly (see previous) comment
2. Less reliable
3. Much less safe (see previous comment)

Why didn’t BZE do a comparison with nuclear? Do they want to cut GHG emissions or promote an ideology?

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I’ve moved and updated some of the comments I made on TCASE12 about the ZCA reports choice of wind turbine. More later on this.

First I’ll quote ZCA Section 1.3 Guiding Principles, Assumptions and Project Methodology on page 4 :

“Proven and reliable Solutions.

A plan for transition to a zero emissions economy beginning now requires us to use the best of what is now available. There have been major advances in renewable energy technology over recent years, and it is possible to move to a zero emissions economy without waiting for further technologies to be developed. Consequently, the Plan considers only technological solutions that are already commercially available from existing companies which offer the technology at a multi-megawatt scale, and have moved beyond small-scale demonstration and pilot projects.“

Interesting to note that the wind turbine model they have chosen for this study is the Enercon E-126. At 198m high it is just slightly taller than Canberra Black Mountain Tower, by 3m. Interesting they claim this is an “available now” tech. Go to the Enercon website :

http://www.enercon.de/en/_home.htm

It doesn’t yet appear in their “products and services” section. In the news section you’ll see it though :

http://www.enercon.de/www/en/nachrichten.nsf/41657424de23a0b8c1256ed10041a39f/6230d2639aa384d9c125736e004679c2?OpenDocument

Its interesting also to note that the tower is made from concrete, which is a pretty new idea for a wind turbine (more on this later).

Wikipedia has a page too :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enercon_E-126

Have a look at the link below to see the first wind farm “pilot” expected to use this new turbine. Its currently under construction, at a cost of 6.2 million Euro (@ $9million Aus) and expected to come on-line in July 2012 :

http://www.renewableenergyfocus.com/view/5588/belgium-inaugurates-wind-farm-with-largest-wind-turbines/

The cost in that Belgium wind farm actually looks a little suspicious to me though, i.e. it looks artificially low. I suspect Enercon are also funding it. According to ZCA synopsis wind cost is $2.2million / MW (in 2011, falling to $1.25 million / MW by 2016), which would make 11 x 7MW = 77MW = 77 x $2.2million = $169.4million. Can someone double check my calculation and confirm or refute this $160million gap in the figures?

The E-126 has clearly not had any completed real world field trials as yet. Probably would have been better to go with something like 2 to 3MW turbines. Of course that would at least double to triple the number of turbines required in ZCA plan….

Having read a little more the Belgium “wind park” is a research project. The official web link is here :

http://cordis.europa.eu/search/index.cfm?fuseaction=proj.document&PJ_LANG=EN&PJ_RCN=10603578&pid=0&q=0CB224C79C902825465DAAF7BCB202A0&type=sim

—->

“Objective: This action focuses on demonstrating the development of a cost-effective large scale high capacity wind park using new state-of-the-art multi megawatt turbines coupled with innovative technology used to stabilize the grid. A key objective of the 7-MW-WEC-by-11 project is to introduce a new power class of large-scale Wind Energy Converters, the 7MW WEC, onto the market which has the potential to significantly contribute to higher market penetration levels for wind electricity in Europe. The new 7MW WEC will be designed and demonstrated at a large scale: eleven such WECs will be demonstrated in a 77 MW wind park close to Estinnes (Belgium).

The wind park will be the first large-scale on-shore wind park in Belgium and the first in the world that will consist of this mega turbine power class. Key challenges related to wind power will be addressed in this demonstration action ranging from technical issues (network stability and security), to financial aspects (cost effectiveness) to environmental issues (landscape pollution). First, the mega turbines will be developed and installed in series ; this is envisioned to significantly reduce costs and increase the market value. Second, new power electronics technology and improved wind forecasting will be used to stabilize the grid in the high capacity wind park.

