Wind integration follies

At the end of 2005, the Power Engineering Society (PES) of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) published a special issue of its Power & Energy Magazine (Volume 3, Number 6, November/December 2005) focused on integrating wind into the power system. This document provides a brief summary of many of the salient points from that special issue about the current state of knowledge regarding utility wind integration issues.

The May 2006 report ("Utility Wind Integration State of the Art") prepared by the Utility Wind Integration Group (UWIG) has been frequently cited recently as showing that wind power can easily provide 20% of our electricity. In fact it doesn't say that at all. Even their own press release misrepresents the report in that way.

The report does constructively address some of the market structures that complicate integrating a variable and intermittent source of energy such as that from the wind, but it glosses over the fact that such integration has little effect on the use of other sources. Even as it notes that wind is an energy, not a capacity, source -- that is, it can't replace any other source of electricity on the grid, it disregards the costs of keeping that excess capacity on line and using it all that less efficiently, nor does it consider the madness of, for example, calling for building excess, redundant, wind facilities in the dim hope that somewhere the wind will be blowing and for more transmission lines to deliver this marginally useful energy -- instead of spending that money to better use what we already have (or even, damn your eyes, to use less energy).

It also inconveniently declines to provide the sources it refers to ("two major recent studies," "have been shown," "one major study"), instead simply referring to the P&E Magazine. So one reads the UWIG summary with no idea of the reliability of its sources. Here are some extracts, with commentary in brackets.

On the cost side, at wind penetrations of up to 20% of system peak demand, system operating cost increases arising from wind variability and uncertainty amounted to about 10% or less of the wholesale value of the wind energy.

Besides obviously ignoring the cost of the wind plant itself and its supporting transmission infrastructure, it should be noted that this is about cost only. As noted above, the publicizers of the UWIG report have misread this to say that the problems of integrating that amount of wind energy are minimal and even that there are corresponding benefits. But nothing in the UWIG report says that.

Since wind is primarily an energy -- not a capacity -- source, no additional generation needs to be added to provide back-up capability provided that wind capacity is properly discounted in the determination of generation capacity adequacy. However, wind generation penetration may affect the mix and dispatch of other generation on the system over time, since non-wind generation is needed to maintain system reliability when winds are low. [That is, wind does not need new back-up capacity, because it should be generally ignored in capacity planning, anyway (since the wind will be low so often).]

Wind generation will also provide some additional load carrying capability to meet forecasted increases in system demand. This contribution is likely to be up to 40% of a typical project’s nameplate rating, depending on local wind characteristics and coincidence with the system load profile. [Utter fudge. First, typical generation reported to the EIA is 27%. Second, that "depending on" is the starting point of the problem not a minor sideshow.] Wind generation may require system operators to carry additional operating reserves. [Just don't call it new back-up!]

In areas with limited penetration, modern wind plants can be added without degrading system performance.

And there's the crux of the matter. What is "limited penetration"? It certainly isn't 20% of peak demand. As long as wind penetration is low enough so that its variability can be accommodated as easily as demand fluctuations, it doesn't present a problem. And that limits the possible contribution wind power can make to meeting our electricity needs.

Because of spatial variations of wind from turbine to turbine in a wind plant -- and to a greater degree from plant to plant -- a sudden loss of all wind power on a system simultaneously due to a loss of wind is not a credible event. [Hogwash. It is wishful thinking (and more madness: to build more wind turbines to back up other wind turbines, further diminishing their usefulness) and it is not at all borne out by actual experience.]

The addition of a wind plant to a power system does not require the addition of any backup conventional generation since wind is used primarily as an energy resource. In this case, when the wind is not blowing, the system must rely on existing dispatchable generation to meet the system demand.

This contradicts the earlier statement that "[w]ind generation will also provide some additional load carrying capability to meet forecasted increases in system demand." It states that wind has no -- zero -- capacity credit. In other words, it is not a choice between wind turbines and smokestacks or cooling towers. Erect and connect all the wind turbines you can, and you'll still need the same amount of "conventional" plants.

The addition of a wind plant to a power system increases the amount of variability and uncertainty of the net load. This may introduce measurable changes in the amount of operating reserves required for regulation, ramping and load-following. Operating reserves may consist of both spinning and non-spinning reserves.

Wind’s variability cannot be treated in isolation from the load variability inherent in the system. Because wind and load variability are statistically uncorrelated, the net increase of variability due to the addition of wind is less than the variability of the wind generation alone. [Nonsense: The addition of times of high wind generation during low demand (and, to a lesser extent, since wind has zero capacity credit, vice versa) obviously increases load variability.]

Upgrades or additions to transmission facilities may be needed to access locations with large wind-energy potential.

For more information on the actual contributions of wind power and its effect on other sources, see "The Low Benefit of Industrial Wind."

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Wind industry continues to lie

Here are a couple of examples of the alternate reality in which wind industry executives operate, hoping that the rest of the world will join them.

In today's Daily Mail report about the U.K.'s new sprawling wind energy facility off the coast of Kent, an unnamed spokesman for Renewable UK, responding to criticism that this 13.5-square-mile, £780 million plant will produce at an average of only 35-40% of its capacity, said, ‘You have to bear in mind that coal and gas-fired power stations don’t work at full capacity either – and even nuclear power stations are taken off line.’

He does not mention that other power stations are used according to demand, not the whims of the wind. Using a peaking plant (at full rated power) 35% of the time, that is, when you need it, is very different from wind turbines producing power, at variable rates, whether you need it or not. An average of 35% is meaningless: If it can not be produced on demand, it is worthless. Wind turbines produce at or above their average rate — whatever it might turn out to be — only about 40% of the time — at whatever times the wind wills.

Also in the article, an item in the sidebar says that it "generates power at wind speeds between 8mph and 55mph". Elsewhere in the article, however, it is noted that the the plant will generate at full capacity only if the wind is blowing at 16 metres per second, i.e., 36mph. Below that speed, production falls precipitously. At 8mph, it is barely a trickle. Furthermore, after the wind gusts above 55mph and the turbines shut down, they don't start up again until the wind goes down to 45mph.

Let us now turn our attention to Vermont, where the founder of anemometer maker NRG Systems David Blittersdorf (his wife Jan is still CEO; David went on to Earth Turbines and then All Earth Renewables, which applied for millions of dollars of grants this year, so Mr B got himself appointed to the state committee disbursing the grants ...). As reported by the Rutland Herald, Blittersdorf gave a talk about wind power at the annual meeting of the Castleton Historical Society.

He said that "wind power is practically unsubsidized when compared to power sources like oil and nuclear energy." Federal financial interventions and subsidies in the energy market were examined by the Energy Information Administration in 2008. They found that wind energy received $23.37 per megawatt-hour of its electricity production in 2007, compared with 44 cents for coal, $1.59 for nuclear, and 25 cents for natural gas and oil.

