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Researchers Claim Wind Turbine Energy Payback In Less Than a Year
mdsolar (1045926) writes "Researchers have carried out an environmental lifecycle assessment of 2-megawatt wind turbines mooted for a large wind farm in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. They conclude that in terms of cumulative energy payback, or the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation, a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit
within five to eight months of being brought online."
Watts Up With That? has a more skeptical take on the calculations.
We attended an investors meeting in Portland relating to solar power 2 yrs. ago....the panel of solar experts all kept talking about playing catch up with wind and how solar was getting it's ass kicked. Finally someone in the group asked "Can you tell us what room the wind energy investment group is meeting in...?"
The rebuttal is from a climate-change denial site?
What the fuck is this, Fox News? What's next, Free Republic?
Fuck you, Timothy. Seriously, just fuck off.
--
BMO
A 4 unit coal fired power station will be lucky to have 80% availability.
Maintenance is continuous on those things, so they don't have 100% availability either.
Admitted, the downtime is handled on site (3 of 4 units still run while one is down), but that's WHY there's a power grid. So the counter argument has flaws as well.
That's what they're for here, right? The "more skeptical take" is a joke. It's a fundamental nature of intermittent power sources and a well known fact that you need an improved grid over a large geographic area to filter out the outliers. Picking out one installation is dishonest, and so is to claim that the energy being intermittent falsifies the original cumulative EROEI claim, which had nothing to do with whether one installation is continuously sufficient. It's a blatant straw man on WUWT's part.
Ezekiel 23:20
What the hell was that inserted for? It was an idiotic point made on a site which clearly has a political axe to grind. It wasn't made well. Anyone claiming to engage in a scientific debate with the phrase "by my own observation" deserves to be laughed out of the room.
This is supposed to be Slashdot, not Fox. Why the hell was this included?
The entire rebuttal is based on wind power not being a constant source.
That, of course, in turn assumes that the power generated can't be buffered, such as with batteries or forms of large scale energy storage. And it's not as if there doesn't already exist a nationwide power distribution system which can move energy from one area to another, depending on generating capacity and usage.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
And of course the skeptical take comment section is filled with non-researched and non-constructive comments about wind energy.
Almost as if being for or against green energy were an overt political statement than a well thought out business plan and energy policy.
(I'm from Kansas, we have nowhere near enough utilization of wind energy, despite several large wind farms in the western part of the state).
Not on any engineering standard.
If this wind farm expects payback in five to eight months, we should be able to find some other wind farm (anywhere) that had payback in less than a year, right? Does anybody have a pointer to that kind of success story?
The advocates of wind energy make no claim that the wind generators will run 24/7. Nevertheless, calculating payback as if they do provides a convenient comparison to other power sources. In practice, a combination of wind, solar and natural gas can economically provide power and greatly reduce the generation of greenhouse gasses and should cost less as usage of the technology grows. In fact, similar technology works for hybrid cars and for Florida Power & Light's hybrid gas / solar electric plant (http://www.fpl.com/environment/solar/projects.shtml). Obviously this is still an experimental arrangement, but it works for cars, so why not commercial electric power?
Oddly enough both of the calculations in the OP were correct, yes, the wind turbine generates energy equivalent to its energy of manufacture quite quickly, and yes it is still a bad idea to rely on wind energy for use in a national grid except for a tiny percentage, each MW of wind turbine relies on an additional MW of conventional generators if you want 24/7 availability, or I suppose you could try energy storage, which ought to be added to the turbine operating cost and energy payback.
Interesting to see such knee jerk support for an inappropriate technology. I wonder if the posters above have ever thought through why Germany is /reducing/ its reliance on wind turbines?
Great!
So we can eliminate the enormous subsidies to the wind turbine business, since and rely on private investment in the wind business (any rational investor would see an decent return on investment).
Or, the more likely case, this analysis is full of BS.
What's with all the editorial denier chum on slashdot? Linking to WATTATWAT is like linking to a creation site for balance every time someone submits a story about evolution.
