A new report published on Monday by Civitas, a social policy thinktank that promotes a "free and democratic society", is claiming that wind power is "inordinately expensive and ineffective at cutting CO2 emissions". In a particularly eye-catching claim, it argues that "wind power, backed by conventional gas-fired generation, can emit more CO2 than the most efficient gas turbines running alone". If true, that would make a mockery of the government's current policy of promoting and subsidising wind turbines.
The report cites as evidence the findings of Dr Kees le Pair, a retired Dutch physcist and long-time critic of the wind industry:
In a comprehensive quantitative analysis of CO2 emissions and wind-power, Dutch physicist C. le Pair has recently shown that deploying wind turbines on "normal windy days" in the Netherlands actually increased fuel (gas) consumption, rather than saving it, when compared to electricity generation with modern high-efficiency gas turbines.
Le Pair's paper was published last October on his personal website. As far as I can tell, it is not peer-reviewed and has not yet been published in an independent scientific journal. But all his calculations and assumptions are there for all to see. For example, we can see that, rightly, he attempts to include the full life-cycle carbon emissions of building and installing both the turbines and their transmission cables. He also accounts for the increased fuel consumption caused by the partial replacement of more efficient generators with lower efficient open cycle gas turbines (OCGTs) needed to better manage the wind's intermittency. In his conclusion, he states:
A 300 MW nameplate wind project near Schiphol on August 28, 2011, a normal windy day, during 21.5 h would have increased the amount of natural gas needed for the electricity production of 500 MW with 47150 m3 gas. This would have caused an extra emission of 117,9 ton CO2 into the atmosphere.
It should be noted that both Ruth Lea, the author of Civitas's report, and Le Pair can hardly claim to be impartial on this issue. Lea, an economist with links to a number of right-leaning thinktanks, has long been a prominent critic of climate policies (particularly the promotion of renewables) and this 2006 column in the Telegraph provides an insight into her views about climate science.
But equally partial voices from the other side of the debate have already hit back. The Telegraph today is quoting the reaction of Gordon Edge, director of policy at RenewableUK, the "voice of wind and marine energy". He said Lea's report relied on the findings of "anti-wind farm cranks":
He explained that modern gas plants are not required to provide back-up for wind. Instead, wind is "integrated" into the existing system to act as a fuel saver, enabling the UK to harness a free electricity source from the weather when it's available. Some additional investment is required, but Dr Edge said "credible analysis" makes clear it will cost less for consumers than relying on fossil fuels, that are rising in price all the time.
(I asked Gordon Edge this morning to provide a citation for his reference to this "credible analysis" and he provided a (pdf) link to a Pöyry report published last year.)
But what are your own thoughts and conclusions? If quoting figures to support your points, please provide a link to the source. And I will also be inviting various interested parties to join the debate, too.
Nick Molho, WWF's head of energy policy, has sent me this reaction:
The Civitas report overestimates the cost of dealing with intermittency of wind energy:
* Performance of wind farms has massively improved and costs gone down: Latest report from Bloomberg shows that "the best windfarms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators; the average wind farm will be fully competitive by 2016". In fact, when one takes the price of carbon into account, the average wind farm is already as economic as gas power. http://bnef.com/PressReleases/view/172
* Lots of options to deal with intermittency: As made clear in the CCC's Renewable Energy Review, the cost of intermittency can be managed cost-effectively as there are a range of options to deal with this issue including greater interconnection to Europe, demand side response, short term storage and efficient gas back-up.
* Costs are manageable: CCC Renewable Energy Report concluded that even for shares of 65% renewable electricity by 2030 and 80% by 2050, the cost of managing intermittency would be equivalent to 1p/KWh of additional renewable generation. http://www.theccc.org.uk/reports/renewable-energy-review
* Interconnection is key: Report seems to massively underestimate benefits of additional interconnection. The European Climate Foundation Roadmap 2050 report found that greater interconnection with Europe could reduce the amount of gas back-up required by some 35% to 40% in a high renewables system. The analysis by Garrad Hassan in WWF-UK's Positive Energy report (www.wwf.org.uk/positiveenergy) also showed that greater interconnection between the UK and Europe could reduce the amount of gas back-up plants required in the UK by up to 50% and ensure that the remaining gas plants on the system are operated far more economically. http://www.roadmap2050.eu/attachments/files/Volume1_ExecutiveSummary.pdf
* Demand side response can reduce costs as well: The ECF Power Perspectives 2030 report found that around 10% of electricity demand in the EU would be shiftable within a day by 2030 and that this could also help reduce the cost of managing the intermittency of wind power by reducing the amount of investment in grids by 10% and in gas back-up generation capacity by 35% by 2030. http://www.roadmap2050.eu/attachments/files/PowerPerspectives2030_FullReport.pdf
In addition, more of a focus on energy efficiency can reduce costs; the CCC says in RE Review that energy demand in homes could reduce by 14% by 2020 which could more than offset costs of meeting the 2020 renewable energy target which would add an estimated 4% to overall energy bills.
