The myths of wind power ...

An article in the June 10 Daily Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Mass.) describes the controversy of industrial wind facilities, using a tour of the Searsburg, Vt., turbines led by Enxco representative Martha Staskus as the framework. Here are a couple of comments about some things Staskus said.

One of the myths about wind power, says Staskus, is that it's unreliable. On the contrary, she says, the turbines at Searsburg are on line over 90 percent of the time and need little maintenance or oversight. "It's a very efficient operation," she says.

Being "on line," or available, is a lot different than generating power. (And even during this tour, 2 of the 11 turbines were down for repairs, and 1 was turned off for the safety of the visitors.) Searsburg's turbines average about 89% availability but they generate electricity -- even the slightest trickle -- just over 60% of the time, according to a report by the Electric Power Research Institute.

In addition, Searsburg's output has decreased every year since beginning operation. It was down to 20.4% of its capacity in 2003, producing less than 11,000 MW-h, an average generation rate of 1.25 MW. The average residential customer of Green Mountain Power uses 7.5 MW-h annually (an average load of 0.85 KW), so Searsburg's output is equivalent to the use of less than 1,500 "homes." But two-thirds of the time, because the generation rate falls off sharply below the ideal wind speed, output is much less, and almost 40% -- two-fifths -- of the time it is zero. That is, they are very rarely providing power for any homes, much less the nonresidential needs of the grid. Further, when the wind picks up, for example, at night, is not necessarily when people need extra electricity.

But Staskus cites the most important benefit of wind: clean power. Searsburg produces enough electricity to light 2,000 homes annually, and in doing so displaces about 60 tons of sulfur dioxide and 12,000 tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be emitted by fossil-fuel plants, according to statistics provided by enXco.

In Vermont, the emissions argument is especially weak, because more than two-thirds of our electricity is emissions free (hydro and nuclear -- the latter, however, with its own serious problems) and none is from coal, the main cause of acid rain. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, Vermont's annual emissions from electricity production in 2002 were 17,000 tons of CO₂, 141,000 tons of NO_x, and no SO₂ at all. Searsburg's output is equivalent to 0.2% of Vermont's electricity consumption. So, pretending that 1 MW of wind power displaces 1 MW of nonwind power, that means Searsburg "saves" 282 tons of NO_x (and no SO₂) and 34 tons of CO₂. According to the EPA, that's equivalent to the CO₂ emissions of 2 cars. The U.S. as a whole emitted over 6 billion tons of CO₂ in 2002.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism

Migrating birds forced to lengthen migration to avoid wind turbines

New Scientist has reported the results of a recently published study of a goose and a duck species flying in the area of the wind facility off shore from Nysted, Denmark. The results show that almost all of them avoid the turbines. The industry and their apologists have naturally leapt on it as vindication, but here are some qualifying remarks from the paper (Desholm & Kahlert, Avian collision risk at offshore wind farm, Biology Letters, early online publication, 2005).

"... data collection was conducted only in calm winds (less than 10 m/s) and no-precipitation situations."

Considering that the 2.3-MW Bonus turbines don't start turning until the wind is 6 m/s, how much of the time were they actually turning? It is much easier to avoid a large blade that is still than one whose tip is moving at 164 mph (82.4-m rotor diameter at 17 rpm).

"... data collected during twilight were excluded from the analysis."

Twilight is a particularly confusing time for assessing visual cues. The stated reason for excluding it is "to compare situations with good and poor visibility only," but at night the turbines are clearly lit and this comparison could be done without throwing out the twilight data, which might be crucial to an honest assessment of the facility's impact on the birds.

"During the initial operation, frequent visits of maintenance vessels may have influenced the avian avoidance response to the sweeping turbines in an uncertain way. Before solid conclusions can be reached, complementary studies at other sites are needed to confirm these findings, to include possible habituation behaviour over the years to come, and to cover other focal species such as divers (Gavia sp.) and common scoter (Melanitta nigra)."

This study was done in "autumn" of 2003 (the paper is not more specific and does not even specify how many days and nights of observation are included). But the facility was not completed until the end of November and began to generate electricity in December (except for 10 of the 72 turbines, which had begun operation in July and for all we know may have been among the 12 that were out of range of this study). It seems likely that the facility was not fully active during the study.

The researchers compare their results with an earlier study of the same area before construction began, but describing the lower percentage of birds flying through the turbine array as due to "operation" rather than construction seems quite inaccurate.

In addition, as countries desperate to salvage their misguided commitments to large-scale wind power look to build more of them off shore, the cumulative effect of facility after facility that must be dodged must be considered.

Also, I was unable to find any data on the actual output from the Nysted facility (let alone how often it corresponded to an actual need on the grid), which is central to the question of whether it is worth even the slightest risk to birds (and marine mammals -- see the recent story about dead baby seals at the Scroby Sands wind facility off the U.K. shore), not to mention the very high cost not only of manufacture and construction but also of maintenance and integration in the grid.

