Full of beans

A guest commentary in Thursday's Upper Cape Codder by Matthew Patrick, representative of the 3rd Barnstable District in the Massachusetts House, is full of beans. For example:

"... [Cape Light Compact members] are quick to remind us that wind turbines need a backup source of electricity when the wind is not blowing. What they neglect to mention is that it is the responsibility of the wind supplier to provide backup electricity eliminating that concern for the Compact.

"... Hull has gained national recognition for placing a wind turbine at its high school that generates all of the municipal electricity ..."

The second claim is an obvious impossibility, and the first one doesn't make a bit of sense. Since when has an application for a wind-power facility included the building of a non-wind backup plant as well? And nobody expects a contracted schedule of energy to be supplied by a wind plant -- utilities have to take whatever whenever the turbines happen to spurt out, for which "performance" the operators are richly rewarded. When the wind blows, they are showered with cash whether or not the electricity is useful to the needs of the grid at the moment. And when the wind is slower -- or too fast -- the wind plant owners still enjoy accelerated depreciation. They certainly aren't expected to worry about the effect on the grid of their erratic product.

"Our Wind Farm Story"

Excerpt of article by Pam Foringer, Fenner, N.Y.:

'... as I sit in my kitchen and type this on my computer I hear the constant hum of the blades. It's early November, a brisk day, and of course the windows are closed so that muffles the sound a little. In the summer, with the windows open there is nothing to block out the humming or the grinding sound that the turbine makes when it is being turned. For those that haven't seen a wind tower up close, they are about the height of a 30-story building and the unit on top is the size of a small travel trailer. Because the wind constantly changes direction the blades have to be turned to catch the wind. ... imagine turning a 24-ton object perched on top of a 200-ft tower. That takes a bit of force and at times the sounds that are emitted are rather eery. Depending on the weather it can sound like a grinding noise or at times the shrieking sound of a wild animal. In the winter the noise always seems much louder, perhaps because of the starkness of the season and lack of foliage to muffle the noise. Anyway, when people tell you that the wind towers are virtually noiseless, they haven't lived a couple of football fields away from one 24/7. ... regardless of whether you see them or not, you still hear them, even when they are not operating. When the brakes stop the rotors because it's too windy, you hear a clunking and a grinding that sounds like a freight train's cars bumping together. And when it's time to start them again you can at times liken it to the roar of a jet engine.

'We have some absolutely gorgeous sunrises and sunsets in Fenner. As the sun slowly rises to the east of our house it usually bathes our bedroom wall with its rays. Unfortunately, we now get a strobe effect that can drive you absolutely crazy. It's commonly called the "flicker factor." As the sun shines through the rotors it creates a shadow pattern that you would liken to a strobe light. Because of the close proximity of 4 of the towers to our house we get this light show at various times of the day as the sun travels from east to west. Most of the time I have to close our shades to prevent this from giving me a migraine. And speaking of light shows, if this one during the day isn't enough, we get the nighttime show as well. Each tower has red blinking lights on top of the turbine so unless the shades are closed in the bedroom at night there is a constant red light blinking in perfect view as we lie in bed. We have always enjoyed watching the night sky but now as we drive toward our road what you notice immediately is a huge cluster of blinking red lights.'

Another infeed curve

The February 2004 study by the Irish Grid of the impact of wind power contains a graph like the one described in the previous post.


In this case, they are projecting from the 2001 experience of 120 MW of on-shore and 60 MW of off-shore wind power showing a combined annual average output of 37.4% capacity. Notice that with the higher capacity factor the curve flattens, bearing out the prediction of the previous post.

In this case the average level (175 MW) is at about 3,750 hours, or 2/5 rather than 1/3 of the year. But the projection is based on hourly averages only, which they admit makes the performance of the wind plant appear better. So it is likely that actual experience would shift the middle of the curve left, i.e., towards showing output at or above the annual average only 1/3 of the time.

Annual average output only one third of the time

This graph is from "Wind Report 2004," by Eon Netz, the grid operator for a third of Germany. It shows how many quarter-hours of the year the total infeed from the 5,900 MW of installed wind capacity on their system was at or above a certain amount.

For example, the highlighted horizontal rule indicates the average infeed over the whole year. It intersects the curve at about 12,500 quarter-hours, meaning that the total infeed from wind was equal to or more than the annual average for only 12,500 out of 35,040 quarter-hours, or about one third of the time.

Because wind turbine generation falls off logarithmically when the wind speed is below the ideal 30 mph or so, and the turbines have to be shut down when the wind is too fast, I would guess that this experience would also apply in regions showing better performance than the Eon Netz region's annual average of one sixth of capacity. That is, even as the average annual infeed approaches a third of capacity, and much of the curve shifts upward, it would be at or above the annual average still only a third of the time.

Environment vs. industrial wind power

"My involvement in this issue began when a wind facility was proposed for the mountain I live on. I thought I supported the development of wind power, but the idea of turning a prominent wilderness area into an industrial facility was obviously incompatible with the environmental concerns of promoting renewable energy. More research revealed many more problems with large-scale wind power, notably the disproportion of their size and impact to whatever benefit they might provide."

[Click the title of this post to go to the paper "A Problem With Wind Power."]

Expensive side show

The Scotsman features a debate this week between David Bellamy, botanist and conservationist, and Duncan McLaren, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, on the question, "Are wind farms the answer to Scotland's energy needs?" A comment:

Duncan McLaren describes the urgency of the climate crisis and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He does not, however, describe any evidence that sprawling wind facilities (30-60 acres per installed megawatt) are in fact a good way to reduce such emissions, let alone preserve the environment.

A year ago, the Irish grid published a study among whose findings was, "The cost of CO₂ abatement arising from using large levels of wind energy penetration appears high relative to other alternatives."

A similar conclusion was found in a leaked German government report, as recently reported in the Telegraph: that reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved much more cheaply by simply installing filters on existing fossil-fuel plants.

At a Danish Wind Industry Association meeting in May last year, the head of development of Elsam, which operates over 400 MW of wind power in Denmark, stated, "Increased development of wind turbines does not reduce Danish CO₂ emissions."

At best, large-scale wind power is a very expensive (to most, not to the investors of course) side show and certainly not worth industrialising the landscape for.

Bob Herbert in today's Times

'In her decision, Judge Green wrote, "Although this nation unquestionably must take strong action under the leadership of the commander in chief to protect itself against enormous and unprecedented threats, that necessity cannot negate the existence of the most basic fundamental rights for which the people of this country have fought and died for well over 200 years."

'The fundamental right in the case of the Guantánamo detainees is the right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law. A government with the power to spirit people away and declare that's the end of the matter is exactly the kind of government the United States has always claimed to oppose, and has sometimes fought. For the United States itself to become that kind of government is spectacularly scary.

'In seeking the stay of Judge Green's ruling, the administration showed yesterday that it is committed to being that kind of government.'