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Floating Offshore Wind Power
Posted by Big Gav on December 9, 2008 - 10:33am in The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand
Matthew Simmons has received quite a bit of press in the past week, after his Ocean Energy Institute floated a proposal to build a $25 billion, 5 GW wind farm in the Gulf of Maine.
Offshore wind farms have a number of advantages over their land based equivalents - they are less hazardous to wildlife, have fewer objections raised on NIMBY concerns and winds are generally stronger over the oceans than they are over land.
Ideally, offshore wind farms will be far enough away from land to avoid being seen from the shoreline, eliminating any residual objections from local residents. Current offshore projects tend to site turbines in waters less than 20 metres deep - going further offshore would mean locating them at depths of 50 meters or more, which is too deep to build supporting towers or trusses down to the sea floor at an affordable cost.
A solution to this problem is floating platforms - one of the key elements of the Ocean Energy Institute proposal. In this post I'll look at some of the work being done to develop floating offshore wind power platforms in order to enable these sorts of schemes to become a reality.
Floating Wind Turbines
According to a 2006 report by the U.S. Department of Energy, General Electric and the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, offshore wind resources on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States exceed the current electricity generation of the entire U.S. power industry. NASA has also been investigating ocean wind strengths worldwide, using the QuikSCAT satellite.
Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have been investigating the feasibility of "tension-leg" platforms for wind turbines, a technology that oil companies have been using for deep-water rigs. The structures would be assembled at a shipyard and placed on large floating cylinders that are ballasted with high-density concrete (to keep the structure from tipping over) and then tugged out to sea. Once in location, steel cables would be attached to the platform, anchoring it to the sea floor.
The MIT researchers claim that large turbines located far offshore could eventually generate cheaper power than both land based wind farms and near-offshore ones (even taking into account the increased cost of longer underground electricity transmission cables). Part of the cost advantage is the higher capacity factor achieved due to more consistent offshore winds - potentially averaging between 40 percent and 50 percent compared with 30 percent or less with land based turbines.
Some offshore wind farms could also have advantages in terms of proximity to large coastal cities compared to wind farms in remote areas, which require grid transmission upgrades to transport the power to places where it is consumed. Floating offshore wind farms also avoid bottlenecks in the supply of marine construction equipment such as pile drivers and cranes that may hamper rapid expansion of shallow offshore wind structures (however they may instead compete for some resources with offshore oil exploration and production, which could be problematical in the short to medium term).
A number of companies are active in the area of floating offshore wind technology - primarily Blue H Technologies, StatOil Hydro and SWAY.
Blue H Technologies
Blue H Technologies is a Dutch company that launched their first test platform at Tricase off Italy's southern coast late last year. The company has also announced plans to install another test turbine off Massachusetts.
The Blue H test platform in Italy is a tension-leg platform - a conventional offshore oil and gas platform design that floats below the surface, held in place by chains running to steel or concrete anchors on the seabed. The platform is located 10 km offshore and hosts an 80-kilowatt wind turbine which is mounted with sensors to record the wave and wind forces experienced by the equipment.
Blue H is now constructing a commercial wind farm for the Tricase site, which will have an installed capacity of 92 MW.
Blue H's design is unusual in that the turbine has a two-bladed rotor rather than the conventional three-blade design used elsewhere in. Technology Review has quoted Martin Jakubowski, Blue H cofounder and chief technology officer, as saying that "the noise and jarringly high rotation speeds that made two-bladers a loser on land are either irrelevant or a plus offshore" and that the fast rotation is "less susceptible to interference from the back-and-forth swing of the platform under wave action" and means less torque, resulting in a lighter structure (Blue H's 2.5-megawatt turbine will weigh 97 tons - 53 tons lighter than the lightest machine of the same power output on the market).
Tech Review also quotes Jakubowski as estimating that Blue H's wind farms will "deliver wind energy for seven to eight cents per kilowatt-hour, roughly matching the current cost of natural gas-fired generation and conventional onshore wind energy".
StatOil Hydro
Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro and Germany's Siemens (a major wind-turbine producer) are partnering in a project to build a commercial-scale floating wind farm about 10 kilometers offshore from Karmøy on Norway's southwestern tip.
StatoilHydro initially plans to operate a 2.3 MW wind turbine atop a conventional oil and gas platform, and is hoping for this to be operational in late 2009. Unlike the Blue H design, StatOilHydro is using traditional wind turbines.
The company believes floating wind farms are the way of the future, with a company spokesman saying that there are a declining number of sites available onshore and in shallow waters and citing regions without a shallow continental shelf like California, Japan and Norway where traditional offshore wind is not possible.
StatOilHydro says that deepwater wind power will be expensive in the initial stages but that the economics could eventually rival those of conventional wind power.
If deep offshore wind power in the North Sea proves to be successful it would become a major component on the planned European Supergrid, which backers hope will link up the region's power networks and allow a much higher proportion of renewable energy in future (possibly entirely fossil-free, as it will need to become eventually), including solar power from Spain and North Africa, wind from the North Sea and Ireland, biogas from central Europe and tidal power from the UK.
SWAY
SWAY, based in Bergen, Norway, plans to field a prototype of its floating wind turbine in 2010. SWAY's platform is basically a spar buoy that can rise and fall gently with wave action, requiring less anchoring than the tension-leg platform. The buoy, mounted on a column nearly 200 meters tall, is held in place by a 2,400-ton gravel ballast. A three-bladed turbine is used, but, unlike conventional onshore turbines, it faces downwind rather upwind to better accommodate heeling of the tower, which may make it more effective in rougher waters than alternative designs.
The Simmons Plan
The cost estimated for Simmons' plan is $5 billion per gigawatt — more than double the amount that T. Boone Pickens’ now delayed wind farm in Texas is supposed to cost.
This seems high if the cost savings expected by the companies mentioned above eventuate, with the StatOilHydro experiment probably being the best guide, with the North Sea facing similar weather challenges to those experienced off New England.
Winter winds in the Gulf of Maine carry as much as eight times more energy as summer breezes, meaning maximum power is available during periods of greatest demand. About 80 percent of Maine residents use oil to heat their homes. The average family uses about 1,000 gallons, or 3,785 liters a year - when prices are around $4 a gallon ($1 a litre) this consumes about one-tenth of the average family's annual income, leading Simmons to declare "If we don't do this, we're [eventually] going to have to evacuate most of Maine".
Seen in that light, even an expensive offshore wind farm is better than the alternative.
As an added bonus, construction and maintenance of the structures will bring valuable job opportunities to a region hard hit by the decline of the fishing industry.
Related Posts :
The Oil Drum - Alternative Wind Power Experiments - SkySails and Airborne Wind Turbines (Peak Energy)
The Oil Drum - Offshore Wind
The Oil Drum - Energy from Wind: A Discussion of the EROI Research
The Oil Drum - Tapping The Source: The Power Of The Oceans
Cross-posted from Our Clean Energy Future.
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Another excellent article, Gav. Thanks for sharing this latest offshore technology that has not been evident in the typical news sources. A Maine offshore wind farm has the double benefit of being near hydro (storage) and having a demand profile that generally matches the supply profile. With the large proposed wind farm development off Scotland recently abandoned by Shell et al, advances like this help keep the forward movement in renewables. The supergrid could take a large step forward with this development.
The Shell project you mention was off south-east England - the London Array.
When Shell pulled out Masdar joined up to replace them, so its still going ahead.
http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/10/masdar-takes-stake-in-london-arra...
I agree the supergrid concept is very important - by expanding our grids and making them more intelligent, we can free ourselves of energy sources that deplete and pollute entirely.
I should have been more specific; I was referring to the Cirrus Array in the NorthWest.
Ooops - sorry - I didn't realise they had pulled out of another project.
Cue obligatory comments by the naysayers that this can't work, won't happen, and won't "save" us, therefore we must ignore it, not even try, and just go back willingly to the stone age.
Very informative Gav...thanks. The 50 m water depth really isn't a problem with current offshore platform technology. Over 15 years ago a simple, and relatively cheap, structure was designed to develop small Gulf of Mexico fields. One system was named Seahorse. A simple vertical steel column built in the shipyard and floated intact to the location. There it would be flooded until upright and driven into the seafloor. It was then anchored to the seafloor by a series of guide wires. The system was engineered to operate in water depths of at least 150 m. Just a guess but I suspect this system would be considerably cheaper then a floating spar. This system would seem to also eliminate the problems developed by a moving base. Perhaps even a more important factor is reducing installation costs. The equipment (cranes, support facilities) rented to install offshore structures is typically very expensive. These systems would probably have to be mobilized from a distant resource. The high mob and demob costs could be mitigated by installing numerous towers in a single phase. In addition to the Seahorse-like structures being installed in something akin to an assembly line, the turbines could also be mounted in a similar manner.
Such plans may already have been engineered, or are at least in the process. Earlier this year the state of Texas awarded a number of wind farm tracts of its southern shore line. I don't now the details but am fairly certain the water depths are at least as great as the one you mention for offshore Maine. I'll dig for some details on this project.
Driving something into the bottom is a problem because it requires mobile equipment which may be in short supply; the advantage of the spars is that they leave port complete. But whatever works....
True E-P. But these structures aren't much more than 36" or 42" rolled steel pipes. A whole lot cheaper than building a spar (which also needs surface support vessels to be anchored). When you figure a commercial wind farm might need 50 to 100 such installations it could add up to a big cost differential.
