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Wind farms - ugly truths
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,966 Mod ✭✭✭✭
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Meanwhile in the real world nuclear plants are predicatably beset by delays.Thing is, if Western Europe had started a nuclear programme in 2000-2005, we'd be reaping the benefits by now at the latest..
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34149392The French energy company said Hinkley Point C in Somerset will not start generating power in 2023 as planned.
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The delay to Hinkley Point delay is bad news for the government. The UK's old coal-fired power plants will be forced to close before 2023 under EU air quality rules and the gap in generating capacity will have to be filled some other way.
France produced 424TWh from Nuclear in 2014 so a little over 20TWh per month. Now consider that most of the wind and solar in the EU has been installed since the French started building EPR's.
Output from wind and solar in July in the five markets was a combined 24.7 TWh, some 25% above levels seen a year ago0 -
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Power plants fail ... stop presses? I still don't see the problem.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »You must have missed the part where I pointed out that Belgium, Switzerland, Japan , German , Franc and Korea all have multiple reactors off line for various reasons.
So nuclear plants are more reliable in the winter time when people need more electricity for heating?Then again some nukes reduce output or go offline if the local water source gets too warm as happens in the US and France.
That's probably the only legitimate claim you have, yes, fracked gas may be cheap for now, but it still emits CO2 and lots of it, the gas should really still be saved for future use because of the "opportunity cost" (gas can also be used in heating, transport etc, uranium can't).And nuclear is getting hammered by low gas prices.
Oh and the mainstream environmental movement are against fracking. Just look at Greenpeace UKs Facebook page right now. Top 2 themes are:
1) Opposition to fracking.
2) Claims that the solar subsidiy cuts are "anti environmental" or somehting. I particularly loved Natalie Blenkhorns contribution:George Osborne is evil incarnate.
Regarding the economics of nuclear, there is a long history of escalating shutdown and clean up costs .
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/san-679127-edison-onofre.htmlYou could buy a lot of renewables for $10 Billion.
Did a little digging, there's MUCH more to this story than you'd have us believe. As usual.
There were 3 reactrors at San Onofre. The first was built in the 60s and decommissioned in '92. The two in question were built in '83 and '84 respectively. Producing a total of 2.2GW since the Mid 1980s say 30 years, they've produced up to 512,640,000,000,000. That's 512 trillion, 640 billion units (i.e. kilowatt hours) of electricity. Don't bother trying to calculate the decommissioning cost per kw/h because I just tried now, Calculator gave back a figure so small it had to be quoted with a negative exponential.
Could you get 512,640,000,000,000 kw/h of electricity for $10bn from renewables (especially solar), especially with the nuclear alternative - by your own admission - being more reliable in the winter when the power is needed more?
Suffice it say I strongly doubt that you can. But if you think you could get 512,640,000,000,000 units of electricity from renewables when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining -i.e. when electricity is needed most - for anything like $10bn, please let me know.
And solar/wind power is?Nuclear isn't that kind on wildlife.
That's not including the massive worldwide death tolls imposed on bird and bat populations by those awful, expensive, unreliable, wildlife chomping monstrosities called wind turbines.
Did every single nuclear plant in the country fail at the same time? Because that's exactly what happens in Ireland when the wind dies down.Oh look another one's offline :rolleyes: Good thing we can rely on nuclear to be there when there's no wind.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/nine_mile_point_nuclear_reactor_shuts_down_after_valve_problem.html
That's why every single KW of installed wind/solar has to be backed up by something else. Every single one of them. So ratepayers first have to subsidise the windmills and solar panels, then also have to maintain fossil fuel fired power plants that have to operate under a "backup" business model. No wonder Denmark/Germany are in the Top 10 by electricity prices in the world - and we're right behind them!0 -
This is why wind is useless
2000+Mw of installed capacity and we are getting 1Mw
I suspect that after the debacle of a few years ago where they published a negative Mw output the new s/w will not not do that
Each turbine pulls a number of Kw hrs just to sit there doing nothing
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Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 90,966 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 89205
Whole fleets when they find a common fault, whole countries even.Power plants fail ... stop presses? I still don't see the problem.
Nucler needs to be backed up by gas unless you have oodles of hydro or nice neighbours. Simple as that. if you have nuclear you need gas too.That's probably the only legitimate claim you have, yes, fracked gas may be cheap for now, but it still emits CO2 and lots of it, the gas should really still be saved for future use because of the "opportunity cost" (gas can also be used in heating, transport etc, uranium can't).
