Chinese pay toxic price for a green world

Macha

Chloe Pink wrote: »

And how many turbines are needed to get the same amount of electricity per year as one could get from a nuclear generator?
Lets say they're 2MW turbines and the nuclear generator has a capacity of 1600MW

Sorry but I'm not continuing with this debate. You have no coherent argument against renewables, and rather resort to throwing out scattered arguments as and when you come across them. Your latest argument, that wind farms take up public land and recreation area is just bizarre.

It does not add up to a comprehensive, constructive debate by any stretch of the imagination.

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

I provided reference to the eirgrid document already in this thread

Ok, but could you point out specifically where in that document it is stated that Eirgrid is required to spend €2.1 billion upgrading the national grid solely to accommodate wind generation?

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Thats just for Uranium...

Ok ... I’m not sure how that contradicts my point?

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

On the chart on page 3 at this link: http://www.pbworld.co.uk/media.php?file=1148 (as already supplied by ei.sdraob), what's the meaning of the statement "NOTE: all plant assumed to run at base load, unless otherwise noted".

I don’t know – I didn’t write the report.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

And what about shale gas and nuclear?

What about shale gas?

ei.sdraob

djpbarry wrote: »

Ok, but could you point out specifically where in that document it is stated that Eirgrid is required to spend €2.1 billion upgrading the national grid solely to accommodate wind generation?

how about you read what was quoted directly from eirgrid?
the money mentioned is "on top" of their normal requirements to meet government renewable targets

djpbarry wrote: »

Ok ... I’m not sure how that contradicts my point?

wow 49% comes from such evil and unfriendly countries such as Canada, Australia, US & South Africa (hell they even speak same language, imagine that!) :rolleyes: grasping at straws now are we? the remainder of the states are not unfriendly to Ireland or Irish companies either.

djpbarry

ei.sdraob wrote: »

how about you read what was quoted directly from eirgrid?

What did you quote directly from Eirgrid and where was it quoted from? You've provided a link to a 50-page document that I simply do not have time to read in detail, but having scanned through, I can find no mention of the figure you mention above.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

wow 49% comes from such evil and unfriendly countries such as Canada, Australia, US & South Africa...

So you're opposed to importing rare earths from the evil Chinese, but importing uranium from South Africa is ok? Given South Africa's appalling human rights record, I find that pretty hypocritical.

ei.sdraob wrote: »

the remainder of the states are not unfriendly to Ireland or Irish companies either.

As opposed to China? It’s not about friendly or unfriendly, it’s about how ethically and sustainably the materials are sourced.

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Public access and recreation
And how many turbines are needed to get the same amount of electrcicty per year as one could get from a nuclear generator?

Wind turbines 101 - There is very little wind at ground level, so the blades never come close to the ground. This is why they they put them on towers. A wind farm would be far safer than visiting the beach.


Lumberjacks die because it's a dangerous job. But this is no reason to rule out biomass, because biomass is about saplings not trees.


One wind turbine will provide more power than all the Nuclear Power Plants that could be build here in the next 15 years. This is because even if a government took the political backlash of voting for nuclear it would be challenged through the high court for years and there would be demos.

If a nuclear plant was built here I would not be surprised if there was a later triburnal into the awarding of the contract. The ESB are the only people I would even begin to trust with it, and they won't get it because of competition or some such excuse.

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

And how many turbines are needed to get the same amount of electricity per year as one could get from a nuclear generator?
Lets say they're 2MW turbines and the nuclear generator has a capacity of 1600MW

1600MW ?
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/weeklypeakdemand/
Two of these would provide PEAK demand during the summer months.

This would almost certainly be banned under competition laws since that would be 100% from a single supplier.


Also if one went off line, it's all the eggs in one basket. If however one went off line while the other was down for scheduled maintenance then we have a serious problem.

If you use smaller reactors then you loose economies of scale and more planning hurdles. If they are all on one site then one point of failure.


Pumped storage looks good. Back in the 30's we were world leaders in one energy technology, peat. We could look into others. We have some of the worlds highest tides - how much power could we get from the Shannon Basin ? Then neighbours reckon they could get up to 8,640MW from the Severn.