Spar or Seahorse, I wonder what the risk from iceburgs moght be up there. I know that was a big factor in the design of the Hibernia platform of Canada many years ago.
AGCC seems to be taking care of that...
I suspect a tethered platform would be more survivable than a fixed one. If an iceberg ran over the top of it and broke the tethers, it would just float off (assuming bouyancy wasn't compromised). If the platform had an EPIRB (or similar) it could be tracked and recovered.
Cue obligatory comments by innumerate fools who think expensive, intermittent power backed by jaw dropping amounts of natural gas and a spiderweb of HVDC lines spanning the entire continent is all the rage.
Oh, let me guess: you propose nuclear absolutism as a solution.
Same old, same old. What a horrible cliche you are. And quite unreasonable.
If you have the continent-wide network of HVDC, you don't need the natural gas (or coal, or nukes).
That's the whole point of supergrids - eliminating the intermittency issue for individual renewable plants entirely.
Can you point me to some detailed analysis which demonstrates this assertion? A super grid would undoubtedly help to provide a better match of intermittent electricity supply to demand, but could it really provide the same level of voltage regulation on a year round basis as today's power mix with its extremely heavy dependence on coal and natural gas?
See paper by Archer & Jacobson:
"The array consequently behaves more and more similarly to a single farm with steady wind speed and thus steady deliverable wind power.
In this study, benefits of interconnecting wind farms were evaluated for 19 sites, located in the midwestern United States, with annual average wind speeds at 80 m above ground, the hub height of modern wind turbines, greater than 6.9 m s1 (class 3 or greater). It was found that an average of 33% and a maximum of 47% of yearly averaged wind power from interconnected farms can be used as reliable, baseload electric power."
There are plenty of applications (like charging electric cars) that don't need steady base-load, just some number of hours of power sometime overnight, which is good wind time.
Jacobson is a Stanford Professor who does a lot of interesting work, see
his web page, including testimony for Congress.
Thanks for the link, but I have already read the Archer and Jacobsen paper. It is pretty clear that their 19 interconnected wind farms are not really the equivalent of a coal fired powered base load power plant even at 33% of total output level. They use a criterion of 85% percent availability as typical of dedicated coal fired baseload power plants. However, this 85% availability for coal fired plants does not mean that the lights go out 15% of the time. Most down time for coal fired plants is scheduled and back up power is provided. Real power system reliability is better than 15%. Some kind of dispatachable backup is required if the wind system is going to provide reliable baseload power.
Furthermore the study only addresses the issue of baseload power. If the other two thirds of the available energy is not well matched with demand, then the need for additional dispatchable backup may be required. Charging electric cars from the grid will be a completely new demand. Such charging may be an effective way to use wind to power part of our transportation system, but without vehicle to grid capability it does nothing to address the issue of load matching within the current electric power demand structure.
Don't get me wrong. I am not doubting that a super grid will improve the ability of renewable energy to match demand, but I do doubt Big Gav's claim that it will completely eliminate the need for dispatchable generation.
"Charging electric cars from the grid will be a completely new demand. Such charging may be an effective way to use wind to power part of our transportation system, but without vehicle to grid capability it does nothing to address the issue of load matching within the current electric power demand structure."
Not really. EV's and plug-ins have flexibility to charge when the grid has extra supply, so they can buffer supply variance. This is probably much more important than V2G. OTOH, there's no reason to believe V2G won't work, and provide another very cheap and effective support for grid resiliency.
I would note that a continent wide grid is likely to have many more windfarms than used in this study; solar is negatively correlated with wind, and so will reduce overall variance; pumped storage is pretty cheap; and newer utility scale batteries at $200/KWH and very high cycle life are also pretty cheap.
All that said, I don't see a problem with keeping some coal or natural gas plants around, if they're only used 5% of the time.
Unfortunately, that is exactly the problem with their paper, and the reason I was so disappointed with it (and surprised it was accepted, actually).
A better figure of merit is how often a power plant is schedulable, meaning able to be relied on given prior notice. If power plant A needs to be shut down for maintenance next week and power plant B is scheduled to take over from it, then power plant B is 95% schedulable if there's a 95% chance it will be able to successfully provide the power block assigned to it.
Based on what I've been able to find, coal plants are schedulable about 95% of the time, and pure wind can provide very little power with 95% reliability. The data in A&J's paper (or the equivalent data available from Ontario Hydro's website) shows this very clearly; in 2007, there were 16 days where all of Ontario Hydro's wind installations production 0 power for 1 or more hours during that day, meaning that the 95% schedulability of wind in the province is roughly zero. (Mean generation was 120MW, so this is not a trivial sample size.)
Geographic distribution is not enough to make pure wind a reliable resource.
It won't; fortunately, it doesn't take all that much pumped storage to fix the problem.
Based on modelling I've done with hourly wind and solar data for 2007, as well as price estimates from the same period, a wind/solar/pumped combo can give rock-steady power for 97% of the year, with multi-hour warnings in advance of shutdown, for about twice the current US price of electricity (20c/kWh) and with fairly modest pumped storage requirements (~48 hours, which is less than the amount already in hydro installations in the US, although more turbines would have to be installed).
Pure wind is not a solution beyond 20-30% penetration, but it doesn't need to be. Wind and solar have strong seasonal complementarity (winter vs. summer peaks), and pumped storage allows any short-term irregularities to be smoothed out.
"power plant B is 95% schedulable if there's a 95% chance it will be able to successfully provide the power block assigned to it...in 2007, there were 16 days where all of Ontario Hydro's wind installations production 0 power for 1 or more hours during that day, meaning that the 95% schedulability of wind in the province is roughly zero. "
I'm not quite clear on this. If there were 16 days, and there was zero power for 1 hour each day, that's only 16/8,760, or .2% downtime/.998% uptime - 5 hours each day would give 99% uptime. That's quite a bit better than 95%. Also, don't you have to compare the same time each day, rather than simply choosing days on which a zero output hour occurred at some point during the day?
Are you sure this is the right way to use the "95% schedulable" metric?
I see that Ontario Hydro only covers about half of Ontario. 120MW isn't tiny, but it doesn't seem that big to me. How big is the geographical span of Ontario Hydro's wind resource (that you also used for your simulation)? Wouldn't a much larger/continental grid have a greatly reduced variance of wind output?
Zero power for one or more hours in each of those 16 days. If the planning quantum is 1 day, then the wind plant was unable to reliably provide more than zero power for 4.4% of those quanta.
I chose 1 day as the planning increment to illustrate how reliability over contiguous blocks of time is of value in planning. To take an extreme example, a power plant that had a 5% chance of shutting down for any given hour would have 95% hourly uptime, but obviously would be extremely unreliable for planning purposes. This unreliability is highlighted by longer planning increments - there's only a 30% chance that the plant would be active over an entire day.
Pure wind is (unfortunately) much closer to this extreme than traditional fuel-burning plants are.
The choice of a 24-hour planning increment is somewhat arbitrary; it would be better to use either actual planning increments, or the typical length of a maintenance shutdown. The precise choice of planning increment, though, isn't really relevant - the key point is that reliability over longer periods of time is valuable, and highly variable power sources have great difficulty providing that.
Whether or not 24 hours is the best increment, it's certainly better than 1 hour, which is what the A&J paper effectively used. A 1-hour planning increment risks heavy cycling of thermal plants, which increases maintenance (especially for coal and nuclear), and which substantially increases the risk of a power outage (if too little dispatchable power is on hand to compensate for a sudden dip in volatile power).
A proper analysis would take into account the maintenance profiles (in terms of typical downtime and of vulnerability to cycling) of other power plants in the mix, as well as efficiency considerations stemming from cycling and running at sub-optimal output levels. Based on analyses I've seen (for Ireland, IIRC; available online), those are significant concerns for unbuffered wind.
No idea, although it's worth noting that Ontario is about the size of 8 US Midwestern states.
Substantial reduction, but not a vast one. The A&J paper showed how there are diminishing returns from adding more and more locations. (That part of their analysis I have no problem with; it's just their 1-hour planning increments that I find unreasonable.)
Even if the different regions had completely uncorrelated weather - which they don't - then probabilistically we would expect fairly significant deviations from the mean. If it's technically and economically easy to prevent that reliance on luck - and it is - it seems only prudent to do so.
"the wind plant was unable to reliably provide more than zero power for 4.4% of those quanta."
Even with that assumption, that gives better than 95% uptime, yes?
"The choice of a 24-hour planning increment is somewhat arbitrary; it would be better to use either actual planning increments"
I'm pretty sure that 24 hours is too long. My observation of the ISO bidding process is that it proceeds in 1 hour blocks - I believe cycling problems are up to the producer to worry about (though I'm not sure - anyone know more?).
I believe that there are two relevant planning processes: the planning of generation mix, and the daily 1-hour block bidding process. The generation planning process will look at a statistical analysis, probably the mean output during the peak period (usually later afternoon in summer, though it can be winter in the evening - perhaps a 4-6 hour period), minus roughly 2.5 standard deviations, to calculate a level above which output will be 95% of the time. This will give the capacity credit. These credits range from 10% of average to 90%+, but I've never seen one that was zero, even in a conservative environment like Texas. Northern states like Minnesota and NY state have assigned much higher peak capacity credits to wind, in the range of 90% of average.
