Category Archives: Energy Development

Nukes and Radiation Exposure

Posted on March 20, 2011 | Leave a comment

The internet is alive with questions and concerns about radiation poisoning that could result from the Japanese nukes that were damaged by the Tsunami.  So to put this into perspective, perhaps some background would be helpful.  Wikipedia discusses the relative exposure and dangers from release of radiation in the following:

The sievert (symbol: Sv) is the SI derived unit of dose equivalent radiation. It attempts to quantitatively evaluate the biological effects of ionizing radiation…. It is named after Rolf Sievert, a Swedish medical physicist…..

Most of you know how to read mSv but just a review for the uninitiated:  mSv=0.001Sv or 1X 10^-3 or stated as milli Sv.    Below you will see that eating a banana is said to dose a person with 0.0001 mSv.  That is equivalent to 0.0000001Sv.  If a lethal does of radiation is 10Sv,  you would have to eat something like 100 million bananas in one setting.

At the other end of the scale,  the lethal dose for a period of one day is 10Sv.

Single dose examples

 Eating one banana: 0.0001 mSv

Dental radiography: 0.005 mSv

Avg. dose within 16 km of TMI accident: 0.08 mSv; maximum dose: 1 mSv

Mammogram: 3 mSv

Brain CT scan: 0.8–5 mSv

Chest CT scan: 6–18 mSv

Gastrointestinal series X-ray investigation: 14 mSv

Yearly dose examples

Living near a nuclear power station: 0.0001–0.01 mSv/year

Living near a coal power station: 0.0003 mSv/year

Sleeping next to a human for 8 hours every night: 0.02 mSv/yr

Cosmic radiation (from sky) at sea level: 0.24 mSv/year

Terrestrial radiation (from ground): 0.28 mSv/year

Natural radiation in the human body: 0.40 mSv/year

Radiation from granite of the US Capitol building: 0.85 mSv/year

New York-Tokyo flights for airline crew: 9 mSv/year

Atmospheric sources (mostly radon): 2 mSv/year

Total average radiation dose for Americans: 6.2 mSv/year

Smoking 1.5 packs/day: 13-60 mSv/year

Current average limit for nuclear workers: 20 mSv/year

Lowest clearly carcinogenic level: 100 mSv/year

Elevated limit for workers during Fukushima emergency: 250 mSv/year

 Wiki makes clear that the severity of exposure is a function of time and amount.  The following shows the effect of high levels of radiation  exposure over a one day period  with the likely consequences:

 

 

Symptoms of acute radiation (within one day):

0 – 0.25 Sv (0 – 250 mSv): None

 

0.25 – 1 Sv (250 – 1000 mSv): Some people feel nausea and loss of appetite; bone marrow, lymph nodes, spleen damaged.

 

1 – 3 Sv (1000 – 3000 mSv): Mild to severe nausea, loss of appetite, infection; more severe bone marrow, lymph node, spleen damage; recovery probable, not assured.

 

3 – 6 Sv (3000 – 6000 mSv): Severe nausea, loss of appetite; hemorrhaging, infection, diarrhea, peeling of skin, sterility; death if untreated.

6 – 10 Sv (6000 – 10000 mSv): Above symptoms plus central nervous system impairment; death expected.

 

Above 10 Sv (10000 mSv): Incapacitation and death.

 

 

Another way of  illustrating this data (and more) can be seen by clicking here. The blog “xkcd” has a chart demonstrating in words and pictures the relative levels of radiation exposure from small everyday experiences to death dealing levels.  I recommend that you look at it because for many, it may be easier to  understand than trying to relate milliSvs to Svs.  The chart maker uses microSvs and those are 0.000001 Sv

Good reading

cbdakota

 

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy Development, Environment, Health, Radiation

Are Windfarms Driving the UK to Third World Status?

Posted on March 7, 2011 | 1 comment

It is alarming that the UK is on the verge of plunging into third world status because the political class are so set on eliminating carbon emitting electrical generation facilities and replacing them with renewable energy  (read windmills) generation facilities.   The Telegraph (UK newspaper) carried an article on March 2nd saying that UK electrical customers were going to have to get used to black-outs or brown-outs based on the replacement strategy just mentioned.   Lets look at the article:

Here we have Steve Holliday, Chief Executive of the National Grid telling the Brits that the days of permanently available electricity may be coming to an end as wind farms become bigger suppliers of electricity.  He is quoted as saying “We are going to change our own behaviour and consume it when it is available and available cheaply.”  The National Grid is the electric power transmission network connecting power stations and substations and ensuring that generated electricity can be used to satisfy demand.  The Grid is where the “rubber meets the road” so to speak.  The grid system in the US has the same function.  But many industries cannot function profitable with intermittent power.  If you were a manufacturing company in the UK and you were to hear that power would become intermittent in the future, would you consider moving your business to someplace where zealots did not control the sources of electricity?

