You have to love all that diversity ('the wind is always blowing somewhere'), in the equinoctial windiness of March, today the metered wind output (23MW) dipped below 1% of 'metered capacity' and looks to stay that way all day.
It's nice to know that that capacity that 'could supply up to (insert own bullshit value here) millions of homes' (in themselves not where the largest consumption of electricity takes place) is in fact barely capable of driving 10,000 electric kettles to make a morning cuppa.
Or about 4 electric locomotives of decent power output.
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is, in fact, to put it in perspective, about 1/50th of the nice nuclear energy currently being imported from France..
You can always rely on windmills to ....completely fail to deliver, randomly.
So you mix it.. that means you need the same generating capacity as the wind farms idling away so they can switch in when the wind doesn't blow. This costs £££ and generates carbon, so much for wind farms being carbon neutral. I suppose the solution is to back them up with something that doesn't generate carbon, like nuclear, but then you wouldn't need the wind farms. We could offset some of the problems by switching off all the people on green tariffs as there isn't any green electricity for them. We don't want them to get the idea that they are actually a part of the solution rather than being a part of the problem.
I bet they didn't, how much carbon does that mean they produce over their life then?
I thought you said something about wind power failing to deliver electricity but I am not sure what. Now you say German Wind power hasn't produced a 'carbon reduction' . Not sure what that means. Also that the German Govt's own figures for electricity consumption and generation are wrong.
Actually: Wind farms can produce substantial amounts of electricity and do so in Germany. Wind farms do not release CO2 into the atmosphere for every kWh produced so if the alternative is combustion of fossil fuels they represent a big saving in carbon emmissions. Its incontrovertible. Try to fudge it how you will.
I don't know what is going on in your head of course but I _think_ you have muddled the import of energy with the import of electricity. That is why you are making a nonsense of the facts and believe you are being lied to.
I believe Germany does import large amounts of gas for instance from Russia, maybe its imports equate to 2/3 of its energy needs, but I am pretty sure it doesn't import electricity on that scale. In fact the high levels of imports of energy in fuel form must be to serve the power stations. You google the figures. I have to go and do some work. Then come back and apologise to the wind lobby LOL.
Yes but the Germans (i) legislated to make people pay for it earlier and (ii) benefit from the ability to share with other countries through trans-national connection schemes so there is a better chance of the wind blowing somewhere at a time people want to use electricity. (We of course will have to pay through the nose for undersea connections; and probably pay yet more because the EU is involved.)
Wind power hasn't delivered carbon emission reduction. Certainly nothing like 7% of Germany's CO2 attributable to electrical generation. I can't say clearer than that.
No, you simply 'misquoted' them. 7% of electricity generation NOT 7% of 'Germanys energy'.
Dont worry, most of the wind lobby has trouble dsistuingusighing between electrical power and total energy requirements and none have a clue about exported carbon footprints to e.g. China in terms of energy used to make stuff there we use here..or a clue about what load average means or when 'could power X homes' meas 'will on average power 30% of X homes the home being about one sixth of the power we use altogether, with transport, industry and so on making up the other 5/6ths), and sometimes won't power anything at all)
So they can! Mostly, however, they don't.
Sorry, the facts don't bear that out.
If the *extra* fuel you have to burn to compensate for the wind output going up and down loses all the advantages the wind seemingly has, you end up with an net zero change in carbon emissions.
The point being that the more wind you have - as against nuclear or hydro - the more fossil fuel stations you need to balance it.
Having to bring - say - 20GW of fossil online in a hurry when the wind drops overnight, and not necessarily very good fossil either, since its not used fully, so there is little incentive to make it efficient, costs you a huge amount of fuel JUST TO GET IT UP AND RUNNING.
As near as I can judge over 75% of winds 'zero carbon' gains are lost to that process.
That's the trouble with simple pictures. The world is not simple.
Germany remains one of the highest CO2 emitters in Europe with respect to electrical power generation. DESPITE all this so call low carbon wind.
Denmark is similar. The real stars of Europe are France and Switzerland, both hugely nuclear and in Switzerland's case, with abundant hydro as well to cover short term demand fluctuations.
If you want to permanently get rid of fossil fuel usage, nuclear for the base load and hydro for the demand fluctuations is the way. Wind is completely useless. A grid that had - say - 30% wind and no nuclear or hydro at all would at times have no fossil in use at all, but on average would need *70% fossil to balance it*.
Now if we say that without wind, a good CCGT can do say 60% thermal efficency IF FULLY WARMED UP AND LEFT RUNNING, then your carbon fuel rate is 1/60% = 1.667 times grid power
If the use of that fossil fuel plant drops to 70% due to adding 30% wind, you still cant get rid of it. You are just using it on average 70% of the time.
Let's say its efficiency running like that is is X, so that the fuel burn is then 0.7/X the grid power. And calculate when it's no better than the kit running without any wind. its when 1/0.6=0.7/X
which makes the critical value of X = 42%.
SO *if the net result of adding 30% average wind to the grid is to reduce the CCGT efficiency from 60% to 42%*, there is *no net emissions gain from wind whatsoever*.
A CCGT set running before the secondary cycle gets going, is simply a
37% OCGT gas turbine..every time you start that CCGT set up, it takes fuel to warm it up. Energy that you lose when you switch it off and it cools down.
If you add more than 30% wind to the grid, there will be times when you have to throw it away as well, because peak output will mean you have more than you need when the wind DOES blow.
You MIGHT put it in pumped storage, at 75% efficiency losing 25% of the value..if you HAD any pumped storage capacity..
We don't really have much, neither does Germany...
So at best, 30% windpower on the grid (more is unlikely to actually achieve much more because you start to throw it away)might reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation by perhaps 20%. At best. Maybe
5-10% is likely.
20% nuclear on the grid that totally replaces fossil, could net you a real 20% decrease in fossil fuel usage for electricity.At one fifth the cost.
80% Nuclear - as France has - reduces fossil usage by 80%.
The optimal UK mix would be something like 80% nuclear and 20% fast start CCGT. If you really want low carbon electricity. If we had a bit more hydro, we could do a bit better. Sadly geography doesn't favour us there. Dumping our total coal stations could net us something like
70-80% CO2 reduction.
No amount of wind can ever produce anything like that sort of emissions reduction.
It is simply a complete waste of time and money. It's only there because the Greens run Germany, and the Greens hate nuclear power, and Germany runs the EU.
And the windpower companies are..German. Or Danish - Denmark being a sort of lump on the end of Germany for all intents and purposes.
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