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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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 Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:10 pm Post subject: |
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| transplant wrote: |
| Quote: | | Hydrogen seems to involve a gas-station style infrastructure where you go and fill up at the corporate-owned facility and they manipulate supply and demand to profit at your expense. Just like now. |
Not to mention just like the central electrical grid is now. |
Mine's public. Sure, the bloody Campbell Liberals keep trying to change that, but so far it's public. |
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Tue Mar 20, 2007 6:21 pm Post subject: |
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| Raos wrote: |
Ooh, where shall we start? To begin with, you're going to have a hell of a lot more material input to to store this uphill water. How much goes into building a tank of say 100L, to hold air at the 300bars given in the air car clip from the other thread? How much water are you going to have to pump uphill to match the storage potential, and how big will the tank have to be to hold that? |
I don't know for sure about Maestro, but personally I'm mainly thinking in terms of pumping water to the top of existing hydro dams. It's already done sometimes.
| Maestro wrote: | | In fact the 90% figure is for the compression of the air alone. This is not some number I pulled out of the 'air'. It is in fact a common reference to the utter inefficiency of air compression. When you use that compressed air to run some other appliance, depending on the efficiency of the appliance at converting energy, you could easily approach losses of 99%. There are some engineers who argue that air compression yields no more energy than that which was contained in the ambient air. That means a 100% loss of input energy! |
Hooboy! Some engineers claim compressed air holds no more potential energy than ambient air, and you think I'm clueless about the reality of compressed air? Since compressed air can indeed run motors, I eagerly await the motor these engineers develop that will run on ambient air. As a matter of 'fact', I have a bridge I'd be willing to trade for their prototype.
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I do find myself wondering, if compressed air is so mindbogglingly useless, why there is all this industrial use of it generating all this literature about its use.
I also find myself wondering why Maestro seems so utterly determined that, aside from energy conservation, we must keep our energy supply status quo all the way with apparently no allowable deviations. |
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Maestro
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 2352
Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:14 pm Post subject: |
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Why use compressed air?
INTRODUCTION TO INDUSTRIAL COMPRESSED AIR SYSTEMS
| Quote: | Industrial facilities use compressed air for a multitude of operations. Almost every industrial facility has at least two compressors, and in a medium-sized plant there may be hundreds of different uses of compressed air.
Uses include powering pneumatic tools, packaging and automation equipment, and conveyors. Pneumatic tools tend to be smaller, lighter, and more maneuverable than electric motor-driven tools. They also deliver smooth power and are not damaged by overloading.
Air-powered tools have the capability for infinitely variable speed and torque control, and can reach a desired speed and torque very quickly. In addition, they are often selected for safety reasons because they do not produce sparks and have low heat build-up.
Although they have many advantages, pneumatic tools are generally much less energy-efficient than electric tools.
Many manufacturing industries also use compressed air and gas for combustion and process operations such as oxidation, fractionation, cryogenics, refrigeration, filtration, dehydration, and aeration. Table 1-1 lists some major manufacturing industries and the tools, conveying, and process operations requiring compressed air. For some of these applications, however, other sources of power may be more cost effective.
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Further:
| Quote: | | Compressed air is probably the most expensive form of energy available in a plant. Compressed air is also clean, readily-available, and simple-to-use. As a result, compressed air is often chosen for applications in which other energy sources are more economical. Users should always consider more cost-effective forms of power before considering compressed air. |
Still further:
| Quote: | As a general rule, compressed air should only be used if safety enhancements, significant productivity gains, or labor reductions will result. Typical overall efficiency is around 10%.
If compressed air is used for an application, the amount of air used should be of minimum quantity and pressure and used for the shortest possible duration of time. Compressed air use should also be constantly monitored and re-evaluated. |
So there's a authorative site that says 90% of input energy is lost. It also describes compressed air as the 'most expensive form of energy available'.
Here's another:
Energy Efficiency
in Air Compressors
| Quote: | Compressed air is a versatile tool used widely throughout industry for a variety of purposes. Unfortunately, running air compressors (AC) often uses more energy than any other equipment.
Air compressor efficiency is the ratio of energy input to energy output. Many air compressors may be running at efficiencies as low as 10 percent. Improving AC efficiency can yield significant savings to your facility.
When talking about the efficiency of air compressors, it is important to remember that the compressor itself is only one part of the system; therefore, it is important to look at the whole system when discussing AC efficiency.
Compressed air is the product of a system comprised of the air compressor followed by after-coolers, receivers, air dryers, air storage tanks, supply lines and possibly sequencers and multiple compressor units. |
That last quote is from a paper put out by the N. Carolina N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Note that they say the compressor may be 10% efficient, but that the overall system must be taken into account.
They also mention leaks as being the 'number one source of energy loss in an air compressor system', although presumably this is after the heat loss in compression itself.
However, all agree that compressed air is the most expensive energy available, regardless of specific efficiency rates.
If you're looking to find a 'greener' form of energy storage, it's probably not the best idea to start with the most inefficient method available.
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 4:59 pm Post subject: |
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| OK. I'm, at least provisionally, convinced. Pity. |
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skeptikool
*BANNED*
Joined: 01 Jun 2006
Posts: 1758
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| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:13 pm Post subject: |
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Maestro:
| Quote: | | So there's a authorative site that says 90% of input energy is lost. It also describes compressed air as the 'most expensive form of energy available'. |
Another "authoritative" site shows vehicles being moved by compressed air. I wonder at the cost of the electricity to compress that air and the comparable amount of gasoline or diesel fuel cost, to move those vehicles the same distances.
| Quote: | Quote:
Compressed air is a versatile tool used widely throughout industry for a variety of purposes. Unfortunately, running air compressors (AC) often uses more energy than any other equipment. |
Certainly, the compressed air drill will cost more to operate than the drill of similar bit-size operated by electricity directly. Why then are air tools chosen? Probably for safety concerns - particularly where fuels, paints or solvents are present in the workplace. Also, for reduced shock hazard from faulty tools or wiring. |
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skeptikool
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Joined: 01 Jun 2006
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| Posted: Sat Mar 24, 2007 6:19 pm Post subject: |
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Cuba, it seems, doesn't think it's hot air,
http://technology.canoe.ca/Innovations/2007/02/25/3665600-ap.html
excerpt:
| Quote: | Cuba opens experimental wind farm
...The C$4-million park, featuring six, 55-metre windmills and known as "Los Canarreos," was established on Isla de la Juventud, an island south of Havana, the Communist party youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported.