Or you did not read/cannot comprehend the study, which has nothing to do with repayment of monetary investment in the turbine... It is repayment of environmental resources used.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
It's hilarious watching people argue over a topic that has already been shown to be a non-issue. The EIA (US) and German statistics show that, in aggregate, wind-energy sources produce a relatively steady amount of power. Individual turbines and even whole wind farms might not be deterministic, but all the wind farms taken together... are.
-Matt
The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".
CdTe panels have been in this range for a while. It is expected that crystaline silicon will get there by 2020 for a central European site.
"The photovoltaic (PV) market is experiencing vigorous growth, whereas prices are dropping rapidly. This growth has in large part been possible through public support, deserved for its promise to produce electricity at a low cost to the environment. It is therefore important to monitor and minimize environmental impacts associated with PV technologies. In this work, we forecast the environmental performance of crystalline silicon technologies in 2020, the year in which electricity from PV is anticipated to be competitive with wholesale electricity costs all across Europe. Our forecasts are based on technological scenario development and a prospective life cycle assessment with a thorough uncertainty and sensitivity analysis. We estimate that the energy payback time at an in-plane irradiation of 1700kWh/(m2year) of crystalline silicon modules can be reduced to below 0.5years by 2020, which is less than half of the current energy payback time. "
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pip.2363/abstract
C'mon, Slashdot. You need to retract that editorial - and Timothy needs to have a think about his credentials.
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
On one side you have a comprehensive study of the total cost of a wind turbine over its entire lifespan, detailing each and every aspect of that cost. And on the other side you have somone saying "sometimes in some places there's no wind". How can you oppose these two kind of arguments?
Where's the study that shows on the globe map the minimum wind energy available at all times within transportable distance? That would be cold hard fact impossible to argue and that would definitely validate or invalidate the viability of wind energe on a large scale.
Please read the "skeptical" article with a skeptical eye. The poor guy goes through all the work to get the specs and highlights the minimum wind speed rate of 4m/s for the turbines to work. He also links to an excellent page showing wind patters and letting you see wind speed across the country.
But then, he goes off the rails. He can "tell from his own experience" that the wind doesn't always blow that fast and "look at all the blue, which means low wind speed". The big problem is that he didn't go one extra step and actually click on the map to check wind speeds. Almost all of the blue is above the required 4m/s for the turbines. The green is actually too fast. The maximum wind speeds for the turbines are 25m/s and the green areas are over 30.
Poor guy, how embarassing for him. That could have been avoided with a few clicks.
According to the chart in this article,
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/05/13/3436923/germany-energy-records/
Germany has not significantly reduced megawatts from wind turbines. Adding other renewable sources is simply a wise move.
"the time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation" ...but not the time to produce enough energy to pay back the actual cost of the machine, including labor and materials.
The actual study is very, very careful to NOT claim that it will pay back the total system cost. It's just the amount of energy used in production and installation, not the cost of raw materials and labor.
The price of electricity is falling in Germany owing to renewable energy. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/... They like wind power.
Germany supplies about 10% of its electricity from wind. That is not a tiny percentage. In Brandenburg, 78 percent of all electricity now comes from wind turbines, photovoltaic panels or from burning biomass. Best to use multiple renewable energy sources. But it's not suprising to see knee jerk opposition to renewables. Those who make shitloads of money from selling high pollution carbon fuels also spend shitloads of money spreading FUD and dissinformation intended to undermine support for the alternatives.
anecdote data point != Fraud
"Watts Up With That? has a more skeptical take on the calculations."
And if you look at the site it's pretty much a site full of straw men and attacks on climate change friendly politicians and scientists, with little actual scientific facts (besides the grandiose endorsement of it's own content.)
Why is this link even here? Did someone just randomly Google it and stick it on there because, hey, it's on the internet? Or did someone want the site to get more page views?
C'mon editors. This is news for nerds. Not news my uncle sent me in his email about how Obama is part of the illuminati.
to be fair, i havent read their current analysis of this particular project. but watts up with that is well known to be well wrong about well lots :)
If the analysis was in terms of "environmental resources used", how many months does it take before the wind turbine produces enough steel, rare earths, and other raw materials to let us produce an identical turbine?