He also said that "many of the objections to wind power, such as danger to birds and concerns about noise, are no longer true due to newer technology". In fact, "newer technology" simply consists of taller towers with larger blades, which now reach well into the ranges of migrating birds, both large and small. Every post-construction survey of a wind energy facility continues to report more deaths than predicted. (And yet permitting agencies and bird protection organizations continue to believe the developers' assessments.) In addition to birds, the toll on bats has become an increasingly alarming concern. The size of modern turbines has also only increased, not decreased noise problems. Everywhere that wind turbines are erected within 2 kilometers (1.25 miles) of homes, people complain of disturbed sleep, consequent stress and irritability, and often worse health problems that may be a direct result of the throbbing low-frequency noise on the balance organs of the inner ear. (And yet permitting agencies and neighbors continue to believe the developers' reassurances; the latest victims of this willful obtuseness reside on the island of Vinalhaven, Maine.) Again, the problems with wind have only become worse with "newer technology"..

And so he said that the only real remaining objection is the aesthetic one: "Some folks don't want to see a wind turbine on a mountain. We have to choose something. By denying wind power, you're supporting coal, oil and nuclear energy."

Bullshit and bullshit. Not to mention, the aesthetic objection is valid, considering that wind turbine facilities are generally built in previously undeveloped rural and even wild areas. You can't have environmentalism without aesthetics. Vermont doesn't allow billboards on the highways. It essentially bans all development above 2,000 feet on the mountains. 400-feet-high machines blasted into the ridges and connected by wide straight heavy-duty roads are rightly seen as an insult to what we hold dear.

Anyway, many objections — as described about birds, bats, and noise — remain. And the benefits to be weighed against those "aesthetic" costs are hard to find. By denying wind power, you're not supporting other forms of energy any more than you are by promoting wind power. Because wind, which answers only to the whims of Aeolus, not to the actual minute-to-minute needs of the grid, has not replaced and can not replace other forms of energy on the electric grid.

David Blittersdorf may think it's worth killing birds and bats, destroying the neighbors' health, and wrecking the landscape in the belief that if we erect ever more wind turbines we might actually see some positive effect (ignoring all the havoc wreaked to get there). But instead he denies that these well documented impacts actually occur. That is quite disturbing.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, Vermont

NIMBY: Correction

In this month's Windtech International column by Tiff Thompson, important information was inadvertently deleted and due to an editing error, Thompson's column was printed in a way that made it appear illogical in some places. We apologize for these errors, and provide corrections below.

A sentence acknowledging that fossil fuel subsidies include heating, transportation, and "clean" coal research as well as traditional electricity, and that renewables subsidies have included ethanol research and production, was also mistakenly deleted, as was another acknowledging that the figures for the renewables industry do not include the cost of the double-declining accelerated depreciation that is made available to it.

Thompson should also have noted that many states further subsidize the renewables industry by requiring utilities to buy a certain percentage of their energy from it. Furthermore, as this journal is particularly concerned with the wind industry, the particular costs to taxpayers of wind, not of all renewables together, should have been more carefully indicated.

Thompson should also have emphasized that subsidies should be viewed in terms of not just gross numbers, but the recipients' actual contributions to the country's energy mix.

Finally, Thompson's article cited federal subsidy figures for the years 2002-2007 of $13.8 billion for fossil fuels and $2.7 billion for the renewable energy industry, but the figures for more recent years were accidentally deleted.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Information Administration, for electricity in 2007, traditional coal received $854 million, "clean" coal received $2,156 million, and natural gas and petroleum received $227 million. Renewables received $1,008 million, with wind receiving $724 million of that. For every megawatt-hour of electricity generated, coal received $0.44, "clean" coal $29.81, natural gas and petroleum $0.25, all renewables $2.80, and wind $23.37.

In 2010, the direct subsidies for wind had increased to $4,986 million, a 10.5-fold (inflation-adjusted) increase from 3 years before. Subsidies for electricity from traditional coal rose slightly to $1,189 million and natural gas and petroleum to $654 million, while the subsidies for "clean" coal were cut to 0.

Per megawatt-hour of electricity generated in 2010, coal received $0.64, natural gas and petroleum $0.63, and wind $52.48.

The editors also regret any implication that the U.S. government's own spending on renewable energy (eg, for army bases) and opening 16 million acres of public land to renewable energy developers is an argument in support of more spending on renewables or indeed of any development of open and wild spaces. One need only look at the military budget to see that expanded activity and spending do not equal wisdom.

ADDENDUM:  Several readers have asked us about Ms Thompson's comparison of Obama and Romney concerning renewable energy. Again, it appears that some sentences were deleted from the printed column showing that, except for Obama's stated support of and Romney's stated opposition to renewing the Production Tax Credit (which reduces a developer's taxes for 10 years by $22 per megawatt-hour of electricity generated and is scheduled to expire at the end of this year), there is in fact no substantial difference in energy policies between the two.

wind power, wind energy

Toronto Star attacks citizens, shills for industrial development

In an article in today's Toronto Star ("Noise protesters howling about windfarms"), Tyler Hamilton reports:

At the moment, however, there's no convincing evidence that wind turbines located a few hundred metres from a dwelling negatively effect health, [Energy and Infrastructure Minister George] Smitherman said. A 2008 epidemiological study and survey, financed by the European Union, generally supports that view.

Researchers from Holland's University of Groningen and Gothenburg University in Sweden conducted a mail-in survey of 725 rural Dutch residents living 17 metres to 2.1 kilometres from the nearest wind turbine.

The survey received 268 responses and, while most acknowledged hearing the "swishing" sound that wind turbines make, the vast majority – 92 per cent – said they were "satisfied" with their living environment.

That survey is available here. Only 26% of the nearby turbines were 1.5 MW or above, and 66% of them were smaller than 1 MW -- whereas the turbines being built now are typically 2-2.5 MW. Furthermore, only 9% of the respondents lived with an estimated noise level from the turbines of more than 45 dB, which is the maximum level recommended by the World Health Organization to ensure that the inside level is 30 dB as required for sleeping.

In other words, the survey does not in fact support the view that the turbines being built in Ontario should not be farther from people's homes.

Small wind energy expert Paul Gipe writes in the comments to the article:

There are 74,000 wind turbines in Europe, some 5,600 in Denmark alone. And contrary to many myths, the Danes, German, French, Spanish and others are continue to install thousands more every year.

Again, most of the turbines in Denmark are half the size of those being installed today. And it is a simple fact that Denmark has not added any new wind capacity since 2003. (See Danish Wind Energy Association.) Meanwhile the Spanish industry ministry just last week issued changes to limit the expansion of wind energy. Germany's wind still represents less than 10% of production, and France is just starting to push big wind. People are pushing back in all of these places: see the European Platform Against Windpower.

Finally, the reporter of the Star article, while readily questioning the direct testimony of dozens of individuals about the health effects of wind turbine noise, mentions without question "the positive environmental role that wind power plays in the battle against climate change and air pollution". Where is the data showing this? Where is this reporter's skepticism about that side of the story?

Wind industry advocates like to note, for example, that from 1990 to 2006, Germany's CO2 emissions decreased 13.7% (click here for the latest international data from the Energy Information Administration of the U.S. Department of Energy). Most of that, however, appears to be due to cleaning things up after the unification of east and west. From 1998, when industrial wind energy began to be installed in earnest, CO2 emissions decreased only 1.6%. Considering just Germany's extensive effort to insulate roofs, that figure doesn't suggest much benefit coming from big wind.