If we did make a break through in alternative energy then we could sell the technoogy to the Chinese to help with the balance of payments on the rare earths. Note also Bolivia hold half the world's lithium so we should look into their human rights record too. And Turkey who own lots of Boron (another light material that can be used to store energy)

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

So is public access and recreation effected by wind turbines? I thought we could hug them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

Chloe Pink

Macha wrote: »

Sorry but I'm not continuing with this debate. You have no coherent argument against renewables, and rather resort to throwing out scattered arguments as and when you come across them. Your latest argument, that wind farms take up public land and recreation area is just bizarre.

It does not add up to a comprehensive, constructive debate by any stretch of the imagination.

Fine but for the record here's my issue with the current infatuation with wind turbines:

I believe that until the matters of new storage schemes and/or inter-connectors have been fully addressed, we should not be banking on wind to do any more than as described in this report:
http://www.ref.org.uk/images/PDFs/sharman.ice.pt2.pdf

“Furthermore, experience in Denmark and Germany shows that the UK will find it impractical to manage much over 10 GW of unpredictable wind power without major new storage schemes or inter-connectors.”

“The total CO2 savings achieved by a 10 GW wind power capacity will be in the region of 9–11 Mt/y. This is roughly 1.5–2.0% of the UK’s 2004 emissions (550 Mt) and 0.046% of global emissions. Global CO2 emissions were about 24 000 Mt in 2003 and are increasing at about 2% per year, mainly from India and China.18 “

And I think the cost of this saving is of note:

“This is a very modest saving, but would cost the UK consumer more than £10 billion (including transmission and distribution expenses). The National Audit Office has recently pointed out that the cost of CO2 savings achieved by wind are up to 20 times more expensive than the early 2005 value of displaced CO2 in the EU Emissions Trading System.19 These remarks are consistent with the advice of the Irish grid board, ESB, and the German energy authority, DENA: wind power is a very costly emissions-reduction method. However, 10 GW of wind energy will also deliver a small but significant fraction of all energy, thus saving fuel, most of which will need to be sourced from distant countries. A wind carpet of this size, predominantly offshore, might generate roughly 22 TWh, thus saving the UK 3.3 Mt of gas a year. This is significant, but only a small fraction of the electrical energy needed to support the country. Gas consumption in 2003 was 86 Mt20 and, under current government policies enunciated in the energy White Paper, may increase to anything up to 130 Mt by 2020.”

And in the report’s conclusion:

“The Government is advised that the UK’s system can accept anything up to 26 GW of wind power. For all the reasons explained in this paper, this advice cannot be regarded as sound. Ample evidence from relatively large wind systems in Denmark and Germany exists to prove that 10 GW (+/–25%) will be the probable safe upper limit of all wind capacity.”?


And even with interconnectors, further cost implications should be taken into account: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgUsun3hIT0

But more to the point, back up generators are still needed to cover the intermittancy and variability of the wind (the cost of which, you now acknowledge, is not but should be included, in/alongside the costings you linked to):
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/195/8061708.htm
10. To assess the extent to which investment in wind capacity will be able to replace thermal plant on the system while ensuring that peak demand can be met at the same level of reliability, we need to assess how much wind capacity on the system can be relied on to meet peak demand at a dependability of 95%. Our assessment of winter wind generation data in 2007[5] indicates that the system operator could rely on 8% of total UK wind capacity to meet winter peak demand at the same level of dependability as thermal plant. On this basis, if the UK required, say, 40,000MW of wind capacity to meet its renewable target by 2020, only 8% of this renewable capacity (3,600MW) could be relied on to meet winter peak demand. This would avoid the need to build 3,600MW of new thermal plant but the remaining 36,400MW of renewable capacity would need to be "backed-up" by thermal plant to meet winter peak electricity demand in 2020. This effect could be to some extent mitigated by more extensive electricity interconnections with continental Europe (which would enable "back-up" power to be imported), the longer term development of new electricity storage technologies at a significant scale (which would be able to store power from the grid and produce it when required), or more demand side management capability which would enable demand to be varied in relation to the level of wind generation.


