Wind farms - ugly truths

SeanW

Birdnuts wrote: »

Only in a shrinking number of developing countries - fossil fuels are heavily taxed in virtually every other part of the world. The cost of a litre of petrol in this country is largely made up of government taxes and tariffs for example.

I was curious about this too - the vast bulk of my car fuelling costs are government taxes, and the majority of my cars running costs are government taxes and regulations.

I'd love to get my hands on some of those "fossil fuel subsidies" especially since I pay more in motor tax than many pay in USC. For a 16 year old poverty spec saloon.

All this talk of fossil fuel subsidies seems to me to be quite bizarre.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

New nuclear hasn't delivered on it's promises, just like old nuclear.

That is a very big claim in the context of France which uses "old nuclear" almost exclusively. Half the cost of electricity of Denmark, 90%+ non-fossil.

Well then that's game over for Nuclear,

I'm in favour of taxing fossil fuels, especially gas, for two reasons:

1. Still emits CO2 and a rake of other pollutants.
2. Gas in particular has massive "opportunity costs" that uranium does not have and as such should not be wasted today but saved for future generations. Gas should be used no more than is absolutely essential in my view.

Or politics may change and we realise that we shouldn't do deals with un-ethical fossil fuel suppliers.

You plan to get Europe un-hooked from Russian gas? While simultaneously making us more reliant on gas?

fclauson

Take a look at http://www.gov.scot/Topics/Business-Industry/Energy/Energy-sources/19185/17852-1/CSavings

Very little analysis has been carried out in Ireland of the damage (or not) being doing it drying out peat bogs

to quote "Scottish Ministers require all new applications received since June 2011 to use the Scottish Government's published method for assessing carbon losses and savings. The Scottish Government will ask the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) to validate whether the calculation by developers has been carried out robustly and to provide independent advice on the degree of confidence in the result which Ministers can take on board in determining the application."

this does not happen here

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

Only in a shrinking number of developing countries…

Is the US a developing country?

Birdnuts wrote: »

Solar farm installation will also cause damage and makes little economic sense at our latitude and power demand patterns in any case.

At the rate solar panels are declining in cost, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if solar farms become economical in Ireland in the very near future. There’s comfortably enough solar capacity in the UK to power the whole of Ireland.

fclauson

djpbarry wrote: »

There’s comfortably enough solar capacity in the UK to power the whole of Ireland.

Providing we all go to bed early !!

djpbarry

fclauson wrote: »

Providing we all go to bed early !!

Sigh...

fclauson

We seemed to have slipped away from my original post 40+ pages ago

My main points where
a) infrastructure costs are considerable to deploy "renewables"
b) the CO2 saving is more marginal than most advocates would have you believe

We need to go back and determine what is the whole plan supposed to achieve. The Irish Govt never published a ROI or CBA for the program and never went through the appropriate public consultation processes to ensure the plan which got created was credible.

There was a headlong rush to Wind over any other any other technology and was steamrolled over locals concerns about the impact it had on the environment.

Lets change the tack of this conversation and pose the question

Given (a) and (b) above what should Ireland do next

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

Peatlands are.

You don't need to drain the bogs. just plonk down the frames, run the cables and you are good to go.

even less damage than wind turbines since no plinths or access roads

and more importantly since the area would be economically productive there is more reason to leave it as is.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

That is a very big claim in the context of France which uses "old nuclear" almost exclusively. Half the cost of electricity of Denmark, 90%+ non-fossil.

LOL retail or wholesale ? - really

and that 90% includes an awful lot of hydro and imported renewables. As we keep pointing out France uses less efficient nukes because they are more controllable than ones others use. Also as we keep pointing out France can load balance with the neighbours. England is a major importer of Leccy. Germany exports like crazy when renewables kick in.

France got the go-ahead to build a nuke in Finland in 2003. Won't be delivered 'till 2018 at least - 15 years, and that's before they announced the safety issues with the pressure vessel.