Improved forecasting is envisioned to furthermore improve the cost-effectiveness of the high capacity wind park (reduced imbalance costs, improved commercial value). Third, the 7MW turbines will be used to maximize wind energy capacity, while reducing landscape pollution and environmental impact: such a WEC generates more than double the energy in the same given area when compared to conventional 2MW turbines and requires the placement of fewer turbines when compared to conventionally used wind turbines. Lessons learned in developing the high capacity Estinnes wind park will be adapted to a different national context with a weak grid system, Cyprus. ”
—-

The Enercon E-126 turbine clearly isn’t commercially available, and wont be until some time after July 2012 when construction of the **“pilot project”** is finished. Then they need to see it running and evaluate its performance, surely a year running at least and then an analysis, that would take us up to the beginning of 2014 just to get an answer. OK then tooling up, manufacture and then construction can begin,and how long would that take??

Addressing a comment by Neil Howes about whether it makes ay difference : It would most likely require twice to three times as many turbines of 2 to 3MW, so the land mass taken up would presumeably be larger by a similar amount. ZCA are specifiying a non-commercially available 7.5MW turbine.

At present Enercon have built 5 (note my earlier post on TCASE 12 said 2, but the press release for the pilot plant says 5 constructed so far so I’ll go with that) of these turbines, and according to the press release they are currently operating at 6MW max not the 7.5MW expected (**note : this has recently been announced they now have it to 7.5MW). Note that the Enercon turbine they specify required a completely new crane to be built : “At 1600 tonne, the world’s largest crawler crane was developed and constructed specially for lifting the 127 m diameter rotor in one step.” according to the press release on the Belgian wind park.

** I stress again the fact that the Enercon E-126 7.5MW wind turbine is NOT commercially available**

See Enercon’s website, in fact they are currently patting themselves on the back for just adding a 3MW turbine to their official portfolio (i.e. stuff that is commercially available), so they are a little way from churning out 7.5MW turbines :

http://www.enercon.de/www/en/windblatt.nsf/129456b2760147c4c1256eee0027493a/7feb4c45419858c3c125770a00402c76?OpenDocument

&

also in the January 2010 volume of their Windblatt magazine :

http://www.enercon.de/www/en/windblatt.nsf/129456b2760147c4c1256eee0027493a/9f5abf7aecb75217c12576c8003b918f?OpenDocument

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Neil,

“My comment is, so one wind farm my ramp up quickly, the overall output is only varying by a few % of output at 5min intervals.”

Doesn’t the rest of Paul’s post address that ? e.g. :

“Remember also that, unlike other generators, windfarms are permitted to operate on a “must take” basis. That rapid change in input is a challenge for the local grid operation – another generator in the region has to be backed out, and quickly, because there are transmission constraints in the connections to the wider grid. The occurrence of this type of transient is not infrequent, and because wind farms behave in this way, there has been put in place an ongoing augmentation programme to the SA grid – paid for by the hapless customer – merely to deal with this problem.”

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Neil

I agree that 730GWh of thermal storage is not going to last for than a few days even with 5GW hydro and 15GW biomass top-up.

I suggest that talking about 730GWh of storage is avoiding the issue by hiding it in averages and totals. Each power station has 17h storage at full power. There is not much spare capacity in their estimates. So in the situations where there is widespread cloud cover for several days, the 17h storage will not last long. Once gone, each individual power station stops generating. What then?

You don’t need to explain that they will use hydro and biomass back-up and wind if it’s blowing. What we are discussing is where the power comes from in the worst case scenario. I don’t have much confidence they have seriously looked at the worst case scenario. In fact, all I’ve read looks like they have gone out of their way to be optimistic – like assuming 15% firm power for wind!!!

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Neil,

Do you know of any grid in the world with significant wind capacity that does not demonstrate periods of near-zero output like we experience in Australia.

I am talking about real wind farm data, not modellers’ and statisticians’ wishful thinking.

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Actually, the details really don’t matter, because the ZCA2020 plan would seem to be:

1. likely to be in the order of 10 times more costly than nuclear (see previous comment)
2. Less reliable
3. Much less safe (see previous comment)

So we have to wonder: why did they not consider nuclear? This suggests a clear bias to push a particular ideology rather than try to find the best way to cut GHG emissions.

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Neil,

“The east coast sites are in low population density mountain ranges ( where wind strength is higher) and there is a lot of coastline along the low population density coasts of WA and western SA. The West coast of TAS is also low population density.I dont see a shortage of land an issue except for the SE of SA and VIC coastlines.”