I refer to public access and recreation in response to one of Captn.Midnight's posts. There are rights of way (public footpaths, cycle routes and bridleways) even through private land and theses are affected by the presence of wind turbines as is wild life watching, hunting, shooting and fishing.
I was simply counteracting Captn.Midnight's implication that wind turbines allow life to continue just as before their installation.
Also wind turbines are not always built on hill tops, sometimes they are built in valleys.
And even if built on private land, neighbouring land is impacted.
Such details provide a completely separate set of issues for consideration regarding wind turbines which we haven't even touched on here.


And finally, my question regarding the equivalent number of wind turbines to provide the same amount of electricity over a year as a conventional, firm power generator (oil, gas, caol, nuclear) was simply to put a scale to wind turbines.

The blade span on a 2MW wind turbine is the same size as a 747 jumbo jet.

The tip height of a 2MW wind turbine isabout 103 meters, that's 333 foot.

2,000 2MW wind turbines would be needed to generate the same amount of electricity a year as a 1000MW (medium sized) conventional generator.

And you would still need 92% of the 1000MW conventional generator for backup (i.e. for the times when the wind blows too much, too little or not at all).


And remember The “Tyndall Centre Technical Report 30, July 2005 Conclusion 5, Security of decarbonised electricity systems”:
"We observed that wind generation has a relatively small capacity credit. At lower levels of wind penetrations the capacity credit of wind generation is found to be about the same as the average load factor of wind. However, as the level of wind penetration rises, the capacity credit begins to tail off. That is why in order to maintain the same level of system security a significant capacity of conventional plant will still be required.
However, these conventional plants will be required to run either occasionally and/or at part load when shortages of supply are likely to occur due to a low total wind power output. Considering that conventional plants at full load are the most efficient and generate the lowest amount of CO2 emission (per electricity produced) such occasionally and/or part-loaded plants will be less utilised and/or produce more CO2 per electricity produced."

Chloe Pink

djpbarry wrote: »

I don’t know – I didn’t write the report.

I am thinking that this suggests that the load factor of wind turbines is not factored into the charts as you suggested it was.

djpbarry wrote: »

What about shale gas?

Cheap, available resource with lowish CO2 emissions
And nuclear, the same but with low CO2 emissions

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Wind turbines 101 - A wind farm would be far safer than visiting the beach.
Lumberjacks die because it's a dangerous job. But this is no reason to rule out biomass, because biomass is about saplings not trees.

As you've raised the matter of safety: http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/accidents.pdf
"This general trend upward in accident numbers is predicted to continue to escalate unless HSE make some significant changes – in particular to protect the public by declaring a minimum safe distance between new turbine developments and occupied housing and buildings (around 2km in Europe), and declaring “no-go” areas to the public, following the 500m exclusion zone around operational turbines imposed in France."

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

One wind turbine will provide more power than all the Nuclear Power Plants that could be build here in the next 15 years.

OK so it takes a while to build new conventional generator but building wind turbines doesn't do a lot to address the issues of security of supply, cost effective electricity generation and CO2 emissions reductions i.e. it doesn't address the problems.

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

1600MW ?
Back in the 30's we were world leaders in one energy technology, peat.

Peat provides a very healthy carbon sink. One of the issues with putting wind turbines on our peaty moors is the disturbance of these carbon sinks.

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

I believe that until the matters of new storage schemes and/or inter-connectors have been fully addressed, we should not be banking on wind to do any more than as described in this report:
http://www.ref.org.uk/images/PDFs/sharman.ice.pt2.pdf
...
And even with interconnectors, further cost implications should be taken into account: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgUsun3hIT0

Posting links to (and/or excerpts from) the same report and video over and over does not constitute discussion. Knock it off.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

But more to the point, back up generators are still needed to cover the intermittancy and variability of the wind...