Is this the direction we want for the USA?   I think not.  But we have our zealots here as well.  Fortunately they have not gotten the degree of “say so” that is the case in the UK.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Energy Development, Environment, Windpower

Treasury: Few Renewable Energy Projects Deserve Funding

Posted on March 5, 2011 | 2 comments

The Treasury Department has been blocking many requests for renewable energy project subsidies.  They are doing this because there are so few that are technically or financially viable in their opinion.  The DOE has been complaining that the Treasury Department should back off.  So the President’s requested that his advisors look into this.  On 10/25/10 a memo from Larry Summers, Carol Browner and Ron Klain was sent to the President with their take on this squabble.

The memo was summed up in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) posting “Wind Jammers at the White House” on 11/12/10.

“The trio walks through an interagency dispute about Energy Department subsidies for wind, solar and other forms of “renewable” power, which DOE claimed were being held up by the joint Treasury and White House budget office (OMB) reviews.”

The WSJ notes that the DOE has a lot of moneys it wants to spread around.

“Recall that the stimulus transformed the government into the world’s largest private equity firm. The many tools now at DOE’s disposal include $6 billion to guarantee loans and another dispensation so that the department can convert an energy investment tax credit equal to 30% of a project’s cost into a direct cash grant to green developers.

The Summers memo notes that these two provisions alone reduce “the cost of a new wind farm by about 55% and solar technologies by about half relative to a no-subsidy case.” So taxpayers are more than majority partners in these private projects, except they get no upside.”

The last sentence is the kicker here,  “So taxpayers are more than majority partners in these projects, except they get no upside.”

The taxpayers not only get the downside because they pay  the capital cost but they then have to pay for the higher cost of electricity.  Now that’s a double whammy if I have ever heard of one.

The memo says that there are few viable projects to fund.   They said they found severe problems with “the economic integrity of government support for renewables.”  The WSJ continues with an example of the problem according to the  memo:

“Treasury and OMB singled out an 845-megawatt wind farm that the Energy Department had guaranteed in Oregon called Shepherds Flat, a $1.9 billion installation of 338 General Electric turbines. Combining the stimulus and other federal and state subsidies, the total taxpayer cost is about $1.2 billion, while sponsors GE and Caithness Energy LLC had invested equity of merely about 11%. The memo also notes the wind farm could sell power at “above-market rates” because of Oregon’s renewable portfolio standard mandate, which requires utilities to buy a certain annual amount of wind, solar, etc.”

“But then GE said it was considering “going to the private market for financing out of frustration with the review process.” Anything but that. The memo dryly observes that “the alternative of private financing would not make the project financially non-viable.”

“Oh, and while Shepherds Flat might result in about 18 million fewer tons of carbon through 2033, “reductions would have to be valued at nearly $130 per ton CO2 for the climate benefits to equal the subsidies (more than 6 times the primary estimate used by the government in evaluating rules).”

“So here we have the government already paying for 65% of a project that doesn’t even meet its normal cost-benefit test, and then the White House has to referee when one of the largest corporations in the world (GE) importunes the Administration to move faster by threatening to find a private financial substitute like any other business. Remind us again why taxpayers should pay for this kind of corporate welfare?”

Any questions?

cbdakota

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Energy Development, Environment, Windpower

Dept. of Energy’s Analysis Says Wind and Solar Not Competitive

Posted on March 2, 2011 | 1 comment

The Dept. of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) publishes their take on the relative cost of electrical generation systems every year.  This year’s “Levelized Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2011” forecast the dollars per megawatthour prices from different sources of electricity in the year 2016.  The EIA use 2016 because the long lead-time for some technologies are such that they could not be brought on before 2016 unless they were already under construction.

Lets cover some terms here to make sure we understand, before we look at the Levilized cost table, what criteria the EIA used to assemble it.