At even 1c a unit that would mean that one plant generated revenue in excess of 5 trillion dollars ????Did a little digging, there's MUCH more to this story than you'd have us believe. As usual.
There were 3 reactrors at San Onofre. The first was built in the 60s and decommissioned in '92. The two in question were built in '83 and '84 respectively. Producing a total of 2.2GW since the Mid 1980s say 30 years, they've produced up to 512,640,000,000,000. That's 512 trillion, 640 billion units (i.e. kilowatt hours) of electricity. Don't bother trying to calculate the decommissioning cost per kw/h because I just tried now, Calculator gave back a figure so small it had to be quoted with a negative exponential.
I would suggest you check your figures again.
Where did I say nuclear was more reliable than anything else ??Could you get 512,640,000,000,000 kw/h of electricity for $10bn from renewables (especially solar), especially with the nuclear alternative - by your own admission - being more reliable in the winter when the power is needed more?
Nuclear is affected by floods in winter.
The $10Bn is just the extra clean up cost after all the other costs of nuclear. Again you may need to check the number of units. A rough figure for wind would be about $1.4/GW so you'd get about 7GW of wind for that $10Bn, assume a 30% of nameplate and you've got an average of 2GW. And all for the price of cleaning up after a plant that's been subsidised for decades.Suffice it say I strongly doubt that you can. But if you think you could get 512,640,000,000,000 units of electricity from renewables when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining -i.e. when electricity is needed most - for anything like $10bn, please let me know.
And yes when the wind dies down it'll won't generate much more energy than an offline nuclear plant. But it's predictable and a smart grid can work around. And German took a huge hit during the eclipse and kept going.
BTW one big reason we have high 'leccy prices is because the ESB was hamstrung by the powers that be to allow "competition". Haven't the Germans have had referendum's / polls about green energy and isn't it getting support levels politicians would sacrifice babies to get ?0 -
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France only has more than avereage hydro, it has almost no fossil fuels.Capt'n Midnight wrote: »Nucler needs to be backed up by gas unless you have oodles of hydro or nice neighbours. Simple as that. if you have nuclear you need gas too.
Denmark has no hydro to speak of AFAIK, they have to use Norways hydroelectricity as backup. Even at that their electricity is the most expensive in Europe, just ahead of Germany. Both countries with vast renewables and attendant subsidies.
You're right, my initial math was inaccurate. Corrected, with some less generous figures shows:At even 1c a unit that would mean that one plant generated revenue in excess of 5 trillion dollars ????
I would suggest you check your figures again.
2,200,000 KW
= 2,200,000 units/kwh per hour.
* 24 hours in a day
* 365 days in a year
* 27 years operation
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520344000000 KWH generated in total over 27 years
So the reactors only produced 520+ BILLION units over their lifetime (not trillion
)
It's still a huge load of electricity.
Divided by 10bn it amounts to less than US$0.02 per kwh.
Even though my initial math was off by several orders of magnitude, it's still bugger all.
You spent all of this thread and a few others banging on about jellyfish and overheated watercourses in summer. You never said anything about flooding ...Where did I say nuclear was more reliable than anything else ??
Nuclear is affected by floods in winter.
Again, just in case this was not clear - in a European context, power is needed most in the winter time, when everyone is throwing on electric heaters and solar water heaters are no use. Solar panels are useless in this environment, and if a cold snap is accompanied by an anti-cyclone, the windmills are no use either. If jellyfish and warm waters are a summertime problem, they can't be an issue when the leccy is needed most, i.e. winter nights. And that's what you've been going about. Jellyfish. and warm water. Summer time problems. When the power isn't needed that much anyway.
Now it's my turn to question your math. $1.4 per GW? Most wind turbines are rated in single digit megawatts or less, so you need a minimum of 700 and more likely thousands to get 7GW nameplate. perhaps you meant $1.4 billion?The $10Bn is just the extra clean up cost after all the other costs of nuclear. Again you may need to check the number of units. A rough figure for wind would be about $1.4/GW so you'd get about 7GW of wind for that $10Bn, assume a 30% of nameplate and you've got an average of 2GW. And all for the price of cleaning up after a plant that's been subsidised for decades.
Again, this is just to get energy when the wind is blowing.