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights

Adopt a megacorporation

An opinion piece in today's Rutland (Vt.) Herald by Jeff Wolfe of Global Resource Options boasts that General Electric, Goldman-Sachs, and British Petroleum now characterize the players in renewable energy, particularly large-scale wind. He then makes a plea that they badly need our money to succeed. Shouldn't we be demanding money from them?

((((( )))))
On the opening of the 39 turbines at Cefn Croes (originally an Enron project), developer Falck Renewables of Italy says the visual impact is minimal. Scroll down to the June 10 post, The destruction of Cefn Croes, to see the decimation and intrusion that they won't acknowledge.

The developer also "estimates" that the facility will save 4 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions over its 25-year lifetime. That's 160,000 tonnes each year, 0.1% of the U.K.'s total. You'd think you'd get a bit more for £50 million and the wreckage of a landscape. And that estimate is quite inflated, based on a very high capacity factor and an assumption that only coal burning would be displaced. Wind power is just as likely to displace easily dispatchable hydropower, and frequent ramping up and down of coal plants in response to the wind actually increases their emissions. Above all it ignores the likelihood that current production will itself be made cleaner in coming years.

In fact, £50 million could be much more effectively spent in that cleaning effort, which would bring a real decrease in emissions -- without violating another landscape.

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

Carbon emissions still rising in Denmark

The National Environmental Research Institute, a part of the Danish Ministry of the Environment, reports (click the title of this post) that Denmark is committed under the Kyoto Accord to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 to 21% below 1990 levels. But, as they also report, almost as a footnote, by 2003 emissions had instead increased 6.2%.

This is the (non)achievement of about 3,000 MW of wind power capacity for 5.3 million people, about 1 MW for every 1,700 people. [Look at this map showing how saturated that country is by giant wind turbines.] In Vermont, that would be 353 MW, 59 times the existing Searsburg plant. In New York, that would be 11,176 MW. For the whole U.S., 170,588 MW, taking up over 13,000 square miles. But U.S. per-capita energy consumption is twice that of Denmark's, so these numbers would have to be doubled. And greenhouse gas emissions would continue to rise.

Thanks to Mark Duchamp for this reference.

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

The destruction of Cefn Croes

Even if you are already convinced that the impact of constructing sprawling wind "farms" in wild places is far from benign, you should look at the photographs documenting the destruction of Cefn Croes in Wales: www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hills/cc/gallery/index.htm.

Here are before and after views from the same location:


Here is another view of the now alien landscape, razed of trees and intercut by wide roads:


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

Renewable power demands a sacrifice

[A sacrifice would be to reduce our energy consumption. The call for imposing sprawling new power plants on rural populations is not a sacrifice -- it's an imperious act of violence.]

To the editor, Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle:

If Bob Siegel [Rochester regional energy chair for the Sierra Club] (essay, June 9) argues that we need to dramatically reduce our CO₂ emissions, why does he talk about wind power? Most of our CO₂ comes from transportation. The very small possible contribution to our electricity supply from industrial wind won't make even a dent in our emissions.

His dismissal of criticisms is similarly misguided. New technology has not reduced bird kills (but may have increased bat kills). Land use -- at about 50 acres per installed megawatt, 200 acres per expected average megawatt produced -- is far from minimal. Noise, too, is not insignificant: Oregon had to change their noise regulations so that wind facilities could be built in rural areas. The noise of the 120-foot blades turning is not "equivalent to a summer breeze" -- it is more like continuous thunder, "a train that never arrives."

Nor is their impact on the environment benign. Siegel describes simply unbolting the tower and carting it away. He doesn't mention the huge steel-reinforced concrete foundation or the damage, such as erosion and habitat fragmentation, already done by the wide roads needed for construction (and later for dismantling) and the clearing of forest. [See the destruction of Cefn Croes in Wales.]

It is true that wind turbines will not produce smog or nuclear waste or use water or add to climate change. It is also true, however, that wind turbines will not reduce those problems. Because the wind can't be called up or called off in response to demand fluctuations, nonwind plants will still be operating as much as before -- but less efficiently (i.e., with greater emissions) as they also have to respond to the fluctuations of the wind.

Siegel's response to the crisis he describes is not one to be proud of. His "large, graceful machines" where once was unindustrialized rural landscape and wild forest will stand as monuments to folly not foresight.

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

Windfarm killing seals in U.K.

As reported today in the Daily Mirror:

Staff at the wildlife hospital at Winterton, Norfolk, say hundreds of seals on Scroby Sands off Great Yarmouth have been so disturbed by the 300-foot turbines there that it is affecting their breeding.

Many pups are born dead or abandoned by frightened mums. Jaime Allison, a biologist at the hospital, said: "A definite pattern is emerging. It's hard not to conclude the wind farm is responsible."

categories:  wind power, wind energy, wind farms, wind turbines, environment, environmentalism, animal rights