Whose interests are being served? As many people have long pointed out, the industrial wind industry is not an alternative to but a symptom of big energy. . . .
On Nov. 14, the the industry trade group American Wind Energy Association announced a new chief executive officer (CEO) to replace Randall Swisher after nearly 20 years: Denise Bode, who will take over in January.
Denise Bode has been the CEO of natural gas lobby American Clean Skies Foundation. Before that, she was president of Independent Petroleum Association of America and legal counsel to former Senator David Boren of Oklahoma, who sits on the board of Conoco Phillips.
She was appointed to George W. Bush's Energy Transition Advisory Team, chaired by Dick Cheney, and has lectured at the Heritage Foundation and the Federalist Society. When she ran for the Republican nomination in Oklahoma for U.S. Congress in 2006, she received almost $200,000 from oil and gas interests, the 6th highest amount in the entire country that year.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
November 15, 2008
Graphic artists against big wind
Comeek artist Lynda Barry talks to City Beat in Los Angeles (via National Wind Watch):
The work I’m doing the most of to save the environment is getting the word out about the serious downsides of industrial scale wind turbines. If the goal of using renewable energy resources is to reduce CO2 emissions, industrial-scale wind turbines don’t do this. Because they need fossil-fuel burning power plants to function, and because those power plants are never powered up or down in response to the wind being there or not, the same amount of CO2 is going into the air. This conclusion was reached by the National Academy of Sciences and also a Norwegian study on Danish wind power. You will get more electricity to sell from wind turbines, but no real reduction in current CO2 levels. It’s the only renewable resource that keeps us completely dependent on power companies, fossil fuels (usually coal), and the grid. It’s the only one that doesn’t cause a loss of customers for the power companies. All the other renewable energy choices cause customer loss. Also, industrial wind is used as the justification for more and bigger transmission lines and use of eminent domain. Bigger and more transmission lines allow greater use of fossil-fueled power plants. So industrial- scale wind energy is just another way to say “MORE! MORE! MORE!” Most people don’t realize that unless the wind is blowing at a certain speed – at least 10 miles an hour – the turbines can use more energy than they produce. Most people don’t understand how much electricity it takes to run a machine that is 40 to 50 stories tall. Most people never even ask how the power is getting to and from the turbine. They don’t know about the thousands of miles of cables.
Apart from all this, consider the impact on flying creatures. Turbines are placed in migration corridors because that’s where the wind is. It’s maddening to me that wind developers are getting away with this, siting them in wildlife refuges, national parks, and other protected areas.
By the way, on-site wind turbines of the smaller scale are great. Small, on-site power generation is the best alternative, and it’s the one the power companies are going to fight the hardest against.
My favorite renewable resource option is manure digesters – for both animal and human manure. It’s the only renewable energy option that actually cleans up other environmental problems as it creates electricity. It’s also the least sexy of the choices and one no one wants to talk about.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, animal rights
The work I’m doing the most of to save the environment is getting the word out about the serious downsides of industrial scale wind turbines. If the goal of using renewable energy resources is to reduce CO2 emissions, industrial-scale wind turbines don’t do this. Because they need fossil-fuel burning power plants to function, and because those power plants are never powered up or down in response to the wind being there or not, the same amount of CO2 is going into the air. This conclusion was reached by the National Academy of Sciences and also a Norwegian study on Danish wind power. You will get more electricity to sell from wind turbines, but no real reduction in current CO2 levels. It’s the only renewable resource that keeps us completely dependent on power companies, fossil fuels (usually coal), and the grid. It’s the only one that doesn’t cause a loss of customers for the power companies. All the other renewable energy choices cause customer loss. Also, industrial wind is used as the justification for more and bigger transmission lines and use of eminent domain. Bigger and more transmission lines allow greater use of fossil-fueled power plants. So industrial- scale wind energy is just another way to say “MORE! MORE! MORE!” Most people don’t realize that unless the wind is blowing at a certain speed – at least 10 miles an hour – the turbines can use more energy than they produce. Most people don’t understand how much electricity it takes to run a machine that is 40 to 50 stories tall. Most people never even ask how the power is getting to and from the turbine. They don’t know about the thousands of miles of cables.
Apart from all this, consider the impact on flying creatures. Turbines are placed in migration corridors because that’s where the wind is. It’s maddening to me that wind developers are getting away with this, siting them in wildlife refuges, national parks, and other protected areas.