In 10 years time France plans to have nuclear power down to 50%, in 15 years time (ie. less than it is taking to get a nuclear plant up and running) France is planning to

By 2030, total energy consumption is to be reduced by 30 percent, while the share of renewables is to more than double to 32 percent.
...
Decrees establishing the French low-carbon strategy and national carbon budgets should be published in November, promised the minister of the environment, Ségolène Royal. She predicted the creation of 100,000 jobs in the green growth sector over the next three years. During that time, there would be €10 billion of state aid in the form of tax credits, zero-interest loans or bonuses to encourage housing renewal or replacement of old diesel vehicles with electric cars.

I'm in favour of taxing fossil fuels, especially gas, for two reasons:

1. Still emits CO2 and a rake of other pollutants.
2. Gas in particular has massive "opportunity costs" that uranium does not have and as such should not be wasted today but saved for future generations. Gas should be used no more than is absolutely essential in my view.

You plan to get Europe un-hooked from Russian gas? While simultaneously making us more reliant on gas?

LOL
again you forget that the EU gets more gas from Norway than Russia. And with the new LNG terminal in Lithuania the East will get gas from Texas.

Opportunity cost ?
What is the opportunity cost of €10Bn spent on the "in progress" EPR's that won't generate power for years if at all.

What pollutants natural gas is very clean compared to most other fuels.

Please look up stopgap in the dictionary. gas is there to keep the lights on until someone figures out how to store electricity, or improves energy to gas or improves direct photo-electrolysis of water or cheap drilling for geo-thermal or umteen other projects.

All nuclear can offer is a very expensive mound of radioactive material that gets hot.

And yes we should tax fossil fuel more.
BUT at source. So the energy used to extract fuels should be taxed. The carbon used to make concrete should be taxed, aircraft fuel, and most importantly we should be allowed impose export taxes to compensate for manufacturers making stuff in low tax regions. Be interesting to see how much that would add to the life time cost of nuclear seeing as how it uses a lot of steel and concrete and mining and repositories.

Markcheese

djpbarry wrote: »

Sigh...

I dunno -it's a valid point about having to go to bed early to make best use of solar -
Of course solar (or wind) will be backed up by something else (and part of a mix) - but that's another significant capital cost -
We could all go put in something like a tesla power wall to make better use of our cheap renewable - but if we have a couple of very cloudy days we'll need a fossil fuel back up that still has almost the same capital costs as if money hadn't been spent on solar and batteries -

djpbarry

fclauson wrote: »

the CO2 saving is more marginal than most advocates would have you believe

Based on what exactly?

djpbarry

Markcheese wrote: »

Of course solar (or wind) will be backed up by something else (and part of a mix) - but that's another significant capital cost

Except that those "back-ups" already exist - there is no additional cost.

Markcheese

djpbarry wrote: »

Except that those "back-ups" already exist - there is no additional cost.[/
Except for the renewables themselves- as you say the back ups exist and are currently being paid for -and will have to be paid for in the future-
If we were to add commercial solar that would be another layer of cost

Birdnuts

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You don't need to drain the bogs. just plonk down the frames, run the cables and you are good to go.

even less damage than wind turbines since no plinths or access roads

and more importantly since the area would be economically productive there is more reason to leave it as is.

- you need access roads and plenty of drainage, plus hardstanding for substations etc. None of it compatible with maintaining a healthy bog that can fullfill its carbon storing abilities

fclauson

djpbarry wrote: »

Except that those "back-ups" already exist - there is no additional cost.

Err - no - what Ireland has is peat burning and coal burning back up - with limited gas

so they need up dating (€€€€) and then we need to pay for the wind farms on top

hence my original post - this does not come cheap and has never been cost justified

fclauson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

You don't need to drain the bogs. just plonk down the frames, run the cables and you are good to go.

even less damage than wind turbines since no plinths or access roads

and more importantly since the area would be economically productive there is more reason to leave it as is.

But you will need to weed kill
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2014/07/weed-control-at-solar-installations-what-works-best.html

or put sheep or goats (who will eat the cables) or some other animals

djpbarry

fclauson wrote: »

Err - no - what Ireland has is peat burning and coal burning back up - with limited gas

so they need up dating (€€€€) and then we need to pay for the wind farms on top

Of course they'll need updating/replacement - everything does eventually. But they'll need updating with or without wind/solar/whatever, so your constant reference to the additional backup required by renewables is inaccurate.

fclauson

djpbarry wrote: »

Of course they'll need updating/replacement - everything does eventually. But they'll need updating with or without wind/solar/whatever, so your constant reference to the additional backup required by renewables is inaccurate.

