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The Power Grid Can't Handle Wind Farms
DesScorp writes "The Times reports on the problems of adding wind farms to the power grid. Because of the grid's old design, it can't handle the various spikes that wind farms sometimes have, and there's no efficient way to currently move massive amounts of that power from one section of the country to the other. Further complicating things is the fact that under current laws, power grid regulation is a state matter, and the Federal government has comparatively little authority over it right now. Critics are calling for federal authority over the grid, and massive new construction of 'superhighways' to share the wind power wealth nationally. Quoting the article, 'The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.'"
In the 1950s the government set about a huge project to link America's cities and states via high speed road links. The investment has paid off well, and a similar project on our power infrastructure (especially if they could build a fibre network alongside) would pay off just as handsomely.
Or the states could step up and do it themselves:
Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power (Transmission) Project
The next time you drive by a nuclear plant take a look at the transmission infrastructure. You might see three different sets of pylons leaving each with a couple of 500kV circuits.
It takes wires to move electricty from generation to load, I don't know why they are surprised that when they build a wind farm in the middle of nowhere there transmission capacity to handle all that extra energy.
Especially since everybody says they have hardly built anything new in the way of transmission...of course there is no spare capacity!
The summary is a crock and doesn't match the quoted article.
Transporting large and variable amounts of generated power is the dual of feeding large and varying loads. The power grid can handle it just fine.
The problem TFA alludes to is that, while cities and industrial plants already have fat lines to them from the rest of the grid, windfarms are new construction generally sited in rural areas that don't already have a "fat pipe" available. So (for a wind farm bigger than about twice the local load) you have to run some new lines.
Just like you would if you built a new auto plant or aluminum smelter in the same location.
It's a regular line, just like the ones feeding loads. It just happens to be running the power the other way.
Of course some people would love to get the government to pay for the line to their new wind farm, rather than bearing that expense as part of the project. And some people in government would love to have more authority and a bigger budget. So we get FUD like this.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I just toured a nearby dam, and was presented some very insightful ideas.
Nuclear and coal power are great for handling base load because they provide consistent power.
But peak load is where the money is; turning on power systems when they're needed to match the load at that second. Solar, wind, and water are all peak-load power supplies because they are not always consistent, vary widely according to weather and time of year and regulations, and can be very unclean with spikes. This is why these power systems cannot replace base load systems yet.
The solution is to even out our peak load systems so that they are more consistent and more like base load systems. Whether that's tying many different types together and hoping they even out naturally, or storing the energy in some kind of battery in the middle.
Since battery technology is nowhere near ready, a viable option is to store water in reservoirs behind dams, using wind and solar energy to pump water up, then releasing it evenly through a generator. This is even being employed in some countries.
This has been the case for years and isn't an inherent problems with wind farms. Many areas (California, Connecticut) are full of NIMBY people and large amounts of power must be imported. Quebec and New Brunswick Canada, have been exporting to us for a long time. One of the biggest problems is that some generation companies are also in the transmission business.
If area A has a surplus but area B needs power, and the lines cannot handle the transmission, then the price for electricity in B goes up. This is a complex case of supply and demand. The grid is a lot more fragile than it appears. In many places there is a desperate need for more generation/transmission, but the anti-infrastructure people are driving up the cost of electricity by not allowing infrastructure improvements to be made.
I worked at one plant that had to erect a huge sound wall around the entire plant. It worked great, but cost around $2 million including all the sound studies etc. The people next door claimed they never knew when the plant was operating (clear exhaust). We CAN build large power plants in your backyard, and you won't even know they are there- aside from the plant staff spending it up in local businesses.
Why yes, I do work in the power industry.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Where the hell did you learn HTML?
not true.
He needed land grants and money from JP Morgan.
He purchased much of the railroad from failing companies.
There was huge corruption and wall street issues from the trust. Something that required government intervention to break up.
The practically destroyed wall street.
He was able to stay in business by giving an unfair advantage to his other business using the rail road during hard times. Basically shifting money on paper.
He did build 1700 miles of track, but at nearly slave labor rates.
The US government has done many very large and complex projects without corruption.
Nobody in the US has enough money to fix the grid.
The grid must be fixed for us to move into a new distributed system.
It's a perfect job for the government. Not to private contractors. That is where you get corruption, and failed projects.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A wire has a given amount of current that can flow through it before it melts. Take a thin wire and connect it to the + and - terminals on your car battery (use thick leather gloves so you don't get burned) and see what happens when you stuff too much power down a wire.
Here is a link to the outfit that runs the grid in Ontario. When a generator wants to generate but can't due to the fact that there isn't enough transmission capacity to get the power out of their plant they get "constrained off", ie they don't generate. The link talks about how much they get paid for not generating.
Must be nice to get paid for doing nothing.
But anyway, wires do get congested but not the same way your nose does.
As of 2000, stored power to the tune of about 2.5% of the US load (19.5 gigawatts) was online in the form of Pumped Storage. The EU had 32 gigawatts.