In part 2 of this article, published the next day, Hamilton writes about Denmark, "In some years, when CO2 emissions rise slightly, it has little to do with wind." Yet without embarrassment, he presents any drop in emissions as having everything to do with wind! In fact, Danish energy trade, and thus domestic CO2 emissions, varies dramatically year to year. In the same table cited in the preceding paragraph, we see that emissions decreased 16.3% from 2003 to 2005, although no new wind capacity was added in that period. From 2002 to 2003, the last year that wind capacity was added, emissions increased 16.2%.

Again, it is hardly courageous to avoid questioning those with power and to only attack those without.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights

Sierra Club flacks for big energy

The January/February edition of the Sierra Club magazine explores the energy issue, starting off with an essay by the tireless Bill McKibben.

He sets the tone of mockery (of logic, mostly) right away, causing one to wonder just how seriously the Sierra Club wants to be taken in these articles:

Much of what passes for discussion about our energy woes is spent imagining some magic fuel that will save us. Solar power! Fusion power! Hydrogen power!

But not wInd power, Bill?! No -- much of the rest of his article is a paean to wind industry insider Jerome Guillet, a developer of wind energy who boldly envisions more government subsidies to protect his investors.

McKibben is equally courageous, gratuitously attacking most defenders of New England's (and mid-Atlantic) ridgelines as "semi-ridiculous NIVMVDs, or not in view of my deck." He also threatens them, asserting wind "will continue to grow."

This fine nature writing serves only to ignore the many other reasons for opposition, most notably preservation of much needed forest habitat. It is pathetic indeed to see the Sierra Club -- along with many other now mainstream environmental groups -- shutting out environmental concerns and instead acting as peons of big energy.

Another article, by Frances Cerra Whittelsey, looks at the impact of wind turbines on birds and continues the mockery of not only reason but also passion.

Whittelsey first establishes that the decimation of raptors and other birds in Altamont Pass, California, is an exception. (In fact, what is exceptional is that bird deaths have routinely been counted there.) She admits that "at least 22,000 birds, including some 400 golden eagles, have collided with wind turbines (or been electrocuted by power lines) there." Per turbine, however, that's 4.1 birds -- total since the 1980s! That's a lot less than her later-cited study of turbines outside California showing "only" 2.3 birds killed each year per turbine. So if Altamont is a recognized problem, other turbines appear to be even more dangerous to birds ...

Never mind, though, because she then allows the industry trade group American Wind Energy Association assure us that new turbines are safer. Laurie Jodziewicz sez, "today's turbines are taller and more efficient." Yep, they are now "above the flight paths of many birds" -- and now in the flight paths of more birds. And the giant new models are not "more efficient." They are just bigger. More energy per turbine, yes, but not more energy per wind resource, acreage, or area swept by the blades (which are moving 150-200 mph at the tips).

Not reassured? "Some residents remain opposed on aesthetic grounds," writes Whittelsey in an effort to corral anyone left standing after Jodziewicz's not quite incisive analysis. No, Frances. A lot of people remain opposed for other environmental and wildlife concerns as well. You have convinced only a straw doll of your own imagining.

Most people are also not reassured that the industry is now working "to find a means to warn bats away from the spinning blades."

But ultimately, Whittelsey writes, why should we care? Millions of birds are already killed by domestic cats, radio towers, windows, and cars.

With friends like these, wildness ("the preservation of the world," in the words of Henry David Thoreau) clearly doesn't stand a chance.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights

It's not destruction if it's "green"?

Robert Redford writes at Huffington Post ("Utah Lands Win a Reprieve at the Dawn of a Cleaner, Greener Future") that "a federal court acted last weekend to protect more than 110,000 acres of stunning Utah wilderness that otherwise would have been sold by the outgoing Bush administration to the dirty fuels industry."

He says that "What inspired me most was when Judge Urbina wrote that the 'development of domestic energy resources ... is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment.' Finally, the greater good has prevailed over the profit of the few."

Then it starts to fall apart:

Destroying our natural heritage will do nothing to solve our energy challenges for the long-term, which to me, is even more reason to act. I will continue to keep a vigilant watch over these lands, while working to build a cleaner, greener energy foundation for America. With endless untapped reserves of efficiency, solar, and wind power, we do not need to choose between affordable electricity and one-of-a-kind landscapes. We can have both.

Because meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management plans to establish coordination offices to expedite the permitting of renewable energy projects and associated transmission facilities on BLM-managed lands. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 calls for the development of 10,000 MW of non-hydropower renewable energy projects on public lands by 2015.

How did Mr. Redford think those reserves of wind and solar would be tapped to a degree that would do something that might appear "to solve our energy challenges for the long-term"? How much of our natural heritage is he ready to see destroyed for large-scale solar and wind power development?

(10,000 MW of installed wind capacity requires at least 500,000 acres, or almost 800 square miles, plus heavy-duty roads (opening the land to more development and its flora and fauna to more abuse) and transmission infrastructure). 10,000 MW of actual production -- on average (wind turbines actually produce at or above their average rate, which is 20-30% of their installed capacity, only 40% of the time) -- would require 4 times that amount of land, to produce nominally only about 2% of the country's electricity, which 40,000 MW of wind would be nullified by 1 year of average growth in demand. Obviously, big wind is a dead end that could easily be obviated by the less photographically iconic options of efficiency and conservation.)

"The development of domestic energy resources ... is far outweighed by the public interest in avoiding irreparable damage to public lands and the environment."

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights

Thoughts on Acceptable Wind Turbine Placement

Daniel Imhoff, Food Fight: The Citizen's Guide to a Food and Farm Bill, Watershed Media, 2007, p. 113 [paragraph breaks added]:

The scientific consensus on global climate change predicts inevitable disruptions and potentially dire consequences. The prescriptions are equally clear: significant reductions in fossil fuel emissions are being called for across the board. Agriculture is no exception. Tough choices will be made in the decades ahead. Regional production of diverse renewable energy sources should be aggressively scaled up.

At the same time, energy is not renewable if essential resources such as soil and water are despoiled in the process. Simply increasing the supply of renewable energy without a national strategy to make the United States "carbon neutral" may only succeed in providing more power to consumer.

Across the world, and prominently in agricultural areas, large wind farms are gaining traction as alternative electricity producers. The latest generation of turbines have been criticized as noisy, aesthetically polluting, and being "Cuisinarts for birds," particularly raptors.

Within an overall context of a more positive energy future, however, it should be possible to identify appropriate areas to locate utility-scale wind farms withexceptions such as these proposed by John Davis of the Adirondack Council:

• No energy production in roadless areas.
• No windmills or energy production in wildlife migration corridors.
• No windmills in parks or protected areas.
• Keep windmills away from water bodies.
• Complement renewable energy funding with a national energy conservation platform.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, animal rights, human rights

Gubernatorial misconceptions regarding wind

On July 27, the Burlington Free Press printed replies on Vermont's energy future from the five Democratic (primary) and one Republican candidate for governor. Here are their statements regarding wind, with commentary following in italics. Dunne and Bartlett did not mention wind.

Dubie: Last November, Bolton Valley became the nation's second ski area, and Vermont's first, to install its own wind turbine -- a 121-foot-tall Northwind 100, manufactured by Vermonters at Northern Power in Barre. It will produce 300,000 kw annually.

