Thinking Ahead in the Tailwind: A Windpower Retrospective
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 01.16.06
In 2005 TreeHugger published dozens of posts on wind power. Looking back, we wondered how much real progress was made? The print media was so focused on wind farm controversies, objective metrics were hard to find. Ken Silverstein, EnergyBiz Insider Editor-in-Chief, summarized the progress in a recent newsletter: "High gas prices and a concerted effort to curb global warming are breathing new life into the wind industry. About 2,500 megawatts of wind power have been added to the United States' generation mix in the last 12 months, which equates to roughly 9,200 megawatts of total generating wind capacity here".
A modern nuclear plant would operate in the 650MW area, so 2005 saw wind capacity additions that would be the rough equivalent of 14 brand new nuclear stations in terms of peak cumulative output. Can you imagine the international scandal that would have erupted if the US had worked on that much new nuclear capability while trying to pressure a few other nations to add none?
Ken's wrap was bolstered with some insights from EnergyPulse.
"...Wind power, which generates energy without using fuel, provides a hedge against rising energy costs because wind energy production is immune from fuel price spikes".And as for the homeowner paying high gas bills: "... The U.S. currently burns about 13 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas for electricity generation, which means that by the end of the year wind power will be reducing natural gas use for power generation by 4-5 percent".
Sure, it's still subsidy driven. But what power plant isn't?
We think 2007 looks to be another banner year for wind. While the pundits look the other way, while broadcast and print media focus on projects stalemated over bogus property value disputes, more power is coming from the wind. And it's the only action we've seen that could eventually be a help for low income people worried about their gas bills.
whats the average price per kilowatt hour that wind power is able to offer?
Why is the price for wind power and solar not very cheap after the intial price of the equipment and installation is paid for? Am I missing something?
==== author's response follows =====
I don't know the full answer, but I'll be it starts with "because they can get it". All new services start with a premium price and go down whence competition and technological improvements arrive on the scene. The new goal gasification projects require even larger subsidies so I don't expect much non-wind price reductions to come about.
I think you need to brush up on the math... 2500 in new generation capacity divided by 650 is a factor of 4. They've added essentially only the amount of power to equal 4 nuclear plants.
On the other hand, you could say that total U.S. wind generation capacity is only equivalent to 14 nuclear power plants. As you know, wind is a *very* small percentage of total U.S. generation. To give you a sense of proportions, California alone uses ~60,000MW at peak consumption periods.
===author's response follows ====
A worthy comment. The comparison should be for total capacity, not just last years. However, it is also true that most of the current capacity is relativley recent, so my eroneous statement may not be that far off.
When the first commercial nuclear plant was constructed one could have made the same statement made here about wind power's trivial significance. The lengthy article that the quote came from (by subscription) makes clear the the only serious obstacle to rapid wind power growth is NIMBY.
For perspective, USDOE reported back in 2003 that "2003 came very close to the best year ever in the U.S., with 1,687 megawatts (MW) of new wind
power constructed -- only a few megawatts shy of the record 1,696 MW installed in 2001. Current
installed capacity in the U.S. is 6,374 MW". By these limited data then, it appears that the 2005 growth in wind-Megawatts added has increased relative to immediately preceding years, and that more than half of the 9MW+ total national capacity of today came into being after the year 2000. Anyone have better information?
Not meaning to nitpick, but windpower is not totally devoid of petroleum inputs. Component manufacturing, transportation of parts and assemblies, transportation of construction workers and future maintenance personnel do and will use petroleum, as will repair and replacement components and assemblies.
I observed the wind farm that was erected in Lee County, Illinois, a few years back. What was more awesome than the turbines I see everytime I drive up there, was the machinery used to put them up. I didn't count them but there were A LOT of giant cranes in operation over more than a year, it seems. Thats not counting the construction equipment to prepare the 60 plus sites.
Additionally, electic generation will always take plastics for insulation, oil and grease for lubrication.
The topper is, not infrequently do I see only a handful of them operating. But then, there's a nuke plant about 30 miles north!
