Wind output reaches new low..

[Jethro]

ideology

[Tim W]

okay quickly then I am supposed to be working.

It isn't really a question about wind power but about any kind of electrical generation because electricity is difficult to store, demand is constantly fluctuating and supply has to be altered the whole time. To repeat what I have had to say about twenty times in this thread - Wind power needs to be part of a mix. That means that if you had a wholly renewable energy supply ( and we are a long way off that ) it would need to be a mixture of maybe Wind, solar, biomass, waves, tidal, greatly improved storage, and improved efficiency. So when the sun isn't shining it isn't windy, it's high tide and the sea is calm you need to fire up the elephant grass furnace to take up the slack. None of these fluctuations is totally unpredictable, the weather is never the same from one end of the country to the other. Obviously if you throw in a bit of nuclear then it all gets a bit easier but that is another issue.

No generatiing method is without it's drawbacks. What happens when Russia turns off the gas? What if the miners go on strike? What about Al Quaeda flying into Hinkley Point? A Tsunami ffs? You need a mixture, and wind power works as a part of that mixture. This whole urban myth that it doesn't do any good and is just a con is just part of the lazy naysayers alliance with the Jeremy Clarkson School of philosophy campaign to discredit anything which might prevent you from speeding down the M4.

Tim w

[Tim W]

You could be lot clearer. Wind power has reduced emissions, but consumption has increased so much that there is no overall reduction.

Yes the figure is for electricity, if that wasn't clear from the context then that was careless of me. No, now you misquote, it is 7% of consumption, not generation.

Not just the wind lobby. the nuclear lobby are at least as blind, happily quoting figures for low radiation while ignoring waste, or for low land use while ignoring mining abroad.

You imply that wind power will cause problems with variable supply and demand. This is disingenuous because the industry already has to deal with the variations in supply and demand, day, night, weekend, half time on Match of the Day etc.. Yes wind power needs to be part of a mixed industry. We know that.

This is disingenuous. Germany is one of the highest emitters because it is the largest economy and one of the biggest populations.

Wind power needs to be part of a mix. We know that. Why all the straw men?

Nobody afaik has ever claimed that wind power alone will reduce power station emissions by 80% It needs to be part of a mix. We know that.Why the straw men?

Wind Farms generate electricity without emissions. In conjunction with other methods of generation they are a valuable efficient technology. They work.

I see. Another agenda then? Read the Daily Mail much?

Tim W

[Ronald Raygun]

You don't really think TNP meant "one of the highest emitters" in total quantity terms, do you? I assumed he implied per generated kWh. The reason for that isn't the large economy or biggest population, it's the relatively high proportion of fossil fuels in the source mix, because they're unfortunate enough not to have enough hydro and daft enough not to have enough nuclear.

I agree that the 7% figure for wind is impressive, especially as an annual total, i.e. as a long term average. It implies the peak fraction must be a lot higher, and partly that must be due to the fact that there is a lot of fossil in use anyway, capable of being backed out at the drop of a hat when the wind is blowing well enough to take over a decent share of the load.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No, even as an anti wind loby persona I cant say that. Not SPINNING reserve. Cold standby + warm standby + spinning reserve=99.99% of wind capacity, yes.

[Donwill]

I wonder how much energy has gone into constructing the damn things, installing them and building an electrical distribution system? What is the payback period? without the subsidy of course. Don

[The Other Mike]

In isolation they do, when you factor in their appalling availability and the requirement for replacement generation available at relatively short notice they are not far off being net contributors to global warming.

The quantities of petrochemicals used to make the resins and reinforcements used in blade construction is simply staggering.

Valuable being 100% return on investment in less than five years, diverting resources and investment capital from real long term solutions.

They are supremely efficient in ripping off consumers to feed the pockets of the rich (see above)

...as long as your definition of work is about 8% of the time, some of the time on a non predictable basis. Employ someone for 40 hours a week and it's just 3 hours 12 minutes useful work you get out of them. Even some MP's do more work than wind turbines.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But it doesn't have to be part of THE mix.

None f which are in fact viable

So when the sun isn't shining it isn't windy, it's high tide and

I am sure the elephants will love to hear that.

None of these fluctuations is totally unpredictable, the weather

No, it gets easier if you throw out all the renewables, actually, except waste burning. And even that is dubious Burying carbon waste fixes carbon to an extent. Today's trash heaps are tomorrows coal and oil.

Sweet f*ck all. It can take the odd airliner

I know, 17 meter tsunamis are so common in the UK that there is no point in building any offshore windpower, or tidal barriers, since it will wreck the lot..

You need a mixture,

No, you don't. You need a 10 year stockpile of uranium.

and wind power

It may just about work, but its a stupid way to waste money on f*ck all improvement in quality of supply, fuel burn or energy security.

