You trust wind power??? (alternative energy, hydroelectric, wind turbines, install)

[RememberMee]

I have yet to see Energy Input - Energy Output analysis that proves without a shred of a doubt that wind energy is a net energy producer. I have a hunch that wind mills are nothing but energy "accumulators" slowly releasing fossil energy spent to manufacture, transport, assemble & maintain wind mills and infrastructure, especially considering that many parts for the American wind mills (including blades and such) are brought from China etc.. I drive frequently by wind farms in Indiana and Ohio and I rarely see spinning windmills.

[augiedogie]

Remember: what you also may not know is that windmills also consume power. They have motors in them to start the blades spinning in light winds. I guess that in part explains why you might pass them and see them not moving, even if there are mild winds. My guess is that they have a minimum wind speed they need to keep turning.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by augiedogie

Its a terrible investment in money because the power companies still have to keep capacity running, even when the wind is blowing, just in case the wind dies. Wind is good for pumping water out of the ground on a farm, or charging up batteries. Other than that, forget it.

As I said earlier, it all depends on the site, and its average wind speed. The best sites have constant wind, like the Pakini Nui wind farm at Southpoint, HI. Other sites have intermittent wind, but can return a positive ROI if the average is high enough. Sure, you need buffering of some kind for the variable rate of output, and like solar power you need either energy storage or backup generation capacity of some kind, but both biodiesel generators and battery installations are practical now, and are steadily improving in efficiency as the technology ramps up to meet demand. The big 200 mw installation being built on the Island of Lanai is expected to use battery storage to smooth the output, and to feed a million dollars in energy a year above and beyond the island's needs across an undersea cable to Honolulu County. And it's all clean generation.

Originally Posted by RememberMee

I have yet to see Energy Input - Energy Output analysis that proves without a shred of a doubt that wind energy is a net energy producer. I have a hunch that wind mills are nothing but energy "accumulators" slowly releasing fossil energy spent to manufacture, transport, assemble & maintain wind mills and infrastructure, especially considering that many parts for the American wind mills (including blades and such) are brought from China etc.. I drive frequently by wind farms in Indiana and Ohio and I rarely see spinning windmills.

If you consult industry analysis instead of hunches you'll find that the actual figures are quite impressive. Vesta, one of the manufacturers of big installations, gave these figures in their 2012 annual report (emphasis added)

Wind energy outcompetes traditional energy sources when it comes to the carbon footprint, energy pay-back and use of water. Over a lifetime, a wind turbine only emits 5-10 grams of CO2 per kWh produced. These facts have been systematically documented for more than a decade through Vestas’ life cycle assessments.

and

A V112-3.0 MW turbine is energy neutral after approx eight months of operation. This means that after eight months, the wind turbine has generated as much energy as the suppliers and Vestas spend on manufacturing, transporting, installing and dismantling the wind turbine after 20 years. In other words, the V112-3.0 MW turbine returns 30 times more energy back to society than it consumes. After this period and during its remaining lifetime, a V112-3.0 MW turbine saves the environment for the emission of 200,000 tonnes of CO2 compared with average, coal-fired electricity production. Furthermore, emissions of NOX, SOX and other harmful substances are reduced.

Carbon footprint

In addition they say that 81% of the materials used in the current construction of their turbines are recyclable after a typical service life of 20 years, and their target in 2015 is 85%. And a typical payback time for these installations is under 4 years

Originally Posted by augiedogie

Remember: what you also may not know is that windmills also consume power. They have motors in them to start the blades spinning in light winds. I guess that in part explains why you might pass them and see them not moving, even if there are mild winds. My guess is that they have a minimum wind speed they need to keep turning.

Motors are used in turbine installations to vary the angle of the blades, to change the direction the turbine is pointed, and in some cases to begin the turbine spinning in slow winds, but that energy use is minor compared to total output, something akin to a starter motor in a car. Turbines have a design range of useful wind speeds. Ones intended for sites with slow steady winds, for example, have different design parameters than those with higher, more gusty winds. So below the minimum wind speed for the specific design, and above the maximum speed, the blades are feathered, much like a variable pitch airplane propeller, and the turbine stops turning until wind conditions improve. In modern designs this is all handled automatically by computers.

And on the horizon, new technology from Japanese researchers has been demonstrated that essentially triples the output of a given size turbine. We could see new installations using that technology within a half dozen years.

