Reply With Quote
All or nothing, I saiiiddddd!
Does it NOT take a large area to generate a lot of electricity?
Oh, and you're ed on rainy days.
All or nothing, I saiiiddddd!
Simple questions stump you, don't they Stumpy?
Research is being conducted to improve the efficiency with which solar cells collect energy. It's a highly inefficient process right now but its slowing getting better. Sorry, I know that makes you sad.
You'd be surprised. It's an even more prevalent practice among people who have no idea what one is.
The article mentioned in the OP raises some valid criticisms.
It also raises some less-than-valid criticisms.
I am all for taking a cold, hard look at wind power. If it really isn't all that useful, then don't bother.
One thing that the article does right is to treat the rah-rah, pie-in-the-sky projections on the part of propenents with some realistic scenarios.
On the same token, I tend to be a bit skeptical of critical analysis of wind power by a company that earns its money providing natural gas market analysis.
All that said, the current realities of managing a power grid means that you must keep some fossil fuel or nuclear plants running on standby, even if you get an appreciable amount of power from renewables. This is what the article rightfully pointed out.
What the article misses, is that there are lots of new emerging technologies that are solving this problem. Balancing sources, smart grids, localized power generation, and smart grids offer some very good opportunities for realizing a more sustainable energy supply that weren't available a "hundred years ago."
All it takes is some solid investments in (gasp) infrastructure.
Let me paraphrase this:Wind energy was abandoned well over a hundred years ago, as it was totally inconsistent with our burgeoning more modern needs of power, even in the late 1800s.
"Wind energy never worked out in the past, and it won't work out in the future".
Let's put this logical form to work and see if we can figure out what is wrong with it.
"Mankind never has flown before, and never will."
"Mankind has never landed people on the moon, and never will".
If you base all of your decisions based on yesterday's technologies, you will end up losing out to those who recognize potential. Edison's power generation scheme lost out to Teslas and our modern power grid is the result.
I'm not going to go point by point, as I don't have the time. It is an interesting bit that makes some fair points.
http://www.northnet.org/brvmug/WindPower/articles.html
wind power "failed" 100 years ago so must fail 100% today? It has no role to contribute as one of several sources of non-carbon, renewable energy?
The guy, Sierra Club member and self-proclaimed hard-assed scientist, sounds like a mole for carbon energy as he attacks wind power.
Does he apply the same hard-assed, critical/sceptical approach to phracked natural gas and it's total cost of production (including destroyed ground water)?
Last edited by boutons_deux; 09-27-2010 at 10:24 AM.
I kind of like the bird blenders but don't see how they are going to be feasible long term. When it comes time to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical.
"to service/repair them the labor rebuild costs are gonna be astronomical."
And we know childish America never pays increased taxes or increased utility bills for maintenance of infrastructure. See History Channel's "The Crumbling of America"
As opposed to the service/repair/security costs of nuclear power plants?
Uhhh you realize most of those turbines are built in China, right? All we do is import them and mount them on the towers. Fixing them with union labor is gonna be another story...
I mean...have you guys ever watched a CPS crew work?
Last edited by CosmicCowboy; 09-27-2010 at 10:42 AM.
union labor? is union labor putting them up now? or some lowest-bidder contractors?
why would union labor be NECESSARILY, INEVITABLY involved in maintenance? Only 1 in 10 AMerican works are unionized, because busting unions is part of the VRWC to over Americans. turbine contractors are unionized?
Last edited by boutons_deux; 09-27-2010 at 11:14 AM.
IMHO there will be a load of wind farms abandoned when they start breaking down. They only get the tax credit for the first ten years of operation and without the tax credit plus maintenance they won't be feasible.
so what happened to the unions?
They have a similar operating cost structure as nuclear.
You have a large initial investment, followed by low operating costs for a long period of time.
This is a bit different than say, coal or gas, in that you have a good chunk of costs to build the plant, but a LOT of operating costs as you go along in terms of fuel costs.
Servicing and repairing on wind turbines is actually fairly reasonable, from what I am given to understand.
What one ultimately has to do is to examine the costs per unit of power generated over the entire life of the plant.
The OP does note that one has to look at things from a systemic point of view as well. The overall costs of running a plant has to be taken with a holistic view of the grid overall.
One thing the OP and the source do ents do, either through ignorance, or through sheer cynical manipulation of argument, is try to point out how oil (when it comes to energy independence) is irrelevant to electrical generation.
Oil is quite relevant to electrical production because, to some extent, energy sources are interchangable. It is possible to power vehicles with natural gas, and or electrical batteries.