This argument has never made sense to me. In fact I would go so far as to say it’s totally disingenuous. Suppose a population requires 1,000 MW of generating capacity. Suppose a thermal plant exists to meet this demand. Suppose the owners of said plant decide that they’re going to build some wind turbines (let’s say 200MW’s worth) to reduce their dependence on imported fuels. In such a scenario, the so-called “back-up generators” that you refer to already exist, so factoring in said generators as an additional expense makes absolutely no sense.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

I am thinking that this suggests that the load factor of wind turbines is not factored into the charts as you suggested it was.

Load factor and base load are not the same thing.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Cheap, available resource with lowish CO2 emissions

And yet, shale gas production in Europe currently stands at zero cubic meters per annum, which suggests that it’s not really all that cheap or “available”.

Chloe Pink

djpbarry wrote: »

Posting links to (and/or excerpts from) the same report and video over and over does not constitute discussion. Knock it off.

I am simply summarising my case in one post so it is easier to see.

djpbarry wrote: »

This argument has never made sense to me. In fact I would go so far as to say it’s totally disingenuous. Suppose a population requires 1,000 MW of generating capacity. Suppose a thermal plant exists to meet this demand. Suppose the owners of said plant decide that they’re going to build some wind turbines (let’s say 200MW’s worth) to reduce their dependence on imported fuels. In such a scenario, the so-called “back-up generators” that you refer to already exist, so factoring in said generators as an additional expense makes absolutely no sense.

Actually, adjust your figure of 200MW to 100MW (+/- 10%) and you're sort of on almost acceptable territory as far as I'm concerned.

However, you're looking at 20% wind penetration in this scenario and governments are looking at an even greater percentage.
On this basis, and in terms of business planning, and in terms of plant retiring due to age or EU directives, and in terms of increased demand, it makes perfect sense to factor in the backup:

Suppose a population requires 1,000 MW of generating capacity.
Said popultion can have a thermal plant
OR they can have a thermal plant of 950MW and 200MW of wind turbines.
BUT they can't just have 800MW of thermal plant and 200MW of wind turbines.
(The 950MW of thermal plant is being generous with regard to the capacity credit of the wind turbines. At a low penetration of wind generators (about 10%), the capacity credit is roughly the same as the load factor. However as the penetration of wind generators increases beyond this figure (to 20% in your scenario), it's capacity credit decreases; so more than 950MW of thermal plant would be needed.)


However getting back to the bigger picture, it is important to remember that we could save up to 20 times more CO2 for the same money (according to the National Audit Office).
It's not the wind developers' faults though that the governments are forcing them down this route with the ROCs, or is it?

In the UK, the Renewables Advisory Board, RAB, advised the government; in the early days RAB's members list looked like a cut and paste from the BWEA members list, (the BWEA (now Renewables UK) being the trade lobby group for the wind industry).

And here's Ireland's equivalent: http://www.iwea.com/index.cfm/page/aboutus
"IWEA comprises two separate entities, the Irish Wind Energy Association which is committed to the promotion and education of wind energy issues and IWEA which is the legal entity charged with conference organisation, lobbying and policy development. IWEA is committed to promoting the use of wind energy in Ireland and beyond as an economically viable and environmentally sound alternative to thermal or nuclear generation. - now who's being disingenuous?
Wind has been the world's fastest growing renewable energy source for the last seven years, and this trend is expected to continue with falling costs of wind energy and the urgent international need to tackle CO2 emissions to prevent climate change.

Our primary purpose is to promote the use of wind power in Ireland. We act as a central point for information for our membership as well as a lobbying group to promote wind energy to government. We research and find solutions to current issues and generally act as the forum for the Irish wind industry.

Activities of IWEA include:

• Working to influence government policy on Renewable Energy
• Working to ensure fair access to the Irish Electricity Grid
• Working to reform and improve the Planning Process for wind farms
• Organising highly informative Conferences bi-annually
• Making Submissions and Proposals to decision-making bodies for the betterment of the Irish wind industry
• Making Recommendations to Government on proposed legislation
• Working closely with relevant statutory agencies such as Eirgrid, CER, DCMNR, ESBN and SEI to progress the main objectives of the Irish Wind Industry.
• Advancing wind energy through membership of relevant national and international technology and policy bodies
• Commissioning authoritative Reports on key issues for the industry
• Working with the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) in Brussels on European-level initiatives
• Working with partners in EC sponsored projects for R&D in wind energy"

djpbarry wrote: »

Load factor and base load are not the same thing.

