[ RadSafe ] World's Biggest Wind Park -Capacity Factor vs. Nuclear

[Dukelow, James S Jr]

John Flood has written a bunch of stuff that doesn't bear much
relationship to reality.  My comments are interpolated.
-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of Flood, John
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 1:26 PM
To: James Salsman
Cc: radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] World's Biggest Wind Park -Capacity Factor vs.
Nuclear

-----Original Message-----
From: James Salsman [mailto:james at bovik.org]
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 12:26 PM

>> It is that maintenance cost that has driven so many wind farm 
>> operations into bankruptcy.  Even the operators that acquired wind 
>> farms from bankruptcy sales at ten cents on the dollar go bankrupt 
>> themselves....

>Do you have a source for that?  The economics have been changing quite
rapidly.  Perhaps you are referring to the 1970s Altamont Pass
operators?

Altamont has gone bankrupt many times, as recently as the end of the
1990s (I lived there at the time).  And each new owner acquired the
system from a fraction of the predecessor's cost and still couldn't
survive.  The technology is the oldest and that's a huge factor, but it
is a glaring example of the undesirable realities of wind power as a
business.

[JSD comment:  Altamont is thirty year old technology and its economic
performance doesn't bear much relationship to current wind turbines and
wind farms. End JSD comment]

>> If the wind system cannot achieve a reasonably steady state output,
it 
>> realistically has to be limited to less than the margin above load
for 
>> the system.  Otherwise it becomes an immediate threat to the
stability 
>> of the grid.

>Again, shaping fully addresses this issue.  The technical issues of
modulation, and storage are easily overcome.  The most advanced storage
systems involve stationary hydrogen fuel cell storage with electrolysis.
That recovers about 45% of input, easily modulating output.

Some math - let's use an example of a region that has a 24,000 Mwe max
load.  Most mass production generation has a capacity factor of about
80% - producing about 80% of the maximum amount of power possible each
year.  The combination of maintenance and weather put the capacity
factor for wind at about 30-35% (I'll use 33%).  That will apply to a
diversified system placed of a large region to achieve the shaping
benefits that minijmize the impact of migrating weather systems.

For conventional (traditional, old fashioned) generation, the power
company needs about 10,000 MWe of capacity to meet demand in the
example.  A wind system will need 24,000 MWe of capacity to meet the
same system demand.  That increases the amount land to be leased or
acquired, spreads the maintenance work farther afield, and significantly
increases transmission costs - because of migratory weather systems, the
locations were power is produced keeps changing, but the locations of
use do not, which makes wheeling the power a steady cost instead of
intermittent.  The long-term effectiveness (meaning reliability) of the
storage methods hasn't been learned (we only have projections at the
moment), so that cost to the operator is a gamble.

[JSD comment: As I noted in an earlier message, some systems, like BPA,
come with storage capacity already available.  A careful study of
integration of wind farms into electrical grids is _Grid Impacts of Wind
Power: A Summary of Recent Studies in the United States_, available at
www.nrel.gov/wind/pdfs/grid_intergration_studies_draft.pdf .  end JSD
comment]

None of this factors in such topics of how one maintains units floating
on platforms in the North Sea (they'll have an awful time finding people
willing to go out there in winter, and that will be a significant
handicap - either much higher cost from offering too much to refuse or
reduced capacity).  If you've ever seen the North Sea in winter, you'll
understand what I mean.

[JSD comment: They don't seem to have any trouble getting people to work
on drilling platforms in the North Sea in winter or on fishing boats in
the North Sea and the Gulf of Alaska in winter.  end JSD comment]

Birds - turbine design can help this problem, but it won't solve it.
The rotating device is a hazard to a bird, period.  The rest of the
relative importance relies on the birds, not the machines.  The land
where the farm is placed has a certain bird population, but also hosts
migrating birds at varying times, with some locations providing shelter
in some years and not others.  That means that experince so far with
newer designs may not be a representative sample of long-term use (a
gamble for the operator).  And since we're pushing toward wind power to
move away from the warming effects of fossil fuels, we should expect
that climate change (warming) will alter bird migration patterns, but we
don't how.  So some and possibly all decisions about where to place
farms to minimize impact on bird populations will be invalidated by
climate changes.  Another gamble for the operator.

[JSD comment:  A one or two year study of bird populations and migratory
pathways is a requirement for the siting of wind farms in the US.
Altamont is the only wind farm where bird kill has been a significant
problem.  Lighted skyscrapers in big cities kill thousands of birds a
year, but we keep building them. end JSD comment]

Higher risk projects require higher return to attract investment.  Wind
hasn't reached that yet - it's far closer than 20 years ago, but it has
a way to go yet.

[JSD comment: You might want to visit the Florida Power and Light web
site for some insight into why they have invested so much money in wind
farms all over the country, including being the majority investor in the
400-500 MW of new wind turbines along the Columbia Gorge, where I live.
Wind is economically competitive with fossil fuels at $5/million BTUs.
end JSD comment]

Bob Flood

===========

Best regards.

Jim Dukelow
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Richland, WA
Jim.dukelow at pnl.gov

These comments are mine and have not been reviewed and/or approved by my
management or by the U.S. Department of Energy.