Slowing Wind Energy Production Suffers From Lack of Wind

HughPickens.com writes: Gregory Meyer reports at the Financial Times that electricity generated by U.S. wind farms fell 6 per cent in the first half of the year, even as the nation expanded wind generation capacity by 9 per cent. The reason was some of the softest air currents in 40 years, cutting power sales from wind farms to utilities. The situation is likely to intensify into the first quarter of 2016 as the El Niño weather phenomenon holds back wind speeds around much of the U.S. "We never anticipated a drop-off in the wind resource as we have witnessed over the past six months," says David Crane. Wind generated 4.4 per cent of US electricity last year, up from 0.4 per cent a decade earlier. But this year U.S. wind plants' "capacity factor" has averaged just a third of their total generating capacity, down from 38 per cent in 2014.

EIA noted that slightly slower wind speeds can reduce output by a disproportionately large amount. "Capacity factors for wind turbines are largely determined by wind resources," says a report from the Energy Information Administration. "Because the output from a turbine varies nonlinearly with wind speed, small decreases in wind speeds can result in much larger changes in output and, in turn, capacity factors." In January of 2015, wind speeds remained 20 to 45 percent below normal on areas of the west coast, but it was especially bad in California, Oregon, and Washington, where those levels dropped to 50 percent below normal during the month of January.

Comments

caused by climate change

[known_coward_69]

and the koch brothers to protect big oil

Re:It's simple...

[blindseer]

Nuclear power is so reliable, safe, and inexpensive that using wind and solar becomes nonsensical. Electricity from steam, whether that boiling water is from coal, natural gas, or nuclear, is very cheap. Steam power is a technology that is well understood from many years of development and real world use. The only real problem with steam generation is that it does not handle changes in load well. To accommodate the changes in load we've come up with a variety of technologies but for big changes that happen relatively quickly we just plain need more generating capacity quickly. The answer to that problem is typically natural gas turbines, which while still relatively reliable, safe, and inexpensive still costs up to twice what the boiling water technology costs to run. The majority of that cost is in the fuel, more fuel is burned per power output.

With wind power we have a generating capacity that can change relatively quickly. To accommodate this we use the same technologies that we use to accommodate a changing load. That usually means natural gas turbines. Wind power, last time I checked, costs about as much as power from natural gas turbines. The more wind power we add the more turbines we need to make up for the changing grid conditions. Given that natural gas turbines are less efficient than natural gas boilers we end up with more carbon output per electrical energy unit produced, and it costs more. If steam power costs about 10 cents per kWh then wind and gas turbine power costs 15 cents per kWh.

Solar costs between 20 and 30 cents per kWh on grid scale, more on smaller scales. Until we solve this cost issue on solar power it makes no sense to use it. Solar power also runs into the same carbon output problem as wind, since solar power can change quickly because of weather it must be backed up with expensive and inefficient gas turbines. That means electricity costs can triple and we get no net reduction in carbon output.

So far one might conclude the solution to our energy cost and carbon output problem is nuclear power for base load, natural gas turbines for peak load, and maybe some wind power where it is optimal. But we have something "new" we can try.

People have been experimenting with molten salt nuclear reactors for decades but for reasons that are mostly political than technological this technology has remained undeveloped. Not only can molten salt react well to changing loads, and do so cheaply and safely, it can reduce the amount of nuclear waste from the old boiler reactors we've been using for decades.

There is no need to just have a monoculture when it comes to power.

Molten salt reactors can be made from about the 20 MW to gigawatt range so we could use this technology in many places. Its output does not rely on weather. The fuel is cheap and plentiful, or at least it would be if we had sane laws on handling uranium and thorium. While it cannot replace all other sources I foresee a reliable and cheap power source that we should be able to get 90% of our power from MSRs.

To those that claim anything "nukular" is a radiation hazard I have a couple responses. First, nuclear reactors reduce the amount of radioactive material. The energy that comes from a nuclear reaction is from taking something radioactive and making it not radioactive. The only reason that nuclear "waste" is considered "waste" right now is because the old boiler reactors are terribly inefficient. Second, if carbon in the atmosphere is going to kill us all then we need to find a way to reduce that carbon output. I see three choices, status quo, nuclear power, or reduction in the quality of life. By "reduction of quality of life" I don't mean wearing sweaters indoors because we turned down the thermostat in the winter, I mean people will freeze to death because the sun didn't shine and the wind didn't blow when we needed it to.

Taking this logically we need to stop building more windmills and start building more nuclear power plants. Anything else means people will die needlessly.