For the politicians and wind industry, low population density is really just another way of saying : a small percentage of lost votes from the rural minority voters. Do you also think that because not many “people” live there that nothing else does ? + How do you think the tourism industry will take it? Come and look at our 1000 turbine wind farm, its so much nicer than x’s 1000 turbine wind farm. Free earplugs supplied.

Also as I pointed out earlier, re main wind resource as stated in ZCA, I’ll repeat it here :

“2.5.4 Wind Power
The wind resource in Australia is concentrated along the eastern and southern coasts, although there are also significant patches of inland resource. “

This is clearly incorrect as a look at their Fig 2.23 will show. Wind resource is concentrated on the western coast, western inland, southern coast and southern inland. On the eastern side there is a tiny and patchy strip along the east coast (where all the prime real estate is…), increasing in the Far North Queensland coast. The extensive lack of wind resource inland on the eastern side is quite clear. Funnily enough the poor wind resource area of inland NSW is exactly where the State Gov’s “wind precincts” are drawn up.

The point is, simplistic statements like “low population density” are meaningless. This isn’t a board game or a computer game. A full environmental assessment (EA) is required for “any” type of utility scale wind power station in Australia, and rightly so. Which is why it comes under “Electricity Generation” at the planning office, not agriculture or farming. These take in key “real world” issues such as effects / risks on :

Biodiversity / Flora and Fauna
Soil
Water / Hydrology
Visual Amenity
Health Risks
Noise Pollution
Visual Amenity
Property value
Tourism
Indigenous / Cultural Heritage
Community Impacts
Bushfire
etc.

The ZCA report does not address any of this area, at all. They just picked a few sites, without consulting any of those communities or looking at other EA issues, and said ok lets plonk 1000 turbines there. 2000MW per site see table 3.13 on p64.

Remember the 7.5MW turbine is not commercially available, so we’re talking 1000 x 2MW turbines (@130 to 150m high) fitting in somehow with the “low population density” local communities, the landscape, and the flora and fauna of :

Albany, Ceduna, Port Fairy, Crookwell, Stanthorpe, Esperance, Yongala, Ballarat, Orange, Atherton, Geraldton, Port Lincoln, Mt Gellibrand, Walcha, Collinsville, Bunbury, Cape Jaffa, Wonthaggi, Cooma, Georgetown, Streaky Bay, Silverton and Port Augusta

You then wrote :

“After all the US , with 15 times the population and similar land area has 35GW of wind capacity( 70% of what is proposed)!!!”

Yes, and look what a bloody mess they’ve made of it! 14,400 abandoned wind turbines in California, health problems, noise pollution, wildlife impacts…etc etc.

I suggest you have a read of :

National Research Council of the National Academies. (2007) Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects; The National Academies Press: Washington, DC. Available on line at :

http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11935

It is important to note also that since this National Research Council report was published in 2007 there have been a number of important papers published on the further negative environmental impacts of wind energy. The report also does not cover human health effects in depth. However, it is a comprehensive and wide ranging report to 2007.

One of the National Research Council authors, Rick Webb, has made the pre-publication version of this important 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 :

Click to access Key_Points_About_Wind_Development.pdf

and

Click to access Wishful-Thinking.pdf

Also I highly recommend this paper on “energy sprawl”

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

Abstract

“Concern over climate change has led the U.S. to consider a cap-and-trade system to regulate emissions. Here we illustrate the land-use impact to U.S. habitat types of new energy development resulting from different U.S. energy policies. We estimated the total new land area needed by 2030 to produce energy, under current law and under various cap-and-trade policies, and then partitioned the area impacted among habitat types with geospatial data on the feasibility of production. The land-use intensity of different energy production techniques varies over three orders of magnitude, from 1.9–2.8 km2/TW hr/yr for nuclear power to 788–1000 km2/TW hr/yr for biodiesel from soy. In all scenarios, temperate deciduous forests and temperate grasslands will be most impacted by future energy development, although the magnitude of impact by wind, biomass, and coal to different habitat types is policy-specific. Regardless of the existence or structure of a cap-and-trade bill, at least 206,000 km2 will be impacted without substantial increases in energy efficiency. …The possibility of widespread energy sprawl increases the need for energy conservation, appropriate siting, sustainable production practices, and compensatory mitigation offsets.”