Consumption varies as well. Wind is a nice way to deal with that since you can bring more power on line as needed in little 2MW chunks instead of having to fire up a boiler ahead of time to get 350MW.
What's the average cost per kWh for electricity in the US vs Germany? It's 12c in the US and 36c in Germany. Don't try and tell us how wonderful the green energy is when it's 3x the cost.
Someone should tell the Australian Prime Minister this - It's clear renewable Energy works - what doesn't work is our Prime Ministers brain. It's a shame when someone mind is hell bent on destroying a country, no amount of scientific facts can persuade them.
Non-renewable energy conversion..... You guys are really bad at this arnt you.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
If you do it in dollar terms the payback will be much faster in some markets due to insanely high spot prices for peak power. In others it won't. Even in the same place six months later it may have much slower financial payback. Energy payback is far easier to determine.
Note to self: Assuming that thaylin means what s/he types is a bad idea.
Note to thaylin: Don't blame others when they make that assumption.
About 30 years ago, "wind farms" were built in several places in California where the wind seems constant, not intermittent. One is in the San Gorgonio Pass along I10 between Beaumont and Palm Springs. Another one is in the Altamont Pass in the hills near Oakland. In both places, with what was then primitive technology, the constancy of the wind still justified the construction of these "wind farms". I have seen both installations, and I have never seen them idled by a lack of wind.
Similarly, there are places where sunshine is so prevalent that solar power would have few interruptions during the day. Unlike wind power, however, storage of electricity during the day is needed for use at night.
In the meantime, Southern California Edison has outages at all times of the year. These are not the result of unreliable generation sources. Instead, these are the result of not performing any kind of scheduled preventive maintenance on local portions of the distribution system.
This man has rebutted the "wind power is variable so renewables can't replace coal argument". I'm surprised slashdotters don't seem to be aware of his work.
Wire up a large enough area with a high voltage DC supergrid, supplement with hydro, bio-fuel and solar, and the variability isn't a problem.
http://www.risoe.dk/rispubl/reports/ris-r-1608_186-195.pdf
This is useless and irrelevant calculation.
What counts is what is the total cost and return on investment. The jury is still out on wind energy because of the high maintenance costs, the issues of variability and lack of practical and economical storage.
Putting a windmill where you have land, just because you have land is stupid.
Putting a windmill where there's reliable wind is smart.
Learn to love Alaska
I'm from California, and we've been building wind power facilities since the 70s.
Most of them are abandoned and rust in the sun... our deserts are littered with them.
Failed project after failed project after failed project.
Every time they tell us about how great it will be and how it will be self sustaining. All they need is a little start up money.
So we give them the start up money and tax credits and tax breaks and all sorts of other subsidies.
And everything is fine for 5 years. After about 5 years our subsidies go away. Because they said they would be self sufficient by then.
Well... they've never been self sufficient. Every time... 5 years rolls on... and then the subsidies run out... and then they declare bankrupcy....
There is so little money left over when all is said and done that they can't even afford to demolish the defunct wind turbines. And so another field of wreckage is added to our deserts...
So here I am on slashdot and some wind study is saying "oh we'll break even in 8 months"...
Yeah sure...
Since many of you probably are totally clueless about this... here are some links:
http://toryaardvark.com/2011/1...
http://epaabuse.com/3124/edito...
http://www.naturalnews.com/034...
I just typed abandoned wind farm into google... I didn't bother reading any of the links because I live here and I've seen this happen with my own eyes over and over again.
Here is my answer to the whole thing... if its such a great thing and will pay itself back so fast... then you don't need government money.
A coal power plant won't pay off its construction debt in 8 months. It will at least take four or five years and in some cases those things take 10 to 20 years to pay off.
So the wind guys are saying they can break even in 8 months? Then they have a power plant with a faster turn around time then anything else on the market... ever.
Color me skeptical.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Very interesting. Except for the misspelled words, very well written. I'm interested in any links you have concerning those subjects.
Example: The earth crust contains 5% iron. So, when you're talking about producing steel, the issue is not the availability of the raw materials. The problem of producing steel is purely the amount of energy you have to put in, to convert the raw materials into a finished end product.Therefore it is a completely honest representation to look at the amount of energy required to produce the steel for the wind turbine, and see how long the wind turbine needs to be operated before it has produced that much.