And here's an addendum from RenewableUK:
The Telegraph's reporting of Gordon's comments was slightly incorrect - Gordon's saying that OCGT are not required to balance wind. This is based on National Grid's work on operating the grid in 2020: http://www.nationalgrid.com/NR/rdonlyres/A14ADB7F-AD60-4979-A7BE-3B736FED4A42/39758/2020FollowUp.pdfNational Grid expect to use higher-efficiency combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGT) to balance wind, and are, in fact, doing that right now - there's a lot less OCGT on the grid than wind. Le Pair requires OCGT in his model because he's balancing a single windfarm, rather than a fleet across an entire nation. A single windfarm has 'spikier' output than an entire fleet, and so requires faster-reacting plant. In any case, the figure he uses for efficiency loss when plant is in balancing mode is somewhat suspect, as he admits to guessing it.
I have received this reaction from Dr Robert Gross, via the UK Energy Research Centre:
I am Director of the Centre for Energy Policy and Technology at Imperial College and Senior Lecturer in Energy and Environmental Policy at Imperial. I run the Technology and Policy Assessment theme of UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC). I have a long standing interest in the costs of energy technologies and in the issue of 'intermittency'.
The technical implications of integrating wind into modern electricity systems are well understood and have been reviewed across many countries, mixes of power plant, climatic conditions and levels of wind penetration. In this subject, as in most others, there is a large body of broadly consistent analyses, undertaken by technically competent bodies such as university research groups, specialist consultancies and network operators. There is also a smattering of 'outliers', often produced by individuals or groups with particular agendas, such as anti-wind lobby groups. Extreme estimates usually result from flawed or overly simplistic methodologies, unrealistic assumptions, or misallocation of costs.
UKERC undertook a thoroughgoing review of the evidence base available in 2006 on the costs and impacts of intermittency, and is in the process of compiling a new review of the relative costs of different generation options, for publication later this year. Electrical engineering based modelling and simulation, and increasingly empirical data from countries where the penetration of wind farms has reached a significant level (such as Ireland, Denmark, Spain, Germany and some US states), demonstrates conclusively that wind does reduce emissions. Economic studies also indicate that the costs of intermittency, though potentially significant (particularly when wind reaches very large penetrations), are currently very small in the UK context. UKERC's assessment concludes that intermittency typically represents less than 10% of the costs of power generation when wind is below 20% of electricity - less than £9/MWh rather than the £60/MWh cited by Civitas. The potential efficiency losses that result from increased 'cycling' of fossil fuel stations responding to wind intermittency are real, but represent a very small fraction of the savings in emissions and fuel that results from the electrical output of wind. UKERC's review indicates that losses typically amount to just 1% of the percentage savings. The options for dealing with intermittency are also diverse; including increasing interconnection, demand side response, and storage, as well as fossil fuel back up.
There is also a substantial consensus that the lifecycle carbon emissions associated with the construction and maintaining of wind power are very small compared to those of fossil fuel sources.
I find it disappointing that Civitas has chosen to disregard the large body of analysis that indicates that the costs and impacts of intermittency are modest and that wind is an effective fuel saver. There is of course a legitimate debate about the cost and feasibility of the 2020 target for renewables, about which renewables deserve how much support, how best to deliver such support and the role of nuclear, carbon capture and other supply options. This debate is not well served by reporting which ignores the findings of a large body of credible, peer reviewed and professional analyses and selects extreme estimates which have not been peer reviewed, do not emerge from credible engineering/economic simulations or models and are widely out of step with the scientific consensus.
Some interesting observations below the line by @Portopollo, highlighting some of Le Pair's assumptions:
As an electricity system modeller (someone's got to do it), I just took a quick look at the le Pair report. His central concern - the costs that wind imposes on the system, and particularly the marginal plant is important and does deserve more analysis, but his modelling is simplistic in ways that make it fatally flawed. To pick some major elements:
1. His mini-system (500MW CCGT, 15MW OCGT, XMW wind) is not reflective of the real electricity system in two important ways. First, because he assumes that the marginal CCGT is a very big plant (as he admits, bigger than any existing), any efficiency reductions from cycling are applied across the full capacity of a large plant. Break this into two 250MW plants, one of which operates mainly or always at full capacity, and the overall losses should be a lot smaller (there is the complication that performance of the other would be worse, but back-of-the-envelope from his numbers this works). Second, such a system is simply crude. As others have pointed out in the article, there are many ways of managing variations in generation beyond turning up the gas and these depend on many factors.