Specifically re wind :

“Wind turbines have a similar figure of about 3–5% of their impact area affected by direct clearing while 95–97% of their impact area is from fragmenting
habitats, species avoidance behavior, and issues of bird and bat mortality.

I’m pretty sure the pdf is freely downloadable at :

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

its also downloadable freely here :

http://www.windaction.org/documents/23151

The ZCA report is severely lacking in this regard of examining the environmental impacts of its plan. It seems to re-enforce the incorrect perception that industrial / utility scale “renewable energy”, wind in particular, is environmentally benign and can simply be built without any environmental consequences at all.

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With regard to wind farms in the mountainous east coast regions, this piece reported by the ABC would seem pertinent:

“A New South Wales Government report has recommended a 2,800-kilometre conservation corridor be established along Australia’s east coast.

“The Great Eastern Ranges Corridor would stretch from just outside Melbourne to the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland.”

Call for giant east coast green corridor

The notion of wind farms anywhere near such a projected corridor, and especially anywhere near the existing national parks and state forests strikes me as a really bad idea. Human population density is not the only consideration.

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Tom Bond,

I agree. I jumped too quickly into my comment. I need to check the official web sites to see what is the retail price of electricity for different types of business and residential users in different localities. I haven’t done that yet. I have asked a couple of colleagues in Queensland what their residential rates are and they are as follows:

Brisbane:
normal: $0.1713/kWh
off-peak: $0.0699/kWh
supply: $19.71 per quarter

Warwick:
normal: $0.1884/kWh
off-peak: $0.0769/kWh with a minimum of $14.28 per quarter
supply: $20.49 per quarter

Canberra:
normal: $0.1386/kWh
off-peak: $0.0880/kWh
supply: $43.47 per quarter

I’ll withdraw my comment about the $0.20/kWh.

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Updated from my comment on TCASE 12 re decommissioning.

There are no decommissioning costs in the report. A quick estimation for BZE’s wind component :

Assuming about US$100k per 1.5MW as detailed in this report here :

http://www.windaction.org/documents/23450 (note the PDF of the actual report is available at this link)
&
http://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-decommissioning-costs-lessons-learned/

48,000MW / 1.5MW = 32,000
32,000 x US$100k =
US$3,200,000,000

at an exchange rate of 1 USD = 1.13384 AUD =

AUS$3,628,282,204

This ball park figure needs adding to the upfront build cost. This should be required as an A rated credit institution bond up front before construction commences. This was the finding of the USA Beech Ridge wind farm court case.

Decommissioning is a serious Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) issue too, because decom “actually happening” is always factored in to the final LCA figure. If it doesn’t happen, i.e. because of lack of funds, the LCA and by defination the embodied energy payback time needs re-calculating. Remember there are 14,400 abandoned wind turbines after the California wind rush. How much junk will be left in oz after this big green rush / wash if there is no decom?

How much left over all around the world too… ? To date all installed wind turbines do not have this decommissioning bond as far as I’m aware. What is the potential effect costwise to the wind industry and all those renewable energy superfunds / green investors in the so-called “renewable energy boom” in 10 – 20 years time ?

Here’s a classic quote (Sydney Morning Herald Saturday 4th, September 2004) from Steve Buckle wind farm developer of Wind Power Pty (acquired by Origin in May 2009)

“Wind Power is a shelf company with a paid-up capital of $100. Its four shareholder companies have a paid-up capital of $2500, $100, $2 and $2. To build the $220 million Bald Hills wind farm, superannuation funds will provide the equity. The guaranteed returns make everyone a winner – until the farm is decommissioned. Because one pressing question remains: who is going to clean up the defunct turbines in 20 years’ time?
“Dunno,” says Steve Buckle. “We ultimately won’t be the owner of the wind farm. The super fund will end up being the owner.”