By the way, on-site wind turbines of the smaller scale are great. Small, on-site power generation is the best alternative, and it’s the one the power companies are going to fight the hardest against.
My favorite renewable resource option is manure digesters – for both animal and human manure. It’s the only renewable energy option that actually cleans up other environmental problems as it creates electricity. It’s also the least sexy of the choices and one no one wants to talk about.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, animal rights
November 14, 2008
Whitewave Foods Recognized For Renewable Energy Investment
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has honored the owner of Silk Soymilk, Horizon Organic, International Delight, and Land O'Lakes, Whitewave Foods, for its green power purchases:
"To date, the company's total wind energy purchases are the equivalent of eliminating more than 450 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually."
The problem is that they have not been purchasing green power, only renewable energy credits. They are donating money to wind power companies, but they are not buying actual energy from them.
Whitewave is using the same electricity as their neighbors. It is not eliminating any greenhouse gas emissions. It is not even adding wind energy to the grid to be used by others, because that is already paid for.
It is only padding the portfolios of wind energy investors. For which service it gets an award from the EPA.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
"To date, the company's total wind energy purchases are the equivalent of eliminating more than 450 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions annually."
The problem is that they have not been purchasing green power, only renewable energy credits. They are donating money to wind power companies, but they are not buying actual energy from them.
Whitewave is using the same electricity as their neighbors. It is not eliminating any greenhouse gas emissions. It is not even adding wind energy to the grid to be used by others, because that is already paid for.
It is only padding the portfolios of wind energy investors. For which service it gets an award from the EPA.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
November 11, 2008
"Oceans of fluids"
An ad for Frontier Pro Services in the October 2008 issue of North American Windpower:
Running a wind farm is a massive task.
Scores of turbines, thousands of tons of metal and fiberglass, oceans of fluids. How does anyone keep up with it! ...
Protecting your assets is the most important job you have, and Frontier Pro Services is here to help.
They keep your moneymakers spinning.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
Running a wind farm is a massive task.
Scores of turbines, thousands of tons of metal and fiberglass, oceans of fluids. How does anyone keep up with it! ...
Protecting your assets is the most important job you have, and Frontier Pro Services is here to help.
Gearbox servicingFrontier Pro Servics
Fluids sampling
Oil and hydraulics changes
Blade repairs
Scheduled maintenance
They keep your moneymakers spinning.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
November 6, 2008
U.S. coal use for electricity, 2002-2007
Receipts of Coal Delivered for the Electric Power Industry -- Electric Power Annual, Energy Information Association, January 21, 2009
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
2002: 869,929,000 tonsDirect Use and Retail Sales of Electricity, Total Electric Industry -- Electric Power Annual, Energy Information Association, January 21, 2009
2003: 949,191,000
2004: 965,057,000
2005: 986,213,000
2006: 1,043,681,000
2007: 1,016,236,000
2002: 3,631,650,307 MWhCoal delivered per electricity used (ratio of above figures)
2003: 3,662,029,012
2004: 3,715,949,485
2005: 3,810,984,044
2006: 3,816,845,452
2007: 3,923,814,234
2002: 0.2395410 ton/MWhThat doesn't look like less coal being burned because of increasing wind capacity (from 4,275 MW at the beginning of 2002 to 11,603 MW at the end of 2006), as claimed by the wind energy industry. In fact, the trend appears to be more coal burned per unit of electricity, a phenomenon seen in the U.K. as well, even as coal's share of electricity production is decreasing:
2003: 0.2591981
2004: 0.2597067
2005: 0.2587817
2006: 0.2734407
2007: 0.2589919
GWh from coal--Total GWh--Proportion from coalWind on the grid may be having the exact opposite effect that its promoters claim.
2002: 1,933,130 3,858,452 0.5010118
2003: 1,973,737 3,883,185 0.5082779
2004: 1,978,301 3,970,555 0.4982429
2005: 2,012,873 4,055,423 0.4963411
2006: 1,990,511 4,064,702 0.4897065
2007: 2,016,456 4,156,745 0.4851046
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
November 3, 2008
Election endorsements
Vt. Governor: Anthony Pollina
Vt. Lieutenant Governor: Ben Mitchell
Vt. State Representative (Hartland–West Windsor): John Bartholomew
U.S. Representative (Vt.): Peter Welch
Vt. Lieutenant Governor: Ben Mitchell
Vt. State Representative (Hartland–West Windsor): John Bartholomew
U.S. Representative (Vt.): Peter Welch
October 30, 2008
Efficiency, capacity factor, and value
To the Editor, Geelong Advertiser:
As a science editor, I share Heinz Dahl's frustration with the inaccurate use of terms in characterizing wind energy on the grid ("Winds of change", Opinion, October 30th).