There's plenty of room to do more of that out in the desert; it can be subsurface, so as to have little or no long-term impact on the environment (obviously construction would temporarily beat up the habitat, though.) All pumped storage requires are wires, pumps, generators, a couple of big storage systems (one uphill, one down), and water. Doesn't have to be fresh water, either. The larger the height difference, the more energy can be stored. It's lossy; but still, it is both clean and effective.
Companies like EEStor that are working to create ultracapacitors with storage capacities exceeding those of batteries may be key to storage; storage can be local, on a per-unit basis which insulates users from the myriad types of grid failures that occur. It also allows them to store power locally if they generate any themselves (solar, etc.) Ultracaps are good for moderate term storage without much loss, and they can be fused in such a way as to prevent huge power discharges in case of accidents, so they're pretty safe.
There are some other contenders - flywheels, for instance -- but do *you* want an aging flywheel, high mass, high speed, coming apart in your basement? Me either. I saw a 4-inch grinder wheel come apart once and chunks of it outright severed a 2x4 in the wall next to the workbench. So those are probably best left in large scale storage farms.
Aside from storage, the thing that has always amazed me is that solar never seems to become really affordable. No matter how many ways they make it, or what tech they use, somehow, I can't buy inexpensive panels that will cope with hot summers, cold winters, and rain. New printing process? Ultra cheap cells? Mass production? Sure, I hear about those. But for SOME reason, all their output is bought up, and I can't buy the stuff. Not to get out the tinfoil, but if nothing else, it is very annoying.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
You know its not all milk and honey. Theres a good pile of evidence that this Texas wind thing is one giant con so that Oil man Mr. Pickens can use newly created government power of eminent domain to snatch up land and sell his water pet project under the radar. Like they always say, follow the money.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_25/b4089040017753.htm?chan=magazine+channel_top+stories
for those who won't read it Pickens has been buying rights to a massive water reserve in Texas and has been having trouble building a pipeline through peoples property, so he is buying the law instead "In January, 2007, the Texas Legislature convened.. helped win Pickens a key new legal right. It was contained in an amendment to a major piece of water legislation. The amendment, one of more than 100 added after the bill had been reviewed in the House, allowed a water-supply district to transmit alternative energy and transport water in a single corridor, or right-of-way." and then "Pickens still needed the power of eminent domain if he was going to build his pipeline and wind-power lines across private land. And by happy coincidence, the legislators passed a smaller bill that made that all the easier. The new legislation loosened the requirements for creating a water district."
Long story short he's creating a new water and power district to sell this and is using public feel good green hype to get subsidy's and push through his new project that will drain a water resource that is very slow to renewal, out from under everyone else around it, to sell at low prices to Dallas, which is one of the most wastfull cites in Texas when it comes to water. Anyone who thinks someone who was part of the 80's raiders and swift boating can actually do something without a hidden con is a fucking idiot.
Given the fact that the NIMBY factor for power lines,power plants, nuke power, roads, dams, whatever is so high, the odds of at least one person objecting is virtually 100%.
Therefore, if you would like to have nuke power, power lines, roads, high speed rail, whatever, you will *need* to force somebody to fucking move for the greater good. Otherwise, you will never get the right-of-way to make your project happen. We have granted our government the ability to force people to fucking move out of the way.
We call this Eminent Domain.
Why anyone wants Federal control of anything is beyond me
Given that large scale projects are impossible without forcing somebody to move, do you feel comfortable granting eminent domain to private industry?
If you say "make it all states rights" given that many of these large scale projects affect multiple states, you'll wind up with heavy federal oversight anyway. Let states do it all, and they'll sue eachother when the other guy builds a huge damn. They'll sue when their state law conflicts with the other state law. You either get federal agencies for interstate projects, or you get a metric assload of federal judicial "weight".
The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer is not just slow to renew, it is not going to renew naturally in our lifetimes. People need to know about this because the aquifer covers 8 states including corn growing ones where ethanol projects are literally pumping the aquifer into their gas tanks at the expense of drinking water.
Grid: I want the wind power!
Windfarm: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE WIND POWER!
Storage? Springs. Lots of them. A massive booby trap farm that releases at night.
To do list for Windows
They could start storing energy thermally:
Give houses a large tank of water. In the winter heat the water when there is an electricity surplus, then use the hot water to heat the house. In the summer cool the water when there is an electricity surplus, then use the cold water to cool the house.
That would be a very environmentally friendly and almost 100% efficient way to store the energy. It would be much cheeper than batteries or any other storage method. And when you consider that 80% to 90% of domestic electricity is used for cooling or heating it would go a long way towards dealing with the problems of storing renewable energy.
Well,
It'd be cheaper than 5-years in Iraq, Yankee. And do a lot more towards keeping you secure.
But as a product of what America calls "education", you might find some dispute with that bright light of reason.