I know.

djpbarry wrote: »

And yet, shale gas production in Europe currently stands at zero cubic meters per annum, which suggests that it’s not really all that cheap or “available”.

What's going to backup your wind then?

And the interconnetors, demand side management grid and storage facilities required to mitigate 'to some extent' the variability of the wind, are all up and running and ready to go? And the solution to the rest of the mitigation?

At least 92% of any shale gas realised wouldn't need backing up.

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

OK so it takes a while to build new conventional generator but building wind turbines doesn't do a lot to address the issues of security of supply, cost effective electricity generation and CO2 emissions reductions i.e. it doesn't address the problems.

Nuclear doesn't address the problems. It will take at least 15 years to come on line. Supply could be affected by legal challenge or political change at any time in the future. Also to be economic it would require a reactor bigger than we could provide redundancy for.

How many times does it have to be pointed out that wind power by itself isn't a panacea and is just one element in an integrated system. At present and for the foreseeable future it's got just about the lowest on-going cost of generation. Hydro is better but all the low hanging fruit there was gone ages ago , though maybe we should look at Norway and Russia as places to import from in the future.

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Peat provides a very healthy carbon sink. One of the issues with putting wind turbines on our peaty moors is the disturbance of these carbon sinks.

its a carbon store

since it takes so long for bogs to form it's actually a pretty poor carbon sink.

Roughly speaking when they drain bogs in Indonesia to develop "renewable" palm oil plantations they release more CO2 that the plantation will recoup in 100 years or so.

So if you claim that wind turbines are disturbing the balance please quote some figures for the amount of CO2 windmills have saved compared to what that may have been lost during construction. Also bogs with windmills might just be less likely to be harvested for peat so take that into account too.

Capt'n Midnight

Anyway to get back on topic again.

An alternator uses current to excite the field coil. ie. it uses an electromagnet instead of a rare earth magnet. One advantage of doing this is you can regulate the output voltage at different speeds by adjusting the current to the field coil. The disadvantage is that you need to supply a small fraction of the output to the coil. Haven't found reliable info on how much is used but seeing as how it's wind powered it's not really a biggie.

If anyone knows of any cars that use permenant magnet alternators please us know

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Nuclear doesn't address the problems. It will take at least 15 years to come on line. Supply could be affected by legal challenge or political change at any time in the future. Also to be economic it would require a reactor bigger than we could provide redundancy for.

All supplies could be affected by legal challenge or political change at any time in the future.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

How many times does it have to be pointed out that wind power by itself isn't a panacea and is just one element in an integrated system.

Well it doesn't have to be pointed out to me thank you because I've never suggested otherwise.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

At present and for the foreseeable future it's got just about the lowest on-going cost of generation.

No it hasn't, as shown by other posts in this thread.

Chloe Pink

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Roughly speaking when they drain bogs in Indonesia to develop "renewable" palm oil plantations they release more CO2 that the plantation will recoup in 100 years or so.

So if you claim that wind turbines are disturbing the balance please quote some figures for the amount of CO2 windmills have saved compared to what that may have been lost during construction. Also bogs with windmills might just be less likely to be harvested for peat so take that into account too.

As you mentioned peat, I was just pointing out another facor for consideration when installing thousands of wind tubines in the countryside i.e. CO2 release through peat disturbance much as the renewable palm oil plantations have disturbed the Indonesian bogs.
And no I can't put CO2 figures on it; can you put CO2 figures on the Indonesian bogs.

Actually at least if the peat was harvested, heat would be provided in its burning so saving on another energy source - this seems preferable to it simply drying out through disturbance and releasing CO2 without reaping the energy.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

"Neodymium is commonly used as part of a Neodymium-Iron-Boron alloy (Nd2Fe14B) which, thanks to its tetragonal crystal structure, is used to make the most powerful magnets in the world. Electric motors and generators rely on the basic principles of electromagnetism, and the stronger the magnets they use, the more efficient they can be. It’s been used in small quantities in common technologies for quite a long time – hi-fi speakers, hard drives and lasers, for example. But only with the rise of alternative energy solutions has neodymium really come to prominence, for use in hybrid cars and wind turbines. A direct-drive permanent-magnet generator for a top capacity wind turbine would use 4,400lb of neodymium-based permanent magnet material."