The daily planning process will look at wind forecasts, and if the bidded generation fails to materialize, the producer is charged a penalty. Note that a power source doesn't have to be dispatchable to be forecastable, and it could have a low average capacity factor, and still be able to successfully bid on days when it is available.
"Ontario is about the size of 8 US Midwestern states."
Well, Ontario is only about 5% of the US and Canada; Ontario Hydro only covers about half of Ontario; and that doesn't tell us how widely spaced the wind generation is: it could all come from a single windfarm, for all we know. 120 MW really isn't very much - it's the size of a single medium to medium small wind farm.
"Even if the different regions had completely uncorrelated weather - which they don't - then probabilistically we would expect fairly significant deviations from the mean. "
Actually, there's a very good chance that different areas will have negative correlation - it's common in Europe. And, if not, the law of large numbers means that variance as % of the mean will fall in a mathematically predictable manner with size.
You've probably read it already, but the DeCarolis and Keith study did a greenfield model on the cost of wind to serve a large portion of US electric requirements. Allowing for learning curve advancements gave an average cost of 6-7 cents/kWh for serving half of US electric demand. While a rather arbitrary exercise, their methodology does include all intermittency and variability costs. They did not include pumped hydro, however, using the common misunderstanding that there is not enough of it. Although there is some development uncertainty left, an AACAES or underground pumped hydro system would be a useful addition to their model.
http://www.ucalgary.ca/~keith/papers/65.Decarolis.2006.EconomicsOfWind.e...
Thanks, that's a good study.
Yes, pumped storage would be a helpful addition to the analysis. Also, they note the potential value of demand management, but leave it out. That's understandable (you can't do everything...), but it's still a big omission, and getting bigger: plugin hybrids and EV's will add an enormous and extremely cheap tool for managing wind supply intermittency, primarily through charge management, but also through V2G.
Yes, it's a big omission to leave out DSM. Do you know of any quantification of these benefits? G2V, V2G, and demand side thermal (cold/warm) storage should make for a rather big contribution. I'd like to see these advantages quantified with real grid load serving data and economical analysis, for different power sources (variable wind and solar, constant nuclear would benefit a lot). There doesn't appear to be a lot of study on this.
It's only been very recently that it has become obvious that G2V and V2G will be very, very important, so it makes sense that there's been no thorough analysis.
A back of the napkin analysis takes us a long way: 210M vehicles, running 12K miles, at .25KWH/mile, would need an average of 72GW (an addition of about 16% over the US's current level of 450GW). That's 72GW of demand that you can turn off and on extremely quickly. You can put most of it at night - and have roughly 200GW of demand to solve wind's night-time surplus power problem (which is actually wind's main problem). You can use it to absorb spikes in wind power essentially any time of day.
V2G: with 210M vehicles and, say, 4KW peak output per vehicle, you have the potential for 840GW of instantaneous peak backup power, and 210GW that could be sustained for several hours!
And all at extremely low cost, because the vehicle owner pays for the storage for his/her transportation needs.
This is game changing.
1 kW per vehicle is a rather low figure. 110 VAC 15 A is 1650 watts; any 220 V connection would probably be at 30 A minimum, for 6.6 kW per vehicle.
Yes, I was a little too conservative. I really had in mind a Volt, with an effective 8KWH available, providing power for 8 hours, so the limit was the battery, not the "pipe". You could also use 2 KW, and 4 hours.
OTOH, we're talking about maximum longrun potential here, so why not assume an effective 50KWH available? So, here's revised text:
V2G: with 210M vehicles, a 50 KWH battery and, say, 6.6KW peak output per vehicle (220V & 30A), you have the potential for 1,386GW of instantaneous backup power that could be sustained for 7.5 hours. That's 3 times the current average demand in the US, and 40% greater than overall current peak capacity!
Yes to all of that - nobody I know thinks wind (or any one thing) is an entire solution, and in any case, the solution mix inherently varies by geography.
1) Note that the Australian company Ausra recently fired up its first North American plant here in CA, and unlike solar PV, utility-scale solar thermal plants can be engineered to store some energy straightforwardly, which helps, although it's not a panacea either.
2) Of course, in places that have substantial large (dammed) hydro, like CA there is some flexibility in scheduling water release, and that helps also, even without pumped storage. Of course, it's even better in Washington, where hydro produces ~75% of the electricity. Of course, there are geographies that really don't have much chance for dispatchable hydro.
The CA mix of energy sources can be found here.
and more here.
We're a long way away from eliminating natural gas (45%), although we've made more progress on coal. Obviously, the coal is baseload and the gas baseload+peaker.
3) Even though we've done wind here in CA for a long time, I'd guess it's going to be a relatively small factor for us, especially given the hydro, sun, geothermal resources. On the other hand, it will likely be more relevant in the US-midwest, where wind turbines actually mesh relatively well with farmland.
I have already read the Archer and Jacobsen paper. It is pretty clear that their 19 interconnected wind farms are not really the equivalent of a coal fired powered base load power plant even at 33% of total output level.
In that situation, I have no doubt that you are correct. Think instead, however, of 120 interconnected land-based windfarms tied to the grid which itself is interconnected between regions and control areas via HVDC. Then add solar generating stations, geothermal power plants (dispatchable baseload), hydropower/storage (dispatchable baseload), offshore wind, etc. Employ demand side management to provide real-time pricing (with lookahead) read by smart appliances/HVAC. Keep some gas turbines, nukes, even some CCS coal plants to keep the transition steady. More comfortable now?
Also consider the above power sources within the context of Stuart Staniford's Powering Civilization to 2050. Your thoughts?
I think we'd need more long-term storage, like CAES. CAES combined with a carbon-free high-temperature heat source (e.g. molten-salt nuclear reactors) would offend the hard greens, but would certainly give better bang for the BTU and slash GHGs more.
Absolutely. You could also use lower temperature heat sources (geothermal, light/heavy water reactors, etc) as a heat source for such a diabatic CAES plant. Since gen4 is some time away, using low temperature geothermal and existing reactors could be more interesting.
One thing I'd like to see developed quickly is a large underground pumped hydro energy storage system. Preferably using an existing large deep underground abandoned mine complex, as that saves a big cost component (tunnelling). There was a project planned for Ohio, if memory serves it was the Norton limestone mine. For some reason it was abandoned and a CAES system was preferred (a really big one), I suspect due to lower investment cost of a diabatic CAES system and relatively affordable natural gas prices. But the pumped hydro system works better with higher natural gas prices as it doesn't use any.
The Norton CAES project does not have a nuclear powerplant nearby. The Oak Harbor nuclear plant is too far away. If Ohio wants another nuclear plant, near the Norton CAES project could be considered a prime location. It would be best to have dry cooling but that's easy in the Ohio climate.
According to Wikipedia, the MSRE was built in 4 years. I'm assuming that we know enough now to be able to build another one in much less time; I would bet that after a few initial units were done (5?) and shaken down for a few years, production could be accelerated greatly as most of the parts would be built in a factory.
That's probably true. Somewhere I read the official targets were 2020 (accelerated target) and 2030 (base case) for molten salt reactors and other advanced concepts to reach multi GWe levels. An LFTR crash program (maybe 1-2 billion) could conceivably speed things up. If 1 GWe is ready by 2020 and the tech is as good and manufacturable as claimed there could be very serious amounts in commercial operation by 2030. I wonder if Obama is aware of the LFTR?
I doubt Obama knows about the LFTR. I was unaware of it until recently, and I'm an energy geek; he's a "community organizer".
1 GWe is a rather small figure. If these units are built in sizes of 300-400 MWe (much less difficult to fit into the grid), that's barely 3 of them.
If I was the nuke czar I'd ask for a design by 2010, first unit on-line in 2012 with a production rate of 1/year until 2017, after which production of the finalized design would accelerate to at least 5/year. The initial fuel loads would be reprocessed Pu from spent PWR fuel, with the U (perfectly fissionable but not enrichable due to U-232) sold to Canada for their CANDUs if they wanted it. Further fuel would be thorium.
Taking the dry casks off of the sites of decommissioned reactors (or putting new, taxpaying reactors on those sites) would probably be popular with the locals. Having reactors which produce pre-packaged waste ready for disposal rather than casks of rods would prevent deferring that problem to another generation.
The problems are mostly regulatory; licensing and approving a design takes years in the current environment. Even the Hyperion design will take until 2013 or so, and that's a fairly well tested design. If engineering issues are found, though, the design has to be revised a bit and re-approved etc. Takes a lot of time. Even Kirk Sorensen thinks 10 years to commercial scale is going to be a very hard target for a crash program in the US.
Well if you're a czar things are easier than in a complicated democracy ;)
Comfortable in what sense?
Comfortable that we will not have to abandon every advantage of the industrial revolution and go back to weaving cloth by hand and using iron instead of steel? I have never believed this extreme doomer scenario.
Comfortable that 8 billion plus people can live like middle class Europeans, and that the stock market can go on growing for the rest of my life? Absolutely not.
I am well aware that there are more options for renewable energy than wind generation and a super grid. My remark was directed at the casual optimism of Big Gav's statement rather than an attempt to claim that renewables are useless. With respect to your proposed scenario here are some comments:
1. Geothermal for baseload. Are you including hot dry rock technology? If so I think that you are counting your chickens before they are hatched. I do not think anyone knows what the costs of power produced from this technology will be. Traditional geothermal based on heated natural acquifers can be expanded but I suspect it can provide only a small part of the baseload requirement for global middle class living at European standards.
