Comments on: The predictability of and variation in wind energy https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/ Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:56:05 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.8 By: plumbing https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491788 Sun, 25 Mar 2012 10:56:05 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491788 Wind energy are cost effective than electric energy. This Is one of the answer of to reduce global warming and protect our environment from pollution.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491787 Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:08:03 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491787 At the beginning of my first comment I said that global warming discussions are like religious ones, with no consensus at the end. This is what we are now seeing between you and I.

Please don’t drag me into your religious experience.

J Doug: It is called “Pumped Storage” and it has been used for years. It is messy and big and inefficient but there have been times it has been determined to be useful.

]]> By: dennis grier https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491786 Fri, 09 Mar 2012 10:41:12 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491786 OK, I see what you mean. I thought you were talking about my arithmetic!
At the beginning of my first comment I said that global warming discussions are like religious ones, with no consensus at the end. This is what we are now seeing between you and I. For example you say above that nuclear technology is not safe, but the numbers in the URL I gave you shows that is one of the safest. I read a report the other day from E-ON, the big german energy producer. As you know the germans are stopping all nuclear generation very soon as a political comitment . In 2010 80% of german electricity was produced by non-renewables, with 40% nuclear and the rest brown coal and gas. I guess they are intending to replace most of the nuke with coal and wind, which, if the reports in my URL’s are not completely wrong, will mean a big increase in CO2! 2010 was a worldwide record year for CO2 pollution, and with everybody condemming nuclear I’m sure that when the world economy picks up again the figures will be even worse.
In the end, Greg, there will be a reality check on all this as the % CO2 in the atmosphere and the world temperature anomaly increase and even the polititions start getting worried about their kid’s future.
Many thanks for this excellent blog and for the exchange of ideas.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491785 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 19:19:51 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491785 Dennis, what I’m referring to is this: You are giving us a four part equation. It is an inequlaity

Good things about non-nuclear – bad things about non-nuclear < good things about nuclear - bad things about non nuclear in which you are counting up all the bad things about non nuclear but nothing else, in order to make your very biased case. People who read this blog are much, much smarter than you must think they are! What you say the Germans are doing is actually what we are doing here in Minnesota as well. Some of us are working on speeding up that effort. You know, to fill the gap between now and when a safe form of nuclear can be developed, tested, deployed in a limited way for a couple of decades and then if it works used more widely. Because we know that nuclear technology as it now stands is not safe, and is very expensive. Which is too bad. I want my free clean energy!

]]> By: dennis grier https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491784 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:23:34 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491784 You’re worrying me now Greg. I suppose you mean the turbine calc.
Lets try the arithmetic for Germany, which I will take as about 80GW average level of consumption.
So we get 80000 MW x 8600h in the whole year =688 million MWh for the year, 688 **6/8600 gives 80000 1MW turbines x 4 for the 25% wind efficiency(a very generous figure for Germany-is more like 15%), giving 320000 turbines. If the turbines are 2MW beasts one would only need 160000 of them.
Of course nobody is proposing such a system. I believe 20% wind is more the idea so one would need to build 65000 rated at 1MW.I guess thats what the germans are doing at the moment.

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491783 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 15:02:43 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491783 Dennis, your math is bad.