As of 10:11 a.m., August 23, 2010, the Bolton Valley wind turbine had produced 125,809 kWh since October 2009. So, apart from confusing kilowatts (rate of production) with kilowatt-hours (energy produced), Dubie is basing his claim on a projection that almost one year later can be shown to be wrong. In its first year of operation, the Bolton Valley wind turbine is likely to produce less than half of the energy predicted (yet still claimed).

Racine: There are locations throughout the northeast that make sense for solar, wind, biomass, and hydro, and if we take a regional approach, we can site these power sources with the least impact possible.

This assumes that these projects must be built. As for wind, its poor production of almost no value to the grid does not justify its erection anywhere. The least impact possible is to forget about it.

Markowitz: I am a strong supporter of community wind projects, hydropower, solar, biomass and geothermal energy production. As governor, I will review our regulatory process to ensure that renewable energy projects get a fair hearing and fast results.

Since energy projects are developed by well capitalized corporations and inordinately affect host communities and environments, the concern should be that those who are adversely affected or who advocate for the environment are able to get a fair hearing.

Shumlin: To meet our electricity needs we will need power delivered from small community-based solar projects to utility scale wind farms and everything in between. As outlined in a Vision for Vermont, I will work with the Treasurer's office to leverage the state's ability to borrow money at affordable rates and issue a series of Vermont renewable energy bonds so that every Vermonter who wants to can literally invest in our energy future. The revenue generated through these projects, guaranteed through electricity sales to the utilities, will help pay the bonds off.

The "everything is needed" approach as presented by Shumlin lacks any sign of rational evaluation of costs and benefits. The only people who would benefit from this circular funding model are the manufacturers and installers — it is a job creation program, but without regard to its effect on the environment and hosting communities, or to its actual contributions to a reliable electricity supply.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, human rights, Vermont

The Lie of “100% Renewable”

It’s been recently reported that Georgetown “plans to be the first city in Texas entirely powered by renewable energy”. Of course, “plans to be” is a long way from “is”, but the first problem in most such reports is that they are talking only about electrical energy. Other energy consumption, such as for heating and transport, is not affected, so it is misleading indeed to say “entirely powered by renewable energy”.

Earlier this year, it was more accurately reported that the city of Burlington, Vermont, “became the first in the country to use 100 percent renewable energy for its residents’ electricity needs”. The news was further spread with far less care (and predictably) as, e.g., “the first city in the U.S. to be powered 100 percent by renewables”. Again, it is about electricity only, which is only about a third of our overall energy use. (Note should also be taken of the qualifier of “residents’ needs”: The University of Vermont, for example, is not included in this accounting.)

Even stated accurately, however, it remains misleading. Georgetown will be purchasing wind and solar power from faraway facilities. That means that they will in fact be using the same electricity on the grid as neighboring towns. The decision was strictly financial, not because wind and solar are cheaper, but because the country as a whole subsidizes them and the required new powerlines so that they can sell the power relatively cheaply. Furthermore, for Georgetown to find the price particularly attractive, as well as considering their non-ideological view, they will probably not be buying the Enron-invented “renewable energy credits”, i.e., they will not actually have the “right” to claim the purchase as “renewable”. (Instead, someone else, who also gets the same electricity from the grid as everyone else, will buy the RECs to claim the “green credit”.)

Sale of RECs also benefits Burlington, which sells them for its woodchip-fired plant and their ownership of wind plants in Georgia and Sheffield. Technically, they can therefore no longer claim that electricity themselves as “renewable”, although they account for almost two-thirds of the city’s electricity. As Burlington Electric itself shows, in 2013, ignoring their selling of RECs, 95% of their electricity was renewably sourced. After selling the RECs, that percentage dropped to 39%. And 67% of that was represented by the purchase of RECs.

Again, everything these cities do not generate themselves is taken from the regional grid, a pool of electrical energy that does not distinguish among its many sources. Georgetown will be using the same electricity as its “nonrenewable” neighbors. Burlington generates about half of its own electricity from wood chips, a little hydro, and negligible solar and wind. The rest is from the same pool as its “less renewable” neighbors.

And besides the charade of exclusive claims on renewable electricity that everyone shares equally on the grid, electricity is itself only about a third of their total energy use.

Renewable Portfolio Standard: good for the environment or just for industry?

The U.S. Senate, like many state legislatures, is considering a "renewable portfolio standard", or RPS, as part of new energy law.

What is the goal of the RPS?

Is it to encourage the development of renewable energy sources (at least for electricity)? It does that, of course.

Is it meant to lower carbon and other emissions from fossil fuels? That is what its proponents say.

Yet there is no requirement for such a result.

Although the purported goal is reduced emissions, an RPS dictates only new building. Some of the mandated new sources may indeed effect reduced emissions from other sources, but that is not at all guaranteed. For example, wind energy on the grid has never been shown to cause a significant reduction in fossil fuel use.

And since wind energy is the only current renewable source that can be built to substantial capacity, an RPS is essentially a directive for huge amounts of new wind energy, with an implied free pass from proper environmental and community review.

If a utility builds giant wind energy facilities whose output equals, say, 15% of its average load, but it still maintains and builds "conventional" facilities as much as otherwise -- and in fact burns as much fossil fuels as before -- then what has the RPS achieved?

It has only ensured a greater movement of the people's money into the accounts of big energy developers. They, and the politicians they support, can claim to be "green" as they laugh all the way to the bank.

But the RPS has not reduced carbon or other emissions.

If that public good is in fact the goal, then that should be what the law requires: a carbon reduction standard.

Let the realities of energy production and conservation determine how that standard is achieved, not the spiels of industry lobbyists.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont

Missing the point about wind energy development

Bradford Plumer writes in The New Republic's environment and energy blog about the action in North Carolina to ban structures taller than 100 feet from the state's mountaintops, which would effectively ban industrial wind energy turbines. His analysis consists only of showing a picture of mountaintop-removal coal mining and asking whether in comparison wind turbines can still be called "unsightly".

If mountaintop-removal is the issue, then the blog should ask why it is allowed.

If coal in general is the issue, then the blog should ask just how much coal would be saved by adding wind turbines to the grid. (The answer is: none.)

Having learned that wind energy does not reduce coal use, then the blog should ask if industrial wind's own adverse environmental impacts, including not just aesthetic but also on birds, bats, hydrology, and wildlife habitat, can be justified by other benefits. (The answer is: hardly. Wind is a highly variable, intermittent, and diffuse resource that only adds to the grid's burden of supplying steady energy in response to demand.)

Instead, the false and unexamined premise that wind turbines on the grid provide substantial useful energy, leading to the next false and unexamined premise that nondispatchable, unpredictable, and variable wind energy displaces coal -- generally a baseload supplier (wind preferentially displaces first hydro, second open-cycle natural gas [at a loss of efficiency]), leads to Plumer simply ignoring the actual debate about industrial wind energy development on the wild mountains of North Carolina.

What is gained and what is lost? Very little, if anything, is gained, and very much is lost. That is not to deny the horrors of mountaintop-removal mining or the pollution from coal burning. Those are irrelevant to the debate about wind. Adding industrial wind development will not reduce them in the least. Wind only adds a new insult to the environment.