2. He assumes that all of the variability is caused by wind and that in his base case - with no wind capacity - gas plant is able to operate in its most efficient state. This is hokum. Most obviously, demand varies by the minute (think of the famous half-time rush to the kettles during the FA cup final). This demand variation is already causing the kinds of effects he is attributing to wind, so his base line is wrong. Wind will still have an impact on variability, but the net effect will be less.
3. His theoretical wind farm is a beast. Up to 300MW in a single location with correspondingly large and rapid variations in output. This is not what European onshore farms look like (offshore farms do get this big, but the wind is more consistent). My guess is a median size of 30MW or so. Spreading this 300MW across ten locations would reduce the variability considerably.
Thanks to @LeedsSolar below the line for highlighting this graph (pdf) produced by EirGrid, Ireland's state-owned transmission company, which shows the fuel mix percentages for electricity generation for the month of November, 2011. The graph at the bottom helps to show how the gas and coal percentages change when the wind percentage increases. On the surface, it seems to show wind negatively impacting on the coal percentage more than the gas percentage. I have asked National Grid if it can supply a similar chart for the UK's fuel mix.
I've just received this response from David Merlin-Jones, director of the Wealth of Nations Project at Civitas:
The sources cited by Ruth Lea are entirely mainstream. Indeed, the three principle sources for the entire report are DECC-sponsored. The main evidence comes from global consultancy Mott MacDonald's report, UK Electricity Generation Costs Update, from June 2010, was commissioned by the Department of Energy and Climate Change and is hosted on the DECC website. The other two major sources, the Parsons Brinckerhoff analysis, Electricity Generation Cost Model – 2011 update revision 1 and the Ove Arup & Partners study, Review of the generation costs and deployment potential of renewable electricity technologies in the UK, are both DECC-commissioned as well.
C. le Pair is a director of the Dutch Technology Institute STW, which helps reduce carbon footprints. He is cited only twice and only in the conclusion. Lea's independent calculations were not based on his work, contrary to claims.Colin Gibson is a former network director at the National Grid and he has spent his professional career managing the supply and demand of electricity in the UK. The sources for his report, A Probabilistic Approach to Levelised Cost Calculations For Various Types of Electricity Generation, are cited clearly, as are his calculations. Gibson acknowledges throughout the report that the evidence is incomplete but uses the best available sources. He bases much of his work on DECC-sponsored reports as well.
I'm a little confused by this response, though. My article only concentrates on the claim made in the report (and highlighted in the accompanying press release) that wind turbines increase carbon emissions. On this, Merlin-Jones says: "Lea's independent calculations were not based on [Le Pair's] work, contrary to claims [in your blog]." But this seems to contradict both the report and the press release.
I have asked Merlin-Jones to expand on/clarify this important point and will post any response as soon as I receive it.
National Grid's chart showing electricity generation fuel type. Photograph: NationalGrid
National Grid has sent me this graph which shows the UK's fuel mix percentages for Dec '11-Jan '12. It says the data is available via bmreports.com, but that this graph isn't publicly available online anywhere.
RenewableUK has sent this reaction to the response I received from Civitas at 4.41pm:
It is rather odd to be trying to get away from the Le Pair work – the other reference for the higher emissions claim is from the anti-wind group the Renewable Energy Foundation - but the Gibson work is equally problematic. Despite the 'best available sources claim', one of the key sensitivities of his report is the load factor or wind turbines – i.e. the amount of energy they produce relative to their potential maximum capacity – and the source he uses for this is a report by the chair of an anti-wind group. This report looks at a 'random' 18-month period, and unsurprisingly comes out with a lower load factor significantly lower than the actual average, which can be found in DECC's Energy Trends series of publications.
Not only that, but the assumptions Gibson makes about OCGT and transmission requirements are simply wrong. As we've already stated, wind farms do not require OCGT backup – especially not on a MW for MW basis, which is Gibson's assumption. To hammer this point home, the UK has 5.9GW of wind power capacity and 1.2GW of OCGT capacity. In addition, Gibson assumes that every wind farm in the UK will require enough new grid infrastructure to connect it to a point just north of London. This would be equivalent to building a second grid, just for wind. While some additional infrastructure will be required in places like northern Scotland and Mid Wales, where there is insufficient existing grid capacity, this is a colossal exaggeration.