Levelized cost is often cited as a convenient summary measure of the overall competiveness of different generating technologies.  Levelized cost reflects overnight capital cost, fuel cost, fixed and variable O&M cost, financing costs, and an assumed utilization rate for each plant type. For technologies such as solar and wind generation that have no fuel costs and relatively small O&M costs, levelized cost changes in rough proportion to the estimated overnight capital cost of generation capacity. For technologies with significant fuel cost, both fuel cost and overnight cost estimates significantly affect levelized cost. “

(Overnight capital cost is the total cost, even if it took several years to build, as if it could be built in one day.)

“The availability of various incentives including state or federal tax credits can also impact the calculation of levelized cost. The values shown in the tables below do not incorporate any such incentives.  .”

A 3% penalty is added to fossil fuel plants that have high CO2 emissions, and that adds to the “ …. cost terms      its impact is similar to that of a $15 per metric ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fee when investing in a new coal plant without CCS,..   The adjustment should not be seen as an increase in the actual cost of financing, but rather as representing the implicit hurdle being added to GHG-intensive projects to account for the possibility they may eventually have to purchase allowances or invest in other GHG emission-reducing projects that offset their emissions.”

This chart gives renewables no credit for available subsidies and fossil fuel plants(coal and natural gas) are penalized for CO2 emissions.

The “total system levelized cost”–  the last column in the chart– is the forecast cost of electricity in 2009 $/megawatthour for each of the examined “plant types”.

The first three natural gas cases would be considered standard power generating facilities and their prices range from $66 to $89 per megawatthour.   The next two are “backup/peak” cases. These unit are natural gas driven turbines designed to be put rapidly into or taken out of service in order to  meet a rapid change in customer electrical demand OR  an unexpected change in supply of electricity.  These turbines are not something you want on-line like a major coal, nuclear or natural gas power generating plant because of their high cost,  but the major plants are not flexible enough to meet rapid demand changes.  In the past, the need for these turbines was, although not exclusively,  to manage rapid demand increases.   But now that wind and solar power are now mandated to be in the mix,  irregular swings in supply must  also be met.  The wind can quit blowing or the sun quit shining resulting in rapid changes in supply that cannot be predicted.   At this time, if the electrical system is required  to take on an electrical supply from either or both wind or solar, the system operators typically have to install matching turbine capacity to meet the swings introduced in the supply by these renewables.

The column labeled “capacity factor” represent the percentage of the rated capacity that is actually delivered by the various types of facilities.  The totally reliable system would operate at capacity 100% all of the time. The major fossil fuel power plant’s inability to produce at rated capacity occurs about 15% of the time.  Often the majority of this loss is due to planned shutdowns for annual maintenance.

Further examination of the chart shows that only the plant type onshore “Wind”   ($97/megawatt hour) is in the ballpark versus the cost for fossil fuel based power-generating facilities.  And none of the wind or solar cases exceeds a capacity factor of  34%,  with solar thermal at 18%.   Many critics say that 34% is misleading high because wind can not be banked upon to meet peak system demand.

What can we conclude from the Department of Energy’s EIA calculations?   Neither wind nor solar are cost competitive versus fossil fuel plants.   And this is likely to remain unchanged for a long time to come.  Through lavish use of subsidies, these facilities can be made to look competitive. However, no matter how the renewable cost looks after subsidies, you are still paying the non-competitive difference as the Federal and State governments are using your tax money to pay for the subsidies.

A final thought on the EIA analysis.  In the real world, duplicate fossil fuel capacity has to be added to match renewable electric supply because it is undependable.  So the backup unit capital cost should be charged against the wind and solar cases to make this comparison reflect reality.  That, of course, would make these renewable energy cases look even less competitive.

To read the EIA levelized cost report click here.

cbdakota

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy Development, Environment, Windpower

Obama’s Administration Policies Wont Lower Gas Prices

Posted on February 27, 2011 | Leave a comment

Whenever the price of gasoline takes a sharp rise, I get a flood of emails that have some scheme to beat those wascally waiders of our pocket-book–the usual suspect is Exxon/Mobile.   The scheme calls for us to not buy from Exxon or who ever the scheme writer doesn’t like.   Then this narrative says that to get back into the market the target company will have to lower prices thus start a price war.  This scheme might lower prices a few cents per gallon over time but it would not be  significant.  A more effective scheme would be for automotive community to drive 10% fewer miles each month.  The recent recession did affect supply and demand enough to make a significant change in price.  But now that we seem to be climbing slowly out of this really bad economy, we are driving more and the  gasoline prices are moving up.