But while pretending to clarify terms, Mr. Dahl only further confuses them as he evades their unique application to wind energy.
Efficiency is not the issue. It is well understood that burning coal for electricity is only around 30 per cent efficient.
It is also well known that wind turbines generate power at an average rate of around 30 per cent of their full capacity. And although it is technically incorrect to call that their "efficiency", the word nonetheless conveys the problematic nature of wind turbines.
In common use, we don't consider our car to be only 5 per cent efficient because we drive it only an hour or so each day. If we're lucky, we consider it to be 100 per cent efficient because whenever we need it, it runs.
Mr. Dahl says that wind turbines are nearly always available, which is true. Except that if the wind isn't blowing, they aren't. And if the wind is blowing, but not within an ideal range of speed (roughly 30-60 mph), the power generated is much less than the turbines' capacity. In that sense, they are much less efficient than conventional plants which when you turn them on run reliably at full throttle.
That's the difference. Unlike conventional generators, wind turbines respond only to the wind, not to actual demand on the grid.
To pretend that there is some value in that, Mr. Dahl invents a new term, "availability capacity factor", but seems only to apply the attributes of a dispatchable conventional plant to the intermittent and variable nondispatchable output of a wind plant.
He says that when wind energy facilities have a capacity factor of 30 per cent, that means that "30 per cent of the time they are generating at full capacity".
He is completely wrong. That is what a 30 per cent capacity factor means for a conventional power plant, i.e., that it is used 30 per cent of the time.
But because the output from a wind turbine varies with the wind speed, 30 per cent capacity factor for a wind plant means that its output averages 30 per cent of its capacity. In fact, it very rarely reaches full capacity and generates at or above its average rate (i.e., 30 per cent) only about 40 per cent of the time.
Which brings us to the measure that Mr. Dahl ignored: capacity value. When power is needed on the grid, can wind plants provide it? Only by chance. Their capacity value is effectively zero. The rest of the grid still has to be kept up and running.
As a science editor, I share Heinz Dahl's frustration with the inaccurate use of terms in characterizing wind energy on the grid ("Winds of change", Opinion, October 30th).
But while pretending to clarify terms, Mr. Dahl only further confuses them as he evades their unique application to wind energy.
Efficiency is not the issue. It is well understood that burning coal for electricity is only around 30 per cent efficient.
It is also well known that wind turbines generate power at an average rate of around 30 per cent of their full capacity. And although it is technically incorrect to call that their "efficiency", the word nonetheless conveys the problematic nature of wind turbines.
In common use, we don't consider our car to be only 5 per cent efficient because we drive it only an hour or so each day. If we're lucky, we consider it to be 100 per cent efficient because whenever we need it, it runs.
Mr. Dahl says that wind turbines are nearly always available, which is true. Except that if the wind isn't blowing, they aren't. And if the wind is blowing, but not within an ideal range of speed (roughly 30-60 mph), the power generated is much less than the turbines' capacity. In that sense, they are much less efficient than conventional plants which when you turn them on run reliably at full throttle.
That's the difference. Unlike conventional generators, wind turbines respond only to the wind, not to actual demand on the grid.
To pretend that there is some value in that, Mr. Dahl invents a new term, "availability capacity factor", but seems only to apply the attributes of a dispatchable conventional plant to the intermittent and variable nondispatchable output of a wind plant.
He says that when wind energy facilities have a capacity factor of 30 per cent, that means that "30 per cent of the time they are generating at full capacity".
He is completely wrong. That is what a 30 per cent capacity factor means for a conventional power plant, i.e., that it is used 30 per cent of the time.
But because the output from a wind turbine varies with the wind speed, 30 per cent capacity factor for a wind plant means that its output averages 30 per cent of its capacity. In fact, it very rarely reaches full capacity and generates at or above its average rate (i.e., 30 per cent) only about 40 per cent of the time.
Which brings us to the measure that Mr. Dahl ignored: capacity value. When power is needed on the grid, can wind plants provide it? Only by chance. Their capacity value is effectively zero. The rest of the grid still has to be kept up and running.
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