Chart showing system demand and wind generation in Ireland. Photograph: EirGrid
EirGrid, Ireland's state-owned transmission company, has sent me this graph showing a "typical week of system demand, wind generation and CO2 emissions".
Here's the response from David Merlin-Jones at Civitas, following my request for a clarification to his earlier response:
Leo is right to clarify that the evidence on wind turbines causing more CO2 emissions come from C. le Pair's work, I was referring to [Ruth Lea's] main argument (see charts 4A & 4B on p. 17 of her report).
I responded:
But that now surely undermines your overall point that the "sources cited by Ruth Lea are entirely mainstream"?! Are you saying that Le Pair is mainstream?
Merlin-Jones came back:
The majority of the report is based on DECC-commissioned sources, so I think it is fair enough to talk about them as mainstream.
I responded:
David, the discussion is specifically about citing Le Pair. Are you/Ruth saying that Le Pair is mainstream?
I have yet to receive a response, but will post it as soon as I receive it. Either way, Merlin-Jones has confirmed that Lea's claim in her report for Civitas that "wind power can increase carbon emissions" is, indeed, based solely on Le Pair's findings.
My verdict:
Wind energy remains a highly controversial way to generate electricity for a variety of reasons, not least the costs and aesthetic impact. Claim and counter-claim dog any discussion on the topic and it is very hard to source impartial information. Therefore, when making a claim as grand and as eye-catching as "wind power can increase carbon emissions" (in order to support their objection to wind power), you would expect Civitas and Ruth Lea to cite some nailed-down, compelling research. But, instead, Civitas offers up a non-peer reviewed report published on the website of a long-standing critic of wind power. That is clearly not a high enough standard to convince someone of your argument and I feel Civitas and Lea are wrong to give this unsubstantiated claim such emphasis in both their report and the accompanying press release.
Such an important question needs to be discussed and analysed – advocates of wind power shouldn't shy away from such a debate – but we are no nearer to uncovering the truth about this issue, despite the best efforts of Civitas and Lea. Until some independent, peer-reviewed research is published on this matter, this question will remain unanswered. Unsatisfactory, but true. Readers, such as Portopollo, and invited contributors, such as Dr Robert Gross, provide some persuasive counter arguments to Le Pair's report, but, again, until rigorous, comprehensive research is conducted on this specific subject the debate is, sadly, sure to rage on.
Comments
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9 January 2012 11:40AM
Measuring the 'inefficiency of anything' at the margins of infinite growth is a mathematical absurdity. 'Report'? Sorry; that leg's all pulled out.
9 January 2012 11:45AM
So both parties are 'partial'..
only one of them can be correct..
Ruth gives facts and figures, ie DECC's and rewables industries own figures..
Her opposition, just resorts to 'cranks'... and ignores the substance
So, one vested interest just resorts to abuse.
He said wind is integrated'.. yes it could be.. But only if you have enough capacity (non wind) to pick up the slack when the wind isn't blowing. And it CAN and has stopped blowing across the whole country before..
Prof Lockwood (Reading Univ) was predicting a few decades of Northern hemispahere jet strean changes, producing similar lulls in te winter)
Thus. if the UK builds a significant amount of wind - 20Gw, 30Gw, etc..
It would need a duplicate back up.. then Ruth's points apply, whether she is partial, biased whaetver anyone thinks.. Plus the Danish experience is quite well documented now.
do the maths for yourselves..
Leo.. why not have a chat with Ruth, she come across as a sensible intelligent person. Why not ask her to walk you throough the figures and you can come to your own conclusions.
9 January 2012 11:50AM
Your article already seems to highlight that the reports source and evidence used to inform it are, at best, questionable.
How many times do we need the same argument of why we need renewable energy/wind power/green policies? A few searches for evidence on DECC's website, or interpretation of their stat's, would answer your question.
As a starting point:
- legally binding national and EU carbon reduction and sustainable energy targets
- security of supply (i.e. let's generate energy which doesn't require a fuel with an exponentially increasing price)
- supporting development of an emerging market, which should lead to lower costs for kit
- job creation and reduced bills, especially where opportunities are realized at the local level (currently DECC/others seem to look at energy nationally, but don't break down the benefits to understand geographic differences)
- environmental benefits including potential mitigation of some of the effects of climate change
9 January 2012 11:52AM
and then there is the environmental damage these windmills do to the landscape.I think they are tolerated because they are supposed to be beneficial. Whereas electricity pylons are seen as blots on the landscape for some reason.
9 January 2012 11:57AM
This goes for those ugly plastic panels that the middle class are putting on their roofs because the're a good investment and they're doing their bit for the planet.Feeling self righteous and making money its got to be good ,no matter about the fact that they look shit.