Was it not proven, conclusively, by a previous poster that there is a direct correlation between renewables per captia on the grid and high electricity power costs? If you look at the graph provided Birdnuts, it's clear that other issues in Ireland only account for at most 4c per kwh. The rest of the excess is to do with renewable subsidies.BTW one big reason we have high 'leccy prices is because the ESB was hamstrung by the powers that be to allow "competition".
All that proves is that people can be fooled by a mass delusion. Maybe the love spending world-record amounts of money on electricity. Maybe they're all right-on sado-masochists. Maybe they're compensating for their Nazi past by becoming hippies, trading the jackboots for sandals. Maybe they like plunging their lower classes into fuel poverty. Maybe they like destroying their views, killings birds and bats by the million. Maybe they like destabilising their own grids and that of their neighbors? I don't know? All I do know is that they're paying a very heavy price for this insanity, both financial and environmental, still burning a lot of coal to boot, and that the whole thing doesn't make any sense.Haven't the Germans have had referendum's / polls about green energy and isn't it getting support levels politicians would sacrifice babies to get ?
This seems bizarre coming from one whose arguments stem around championing gas. It seems the opposite is more likely, if they'd pissed money, "invested" in renewables they would have been unavoidably chained to gas, as AFAIK only certain gas plant type is flexible enough to ramp up and down with the intermittency of renewables. The only way your statement makes any sense is that the fallout :rolleyes: from the tsunami disaster would have made little difference if they were already using obscene amounts of gas, as renewables would have necessitated. Even if that's what you meant, the claim is quite bizarre.Japan wouldn't have had to burn enough gas to affect the global price had they invested in renewables.
Did you really just make that claim? Seriously? Japan has 126,880,000 people and vast amounts of heavy industry, we have <5 million and sod all heavy industry.We are getting up to 25% of our power from renewables and that figure is still growing. Early in 2011, nuclear energy accounted for almost 30% of the country's total electricity production (29% in 2009).
So just to repeat that Japan wasn't getting much more power from Nuclear than we'll be getting from wind.
So to take percentages and say "well they didn't get much more from their nuclear than we did from wind" is simply bizarre and absurd in the extreme.
That's another problem for you. Existing generators were built back in the day on the expectation of constant use at a particular price. Will electric companies always want to build and maintain backup plants under a different business model? How much will they need to charge per kwh to build and operate new plants on this basis?Done to death.
Wind + existing generators is what most people use, because they already have the generators.0 -
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http://www.nuclearmatters.com/economic-engines/low-costsDivided by 10bn it amounts to less than US$0.02 per kwh.
Even though my initial math was off by several orders of magnitude, it's still bugger all.
when you add that 2c per unit hidden end of life cost nuclear suddenly becomes way more expensive than the 2.4c touted.Nuclear energy is one of America’s lowest-cost “round the clock” electricity sources, with national average production costs at 2.4 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2012. Similarly, the average cost of electricity produced by coal was 3.27 cents per kilowatt-hour, natural gas 3.4 cents.
The average production cost for nuclear energy has remained well below three cents per kilowatt-hour for the past 18 years.
Imagine having to go back to customers and asking for an 83% surcharge on all their 'leccy bills , backdated 30 years :eek:
Because that's becoming the reality of nuclear.
There are other threadsYou spent all of this thread and a few others banging on about jellyfish and overheated watercourses in summer. You never said anything about flooding
Or you could just look how many nuclear plants have been flooded. Divide by 400 to get the % of nuclear plants that have been flooded at some stage. And then remember there's less reports on plants in Russia and Asia.
Solar like wind or nuclear or hydro is used to reduce the overall amount of fossil fuel used.Again, just in case this was not clear - in a European context, power is needed most in the winter time, when everyone is throwing on electric heaters and solar water heaters are no use.
Once you look at it like that then nuclear is a one trick dinosaur.
Nuclear reduces the amount of fossil fuel used for base load. Hydro can be used for peak demand. Solar and Wind are used opportunistically to offload fossil fuel. Nuclear provided 30% of power in Japan at peak. We've hit 50% from renewables at peak.
Back in 2005 when they started building the first EPR solar was about $4/watt. It's now down to about $0.50 and Solar is expected to drop another 40% in the next two years. ie. when the EPR should start if they haven't been delayed, yet again.Solar panels are useless in this environment, and if a cold snap is accompanied by an anti-cyclone, the windmills are no use either.