Watts up with that looks like a Republican astroturf site dedicated to debunking climate science.
who prays for Satan? Who in 18 centuries has had the humanity to pray for the 1 sinner that needed it most? ~Mark Twain
It's sad to see the dialogue so quickly degenerate to name calling and demagoguing. It's nice to see some rational discussion without those things.
The study shows that the net energy consumption to produce the wind tower is equaled by the energy production of the tower within X months. I suppose this is important. But I can't see how it means a whole lot to the financials or logistics of operating the tower. I mean, of course it's a net energy producer; that's the damn point of its very existence!
The rebuttal is not really a rebuttal per se. I don't care if it's from Watts or not. Pointing out that the wind tower is not a 1 for 1 replacement of "always on" energy is a valid topic. It's actually a very important topic because energy storage is not ready for prime time -- in fact, is there any short-term energy storage solution that's even viable at metropolitan scales?
So I have some questions after reading all the viewpoints here. You mention Germany ... I have a ton of questions about German energy production but I'll focus on the US for now:
Is wind energy even more than 1% of national residential and commercial energy use, even excluding all forms of transportation (planes, trains, cars, etc.)? I don't believe it is.
Is there a viable energy storage solution at these scales? What's the efficiency of the best storage solution right now, at the MW+ scale? At the GW scale?
How well do wind farms compete 1 for 1 with other energy sources if there were no subsidies, price fixing, tax breaks, or price guarantees?
Wind farms do kill the occasional endangered bird. Are there technologies that could better prevent this? If so, why are they not mandated?
The rare earth metals come from China? Something like 80%+ last I checked... How friendly to the environment is this?
What's the viable solution for "always on" energy, "usually on" energy, and energy storage. Essentially, how is energy supply balanced with energy demand through a day, through the seasons, etc? Are we at that balancing point now in terms of nuclear/coal/gas vs wind/current/solar?
At what point do wind farms stop scaling, if any? For example, by type of demand (commercial vs residential); by type of city; by geographic location; by cost?
What are the implications of taking that much energy out of atmospheric circulation? What happens when wind energy is upped to 5% of total energy, 20%, etc.?
Are the properly regulated free markets not capable of reaching the most efficient solution, and get there the most efficiently? (and I stress properly regulated, not overly regulated, and definitely not crony capitalism)
Sad that I see such a high noise to signal ratio when a subject bumps into these types of questions. You can almost see the spittle flying with mention of Anthony Watts. A pointless paper about net energy consumption/production. Vs. A pointless rebuttal that asks these types of questions?
I'd much rather read about the solutions to these questions. I think that's the direction Watts was going in. Sad that 75% of the moderated comments are Watts blah blah blah. I'd much rather see a /. world where 75% of the moderated comments are these questions and discussion about the answers to those questions. Such as your own comment ishmaelflood, thank you.
M. /. account in 1998. Been an AC since 1998 too.
Created a
I don't get the hostility to criticism of this study. If it were a robust study, then the content could stand up to criticism.
Let's look at the articles basic claim: "time to produce the amount of energy required of production and installation". This is fine, and undoubtedly true. However, this does not address two issues that remain problematic with wind power:
1. Cost: Can a turbine be produce, installed and operated in a way that produces electricity at a competitive cost per kwh? There are numerous factors that contribute to cost, not just "enery required for production"
2. Variability: Wind power is variable, this is a rather undeniable fact - you've got to take the power when it is produced, which is not necessarily when you need it. What effects does this have on the rest of the grid? Either you have massive power storage facilities (not yet practical), or you have other power plants (e.g., natural gas) that can be ramped up and down very quickly - however, such power plants are themselves quite expensive.
The fact is: This article found one aspect of wind power to praise, but ignores the actual problems that need addressed. Why is it that the green-power people react so badly to criticism?
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
This site is hilariously bad. Please add it to blacklist for summary links. They didn't deserve all those views they got.
Or maybe they deserve more, hint hint.
Where did this retarded myth come from? Seriously? Do you think the operators really shut down a boiler due to minute to minute demand and spin it up casually? iAre you people fucking retarded?