Not so - of course plant needs replacing - and some of these have done magnificent service of 15 or 20 or 25 years (with maintenance) but what we are moving to is

a) expense on the installation of wind etc
b) the maintenance of wind
along with what we already knew that
c) maintenance of existing kit
d) renewal of existing kit

So my original point is that no infrastructure can be decommissioned without replacement is still true

With regard to wind needing extra backup - my post way back when is stil true

in a non wind grid you need
a) spinning reserve to cover the loss of the largest gen on the grid
in a wind world you need
a) as above
b) cover for the variability of wind - the prediction model is only a prediction - see http://www.eirgrid.com/media/AllIslandWindForecastAccuracyReportMay2013.pdf

with an 2 to 18% variability in accuracy the grid will have to maintain spinning reserve to cover that variability AT ALL TIMES

So yes - more spinning reserve required when there is wind on the grid as compared when there is none.

there is also the situation when the grid is at max demand (around 5Mw ish) and we hit a zero wind situation (think cold frosty calm winter's night at around 7pm) then as much back up as required as if there is no wind turbines installed at all will be required.

And there has been no cost justification for this as yet

Markcheese

fclauson wrote: »

Err - no - what Ireland has is peat burning and coal burning back up - with limited gas

so they need up dating (€€€€) and then we need to pay for the wind farms on top

hence my original post - this does not come cheap and has never been cost justified

Really - ? I though we had 1 coal plant(moneypoint ) as " base load "
2 or 3 small peat / biomass stations (which still take most of the levy on your bill not the wind ) ,a small bit of hydro
And gas- mainly Gas. Feic it there's 7 or 8 gas turbines within 2 miles of my house alone -
Oh and wind turbines -

Markcheese

Haven't got a link for newstalk this morning but a guy on just after 9 reckoning that next generation solar is going to be one of the catalysts for the next " industrial revoloutions" -graphene should allow the panel to use 80-100% of available light - cheaply -

djpbarry

fclauson wrote: »

in a non wind grid you need
a) spinning reserve to cover the loss of the largest gen on the grid
in a wind world you need
a) as above
b) cover for the variability of wind...

You're not making any sense.

Suppose there were no wind turbines in Ireland. Suppose there was, say, 7 GW of installed thermal generation capacity. Suppose then comes along and installs, say, 2 GW of wind capacity.

Explain to me why any additional "back-up" thermal capacity needs to be installed in that scenario?

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

You're not making any sense.

Suppose there were no wind turbines in Ireland. Suppose there was, say, 7 GW of installed thermal generation capacity. Suppose then comes along and installs, say, 2 GW of wind capacity.

Explain to me why any additional "back-up" thermal capacity needs to be installed in that scenario?

I suggest you look at what the output of wind farms was this month last year - struggled to mid single figures of % of installed capacity. And this pattern is typically repeated during times of peak demand such as cold,dark nights in winter. German emmissions follow a similar patterns with sharp spikes in colder winters when they depend on coal to keep the lights on and homes warm. Your logic appears to be wind power at any cost to the consumer,environement etc. with vested interests laughing all the way to the bank. If we simply replaced our peat/coal power generation with gas it would be much cheaper and more effective from an emmissions point of view(the sharp fall in US emmissions since 2005 being a prime example of that)

Birdnuts

Markcheese wrote: »

Haven't got a link for newstalk this morning but a guy on just after 9 reckoning that next generation solar is going to be one of the catalysts for the next " industrial revoloutions" -graphene should allow the panel to use 80-100% of available light - cheaply -

Fine and dandy but still doesn't overcome the problem of mis-matched supply and demand with Solar in this part of the world. Solar does make sense in places like California,Pakistan etc. due to their latitudes and energy demand profiles ie. big demand for air-con during the day. But as highlighted by this "summer" Ireland is the polar opposite in that respect