The bit about Jellyfish is because it's so stupid. But it's a real thing, it's happened to multiple sites that didn't learn from the experience of others, something common in the nuclear industry.
Oh yeah,Now it's my turn to question your math. $1.4 per GW? Most wind turbines are rated in single digit megawatts or less, so you need a minimum of 700 and more likely thousands to get 7GW nameplate. perhaps you meant $1.4 billion?
And nuclear is just to produce base load energy. Both replace fossil fuel. Nuclear is just so capital intensive that it hamstrings investments in alternatives.Again, this is just to get energy when the wind is blowing.
And so ?Did you really just make that claim? Seriously? Japan has 126,880,000 people and vast amounts of heavy industry, we have <5 million and sod all heavy industry.
Most of our gas generating capacity has been installed since they started building EPR's. Some older power stations have been refitted with more efficient technology during this time too.That's another problem for you. Existing generators were built back in the day on the expectation of constant use at a particular price.
LOL Nuclear is the poster child of " expectation of constant use at a particular price." In the case of Hinckley C , the "particular price" is twice the wholesale rate (which includes renewables) , and the "constant use" is longer than most peoples mortgages.0 -
Wholesale electricity prices in Germany have been tumbling for years:Germany meanwhile has only 42% non-fossil power, 38% of which is nuclear that they want to decommission. They also have among the most expensive electricity in the world.
This is at least the third time I’ve pointed this out to you, but you still keep banging on about Germany having phenomenally expensive electricity.
The fact is, they don’t.
I’m sure you’ll now attempt, once again, to pretend that wholesale and retail prices are the same thing.
This is a really daft argument. Really daft. People don’t need electricity in summer time? Really?Summer time problems. When the power isn't needed that much anyway.0 -
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Wholesale electricity prices in Germany have been tumbling for years:
This is at least the third time I’ve pointed this out to you, but you still keep banging on about Germany having phenomenally expensive electricity.
The fact is, they don’t.
I’m sure you’ll now attempt, once again, to pretend that wholesale and retail prices are the same thing.
This is a really daft argument. Really daft. People don’t need electricity in summer time? Really?
That statement does not equate to the real world of the German energy consumer
Consumers don't pay "wholesale" prices - they pay "retail" prices where the real costs of wind power show up in terms of extra taxes,tariffs and levies. German consumers pay billions of Euros to support the likes of wind and solar on the grid every year. Then you have the added cost of constructing and maintaining a vast network of extra pylon infrastructure to service these sprawling wind farms. As the links below show - German consumers are paying dearly for indulging the wind industry
http://www.euanmearns.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/europeelectricprice.png
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a9/Electricity-prices-europe.jpg
and some more reading on the realities of energy costs in Germany
http://notrickszone.com/2015/05/18/leading-industry-expert-slams-germanys-wild-foray-into-green-energies-unaffordable-absolute-imbecility/#sthash.3Nh7xhYu.jIogov3v.dpbs0 -
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Only it hasn't made any difference whatsoever.Wholesale electricity prices in Germany have been tumbling for years:This is at least the third time I’ve pointed this out to you, but you still keep banging on about Germany having phenomenally expensive electricity.
Continuing to quote the wholesale price in this context is misleading and bizarre. And it simply doesn't make sense.
The fact is that Germans pay almost twice as much as the French, and that their electricity bills are comparable to those of island micro-states like Niue.The fact is, they don’t.
Again, Denmark, 30+c/kwh, Germany 29c+/kwh, France 15+c/kwh. Serbia, 6c/kwh.
I propose that the differences are caused by renewables subsidies, grid instability caused by renewables and green taxes. Please explain why/if you disagree.
The fact is that these facts don't support your hypothesis that renewables are cost-effective.
In Germany's case, the energy market is so FUBARred that the wholesale price is completely irrelevant and meaningless.I’m sure you’ll now attempt, once again, to pretend that wholesale and retail prices are the same thing.
All that is relevant is the bill payers' bottom line. And in Germany and Denmark, these are troubling, bizarre and insane.
Northern Europeans need electricity more in winter. When the sun isn't shining, but also when Captain Midnights' jellyfish and warm water rivers are nowhere to be found. And literally the good Captain has been banging on about jellyfish in the summer since I don't know when - and he's been doing so constantly - seemed to be a tacit admission that nuclear power is more reliable in the winter time by his own argument.This is a really daft argument. Really daft. People don’t need electricity in summer time? Really?