]]> By: dennis grier https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491782 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 09:56:20 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491782 You’re right Greg, one should always include references but my comment was getting a bit too verbose.
Here are a couple of interesting URL’s. The first two are the reports on the fuel consumption with and without wind power. The one from the nuclear org on CO2 emissions and safety is, of course, from a pro nuclear source. However I have seen similar figures(which I can no longer find) from an independant safety group where Hydro was given the worst safety record (mainly from the Chinese dam accident where 26000 were killed) and coal a close second (from the calculated deaths among the worlds population) due to the dreadful pollution from the chimneys. Chernobil was the only nuke accident with any serious death or injury, mainly from the thousands of workers sent with poor protection to clean up the mess. Three mile island killed and injured nobody; Fukishima killed nobody and injured only a few safety workers.
The last URL is interesting, showing the case of the underground natural reactor in africa which heated the rock to several hundred °C over millions of years without shifting. Indicates that underground storage of nuke wastes could be done safely. Of course not all points in my rambling ‘comment ‘are covered.
The figure for the number of wind turbines needed to cover world electric demand is simple arithmetic. Just take the MWh consumption/year of any country,multiply by 4 (the average output is about 25% of rating) and then divide by 8600MWh (the average output of a 1MW rated turbine over 1 year. Add 10% for maintenance and then look at the size of the batteries to store that energy for, say 5days without wind!
If you need other references (eg low efficiency of polar panels of around 18%)or info on the imperceptibily slow advances being made in carbon capture, let me know.
http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol-e+nl.html
http://www.clepair.net/IerlandUdo.html
http://world-nuclear.org/education/ehs.html
http://www.ans.org/pi/np/oklo/

]]> By: Greg Laden https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491781 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 05:37:42 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491781 It is funny, Dennis, how you say all these specific (unreferenced) things about all the different types of energy but you make no argument whatsoever about nuclear. You just state that it is the only solution.

Jesus saves!

Anyway, I’d love to see references for the studies you site.

I’ll be reviewing a book here shortly that everyone must read. Addresses everything you bring up in your comment.

]]> By: Dennis Grier https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491780 Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:30:07 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491780 The trouble with all this interminable wrangling over how to prevent global warming runaway is that it has all become a kind of religion. There are the green integrists whose god is ‘renewables’ and whose devil is anything with the word ‘atomic’ attached, the heathens who blaspheme and call for atomic power everywhere, and the mass of quiet folks who vote to close down everything nuclear but hate the destruction of the countryside with windfarms and fields of solar panels. Like with all religious arguments, one never gets to a reasonable consensus.
Lets take a look at the problem to be solved. According to the overwhelming majority of climate experts, if we don’t reduce our CO2 output by something like 80% by 2050 we risk unstable warming runaway where we loose control over the temperature rise and may end up with catastrophic destruction of the environment.
To get an 80% reduction of CO2 pollution by 2050 would imply that Europe and the USA would have to have stopped burning fossil fuels by 2030, followed by India and China by 2050. To do this a crash program of construction of clean electric generators would be necessary. Clean is the important word, not renewable. Renewable generation will be necessary one day, long into the future, when the world energy consumption gets to around 500TW, else the generation of electric power alone will become a source of global warming. At the moment we generate around 20TW, so we have a 150 years or so before renewables become a necessity.
Clean generation could be done with carbon capture on coal and gas with underground storage, but the technical problems and logistics are enormous. Few people imagine it could be done in 20years.
Wind power has the disadvantage that to get, say, a 50% contribution, many 100’s of 1000’s would need to be installed along with gigantic energy storage batteries of some kind. There are several reports from competent scientisrs which have used the consumed fuel measurments of large national electricity suppliers with and without wind contribution. They have all concluded that the lowered efficiency of closed circuit gas turbines with cycling due to intermittent wind gives an overall fuel consumption with intermittent wind which is greater that that with no wind contribution. There was no reduction of CO2!
Direct solar electric generation will one day be the ‘renewable’ solution, but today the efficiency is so low and the electric storage problem so great that only a minor, variable, contribution can be hoped for within the next 30years. Nuclear, the only practical solution, being the devil in person for an influential sector of the public, is out, at least until the first sign of an imminent climate catastrophy appears, which will perhaps be too late.
We just have to hope that the climate scientists have been too pessimistic !

]]> By: Jim https://gregladen.com/blog/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491779 Wed, 07 Mar 2012 20:31:30 +0000 http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2012/03/06/the-predictability-of-and-vari/#comment-491779 The Register has an article on wind power just today (The true, tragic cost of British wind power) which may interest people.

It does not paint a positive view of wind power…

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