So to Plumer's challenge, "There's nothing wrong with finding wind turbines unsightly, but the relevant question here is: Compared to what?"

Compared to a wild mountaintop teeming with flora and fauna -- without heavy-duty cut-and-filled roads, blasted-in turbine platforms, 400-ft-high machines grinding around day or night, flashing lights, acres of tree clearance, miles of new transmission lines, substations, etc. Duh.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, animal rights, human rights

Wind Power: a Model of Successful Public Policy?

An article published today at the World Energy Forum by Antoine Dechezleprêtre, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, London School of Economics, and Matthieu Glachant, CERNA, Mines ParisTech, has some interesting statements undercutting wind industry claims of success:

The massive deployment of wind turbines across the world has been driven mainly by public policy support. European countries like Spain, Portugal, Germany or Ireland have mostly relied on feed-in tariffs. In the USA, Renewable Portfolio Standards and systems of tradable certificates [and tax breaks] have been implemented. The Clean Development Mechanism has played a prominent role in emerging countries. For instance, almost all Chinese wind farms are either registered as CDM projects or are in the pipeline.

The spread of wind policies and the rapid growth of wind energy have gone hand in hand. So can we consider these policies a success? Installation of wind capacity is not an end in itself, and in the short term these policies have actually increased the cost of energy. The cost of wind power generation is still high relative to conventional electricity. According to the International Energy Agency, the cost of onshore wind ranges from 70-130 US$/MWh compared to 20-50 US$/MWh for coal-fired power plants and 40-55 US$/MWh for CCGT [combined-cycle natural gas–fired turbines]. Offshore wind is even more expensive (110-130 US$/MWh).

Even counting the benefits of avoided carbon emissions, it is not clear whether the social cost of wind energy is lower. The social cost of carbon according to the World Bank is around $20/ton, which in the best conditions puts wind energy and coal at parity. However, the net impact of wind energy on carbon emissions remains a controversial issue as the intermittency of wind power production requires a carbon-emitting backup such as combined cycle gas turbines. Moreover, in developing countries, the so-called additionality of some CDM wind projects has been challenged, casting serious doubt about their net carbon impacts.

The result of the need for backup is actually worse than suggested there, because wind power production is highly variable, requiring open-cycle gas turbines (OCGT) which are able to ramp their output fast enough to balance that from wind. But the carbon emissions from OCGT are about twice those from CCGT, so that a system of wind + OCGT may actually see more carbon emissions than a system of CCGT alone.

And if wind does not actually do much to reduce carbon emissions, then CDM compounds that debacle not only by driving the construction of sprawling, almost useless, wind energy facilities in developing countries, but by providing the means for developed countries to continue emitting as much carbon as ever.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Wind power does not work

To the Editor, Manchester (Vt.) Journal:

Rob Roy Macgregor (letter, Nov. 18) would have us believe that more than 50 gigawatts of wind power capacity installed worldwide, or its endorsement by some utilities, is proof that it works. He asks, as if he does not know the answer, where is the profit if wind is so unreliable?

To the first point, one need only ask for evidence that 50 gigawatts (or 10-15, representing the actual output from wind, or even any at all) of energy from other sources has been displaced to discover that wind power does not work as an energy source on the grid, that such claims are as puffs of smoke.

To the second point, endorsement by utilities comes from the same source as the profits: the requirement or expectation to buy a certain amount of renewable energy and the option of buying "green credits" instead. Whether the energy produced by a wind turbine is used or not, equivalent green credits are generated as well. There is great demand for them, and their trade is very profitable. Enron began this model of energy progress, and it remains a scam that benefits only a few investors. Some utilities set up as credit producers themselves, and others are typically bought off, as exemplified by Lyndonville Electric's East Haven deal, with a share in the racket.

Utilities, however, are clear about the futility of wind power. Eon Netz, one of Germany's grid managers, with over 7,000 MW of wind capacity connected, has described in their annual wind reports that they need additional conventional capacity to cover 100% of the possible infeed from wind, because even as it peaks it often drops off very quickly. Many utilities in Japan cap the amount of energy they will accept from wind facilities. A recent report boasting of the U.K.'s superb wind resource also points out that new "spinning reserve" must be built and kept burning to compensate for wind power's fluctuations, thus severely limiting any positive effect on the use of other energy sources. A February 2004 study by the Irish grid found that wind power caused minimal displacement of other sources, that it was essentially superfluous additional capacity. Eon Netz projects that at best wind turbines might displace barely 4% of their capacity in other sources.

Macgregor is right that storing the intermittent output of wind turbines is an essential solution. It only underscores the absurdity of building them now, when large-scale storage, if feasible at all, is still very far off.

If wind power worked, proponents would be able to point to real evidence of energy savings and cleaner air, not just a sales chart.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, Vermont

More cons than pros

Kristin Calkins Rowe wrote in the Burlington (Vt.) Free Press ("Wake up on wind power," Nov. 7, 2005), "It doesn't take a genius to figure out there are more cons than pros in this debate." The most glaring cost of big wind is the industrial development of rural and wild areas, which inarguably degrades rather than improves our common environment. That is impossible to justify if the benefits claimed by the industry's sales material are in fact an illusion, propped up by subsidies and artificial markets for "indulgence credits" which allow the flouting of emissions caps and renewable energy targets.

Why do utilities generally support wind as a renewable power source?

Actually, they don’t. In Japan, as reported by Asahi Shinbun on May 18, 2005, utilities severely limit the amount of wind power on their systems, because, as documented above, "introducing too much of the electricity, whose supply can fluctuate wildly, can cause problems for utilities' power grids. ... If there is no wind, the utilities must rely entirely on other facilities. And even when wind power can satisfy all of the demand, they must continue operating thermal generators to be ready for any abrupt shortfalls in wind power."

With the movement away from vehicles such as the Clean Air Act, which actually reduced emissions, to so-called market solutions such as renewable portfolio standards (RPS), utilities must buy a specified proportion of their power from renewable sources or buy credits equal to their shortfall. As long as they can say that, for example, 20% of their power comes from wind, it doesn't matter if they're burning as much nonrenewable fuel as ever to back it up. Most importantly, however, "green credits" are generated in addition to actual electricity. They are an echo of the renewable energy already sold that is given as much, or even more, value than the real thing. Burdened with the directive to buy renewable energy, utilities want to be a part of wind power development so they can share in the lucrative sale of the credits.

Ironically, analyses for New Jersey utilities and by the U.S. Energy Information Agency have shown that the only effect on emissions that an RPS might have is to drive down the cost of exceeding emissions caps or missing renewables targets.

With rising fuel prices, however, many utilities have started to demand actual useful energy targets from wind facilities. As Renewable Energy Access reported on Nov. 7, 2005, from an American Wind Energy Association financing workshop in New York City, this has worried investors. Wind turbines produce only the very marketable appearance of green energy, not actual relief from other sources.

[Read the rest of this paper at www.aweo.org/LowBenefit.pdf.]

categories:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, Vermont

They see a good thing -- profits and tax evasion in one

The New York Times notes today that "[a] spate of takeovers in the wind-energy business this year shows that large energy companies and investment banks are seeking to increase their holdings in wind power."