Wind power is not a panacea for our green energy needs, but it is an important and practical piece of the puzzle when properly engineered... for the right sites.

[plwhit]

Excellent factual post, refreshing in this forum... thanks

[gentlearts]

I don't know much about it, but although I think they are mesmerizing to watch from a distance, I have heard that people and animals are bothered by the humming and vibrations from them. If you ruin someone's quality of life, then it's too high a price.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by gentlearts

I don't know much about it, but although I think they are mesmerizing to watch from a distance, I have heard that people and animals are bothered by the humming and vibrations from them. If you ruin someone's quality of life, then it's too high a price.

But power generation using non-renewable fossil fuels has the potential to ruin the quality of life of not only every human being on earth, but every other species as well. To me THAT'S too high a price to pay.

Yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a long awaited update to their 2007 report which concluded with 90% certainty that the worldwide climate change which is melting the glaciers and icecaps and raising sea levels is man-made. Executive summary of the new report: through extremely thorough research they've now raised that certainty to 95%.

The summary report published yesterday, and the million-word full version that will follow, result from a mindbogglingly thorough process. Together they were written by 259 top scientists from 30 countries, drawing on 9,200 mostly recent scientific publications – and checked by 1,089 reviewers, whose 54,677 comments all had to be taken into account. And over the past week “every single word” has been justified to 110 governments.

IPCC: Global warming is getting deeper - Telegraph

Most alarming to me are the projections that we may be approaching the point of no return. As Arctic permafrost melts it releases methane gas, which is one of the greenhouse gasses contributing to global warming. That could, at some point, become a self-sustaining mechanism of such mammoth proportions that it might be irreversible.

So clearly we need to shift to renewable resources on a mass scale, even if those resources have certain deficits currently, such as high startup costs and loss of scenic visual purity. Would it be better to have unfettered views that nobody can enjoy because the atmosphere has become so polluted? I don't think so.

And yet I am not insensitive to the fact that issues can and do arise around ANY power generation system. Fossil fuel generators create noise and air and water pollution issues, and nobody wants to live next door to the deep humming sounds of a high-voltage transformer station. The geothermal plant a few miles from me here in Hawai'i occasionally makes loud noises and releases stinky smells that neighbors in the area really don't want, even though it offsets large amounts of oil imports. Hydroelectric plants change the landscape in dramatic ways and cause great harm to the native fish and animals. Wind generators can be dangerous to migrating birds, and the noise they make and their visual impact can be disturbing to neighbors. Even relatively benign photovoltaic solar rooftop panels can destroy the look of traditional buildings. Everything has a price, and we need to be sensitive to all of them.

But one way or another, in whatever combinations we can cobble together, we need to shift to renewable resources for our power needs rather more quickly than we have done to date, or we risk leaving a world to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren that we would not want to live in ourselves.

[RememberMee]

Originally Posted by OpenD

If you consult industry analysis instead of hunches you'll find that the actual figures are quite impressive. Vesta, one of the manufacturers of big installations, gave these figures in their 2012 annual report (emphasis added)

Is it even possible to get more naive than this? What do you think folks?

[RememberMee]

I'm not an industry analyst but I have a good idea about what it takes to transport a windmill, and I drive a lot by the wind farm in the vicinity of Van Vert, Ohio.

A single 1.5 MW windmill weighs 410 tonnes, it would take minimum 12 trucks to deliver all the parts (it takes 3 trucks to haul 3 oversized blades, 5 trucks to haul oversized tower parts, and 4 more trucks for generator and miscellaneous parts. On top of that law requires escort vehicles and some states require police escort, speaking of Ohio, it takes 4 cars (2 escort vehicles, two troopers) to escort a single blade truck, it's overkill, but that what it takes. I don't know how many miles blades & tower traveled from China, Brazil or Texas, but it's not uncommon to ship blades and towers 1000 + miles once they hit US shores.

To make it simple, let's assume it's 12 trucks (making 5 mpg) that haul a wind-tower parts for 1000 miles.

(12x1000miles)/(5mpg)= 2400 gallons; 155MJ/gallon - energy content of a gallon of diesel; 2400gallons x 155 MJ/gallon=372 GJ of energy to transport a windmill.

