Is wind power another 'ethanol-style' knee-jerk reaction?

Question

Should we learn by our neighbor's mistakes?
"Wind power promises a clean and free source of electricity. A little research, however, reveals that wind power does not in fact live up to the claims made by its advocates, that its impact on the environment and people's lives is far from benign, and that with such a poor record and prospect the money spent on it could be much more effectively directed.
Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants must be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity. Most cannot simply be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises, and the quick ramping up and down of those that can be would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide.
Despite their being cited as the shining example of what can be accomplished with wind power, the Danish government has cancelled plans for three offshore wind farms planned for 2008 and has scheduled the withdrawal of subsidies from existing sites. Because Danish companies dominate the wind industry, however, the government is under pressure to continue their support. Spain began withdrawing subsidies in 2002. Germany reduced the tax breaks. The Netherlands decommissioned 90 turbines in 2004. Ireland in December 2003 halted all new wind-power connections to the national grid. In 2005, Spanish utilities began refusing new wind power connections. A German Energy Agency study released in February 2005 after some delay [click here] stated that increasing the amount of wind power would increase consumer costs 3.7 times and that the theoretical reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved much more cheaply by simply installing filters on existing fossil-fuel plants."
http://www.aweo.org/ProblemWithWind.html

Answer 1

its been in use long enough now to get some actual empirical data & its obvious we need to change the output rating.

for example its been widely assumed that a 1 megawatt turbine could be depended upon to average 1/3 (.35 mw) most of the time.

but in California in 2006 during the 5 highest peak hours of demand their wind farms were producing at 12% of capacity.

as these wind farms are in the most ideal locations this practical data demonstrates we need at least 8 1MW turbines to supply a 1 MW demand.

in addition you would still need a conventional 1 MW generator to supply a 1MW demand under adverse conditions..

so unfortunately wind power can only be called a very expensive feel good supplement to conventional power production.

if an effective way is ever found to actually STORE electrical energy for later use, wind power COULD become economically competitive.

Answer 2

Thats a very interesting piece of information. From what I have studied in my Business and Economics classes wind and solar power are nowhere near being economically viable at this point in time. Can they be? Sure, with time but theres strong evidence that govt subsidies end up costing tax payers for an energy source that at this moment is too expensive and not as practical as other forms of energy such as oil, coal etc. These technologies will come along however through the free market and will hopefully become more practical.



You often hear " these technologies are here NOW, and we need to start using them NOW". The problem is that just because a technology exists, doesn't mean it is economically viable yet. Remember, we're trying to replace some 95% of our current energy with this technology, it won't happen overnight.



EDIT: Apparently Rosenbloom is a a little suspect but I still stand by what I said and studied in economics. Another thing, Dana makes a good point. Although corn based ethonal may not be working out, it is a stepping stone if you like, to other ethanols such as sugar cane. Which I believe Brazil uses.

Answer 3

You've done some good research but the problem with wind power is just like the problem with ethanol. The key is how it's implemented and how it's used. With ethanol, using land that can produce human food to make fuel is beyond stupid, especially when algae and switchgrass produce many times more fuel per acre than corn and neither require prime farmland.



The specific article you reference is flawed and exhibits a lot of bias. Claiming that dead bugs on the turbine blades would halve generation is incorrect and unproven to say the least, unless the bugs they have in Europe are much bigger than the ones in the rest of the world. The claims that revolve around the variable nature of wind, which is hardly helpful or original and it's readily solved with efficient energy storage. Birds and even bats are smart enough to see a slow-moving turbine blade and avoid it, it's not like they're flying thru a plane's propeller after all and fatalities from wind turbines are so much less than from predation it's foolish to even state them. I've been in the high desert in California and noticed little sound from the turning turbines at all. Then again, the article was published online by AWEO:Industrial Wind Energy Opposition. That's sort of like quoting Rush Limbaugh on global warming, he's not exactly a disinterested research scientist.



With wind, since it doesn't blow all the time you need a good storage medium both to buffer you when it doesn't blow hard enough and for peak periods, so just hooking up a turbine and expecting continuous steady output is foolish. Putting them along the tops of mountains is going to irritate many people who find it impedes their view but that's where most of the wind tends to be. Building off-shore turbines seems to make sense, though it's initially more expensive, you'd find it harder to spot them from a few miles away and there is a lot of wind out there as any sailor can attest, some of it much more reliable than on land.



There are good points in the other posts, compared to petroleum all renewable energy sources are still in their infancy. If the government funded more research and then offered tax incentives for early adopters, these problems would be quickly resolved but that doesn't seem to be on their agenda.



No doubt at some point someone will yell that each turbine reduces the air flow on the Earth's surface which will have dire consequences. Yes, it sounds stupid but I'm sure that day will come and it seems the more bizarre and outlandish the claim the more it gets reported.



Most of the opposition to this comes from the same source as the opposition to new solar plants in Nevada and power lines in California. The very same people who want us to stop using fossil fuels. If wind is bad, solar is bad, nuclear is bad and fossil fuels are the devil, should we all go back to burning wood on a campfire? It's so bizarre I'm not sure what their true motives are but I am sure I don't want to find out.