=== author's comment ==== Everything is relative. Let's divide life cycle into three primary phases: construction, operation, and de-comissioning, For wind turbines, as you say, the construction phase would have the heaviest burden of the three. Scrap value of the end of life might be high enough to make the last phase relatively neutral. Everyone gets that the operating phase burdens are much lower than other energy sources.Compare to newly designed coal fired plant. This, like it's primitive design forebearers, will need a HUGE chimney -- we're talking several ginormous cranes plus scaffolding -- lined with fire brick that will need to be replaced every so often and will be filthy contaminated and have no economic value at end of life. A coal plant also needs a massive cooling towers (more cranes) that consume huge amounts of water on an ongoing basis and use toxic chemical additives to prevent fouling. Alternatively, it will be discharging surface water 20F above ambient, impacting aquatic organisms big time. Not to forget mountain top removal, or coal trains from Montana by diesel, plus acid rain and mercury deposition that taints the entire food chain. Megawatt to megawatt, even if a wind farm's physical foot print is similar to coal's , it's manufacturing and operating burdens are orders of magnitude lower. Moreso if you include decomissioning costs, disposal of fly ash, and wastewater treatment needs in the comparison.
Coal plants need 245/7 shift workers who drive to their jobs every day, whereas wind turbines only need periodic maintenance. Considering all the above, wind wins on a purely practical basis without doubt. No one argues that coal plants are prettier than wind turbines, so on aesthetic basis wind is at least neutral if not better.
Even a comparison to a natural gas fired plant comes out generally better for wind. Few know, for example, that gas fired plants emit plenty of mercury (non-domestic gases are not pre-scrubbed).
I'd really love to see a site that lays down the cost per kW (especially old vs. newer and bigger wind turbines) and compares them to our energy needs. Then compare that to current, past, and projected costs for coal, natural gas, nuke, etc. That'd be great to see. One omitted fact in this article was that aside from NIMBY, the amount of renewables on the grid is also limited by energy fluctuations, and can therefore only deliver about 20% of overall power. If the wind's not blowing on a hot summer afternoon, the turbine doesn't do anyone any good.
The author points out that at peak operation, these windfarms produce 9,200 megawatts of electricity. The average availability of power from windfarms is only about 25% - 35%. This means that these windfarms provide the equivalent of 5 nuclear power plants, not 14.(nuke plants have an over 95% availability). Also the average sized nuke plant in the U.S. is over 1,400MW, not 650MW. These numbers really skew the "facts" you have provided, and dropped the number of nuke plants replaced to only 2.
===author's response follows ====
It would be helpful for our readers if you were to provide the a few citations for the availability numbers mentioned, and also if you could indicate whether, for wind, the availability range you cited typifies relatively recent wind projects or includes some of the early projects which were problematic in terms of siting and turbine/tower design.
The point of the post was to get at the idea that all forms of publicly distributed energy, including hydropower, have been, and continue to be taxpayer subsidized to a significant degree. The nuclear industry is likely to have been among the most subsidized to date; and the bills have not yet all come in!. My point was that In this light, assertions that renewable power is not able to stand on its own in a free market are absurd.
Additionally, it my personal sense that, were we to carry the comparisons between wind and nuclear to a circumspect and logical endpoint, the percent of the power output which was taxpayer subsidized over the full design life, including the expenditures needed for plant decommissioning, transportation of contaminated materials, and all final waste disposal/managment, would, without doubt, reflect more favorably on wind. If you have published information that makes a credible case to the contrary, I am sure our readers would appreciate hearing about that as well.
I would like to start out by saying that I am in total agreement with you that nuclear power, using current light water reactor technology, is far…far…far… more expensive than even the older technology wind turbines. It’s production however is much closer to the plants rated capacity.
The newest and largest wind turbine that I know of is the Repower 5m. Over the first six months of operation it produced 6000 megawatt hours of electricity which, if divided by the number of hours in six months gives you 1.388MW or 28% availability. Some of this is because of down time because of the new design, but it’s the newest turbine with any info published on it. This info is from the press release section on Repower’s web site. www.repower5m.de
The Kimball wind farm in Nebraska, which first generated power in October of 2002 generated 31,175 megawatt hours from October 2003 through September 2004 from a wind farm with a rated capacity of 10.5 megawatts 31,175 divided by 8760 (number of hours in a year) gives us 3.56 megawatt hours per hour or 33.9% availability, up from the 31% availability they had during the previous year.
If you goto http://www.neo.state.ne.us/statshtml/89.htm you can get an accounting of all wind turbines in Nebraska.
My information on nuclear power plant capacity came from http://www.nei.org/doc.asp?catnum=3&catid=13
788.6 billion kilowatt hours generated nationwide in 2004 by 64 sites gives us an average size of 1,406,606 mega watt hours per hour of operation.