Sweden's gleaming wind park is entering service at a time when wind energy is coming under sharper scrutiny, not just from hostile neighbors, who complain that the towers are a blot on the landscape, but from energy experts who question its reliability as a source of power.
For starters, the wind does not blow all the time. When it does, it does not necessarily do so during periods of high demand for electricity. That makes wind a shaky replacement for more dependable, if polluting, energy sources like oil, coal and natural gas. Moreover, to capture the best breezes, wind farms are often built far from where the demand for electricity is highest. The power they generate must then be carried over long distances on high-voltage lines, which in Germany and other countries are strained and prone to breakdowns.
In the United States, one of the areas most suited for wind turbines is the central part of the country, stretching from Texas through the northern Great Plains — far from the coastal population centers that need the most electricity.
Thats the trick though. The flaw goes away if you counter it.
According to the American Meteorological Society, By interconnecting multiple wind farms, you get a reliable baseload power for atleast a third of it's total capacity.
If a source of power can be connected to the grid, then the power can be evened out nationally. When the sun isn't shining, then maybe it is windy instead.
Power grid managers have a variety of sources of power at their disposal, which can be categorised not only by the fuel, but in a more useful way to them:
- For example, the kinds of plant that are relatively cheap to run and that can be run for very long periods of time without significant down time. Such plants are often very slow to get going - sometimes several months in the case of a mothballed plant. They supply the day-in-day-out demands, but cannot respond to peaks in demand.
- Plants that can respond to increased demand within a few minutes or hours - these can deal with the predicted daily peaks, whether regularly recurring or predicted one-off events such as everyone watching a royal wedding on TV.
- Plants that can react very quickly to unexpected demands, for example the Dinorwig Power Station, which pumps water up the mountain using spare electricity at off peak times from the first category of power plant above, and releases it to produce near instant electric power on demand.
Different kinds of plant fit into these different categories, and also into different cost bands, and grid managers need a mix of them to provide power whenever it is needed at minimum cost.
Solar power would fit in well as it is produced during the day when manufacturing is at a peak, and in some areas, air conditioning is also drinking electricity. It does not work so well in Northern Climes where there is a peak of demand for heating in the winter. It is capable of responding rapidly.
Wind power would fit in to provide power at night, when there is no solar power.
The other alternative technologies also have their advantages and disadvantages.
So, it really does not make sense to look at one energy source in isolation and either hail it as the solution or write it off as being useless. Each region is different. It may have different energy sources available to it, or the same ones in different proportions or at different costs, and a different pattern of demand. So each region has to look at its whole portfolio now and over the future (up to 50 years or more ahead, given the lifetime of some kinds of power plant) and see what new energy sources or replacements of or improvements to existing ones will best enable it to deal with predicted demand at minimal financial and environmental cost.
Sue N.
Posts: 4624 | Location: UK | Registered: 16 November 2004
Originally posted by Sue N: If a source of power can be connected to the grid, then the power can be evened out nationally. When the sun isn't shining, then maybe it is windy instead.
Power grid managers have a variety of sources of power at their disposal, which can be categorised not only by the fuel, but in a more useful way to them:
- For example, the kinds of plant that are relatively cheap to run and that can be run for very long periods of time without significant down time. Such plants are often very slow to get going - sometimes several months in the case of a mothballed plant. They supply the day-in-day-out demands, but cannot respond to peaks in demand.
- Plants that can respond to increased demand within a few minutes or hours - these can deal with the predicted daily peaks, whether regularly recurring or predicted one-off events such as everyone watching a royal wedding on TV.
- Plants that can react very quickly to unexpected demands, for example the Dinorwig Power Station, which pumps water up the mountain using spare electricity at off peak times from the first category of power plant above, and releases it to produce near instant electric power on demand.
Different kinds of plant fit into these different categories, and also into different cost bands, and grid managers need a mix of them to provide power whenever it is needed at minimum cost.
Solar power would fit in well as it is produced during the day when manufacturing is at a peak, and in some areas, air conditioning is also drinking electricity. It does not work so well in Northern Climes where there is a peak of demand for heating in the winter. It is capable of responding rapidly.
Wind power would fit in to provide power at night, when there is no solar power.
The other alternative technologies also have their advantages and disadvantages.