Along with more miles being driven, the crude oil traders, fearing loss of producing fields resulting from the turmoil in the Middle-East,  are trying to secure their supply.  Thus bidding up of the price of a barrel of crude is underway.  Couple those two issues with the declining value of the dollar, the price  of crude is now in the vicinity of $100 per barrel.  (Remember, oil trades are denominated in dollars US.)

If the citizens of the US really want to bring crude oil prices down (and thus pump pricing) then it will be necessary to implement a program that will be at odds with the current administrations policies.  The Heritage Foundation has a proposal for doing just that: “THREE POLICY CHANGES TO HELP WITH GASOLINE PRICES” on their WebMemo blog site. The thrust of these three policy changes is summarized here:

A Familiar Pattern. When petroleum and gasoline prices shot up during the energy crisis of  1970, the experts and pundits predicted imminent resource exhaustion, skyrocketing prices, and energy poverty. Instead, markets responded by searching for, discovering, and producing enough oil to provide over two decades of low prices. For instance, in the U.S. alone, the number of drilling rigs more than tripled between September 1973 (before the Yom Kippur War and the subsequent Arab oil embargo) and December 1981. Now, imminent oil depletion and the futility of drilling are again supposedly on the horizon. However, increased drilling activity follows increased petroleum prices. Blunting this natural market response will drive up energy prices and reduce national income. This, plus the Keystone XL pipeline and scaling back EPA expansion of the Clean Air Act, would do much to stabilize gas prices and energy costs in general.

The three policy changes necessary according to the Heritage Foundation are:

1  INCREASE DRILLING

  • Relatively small changes in supply can have large impacts on price, especially when markets are tight. And tight markets are what caused the petroleum price spikes of 2008 and will cause them again if production is shut down while demand from a growing world economy squeezes the spare capacity the world has enjoyed for the past couple of years.
  • The first and most obvious place to drill is where there are already drilling rigs and proven reserves— such as the Gulf of Mexico. Despite the majority recommendation of its own scientific panel, the Obama Administration stopped virtually all new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. There have been recent signs that this policy might change. “Might” needs to be “will,” and soon.

2 SHELVE “LOW-CARBON FUEL STANDARDS”

  • The concept of “low-carbon fuel standards” is driving opposition to a petroleum pipeline from Canada.  With its oil sands, Canada has more proven petroleum reserves than any country other than Saudi Arabia. A consistent ally and long-time friendly neighbor, Canada is exactly the sort of supplier the U.S. should want to fill the gap in the petroleum it cannot produce on its own. But some policymakers want to put these vast reserves off limits to American consumers.
  • The Keystone XL pipeline would bring the U.S. over a million barrels of petroleum each day—more than it imports from either Saudi Arabia or Venezuela (the U.S.’s two largest suppliers after Canada and Mexico). Secretary of State Hillary Clinton should be applauded for her statements in support of the pipeline.  However, other components of the Administration, notably the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), have taken steps to slow or stop the pipeline.

3  STOP EPA ABUSE OF THE CLEAN AIR ACT

  • The EPA’s abuse of the Clean Air Act will drive up refining costs and, therefore, gasoline prices. Though the use of the act to regulate carbon dioxide (CO2) would create large problems in many places, the EPA recently started the process to regulate CO2 emissions from refineries. This regulation goes beyond the gasoline reformulation mandates that balkanize gasoline markets with higher-cost boutique fuels.
  • The new CO2 regulation puts an additional burden on refiners’ costs and subsequently raises prices of gasoline, diesel fuel, and home heating oil. Further, it will increase the amount of refined product the U.S. imports and reduce employment in an industry with wages that are more than 40 percent higher than the national average.

To read the Heritage blog in full  click

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, cap and trade, Energy Development, Environment

WINDPOWER AND ELECTRICAL STORAGE-BOSTON CONSULTING REPORT

Posted on February 16, 2011 | 4 comments

Many readers of these posting are familiar with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). During the years I was active in a business management role, we used BCG to provide consultancy for some of our business ventures.  BCG describes themselves as:

BCG is a global management consulting firm and the world’s leading advisor on business strategy. We partner with clients in all sectors and regions to identify their highest-value opportunities, address their most critical challenges, and transform their businesses.