Exactly when the park was inaugurated was unclear but officials estimate during its first year of operation it could produce 1,800 megawatts of electricity. That would save Cuba about $160,000 in oil costs on the international market, the newspaper said.
The park was built using French technology and its windmills are designed to be disassembled quickly in case of hurricanes or tropical storms.
Officials hope to finish work on another wind park with six windmills located in the eastern province Holguin by the end of the year... |
This surprises me. I would have thought it sufficient to feather the turbine blades during excessive winds.
| Quote: | | ...Cuba produces its own oil and natural gas but domestic production is not enough to meet its energy needs. An agreement with oil-rich Venezuela allows the island to buy nearly 100,000 barrels of oil a day under preferential terms, while Cuba sends thousands of volunteer doctors to Venezuela who offer free care to the poor. |
Perhaps Louis Armstrong's Wonderful World is attainable. |
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Maestro
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 2352
Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:19 pm Post subject: |
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Why I think ther4e needs to be an objective analysis of the various 'alternative' energy methods and machines.
Canadian rebirth for wind power
| Quote: | Inside an unremarkable office building on the outskirts of Vancouver, a small team of engineers and marketers is building a technology that will tame the wind.
...First designed by NASA and developed by Vancouver-based VRB Power Systems Inc., the vanadium battery took a major step toward commercial success yesterday after the Irish government released a study showing it could substantially boost profitability at wind farms when the Emerald Isle is looking to inject some of its famous green into its power supply.
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So, a battery to alleviate the problems with wind variability, and a study that suggests this is the way to go.
| Quote: | The study, sponsored by Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI), showed that a small island wind farm could see a 17.5% rate of return by using the VRB batteries, a huge growth over the 10% returns at most Irish installations.
..."Today in Ireland the biggest barrier to deploying wind energy is not finances or planning, it's ? these concerns about the controllability of wind," said Graham Brennan, a renewable energy program manager with SEI. |
But how much of a 'stability' factor do the batteries introduce?
| Quote: | ...battery storage will allow Sorne Hill to forecast its output for a 24-hour period with 98% reliability.
...In Ireland, a free electricity market has led to significant discounting in the price for wind energy, but the study's results show the VRB batteries make wind-powered output stable enough that the Sorne Hill project could reasonably seek the amount paid for more dependable fossil-fuel-generated electricity, Mr. Clarke said. |
That price difference is given in the print edition as
Wind power = D57 /megawatt-hour
Fossil Fuel generated power = D86 /megawatt-hour
There is a good figure for the market response to wind power, it's gotta cost a lot less.
| Quote: | | VRB is positioning itself as the right technology at the right time, as the Kyoto-driven surge in wind generation threatens to destabilize electrical grids. Batteries could allow the grid to support far higher concentrations of alternative energy, by making it less intermittent. |
Note this is precisely what I've said all along...
| Quote: | However, said Mr. Brennan, industrial-scale wind farms could find it more economic to use what's called "pumped hydro." In that system, excess electricity is used to pump water into reservoirs. When needed, that water is then run through hydro turbines to generate electricity.
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A plan which I agree with, with reservations.
However, the overall point is this. How are we to know whether the battery idea is 'green' or not. There are no figures given for energy input for manufacturing the batteries. There are no figures given for how long they last. And there is no indication of how they are to be disposed of at the end of their useful life.
In other words, the batteries achieve a higher level of stability in the grid system, but we have no idea of at what cost in both money and energy input. This is a job for an independent lab, to compare the cost of these batteries to other methods, such as the wind/hydro solution.
One other point. Note that the efficiency of the wind generated power is 10% of capacity. That means one needs to install 10 megawatts of capacity to generate 1 megawatt of useful power. Even with the batteries, they are still projecting an efficiency of only 17.5%.
Wind generated electricity is being touted as a saviour of the system. In fact wind generated power has significant problems that are nowhere near to being solved. As is pointed out about Ireland, they use wind not because it's better, but because Ireland is totally dependent on Russian natural gas for their present power needs.
And as scary as that may be, the market is willing to pay 30% more for that power than they are for local wind power.
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:37 am Post subject: |
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| Maestro wrote: |
| Quote: | | VRB is positioning itself as the right technology at the right time, as the Kyoto-driven surge in wind generation threatens to destabilize electrical grids. Batteries could allow the grid to support far higher concentrations of alternative energy, by making it less intermittent. |
Note this is precisely what I've said all along... |
It's precisely what I've been saying all along, too . . . viz., that this kind of thing is not a fundamental problem, it's a minor engineering problem of the sort that is inevitable when technologies spread. These people are coming up with one fix, and as you note below, there are others.
| Quote: |
This is a job for an independent lab, to compare the cost of these batteries to other methods, such as the wind/hydro solution. |
Or, again, flywheels--pretty much all the problems for flywheels in vehicles go away for this sort of application.
One might suggest that this is a job for a network of independent investigators coming from various different angles. I'm still not sure just what you mean by "an independent lab" or just what would assure their trustworthiness. In the modern political climate, single points of failure don't appeal to me. One lab means one thing for the big boys to buy or coerce to pollute our information sources decisively.
| Quote: | | One other point. Note that the efficiency of the wind generated power is 10% of capacity. That means one needs to install 10 megawatts of capacity to generate 1 megawatt of useful power. Even with the batteries, they are still projecting an efficiency of only 17.5%. |
Whoa, whoa, stop.
The 10% / 17.5% weren't efficiency numbers. They were rate of return numbers. They were rating how fast capitalists could rack up profits--always much more important than actual efficiency in our society. (grumble) |
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Maestro
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 2352
Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Wed Mar 28, 2007 10:16 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | So, a battery to alleviate the problems with wind variability, and a study that suggests this is the way to go. |
Not necessarily. Depends on how 'green' the addition of batteries is to the system. Somehow I doubt that it is very green at all. However, without an independent analysis we can't know.