So, it really does not make sense to look at one energy source in isolation and either hail it as the solution or write it off as being useless. Each region is different. It may have different energy sources available to it, or the same ones in different proportions or at different costs, and a different pattern of demand. So each region has to look at its whole portfolio now and over the future (up to 50 years or more ahead, given the lifetime of some kinds of power plant) and see what new energy sources or replacements of or improvements to existing ones will best enable it to deal with predicted demand at minimal financial and environmental cost.
The problem with integration of wind in the current US model is that load following (i.e. matching generation to demand) is generally performed in relatively small regional control areas. The ability to dilute the intermittency of wind across a wide, mult-state area will require a significant shift in the way plants are managed and dispatched. Still the energy is effectively free, and for the most part clean, so the market will surely find a way
When a true genius enters this world, you will know him by this sign, all the dunces will be in confederacy against him ---Johnathan Swift
Well, in my humble opinion, the ultimate flawed power source is taking someone elses by force, because you can. In the case of Iraq we are spending far more on the war than the oil we are getting, plus it's the oil companies retaining the profit and the war profiteers gettig rich, while GUESS WHO pay the bill...
I applaud Sweden.
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
Originally posted by bill king: Well, in my humble opinion, the ultimate flawed power source is taking someone elses by force, because you can. In the case of Iraq we are spending far more on the war than the oil we are getting, plus it's the oil companies retaining the profit and the war profiteers gettig rich, while GUESS WHO pay the bill... I applaud Sweden.
Heh, but I will mention that Oil is almost entirely not used in the electricity sector.
It's most prominent use is merely backup generators.
-GreyFlcn
Posts: 62 | Location: California | Registered: 17 November 2007
Ok here's a windmill that claims to be not twice as efficient, or 3 times as efficient, but 1000 times more efficient/effective/energy-producing than regular windmills!
"These things which man purports to admire-the noble, the brilliant, the splendid-these are the very things he cannot tolerate when he finds them."-----Mark Clifton
Posts: 5565 | Location: hoffman estates il | Registered: 01 April 2003
That's fascinating, thanks, Bill. But I wonder how they are deciding how much space a windmill takes up. It is possible to grow crops, etc. underneath, though they do take up the space of thier base plus access roads, fences, etc.
Sue N.
Posts: 4624 | Location: UK | Registered: 16 November 2004
Bad news Sue, NO POWER SOURCE RUNS EXACTLY WHEN NEEDED. Fossil fuel and nuclear plants are most efficent when run all the time. It's best to use a mix of renuable/non-renuable plants going ASAP, so one can approximate the need for power.
This is where a power storage system is important, like hydrogen or superconductors. There was a test that ran a current through a superconductor or 10 years with no loss of power.
Here are the drawbacks of each tech: Superconductors - cost of cooling, current density (amps/square inch). I believe current density is higher in Type I superconductors, type II are cheaper to cool.
Hydrogen - as a storage medium only - how much power is lost converting the water to hydrogen, and if electricity is used how much energy is lost converting to electricity and transmitting it? Here is the theroretical maximum. The majority of it's power will be lost.
Wind - the formula for energy at converntional speeds is similiar to the formula
e = mc2
at convetional speeds
e = (1/2) mv squared v = velocity
the mass is proportional to the speed so as you go from a 1 mph wind to a 2 mph wind you double the mass,
define a constant 2k as the mass passing by at a particular speed, so mass = 2k*v e = 1/2* mv squared becomes e = 1/2*(2k*v)v squared e = kv cubed
so it's even more varible than one would normally suspect.
of course solar is dependant on the sun being out.
"No one ever went broke underestimating the American people."
PT Barnum
Posts: 1148 | Location: Repentant States of America | Registered: 28 November 2003
Yes, there's no ideal solution. But I would think we could do better than we are doing now, and on how people in the fossil and nuclear fuel industry plan on doing.
Sue N.
Posts: 4624 | Location: UK | Registered: 16 November 2004
Originally posted by Sue N: Yes, there's no ideal solution. But I would think we could do better than we are doing now, and on how people in the fossil and nuclear fuel industry plan on doing.
Well if you don't want fossil, in the near term, we should follow Europes lead and return to nuclear. If we can subsidize wind and solar at the level we are, we should at least be able to appropriately regulate new nukes.
When a true genius enters this world, you will know him by this sign, all the dunces will be in confederacy against him ---Johnathan Swift
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