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

I suggest you look at what the output of wind farms was this month last year - struggled to mid single figures of % of installed capacity. And this pattern is typically repeated during times of peak demand such as cold,dark nights in winter. German emmissions follow a similar patterns with sharp spikes in colder winters when they depend on coal to keep the lights on and homes warm. Your logic appears to be wind power at any cost to the consumer,environement etc. with vested interests laughing all the way to the bank. If we simply replaced our peat/coal power generation with gas it would be much cheaper and more effective from an emmissions point of view(the sharp fall in US emmissions since 2005 being a prime example of that)

That’s a very long-winded way of not answering my question.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Fine and dandy but still doesn't overcome the problem of mis-matched supply and demand with Solar in this part of the world. Solar does make sense in places like California,Pakistan etc. due to their latitudes and energy demand profiles ie. big demand for air-con during the day. But as highlighted by this "summer" Ireland is the polar opposite in that respect

Peak summer demand is of the order of 3.5 GW.

Capt'n Midnight

fclauson wrote: »

Err - no - what Ireland has is peat burning and coal burning back up - with limited gas

At some stage you should look at real data.

And it's OK to change your opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence.


Coal and peat are base load. While they can react to demand much faster than nuclear they just can't ramp up in seconds like gas or pumped storage that's spinning in air.

Fuel mix
http://www.eirgrid.com/operations/systemperformancedata/all-islandwindandfuelmixreport/



Why are we still arguing about spinning reserve when wind reduces the amount needed ? Nuclear on the other hand requires the most seeing as how they are the largest generating units. Luckily in the UK all providers have to subsidise the amount nuclear needs.

http://www.windpowermonthly.com/article/1192957/power-system-reserve---no-need-build-wind-back-up

Back-up is always provided for all power plants on a system, with or without wind
There is no need to build back-up for wind; existing power plants in any system provide the required back-up for all plants
Wind generation displaces fossil-fuel generation and some of those plants can be taken out of operation
As the penetration of wind increases in any power system, the volume of capacity that is operated at part load, ready to ramp up or down according to peaks in demand or unexpected generation shortfalls, increases slightly to maintain a consistent probability of security of supply
Since the volume of extra reserve when adding wind is modest so is the additional cost. Savings from wind replacing other generation are likely to more than cover that extra cost
The emissions saved by wind displacing fossil-fuel generation are far greater than any extra emissions from increased spinning reserve.

Ok that's the theory, the reality is

Three basic principles apply for establishing the plant margin required on a power system when wind is added. The British power system makes for a typical example of how this works. It is a large, integrated system with a mix of thermal generation provided by coal, nuclear and gas power plants, plus about 13% of renewables, about 1.4% of which is hydro.

First, an all-thermal electricity system with a peak demand of 50GW requires about 60GW of installed capacity to keep the lights on with a high degree of reliability whatever the variations in demand and supply. The extra 10GW is the plant margin.

Second, add 30GW of wind to that power system (displacing about 25% of the electricity generated annually by thermal plants) and the reliability of the system improves because the plant margin increases. There is no need to build any extra power plants. Wind power generation is available most of the year and the plant margin already in place is sufficient to maintain the system's high reliability, even on windless days.

Third, the 30GW wind power addition actually allows for about 3GW of the thermal plants to be taken out of the system, without reducing reliability. Moreover, with wind power feeding into the system, less fossil fuel is burned, saving emissions and extending the life of thermal power stations by postponing expenditure on replacement plants.

The same three principles apply to integration of any type of new capacity into a power system, including nuclear capacity, which provides about 20% of electricity in Britain. When half of Britain's nuclear capacity goes offline for long periods (as it did in winter 2008/09), the loss does not trigger a requirement for construction of more capacity to maintain a high probability of reliable supply. The overall plant margin for the entire system does the job.

Capt'n Midnight

fclauson wrote: »

in a non wind grid you need

Nothing extra.

Wind reduces the base load, we got 25% of our electricity from wind last winter.

Since you are making the remarkable claim you need to provide the remarkable evidence of how much extra spinning reserve we need when we use wind.

Remember the existing reserve has to provide for the largest single generator going off-line. That's about 6MW for a wind turbine vs. 330MW for fossil ( vs. 3,200 MW for Hinkley C for UK planning )

UK figures showed that wind used roughly the same amount of spinning reserve fuel as other generators of similar capacity.