The facts are actually pretty clear, solar and wind can both bring in electricity at or below the cost of power from a coal-fired power plant, but they won't do so 24/7 so you still need a back-up plan. Nuclear can do that and the next-gen plants are safer, more efficient and smaller than the last plants built in the US. Putting solar plants in the unpopulated desert next to wind turbines, and putting wind turbines off-shore both make sense, have very little environmental impact and birds are less likely to fly into the blades over the ocean. By connecting them to the power grid they needn't be in anyone's backyard to contribute to our energy independence.



Ethanol makes sense if you derive it from the proper source. Just imagine if poor African farmers could plant switchgrass and sell their harvest on a big international exchange. We'd have cheap fuel, they'd quadruple their GNP and the only losers would be the fossils in the fossil fuel industry.

Answer 4

I think if you had the entire US grid connected through a number of substations and a network of major transmission lines with several hundred thousand windmills distributed throughout the country, the wind would always be blowing somewhere and the turbines could capture and deliver a dependable stream of energy. But the cost of that accomplishment is not a very practical one and it is not the best utilization of land.



A single 1.0 gigawatt nuclear plant would require 2,800 1.5 megawatt intermittent wind turbines on 175,000 acres of land to match it's capacity. I think wind power is a fad that will pass, but the transmission lines that will be put in place in remote areas can be used to build conventional power plants after all the wind turbines break.

Answer 5

Wind power is pretty expensive - it's just pilot projects at this time and probably environmentally it's not the silver bullet solution as it obviously has some effect on the ecology.



Hydroelectricity is renewable as well, but it generates a lot of opposition from environmentalists because of the effect on the ecology of the rivers that are dammed to make hydro plants.



Maybe some places can use wind power if fuel is expensive, impact on ecology isn't too much and there is a politically will to do so, but it's not going to replace fossil fuels.

Answer 6

My experience with this is limited to observing the gaggle of problems Edison had with the Whitewater grade program near Palm Springs. Over 20 years span a majority of them were scrapped because of maintenance cost exceeded what the power generated brought on the market.



http://www.edbegley.com/



Now this guy is using a different kind of wind turbine that can be fixed in one place and requires way fewer mechanical components to make it work. In combination with solar cells he is able to generate the majority of his own electricity. A horizontal turbine can handle higher wind speeds and is easier to govern speed on. It does not need to be mounted on a tower and can even be built into a building. But this proves that people do not bother to research things well before pumping money into something most of the time.



Added information on how to change a sheep into a skeptic through enhanced education. Also the truth about why kids can not read or learn. If it was not for their teachers they really could.



http://www.jerrypournelle.com/



And the professor of the skeptical movement who actually worked in the aerospace industry and has consulted with presidents on technology matters. You could spend months here learning and becoming a smarter and more responsible citizen. I do not always agree with some of his political opinions but no sheep can read here for a week and keep his true believer status.

Answer 7

Of course it is!



It's like everything else the Democrats do. They jump right in without considering repercussions. Then, afterwards, when everything gets f****d up, they say, "Well, at least we tried. Our intentions were good."



Personally I think it's high time they were held accountable. They and their Envirofundamentalist fanatics have violated the establishment clause of the Constitution and forced all of us to follow their wacko religion. It is time to remove the Envirofundamentalist religion from our government policy, stop this suicidal pursuit of Ethanol for fuel vs. food and water for eating, heavily promote nuclear power, and tap the huge reserves of oil and gas off our shorelines and in Alaska.



The Envirofundamentalists are a plague of ignorance driven fantasy.

Answer 8

They are a feel good solution. You are correct in that they are not a solution to the energy needs. Conventional power plants would need to remain online as back up.



Also, what happens when entire species are wipedout by the big swirling blades? Will the environmentalist come out and demand the discontinued use of wind then?



Also, wind farms have a huge diminishing return. Every wind farm will produce less energy. This is a result of the first wind farms are placed in the optimal location. Once these locations are used up, the next wind farms are built in less optimal locations and this continues until the most recent wind farms produce much less than the original.

Answer 9

Also the environmentalist groups are putting a halt on the miles of eclectic cables from the wind mills the the city. Might hurt the critters

Answer 10

Maintenence is in the thousandsper year on a 1 megawatt tower. This can be easily built in to costs. Still a bargain once on line, but of course there are the usual considerations and certainly wont work as a stand alone system. Remeber, there are more considratons than jus cost. Look at asthma rates among children and other coal related problems.

Answer 11

So you consider the blog associated with what appears to be either an environmentalist or NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) organization credible? Perhaps Mr. Rosenbloom isn't as credible on this subject as he'd like us to believe:



http://lioffshorewindenergy.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=13



I wonder if Mr. Rosenbloom and his anti-wind group are receiving "donations" from the coal industry? Stranger things have happened.

Answer 12

Nope. Rosenbloom is clealy biased and distorts the facts.



http://lioffshorewindenergy.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=13



Most of his arguments are completely transparently wrong.



Regarding ethanol, while corn-based ethanol has roughly as many cons as pros, it's a good stepping stone to better sources of ethanol like switchgrass.