Another great end quote by this wind farm developer in the same story :

“Look, we’re playing this game with no rules. The government is making rules up as we go.” Marriott smiles uneasily, but Buckle laughs. “Thing is, wind power is good, right? It’s a very simple industry. Why make it complicated? Why is everyone so freaked out when wind farms are all over the world? What are they saying? That wind will not replace coal? Well, f…ing der!”

For the full story see here :

http://www.spacountryguardians.org.au/display.php?newpageid=78

This is old news in Victoria, this was brought up in Parliament way back in 2004 :

http://tex2.parliament.vic.gov.au/bin/texhtmlt?form=VicHansard.one&db=hansard91&pageno=1427&house=COUNCIL&speech=35861&tmpfile=/tmp/rand157300615825&query=trueand+(+data+contains+'HALL'+)%09and+(+members+contains+'HALL'+)%09and+(+hdate.hdate_3+=+2004+)and+house+contains+'COUNCIL'and+hdate+=+(17,+'November‘,+2004)and+speech+=+35861

Hmmm, I’m glad I’m not investing in industrial scale greenwash.

Back to the plot … Some more info relevant to wind farm decom :

Brown, R (2009) “Appeal of Maine final order, Record Hill Wind LLC”, State of Maine Board of Environmental Protection re : Record Hill Wind Project. Available on line at :

http://www.windaction.org/documents/23278

Appeal filed by the Concerned Citizens to Save Roxbury (“CCSR”) regarding the industrial scale turbine proposal in Roxbury, Maine. The full appeal includes testimony filed by sound expert, Richard James. Also includes objections to the Decommissioning Plan and makes note of the fact the fact the Deerfield ruling disallowed a deduction for scrap value, see pages 31 to 33 in part 2 of the PDF documents.

Comfrey Wind Energy, LLC, (2007) “Docket Number: IP6630/WS-07-318
Decommissioning – Estimated Cost and Funding Analysis for Comfrey Wind Energy – REVISED, page 31a”, Minnesota Dept. of Commerce. Energy Facility Permitting, Siting and Routing

This decommissioning report submitted on 1st August 2007 is the estimated costs by Comfrey Wind Energy for fifteen 2.1MW wind turbines. Total estimated cost to dismantle & remove turbine per unit without scrap value is US$154,000. **No other infrastructure dismantling costs were submitted in this report.**

State Of Vermont Public Service Board (2009) “Docket No. 7250, Section VI
Decommissioning Fund”, pages 91-96. Available on line from Government of Vermont website at :

Click to access 7250finalorder.pdf

Some excerpts from the ruling relating to decommissioning:

Finding 331. ”The establishment of a fund to decommission the Project is necessary in the event the Project does not succeed, or to ensure its timely and permanent removal at the end of its useful life.”

Finding 331. “Salvage value for scrap is vulnerable to market price volatility and thus should not be considered a reliable funding source for decommissioning the Project. The amount placed in the decommissioning fund should represent the full estimated costs of decommissioning without netting out estimated salvage value.”

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ZCA report page 66 Section 3.2.6 “The total investment for the 48,000 MW of new wind capacity is estimated at $AU72 Billion. ”

Estimated West Texas costs per turbine for a wind project started this year, $2.50 per rated watt with Chinese manufactured turbines.
http://nucleargreen.blogspot.com/2009/11/west-texas-wind-still-2500-per-kw.html

Given no further inflation in costs this would give yield a cost of of $120 billion (USD) for the wind portion of the project, or about twice the ZCA estimate. Note that an assumption is that all Australian wind generators will be onshore.

“The Plan provides 48,000 MWe of new installed turbine capacity running at an average annual capacity factor of 30%.”

Lets see, A nuclear conventional plant with equivalent output would cost perhaps $5 to $8 per watt, which would appear at least competitive with the ZCA wind scheme. In addition the nuke would be dispatchable, and reliable during the Australian summer, and would produce as much electricity during the daytime as during the night. The choice for a utility should be a slam dunk.

The wind cost issue raises a troubling question about the objectivity of the ZCA study. It would appear that wishful thinking has overridden prudence in estimates of wind costs. Wind costs are hardly the only issue where study assumptions might fall into the wishful thinking trap.