You don't get grid-wide failures of wind do you?
It's not "random". It's when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining and you can plan around what is know about those events.
I even put the words "ahead of time" in an attempt to head off comments such as the above.
The make the Same false assumption in pointing out the False assumption. That is that Humans would consume at a constant rate. What if they're on vacation? Somewhat like the Commentators railing against bad science the "Conveniently" used just to be inconvenient themselves? Pseuo Science complainers are Fresh off the "B" Ark.. and that will never change.
a wind turbine with a working life of 20 years will offer a net benefit within five to eight months of being brought online."
Huh? What do the 20 years have to do with that?
If it offers a net benefit after 5-8 months, then it doesn't matter if the turbine has a working life of 1 year or 20 years, it offers a net benefit anyway.
If Pandora's box is destined to be opened, *I* want to be the one to open it.
So one turbines produces intermittent. Big f-ing deal. The correlation between windspeeds between to sides 100 km apart is below 0.5 (based on 10 min averages over a year). So lot's of turbines solve most of the problem. Then there are still moments that there is no wind anywhere. Yes we need to change the system to allow for that, but that is just evolution from a retarded polluting system to a more modern non-polluting system. So stupid how you find even engineers claiming how intermittancy is such a big problem. Engineers are there to solve those problems and we are going to. No reason what so ever to stick to the old polluting system.
You failed Econ 101, didn't you? There is an awful lot of hydrocarbon fuel in the ground, but it still costs more than $100/barrel to buy it. Abundant does not mean cheap, and that $100/barrel doesn't cover negative externalities (which are addressed by, say, European-style gasoline/petrol taxes that account for the difference in end-user cost relative to the US).
If every home started to pump energy into the system would the energy prices decrease by so much that it would not be worth new homes bothering to hook up?
I like them because they kill the hell out of raptors, and this should bring back the Sage Grouse in Wyoming. Thanks eagle choppers!
'I don't know what it's called. I just know the sound it makes, when it takes a man's life.' ~ Four Leaf Tayback
Especially in the southwestern USA, where solar power is very viable because there are enough sunny days to make them practical. At where I live currently, I have enough sunlight during the summer for the unit to generate full power from just after 6:00 am all the way to past 7:00 pm.
* Wind: Yes
* Nuclear: Yes
* Natural Gas: Yes
* Solar: Yes
* Clean Coal: Yes
* Tidal: Yes
The only energy plan that will work long term is all of the above. Not every community has the abilities, resources, land, feasibility to implement "Just Wind" or "Just Solar".
Story about wind energy's return on investment, along with skeptic review of the numbers.
Slashdot comments?
16 comments rated 5
of which:
- 5 comments are regarding the calculations, or relevant thereto (3 are on one thread)
- the rest are ENTIRELY ad-hominem attacks against wattsup as climate-deniers, idiots, etc.
I agree fundamentally: Wattsup *does* indulge in ...creative... (likely deliberate) misunderstanding. Asserting that "in effect a wind turbine over it's life span can power 500 homes for free" is patently NOT the same as "you can power 500 homes with a wind turbine".
The attacks here, however, are mainly without substance, just "he's a CLIMATE DENIER!!" - smacking more of an accusation of apostasy than logical flaws.
I would only point out one further thing: if one posts an asserted fact, and then posts the opposing viewpoint as someone entirely biased and easily dismissed...I'd call THAT a strawman as well.
-Styopa
Ok. So if that's true why are we using government subsidies to build and maintain these things? If it was profitable some private company would be all over it. But you couldn't get anyone to invest in it until the goverment made it so artificially attractive.
The Administration is going to say it's OK for wind farms to kill eagles despite what the Endangered Species Act says, perhaps because the owners donate to Democrats. Interesting to see the tree-huggers and green-energy people in-fighting...
ABC News.com
A California wind farm will become the first in the nation to avoid prosecution if eagles are injured or die when they run into the giant turning blades, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.
The Shiloh IV Wind Project LLC, 60 miles east of San Francisco, will receive a special permit allowing up to five golden eagles to be accidentally killed over five years. Previously, such a violation could potentially draw criminal charges and discourage private investment in wind farms known for catching birds in their rotors.