Is almost entirely correct.

is just part of the lazy naysayers alliance with

No, it isn't. The lazy naysayers are the Urban greens who want power generation removed totally from their ken and paid fr at someone elses expense..

If anyone an AFFORD to exceed the speed limit down the M4, good bloody luck to them and thanks for the fuel tax..

[Tim W]

I don't make equations and I wouldn't claim to be able to design a complete international energy infrastructure. All I can say is that any type of generating needs backup. The imperative in renewable energy is not that the new has to be cheaper, or simpler, or look nicer, or need less pylons it is that we have to cut out the fossil fuels and cannot afford to keep burning coal just because the alternatives are a bit more expensive.

Tim W

[The Natural Philosopher]

Course not.

If windfarms were required to supply reliable constant 24x7 electricity at the point they are connected to the grid, they wouldn't be viable even with all the ROCS and FITS and grants they have.

The whole POINT is to push all those extra costs onto someone else, and bank the cash while electricity prices skyrocket, because to absorb all that intermittency means huge restructuring of the grid, to move power around from where ever it may be being generated, on occasion, to where its actually needed.

[The Natural Philosopher]

what is one over a negative quantity? greater than infinity...

There is no payback period, with an MTBF of about 2 months and a lifetime of less than 20 years, the ruddy things will always be a net drain on the economy.

[The Natural Philosopher]

You know, there's a moral there.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Indeed. Coal mostly. some gas.

But realistically, how much fuel do you save if you shut a coal plant down to idle for a few days while the wind blows... the efficiency is utter crap when you do that.

In the UK we already modulate (dispatch) our coal and CCGT plant massively. And make full use of all the interconnectors we have.And hydro and pumped storage.

We could double up the nukes and ditch most of the coal and make real savings, but we daren't shut a single coal plant because we have maybe

5% windpower on the grid.

[Ronald Raygun]

I don't think you'd want to shut one right down to idle. You'd simply want to throttle it (or if necessary several of them) back a bit, until they generate as much less electric power as the windmills generate more.

Essentially the windmills then give you negative carbon emissions as a result of the coal which is not burnt.

[The Natural Philosopher]

It shows.

No, that does not imply we need renewables. It rather implies that we need nuclear.

Because renewables *cannot do the job*,not alone, nor in conjunction with anything else.

The only technology that can, is nuclear, right now.

And it means FAR less grid upheaval, far less destruction of the environment and far less cost and far more energy security.

In short its the ideal solution. The only problem is people are scared of it.

[Donwill]

In the late 50s, completed early 60s they built a hydro electric scheme in Mid Wales called the Rheidol hydro scheme. 3 Dams, 3 lakes and a tunnel through a mountain, it was a small scheme only approx 70 MW but it had a genuine pay back period of 25 Yrs. It's still going as far as I know, I think a German company own it now. Don

[Tim Streater]

Predictable or not is not the issue. You still have to fire up the not-running generator. And unless you have that gen-set located at more or less the same location as the wind-farm, one or other of the sets of grid lines will be always unused.

Which means that in order to have your wind-farm, you need to have its backup which is quite a lot of society's resources extra to just what might be needed to create the wind-farm only. You figured that into the equation?

[The Natural Philosopher]

If you can bear the environmental destruction, hydro power is very very cost effective.

We have about a gigawatt of pure hydro IIRC (not pumped storage). Its used as a fast start high efficiency load balancer. The impression from watching the dials, is that run flat out the water would not last a year, so its used to cover rapid peak demands..where it can be sold at high price.

Right now its delivering 3 times as much to the grid as wind is.

Don

[tony sayer]

Like the wind;!..

Yes quite none..

A very long way off that. Has it been done anywhere in the civilised world at all as yet, or ever likely to be?..

Yes right.. How much wind?..

In the UK winter ?..

Maybe some..

Where are you going the put that then?..

How are you going the do that as well?..

Yes I'd prefer to throw a lot of nuclear in..

Yep.. What then?..

I somehow thought the idea was to get away from carbon emissions?..

Yes have they are they ever likely to. If I wanted to cause UK disruption there a few better places than that..

When did we last have one here?..

OK so how much wind power and remember it does need backup unless you have a unique storage idea?..

BTW have U got a car?. If so would you buy an electric one with low emissions ?. OK you might not have but where is all this power going to come from when the Oil starts to get Really pricey?..

And any idea of how much renewables we'll need and the scale of same?..

[The Natural Philosopher]

which is not actually very much.

Remember 65% of the coal heat goes up the chimney or out the back of the turbines anyway. More or less. It takes a fairly large amount of power to run the water pumps and the coal elevators and so on, as well. In short a hot standby or throttled or spinning reserve coal station is still burning a hell of a lot of coal.

Its better with gas, but even so, it aint great.