Scottish Power's American subsidiary, PPM Energy, has been buying up developers, most recently Atlantic Renewable Energy. As has AES Corporation (most recently Sea West Holdings). Today's news was that Goldman Sachs (yes, an investment banker, not an energy company) is buying Zilkha Renewable Energy. Another outfit, Noble Environmental Power, is owned by another banker, J.P. Morgan Chase. Britain's Airtricity is also getting active in the U.S., following France's Enxco, a subsidiary of nuclear powerhouse EDF.

According to Citizens for Tax Justice (340-KB PDF), FPL [Florida Power & Light] Group, parent of FPL Energy, the largest owner of wind energy in the U.S., paid no federal income taxes for 2002 and 2003 profits of $2.243 billion. In fact, they got tax refunds totaling $252 million. They were able to claim $1.276 billion just in accelerated depreciation.

Thar's gold in thim thar hills!

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms

Life after Oil and Gas: Pity Earth’s Creatures

Today’s New York Times Sunday Review juxtaposed two pieces on its front page: Elisabeth Rosenthal’s puff piece (last gasp?) for large-scale renewable energy, “Life After Oil and Gas”, and Edward Hoagland’s lamentation about nature’s disappearance under the march of human civilization, “Pity Earth’s Creatures”.

Hoagland’s piece stands as the answer to Rosenthal’s.

Except for some comments by International Energy Agency economist Fatih Birol suggesting that conservation and efficiency are more practical and effective choices, Rosenthal hardly considers why we have an energy crisis, of consequences as much as supply. (She also ignores, of course, the fact that huge investments in wind and solar have never been documented to actually reduce the use of other fuels. And both Rosenthal and Birol ignore the fact that countries and states that produce a high percentage of their electricity from wind are actually on larger grids, which make the percentage very much less.)

Instead Rosenthal assumes that we can “easily” produce the power we need from wind, solar, and water, citing the latest work of Mark Jacobson, whose numbers should frighten rather than inspire:

For New York State alone: 4,020 onshore and 12,770 offshore 5-MW wind turbines, 387 100-MW concentrated solar plants, 828 50-MW PV solar plants, 5,000,000 5-kW home and 500,000 100-kW business rooftop PV solar systems, 36 100-MW geothermal plants, 1,910 0.75-MW wave systems, 2,600 1-MW tidal turbines, as well as 7 1,300-MW hydro plants (half of which already exists).

Except for the rooftop solar, where do these go? Where do all the new “smart-grid” power lines and substations go? Where do all the materials to build and maintain and replace all these things come from? And what if these projections fall short (as they most certainly would)?

Except for rare hydro sources like Niagara Falls (or geothermal sources like Iceland’s volcanoes), renewable energy sources are diffuse. Therefore they require sprawling facilities of huge devices to collect enough to meet even a fraction of our electricity needs, let alone all of our energy (i.e., including transportation, heating, and manufacturing).

Furthermore, wind and solar are intermittent: The wind isn’t always blowing, and the sun shines only during the day. On top of that, their energy is variable, wildly so, in the case of wind. That means they need 100% backup.

Jacobson’s vision has already been imagined by H.G. Wells. In his 1897 “A Story of the Days To Come”, he described “the Wind Vane and Waterfall Trust, the great company that owned every wind wheel and waterfall in the world, and which pumped all the water and supplied all the electric energy that people in these latter days required.”

Far away, spiked, jagged and indented by the wind vanes, the Surrey Hills rose blue and faint; to the north and nearer, the sharp contours of Highgate and Muswell Hill were similarly jagged. And all over the countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns, and farmhouses had nestled among their trees, wind wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like vast advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, cast their whirling shadows and stored incessantly the energy that flowed away incessantly through all the arteries of the city. ...

To the east and south the great circular shapes of complaining wind-wheels blotted out the heavens ...

Where is nature in all this? Where is the countryside? Jacobson’s vision would turn it all into a power plant for the cities, and mines and refineries for endlessly building that power plant. There would be no escape. No nature to marvel at and lose oneself in. No nature to be left alone to live its own lives. Only the vain hand of human expansion.

As Hoagland writes in the other piece, we have already lost so much, as 7 billion people (doubled since 1970, tripled since 1940) trample over and push aside the world of other lives. The dream of renewables, which are inherently inefficient, only expands that process. If we would decry what we have already done to the earth, we need to start doing with a lot less. But the reality of renewables is that their use not only allows but requires more use of fossil and nuclear fuels, more extraction of resources, more paving over paradise.

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, ecoanarchism

Wind energy against the world

A correspondent has informed us that the current (July 2011) issue of North American Windpower includes five articles decrying the imminent loss of subsidies and enforcement of wildlife regulations.

1. "Near-term U.S. policy incentives remain in limbo" — cover story by Allan Marks.
With several policy incentives set to expire, the wind industry is set to enter a period of great uncertainty.
With the upcoming expiration of many federal incentives for renewable energy technologies, the future of wind power projects will be left in a state of flux. By the end of 2012, several federal programs — including the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Section 1603 cash-grant program, the U.S. Department of Energy's Section 1705 loan-guarantee program and the availability of bonus depreciation — are scheduled to expire. The production tax credit and the investment tax credit for wind projects are also scheduled to expire at that time. [In fact, as far as we know all of these except the PTC expire at the end of 2011.] ... Another aspect affecting the future of wind power that is often overlooked is environmental policy. ... The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in February updated federal guidelines concerning wind energy projects, resulting in the Draft Voluntary Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines and the Draft Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance. These draft guidelines contain more enhanced protocols for studying possible avian impacts during pre-construction and implementing mitigation measures post-construction than what were specified under the 2001 FWS interim guidelines for wind projects.

2. "It's loud and clear: '2013 needs an answer'" — by Angela Beniwal.
A group of wind industry leaders gathered at the recent Windpower 2011 conference to discuss the current state of wind development in the U.S. ... [They] agreed that the expiration of the Treasury Department's Section 1603 cash-grant program at the end of this year and the expiration of the production tax credit in 2012 are worrisome. ... Jan Blittersdorf, president and CEO of NRG Systems, said sales at her wind assessment equipment company are an indicator of where the U.S. wind market stands. ... "We well all over the world, and the markets we're selling into right now are in Asia. And, frankly, our percentage of sales in the U.S. is about as low as I've ever seen it."

3. "Policy uncertainty continues to linger" — by Mark Del Franco.
Although much of the federal policy driving wind power remains firm in the near term, there are dark clouds just over the horizon. For example, two of the primary incentives used by developers — the U.S. Treasure Department's Section 1603 cash-grant program and the production tax credit — will soon expire. ... Although the extension of either or both policy incentives would be welcome news for the industry, receiving such immediate satisfaction is unlikely. ... "There will be no extension of any wind subsidies until, at the earliest, late 2012 after the fall election, with a significant risk of no action until early 2013," says Edward Einowski, a partner at Stoel Rives. "What action will be taken will largely depend on the outcome of the election," he says, "which could range from Democrats taking back the House and gaining 60-plus seats in the Senate — in which event PTC and ITC grant extensions appear more likely — to further gains by the Republicans in both the House and Senate, in which event any extension of either the PTC or ITC grants may well be problematic."