"But Helen McDade, head of policy at the John Muir Trust, a small but feisty campaign group dedicated to protecting Scotland’s wild lands, also points out that leaving aside the damage to the landscape, nobody is really sure how much carbon is being released by the renewable energy construction boom. Peat moors lock up huge amounts of carbon, which gets released when it’s drained to put up a turbine.

Environmental considerations aside, as the percentage of electricity generated by wind increases, renewable energy is coming under a lot more scrutiny now for one simple reason – money. We pay extra for wind power – around twice as much – because it can’t compete with other forms of electricity generation. Under the Renewable Obligation (RO), suppliers have to buy a percentage of their electricity from renewable generators and can hand that cost on to consumers. If they don’t, they pay a fine instead.

There’s a simple beauty about RO for the government. Even though it’s defined as a tax, it doesn’t come out of pay packets but is stuck on our electricity bills. That has made funding wind farms a lot easier for the government than more cost-effective energy-efficiency measures."

"Our current obsession with wind power, according to John Constable of energy think-tank the Renewable Energy Foundation, stems from the decision of the European Union on how to tackle climate change. Instead of just setting targets for reducing emissions, the EU told governments that by 2020, 15 per cent of all the energy we use must come from renewable sources.

Because of how we heat our houses and run our cars with gas and petrol, 30 per cent of electricity needs to come from renewables. And in the absence of other technologies, that means wind turbines. But there’s a structural flaw in the plan, which this winter has brutally exposed.

Study a graph of electricity consumption and it appears amazingly predictable, even down to reduced demand on public holidays. The graph for wind energy output, however, is far less predictable.

Take the figures for December, when we all shivered through sub-zero temperatures and wholesale electricity prices surged. Peak demand for the UK on 20 December was just over 60,000 megawatts. Maximum capacity for wind turbines throughout the UK is 5,891 megawatts, almost ten per cent of that peak demand figure.

Yet on December 20, because winds were light or non-existent, wind energy contributed a paltry 140 megawatts. Despite billions of pounds in investment and subsidies, Britain’s wind-turbine fleet was producing a feeble 2.43 per cent of its own capacity – and little more than 0.2 per cent of the nation’s electricity in the coldest month since records began."

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

I am simply summarising my case in one post so it is easier to see.

No, you’re posting the same crap multiple times in different threads. Now cut it out.

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Actually, adjust your figure of 200MW to 100MW (+/- 10%) and you're sort of on almost acceptable territory as far as I'm concerned.

The figure I picked was completely arbitrary and is almost completely beside the point.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

However, you're looking at 20% wind penetration in this scenario and governments are looking at an even greater percentage.

I don’t care – you’re (deliberately) missing the point.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

On this basis, and in terms of business planning, and in terms of plant retiring due to age or EU directives, and in terms of increased demand, it makes perfect sense to factor in the backup:

Even referring to thermal generation as “back-up” does not make sense.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Suppose a population requires 1,000 MW of generating capacity.
Said popultion can have a thermal plant
OR they can have a thermal plant of 950MW and 200MW of wind turbines.
BUT they can't just have 800MW of thermal plant and 200MW of wind turbines.

In the scenario I alluded to above, they already have a 1,000 MW plant. You see, we’re not talking about building new capacity to cater for a new population here. We’re talking about using wind to offset existing fuel consumption by an existing population. That’s why referring to thermal generation as back-up is totally misleading.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

In the UK, the Renewables Advisory Board, RAB, advised the government; in the early days RAB's members list looked like a cut and paste from the BWEA members list, (the BWEA (now Renewables UK) being the trade lobby group for the wind industry).

And here's Ireland's equivalent: http://www.iwea.com/index.cfm/page/aboutus...