2. Pumped Hydro Storage. I have concerns that if we become heavily dependent on this technology for base load power, then variations in rainfall may effect the grid reliability. During a drought pumping lots of water could short down river users. I am not claiming that the technology is useless, just that it too may have costs associated with inttermittency.
3. The Super Grid. If this grid is going to deliver the same energy as today's grid (and possibly significantly more if it also has to power our transportation system) then it will have to a lot stronger than today's grid. This implies extra capital and maintenance costs.
4. Oil subsidies of renewable energy technology. Some people maintain that any material transport, construction, or maintenance function powered by oil can be powered by electricity at a cost that will not significantly slow down economic growth. I remain unconvinced.
5. Fossil fuels are not the only resource depletion issue with which we are going to be faced. If other resource shortages (peak phosphorous anyone?) start affecting out productivity then coming up with the capital to fund an expensive new energy system will be that much more difficult.
My point is not that we should not pursue alternate energy technology, but that pursing it in the context of a wealth concentrating, sales volume driven economic system may prove to be impossible.
Comfortable that we will not have to abandon every advantage of the industrial revolution and go back to weaving cloth by hand and using iron instead of steel? I have never believed this extreme doomer scenario.
Neither Gav nor I said that. Later you mention Peak Everything, and hear you sound like a Cornucopian promoting the endless party. And later on down the page, you say;
As a species we need to grow up and find some other purpose in life than selling more stuff this year than we sold last year. We need to concentrate on creating long term community wealth rather than on amassing short term private fortunes. Adam Smith's cooperation of greed will not work well in a resource limited world. If alternate energy technology is oversold and people are encouraged to believe that the BAU growth economy can continue for the rest of their lives, then long term ecological thinking is discouraged.
So it's hard to integrate these seemingly disparate stances into one coherent set. Which is it; Powerdown, or Party on?
Comfortable that 8 billion plus people can live like middle class Europeans, and that the stock market can go on growing for the rest of my life? Absolutely not.
Gav did not say that, so you are creating your own strawman.
1. Geothermal for baseload. Are you including hot dry rock technology? If so I think that you are counting your chickens before they are hatched. I do not think anyone knows what the costs of power produced from this technology will be.
Nobody knows what the costs or the availability of any energy source is with certainty. See the projections by MIT in this study using data from EGS sites and well known drilling costs.
2. Pumped Hydro Storage. I have concerns that if we become heavily dependent on this technology for base load power, then variations in rainfall may effect the grid reliability. During a drought pumping lots of water could short down river users. I am not claiming that the technology is useless, just that it too may have costs associated with inttermittency.
Of course there are intermittency risks, even with pumped hydro. No power source is without its risks one way or the other. Demand side management is one other tool to help even out peaks and troughs.
3. The Super Grid. If this grid is going to deliver the same energy as today's grid (and possibly significantly more if it also has to power our transportation system) then it will have to a lot stronger than today's grid. This implies extra capital and maintenance costs.
Today's grid need overhauling anyway, just listen to the people who run it; the technology is WWII era and before. Yes, it will take money to do this; would you just let it fall apart otherwise?
4. Oil subsidies of renewable energy technology. Some people maintain that any material transport, construction, or maintenance function powered by oil can be powered by electricity at a cost that will not significantly slow down economic growth. I remain unconvinced.
With oil expected to decline permanently, we need to wise about the power we use now and in the future. The "anything goes" attitude of Cornucopia Land is history. Economic "growth" is another area that will see a change if we are to avoid the boom&bust cycle.
5. Fossil fuels are not the only resource depletion issue with which we are going to be faced. If other resource shortages (peak phosphorous anyone?) start affecting out productivity then coming up with the capital to fund an expensive new energy system will be that much more difficult.
Not a doomer, eh? Fooled me. So let me see if I can guess; you are either for continued coal, or for heavily increasing nuclear, which when I last checked, was pretty expensive itself. Which is it, or are you able to open up?
My point is not that we should not pursue alternate energy technology, but that pursing it in the context of a wealth concentrating, sales volume driven economic system may prove to be impossible.
The "wealth concentrating" bit may not go over well with the American public who are appalled at the effects of the efforts of people over the last 8 years who have been attempting to concentrate said wealth. And if this solution is a very large number of distributed, diffuse power stations, what does it matter if they do not "concentrate the wealth", as long as they provide the power?
Here is a quote from Big Gav from an exchange we had in July of this year:
With respect to big Gav, at least, there is no issue of strawman in my statement above.
I am neither a power down or a party-on person. I mentioned these two extreme cases precisely because I believe we need aim for something in between. I am glad to hear that you agree.
I am not a promoter of clean coal or of a massive nuclear buildup. I am a promoter of social and ecological intelligence. Our economic system is structurally designed to concentrate wealth and to require growth for proper functioning. Neither the stock market nor the banking system can function effectively without growth. We need to fix these structural features of our economic system. Social engineering is going to be at least as important and probably even more so than physical engineering. Overoptimistic estimates of the potential of renewable energy (I am accusing Big Gav of this offense, not you) discourages people from thinking about the social and political reforms that are required to create an economic system which is not obsessed with constantly increasing sales volumes.
It seems we have similar stances, though use different constructs to express them. I believe we need to resort to a lifestyle that is much less consuming of frivolous luxuries that impact our sustainability, which includes the natural habitat, though where does one draw the line? I believe in a form of powerdown, and you can see my approach on this newscast.
"Our economic system is structurally designed to concentrate wealth and to require growth for proper functioning. Neither the stock market nor the banking system can function effectively without growth. "
Could you elaborate on these two points? Perhaps indicate if this school of thought has a name, and a good analytical description somewhere? That's not consistent with any mainstream economic thinking I've seen. If you feel you have a source that overturns conventional wisdom, I think it needs a fair amount of evidence (the kind that TOD has spent so much time providing for PO, for instance).
The school of though I am referring to is called classical economics. Its chief proponent was a man named Adam Smith. He wrote a book you might have heard of called The Wealth of Nations. You should try reading it. He is orders of magnitude more intelligent and nuanced than the Chicago school of economics.
However, the need for growth in a system of private finance capitalism can be understood directly by the application of simple logic. If I give you money, which represents the right to consume economic output, and expect to receive in return an even larger right to consume economic output at some later date, then those excess consumption rights have to come from one of two places; Either total economic production increases, or I take consumption rights away from someone else. No third option exists. At least not in the universe which I inhabit.
If you are a games theory expert and you believe that you can prove that investment as a zero-sum, wealth preserving game will function well, please present your analysis.
"The school of though I am referring to is called classical economics."
The two propositions I'm questioning are:
1) Our economic system is structurally designed to concentrate wealth (by which I take it you mean the distribution of wealth) and
2) Our economic system cannot function effectively without growth.
I'm not familiar with anything in classical economics that supports these two propositions.
On growth: why can't loan interest rates go to very near zero (and deposit rates go to zero), and those relatively small interest payments support a small finance sector? Isn't Japan's recent no-growth experience a counter-example?
Further down the thread you wrote:
Economic growth is the least-harm option: look at what happened to Russian zoos and wildlife during their economic collapse, or what's happening to "bushmeat" in Africa, due to poverty. Economic growth is the best way to reduce population growth. If it's not sustainable...things will be much worse for both us and the planet than if it is.
Now you are saying No growth? What’s the problem?. You are not being very consistent.
Yes, small (but not zero) growth can support a small private financial sector. But not all investments are wealth increasing investments. What if a factory needs new machinery to go on producing the same thing it has been producing for years? Investments which preserve wealth (rather than increase it) are often worth making but private financiers will have not have any interest in making such investments. Furthermore, people whose rasion d’etre is to make money with doing any constructive labor naturally desire to obtain as much free money as possible. They look for reasons to believe that the future will be rosier than than the present (or just plain ignore the future) and before you know it you have collapsing bubbles all over the place. Far better to have public or community finance whose purpose is to make sure that useful production enterprises get capitalized. In a system of community investment the return on investment would be the goods and services produced and not extra consumption rights for people who have not done any contructive work to earn it.
"Now you are saying No growth? What’s the problem?. You are not being very consistent. "
Not at all. On the one hand, I think certain kinds of growth are extremely positive (at least for the reasonably foreseeable future, say the next 100 years), and that zero growth would result in much more environmental harm. On the other hand, I'm curious why you think that "Our economic system cannot function effectively without growth." .
"small (but not zero) growth can support a small private financial sector"
Why (again, according to your theoretical model) would growth be needed? The small financial sector would simply be a service provider, which would be paid by something now generally called "interest". You could call them money handling fees, if you want. It would be like many other service providers supported by the economy, such as weather forecasters, programmers, and barbers.
"private financiers will have not have any interest in making such investments"
Why not? They'd be paid their interest/fees, and make a living.
"before you know it you have collapsing bubbles all over the place..."
The arguments here, if I understand correctly, are that government/community based finance would be more stable, allocate investment funds more productively than a private sector, or be cheaper to maintain. All of those attributes would be desirable (if true), but they certainly don't rise to the level suggested by "Our economic system cannot function effectively without growth." I don't see a necessary connection between zero growth and the socialization of the lending function.
Further, while the socialization of the lending function would be a pretty big change, I don't see how it spells the end of our current economic system: you could still have most of the economy in private hands, functioning the way they do now.