It may very well be 'greener' to stabilize the system with a fossil fuel generator, or with the hydro solution that is offered at the end of the article.
| Quote: | Whoa, whoa, stop.
The 10% / 17.5% weren't efficiency numbers. They were rate of return numbers. They were rating how fast capitalists could rack up profits--always much more important than actual efficiency in our society. (grumble) |
Quite right. However, the overall figures show there is a considerable discount for wind generation, and that discount is directly related to the stability issue.
I did think that figure was low for wind farms, because most have come in at around 25%, not exactly a model of efficiency, but not 10% either.
As far as the suitability of a auditing lab for the various green alternatives, I see you have a number of objections, but how else are we to determine the value of the alternatives, both in short-term and long-term views?
This case is a good example. Is the addition of batteries to a wind farm better or worse than other methods of increasing the stability of output? Do the batteries create a disposal problem down the line? How long do they last, and how much capacity is needed to increase stability to a reasonable level?
These are all questions that need answers before one could correctly asses the 'green' value of adding batteries.
Here's an assessment from the Transmission System Operator Ireland re: wind generation:
Generation Adequacy Report
| Quote: | Wind – a variable energy source
The inherently variable nature of wind power makes it necessary to analyse its adequacy impact differently from that of other generation units. The contribution of wind power to generation adequacy is referred to as the capacity credit of wind.
This capacity credit has been determined by subtracting a forecast of wind’s half hourly generated output from the customer electricity demand curve.
The use of this lower demand curve (net of wind output) results in an improved adequacy position. The amount of conventional plant which leaves the system with the same improvement in adequacy as the net load curve, is taken to be the capacity credit of wind.
This capacity credit is found to be reasonably significant at low levels of wind penetration but the benefit tends towards saturation as wind penetration levels increase, as illustrated in Figure 2-2. This is because there is a significant risk that a single source of failure (e.g. very low or very high wind speeds across the country) will result in all wind farms producing practically no output for a number of hours even allowing for geographic diversity.
This has been verified by monitoring the output from wind generation, at quarter hourly intervals, over a number of years. In contrast, the forced outage probabilities for all thermal (and hydro) units are assumed to be independent of each other. Therefore, the probability of all thermal
and/or hydro units failing simultaneously is infinitesimal when compared to the risk that wind power will be zero (or close to zero). |
An authoritative look at the inherent instability problem. Note the statement that 'the benefit tends towards saturation as wind penetration levels increase'.
The figures given show that the 'capacity credit' of wind generation is 60 MW with a 200 MW capacity. At 1000 MW capacity, the capacity credit is 225 MW. At 2000 MW capacity, the capacity credit is 300 MW.
They don't go higher than this on the figure, but it shows pretty clearly how the benefits of wind generation decrease with a increasing capacity.
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Maestro
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 2352
Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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Stumbled across this when I was searching EROI for nuclear fusion.
It makes some interesting points, and I thought it should be included here.
Peak Oil and the Preservation of Knowledge
| Quote: | For example, consider a windmill composed of steel and concrete. A windmill farm in the Escalante desert, built to produce 5.55 TWh of power, would require 13.8 million pounds of aluminum, 2.8 trillion pounds of concrete, 639 billion pounds of steel, etc.
...It would cost over $200,000,000,000 to build enough windmills to generate electrical power for everyone (though of course, you couldn’t, since not all areas have enough wind). With energy prices many times higher now than in 1992, the cost would be far more expensive.
After fossil fuels are gone, the windmills must be able to generate enough energy to maintain themselves and build new windmills, including all of the equipment used to mine the metal and concrete components, forge metal into blades and towers, and build the trucks and roads that enable windmills to be delivered to their sites.
Windmill energy must also provide the energy to build and maintain the electric grid and storage battery infrastructure, and all of the people involved in the process. Any extra energy could now be used to run civilization.
...It’s often said that once oil goes to “x” dollars a barrel, alternative energy will become economically viable. But this will never happen, because the alternative energy infrastructure is built with fossil-fuel inputs, so alternative energy sources will always cost more than oil. To even talk about energy using dollar figures makes no sense -- you can’t stuff dollar bills down your gas tank.
Energy can be reduced to physics, to the laws of thermodynamics and other rules that the Big Bang bequeathed our universe.
Oil has been a free lunch, one that nature spent hundreds of millions of years making, reducing 196,000 pounds of plant matter into one gallon of gasoline...
...The number of scientists who insist that alternative energies can substitute for fossil fuels, and ignore or deny the basic laws of physics and thermodynamics is frightening. It’s reminiscent of Lysenkoism. |
A point that I've often made in the past, that all 'alternative' energy schemes depend upon an oil-fuelled industrial infrastructure.
Early on in the oil game, oil had an EROI of 100. This article suggests a EROI of 5 is necessary to run civilization.
EROI for ethanol is, at best, 1.67, at worst it's less than 1.0.
but compare that EROI of early oil (100:1) to ethanol (1.67?:1) and you see what the problem is. Ethanol cannot replace oil. Nor can windmills.
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:11 pm Post subject: |
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Bottom line for me is this: The analysis suggests $200 billion for enough wind farms to generate enough power for "everyone", by which the author appears to mean the United States. Then he keeps on moaning about how impossible it all is. I notice that in a general line of argument that concentrates on EROI, mentioning it repeatedly for things like ethanol and biodiesel (which I quite agree are bogus), he doesn't actually seem to mention an EROI for these windmills in among his complaints about large-sounding quantities of concrete and steel and dollars. As to the dollars--
$200 billion???
Is that all? Geeze, the US government might have to cancel the joint strike fighter or something. What's $200 billion? Heck, if *Canada* left taxes and spending the way they were when Jean Chretien left we could fund that from budget surpluses in what, eight to ten years maximum? And then we'd have enough wind power for the current electrical needs of ten times our population--which would presumably be enough to power currently-electrical stuff plus cars, trains, factories and whatnot. Sweet. Not nearly as tough as I was expecting, frankly.