9 January 2012 12:00PM
It's not peer reviewed, so it isn't corporate approved. Cool.
9 January 2012 12:00PM
.
".. Increased Carbon Emissions " -Immaterial! This is the least of the problems with these environment destroyers. They are worse than useless wasting very large amounts of money and despoiling our ancient hill tops.
.The ordinary electricity consumer is paying for this madness!
9 January 2012 12:03PM
They certainly do produce a lot of emissions, judging by the amount them ones in the picture are pumping out.
9 January 2012 12:08PM
Envious much?
9 January 2012 12:10PM
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9 January 2012 12:11PM
I think the growing hostility towards renewables is deeply rooted in ideology and corporate loyalties, but I think it exposes a fallacy at the centre of the argument for market-driven reform. Tim Jackson highlighted this well recently when he noted that free-marketeers insist that a market unencumbered by regulation is the best way to combat climate change because it is the most efficient way to encourage new technology and reduce emmissions. What the vilification of renewables proves is that the same free-marketeers aren't about to apply their own philosophies to a sector that could impact corporate profits in the long term.
Whether it is true or not that renewables are 'inefficient' in an economic sense, it does not mean that they will not become so in years to come. Indeed by the same logic, a buoyant renewables market would grow ever more efficient as it grows. When an industry is this important, one would think that these people would be pouring their energies into making technologies more affordable and more efficient, but instead they try to destroy a sector that could very well be the first step on a path to solving our long term energy needs.
9 January 2012 12:13PM
But this is just nonsense on stilts. What happens, according to the 'director of policy at RenewableUK, the "voice of wind and marine energy"' when it is not available? Back-up capacity, which is at best gas powered but may at present even be coal-powered, is needed. No?
I am all for low-emission electricity generation but what's needed is a bit of honesty in the claims & counter-claims. Just because something says its Green, like Wind Power, doesn't mean it is.
9 January 2012 12:14PM
More and more people are coming around to realise that wind energy is more to do with energy corporations diverting their investments into a highly profitable division of the energy industry. The idea that by covering the UK's uplands,islands and sea beds with wind farms will reduce global warming and contribute significantly to our energy requirements is risible! It's such a tragedy that many of our most beautiful and fragile environments will be violated by these power plants. Already the huge visual impact of even a small wind farm producing a piddling amount of electricity is all too apparent to anyone who visits the uplands of Wales and Scotland.
It's one of the great cons of our time. No wonder the energy corporations are falling over themselves like pigs around a trough to gorge themselves on state subsidies delivered at our expense :(
9 January 2012 12:14PM
What is being consistently ignored is the way we waste electricity - at the same as the process for finding and testing useful ways to generate low carbon energy goes on, we should be driving energy saving behaviour and ensuring people use more energy efficient appliances.
Reducing energy use is probably the cheapest, quickest and most effective way we have to reduce carbon emissions.
And on figures I find this to be quite a reasonable and rational analysis of this area:
"Sustainable Energy — without the hot air" by David JC MacKay
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/sustainable/book/tex/sewtha.pdf
9 January 2012 12:14PM
I'm still waiting for Prof Cox to develop a Nuclear Fusion generator that I can have at the bottom of my field.
9 January 2012 12:15PM
OK, here are some peer reviewed papers for you to chew over (and no, I'm not going to tell you want it means, Leo - you are the paid journalist, you do it).
Life cycle energy and greenhouse emissions analysis of wind turbines and the
effect of size on energy yield by Crawford Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 2009
A Review of the Application of Lifecycle Analysis to Renewable Energy Systems by Lund and Biswas Bulletin of Science Technology Society 2008
Life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the generation of wind and hydro power by Raadal et al Renewable and Susainable Energy Reviews (abstract only)
Read these. Write article. Go on then.
9 January 2012 12:16PM
Wind itself, being composed of air x speed, is highly gas dependent. Some air particles are highly toxic.
Not surprised it takes a lot of gas to keep the turbines going round when the wind has stopped.
9 January 2012 12:18PM
Well we could go all for gas and no wind. Then watch as gas prices inexorably increase and the economics look horrible. Or Russia turns off the taps and we all freeze.
We need a mix of everything for clean, secure supply - nuclear, gas, wind, tidal, solar and hopefully eventually fusion.
Plus there is still plenty of learning left for wind onshore and off that can increase efficiencies and reduce costs.
9 January 2012 12:18PM
Interestingly Dr Edge provides no data to support his argument against "wind farm cranks", and links to a report which states:
The report contains projections that are based on assumptions that are subject to uncertainties and contingencies. Because of the subjective judgements and inherent uncertainties of projections, and because events frequently do not occur as expected, there can be no assurance that the projections contained herein will be realised and actual results may be different from projected results.
