Posted on 03/13/2015 6:31:29 AM PDT by MichCapCon
Truth has a habit of emerging from unexpected places. An article in the Daily Kos about the desire to end dependence on fossil fuels for energy needs reveals a “nasty little secret” about wind energy: It relies on fossil fuels. That’s a message wind energy opponents in Michigan have been trying to get across to the news media and the public over the past few years.
The article is part of a series titled “Getting to Zero,” by Keith Pickering, and is written with the premise that global warming is a dire and immediate threat. It states, “If civilization is to survive, we need to get to zero emission of fossil carbon, and we need to get there rapidly.” Overall it paints a pessimistic portrait of efforts to reduce carbon emissions from human sources.
A major aspect of the article’s pessimism about actually “getting to zero” pertains to wind energy. The following paragraphs serve as an example:
Wind farms are dependent on the weather to work, and most of the time they're sitting idle or underperforming because the wind isn't strong enough to turn the blades. The capacity factor (CF) for wind varies by location, but Iowa is pretty good, so let's assume a CF of 35 [percent]. Nuclear has no such dependency and can operate around the clock.
In the [U.S.], nuclear plants have an average CF of 90 [percent].
So when we factor CF into those prices … most of wind's advantage is wiped out by just that factor alone.
Over the long term it gets even worse for wind, because nuclear plants today are engineered for a 60-year lifetime, and wind generators are engineered for a 20 or 25 year lifetime. ... That means that wind is cheaper than nuclear in the short term, but more expensive in the long term. Then there's the backup problem. ... When the wind dies, the lights still have to stay on. Right now that's done with natural gas. ...”
According to Kevon Martis, director of the Interstate Informed Citizens Coalition, a non-profit organization concerned about the construction of wind turbines in the region, what the Daily Kos article shows is that people knowledgeable about the technology understand that wind energy depends more on fossil fuels than on wind, no matter their views on contentious issues like global warming.
“Any informed student of wind energy, regardless of whether they are on the left or the right politically, understands that, far from freeing Michigan ratepayers from fossil-fueled electricity, wind energy actually binds us to fossil fuels at roughly a two-parts-fossil one-part-wind ratio,” Martis said. “Properly understood, wind energy should always be called ‘fossil-wind.’ What’s sad is that the vast majority of Michigan residents and probably members of the news media as well are not aware of this information. That situation needs to be remedied.”
In its assessment of wind energy, the Daily Kos article states: "Wind-plus-gas-backup is certainly better than gas alone, but it's not the endpoint of a fossil-free grid, and it never will be."
One of the strongest arguments against wind energy is the assertion that “natural gas alone” would produce fewer emissions than when it is combined with wind. That's because having to switch natural gas generation on and off, literally at the whim of the way the wind blows, is less efficient and therefore less clean.
However, a news media and public that mistakenly believe wind energy is just wind, rather than two-thirds fossil fuels, cannot be expected to comprehend or participate in such a debate. Restricting important facts or (as some still insist) “alleged facts” about wind energy to the province of “experts only” is an affront to transparency and an obstacle to open public discourse. The Legislature owes the people of Michigan a hearing or series of hearings on this issue.
David Wand, deputy director of strategic communications with the American Wind Energy Association, did not return a phone call offering him the opportunity to comment.
The current brightest idea for mitigating the variable nature of wind and solar power is large scale battery backups. Ambri - an MIT liquid metal battery startup - is one if the companies pitching this.
A wind generator has to have a pretty big carbon footprint from a manufacturing standpoint as well.
Wind and solar also require lots of maintenance and cleaning in the field, which means having to drive a fossil fueled tuck to each site for said work.
Corn ethanol, the darling of the farm belt, is also not particularly “green” as it depends on fossil fuels to plant, harvest and haul the corn to ethanol plants and to transport the ethanol by train or truck as ethanol cannot be sent by pipeline. Making ethanol takes prodigious amounts of electricity and particularly water which is released as steam. Note water vapor is a greenhouse gas. The whole ethanol boondoggle depends on continuing taxpayer subsidies and likely can never be economically viable without government subsidies or tax breaks.
And now the same group of idiots are bragging that Yipsilanti will become Michigan’s first solar city. And in a stupidity squared sort of move, they’re erecting the solar panels at an airport.
Efficient, cheap, high energy density batteries have been a pipe dream of the greens since I got out of engineering school in 1979. There is nothing yet, and I seriously doubt there will be in my lifetime. I do not mind paying for research, but I do mind paying for forced commercialization with operating subsidies.
Big Wind...well it’s providing economic “energy” to crony capitalists....regime affiliates...etc
Just like Fusion power... they're just around the corner. ;~))
We need it to be windy and sunny 23-7 365 days a year and it all works.
I have seen trucks hauling parts for wind turbines, those tall white windmills that dot the landscape. It takes one truck to haul one blade. The tower comes in sections, several trucks are needed to haul it. I estimate about ten 18 wheelers are needed to make one windmill. I wonder if they ever get back the energy used to haul it in place.
Another factor is that traditional power generation simply cant be turned off anD on at a moment's notice ("When the wind dies"). Natural gas, for instance, powers turbines with steam and startup from zero could take considerable time.
As a result, the traditional generating capacity has to be up and running all the time anyway - even when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining.
Told a liberal friend of mine that for the days when the windmills don’t spin, they should have a wind generator that blows wind at the windmill. And they should be gas powered because it is possible that if the sun doesn’t come out, using a solar wind generator wouldn’t work.
He thought it was a good idea.
Morons.
Life is less complex for those who haven’t studied physics...
Those plants are running at very low loads, generating electricity very inefficiently, and making lots of CO2 that ought to be counted against the windmills and PV farms.
That reminds me of the first electric powered car I saw here in Knoxville years ago. It had a big sign pointing out that it ran on electricity alone.
It was towing a large gas powered generator (I presume because charging stations were non-existent at the time).
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