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ZCA is equally optimistic about solar costs, as I have already documented. I have noted two assumptions that are particularly troubling. The first is that the cost estimate for the indexed facility has been withdrawn, and the constructor currently has no cost estimate in place. Thus ZCA has absolutely no real world basis for its ST cost estimates.

The second major flaw is that the studies upon which it bases its economies of scale estimates have not been tested by recent trends in ST costs, and thus their validity is questionable. In addition, questions must be raised about the cost of materials and labor, and whether a learning curve will compensate for observed inflationary trends in large engineering projects.

Given the uncertainties a cost of $500 billion USDs, would not seem to be an unreasonable estimate for the 42.5 GW ST project, and even higher costs cannot be excluded.

Thus the total cost of the project without grid upgrade could run to something close to $650 billion. This figure might be high, because we lack an index project for gaging ST costs, and evidence is incomplete on future ST cost trends. The $650 billion figure might also be low.

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Gene Preston,

Thank you for the point about LOLP. That is a really clear, succinct way to express the problem. It expresses much better than I did my concern that there is nowhere near enough storage capacity or transmission capacity in the ZCA2020 system to supply the power we demand through long periods of overcast and low wind conditions.

Charles Barton,

Thank you for this. I had misunderstood your original comment. I thought you meant that SCA2020 had withdrawn their cost estimates whereas you were saying that the plant that ZCA used as the basis of its cost estimates has withdrawn its cost estimates –

Thus ZCA has absolutely no real world basis for its ST cost estimates.

You also say:

Given the uncertainties a cost of $500 billion USDs, would not seem to be an unreasonable estimate for the 42.5 GW ST project, and even higher costs cannot be excluded.

Can you clarify for me what the ‘capacity’ for the ‘index plant’ refers to. Is it with 17 hours of storage? What is its expected availability at times of peak demand? What is its expected availability after the longest possible period of overcast conditions? Are there any figures available on these design criteria?

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My short summary of where we are at.

The ZCZ2020 proposal fails on these criteria (each one of which would fail the project);

1. LOLP – the analysis does not include a Loss of Load Probability analysis. If it did do so, it would certainly not meet the AEMO requirements. Far more energy storage, generating capacity and transmission capacity would be required, or fossil fuel back up generation capacity.

2. Build rate – the build rate is unachievable. The approvals process is far longer than allowed for in the ZCA2020 proposal and no commercial solar thermal power stations of the type proposed have been constructed anywhere in the world

3. Water – the quantities of water required to make the concrete during construction and for washing the solar reflectors during operation for the life of the plant will be unavailable or hugely expensive

4. Costs – the capital cost is likely to be at least double the ZCA2020 estimate and probably much more. The operating costs will also be very high – people required to wash the reflectors, living costs and travelling time, in remote areas, etc.

5. Safety – the safety issues created by the proposed ZCA2020 system will sink this project on its own. The safety of workers constructing these structures throughout remote areas and the ongoing health and safety of the operators (long travelling distances in the outback and cleaning glass surfaces on high structures) will result in many accidents. Furthermore, the huge amount of money required for this system (when compared with the nuclear alternative), will mean less funding for public health.

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Ignore my comment about wind capacity credit above. They are actually saying 50% of the electricity is firm not capacity. That is a capacity credit of 15.5%. Still nearly twice AEMO’s allocation for SA.

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Page 17 of the exec summary has the following:

“Better-than-Baseload” Electricity Generation
Storing the sun’s energy as heat in the form of hot molten
salt allows CST plants to provide power that is “better-thanbaseload”.
Similar to a hydroelectricity dam, CST plants
with heat storage can dispatch electricity as needed at very
short notice. This is achieved by using the heat from the
stored molten salt to produce steam as necessary.

How is this possible? Surely a steam generator will need just as long to get up to operational temperature and output regardless of the heat source used. Why do they believe that a molten salt heat source is any better at load following than a nuclear plant or a coal plant?

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Finrod, on 16 July 2010 at 9.39 — Flash heating to steam?

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Peter, Appendix 3 States: “The cost of a molten salt power tower project today is referenced to the cost of SolarReserve’s Tonopah project in Nevada. This will produce 480,000 GWh/year of electricity7, and will cost over U.S.$700 million8.”