Winter. When people need power more.0 -
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »You seem to be missing the point.
92% of German consumers agree with the policy, even if like everyone else on the planet they'd like lower utility bills.
The majority of the reasons cited appear to be based on perception rather than reality ie. Hysteria over nuclear following Fukishima which has zero relevance to the modern European industry 2) Emissions in Germany rise in cold winters since coal underpins its intermittent wind/solar plants so the emission reduction argument is weak, US has reduced its emmissions far faster in those years on the back of switching from coal to shale gas 3) very little evidence the world is running out of fossil fuels as the tanking price of oil/gas in recent years shows. Indeed the US will soon be self sufficient in gas and its oil production is rising too and could soon be exporting the stuff. Indeed there is a world wide glut of gas in particular with many producer states burning the stuff off as waste!!0 -
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But nowhere near the front-loading of Nuclear. And renewables are relatively quick to install.The cost of renewables is front-loaded. Germany is going all-out to build as much renewable capacity as possible and that requires a significant upfront capital outlay.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/-Arbitration_court_rules_on_Olkiluoto_3-0607124.html
It's now costing €8.5 billion and been pushed back to at least 2018At the end of 2003, TVO signed a €3 billion ($3.7 billion) turnkey contract with Areva-Siemens for the construction of the first-of-a-kind EPR nuclear power unit as the third unit at Olkiluoto. Construction started on the plant in May 2005, with completion originally scheduled for 2009.Areva has already made provision for a €2.7 billion (US$3.0b) writedown on the project, with further losses expected. FTVO and Areva / Siemens are locked in a €10 billion legal battle over the cost overruns.
New Gas is cheap and quick. It's a stopgap both in terms of construction time and usage. Unlike nuclear you don't have to keep gas plant going for decades to recoup the costs. And combined cycle generates a lot less CO2 than older technologies.
For a country like the UK one reason to consider nuclear is that the Hollywood Accounting of CO2 means they can keep more cheap Coal plants open instead of importing gas.
Just a reminder.
We have an all island grid with enough gas capacity to spare. We have a grid that can respond in seconds to compensate for power loss while wind is predictable a week ahead. On top of that some turf plants are moving to biomass. We have interconnectors to UK. Up north there are plans for 300MW of predictable tidal power and a similar amount of compressed air energy storage in old salt mines. I haven't heard much of the Cork pumped storage plan recently but we still have Turlough Hill. There is also the Poolbeg incinerator but that's only 58MW, still more than Ardnacrusha. Multiple sources means you can nibble away at the fossil fuel bill.
If we invest we could get 5% of annual energy from solar. The problems aren't technical, just economics esp. since solar keeps getting cheaper.
http://www.lightsource-re.ie/news/lightsource-announces-significant-investment-into-ireland/Lightsource believes that, with proper incentives, solar can deploy 1.5 Gigawatts of generating capacity by 2020 (which is enough sustainable and clean electricity to power over 495,000 local households), meeting over 5% of Ireland’s electricity demand.
Land usage for solar isn't really a problem if you use unproductive land. Every farm has large sheds. Every farm has fences and ditches. Mushrooms don't need light.
And we've a lot of peat that isn't used for agriculture. Small frames of panels can be moved by 2 people as needed. (or one rugby player)
1,300,000 hectares where solar could be installed. Very rough figure of 0.5 MW per hectare. If only we could store the energy cheaply or improve the economics of energy to gas.0 -
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Capt'n Midnight wrote: »And we've a lot of peat that isn't used for agriculture. Small frames of panels can be moved by 2 people as needed. (or one rugby player)
1,300,000 hectares where solar could be installed. Very rough figure of 0.5 MW per hectare. If only we could store the energy cheaply or improve the economics of energy to gas.
Peatlands are themselves important carbon stores(which is why the likes of BNM should be restoring damaged ones to restore their CO2 absorption capacities) - also important for flood control,water supply to our rivers/lakes and as wildlife habitat. Many upland ones have already been destroyed by the installation of wind farms. Solar farm installation will also cause damage and makes little economic sense at our latitude and power demand patterns in any case. This is typical of the developer led mindset in our energy policies that has little to with environmental issues and all to to do with lining the pockets of vested interests who profit from our spiralling energy bills. People who think wind and solar are the answer to our energy needs are free to power their own homes in this way with solar panels on roofs etc. Imposing their "beliefs" on the rest of us though our energy bills is not sensible or acceptable.0
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