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
"Protected". I don't think that word is appropriate. "Stolen". There I fixed it for you.
What part of Global Military Adventurism in support of Corporate Profits can be construed as the sworn mission: Defending the Nation and it's Constitution?
America is like a giant, sucking leech. With guns.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
The truth is, we live in a world that needs oil. And that oil has to be protected by men with guns.
Oh I see. So women with guns can't protect oil.
When the supply of wind power collapses send a message through a network to appliances which can be switched off for a few minutes without causing too many problems.
Heaters could work this way. They could pay a lower charge for energy in return for participating in load balancing.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
"Solar panels on every building in America? How do you propose to pay for it?"
That's for the Americans to work out. Meanwhile Germany is pumping ~1GW of EXCESS power from rooftop solar panels back on to their grid. They estimate they have cut their CO2 emmissions by ~100 million tons. This change has increased the average German power bill by about one euro/month.
Continental scale infrastructure is a long term thing for humans, you can't notice it changing until you have lived the several decades it takes to see the change. Nobody is talking about covering every US roof with solar panels before next xmas, even with huge subsidies it would still take decades.
So what is wrong with upgrading/extending the grid as the need from rooftop PV arises? - I'm sure the current grid has seen quite a bit of upgrading since 1958 and I would be surprised if any power plants from the 50's are still operating today, IIRC most plants have a planned lifetime of 30-40yrs.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Flywheels - That's the ticket!
And UltraCapacitors....
Both of those can take VERY high in-rush currents...
And then can output at what ever current you tell it to.
It's a similar solution to regenerative braking in Electric Vehicles: There is much more current coming off the "brakes" than a battery pack can handle. ie more than 100 AMPS! coming from the electric motor temporarily converted to an electric generator.
OK, here's some important things to note:
1: more wind does not mean more wind power. The generators are each computer comtrolled, and some wind turbines are spun up and down depending on the current damnd the grid can handle, in cooperation with other local power stations. We can DIRECTLY control how much wind energy we make and don't make.
2: equally, When wind falls back, most of the turbines are actually spinning with brakes having slowed the blades to slightly less than full spinning potential. The systems calibrate for light wind by releasing those restrictions, and the blades still spin at speed for multiple seconds, and even then, due the the weight of the blades, don't slow down very quickly... Local power companies have pleanty of time to spin up additional power.
Now, we do still need both wind and local power in a wind power environment. Some of the windo power can be used to push water uphill for on-demand hydro power later, but that's both expensive and limited in scope.
Also, wind power in the west, and across texas can't power all of america unless we add to the grid. They are correct, our current grid can't handle it, but anytime we're talking about adding power generation, we're also including in that the idea that we'll be expanding the grid as well. A superconducting line has been running on Long Island since April. The technology is proven, we somply need to deploy a few east-west and north-south lines, and some junction points, and we can distribute wind power across the whole nation.
Now, all that said, the braking systems, preventing over and under power, long distance transmission costs, and more, mean that we loose at least 15% efficiency on wind power generation. Why not let the turbines run full tilt all the time, producing direct current for electrolysis and make H2, which does NOT have to be grid balanced power. Instead of storing the H2, and trying to spend trillions building a new infrastructure for cars million dolar fule cells to run on it (read, you and I will NEVER drive one of these), we instead takle the H2 and run it to a local mixing plant and through an RFTS process using reclamated CO2, and we can make liquid fuels, on-site, and pipeline those fuels easily and safely using our existing infrastructure and keep driving our existing cars.
Doty Energy (www.dotyenergy.com) can do this TODAY. Costs for gasoline will be about $60/bbl, half what we're paying now. The CO2 we sequester from coal burning in current power plants will go to fuel the process in combination with H2 and some water. The byproducts are limted (and less than we get from making existing fuels). Eventually, new coal plants will also be capable of using liquid fuels in place of coal, so we'll be able to use WSindFuels to make power, then sequester it, recycle the CO2, and using free energy, make more fuel, in a process that will release 75% less CO2 total (since the car's won't be sequestering it's not completely CO2 free), release fewer byproducts, and allow us to continue using technology we already have, and to be free of foreign oil.
To run the whole country on WindFuels, including grid overhauls, pipeline upgrades, windfarms, and more, will cost about 40 trillion over 30-40 years. Fortunately, building this infrastructure is PROFITABLE, and since it can be deployed gradually, with much of the profit going back to system expansion, we should be able to get a great start on it with about 100 billion invested total.
It's also nice that ANYONE can built an RTFS plant, for about $50 million, and can make and sell fuels, lubricants, and just about any other hydrocarbon, directly to the open market. This means big oil won;t be able to control and corner the market, and fuel prices will remain in proportion to costs, not in proportion to demand.
If you want to know more, check out dotyenergy.com. The site is quire detailed already, but they're actually willing to share their reseaarch and numbers, and hope you'll find fault with the solution. A co
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.