Differing energy sources offer differing strengths and weaknesses.
The primary weakness of "fossil" fuels is simply that they eventually face depletion. This has several implications, not the least of which is rises in cost long before they are fully depleted.
We'll see.
I would like to see actual financial data before making any such proclamations.
http://guidedtour.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/oandm.htmOperation and Maintenance Costs for Wind Turbines
Modern wind turbines are designed to work for some 120 000 hours of operation throughout their design lifetime of 20 years. That is far more than an automobile engine which will generally last for some 4 000 to 6 000 hours.
Operation and Maintenance Costs
Experience shows that maintenance cost are generally very low while the turbines are brand new, but they increase somewhat as the turbine ages.
Studies done on the 5000 Danish wind turbines installed in Denmark since 1975 show that newer generations of turbines have relatively lower repair and maintenance costs that the older generations. (The studies compare turbines which are the same age, but which belong to different generations).
Older Danish wind turbines (25-150 kW) have annual maintenance costs with an average of around 3 per cent of the original turbine investment. Newer turbines are on average substantially larger, which would tend to lower maintenance costs per kW installed power (you do not need to service a large, modern machine more often than a small one). For newer machines the estimates range around 1.5 to 2 per cent per year of the original turbine investment.
Most of maintenance cost is a fixed amount per year for the regular service of the turbines, but some people prefer to use a fixed amount per kWh of output in their calculations, usually around 0.01 USD/kWh. The reasoning behind this method is that tear and wear on the turbine generally increases with increasing production.
Danish Wind Industry Association
http://www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/40566.pdf (2006 pdf file, quote from pg 22)O&M cost covers the day-to-day scheduled and unscheduled maintenance and operations cost of running a wind farm. Different wind turbine designs, due to varying complexity, may have different O&M costs. However, many new configurations have insufficient operating experience to extract a meaningful O&M cost history. Industry cost estimates range from 0.5˘/kWh to more than 1˘/kWh. The LWST project in 2002 recommended a cost factor of 0.7 ˘/kWh, regardless of machine size or configuration. This allowed studies to determine the impact of other technology elements on COE without factoring in O&M cost impacts, which were extremely difficult to estimate at the time. New work is under way to evaluate O&M costs based on actual wind farm experience in the United States. Preliminary results from these studies indicate that the cost per kWh can change significantly between installations of the same machine based on wind farm size, tower height or other operational factors. This indicates that a fixed cost per kWh for O&M is inappropriate. Work is underway to better quantify these effects and build the varying factors into the model. Until this work is concluded, the fixed cost of $0.007kWh is being retained as the best estimate available.
National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
NREL has some good data on capacity costs:
http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/tech_costs.html
The Federal tax credit for a 100mwh wind farm (an average sized farm) works out to be about $1800 an hour, or $43,200 a day or 15.77 million a year. Thats why you are seeing those things pop up everywhere, but after 10 years the tax credit is gone.
In 10 years, the oilcos could be charging $10/gallon as cheaper supplies of oil dwindle.
But WC says it's stupid to predict the future, so we better STFU.
(eg, why can't the fed tax credit be renewed and even increased? Why can't the Feds require coal-fired plants to emit NOTHING except electricity? )
So Boutons supports massive federal subsidies for big business/repugs?
I support federal policies, including subsidies, that move the country forward in any way, and off carbon energy. And of course any policies that effectively block the evil corporations and capitalists.
I don't support any accelerated depreciation for oil/gas/coal, subsidies, tax breaks, etc.
No, I would say as inflation from this administrations dramatic increase in debt, and supply dwindles, it could be $20+ per gallon.In 10 years, the oilcos could be charging $10/gallon as cheaper supplies of oil dwindle.
But WC says it's stupid to predict the future, so we better STFU.
(eg, why can't the fed tax credit be renewed and even increased? Why can't the Feds require coal-fired plants to emit NOTHING except electricity? )
I don't know about land-dense, but I'm pretty sure DarrinS is dense enough to provide power to 2 or 3 homes by himself.
Yeah, this whole wind energy thing is definitely going to be a flash in the pan.
http://www.gailschwartz.org/blog/ger...rters-colorado
Subsidies bother the out of me. If these technologies cannot stand up by their own merit, then we shouldn't be using them. Corporations will use them if they are profitable. For someone to want the government to give incentives is just wrong. I think we will all agree that social engineering when it is opposed to our viewpoint is offensive. So is this. I wish people could recognize that their agendas often offend others.
Please don't tell me you support Big Oil subsidies then.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