People with good business acumen evaluating the potential for the sucess or failure of proposed capital investments and receiving salaries for services rendered is not private finance. The question of whether such a service represents public or private finance depends on who bears the risk if the investment has a poor return. These business evaluators, no matter how smart they may be, are not going to put their famlies's future welfare on the line every time that make an investment decision. If the risk is born by private investors then they will demand interest as compensation. If public, via taxes, bears the risk then there is no need to charge interest. Yes, we will take an occasional loss on a bad invesment, but we will also make many good investments which provide us with goods and services that we need.
"People with good business acumen evaluating the potential for the sucess or failure of proposed capital investments and receiving salaries for services rendered is not private finance. "
It's a pretty good description of the daily functioning of traditional community banks and S&L's.
"If the risk is born by private investors then they will demand interest as compensation."
Yes, but how much? I suppose you're making an argument for socialized banking, in part to prevent liquidity traps due to demands for excessive interest, in part to improve allocation of capital. Kind've what we're seeing lately, as a temporary measure, but definitely not part of classical economics.
And, this is very far from a "zero-growth spells the end of capitalism" argument.
Economic growth is the least-harm option: look at what happened to Russian zoos and wildlife during their economic collapse, or what's happening to "bushmeat" in Africa, due to poverty.
One is a economic collapse (not No-Growth) and the other is at poverty level, which would be a long descent from where we are today, so neither example is relevant here.
What if a factory needs new machinery to go on producing the same thing it has been producing for years?
It would finance it from the set-asides it had been making as a part of it's business plan. What, no set-asides? Bad management.
Far better to have public or community finance whose purpose is to make sure that useful production enterprises get capitalized.
That's taking place now in the US with bailouts. Not sure if it's for "useful production"
One company’s cash reserves is another company’s loan. For the economy as a whole the ony real savings are physical hoards of goods, just like a squirrel’s cache of nuts. While I agree that a more conservative style of investment is highly desirable, I am not convinced that letting any business that does not have the hard goods to pay for any needed infrastructure improvements go bankrupt is the best modus operandi for the economy. Also, even in an economy without composite growth startups will exist. With private investment and interest the barrier to success becomes higher than with interest free community investment.
I agree that US auto company bailouts may be a bad invesment. However, the auto companies, contruction comapanies, etc. have been making bad long term investments (in my view at least) for many years, so I don’t see any basis for making the twin proclamations private investment=good and public investment=bad. Also the bailout of investment firms is not an investment at all. It is pure give away of middle and lower class wealth to rich people.
" I don’t see any basis for making the twin proclamations private investment=good and public investment=bad. "
I haven't seen evidence for that either. OTOH, I don't think I've seen evidence the other way - have you?
It is mainstream classical economics that the capitalistic system does not target equity but explicitly growth. Growth is the target. Sounds strange when you think about it, since the word 'growth' implies a movement towards something rather than an end goal. Has to go wrong sooner or later. It must have made great sense a century ago though.
It's also pretty mainstream that debt-based systems require growth to function. It is obvious. If you have no growth the economy can't pay back it's loans as the future cost of paying them off becomes prohibitive. I think a (near) zero growth economy cannot be pivotted around debt at all.
This is all very conventional wisdom I think. Which is very very scary.
"Growth is the target."
Sure. That's not the same thing as "Our economic system cannot function effectively without growth."
"It's also pretty mainstream that debt-based systems require growth to function. It is obvious. If you have no growth the economy can't pay back it's loans as the future cost of paying them off becomes prohibitive."
As I said to Roger K, I'm not familiar with anything in classical economics that supports that proposition. Why can't loan interest rates go to very near zero (and deposit rates go to zero), and those relatively small interest payments support a small finance sector? Isn't Japan's recent no-growth experience a counter-example?
My point is that growth is a means to an end which we haven't decided/agreed upon, and perhaps therein lies the problem. Prisoners dillema thing, or whatever. It would be useful if we can decide what level of affluence we want, rather than pushing the limits into the next big crisis. In this I have to second Roger.
I don't know if Japan is a good example considering it's strong interaction with the rest of the world (that does have significant growth), and the no growth experience you refer to is too short to be an indication anyway.
The question is how the hegemonic heavily debt based financial system would fare under a prolonged zero growth rate, for the entire world (not just one country for a few months).
"growth is a means to an end which we haven't decided/agreed upon"
I think we're all agreed that we'd like a better life: more leisure for non-work pursuits; better health; more time for parenting; better care of the elderly; less poverty in developing nations. For all of these things we need to improve labor and resource productivity. That's conventionally called "growth" - call it what you will.
"It would be useful if we can decide what level of affluence we want"
It would be useful to find better priorities for the form of our growth.
"I don't know if Japan is a good example considering it's strong interaction with the rest of the world (that does have significant growth), and the no growth experience you refer to is too short to be an indication anyway."
Japananese institutions were living with zero, or near-zero rates for 10+ years. That seems like a pretty good test.
I will call that an incomplete and ill considered means and goal.
First, many of these things do not require growth per se, but systemic change and distribution. Growth does not bring better distribution; indeed, experience in the past has typically shown the opposite. The situation becomes more skewed with more growth. Even though the minimum for 'a better life' is also increased, that doesn't make growth an efficient tool to do this.
Second, when is enough enough? How many TVs per household, how many cars? Without a goal, we'll just keep growing to disaster. It is a stupid prisoners' dilemma which we have to collectively grow out of.
This is important, as you have not mentioned the other factor here - the environment. We are heavily straining it. Without too much growth, we'll need all the technology we can develop to reduce our environmental impact. I think we can manage this. With substantial global economic growth, I do not see how that is going to be enough. Then, we need to change the system and our own behaviour.
Not just growth. Distribution is not growth. Growth is not distribution. And if growth is still your goal, you still need a target. I think you are not aware of our environmental impact and the scale of our resource use.
Again, Japan is heavily interconnected to international economies. For example, it lacks many minerals which it has to import, it exports cars, has strong international financial ties, etc etc. Looking at Japan's economic performance like you do, in isolation to the rest of the world, is just silly in today's world. Japan would not exist as we know it without it's international ties, which is true for almost all countries.
"many of these things do not require growth per se, but systemic change and distribution."
I said "improved labor and resource productivity" . At least in the US, everyone's busy (and outside the US, no one wants to work longer hours). In order to provide more services, we need to be able to do more with the same hours in the day. And.....that's growth.
"when is enough enough? How many TVs per household, how many cars? "
As I noted elsewhere, I think if you look at goods production in the OECD, you'll see that most of it has plateaued. For instance, light vehicle production in the US has been flat for 30 years. I think you're attacking a non-problem.
"Without too much growth, we'll need all the technology we can develop to reduce our environmental impact. "
As I said, we need better priorities. Among other things, we need to direct our growth into work to reduce our environmental impact. That's much more sensible, and much more salable, than trying to simply not grow at all, as it will result in a much greater reduction of our impact than would the no-growth option.
And, yes, Japan is heavily interconnected. But, I don't see how that affects the argument that institutions can't live with zero interest rates. How do those connections support those institutions?
"Pumped Hydro Storage. I have concerns that if we become heavily dependent on this technology for base load power, then variations in rainfall may effect the grid reliability."
I think you're confusing this with modulation of conventional hydro. Pumped Hydro is a closed system, which doesn't use a river (it might use a large lake, or an ocean).
"The Super Grid. If this grid is going to deliver the same energy as today's grid (and possibly significantly more if it also has to power our transportation system) then it will have to a lot stronger than today's grid. This implies extra capital and maintenance costs."
Yes, but not an enormous amount. Long distance transmission is moderately expensive, but demand management is pretty cheap.
"Oil subsidies of renewable energy technology. Some people maintain that any material transport, construction, or maintenance function powered by oil can be powered by electricity at a cost that will not significantly slow down economic growth. I remain unconvinced. "
I'm baffled by this. Why do you not believe, for instance, that Prof Cutler Cleveland is competent, when he says that wind & solar have a high E-ROI? Further, why aren't you encouraged by the example of the Prius, which is cheaper than the average new vehicle, but uses half the fuel? It's partially electric, and it's cheaper to buy, cheaper to fuel, it's maintenance costs are lower...
Pumped hydro is not an entirely closed system, since there is some leakage and evaporation. It's not much, though, not enough for concerns by any reasonable standards. Perhaps Roger is thinking about retrofitting current hyro electric capacity with bigger resevoirs so they can serve as a hydroelectric - pumped storage hybrid?
Underground pumped hydro is something that has started to interest me greatly, due to it's low materials use, lower surface footprint, very high head potential (>1000 meters) and use of conventional off the shelf technology. Plus it's potentially cheap if a large abandoned mine complex is used as the lower resevoir. Mineralized water (salt or carbonated water) is also heavier so stores more energy per volume of resevoir, and it's easy to deal with the mineral depositing issues.
I think Roger is also a bit conservative on geothermal's prospects, considering he did not mention low temperature geothermal, strange since we had a thread on it recently. The equipment is off the shelf and proven, just reverse cycle refrigeration equipment. About 120 GWe in the US alone, because geothermal gets high capacity factor that's at least 20% of current use.
I do agree with Roger that we have to change the growth paradigm. Growth has become an end in itself, which is not a good thing. His idea to pick a certain level of wealth and grow (or shrink) to that level, sounds very reasonable to me.