4. "Rep. pledges policy support" — by Angela Beniwal.
During the opening session fot he Windpower 2011 conference in May, Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., spoke about the need for implementing long-term energy policies that will help the wind industry fully come to scale. ... Blumenauer, a member of the influential House Ways and Means Committee, said people need to understand the importance of subsidies for the wind industry. ... But he said that transmission and integration issues must first be resolved. ... The congressman also advocated changing the regulatory process so that developing wind projects is not cumbersome. ... Blumenauer also expressed support for a national renewable electricity standard.

5. "Developers testify before Congress" (unsigned).
Land-based and offshore wind energy developers testified before Congress in June about the need for consistent and long-term federal policies to support the deployment of renewable energy, AWEA reports. The land-based wind developers also focused on rules recently proposed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that threaten hundreds of wind farms with years of delays and millions of dollars in costs, according to AWEA, which submitted extensive public comments on the two FWS policies of concern: the Draft Land-Based Wind Energy Guidelines and the Eagle Conservation Plan Guidance. ... James Gordon, president of Cape Wind Associates LLC, and Jim Lanard, president of the Offshore Wind Development Coalition, also testified on the need for stable and longer-term federal policy support, including an extension of the ITC and extending the loan-guarantee program.

Windbearings, by Jennifer Delony

According to one Cohocton, N.Y., innkeeper, "there has been contention" between residents in support of and opposed to [Italy-based] UPC Wind's Cohocton Wind project. She is quick to note, however, that she is not for or against the wind farm, and she recognizes that we need renewable energy and progress happens [as Deng Xiaoping proclaims from billboards throughout China, "Development is the only rationale"]. This reasoned [i.e, following the industry's self-serving reasoning] resident of Cohocton adds that members of Cohocton's construction crew are staying at her inn, and they are "very nice." [Why wouldn't they be -- the problem is what they're constructing. Apparently, the industry believes its own slurs against nonpermanent residents.]

In New York state, this innkeeper's generosity of spirit toward progress [since it means a surge in her business] is not thoroughly pervasive. Wind power projects in New York have well-funded opposition, says Carol Murphy, executive director of the [very well funded, with 65 industry members annually paying up to $25,000 each] Alliance for Clean Energy New York [ACENY]. Ultimately, though, Murphy believes that these groups have not gained traction at the local government level [although they are up against the industry's generosity with bribes and a full-time PR machine, many communities have faced the industry down] and many of their members are not permanent New York residents [how dare they have an opinion or concern for the place!].

"It's people who are second-home owners and who, in some cases, may live there parttime, and they are retired," explains Murphy. "They tend to be a lot more affluent and don't want to look at a wind turbine on their pristine upstate New York property." [This complaint is of course a clear admission that wind turbines are indeed a blight. And it is an attempt to change the subject from the many complaints -- not just the view, but also noise and flicker, water pollution, lights at night, impacts on wildlife, the unreliability and thus minuscule benefit of wind, and more -- to dismissing all opponents because a few of them are "outsiders", which is not only cowardly and dishonest but absurd since the wind companies themselves are the true outside exploiters of the local community.]

Despite the opposition, Murphy remains confident. For every opposition group, she says, there is a group in support of wind power [though most are shams created by the developers]. She adds that one of New York's "premier" wind power support groups, Friends of Renewable Energy in Fenner [actually based in Jordanville, and created by developer Community Energy (which is owned by Scottish Energy which is owned by Iberdrola of Spain)], N.Y., is so proud of the region's wind power that the group is developing new strategies for reaching out to the public. The 30 MW Fenner wind project, which has been fully operational since 2001, is one of the oldest utility-scale wind power facilities in New York.

"The group is raising money for a renewable energy education center, not just about wind farms, but also about other forms of renewable energy because Fenner has become a tourist destination," says Murphy. [Actually, it appears that Murphy's group, the very well funded ACENY, is behind the "Fenner Renewable Energy Education Center" (FREEC), working through their PR agency, Trieste Associates.] "And when other town supervisors, planning boards and citizens want to find out what the impacts of wind might be on their communities, they go and talk to the folks at Fenner." [The importance of highlighting the Fenner facility instead of the many other sites that have more recently gone up is that its 20 1.5-MW Enron machines are fewer and much smaller than those currently being proposed and built, which are 400 feet or more in height, with rotor diameters up to 100 yards.]

With a spring commissioning planned for Cohocton Wind, it is hard not to acknowledge the benefits the project is bringing to the community - from the innkeeper's lodging profits to millions of dollars in payments to the town. Some residents, however, consider the process of listing the project's benefits a distraction from other impacts they perceive as untenable [if there were benefits besides these crumbs from a massive transfer of public money to private companies, there would be something to debate; as it is, these "benefits" are just bribes and do not represent long-term or reliable economic development; there are many ways, in fact, that such payments adversely affect the economic security of communities (e.g., state payments may be correspondingly reduced), and the burden of the giant machines, transmission corridors, heavy-duty roads, and substations -- especially when the tax benefits expire, some in 5 years, others in 10, and the company no longer feels so generous -- may be greater than the crumbs from the company can cover; in addition, the damage to farm fields can be devastating, but leasing landowners are bound by their contracts to keep quiet -- see "What Have I Done?" for the story of one regretful farmer]. Next month, NAW will examine the role that open and transparent communication with stakeholders will have in helping wind power developers understand and accommodate public perception as they continue record-making progress in 2008.

--North American Windpower, January 2008

[Thanks to a concerned wind industry associate for sharing this editorial with us.]

wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights

Lamar!

The Appalachian range in the mid-Atlantic states is being aggressively targeted for industrial wind development. The Allegheny Ridge alone, in the border areas of West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, is under assault by plans for at least 1,000 giant turbines. U.S. Senators Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and John Warner of Virginia have introduced the Environmentally Responsible Wind Power Act of 2005. Here are some excerpts from Alexander's May 13 speech.

Our legislation provides for local authorities to be notified and have a role in the approval of the siting of tens of thousands of massive wind turbines that will be built in America under current policies. It also ensures that the federal government does not subsidize the building of these windmills -- which are usually taller than a football field is long - within 20 miles of a military base or a highly scenic location, such as a national park or offshore. ...

One part of our energy debate will be about wind power, which is the subject of our legislation today. This is because several of our colleagues have proposed something called a Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS, which would require power companies to produce 10 percent of all their electricity from renewable sources by 2025. These renewable sources are wind, hydro, solar, geothermal and biomass. ...

It is important for our colleagues to know that a Renewable Portfolio Standard or RPS is all about wind. ... Experts agree that the bottom line is that a requirement that electric companies produce 10 percent of their electricity from renewable energy, if it could be achieved at all, would mean that about 70 percent of the increase would come from wind. In other words, we would go from producing about 1 percent of our electricity from wind to 7 or 8 percent.

Testimony before our Energy Committee and most other sources suggest that to produce this much wind energy in the United States could require building more than 100,000 of new, massive wind turbines. We have less than 7,000 such windmills in the U.S. today, with the largest number in Texas and California.