One organisation with considerable "real world" (i.e. as opposed to modelling studies) experience of managing transmission grids supplied with large volumes of wind energy is E.ON-Netz in Germany. The 2004 edition of the wind report from this organisation commented:
The increased use of wind power in Germany has resulted in uncontrollable fluctuations occurring on the generation side due to the random character of wind power feed-in. This significantly increases the demands placed on the control balancing process bringing about rising grid costs. The massive increase in the construction of new wind power plants in recent years has greatly increased the need for wind-related reserve capacity.....That is, wind power construction must be accompanied by almost equal construction of new conventional power plants, which will be used very nearly as much as if the wind turbines were not there.
For whatever reason, this text has been deleted from the currently available version of the E.ON-Netz report.
9 January 2012 12:19PM
"wind power, backed by conventional gas-fired generation, can emit more CO2 than the most efficient gas turbines running alone"
How about wind power back by the most efficient gas turbines. Doesn't the comment simply indicate that convenitonal gas-fired generation is inefficient?
9 January 2012 12:20PM
The National Grid does not know in advance when I am going to switch my kettle/oven on. They have managed with intermittent demand for yonks. They've also managed with the occasional intermittent failure of power stations - back-up supply has always been needed.
Whilst the output from a single wind turbine can be highly intermittent, once your average up the output from a number of turbines at a number of different sites, then they will vary much more smoothly - and one can forecast this output using weather forecasts.
There are a couple of technical things we can do that will help - there was an interesting idea in New Scientists ages ago about fitting fridges with a chip that would turn them on or off depending on the Hz of the electricity supply - thereby going some way to smoothing the demand for electricity
9 January 2012 12:21PM
See, now there's a thing.
If you do a serious study, you will want to publish your findings where other people will see it, so other experts can either make use of or criticise your findings. Thus the body of knowledge grows.
Science (and Trade) journals are rated by their 'impact' - high impact journals are those read by experts in the given given field. Publishing in a journal with low impact ensures that no one will read your paper - other experts will neither be able to learn from or make criticism of your work - the body of knowledge doesn't grow and you've wasted your time.
Publishing 'on your personal website' is akin to hiding the Ark of the Covenant, packed in a crate, in a warehouse with a billion
9 January 2012 12:23PM
Possibly because after nearly 7 years of rapid advancement in technology and know-how that it is no longer really true...
9 January 2012 12:24PM
We need a National Kettle Rota - time needs to be rationed.
I'll see if I can get one installed on the No10 website.
9 January 2012 12:25PM
Getting sick of all this anti wind-farm bollocks that has been filling the news lately, its just one lame excuse after another, it is sickening.
Anything at its relatively early stages will be more expensive, but as more is adopted it will become more efficient.
Producing any kind of energy has some kind of impact, because it cannot be made or collected by 'nothing', materials are always required. However the aim is to reduce the impact whist at the same time supplying energy that is demanded as a result of current lifestyles.
9 January 2012 12:26PM
By knocking wind and renewables the case is made for the "other- other alternative" ie nuclear. Some people are playing the long game to get people to accept future Fukushimas...
9 January 2012 12:27PM
Aah, the latest attempt by a cabal of well-funded "old-school" interests fighting for the riches from our next generation of energy supply.
Let's exercise a bit of common-sense here folks - yet another report from a "free-market"/ "open"/ "democratic" think-tank that finds that renewables = bad, and natural gas/ shale gas/ nuclear is a jolly good thing. See also Gove's Policy Exchange, John Muir Trust, Renewable Energy Foundation etc etc. for more.
The facts are simple: gas has caused the average bill to rise by 175 pounds in the past year alone. And there are no signs that this is going to go anywhere but north. Meanwhile, support for renewables adds about 30 pounds in total to the average bill, of which onshore wind is about 6-8 pounds.
Right now, our energy generation sources are very concentrated, in the hands of a few multi-national companies who make *lots* of money. But contrast, more renewables would see that scattered amongst hundreds of smaller firms. Might we expect to see them fight for that (see EDF recent hacking of Greenpeace's computers, for instance)?
And how do people think nuclear/ coal/ gas power stations are built & paid for - Nectar points? They all need *quite* a few people to run them, 24/7 for 25-40 years. Europe's two newest nuclear power stations are each 50% over budget at 6 billion euro a piece - and that will be passed on to every consumer in our bills.
There's a relentless astroturfing drip-drip going on here that begs a simple question: who stands to gain if renewables fails? Follow the money trail, people.