I do not read every alternate energy post that appears on TOD. I am a busy man. I just looked at Big Gav’s story and he does not say much about low temperature geothermal other than than there is renewed ‘interest’ in it. My past reading about low tempertature heat engines claims that capital costs are high. What is the estimated cost of electricity produced from this source?
Raser has a power purchase agreement for 78 USD/MWh for their 10 MWe plant due to open soon. Cheap I think. The plant cost 5000/kWe but the high capacity factor makes the levelised cost reasonable. That's actually quite good for the first of a kind plant. Further plants, bigger plants, could well be cheaper. Since the tech involves off the shelf refrigeration equipment it should scale pretty fast.
Actually I pointed to a number of examples of plants that have been built and are being built in both the US and Germany, as well as noting an existing plant in Australia and describing renewed interest here.
Low temp geothermal is real and companies like Raser and Ormat seem to be running with it.
Of course, low temp geothermal is just one way of getting useful energy form geothermal, along with traditional (high temp) geothermal (which has been around for many decades), ground source heat pumps and the new wave of HFR / EGS geothermal developments being piloted in Australia and Europe.
"His idea to pick a certain level of wealth and grow (or shrink) to that level, sounds very reasonable to me."
Sure - the hard part is choosing that level.
Personally, I think the world as a whole needs to have about 2x it's current level of goods, and about 4x it's current level of services. The OECD probably has about as much goods as it needs, but the rest of the world surely doesn't. We need a whole lot better health care, education, and a host of other services.
I fully agree with you on healthcare, education and other services. It is goods and unlimited consumerism where the problem lies.
OECD countries have as much goods as they need but basically have infinite growth policy on material goods. Game theory thing, "if we choose not to grow, other countries will grow and we'll be left behind" and variations on that theme.
It may be very hard to get any agreement on the level of affluence, but it is vital for a sustainable future. Contrary to what some might say, new technology can sometimes 'save us' in some ways. But with the current growth attitude (let's call it that even though it is implicit) technology will only be used as an excuse to push the limits further, only to encounter them again later on, and the effects will be more grievous and the problem bigger to manage.
" infinite growth policy on material goods"
I think if you look at goods production in the OECD, you'll see that a lot of it has plateaued. For instance, light vehicle production in the US has been flat for 30 years. I think you're attacking a non-problem.
The major growth in resource consumption is coming from non-OECD countries. Here, there are much better solutions than trying to encourage voluntary poverty: reducing the resource used per good ("resource productivity"); reducing accidental and unnecessary pollution (CO2 from FF's); and eliminating unnecessary resource consumption (e.g., traditional medicine in China uses body parts of rare animal species, something which in fact has no medicinal value).
No I am not. I was responding to Pitt’s comment that the amount of storage was required was already available in current U.S. hydro capacity, very little of which is pure pumped hydro of the type which you describe. Building all new capacity will be substantially more expensive than piggybacking on existing hydro. Of course using sea water obviates this concern. The question if there are enough good sites for sea water based hydro.
The question is how much of it are we going to need? A moderate unit cost times a large number of capacity miles is big cost. Also I am worried that all of the ‘moderate’ extra costs which keep popping up all over the place are going to add up to something signifcant, particularly if our economy has to grow all of the time in order to maintain adequate levels of employment and financial security.
I am not worried about EROEI. Im worried about the cost of batteries. The Prius is more expensive than a ICE car with equivalent cargo room and performance, and it still requires fossisl fuel. And there is the issue of scalability. If the whole world is going to live at European standards a lot of heavy duty batteries are going to be required and material scarcity may well drive up costs. Again, I am not doubting the ability of electric transportation to contribute to future human welfare. I am just doubting its abililty to support decades more of BAU economic growth.
You'd need a large elevation near the coast. Relatively rare geografy. Japan has such a pumped seawater system using the sea as lower resevoir. Seawater is a bit heavier than freshwater which gives a small energy storage bonus. In the case of Europe, Norway could build many such seawater pumped hydro storage plants to act as battery for other EU countries. They are already doing this to a lesser but increasing extent with conventional hydro-electric.
There should also be enough deep excavated places (large abandoned mines) to act as a low cost lower resevoir for loads and loads of pumped storage systems. The more minerals we mine from deep underground, the more capacity will become available.
I fully agree that BAU growth for many more decades is not sustainable and likely disastrous.
"I was responding to Pitt’s comment that the amount of storage was required was already available in current U.S. hydro capacity"
Hmm - I think we're having trouble keeping track of the back and forth. In any case, what you're talking about isn't referred to as "pumped hydro". I believe Will Stewart and Pitt were talking about potential (not existing) pumped storage, though certainly dam-type hydro will help.
" The question if there are enough good sites for sea water based hydro. "
As others note, we're not dependent on seawater sites. We can use mines, we can use the Great Lakes (see Ludington, MI) - there's a fair number of possibilities. OTOH, PHEV/EV demand management will probably be much more important, and almost free - see my note elsewere today about G2V and V2G.
"The question is how much of it (long distance transmission) are we going to need?"
A "medium" amount - nothing like Stuart's world-girdling proposal. It wouldn't be something greatly disproportionate to current transmission investment levels. Take a look at the current CA and TX projects to support wind generation: Typically they add about $.25/W, or about 12%, to wind project costs, where needed.
"Im worried about the cost of batteries"
Ah. You can stop worrying. Even with a substantially larger battery, a plug-in Prius would still be cheaper than the average light vehicle, so at worst we'd have to drive fewer SUV's.
"a lot of heavy duty batteries are going to be required and material scarcity may well drive up costs"
There's really quite a lot of lithium and lead in the world - more than enough (I'll try to find sources for you).
I am referring to the amount required for a continent spanning wind/solar supergrid that frees us from fossil fuel dependence. That was the context in which this dicsussion started. I am a long term thinker. I am not particular interested in discussing the requirements for keeping the stock market "healthy" for the next five to to ten years.
Please do. And keep in mind that to me 'enough' means enough to support the entire global population at European levels of wealth.
"I am referring to the amount required for a continent spanning wind/solar supergrid that frees us from fossil fuel dependence. "
I was too. My point was: such a grid isn't necessary. More long-distance transmission would be helpful, but it would be a big mistake to try to use just one solution (geographical diversity/long-distance transmission). Actually, as I noted in another comment, demand management management (DSM) will be at least as important. Also, what's wrong with FF backup, if it's only used a very small % of the time? It wouldn't make a significant difference to climate change, and the supply would last a very long time (long enough that we would have a whole new set of cost-effective options from which to choose).
"I'll try to find sources for you). Please do. And keep in mind that to me 'enough' means enough to support the entire global population at European levels of wealth."
Here's one for lithium (there are many other battery chemistries that would work as well, including lead and zinc): http://www.worldlithium.com/An_Abundance_of_Lithium_1.html . It was discussed here: http://europe.theoildrum.com/node/4724 (search for "lithium"). I invite anyone else interested in this to chime in, too.
BTW, here's the quick description of the potential of just one form of DSM I wrote elsewhere on the thread:
Charge buffering (G2V): 210M US vehicles, running 12K miles, at .25KWH/mile, would need an average of 72GW (an addition of about 16% over the US's current level of 450GW). That's 72GW of demand that you can turn off and on extremely quickly. You can put most of it at night - and have roughly 200GW of demand to solve wind's night-time surplus power problem (which is actually wind's main problem). You can use it to absorb spikes in wind power essentially any time of day.
Vehicle to Grid (V2G): with 210M vehicles and, say, 4KW peak output per vehicle, you have the potential for 840GW of instantaneous peak backup power, and 210GW that could be sustained for 8 hours (with an effective 8KWH battery)!
In the beginning, it doesn't really have to. Just keep the gas-fired generators around as fast-start backup.
I understand that storage and super grids are not needed while intermittent renewables are a small percentage of total generation, and while natural gas supplies are adequate. However, my thinking about energy supplies and economic production in general is focused heavily on the long term. I think we have had quite enough of the "eat, drink, and consume in the present and trust that the earth and human ingenuity will provide without limit in the future" attitude.
As a species we need to grow up and find some other purpose in life than selling more stuff this year than we sold last year. We need to concentrate on creating long term community wealth rather than on amassing short term private fortunes. Adam Smith's cooperation of greed will not work well in a resource limited world. If alternate energy technology is oversold and people are encouraged to believe that the BAU growth economy can continue for the rest of their lives, then long term ecological thinking is discouraged. Why not build a big house and drive thousands of kilometers per year in your private automobile if scads of cheap, clean energy are just a decade or so away?
"As a species we need to grow up and find some other purpose in life than selling more stuff this year than we sold last year. "
I agree - see Maslow's hierarchy of needs. OTOH, fear of poverty doesn't really concentrate the mind on self-actualization and spiritual development - fear degrades thinking. So, I don't think resource limits are a great way of selling the idea of a less materialism-oriented lifestyle.
Further, "scads of (reasonably) cheap, clean energy" really are available - we just have a capex lag, transitional problem. You don't want to base your sales presentation on false info, especially when it's not essential.
Why do you make the equation end of growth = more poverty? It is precisely this equation and the fear that follows from it that has us locked in the cycle of endlessly increasing consumption. In the OECD nations poverty is an issue of wealth distribution, not absolute productivity. Our focus should be on long term wealth maintenance with maximum resource efficiencty, without concern for sales volumes. This change in economic focus is going to take place only if people recognize that there are real long term limitations to human economic activity.