Great – what’s your point? This is the last time I’ll point this out:

Copy & Paste ≠ Discussion

Chloe Pink wrote: »

I know.

Oh, well that explains why you were using the two terms interchangeably.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

What's going to backup your wind then?

There’s that term again.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

And the interconnetors, demand side management grid and storage facilities required to mitigate 'to some extent' the variability of the wind, are all up and running and ready to go?

Wind turbines are currently connected to the grid and generating electricity, are they not?

Chloe Pink wrote: »

At least 92% of any shale gas realised wouldn't need backing up.

I’ve no idea what this means.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Well it doesn't have to be pointed out to me thank you because I've never suggested otherwise.

Yes, you have. Several times. You feel the need to point out at every turn that wind power requires “back-up”.

Chloe Pink wrote: »

No it hasn't, as shown by other posts in this thread.

Just about every single report produced on this thread has shown that onshore wind generation is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation there is. Care to produce (and discuss) something that says otherwise?

Ghost Estate

Chloe Pink wrote: »

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1350811/In-China-true-cost-Britains-clean-green-wind-power-experiment-Pollution-disastrous-scale.html

Ah yes the familiar rag that is the Daily Mail

.. cancer from your mobile, cancer from your laptop, cancer from your root crop, bring back capital punishment for paedophiles.

Chloe Pink

Ghost Estate wrote: »

Ah yes the familiar rag that is the Daily Mail

.. cancer from your mobile, cancer from your laptop, cancer from your root crop, bring back capital punishment for paedophiles.

Indeed and how refreshing it is to see a relatively accurate report by any journalists standards.
Much of the information in this particular article is backed by the links I have provided to more palatable sources, earlier in this thread.
Don't shoot the messenger!

djpbarry

Chloe Pink wrote: »

Much of the information in this particular article is backed by the links I have provided to more palatable sources...

Specifically, what information are you referring to?

Chloe Pink

djpbarry wrote: »

No, you’re posting the same crap multiple times in different threads. Now cut it out.

I have reported this post in line with your advice earlier in this thread.

The first link in the post you link to, is by Hugh Sharman and won the Institute of Civil Engineers Telford Gold Award.

ArtSmart

ei.sdraob wrote: »

Rare earth mines are even bigger and more damaging, the concentration of the rare earths in ores is very small (hence the name rare) in some cases even smaller than gold in gold ore
Thats one of the reason's China has 95% or more of the worlds supplies, they are simply too dirty to operate anywhere else, there are rare ores in places like australia,us and canada but the more stringent laws means much higher cost and not being able to compete with China
Higher costs of these metals would mean even higher costs of turbines, as outlined in the article typical 3MW turbine has 2tons of the rare earths

And thats before we get to cars and their electric cells, lookup lithium mining in Andes


The Chinese are building a new coal plant every week, refining and mining for rare earths takes huge amounts of energy mostly derived from dirty coal


As I said not so Green, people on this forum seem to get carried away and talk as if Wind turbines grow from the ground and electric cars are delivered by Santa , I think its important that these issues are highlighted and brought to discussion. Theres no such thing as free lunch, in case of China its a toxic lunch.

what would be useful is a quantified environmental cost / benefit analysis - extraction/ manufacturing costs versus saved environmental costs (benefits).same with bio-fuel.
There may well be a danger of mkt led demand for 'green solutions' resulting in non-environmental practices to supply the green components demanded.

edit: some pretty well informed posts here, will read more in time. but i do hope that mkt demand forces for green products dont actually drive non-green production processes

Macha

Chloe Pink wrote: »

I have reported this post in line with your advice earlier in this thread.

Chloe Pink, it is not appropriate to post this in-thread as it constitutes a discussion of moderation. Please do not do so in future.

Capt'n Midnight

Chloe Pink wrote: »

As you mentioned peat, I was just pointing out another facor for consideration when installing thousands of wind tubines in the countryside i.e. CO2 release through peat disturbance much as the renewable palm oil plantations have disturbed the Indonesian bogs.