A googled the SolarReserve’s Tonopah project and found a recent statement that the the builders did not include costs. Further, it is clear that the project has undergone alterations because it is now required to use dry cooling. There is a 10% efficiency penalty attached to the switch from wert cooling, but beyond that there are probably added costs.

I assume that the $700 million figure is no longer current, because no recent press report refers to it, or any other cost estimate.

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Peter, the SolarReserve’s Tonopah project in Nevada capasity factor was computed by dividing its reported annual output by its potential annual output. This comes to a capacity factor of 55%. In addition the builder stated that dry cooling would impose a 10% efficiency penalty on the facility. That brings facility capacity factor down to around 50%.

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Just to emphasise, the wind power cannot be relied upon to provide virtually any power. Look at the chart for May here:

Click to access aemo_wind_201005_hhour.pdf

Notice the wind power capacity factor from midday on 16 May to midday on 20 May. It averages about 3% for that period. This is the combined capacity factor for all 16 wind farms spread across an area of 1200 km (east-west) by 800 km (north-south). When this happens, virtually all the power must come from the CST power stations. Our hydro capacity would be totally irrelevant to the ZCA2020 proposal in such as situation of sustained low wind. So we might as well forget the wind as a serious contributor. Adding WA just means a really high cost transmission capacity for occasional usage.

So, wind can provide some energy (when it feels like it), but I wonder why we’d bother with wind since we need the CST capacity anyway (forget the nonsense about hydro and biomas generation – that’s just a distraction. Gas would provide the back up role if we do not have sufficient CST capacity.)

It seems to me, looking at it very simply, that the ZCA proposal bolis down to powering Australia with solar thermal – a technology that hasn’t been demonstrated yet.

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I wonder if ZCA has emboldened SA Premier Rann to pursue this line
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/sa-wind-can-power-nation/story-e6frea83-1225892368941

That’s the same SA with 25% of the world’s easily mined uranium. Note that he wants other States to pay for transmission upgrades. Memo to other States; ask for more money when SA is becalmed in heat waves.

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I hope someone thought to stoke up those wood burning stoves (sorry, biomass generators) yesterday!

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Neil Howes,

I am sure you realise the minimum capacity factor is determined by the lowest winter insolation at specific sites and the probability that all or 11/12 , or 10/12 etc locations are experiencing those low days at one particular time.
The lowest capacity factor of one CSP or one wind farm ( or for that mater one coal fired or nuclear plant) is going to be zero, whats important is the probability that most or a specific % will be zero at one time.

Yes, I do realise that is what ZCA has done.

Likewise, I am sure you realise, that we can have most of SE Australia covered by cloud at the same time and these conditions can last for days (I provided a link to a time lapse sequence of satellite photos showing the conditions on one of my previous posts).

If the capacity factor of the generators was cut by half we’d need much more storage and/or we’d have to double the generating capacity of all the generators and all the trunk transmission lines. From the figures in the report it is clear they have not done this.

We’ve been over the wind issue many times and are just repeating a position. I say it can’t be relied on to provide virtually any dependable power. So it is just providing energy, but effectively no firm capacity. Please show me actual wind farm output data, for the worst case conditions, from Australia and other grids around the world, that demonstrate I am wrong.

It the absence of data to prove what you are saying, the sensible approach is to take a cautious approach, not the highly optimistic view of the wind power enthusiasts.

Neil, if you are not interested in costs, aren’t’ all your arguments irrelevant? How can this be discussed rationally if you don’t care about costs?

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We’ve gone mad. Rationality is being overrun by lunacy.

We are rolling out proposals and government endorsements for renewable energy but none are being compared with the nuclear alternative.

Today, the Premier of South Australia announced this:
http://www.ministers.sa.gov.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1285

Two days ago we had the “Zero Carbon Australia by 2020” report which proposes how Australia could be powered by renewable energy by 2020.

And just before that the “Environment Victoria” report recommending that Hazelwood Power Station be replaced with wind farms and gas backup.

We have incompetent, irrational governments in almost every state and territory. What a mess we are in.

Where is a responsible government to do the proper economic and cost benefit analyses?

