Expanding the Electricity Grid May Be a Mistake

Perhaps T. Boone Pickens was onto something. Al writes "An article in Technology Review argues that plans to string new high-voltage lines across the US to bring wind power from the midsection of the country to the coasts, could be an expensive mistake. What's needed instead are improved local and regional electricity transmission, the development of an efficient and adaptable smart grid, and the demonstration of technology such as carbon capture and sequestration, which could prove a cheaper way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than transmitting power from North Dakota to New York City."

Comments

Yeah

[MightyMartian]

Yes, because we all know that every locale has magic electricity faeries just waiting to produce low-carbon-footprint electricity.

Re:Yeah

[dachshund]

Too bad the people who oppose it do so without offering any real alternative besides the "renewables" that we've been waiting decades for or the prospect of a lower standard of living.....

I've met the opponents of nuclear energy, and they're not tree-huggers. They're your neighbors. They drive SUVs, have backyard cookouts, and they buy still buy mylar balloons even though so-and-so says the kill whales (the kids love them... what can you do?). In fact, they don't even care about the possible environmental impact of nuclear power plants --- just as long as they're nowhere the hell nearby.

Some people delude themselves into the idea we'd be building nuclear plants everywhere if it wasn't for those environmentalists (and their pesky dog!) In real life, there's about a snowball's chance of nuclear plants being constructed near major population centers. In part that's because the economics suck, but mostly it's because Joe and Jane sixpack don't want them there.

It may feel nice to shout hypocrisy at those evil environmentalists, but it's a mug's game. So get it out of your system, go learn a bit about this great country we live in. Then come back and maybe you can contribute something.

Re:Yeah

[The_Quinn]

there's about a snowball's chance of nuclear plants being constructed near major population centers. In part that's because the economics suck, but mostly it's because Joe and Jane sixpack don't want them there.

There are already nearly 100 nuclear plants in the U.S. alone, and the people being served by them seem generally fine with it and do not fear it.

Most of the fear-mongering comes, historically, from environmentalists, who essentially place the environment above the well being of humans. Virtually every proposed form of energy production is disliked by core environmentalists, including wind (which takes 10's of thousands of acres of turbines to equal a medium-sized coal plant) and solar (taking 12.5 square miles of cells to match a large coal plant). And those only generate energy when the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining.

The only form I haven't heard environmentalists condemn is geothermal (probably because I'm ignorant of it), but geothermal causes earthquakes

Problem with wind and solar?

[elrous0]

All this talk about solar and wind energy being "free" and building these giant wind farms and turbines has had me wondering about something that I never see addressed. Has anyone considered the meteorological effects of removing all that energy from the atmosphere? I mean wind and solar energy serve a FUNCTION, they move our weather systems around, melt our snow, power our rivers, etc. You start taking a significant chunk of that energy out of the atmosphere, couldn't you end up with climate changes that could be even more devestating than the global warming you're trying to avoid?

No energy is truly "free," after all. But environmentalists keep talking about wind and solar as if there's NO downside whatsoever. It seems to me that there might be a pretty big one.

Re:Problem with wind and solar?

[Chris Burke]

All this talk about solar and wind energy being "free" and building these giant wind farms and turbines has had me wondering about something that I never see addressed.

Yeah it's only brought up in every single /. discussion about wind power.

You start taking a significant chunk of that energy out of the atmosphere, couldn't you end up with climate changes

Yes but what makes you think wind power could ever take a 'significant' chunk of energy out of the atmosphere? A windmill only takes a tiny fraction of the energy out of the wind that moves through the area described by its rotation. The wind passing through that area is a tiny, tiny fraction of the atmosphere energy that passes over the windmill. You could cover the earth with wind farms, and you'd be taking a tiny, tiny fraction of the atmosphere's energy. And up to a certain, very large, point it isn't even clear we'd be removing more energy than the trees that existed before industrial logging and agriculture cut them down.

Could it affect the climate? Yes. Is it a reason to worry? No.

No energy is truly "free," after all. But environmentalists keep talking about wind and solar as if there's NO downside whatsoever.

Seriously, compared to what it is replacing, it is so close to zero impact as to be indistinguishable. When every fossil fuel plant has been shut down, and when we're contemplating blanketing whole continents with wind/solar farms, that's when the impact of these technologies will be significant. Then maybe we'll have to find a better solution, but hey thanks to getting rid of all the coal plants we should have plenty of time to do so.

I don't think any environmentalist would claim that they have literally NO impact, outside of this relative comparison where it is only hyperbole of the smallest order. Yes, wind isn't "truly free". No, that's not a reason to stop building wind farms as fast as possible, because "not free" isn't within orders of magnitude of "as costly as current power sources". This concern is so far out there that it just reeks of grasping at straws. The fact is that for today and the foreseeable future, the environmental benefit of wind farms is unequivocal and enormous.

Re:Problem with wind and solar?

[Ambitwistor]

There have been some studies, for example "The influence of large-scale wind power on global climate".

Re:Problem with wind and solar?

[drinkypoo]

I see it raised all the time. Nobody ever answers it because we all know that we have deforested the crap out of the earth, and we could put up thousands of windmills and never come close to slowing the wind down as much as all the trees removed from the planet by humans (and not replaced.)

Re:Problem with wind and solar?

[markk]

People have looked at Wind right side up, upside down, back and forth and have raised issues that make anti-nuke people look sane. The problem with Wind is that it is a real threat to coal, so there is a lot of paid for flack. Especially if combined with NG and/or Nuclear with utility level Solar for peaking in the right areas. Given good distribution we know we can use wind turbines to over 30% electric power because it is being done right now in various European grids. The issue will really be capital cost and marginal cost. The scary thing for the coal folks is that there is no ongoing resource cost and as wind turbines get out of the 20 year capital payoff period they are going to be the cheapest marginal cost electricity.

Wind Power right now is close to 3% of U.S. electrical production and doubling again in 3 or 4 years. (And that is ignoring Picken's "plan" which was partially a front to own gas and water transport rights) Over half of all new power plant license requests in 2008 were for wind power. Nobody is calling for Plains to Coast power lines except for coal companies so they can criticize them. Intermediate level regional interconnects are what most propose now and they will be another up front capital cost item that will cause greatly reduced cost in 20 years or so. The better the regional interconnects the less variable the wind power is, and the cheaper the balancing cost.

Of course as Wind Power grows there are starting to be boondoggles and all the other BS things that go along with big time capital enterprises. Wind is the first "alternative" power that will have to deal with those issues and that is actually a sign of maturity to me. It becomes more like any other big business. We really are on the wave for wind as long as it isn't shut down by coal interests.

Re:There's another advantage

[FooAtWFU]

That's an advantage? It sounds like a disadvantage to me. It's electricity. We don't use electricity as an end in and of itself, we use it to achieve other valuable goals. If it takes more work to get it this way, that's inefficiency, ineffectiveness, and wasteful - and a drag on every other sector of the economy that uses electricity.

There's an old story about the Communists in China digging a dam, and an observer asks why they're using shovels instead of excavators. "To create more jobs", they say. "Oh, I thought you were building a dam. If it's jobs you want, take away their shovels and give them spoons."

Re:The quarter wave problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Conservation is the easiest and cheaper way to implement technically, but it seems, at least in the USA, very difficult for the people to accept.

There will _always_ be more people.
There will _always_ be greater demand for resources.
This seems very difficult for conservationists to understand.

You were right with the nuclear argument if we can just deprogram^H^H^H^Heducate the populace about how safe it really is; at least enough to placate the NIMBY crowd.