Not that I advocate a "wind only" strategy. Not that anybody advocates a "wind only" strategy. People who knock renewables are always groaning "Wind isn't enough!" except when they're moping "Solar isn't enough" or "geothermal isn't enough". Other useful information apparently would include that tide, wave, low-impact small scale hydro, and so on and so forth would none of them individually be enough. Duh. That's why you use ten different things.
Incidentally, the land use sounds awfully big too until you look at it. The article talks about 189 square miles for just 1% of the population's needs. That would be 18,900 square miles for the whole schmeer. Sound like a lot? Yeah, that's an area about 137 miles square. Most of which would actually be the interval between windmills. Whoa, massive--not. I suspect similar things are true about the steel and concrete: Numbers that sound big without context, until you start comparing them to an aircraft carrier or a skyscraper. |
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Maestro
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 2352
Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 8:27 pm Post subject: |
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However, you're ignoring another statement in the quoted text:
| Quote: | After fossil fuels are gone, the windmills must be able to generate enough energy to maintain themselves and build new windmills, including all of the equipment used to mine the metal and concrete components, forge metal into blades and towers, and build the trucks and roads that enable windmills to be delivered to their sites.
Windmill energy must also provide the energy to build and maintain the electric grid and storage battery infrastructure, and all of the people involved in the process. Any extra energy could now be used to run civilization.
...It’s often said that once oil goes to “x” dollars a barrel, alternative energy will become economically viable. But this will never happen, because the alternative energy infrastructure is built with fossil-fuel inputs, so alternative energy sources will always cost more than oil. To even talk about energy using dollar figures makes no sense -- you can’t stuff dollar bills down your gas tank.
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I know wind is the fondest hope of environmentalists, mostly because other 'alternatives' are being shown as futile. However, basing a future on fond hopes, rather than reality, is no better than just leaving the situation as it is.
Windmills are possible because of a pre-existing fossil-fuel based industrial economy.When the oil goes, so will the windmills. Using EROI on windmills is tough because
In any case windmills won't account for more than roughly 20% of electrictiy supply, so there's not much point worrying too much about EROI of wind. The variability factor is enough to negate many of the positive aspects of wind power.
What I don't understand is the reluctance to consider conservation as a legitimate response to dwindling supplies of energy. This seems to be the case with both peak oil/CO2 deniers as well as environmentalists.
There's plenty of room to decrease energy use, and by far the best return on energy investment is finding ways to reduce consumption.
That should be the number one plank of 'greens', yet they continue to search for the holy grail of energy, and ignore the savings that stare them in the face.
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Rufus Polson
Purple Library Guy
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 3483
Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Maestro wrote: |
I know wind is the fondest hope of environmentalists |
Repeating the strawman I just drew attention to.
| Quote: | | , mostly because other 'alternatives' are being shown as futile. |
Bullshit.
| Quote: |
Windmills are possible because of a pre-existing fossil-fuel based industrial economy.When the oil goes, so will the windmills. |
You've said this three dozen times, but you have yet to back it up. Windmills (among other things) are possible because of a pre-existing industrial economy with some kind of energy source. You've yet to set out anything remotely convincing why it has to be fossil fuels specifically.
| Quote: | | Using EROI on windmills is tough because |
I take it you were intending to put some kind of "because" there?
| Quote: |
In any case windmills won't account for more than roughly 20% of electrictiy supply |
Maybe, maybe not. I thought you were saying they wouldn't be a significant factor at all? 20% is actually quite a lot.
Note that this is, once again, the whine I just referred to above. There is not a position that says "We want/need to supply 100% of electricity needs from wind power". It doesn't exist. Combine say 20% from wind, 20% from solar, 10% from geothermal, 20% from various forms of hydro, tide and whatnot, 30% reduction in electricity use from conservation, and Bjorn Stronginthearm's your uncle.
| Quote: | | , so there's not much point worrying too much about EROI of wind. |
Bullshit. This follows how? First you want to make the point that alternative energy sources' EROI are the key that make them impractical. Then you talk about the impracticality of wind. But you don't have an EROI for it. So on what basis is it impractical, and on what basis can you cap it at a particular percentage, and on what basis even if your percentage can be bought do you say that there's no point estimating EROI for something providing 20% of electricity supply?
| Quote: | | The variability factor is enough to negate many of the positive aspects of wind power. |
Bullshit. It's a minor engineering issue.
| Quote: | | What I don't understand is the reluctance to consider conservation as a legitimate response to dwindling supplies of energy. This seems to be the case with both peak oil/CO2 deniers as well as environmentalists. |
Bullshit strawman. Which has been pointed out repeatedly in this thread.
But the problem of course is that you're making a category error. Conservation is certainly a legitimate response to, well, various problems of which dwindling energy supply is one. It is not, however, an energy source, so when the question comes up, "What would be a good renewable source of energy that one might use instead of fossil fuels?" few people are going to answer "conservation". As has been pointed out over and over, we're all all for conservation, but however awesome the conservation, some energy will still be used. It is not illegitimate to ask "Could there be a better source for that energy than fossil fuels?" Your answer to that question, apparently, is "No." Fine. I wish you'd have the guts to just argue that instead of bashing the same strawmen over and over.
I am sick and tired of the way you operate on this subject. I'm sick of being polite as you ignore rebuttals to your points, fail utterly to address them, and just say them over and over again. I am particularly sick of the fact that many of these points are false claims about the attitudes and beliefs of the people who disagree with you. Hello, I know what I think, you don't--mainly because you don't listen when I tell you, so you keep on re-misrepresenting me. |
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Maestro
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 2352
Location: Vancouver
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 3:38 am Post subject: |
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| Rufus Polson wrote: |
| Maestro wrote: |
Windmills are possible because of a pre-existing fossil-fuel based industrial economy.When the oil goes, so will the windmills. |
You've said this three dozen times, but you have yet to back it up. Windmills (among other things) are possible because of a pre-existing industrial economy with some kind of energy source. You've yet to set out anything remotely convincing why it has to be fossil fuels specifically. |
Ok, bud, all you have to do is tell me how many wind turbine electrical generators existed before the industrial age. What, none!