What % of the bogs have been disturbed ? Of that what % has dried out to a signifignat extent ? Of that what % involved lost of substantial abount of the stored carbon ?

Peat is a fossil fuel, a figure I've heard is a quarter of an inch a year for bog growth , so it's not really practical as a renewable resource.

Yes it's better to burn peat usefully than have it burn in a bog fire, other than that your argument is arguing that a if you few exceptional cases in a small area of a few bogs apply to all bogs and that the worst case scenario applies in every case. (please tell us in which areas of which bogs that windfarm disturbance caused so much drying up that the carbon in the peat in any area was all lost ?)

The wind turbines on the arklow bank act as a nursery for fish so how does that affect the carbon balance ?

And no I can't put CO2 figures on it; can you put CO2 figures on the Indonesian bogs.

I had already said it would take 100 years to recover the carbon.


Few technical/scientific people have respect for the DM because it was campaigning for the cervical cancer vaccine at the same time it was campaigning against it in the UK. Have a look at these :pac:https://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=269512464297

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-449679/Power-lines-link-cancer-new-alert.html Power lines link to cancer in new alert

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-42066/New-study-links-nuclear-sites-cancer.html New study links nuclear sites to cancer

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1265277/Cancer-danger-night-time-trip-toilet.html Cancer danger of that night-time trip to the toilet

Simply turning on a light at night for a few seconds to go to the toilet can cause changes that might lead to cancer, scientists claim.

Chloe Pink

djpbarry wrote: »

The figure I picked was completely arbitrary and is almost completely beside the point.

I must apologise here, I should have written "Actually, adjust your figure of 200MW to 100MW (+/- 2.5% )and you're sort of on almost acceptable territory as far as I'm concerned."
You're correct the figures used are arbitrary but what is relevant is the relationship between the installed wind capacity and the total installed generating capacity. As described in Hugh Sharman's report, this is 10% (=/- 2.5%) after which point integrating more wind turbines into the grid becomes more complex and less fruitful. My apologies once again.

djpbarry wrote: »

I don’t care – you’re (deliberately) missing the point.

I don't believe I am, I have acknowledged that in the scenario you refer to, that "Actually, adjust your figure of 200MW to 100MW (+/- 2.5%) and you're sort of on almost acceptable territory as far as I'm concerned."

djpbarry wrote: »

Great – what’s your point? This is the last time I’ll point this out:

That the wind industry is driven by money and that their primary purpose is to promote wind energy; it is not to reduce CO2 emissions, provide security of supply and to provide affordable electricity.
Maybe this is obvious but I wished to highlight it all the same.

djpbarry wrote: »

Oh, well that explains why you were using the two terms interchangeably.

I'm not. The term base load indicates 'continuous' supply. I am suggesting therefore that the reference to it on the chart indicates that the load factor of wind turbines has not been taken into account.

djpbarry wrote: »

Wind turbines are currently connected to the grid and generating electricity, are they not?

I didn't refer to grid connection, I referred to 'interconnetors, demand side management grid and storage facilities' which are put forwards as means of balancing the grid as the wind penetration increases.

djpbarry wrote: »

I’ve no idea what this means.

The Eon Netz report refers to this 92%; it's the percentage of backup generation needed for wind. There is a link to this report earlier in this thread.

djpbarry wrote: »

Yes, you have. Several times. You feel the need to point out at every turn that wind power requires “back-up”.

Please refrain from misquoting me. Where have I said that 'wind power by itself is a panacea' and where haven't I said that 'it isn't just one element in an integrated system.' Infact my references to backup confirm that I see it as only one part of an integrated system.

djpbarry wrote: »

Just about every single report produced on this thread has shown that onshore wind generation is one of the cheapest forms of electricity generation there is. Care to produce (and discuss) something that says otherwise?

This thread has shown that the cost of the ROCs, the cost of the backup and the cost of the interconnectors, storage and demand side management have not been factored in to the charts brought to this thread.

Chloe Pink

Macha wrote: »

Chloe Pink, it is not appropriate to post this in-thread as it constitutes a discussion of moderation. Please do not do so in future.

OK Macha, point taken , thank you.