Wind turbines rise above flatlands of western Ohio - Local - Ohio
The turbines begin generating electricity when the winds hit 8 or 9 miles per hour. Electricity production increases up to 28 miles per hour, but higher winds do not produce more power, he said. Blue Creek is expected to be productive 30 to 40 percent of the time (BS!), although the exact figure is proprietary (Why?)

Speaking of Van Vert wind farm, capacity factor of 15% is an optimistic estimate.

1.5 MW × 365 days × 24 hours × 15% = 1,971MWh = 1,971,000 kWh per year,

1,971 MWh*60seconds= 120 GJ of energy a windmill generates per year.

It would take 3 years of the problem free operation for a windmill to generate 372 GJ of energy it took to transport it (just moving around 400 tonnes long distance). Keep in mind that it takes much, much more energy to manufacture 400 tonnes of the complex machinery than it takes to move 400 tonnes for 1000 miles. They say that for every garbage bag you throw out, manufacturers throw out 70 garbage bags of waste, just to put things in energy prospective. It's not unreasonable to estimate that energy to manufacture 400 tonnes of complex stuff is at least 20 times greater than energy to ship those 400 tonnes for 1000 miles. It's simple thermodynamics, complexity requires lots of energy to create and maintain. With numbers like these a 1.5 MW windmill will never generate as much energy as it took to manufacture, transport and install it.

I'm not an expert, but I do have numbers giving me good reasons to believe that wind energy is useless as far as saving the world from burning the fossils. It's much more likely wind energy hurts environment more than simple burning of oil.

[my54ford]

Originally Posted by OpenD

But power generation using non-renewable fossil fuels has the potential to ruin the quality of life of not only every human being on earth, but every other species as well. To me THAT'S too high a price to pay.

Yesterday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a long awaited update to their 2007 report which concluded with 90% certainty that the worldwide climate change which is melting the glaciers and icecaps and raising sea levels is man-made. Executive summary of the new report: through extremely thorough research they've now raised that certainty to 95%.



Most alarming to me are the projections that we may be approaching the point of no return. As Arctic permafrost melts it releases methane gas, which is one of the greenhouse gasses contributing to global warming. That could, at some point, become a self-sustaining mechanism of such mammoth proportions that it might be irreversible.

So clearly we need to shift to renewable resources on a mass scale, even if those resources have certain deficits currently, such as high startup costs and loss of scenic visual purity. Would it be better to have unfettered views that nobody can enjoy because the atmosphere has become so polluted? I don't think so.

And yet I am not insensitive to the fact that issues can and do arise around ANY power generation system. Fossil fuel generators create noise and air and water pollution issues, and nobody wants to live next door to the deep humming sounds of a high-voltage transformer station. The geothermal plant a few miles from me here in Hawai'i occasionally makes loud noises and releases stinky smells that neighbors in the area really don't want, even though it offsets large amounts of oil imports. Hydroelectric plants change the landscape in dramatic ways and cause great harm to the native fish and animals. Wind generators can be dangerous to migrating birds, and the noise they make and their visual impact can be disturbing to neighbors. Even relatively benign photovoltaic solar rooftop panels can destroy the look of traditional buildings. Everything has a price, and we need to be sensitive to all of them.

But one way or another, in whatever combinations we can cobble together, we need to shift to renewable resources for our power needs rather more quickly than we have done to date, or we risk leaving a world to our grandchildren and great-grandchildren that we would not want to live in ourselves.

The fact of the matter is wind power even the wind farms in Hawaii are only a supplement to a base load power source (in Hawaii that's mostly oil fired CT's) In order to supply a constant ever-changing load at 60hz you HAVE to have a rolling mass with a controllable fuel source. . Wind power has neither mass or a controllable fuel source. As mentioned before wind power not does have the ability to respond to grid load changes. Cap banks and other power conditioning equipment does help them survive LVRT with out shutting down but without a base load unit to maintain grid stability they are useless.........

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by RememberMee

Is it even possible to get more naive than this? What do you think folks?

Is it even possible to get more supercilious than this? What do you think folks?

Originally Posted by RememberMee

I'm not an industry analyst

Check. At least there's one accurate statement in this post.

Well, neither am I an industry analyst, which is why when I want to understand anything as complex as this issue is, I look to see what bona fide experts have to say about it, and I factcheck views which are contradictory.