How can that be? After all, windmill technology was well known a thousand years ago. Electrical technology was well known a few hundred years ago. Faraday invented the induction/generation process in 1831.
So what was it prevented those folks from uniting to relatively well-known technologies to provide electricity for the masses?
Could it be because without the oil fuelled and lubricated machinery to build such things they couldn't do it.
Of course not, the reason they didn't bother building wind turbines was because they didn't need them just then, they thought they'd wait a couple of hundred years to see if someone might want one.
Or at least that's history according to Rufus Polson.
If manufacture is possible without oil, tell me why no one in the world has built a manufacturing economy without the extensive use of oil? Why no one to this day has managed to build a thriving industrial economy without oil?
I guess it's just because they don't really want to be rich. They'd rather live in their poverty stricken circumstance. Of course, that must be it! Because if you can build an industrial economy without oil. that must be the only reason they refuse to do so.
To quote Rufus Polson, bullshit!
In fact, as many have pointed out, the industrialization of anyone's economy is directly related to the per capita use of oil in that economy. No oil, no industrial economy, and that is true around the world.
Why do you think all of the analysts now are blaming China for the rise in the price of oil? Why would the Chinese increase their demand for oil if it wasn't necessary for their industrial development. I guess they just want that oil to prevent us from having it, and they're using their new found economic power to buy it out from under us.
The rest of your post 'll deal with later.
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Rufus Polson
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Location: SFU and/or the college of Riddlemastery at Caithnard
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:17 pm Post subject: |
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| Maestro wrote: | | Rufus Polson wrote: |
| Maestro wrote: |
Windmills are possible because of a pre-existing fossil-fuel based industrial economy.When the oil goes, so will the windmills. |
You've said this three dozen times, but you have yet to back it up. Windmills (among other things) are possible because of a pre-existing industrial economy with some kind of energy source. You've yet to set out anything remotely convincing why it has to be fossil fuels specifically. |
Ok, bud, all you have to do is tell me how many wind turbine electrical generators existed before the industrial age. |
I'm in awe. OK, now look one line up from your response here to where I say "Windmills (among other things) are possible because of a PRE-EXISTING INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY with some kind of energy source."
Now, how exactly can you claim that my point requires there to have been wind turbines before the industrial age? How can I put this--near as I know, there wasn't a PRE-EXISTING INDUSTRIAL ECONOMY before "the industral age". Your disconnect from anything anyone says is becoming more and more utter by the moment.
Yes, an industrial economy is needed to build industrial kinds of things. Such an industrial economy requires energy. The notion that this energy must come from oil is beyond half-baked, and your arguments for it don't seem to have so much as reached the oven. They read like a bad conspiracy theory in their utter disregard for broad swaths of facts that don't fit the preconceived thesis and their glib assumptions that facts that point in no particular direction must relate to the factor you've decided is a universal explicator.
| Quote: |
How can that be? After all, windmill technology was well known a thousand years ago. Electrical technology was well known a few hundred years ago. Faraday invented the induction/generation process in 1831.
So what was it prevented those folks from uniting to relatively well-known technologies to provide electricity for the masses?
Could it be because without the oil fuelled and lubricated machinery to build such things they couldn't do it. |
This is ludicrous.
First, you seem to be going beyond even the "fossil fuel" argument to an "oil only" argument in claiming that without oil, nobody could possibly have built electrical generating plants of any sort (including, say, coal plants) without the technologies surrounding oil. Because oil would be needed for fuel and lubricant before you could make machinery that sophisticated, or something. But there was lots of heavy machinery requiring lubricant before oil; they had this thing called the "industrial revolution" built on coal as a power source. Widespread use of many of the nonfuel byproducts of oil is a relatively recent thing, for that matter.
| Quote: | Of course not, the reason they didn't bother building wind turbines was because they didn't need them just then, they thought they'd wait a couple of hundred years to see if someone might want one.
Or at least that's history according to Rufus Polson.
If manufacture is possible without oil, tell me why no one in the world has built a manufacturing economy without the extensive use of oil? Why no one to this day has managed to build a thriving industrial economy without oil? |
England, Germany, France and to a fair extent the US at the very least built industrial economies without oil. They used coal. They built massive factories and widespread railway infrastructures and steamships and on and on, without oil.
True, nobody has industrialized without oil since oil became the world-system's dominant industrial energy source and technology-set. Well, duh. That's because it's the dominant industrial energy source and technology-set, not because of some mystical inevitability. Back a while one would have said nobody could industrialize without coal--after all, nobody had. Before then, one might say nobody could light a city to any real extent without whale oil. Clearly, nothing else was cheap enough to use effectively.
| Quote: | I guess it's just because they don't really want to be rich. They'd rather live in their poverty stricken circumstance. Of course, that must be it! Because if you can build an industrial economy without oil. that must be the only reason they refuse to do so.
To quote Rufus Polson, bullshit!
In fact, as many have pointed out, the industrialization of anyone's economy is directly related to the per capita use of oil in that economy. No oil, no industrial economy, and that is true around the world.
Why do you think all of the analysts now are blaming China for the rise in the price of oil? Why would the Chinese increase their demand for oil if it wasn't necessary for their industrial development. I guess they just want that oil to prevent us from having it, and they're using their new found economic power to buy it out from under us.
The rest of your post 'll deal with later. |
This would seem to boil down to "It's always been like this before (except when it wasn't) so it must be that it will always be like this."
The simple fact is that oil has been used because it was a dirt cheap energy source relative to other options. Ditto coal. This is changing because other options are gradually becoming cheaper, the cost of extracting oil is rising, and various other costs of oil are making themselves felt more and more strongly. Those costs are prompting more and more research and development to continue reducing the costs of other options, and a tipping point seems to be arriving at which other options are becoming competitive. Sure, that depends just which costs you're willing to pay attention to and what value you put on them. But in practical terms, it's happening. These alternatives may not give as much energy per effort as oil in its prime, but they'll give about as much as oil does *now*, which seems to be sufficient to keep things going nicely, if not quite as exuberantly as when it was at its cheapest. You've demonstrated that isn't the case for biofuels--but then nobody's argued for biofuels. They're a strawman.