Just sayin', like.
9 January 2012 12:28PM
@DavidJNeal
9 January 2012 12:14PM
"I'm still waiting for Prof Cox to develop a Nuclear Fusion generator that I can have at the bottom of my field."
You'll be waiting a long time - you'll need an engineer for that, not a physicists.
9 January 2012 12:29PM
Headline - 'Non Peer-reviewed Study from Eco-Capitalist group, Written by Anti-Renewable Energy Right-Winger Slams Wind Power!'
Civitas is a marketer of pollution credits, the banner on their site reads "Buy Pollution Credits Now!". Pollution is their business, the more, the better. These oh-so clever greenwashers are still aggressively promoting carbon offseting even though, a decade on, it has given no benefit in terms of actually reducing our carbon emissions.
Would a recycling company ever encourage people to consume less products thereby reducing their own profitable feedstock?
It is very clear who they are pandering to, just read the comments on this and their Guardian article from a few days ago. Their business (think-tank LOL) requires an anti-renewable agenda.
9 January 2012 12:29PM
Unfortunately, last winter with all the snow on the ground, there was practically no wind across all of Northern Europe.
The opportunity cost of Wind (and Solar generation, but not solar heating) is much too high and wastes money which could mitigate CO2 production elsewhere.
Or you could put you fridge outside in the winter. Not very convenient to wade through snow to get the milk, but very efficient. :)
9 January 2012 12:29PM
and I'm pretty sick of lazy comments like this. Have you read any peer-reviewed analysis either or are you incapable of thinking for yourself?
9 January 2012 12:29PM
So why, after all these wondrous advances in technology and know how, are Germany's carbon emissions from electricity generation so unimpressive? And almost an order of magnitude greater than those of (nuclear-powered) France ?
9 January 2012 12:31PM
The price of a wind turbine is determined by the level of subsidy, not the cost of the equipment! Look at how Solar PV installations went from £2.30 per kW to £1.80 per kW when the FIT halved!
As far as intermittent supply is concerned,
I proposes using the Norfolk Wash as a giant pump and store resource.
This could give up to 6gWHrs of storage available twice a day at 3gW peak power. AND would cost a great deal less than using fossil fuels to fill in the gap.
Yes it would change the ecology of the WASH, but with it warming up rapidly anyway, the historical eco-system is cooked anyway!
And how about the cost of keeping a reserve of Oil/Gas in case of supply disruption. Iran is currently threatening blockade. I'd like to see them block the UK's Wind!
9 January 2012 12:34PM
How about we all stop talking uninformed crap and spend some time researching the peer-reviewed numbers? Is that too much to ask?
As far as I can see, it is unlikely, yet not altogether impossible/unimaginable, for a wind-turbine to produce as much CO2 per kwh as a gas turbine.
9 January 2012 12:38PM
<This is the least of the problems with these environment destroyers. >
So as long as the hills look nice. Bugger climate change, wouldn't want to spoil your view now would we.
9 January 2012 12:38PM
How about comparing wind power to the actual make-up of the grid sourcing? If you include the horrendous emissions output of the mix of Coal, Oil and Gas, compared megawatt/hour to megawatt/hour, I believe wind power will come out much better than our status quo.
9 January 2012 12:39PM
See, now there's a thing.
If you do a serious study, you will want to publish your findings where other people will see them - so other experts can either make use of, or critique your findings. Thus the body of knowledge grows.
Science (and Trade) journals are rated by their 'impact' - high impact journals are those read by experts in the given field.
Publishing in a journal with low impact ensures that no one will read your paper - other experts will neither be able to learn from or make criticism of your work - the body of knowledge doesn't grow and you've wasted your time (unless you've got snake-oil to sell and want to point to your 'published' papers)
'Publishing' on your website is like hiding the Ark of the Covenant, packed in a crate, in a giant warehouse with a billion other crates.
Publishing is important. Man-with-website has no equivalency with the collective expertise of a field of experts.
Relying on stuff you found on a website as a basis to issue policy recommendations is a mugs game. Civitas is staffed by people who flaunt their academic qualifications and who should know better. That they choose not to do better is probably telling.
9 January 2012 12:45PM
More nuclear power ASAP, please. At least we know nuclear is low-carbon, and that it actually works.
9 January 2012 12:46PM
we'd have to reduce an awful lot
to reduce dependency on fossil fuels we'll need to increasingly use electricity to power heating, cooking and transport. That will see a massive increase in demand for electricity. Even if we reduce demand for power substatially from the position we are now we will still need more electricity.
to really reduce demand for electricity we're going to have to make drastic and often punitive changes to lifestyle - when faced with that challenge I'd bet that most of the electorate would change their minds over nuclear power (wind can provide a proportion of power output but it'll always be limited) or decide that emissions aren't that bad after all.