I cannot speak to their specific claim to be the “world’s leading advisor on business strategy” but I believe that they are among the world’s best.

Why am I qualifying their expertise?   Because I want to use the report they issued in March 2010 as a reference: 1) to increase the reader’s understanding of the issues and 2) for demonstrating that without electricity storage, wind and solar can never make a real impact on electrical supplies.   Their report is titled “Electricity Storage—Making Large-Scale Adoption of Wind and Solar Energies a Reality”.   This report may be seen in total by clicking here.

A prior posting in this blog, “WINDPOWER WITHOUT ENERGY STORAGE DOES NOT COMPUTE” makes the case that these alternative energy sources are unreliable and thus cannot be scheduled as necessary to provide reliable transmission to customers.   Our government is offering large subsidies to make these alternatives “competitive”; however, the alternatives will never be truly competitive without energy storage.

These energy sources require something to compensate for the times when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun doesn’t shine.   To compensate, the BCG report discusses four approaches for electricity storage:

  • Grid Extension
  • Conventional Backup Power
  • Demand Side Management
  • Large Scale Storage

Grid Extension “involves linking electricity grids from different regions and transferring power from one to the other to compensate for fluctuations” BCG discusses the problems with this approach and conclude that it “will likely make an important contribution. ……But grid extension is not a standalone solution for the long run.”

Conventional Backup Power is the use of primarily fossil fuel powered generation plants that are brought on line or taken off line to compensate for the swings in Wind and Solar power generation.  BCG’s report presumes that fossil fuel power is the backup and concludes that”…we do not believe conventional backup capacity will be sufficient on its own or sustainable as we move toward a renewables-dominated electricity system in the long term”. (My emphasis added).   There is great momentum for the replacement of fossil fuels, particularly in the political class, as they lust for the attendant taxing and regulating which the removal of fossil fuels from general use would entail.   There is great uncertainty in the science of man-made global warming and thus any taxing and regulating is premature in particular because we are beginning to see an unraveling of this concept at present.

BCG continues by saying “Still we believe that conventional backup capacity will be indispensable for achieving the integration of renewable energy sources into the current power system in the coming years.”

Demand Side Management is described as having customers that are willing to scheduling their production or drying their clothes or what ever around the availability of electricity.   BCG states that this will have limited value and cites studies carried out in Germany and the US  ”found that Demand Side Management offers a demand reduction potential of only approximately 2 percent of peak load.”

Large Scale Storage is the collection of excess power generated, for example, when the wind and sun are peaking.  BCG states the positives for storage “Unlike interregional compensation, storage provides a self-sufficient solution for one specific region and hence is not affected by increases in penetration of fluctuating renewables across the board.

As BCG says,  “The approach is not perfect, however.  All electricity-storage technologies are inefficient to a degree: part of the energy fed into the system cannot be discharged later on and is lost. “ BCG notes that the range of efficiencies ranges from 45% to 80% and BCG states this is a key weakness for storage.  BCG lists the following as possible candidates for commercial storage.

  • Mechanical storage which encompasses pumped hydroelectric               storage, compressed air, and flywheel energy.
  • Thermal storage encompassing hot water, molten-salt, and phase change material storage.
  • Electrical storage including supercapacitors and superconducting magnets
  • Electrochemical storage including flow and static batteries.
  • Chemical or hydrogen storage

BCG looks at the pros and cons of these candidates and you can read the full report and make your own judgment about which ones, if any, will be the winners.

BCG further says:  “While the business case for investing in storage is currently weak, that situation will necessarily change.  Today’s fluctuations in generation are compensated for relatively easily and cheaply by flexible conventional power plants, but the march toward a fossil-fuel free energy landscape continues:……”  and “Wind and solar PV are the most competitive and widely available renewable sources and will certainly account for the lion’s share of the renewable energy produced—-and they require storage to be viable.”