Lubricants, plastics et al. are indeed useful petroleum byproducts, but again, there are alternatives--vegetable oils, cloth, ceramics, avoidance of overpackaging, doing chemistry on cellulose and carbohydrates rather than hydrocarbons, yadda yadda yadda.
If you deal with the rest of my post as effectively as you've dealt with this bit, I don't think I'm going to be bothering to return to this thread. |
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skeptikool
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| Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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Rufus Polson:
| Quote: | | If you deal with the rest of my post as effectively as you've dealt with this bit, I don't think I'm going to be bothering to return to this thread |
.
Given the length of the thread and the last nine posts, perhaps a good idea to start a fresh one. |
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skeptikool
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| Posted: Thu May 10, 2007 3:19 pm Post subject: |
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In the Cascadia report, today, that includes items from Alberta, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, I was disappointed to read that Anchorage's power utility, the state's largest, had backed off of a wind farm that had been proposed for that state's Fire Island.
Being more hard-nosed than its Ontarian counterpart, that has just signed a 20-year deal that will have consumers paying seven times higher for solar-produced electricity, is probably a good thing if it results in a return to the drawingboard and a sharpening of pencils.
There are few better ways of withholding the environmentally-benign technology, so desperately needed, than over-pricing it.
Source: Vancouver Sun - May 10 |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:13 am Post subject: |
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Ontario may be host to manufacturing offshore wind turbines for a German company.
Well, good, I say. I know a couple of car plants in Oshawa that are going cheap ...
(Somewhat ironically, the company is majority owned by a French nuclear company.)
| Quote: | A German maker of offshore wind turbines is targeting southern Ontario as the location for its first North American manufacturing plant, a venture that would create thousands of local jobs and inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the province's struggling economy.
Multibrid, majority owned by French nuclear giant Areva SA, made the announcement this morning alongside officials from Trillium Power Wind Corp., a local renewable-energy developer that plans to build a massive wind farm in Lake Ontario, about 15 kilometres offshore from Prince Edward County.
... "Ontario is perfectly placed to supply North America and even the world with offshore turbines, components, barges, and cranes needed to harness the resource wherever it may be," said John Kourtoff, president and chief executive of Trillium.
"That is the objective of the Tai Wind consortium. We want to build a solid economic foundation to make Ontario a world leader in renewable energy manufacturing and innovation."
... Trillium aims to be the first to develop on the Great Lakes. Its Lake Ontario project would likely require an investment of more than a billion dollars and would consist of 150 turbines placed in waters no deeper than 30 metres. |
Toronto Star. |
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elmateo
sleepy.
Joined: 19 Apr 2006
Posts: 4978
Location: socialist corner, ottawa
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| Posted: Fri Jun 20, 2008 3:24 am Post subject: |
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Interesting, I bet European companies are looking at the potential shifts in the North American economies and hoping to get in early before any sort of catching-up boom occurs.
I think this is a potentially good start for the Ontarian economy, but for there to be a longer term benefit there does have to be restructuring so not only to catch up but surpass other economies in this area. |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Sat Jun 21, 2008 10:16 pm Post subject: |
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| Yeah, we've all been saying for a while that green technology can and should be a boon for Canada. We've got the infrastructure, an educated population, and the ability to specialize research and manufacturing. You'd have thought our politicians would have jumped on this years ago, no? No. |
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elmateo
sleepy.
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Location: socialist corner, ottawa
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| Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 1:49 am Post subject: |
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| But that would be intervening in our wonderfully run market-based economy. And if we did that, all those investors would lose confidence in our economy and never come back... and then where would we be? Without our glorious investors to tell us what we should do... like expand the oilsands. |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:09 am Post subject: |
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This is interesting. Environmentalists are pushing to have wind power replace strip coal mining -- a.k.a. knocking down mountains and filling up valleys -- on a West Virginia site.
| Quote: | ... What [the late John] Flynn [who suggested wind power in West Virginia] didn't know was that in a few years Massey would begin the most draconian form of strip mining, known as mountaintop removal, which to date in Appalachia has been responsible for the destruction of more than 470 mountains and staggering damage to the environment and communities. Currently, mountaintop removal (MTR) operations stretch for 14 miles down one side of the river and about five miles on the other. Massey now has in its sights the last untouched major part of the valley, the huge Coal River Mountain. It plans to subject 10 square miles of it to mountaintop removal, blasting the top off to expose its coal, filling 18 hollows (local parlance for valleys) with the debris and burying six headwater streams. Most of Coal River Valley might be rendered uninhabitable.
... This led a local community group, Coal River Mountain Watch (CRMW), a band of mining watchdogs, to forsake years of defensive tactics against Massey and take the offensive. In a bid to trump the company's plans, the group is working to substitute wind power on Coal River Mountain for strip-mined coal as an energy source. CRMW's campaign, Coal River Wind, is groundbreaking, the first of its kind in Appalachia's coalfields, and has been termed historic. In effect, some people on Coal River are seeking to make John Flynn's vision come true.
... The study acknowledges that while the four proposed mountain removal operation sites would generate far fewer jobs -- only an estimated 65 to 225 per year, since some permit areas contain much less coal than others -- they would generate much more power. However, the study notes an important difference: The mountain will yield only 14 years' worth of coal from strip-mining, while a wind farm could operate indefinitely. Moreover, the study found that only 1 in every 16 tons of coal to be produced on any West Virginia mountain is used for energy consumption within the state -- the rest is exported to other states or abroad. A good deal of wind power is bound to be exported as well, McIlmoil said, but not at the heavy social and environmental costs of strip-mined coal. |
AlterNet. |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 1:47 am Post subject: |
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Canada could and should be generating a lot more wind energy, the Globe and Mail has discovered. No, really?
Apparently we've cracked the 1% level of wind compared to the other 99% of other sources of electricity ... which is hardly stellar. But better than nothing, I suppose.
The article does have a number of good points about wind generation feasibility.
I suspect that the biggest hurdle against large-scale wind generation will be NIMBYism.
| Quote: | ... One sign that a dramatic expansion could be in the offing is that whenever provinces put out tenders for new wind farms, they're swamped by offers to build them.