9 January 2012 12:49PM
Leo
are you serious here, do you actually want the figures? The best report on this is Bentek's "When more became less", because it is based on high resolution real world data from Colorado and Texas. The wind data from Colorado is every 15 minutes, and this proves invaluable in trying to determine how wind works in the real world (as opposed to simplistic models).
The conclusion is that you have to balance wind against gas plant; which seems obvious (against coal plant there are more emissions and higher fuel burn). The problem here is wind is more prevalent at night when coal plants are providing baseload, so more often than not at night you don't get the choice of what plant to balance against, its going to be coal.
At any rate, because of the high volatility of gas (and its this which really kills it, not the intermittency) its clear the fuel and emissions savings using wind are marginal, even when balancing against gas. The Muir Trust report also highlights how volatile wind is, again based on high resolution real world data.
Finally Leo, are you aware how many wind renewable operators attempt to hide their high resolution data, usually with the excuse its commercially sensitive? Why do you think that might be?
9 January 2012 12:50PM
Sorry, I wrote above
I meant the high volatility of wind.
9 January 2012 12:51PM
Surely the best approach to addressing the intermittent power generated by wind turbines is to attach a decent power storage device to each turbine. The power generated by the wind turbine would feed into a battery, or similar power storage device which in turn would provide a constant and predictable power feed into the Grid.
The fact that this doesn't happen leads me to conclude that it's either too costly or not possible on a large scale.
9 January 2012 12:51PM
Using wind power to directly augment our National Grid is probably not best use of this resource. Wind power is far more efficient when the power generated is distributed locally for small to medium scale applications and immediate consumption.
Of course, using wind power to produce hydrogen is a marvellous solution to solve the problem of energy storage.
One only has to look back in history to see how effective wind power can be. Recall that all ships once used the power of the wind and of course windmills ground cereals and pumped water very, very effectively for centuries. Again, it's this type of local application that will produce the most efficient and cost effective solutions in future.
Building massive wind farms to replace a conventional power stations is an inappropriate use of this technology and represents an unfair comparison - just the sort of thing one might expect from biased and bogus 'scientific' investigations.
9 January 2012 12:53PM
It is astonishing that the UK has committed to the deployment of large volumes of wind energy, while considerable uncertainty surrounds the ability of this technology to reduce fuel consumption and emissions from conventional generation. Surely, this highlights the need for an independent analysis of the UK electricity generation system, to quantify accurately, the effect of wind energy infeed on the fuel consumed in conventional power stations. This study could also be replicated in other countries with significant deployment of renewables such as Germany and Denmark. In the UK, we (presumably) have the data required for such a study – electricity demand, power station fuel consumption – can these not be correlated with the output of our wind infrastructure under varying levels of wind abundance ?
9 January 2012 12:53PM
Thanks for the links. That is precisely why we operate this blog in this format - to use the collective knowledge and researching capabilities of the "crowd". It is hopefully far more fruitful and inclusive to operate in this way, rather than me alone going off and researching this subject. I do that form of journalism too, of course, but this is intended to be a fast, reactive and interactive way to collectively discuss and assess a topical claim.
9 January 2012 12:54PM
Whatever the truth either way, this is all just tinkering around the edges.
The infinite economic growth vs finite system paradox is the problem - and, according to an article in the latest New Scientist, one for which there are no credible solutions.
Even with an unlimited, clean, free energy source, some time in the next few decades as multiple resource peaks are passed the system fails catastrophically.
9 January 2012 12:58PM
But the best sites for wind farms don't have enough local demand for their output, and the very small inefficiencies involved in high voltage transmission are vastly outweighed by the improvements in wind farm output from choosing a good site.
Not when the overall efficiency of such a process is maybe 50%.
9 January 2012 12:58PM
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9 January 2012 1:00PM
Strange he didn't bother to include the full life-cycle of a coal-fired power station including running costs and the carbon emissions generated by digging the coal out of the ground.
9 January 2012 1:03PM
It would probably take a huge amount of reasearch and cross-checking to know whether C. le Pair's figures and analysis stands up to scrutiny.
However, upon starting to read his paper I immediately came across a caveat, which demonstrates that his arguments are context related to the Netherlands.
and
http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol.html
This is not exactly true of the UK is it? As it has quite a lot of high ground. In fact we already have such a capability.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestiniog_Power_Station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity
And I noticed this clear inconsistency before even getting past the first real paragraph in his paper.