The report is a good source for background information and, and in my view, it supports the obvious conclusion that wind and solar are, at the current time, largely an unnecessary expenditures that the ratepayer must endure.  Two issues are yet to be resolved.  Firstly, to be technically and economically viable electrical storage facility will have to make their way into the system.  Hopefully not, as the BCG report supposes, through yet more subsidies but rather at a time when the market forces are such that these energies are the logical, economic way to go on their own merit.   The second issue is that question of man-made global warming (AGW) theory and the part it is playing.  In my view the time frame for these renewables to make their way into the market should not be predicated on being supported by such a slender reed as AGW.   I believe these renewables will take a hit that will set them back many years when the rate payer revolts against the high price and unreliable delivery brought about by non-economic, government mandates.

cbdakota

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Posted in AGW, Alternative Energy, Energy Development, Environment, Windpower

WINDPOWER WITHOUT ENERGY STORAGE DOES NOT COMPUTE

Posted on January 30, 2011 | 3 comments

Just for starters, lets say it so everyone knows where this posting is coming from:

Because Windpower energy is unreliable and thus cannot be scheduled as necessary  for transmission to customers, it does not make any significant addition to the US energy supply base.  Presently, it thrives only because financial slight of hand (subsidies) and legislative mandates requiring that it be part of the utility’s energy mix.  Moreover, and somewhat ironically, it does not result in a reduction of CO2 from fossil fuel burning; in fact it usually requires additional fossil fuel based generating capacity to provide the backup.

Until such time as reliable and economic energy storages systems are developed wind energy will be an expensive burden to the ratepayers.    If the government wants do spend my money to develop alternative energy sources, put it where it will have real value—energy storage.

Jon Boone posted “Oxymoronic Windpower (Part II:Windspeak)” on the MasterResource site and lists reasons why windpower is not presently a viable energy source:

Let’s examine the evidence.

1.Despite more than 100,000 huge wind turbines in operation around the world, with about 35,000 in North America, no coal plants have been closed because of wind technology. In fact, many more coal plants are in the offing, both in the US and throughout the world. Moreover, a Colorado energetics company, Bentek, recently published a study about wind in Texas and Colorado showing, in its study areas, that wind volatility caused coal plants to perform more inefficiently, “often resulting in greater SO2, NOx, and CO2 emissions than would have occurred if less wind energy were generated and coal generation was not cycled.” Further examination of fuel use for electricity in both states during the time of inquiry suggested that wind caused no reduction in coal consumption.

2.Unpredictable, undispatchable, volatile wind can provide for neither baseload nor peak load situations. It can only be an occasional supplement that itself requires much supplementation. Consequently, as Australian engineer Peter Lang once wrote, since “wind cannot contribute to the capital investment in generating plants… [it] simply is an additional capital investment.”

3.Wind technology does NOT represent alternate energy. Since wind cannot provide controllable power and has no capacity value, it cannot be an alternative for machines that do provide controllable power and high capacity value. Wind therefore is incapable of entering into a zero-sum relationship with fossil-fired capacity—that is, more wind, less coal. All other conditions being equal (demand, supply, weather, etc), more wind generally means more coal.

4.None of the considerable public subsidies for wind, indeed, not even state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) laws, are indexed to measured reductions in carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel consumption. Consequently, there is no transparency or accountability for how wind technology will achieve the goals set forth by those policy initiatives. This means that corporations with a lot of fossil-fired marketshare to protect have no obligation to replace it with wind. And they don’t. Because they can’t. Freedom from responsibility is a child’s fairy tale dream come true.

5.The work of a number of independent engineers—Hawkins, Lang, Oswald, Le Pair and De Groot—suggests that even the most effective fossil fuel pairing with wind, natural gas, will very marginally reduce overall natural gas consumption beyond what would occur using only natural gas generators, without any wind whatsoever.

6.Because oil provides barely 1% of the nation’s electricity, wind represents no threat to oil’s marketshare.

Regarding point no. 2 above,  the operator of the electrical distribution system has to provide power that meets the customer’s quantity demand very precisely at a steady voltage and frequency.  With coal, natural gas or hydro the base load can be managed.   To manage the demand peaks and valleys, natural gas turbines are often used as they can be brought on line or taken off line rather rapidly.  These facilities are under the control of power plant operations. Wind however is not controllable.  Sometimes the wind blows,  sometimes it doesn’t and it can change in a matter of minutes from high speed wind to medium speed wind to no wind and vice versa.

If a reliable and cost effective energy storage system were available,   the  windpower unit could direct its production into that system.  The storage system would allow the windpower unit to take advantage of the days when the wind was blowing forcefully and store the power.  This would significantly raise the ratio of delivered power as a function of rated power.  The electrical distribution system operators would know how much power was available and could  schedule it from the storage system.

Alas, no such energy storage system is currently available.

cbdakota

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Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy Development, Environment, Windpower