Manitoba Hydro's recent request for wind energy elicited more than 80 offers. In total, companies were willing to build 30 times more wind-generating capacity than the province was seeking. The province selected a 300-megawatt wind farm, to be the largest in the country when it begins operating in southern Manitoba in 2011.
... Wind farms, if used to offset fossil fuels, offer huge long-term emission reductions. The new Manitoba wind farm, for instance, would displace 800,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases annually, or the amount from 145,000 cars, compared with producing the same electricity from coal.
Wind is also an ideal electricity source for a country such as Canada with many hydroelectric dams.
The reason: Wind is highly variable, creating the need for backup power sources flexible enough to be turned on and off as needed to meet demand. It's hard to ramp up and down a nuclear reactor or a coal-fired plant, but far easier to change the rate at which electricity is made at a dam.
... The two power sources also complement each other because wind output is greatest in winter, when wind speeds are faster in Canada, and the air - because it is cold - is most dense, allowing turbines to wring out extra watts. This wintertime gain is a benefit for a utility with hydro capacity because reservoirs are at their seasonal ebb due to low river flows. |
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anne cameron
Fulltime enMasse Member
Joined: 12 Apr 2006
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Location: tahsis, british columbia
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 5:22 pm Post subject: |
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If wind farming is mostly hot air then obviously we should have windmills set up outside each Legislature and all around "the hill" where the federal Parliament is situated.
And if they ever get busy and start making energy from bullshit..... |
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Legless_Marine
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| Tehanu wrote: |
I suspect that the biggest hurdle against large-scale wind generation will be NIMBYism.
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The economics of it are a factor as well.
Goodness knows I'd like one in my backyard, but the turbine, and supporting electrical infrastructure is rather pricey. |
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TS.
Delicious schadenfreude
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
Posts: 14585
Location: Toronto, ON
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Legless_Marine wrote: | | Tehanu wrote: |
I suspect that the biggest hurdle against large-scale wind generation will be NIMBYism.
|
The economics of it are a factor as well.
Goodness knows I'd like one in my backyard, but the turbine, and supporting electrical infrastructure is rather pricey. |
It's only pricey when you don't factor in the environmental costs of other modes of generation. If electricity from coal-fired power plants was priced at a cost the reflected the expense of cleaning up the effects of acid rain and smog, the cost of climate change mitigation, the healthcare expenses incurred from air pollution and so on, it would be one hell of a lot more expensive than electricity from windmills.
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"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson |
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bshmr
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Location: Central USA, Earth
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 7:56 pm Post subject: |
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| FWIW, vertical wind turbines are finding their place and coming of age -- these are 'spinning cylinders or columns' instead of pylon-mounted props. |
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Legless_Marine
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| Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2009 8:03 pm Post subject: |
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| TS. wrote: | | Legless_Marine wrote: | | Tehanu wrote: |
I suspect that the biggest hurdle against large-scale wind generation will be NIMBYism.
|
The economics of it are a factor as well.
Goodness knows I'd like one in my backyard, but the turbine, and supporting electrical infrastructure is rather pricey. |
It's only pricey when you don't factor in the environmental costs of other modes of generation. If electricity from coal-fired power plants was priced at a cost the reflected the expense of cleaning up the effects of acid rain and smog, the cost of climate change mitigation, the healthcare expenses incurred from air pollution and so on, it would be one hell of a lot more expensive than electricity from windmills. |
Sounds dreadful. I don't think I want one of those in my backyard - Not that I'd have room anyhow.
Thankfully, I get my power delivered to my house via cables from the alley - It's quiet, no smoke, and I pay on a subscription basis. |
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Hephaestion
Deeply Shallow
Joined: 11 Apr 2006
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Location: Where the Wild Things Are...
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| Posted: Thu Jan 08, 2009 7:40 pm Post subject: |
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UFO blamed for destroyed wind turbine
Ummmm.... yeah....
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The Evil Twin
Stoned Immaculate
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Location: Toronto
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:59 pm Post subject: |
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Why not? When I was a kid UFOs always destroyed my essays and homework so I could never hand em in on time! 
ETA: plus, as we all know, the aliens are anti-environmental right wing Republican types...that's why they hated me and wind turbines too! 
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bshmr
Fulltime enMasse Member
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Location: Central USA, Earth
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| Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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| One of the reports had an UFO-logist claiming that the UFO must have been at least 170 meters wide (IIRC) as that was the distance between two damaged rotors, which made sense until one considered thing travelling perpendicular to his imagined path could have been considerable smaller (the width of a bowling ball). A predisposition toward the fantastic makes better news is implied. |
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Reverend Blair
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| Posted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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i miss mushrooms. Just sayin'....
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 5:02 am Post subject: |
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Dalton McGuinty tells wind farm NIMBYists to STFU. Metaphorically, anyway.
Good. Having lake wind turbines outside Toronto is a fine idea. And McGuinty (unlike Harper) is really pushing green technology as a dual approach to fighting recession unemployment and climate change.
Of course, he's also still talking about biofuels, sigh.
| Quote: | Taking a swipe at those who oppose wind turbines off the Scarborough Bluffs, Premier Dalton McGuinty is signalling he won't hesitate to foist "green" energy projects on communities across Ontario.
Only safety and environmental concerns will be legitimate objections to biofuel plants, solar panel fields and wind turbines under a green energy act to be proposed this month, the premier said yesterday in a speech on the economy.
... "But don't say, 'I don't want it around here.' ... NIMBYism will no longer prevail," he added, using the acronym for "not in my backyard."
He's counting on the act, of which few details have been released, to help create 50,000 jobs over the next three years and boost the amount of renewable energy feeding into the electricity grid to fight climate change.
... McGuinty said the legislation will also give green power generating companies the "tools" they need to navigate the approvals process for their projects as Ontario copes with the recession and its plan to shut coal-fired power generating plants by 2014 – seven years later than he first promised in the 2003 election campaign.
"We need those jobs, we need clean electricity and we need to assume our responsibility in the face of climate change," McGuinty said. |
Toronto Star. |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 4:46 am Post subject: |
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George Smitherman (formerly Ontario Health Minister, now Energy Minister) has launched an aggressive Green Energy Act, with lots of green technology jobs, and lots of excellent ideas encouraging people to invest in everything from supporting people installing solar panels to the construction of wind farms.
