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Energy Externalities Day 5: Wind Power

March 27, 2018

Energy Externalities Day 5: Wind Power

It’s now day 5 of the Energy Externality Game and time to move onto the first of the new renewables, namely wind power. Loved by Green groups who see only reduced CO2 emissions, wind farms are hated by many others who see a blot on the landscape. Here at Energy Matters we normally just see high cost noise being added to a grid that needs to be balanced from second to second with some precision. This high cost noise needs to be mitigated and the cost of that mitigation is normally borne by others, not the wind farm operators.

The Externalities of Energy Production Systems (Day 1 Coal)
Energy Externalities Day 2: Gas-fired-CCGT
Energy Externalities Day 3: Biomass-Fired-Electricity
Energy Externalities Day 4: Nuclear Power

I am proposing to use 12 metrics to measure costs and benefits:

  • Fatalities / year / unit of energy produced
  • Chronic illness years / year / unit of energy produced
  • Environmental costs not covered directly by the system operators
  • Foot print of energy system per unit of energy produced
  • Energy system costs where energy source transfers costs to the transmission system
  • Energy system benefits where energy source provides a service to the transmission system
  • Environmental benefits derived from energy system operation
  • Taxes raised / year / for total energy produced
  • Subsidies paid / year / for total energy produced
  • Tax free cost of energy
  • EroEI
  • Resource availability

For the following 12 electricity generating systems

  • Coal-fired (Monday 19 March)
  • Gas-fired (Tuesday 20 March)
  • Biomass-fired
  • Diesel
  • Nuclear
  • Hydro electric
  • Wind
  • Solar PV
  • Solar thermal
  • Wave
  • Tidal
    • barrage
    • lagoon
    • stream
  • Geothermal

I then go on to provide qualitative assessments of each measure for each electricity system. I have then developed a game whereby we assign a score against each measure on a scale of 1 to 10 where.

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Germany Now Faced With Thousands Of Aging Wind Farms

September 29, 2015

Germany Now Faced With Thousands Of Aging Wind Farms

Germany has long been a pioneer in the field of renewable energy, generating a record 78 percent of its power consumption from renewables in July of this year. In fact, Germany is one of the very few countries in the world that is actually struggling with too much renewable energy. The latest testimony to this fact is the new issue of decommissioning its old wind farms.

2011 was a turning point for the European giant as it started moving away from nuclear energy (post Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster) and began to replace it with renewables. However, wind energy made its foray in Germany well before 2011. Germany started building wind turbines in the mid-1990s and now there are almost 25,000 wind turbines in the country.

However, the problem now is that a large number of the 25,000 odd turbines have become too old. Close to 7,000 of those turbines will complete more than 15 years of operation by next year. Although these turbines can continue running, with some minor repairs and modifications, the question is whether it makes any economic sense to maintain them?

Related: Winners And Losers Of Iran’s Return To The Oil And Gas Markets

GermanyRenewable

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Image source: TriplePundit.com

Efficiency is the key

Beyond a period of 20 years, the guaranteed tariffs that are set for wind power are terminated, thereby making them unprofitable. “Today, there are entirely different technologies than there were a decade ago. The performance of the turbines have multiplied, the turbines are also more efficient than before”, said Dirk Briese of market research company called Wind- Research. It therefore makes sense to replace old turbines with newer ones. However, it is not very easy to dismantle an existing turbine and, while there are companies like PSM that specialize in dismantling of wind turbines, the costs of decommissioning can run upwards of $33,500 per turbine.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Wind May Win The Renewable Race – But At What Price?

March 19, 2015

Wind May Win The Renewable Race – But At What Price?

You only need to drive the long, lonely stretches of highway in west Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio, Colorado or even parts of California to know that wind farms have become prolific across America. In fact, there are over 48,000 wind turbines spinning their blades in at least 39 states including Alaska, Hawaii and even in Puerto Rico.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released an Executive Summary on wind last week, including some interesting, but possibly ambitious, projections. According to the DOE, wind has become the fastest-growing source of alternative energy since 2000. In 2008, the report claims, wind provided just 1.5% of the nation’s total electricity needs. That jumped to 4.5-percent by 2013, a number mostly validated by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The DOE predicts wind power will jump to 10-percent by the end of the decade, then 20-percent by 2030 and possibly as high as 35-percent by 2050. TheAmerican Wind Energy Association agrees that a 20-percent market penetration is possible in fifteen years. On a global perspective, ExxonMobil, in their 2014 Energy Outlook to 2040 is not quite as optimistic, forecasting that fossil fuels will still provide approximately 70-percent of the world’s energy demand in twenty-five years, with wind and solar combined only generating approximately 4-percent of global demand.

 

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Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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