Testimony also indicated that, even without the RPS, if Congress continues its sustained generous subsidy for wind production for the next 10 years, it will guarantee that the U.S. has about 100,000 of these windmills by 2025. According to the Treasury Department, this wind subsidy, if renewed each year for the next five years, would reimburse wind investors for 25 percent of the cost of wind production and cost taxpayers $3.7 billion over those 5 years. General Electric Wind, one of the largest manufacturers of wind turbines, has experienced a 500 percent growth in its wind business this year due to the renewal of the wind production tax credit last year.

I want to make sure that my colleagues know that there are serious questions about how much relying on wind power will raise the cost of electricity, questions about whether there are better ways to spend $3.7 billion in support of clean energy, questions about whether wind even produces the amount of energy that is claimed. My studies suggest that at a time when American needs large amounts of low-cost reliable power, wind produces puny amounts of high-cost unreliable power. We need lower prices; wind power raises prices. We will have an opportunity in our debates and further hearings to examine these questions.

But the legislation we offer today is about a different question: the siting of 100,000 of these massive machines.

The idea of windmills conjures up pleasant images -- of Holland and tulips, of rural America with windmill blades slowly turning, pumping water at the farm well. My grandparents had such a windmill at their well pump. That was back before rural electrification.

But the windmills we are talking about today are not your grandmother’s windmills.

Each one is typically [over] 100 yards tall, two stories taller than the Stature of Liberty, taller than a football field is long.

These windmills are wider than a 747 jumbo jet.

Their rotor blades turn at [well over] 100 miles per hour.

These towers and their flashing red lights can be seen from more than 25 miles away.

Their noise can be heard from up to a half mile away. It is a thumping and swishing sound. It has been described by residents that are unhappy with the noise as sounding like a brick wrapped in a towel tumbling in a clothes drier on a perpetual basis.

These windmills produce very little power since they only operate when the wind blows enough or doesn’t blow too much, so they are usually placed in large wind farms covering huge amounts of land.

As an example, if the Congress ordered electric companies to build 10 percent of their power from renewable energy -- which as we have said, has to be mostly wind -- and if we renew the current subsidy each year, by the year 2025, my state of Tennessee would have at least 1,700 windmills, which would cover land almost equal to two times the size of the city of Knoxville.

If Virginia were to produce 10 percent of its power from wind and the subsidies continue, it would probably need more than 1,700 windmills. These windmills would take up enough land to equal the land mass of three cities the size of Richmond, Virginia.

In North Carolina, to supply 10 percent of electricity from wind if the subsidies continue, it would take up the landmass of the Research Triangle -- the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill area.

According to testimony before our committee, in Tennessee and Virginia, these windmills would work best and perhaps only work at all along ridge tops.

So, if present policies are continued, we could expect to see hundreds of football field sized towers with flashing red lights atop the blue ridges of Virginia, above the Shenandoah Valley, along the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains, on top of Signal Mountain, and on top of Lookout Mountain and Roan Mountain in Tennessee and down the Tennessee River Gorge, which the city of Chattanooga has just spent 25 years protecting and now calls itself the scenic city. ...

What will this do to our tourism industry? Will 10 million visitors a year who come to enjoy the Great Smokies really want to come see ridge tops decorated with flashing red lights and 100-yard tall windmills?

What happens to electric rates when the federal subsidy disappears?

Who will take down these massive structures if we decide we don’t like them or if they don’t work?

Who is making the money on all this?

Why are some of European countries who pioneered wind farms now slowing down or even stopping their construction in some places?

Clearly there are more sensible ways to provide clean energy than spending $3.7 billion of taxpayers’ money to destroy the American landscape. ...

While we are debating the wisdom of wind policies, these massive turbines are being built across America, 6,700 of them so far, 29 of them in Tennessee. The Tennessee Valley Authority recently announced it had signed a 20-year contract with a group of investors from Chicago to build 18 huge windmills atop a 3,300 foot ridge on Buffalo Mountain in East Tennessee.

So the purpose of our legislation is to give citizens the opportunity to have some say in where these massive structures are located in their communities and to make sure that the Congress does not subsidize the destruction of the American landscape near our national parks or other highly scenic areas or build such tall structures dangerously close to our military bases.

First, the bill ensures that local authorities are notified and have a role in the approval of new windmills to be built in their areas of jurisdiction. This means that at the same time a proposed windmill is filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC would notify the local authority with zoning jurisdiction. ...

Second, our legislation provides protection to highly scenic areas and to military bases. It does so my eliminating tax subsidies for any windmill within 20 miles of a World Heritage Area (which includes many national parks), a military base or offshore.

Under the bill, placement of a windmill within 20 miles of such a site shall also require the completion of an environmental impact statement. Further, any windmill that is to be constructed within 20 miles of a neighboring state’s border may be vetoed by that neighboring state. In other words, if the neighboring state can see it, and don’t want it, they can veto it.

I believe that during our debates we will find there are better ways to produce a low-cost, reliable supply of American energy than by spending $3.7 billion over the next 5 years requiring power companies to produce energy from giant windmills that raise electric rates, only work when the wind blows, and destroy the American landscape. ...

In the United States of America, Mr. President, the wholesale destruction of the American landscape is not an incidental concern. The Great American Outdoors is an essential part of the American character. Italy has its art. Egypt has its pyramids. England has its history. And we have the Great American Outdoors.

While we debate the merits of so much subsidy and reliance on wind power, we should at the same time protect our national parks, our shorelines and other highly scenic areas, and we should give American citizens the opportunity to protect their communities and landscapes before it is too late.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines

Wind projected to produce 0.89% of U.S. electricity in 2030

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) of the Dept. of Energy, in their Annual Energy Outlook 2007, wind produced 0.36% (14.6 billion kWh) of the total electricity (4,036 billion kWh) generated in the U.S. in 2005. Wind provided 0.05% of all of the energy consumed (only 99.95% to go!).

According to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) the installed wind capacity was 6,725 MW at the beginning of 2005 and 9,149 MW at the end, an average installed capacity for 2005 of 7,937 MW. If we divide the EIA-reported generation by the 8,760 hours in a year, we find that the average rate of production was only 21% of capacity.

The EIA generously projects that wind will produce 0.89% of the total electricity generated in 2030. This is 22% lower than their previous year's projection. Of course even that ignores the fact that other sources have to burn extra fuel in the effort of balancing wind's intermittent and highly variable infeed.

See the comments in this space about AWEA's recent announcement of wind's 27% growth in 2006 (from 0.36% "penetration" to perhaps 0.45%).

((((+))))
AWEA recently noted that the 2,454 MW of wind "capacity" added in 2006 cost "approximately $4 billion." That's $1.63 million per megawatt.

According to budding energy giant AES Corporation, in its annual "Wind Generation Review" (Dec. 11, 2006) from Ned Hall, vice president for renewable generation, capital costs of installing wind have risen to $1.75 million per megawatt.

But AES also points out that "U.S. equity structures" (i.e., the Production Tax Credit, 5-year double-declining balance accelerated depreciation, sale of renewable energy credits, and other federal, state, and local subsidies) "provide return of all capital and development fees within five years." Not, of course, to the taxpayers: rather a hefty and swift transfer of public funds to private accounts.

For no benefit, but only harm to the environment, wildlife, people, and communities.

wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism, anarchism, ecoanarchism, animal rights