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

- you need access roads and plenty of drainage, plus hardstanding for substations etc. None of it compatible with maintaining a healthy bog that can fullfill its carbon storing abilities

I was referring to man transportable solar frames. (did you even read my post or link??) Access roads not needed.

Bottom line with some bogs, is use them or loose them. People are illegally destroying them.

Anyway you don't see that many tall plants or goats in the middle of a bog , and even then tall frames and armoured cables are fairly routine.



Better not install the panels at 45 degrees though as then the lesser spotted bog bat might not hear the echos and fly straight into them.

Markcheese

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I was referring to man transportable solar frames. (did you even read my post or link??) Access roads not needed.

Bottom line with some bogs, is use them or loose them. People are illegally destroying them.

Anyway you don't see that many tall plants or goats in the middle of a bog , and even then tall frames and armoured cables are fairly routine.



Better not install the panels at 45 degrees though as then the lesser spotted bog bat might not hear the echos and fly straight into them.

While it'd be technically doable - would it be practicable ?( know it's all slightly tongue in cheek ) - there'll be a lot of drained cut away bog when bord Na mona Mona are done - ( not long now) - so you can peg down your solar frames ( so they don't blow away - put up a few wind turbines (with those sonic yokes on the wing tips to keep bats away from the blades ) and start large scale emu farming all on the same ground- jaysus the midlands would never have been as productive - might even bring in a few tourist to see it all -

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

I suggest you look at what the output of wind farms was this month last year - struggled to mid single figures of % of installed capacity.

Yeah, nuclear does that a lot too. Design / contruction flaws or politics can take out entire fleets for extended periods.

This is why we have spare capacity

If we simply replaced our peat/coal power generation with gas it would be much cheaper and more effective from an emmissions point of view(the sharp fall in US emmissions since 2005 being a prime example of that)

A lot of the countries with nuclear also have a lot of coal. So nuclear is a way of reducing emissions of coal when it would be cheaper all round to just replace coal with gas, because nuclear is so expensive.

However, coal is cheaper than gas. And in most cases in Eu/US the coal plants already exist so zero capital cost. And so like in Germany they'll probably be used for the remainder of their economic lives. Which in the case of most German plants already have an end date.

China is building coal plants, but they are heavily involved in renewables too.

What is the future for Moneypoint seeing as how the ESB have such large renewable targets ?

I've already pointed out that peat stations are now using more biomass.

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

Fine and dandy but still doesn't overcome the problem of mis-matched supply and demand with Solar in this part of the world. Solar does make sense in places like California,Pakistan etc. due to their latitudes and energy demand profiles ie. big demand for air-con during the day. But as highlighted by this "summer" Ireland is the polar opposite in that respect

Solar is pretty much free energy once you've paid off the capital costs. Low maintenance and all that, every unit generated represents some fossil fuel that didn't need to be imported.

It's pretty much the same as cycling to work during the summer. On rainy days you'd have to take the car (which still needs motor tax and servicing) but somehow you still save money on fuel.

Just a reminder, on a day with very little wind Germany load balanced solar through the eclipse. A change of 14GW or so.
http://www.dw.com/en/german-power-net-survives-solar-eclipse/a-18331190

"This is going to work," he said with satisfaction. In total, an amount of power equivalent to the output of ten nuclear power plants was coming onstream as the moon's disc gradually ended its occlusion of the sun's.

Italy dealt with Friday's solar eclipse; they disconnected 30 percent of solar capacity to reduce their network balancing problem.

And the capital costs of solar are still dropping.

fclauson

Markcheese wrote: »

Really - ? I though we had 1 coal plant(moneypoint ) as " base load "
2 or 3 small peat / biomass stations (which still take most of the levy on your bill not the wind ) ,a small bit of hydro
And gas- mainly Gas. Feic it there's 7 or 8 gas turbines within 2 miles of my house alone -
Oh and wind turbines -

don't understand your point

list of generators can be found here
http://www.eirgrid.com/customers/gridconnections/listofconnectedandcontractedgenerators/