I may not be much a people motivator, but I do know how to solve problems. The starting point for solving problems is acknowledging reality. If you want to build a long lasting bridge but you are 'uncomfortable' with acknowledging the limitations placed on you by the law of gravity and the properties of materials, then your chances of building a safe, long lasting bridge are approximately zero.
Either resource limitations place a limit human economic activity or they don't. If you believe that some combination of resource switching and dematerialization can allow effective exponential growth to continue for many decades into the future without significant damage to the biosphere, then your claim to agree with me that our economic focus should move beyond sales volumes would appear to be nonsense. If on the other hand real limitations on human economic activity exist, then any effective action to mitigate or prevent the negative consequences of ignoring those limits must begin by acknowledging their existence.
"Why do you make the equation end of growth = more poverty? "
The end of growth may not be the end of the world, but it's definitely, in itself, going to make life much, much harder than it would be otherwise.
"It is precisely this equation and the fear that follows from it that has us locked in the cycle of endlessly increasing consumption."
It's a combination of bad priorities (not getting off the first rung of the Maslow hierarchy), with a real need for improvement in the world.
"In the OECD nations poverty is an issue of wealth distribution, not absolute productivity. "
True, but the OECD nations aren't on an island.
"This change in economic focus is going to take place only if people recognize that there are real long term limitations to human economic activity."
My mistake - I thought your main priority was improved quality of emotional life, rather than coping with long term limits.
"Either resource limitations place a limit human economic activity or they don't. "
It's not an either/or - there are many shades of gray. Further, I don't think energy has any serious limits - it's a matter of investment lag. In particular, I think AGW is much more serious than PO.
" If you believe that some combination of resource switching and dematerialization can allow effective exponential growth to continue for many decades into the future without significant damage to the biosphere"
No, I don't. That doesn't mean we can't get away with it, for better or worse. The current massive wave of extinctions is an enormous tragedy. Will it cause serious harm humans in a concrete way? That's speculative. Now, AGW will harm humanity, but I think the path of economic growth is actually our best bet to find the resources to cope with it, and possibly also find the resources to start reducing CO2, and sequestering CO2 already in the air. Economic growth is the best bet to reducing coal consumption: we're much less likely to do so when under extreme economic pressure.
Economic growth is the least-harm option: look at what happened to Russian zoos and wildlife during their economic collapse, or what's happening to "bushmeat" in Africa, due to poverty. Economic growth is the best way to reduce population growth. If it's not sustainable...things will be much worse for both us and the planet than if it is.
"your claim to agree with me that our economic focus should move beyond sales volumes would appear to be nonsense. "
Well, I think we should change our priorities even if we don't face limits.
A few years ago somebody said the Japanese could not build an artificial island for Kansai airport. They did it. Why can't governments build some spoil islands offshore instead of putting waste in landfills? Obviously, the islands would be the perfect spot for windmills.
Hello Sci,
As an average bloke still still trying to get his head around all this, I'm not sure putting a hand up to ask a few questions is necessarily naysaying.
Such as, "What's the shelf-life on these things?" / "Will the components be economically recycleable when the time comes to replace?" / "How many of these things do we really need over the next hundred years" / "How much more of Earth's resources will be spent keeping these projects global?" / "Is wind power really the best way to go?"
No doubt I'll continue to cross my fingers that technology will save the day - perhaps with a healthy dose of common sense - but I'm still not convinced that expensive metal structures in a harsh, salty environment is the direction we should be heading.
How much energy do we really need anyway?
Regards, Matt B
All very valid points.
No guarantees this will work. But why not try? We have some who would eschew even trying, and even call the rest of us fools for thinking it might possibly work. That's what I was getting at.
Conservation, or negawatts, is definitely a necessary part of the mix. We haven't even begun to do what is possible in that area.
A mix of conservation, wind, solar, geothermal, possibly nuclear (I hope it's not necessary, but may be), etc. should be enough to supply our basic needs, just looking at the technical possibilities. Whether we have the foresight to move in the right direction while there's still time, is the real question.
Not to belittle wind power per se, but to believe that this sort of thing might happen on any appreciable scale one also has to believe:
1) That the oil supply will continue to grow for some time into the future; no incrementally new oil production, no further sustained economic growth.
2) That business as usual, relying on said economic growth, also continues its onwards march, and that if a fatally weakened global financial system is unable to fund new energy investment (as is increasingly the case now with both oil and renewable projects), that government printing presses will.
3) That the environment is able to support yet another round of global economic expansion.
I don't see any particularly good reason why these are prerequisites. Growth is not necessary; proper prioritization of resources is. BAU is not necessary; again, see prioritization. Third point, again, growth/expansion is not necessary.
As far as I can tell, long-term growth is over. We have a limited energy budget (from fossil fuels) to work with. That is a constraint, but not necessarily a fatal one. If we learn to conserve quickly enough, and prioritize investment in renewable energy, we can eventually find some sustainable balance of energy use and clean production. That equilibrium won't be on a continuous growth path; it won't be at current BAU levels; it won't allow extravagant lifestyles for so many as we have today; it may not allow for the current population levels, etc. It is possible, but of course not guaranteed to happen.
@ scientastic
You say that growth is not necessary, but not for our economy system, which is the only game around. A command or steady state replacement, if it ever arises, will have to wait until after the collapse of the old system. No empire, not even the "empire of consumption", ever voted itself out of existence. We have the perfect example of cultural inertia with regard to global warming. The problem is well know, the scientific consensus is in, and governments have had 10 years to change the trajectory of green house gas emissions, yet have done nothing.
We have a limited budget of fossil fuels it's true, but we rely on this limited budget to run our existing way of life. Where will the extra resources come from?
"If we learn" you say, but this is entirely the human predicament. We act first rationalise later, and in the struggle over the hump of Hubbert's Peak the gloves will be off amongst the world's actors, so to speak. Observe, for they are already squaring off...
You are correct that BAU will not persist, come what may, and that a low energy lifestyle awaits what remains of the human race in the future.
The downside, like the downside for the dams in Maine, is the power is going to be shipped out of state. The state last year gave what amounts to emminent domain powers to the utilities - to anyone needing an "energy corridor" - and already something like 50 communities are faced with plans over which they have much reduced say. Well, I lied, they do have a say, it's just that nothing at the hearing is recorded or considered because it's not a statutory public hearing in a democratic process. Just a way to blow off steam.
The cable shouldn't come ashore without service priority going to locals.
This seems way better than the dams - where the power goes out of state and the dead fish and eels wash up on the riverbanks. Ownership matters. Build it off the Maine coast; it should be a Maine owned cooperative with a Maine charter. First order costs and benefits have to be kept within the locale.
cfm in Gray, ME
We need to find, and elect, leaders who realize that imminent domain can work both ways. That "privatized" project can be taken over for the good of the state. It isn't just for the small landholders.
This is why I encourage individuals to find some level of their own generating capacity when possible, and why I tend to look on PV and solar heat as the quickest paths in that direction (wind at the right locations, but it's higher maintenance). The mega projects will be frequently far out of our hands as voters and citizens.. and yet right there in our pockets, just the same.
The more we can generate our own power, the less sway the market rates will have on our budgets. But I would also like to see states taking on this mentality as well. As with our (Poland) Spring Water, I think the resources of the State of Maine should principally be benefiting the common good of the people of the state.
Overall an excellent article.
It is a bit of an aside, but I have a problem with
I live in coastal Massachusetts in an old house that's in line with Maine's average oil heating consumption. I have agonized over home heating considerably. There are dramatic savings possible with new housing, especially if we take advantage of passive annual solar heating architecture. Most of Maine's population density is low enough that biomass heating, especially with wood, is very practical and could be sustainable as well. Of course the building code and housing stock needs to change.
OTOH, the average Mainer probably burns another 1000 gallons a year in each vehicle and with two vehicles per home there is still the desire for a lot of energy in Maine.
You'd have thought that people would go down to the hardware store and buy themselves an axe and saw rather than evacuating the state. I have never been to Maine but I should imagine there's quite a few trees there and even the greenies wont miss a few.
Perhaps a few enterprising types could also manufacture woodburners suitable for installation in houses that currently dont have them.
See Nate Hagens' piece on wood supply vs. US fuel use. Maine may be much better suited to wood power than most places on earth, but that doesn't mean that replacing oil with wood is feasible; that wood is a cash crop.
Solar space heating is very cost effective. Very suitable for greatly reducing space heating fuel use in Maine.
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/Space_Heating.htm
Even if you're not a do-it-yourselfer, the return on investment of this type of projects is still very high.
A large scale promotional campaign for installing simple solar space heating systems, combined with a rebate or tax credit, could have a huge effect.
Hi Cyril,
Given its maritime climate, Maine is a somewhat challenging state for passive solar, particularly if you're situated along the coast, where fog and overcast skies are seemingly a near constant companion.
November, December, January and February appear to be especially tough months in terms of solar insolation; in the case of Orono, ME, for example, the average, horizontal surface values (both beam and diffuse radiation) are 476, 399, 493 and 745 BTUs/ft2/day, respectively, and for a surface tilted at 60 degrees, the values are 952, 943, 1085 and 1294 BTUs/ft2/day.
A great tool for calculating passive solar gain can be found at: http://susdesign.com/windowheatgain/
Cheers,
Paul
I do not know how much sun Maine gets in the summer, but if it gets a fair amount there is a building technique called Annualized Geo Solar (AGS) which uses solar heat captured in the summer to heat the house in the winter. Unfortunately this design requires building from scratch. You cannot retrofit your home to utilize it. However, it should be considered for new construction.