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The ZCA report does not mention anything about water use for wind farm construction. Pretty surprising as they have someone from wind farm company Wind Prospect which according to their website (http://www.windprospect.com/) :

“Wind Prospect operates globally in all aspects of renewable energy development, construction, operation and advisory services. We have developed and engineered wind-energy projects around the world since building the UK’s second wind farm in 1992.”

Water use is a required part of any windfarm environmental assessment (EA) document for the planning application. Below is an example for Yass Valley WF by developer Epuron/Origin. I dont have time to examine other EA’s.

Water use for constructing 182 turbines is estimated by Epuron at 19.44ML over 2 years (no estimate is given for water requirements during decommissioning). Might not sound like a lot if it is simplistically compared with national consumption. However, the reason it is required in the EA is because it has to come from “local” resources. See the 13 pages, 193 to 206, in the Yass Valley windfarm EA which cover this issue. In 2007 Yass Valley Council stated that Yass Dam was under pressure due to drought and population growth.

This is not uncommon in rural areas, where ZCA windfarms are suggested to be located. In regard to bore water Yass Valley council have stated that this is suitable for “limited industrial uses”. In 2004 an embargo was placed on new groundwater extraction licenses due to concerns that the groundwater in the Yass catchment was unsustainable.

One option suggested by Epuron is that they buy water from existing licensed bore users, i.e. farmers, which would then likely impact their farming operations (irrigation or stock water). Although the sellers of the water would be financially compensated, the crops or livestock they would normally be producing would be reduced.

Additionally the reasons that hydrology/water use during construction AND decommissioning needs to be considered is its impact on groundwater dependent ecosystems (GDE). There are 3 main types within the entire Murrumbidgee catchment, two of which are present within the footprint of Yass Valley windfarm.

Given that the ZCA report requires that around 1000x2MW turbines are constructed at each windfarm location, I would expect an estimation of the current water situations.

A quick estimate of the total water use for constructing the 1000 turbine windfarms, based on the Yass Valley WF using a rough calculation assumption of 200 turbines = 20ML :

Roughly 100ML per ZCA windfarm (NOT including water use for turbine manufacture or windfarm decommissioning).

To get a handle on this number, Yass Dam at the time of the EA being submitted by Epuron contained 850ML and Level 1 permanent water restrictions were in place.

I dont have time to look at Yass Dam’s current water availability or at the 23 wind farm sites suggested by the ZCA , but a good place to start would be the Crookwell III windfarm planning application for 25 to 35 turbines :

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=3722

or the EA for Crookwell II windfarm (if you can find the documentation!), as Crookwell is one of the locations suggested by ZCA.

Another place to look and get a consensus are the other EA’s for current windfarm apps on exhibition, for NSW these are at :

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

As a final note, should the 7.5MW turbines end up being used when they become commercially available in the future, information would be required for the amount of concrete required. This information is partially available. For some reason though ZCA have not accessed two documents they reference earlier (p77 ref’s 83 & 86), which contains at least some of this information they require, and these are freely available on Enercon’s website, for which the ZCA report even provide links in the references, strange :

110m3 of concrete for tower + unspecified amount of steel for top section of tower
64 x 56cm thick piles measuring an average of 25m (additional requirement for base construction in silty banks)
1500m3 concrete for foundation
180t of reinforcing steel for foundation
Hub and inner blade segments 340t (steel?)
Nacelle hood is made from Aluminium (a first, but unknown quantity of material)

All other material quantities for any other components in the Enercon E-126 turbine remain unknown.

The water quantities just described are obviously not “huge” compared to national useages, but they clearly need to be estimated and compared to what is currently deemed to be sustainable in the catchment areas where the ZCA windfarms are located.

This of course would be only one of many other items needing consideration in any windfarm EA and feasibility study which generally include at least :

Biodiversity / Flora and Fauna
Soil
Water / Hydrology
Visual Amenity
Health Risks
Noise Pollution
Property value
Tourism
Indigenous / Cultural Heritage
Community Impacts
Bushfire
Aviation Safety

The ZCA report does not address any of these areas at all. Without this knowledge, the suitability of the windfarm locations suggested by ZCA remain pure speculation based on wind resource “estimations” alone.

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