Exactly what we'd have loved to see the federal government doing.
Now, unfortunately, Dalton McGuinty's Libs have a love affair with nuclear power. If they could be weaned away from that ...
| Quote: | ... The change [energy audits before homes are sold] is one of many provisions in the province’s new Green Energy Act, a law the government claims will generate 50,000 new jobs in the next three years while raising the average electricity bill by only one per cent.
Energy minister George Smitherman said there will be “vast job opportunities in more efficient building design and retrofits for architects, engineers, contractors and installers.”
... The legislation will also streamline project approvals, amend building codes for new construction, mandate more efficient appliances, and provide zero or low-interest loans to homeowners who wish to build their own small scale solar, micro-wind, ground source heat pumps or solar thermal projects.
The government will also offer a guaranteed price – and will require a certain amount of local content - for all renewable power, including wind, solar, hydro, biomass, biogas and landfill gas. That price has not been set. |
Here's the actual plan. Overall, I'm really, really pleased. Delighted. Let's hope others follow suit. |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Fri May 15, 2009 1:50 pm Post subject: |
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And the Ontario Green Energy Plan has passed! Bravo. Much as it pains me to admit it, the McGuinty government seems to be doing Good Things as far as the environment goes. There's always more, of course, but compared to all the other jurisdictions that are just sitting on their hands? Credit where it's due.
The one (very big) fly in the ointment is that they're still mulling building more nuclear plants.
| Quote: | New legislation that the Liberal government promised would create 50,000 new jobs and make more room for renewable energy passed in the Ontario legislature today, amid warnings from environmentalists that the province remains too dependent on nuclear power.
The Green Energy Act, touted as a key piece of legislation that will transform the province's struggling economy, passed third reading by a vote of 59 to 13, with opposition from the Progressive Conservatives.
... The Green Energy Act also replaces a patchwork of local bylaws with provincewide standards to govern where energy projects can be located.
... Environmentalists complained Thursday that the plan still relies too heavily on nuclear power, and said the real test of the Green Energy Act will come next month when the government announces whether Ontario will build new nuclear plants. |
Toronto Star. |
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Tehanu
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| Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 8:10 pm Post subject: |
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Oh, FFS. Don't you just love NAFTA? A Texas oil dude who also builds windmills has initiated a NAFTA challenge because apparently when Ontario decided to fund renewable energy companies they included an in-province procurement clause.
| Quote: | Ontario’s controversial green energy policy is facing a new assault as famed oilman tycoon T. Boone Pickens has launched a $775-million NAFTA challenge alleging the government has discriminated against his privately owned wind energy company.
With the Dallas-based Mesa Power Group’s action, the Liberal government is now fighting multi-front battles over its Green Energy Act and the feed-in tariff that pays renewable energy companies premium prices for electricity – so long as they procure a percentage of the goods and services in the province.
... “This case is about unfairness, the abuse of power and process, and undue political influence in the regulations of renewable power in Ontario,” the company said in a notice filed with the federal government on Thursday.
... In a statement, Energy Minister Brad Duguid defended the province’s approach to renewable power, which is managed by the Ontario Power Authority.
“Ontario is a global leader in clean energy development and has attracted Ontario-based and international companies to set up shop,” he said. “Our plan is creating thousands of jobs across Ontario and helping bring on new clean energy as we replace coal-fired generation.”
... Under NAFTA rules, foreign investors can sue the federal government if provinces discriminate against them. Provinces can have local content rules for their own procurement programs, but both Mesa and the Government of Japan argue the electricity contracts do not count as provincial procurement. |
Globe and Mail.
Oh, and there's this:
| Quote: | | Ontario Conservative Leader Tim Hudak has vowed to kill the Green Energy Act if his party wins the October election, while Japan has challenged the act’s local procurement rules at the World Trade Organization. |
Yay. |
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Maestro
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| Posted: Sat Apr 13, 2013 7:29 am Post subject: |
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Wind Power Output 2010
| Quote: | REF considered all wind farms, both onshore and offshore, with an installed capacity of 1 MW or greater, taking all Ofgem data (see www.renewablesandchp.ofgem.gov.uk) since April 2002 in monthly tranches, and calculated each month’s load factor in the standard way (actual output/theoretical maximum output), given the installed capacity of wind generators for that month. From this we calculated the average annual load factors.
...we calculated actual load factors for October 2009 to September 2010, since stable empirical data for the last three months of 2010 was not yet available in the public domain from Ofgem. However, by using other industry standard empirical sources it is possible to estimate the output and load factor for those months with a high degree of confidence.
...Wind power output is significantly variable and difficult to predict over several timescales, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years.
Variability over short time scales has been much discussed, and it is now well known that low wind conditions can prevail at times of peak load over very large areas. For example, at 17.30 on the 7th of December 2010, when the 4th highest United Kingdom load of 60,050 MW was recorded, the UK wind fleet of approximately 5,200 MW was producing about 300 MW (i.e. it had a Load Factor of 5.8%). One of the largest wind farms in the United Kingdom, the 322 MW Whitelee Wind Farm was producing approximately 5 MW (i.e. Load Factor 1.6%).
Load factor in other European countries at exactly this time was also low. The Irish wind fleet was recording a load factor of approximately 18% (261 MW/1,425 MW), Germany 3% (830MW/25,777 MW), and Denmark 4% (142 MW / 3,500 MW).
Such figures confirm theoretical arguments that regardless of the size of the wind fleet the United Kingdom will never be able to reduce its conventional generation fleet below peak load plus a margin of approximately 10%.
...The now emerging fact that wind power can be highly variable year on year adds further layers of complication to this problem. Conventional generators will not only have uncertain income over shorter timescales, but will face significant year on year variations. |
This particular story is about the UK, but I doubt things are much different elsewhere. Unless some method can be found to store wind generated electricity, it will not be able to make an appreciable dent in the requirement for more stable generation. Note also that wind generation never achieved the 30% load factor that is commonly given as what can be expected from wind generation of electricity.
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