Originally Posted by RememberMee

but I have a good idea about what it takes to transport a windmill, and I drive a lot by the wind farm in the vicinity of Van Vert, Ohio.

Factcheck: The Ohio.com news article quoted lists the location as Van Wert, not Van Vert, as you spelled it in two different places. I'm no geography expert, so even though I once lived near there and remember it as being called Van Wert, I checked the maps and local references to confirm that it is indeed Van Wert, with one "V" and one "W."

Sidebar: I find it poetic that the site of this huge installation - chosen because 1) it is in a "wind corridor" which gets much higher winds than neighboring areas, 2) it has very robust power transmission resources already in place, and 3) because the existing agricultural nature of the area can easily co-exist with the wind turbines - is identified with a community named after Isaac Van Wert, a Revolutionary War hero of Dutch heritage. After all, the Dutch have been adept at harnessing wind power for many centuries, and they are making huge investments in contemporary wind power installations because they have proven to be such a good and ecologically sound investment.

Originally Posted by RememberMee

A single 1.5 MW windmill weighs 410 tonnes,

Factcheck: The article you quoted begins, "The 411-ton turbines reach to the skies..." I'm no expert on converting English measurements to Metric, but offhand it didn't seem plausible that 411 tons would equal 410 tonnes, so I looked it up. Sure enough, it turns out that a ton = 2000 pounds, whereas a tonne = 1000 kilograms, which converts to 2,2014.6 pounds. So 411 tons = 822,000 pounds, while 410 tonnes = 903,886 pounds. That's an error of 81,886 pounds - over 40 tons - in making your conversion from tons to tonnes. That's more than a truckload right there!

I could continue to deconstruct the rest of your error ridden calculation the same way, point by point, but I'll spare everyone and just cut to the chase: the real experts and analysts who have tackled the question of energy payback and energy researched all the cradle-to-grave energy costs of wind power, from raw material production to de-commissioning, generally report an energy payback period range of 3 - 8 months of operation, with 4 months being a commonly used "ballpark figure" within the industry.

You, on the other hand, guess-a-lated three years as the energy payback period. The experts 4 months vs your 36 months represents an error factor of almost 10X in your conclusion. I'm not sure, I suppose it could just be a common decimal point error on your part, but it seems more likely to be systemic in nature.

And an energy ROI of 30 times investment is well within the range given by industry experts for installations of this size, and if not precisely accurate in specific cases, it certainly is credible based on many years of experience to date, while you calculated an energy ROI of... well, NEVER. Would that qualify as an infinitely large error on your part?

The paper also shows the energy payback in years for the studies where this data is available. Figures referenced range from 0.29 to 0.53 years, or 3.5 to 6.4 months, suggesting on average a wind farm will have generated sufficient energy in just half a year to account for all the energy that is required in its construction and operation. ~ Centre for Sustainable Energy, May 2011

http://www.cse.org.uk/pdf/common_con...wind_power.pdf

The energy payback ratio is the amount of electrical energy produced over the lifetime of the power plant divided by the amount of energy required to procure and transport materials, build, operate, and maintain, and decommission the power plants. the energy payback ratio varies from a low of 17 for a two-turbine unit in Wisconsin to 39 for a 143-turbine wind farm in Southwestern Wisconsin.
~ Net Energy Payback and CO2 Emissions from Wind Generated Electricity in the Midwest, Fusion Technology Institute, University of Wisconsin, December 1998

http://www.ecw.org/prod/180-1.pdf

One final note... I can't think of a faster way to sandbag a calculation than to arbitrarily, with no explanation or supporting evidence whatsoever, just chop a key factor in half, as you did here:

Originally Posted by RememberMee

Blue Creek is expected to be productive 30 to 40 percent of the time (BS!), although the exact figure is proprietary[/i] (Why?)

Speaking of Van Vert wind farm, capacity factor of 15% is an optimistic estimate.

And then you wrapped up by glossing over your undeniably true opening statement (in Bold) to jump feet first into an unsupportable conclusion that is contradicted by decades of successful wind power engineering and operational experience:

I'm not an expert, but I do have numbers giving me good reasons to believe that wind energy is useless as far as saving the world from burning the fossils. It's much more likely wind energy hurts environment more than simple burning of oil.

Next time I suggest you stop long enough to remind yourself of those first four words, then go find out what the experts say before making self-satirizing statements like these. And please, leave that a**hat attitude at home.