What does production mean? Doesn't that pass along all incurred expenses as each producer in the chain pays the cost to acquire the partially-produced product (including raw materials and labor)? If not, calling it the cost of production seems deceptive....
I don't believe the testable claims criteria when WUWT is cited. I read WUWT and it convinced me there is global warming due to human activity. It was difficult to parse out. In my estimation WUWT deceives many more people than it educates. WUWT is going to tell us to burn more petroleum. This is what they are paid to do. In this case they seem to change the question from Does wind pay its way? to Does wind do everything? The Koch Brothers are dragging WUWT, the Heartland Institute, the Republican party, the country, the world and Humanity into oblivion because they think they are superior and should be held to a lower standard.
One more study that ignores the reality that the electric grid needs electricity when customers need it, not when the wind is blowing.
Plus those studies ignore the extra cost of building humongous upgrades to transmission lines to be able to move tens of GWs when the wind is blowing strong in one area to the areas where the wind is weak (which happens pretty much all the time).
Being pro solar+wind today is being pro coal and natural gas. Coal kills 200,000 people/year worldwide, 13,000 people/year in the USA alone.
Only nuclear can provide greenhouse gas free baseload electricity to the grid anywhere in the world.
Without nuclear there is NO solution to climate change.
The price of power on the wholesale market has collapsed, but the price of power to the end consumer has soared in recent years.
"The average household electricity prices in Germany were at ~29 eurocents per kWh in 2013 and they are rapidly rising 5-10% per year. The "price drop" the article describes is the drop in the electricity exchange market (EEX) prices, which indeed went down from something like 5.5 cents to 3.75 cents in the last years. The reason is the massive influx of highly subventioned solar, wind and biogas-generated electricity. At times when the renewables production spikes, the electricity is "sold" at negative prices - i.e. whoever takes it, gets paid.
For the end user, the falling market prices are pretty much irrelevant, since the end price contains the averaged difference fee ("EEG-Umlage") between the subventioned price and the market price - the lower the market price, the more the end users have to pay to get the subventioned price to the level defined by law. The more renewable energy is produced, the more they have to pay in total."
Translation - subsidized producers of renewables are laughing all the way to the bank, consumers not so much.
More good discussion of the actual results of Germany's headlong foray into renewables under this /. article:
http://news-beta.slashdot.org/story/14/06/28/0045250/germanys-glut-of-electricity-causing-prices-to-plummet
Therein, as the "Watts Up With That?" commenters point out, lies the problem. You can *only* achieve that kind of ROI if you're connected to a power grid that will pay you fixed rates for your excess power when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining, and guarantee availability of power in other circumstances (against base rates).
Power plants have a nasty habit of costing money every second while they're being kept in readiness, let alone when they're on standby or acting as spinning reserves. Money their operators can't recoup by selling power when there is a glut due to solar and wind generators.
As soon as you factor that cost in, the picture for alternative energy sources becomes a lot less rosy.
Not that we shouldn't try to maximise the fraction of wind and solar power, but let's be realistic and factor in the cost of keeping (conventional) power plants on standby instead of treating the power grid as a giant zero-cost battery!
...I want to know what the eagles-and-hawks-per-kilowatt-generated charges come to. I know that number is a LOT more than coal.
Since when is celebrity climate denialist blogger and outed Heartland Institute shill Anthony Watts an authority on anything but taking a big steaming dump on science?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Wind and solar can easily store energy for the few times when they can't produce. There's the conventional battery or, if you want to get more creative, use them to pump water into a reservoir. When you need need a little extra power, use the water to run a turbine.
Or you could do as the Spanish have done and use solar to heat salt instead of produce electricity directly. The molten salt is then run through a heat exchanger where it turns water to steam and use the steam to run a turbine. The salt stays molten well into the evening and when the sun is behind a cloud for brief periods.
What you're looking at is an engineering problem that can easily be solved with a little creative energy, if you'll pardon the pun. The base load issue is not some insurmountable problem that means we have to throw up our hands before we sit on them.