Here in the Netherlands, there's lots of greenhouses that have excess heat in the summer but deficits in the winter. Seasonal geothermal well storage systems are becoming more popular for managing this, with the new greenhouses being so efficient, there's actually a lot of extra heat available for domestic space heating over the year. This is interesting, considering the high latitude of the location and the not so sunny climate. The potential for passive solar is greatly underestimated and therefore undervalued by most.
Hallo Cyril,
En in het proces heeft Nederland schone steenkool geperfectioneerd.
zie: http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/12/10/heerlen-minewater-project/
Groeten van Canada !
Paul
Je Nederlands is uitstekend, Paul. Het enige schone steenkool project waar ik het mee eens ben! Duurzame steenkool, wie had dat gedacht...
Groeten uit Nederland!
(My Dutch is improving, courtesy of my wife. It's a difficult language. The grammar is full of exceptions.)
True, and passive solar isn't an easy silver bullet, and you have to do a site survey:
http://www.builditsolar.com/SiteSurvey/site_survey.htm
However, with proper system sizing, good insulation and a lot of thermal storage in the house, you can greatly reduce heating fuel consumption over the year. It works well enough in Montana:
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It-Yourself/2007-12-01/Solar-Heating-P...
You're right though, Maine has more diffused light. Challenging, but not impossible. The trick is to get the system cost down very low, so you can increase the size of the system to accomodate lower insolation in troublesome months. Make it simple, make it big. And cover the ground before the system with high reflectivity paint helps a lot as well, as you can see in your link, by playing around with the ground reflectivity figure. Cheap thermal storage (eg water bags or water walls) is key to smoothing diurnal variations (along with good insulation of course).
You don't need to cut heating fuel requirements to zero, just as much as can be done cost effectively. Which is a lot even in Maine. Since very few buildings have solar collectors for space heating, there's a lot to gain from the existing situation.
Hi Cyril,
I agree; every little bit helps. One small blessing is that the coldest days of the year are generally the ones with the clearest skies and thus greatest insolation.
One of the challenges with passive solar is limiting the amount of heat lost through the glass at the other times of the day and night. Tight fitting, removable insulating panels are an option, but condensation issues and the risk of catastrophic failure due to thermal shock are two potential concerns. Many years ago, I rented a home in Toronto with floor to ceiling/wall-to-wall insulated glass, and you felt as if you were repeatedly tossed between a deep freezer and a broiler oven; I lasted one winter.
Cheers,
Paul
The selective foils are a great help with reducing emissivity losses, though they are more expensive than black paint. Evacuated double pane glass helps a lot too, but I don't trust the seal, especially for such a relatively hard thermal cycling application. I'm hoping the silica aerogel will be made more transparant, so that a strong vacuum is not necessary. A few milimeters of transparant aerogel in a double pane window should suffice. Double panes do reflect more light, though. So a simple cheap single pane may often be more cost effective. The low e coatings are often no good since they block out the infrared both ways, second law thing I believe. But it might be better for a foggy climate since most infrared is blocked anyway.
In a climate with warmer summers, some kind of mechanical contraption (vents) would be necessary to divert the flow of warmed air to the outside. Or maybe an internal reflective curtain that rolls over the absorber? Could be robotic if you fancy a smart house, though that adds cost.
I'm thinking about getting rid of my east brick wall, and get myself one of those thermosyphon solar walls, to heat the house up nicely in the morning. And maybe install one of those CO2 transcritical air heat pumps you talked about earlier. (The company I bought my gas furnace from doesn't appear to understand how to calculate efficiency, since the booklet says the gas furnace 107% efficient. They simply added 10% condensing efficiency on top of the 97% nominal efficiency, the idiots. Kind of strange that some people that work in the industry don't understand LHV and HHV.)
"even the greenies wont miss a few."
All depends on that slippery term 'a few'.
A great many Mainers, greenies and otherwise are cutting wood for heating, and have done so for centuries, of course. We've run our forests down before and might find we're doing it again. With luck, we'll also be building more masonry heaters and getting closer to Passivhaus standards so that the wood we burn is at a minimum.
Splitting and stacking is fun.. in reasonable quantities. No need to overdo it.
Spoken just like a Maine politician.
All these trees. Nevermind that the state has deliberately encouraged their sale to out-of-state owners. The sale of the Millinocket mill a decade ago comes to mind - when the state and the portland bankers torpedoed the in-state buyout. Now next to none of the forests are owned by in-state entities - let alone people.
Nevermind they are being chipped and burned already. What's there is claimed over and over again - just like the turkey wastes. We'll use wood for heat, for biofuels, for hydrogen, for composite technologies. The wood is claimed - over and over. And it is owned. And the tree diameters are getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
The ecological footprint of the typical Mainer might well be greater than that of the typical American in warmer climes. Food, heating fuel - everything comes from away. We are a net electric power generating state - even without Maine Yankee [though much of that is done with natural gas from away]. It goes out-of-state. We import trash - whether in a Wal-Mart truck or a Casella dumpster. We export water, electricity and our last fish. It's a plantation economy and we are being ripped off by "the core". The thermodynamics of this economy suck.
The King Pines - from which the masts of the King's ships were made - are all gone. Lots of people have woodstoves. Smaller and smaller and smaller. You know where I'm going with this right?
Peak oil is a radical environmental issue. Asset stripping like we've never seen before. No, that's wrong - Easter Island for one.
cfm in Gray, ME
Its true that you could shift to wood - but as others note, this doesn't scale well.
Making houses extremely energy efficient is the best course of action, but it takes a lot of effort to retrofit existing housing stock quickly...
For $ 350 you can save a huge amount of fuel for space heating:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SpaceHeating/SolarBarn.pdf
Thanks Cyril - I wasn't saying it can't be done, or is cost prohibitive - just that there is a lot of housing stock to retrofit.
All the more reason to get started immediately. The materials required are all commodities. Simple installation. People in Maine are very handy they say.
If land based wind energy was half as expensive as offshore floating windmills, some would want to build facilities offshore in order to get a lesser return on investment and then wonder why there is a shortage of credit in the world. What will happen when ten meter waves roll through the North Sea? What will happen if a "perfect storm" hits the coast of Maine and decimates a 25 billion dollar wind farm? Ocean water is very corrosive especially on moorings battered by high seas. The most expenisve alternative is not always the best way to go.
I think we found a use for all the oil platforms in the world when the oil below them runs out... Just plop a windmill on the top...
They're seriously thinking of putting windmills on the oil platforms off Santa Barbara. We don't even have to wait until the oil runs out.
offshore rig counts
worldwide 714 rigs (mobile and platform).
http://www.energycurrent.com/index.php?id=2&storyid=14573
They will be used for decades.
Oil platform size: dimensions of the platform are 103 x 99 meters.
Wind rotor diameters are about 90-100 meters for the 4-6 MW turbines. So wind rotor diameters are about the same width as an oil platform.
If they were converted to support wind. Could stick one large wind turbine on them. With say 6 MW of nameplate capacity.
4GW of nameplate capacity with 30-35% operating efficiency.
Equal to about 1.2 GW of nuclear power. just like the 5GW of wind in this article only generates the energy of one new nuclear power plant.
http://www.worldoil.com/INFOCENTER/STATISTICS_DETAIL.asp?Statfile=_int-o...
http://www.worldoil.com/magazine/MAGAZINE_DETAIL.asp?ART_ID=3657&MONTH_Y...
However if the new designs work out you'll need smaller, lighter rigs for the wind turbines.
And once built, they'll generate power pretty much forever with proper maintenance, unlike alternatives that rely on depleting and polluting resources...
Best of all, if you did have to decommission them after 30 odd years, unlike some alternatives its pretty easy and the materials can be recycled, rather than providing a health hazard for many years afterwards.
The high altitude kitegen wind thing might also work well on an oil platform. If it works at all, that is. I'm not sure if most rigs can take that kind of stress though.
In the case of a natural gas rig, the natural gas could be burned in a SOFC on the rig itself, so the rig becomes a wind/natgas hybrid with a powerline in stead of a natgas pipeline. Sharing the powerline will reduce cost. The waste heat from the SOFC might also be used for desalinating seawater (thermal desalination) and have the fresh water tanked to the shore for extra profits.
The hybrid gas / wind platofrm is an interesting idea.
In the right locations you might be able to mix in OTEC as well.
Interesting installation already done in association with the North Sea Beatrice platform (named after Boone-Picken's wife; field discovered in 1976). Two separate structures however have been pile-driven to sea floor. Economics (subsidised) were interesting - will make majority of field's electricity and is designed to help keep the wells economical during last very low-rate long tail of extraction curve.
Environment impact assessment also interesting.
Regarded as a demonstrator learning project.
http://www.beatricewind.co.uk/home/
Thanks Phil - thats a good link (and I like the bit of history as well).
rainsong -
Offshore high waves are mainly a dangerous problem only if you try to 'fight' them, i.e., either by trying to sail through them faster than is prudent (perhaps analogous to driving an expensive luxury car 70 mph over some unpaved rutted-out country road), by having a floating object too tightly anchored, or by having an object with insufficient hydrodynamic stability.
A properly designed stationary floating object loosely moored to the ocean floor with a mooring line that has lots of slack will just move with the waves even if they are quite large. Keep in mind that offshore wave are generally not breaking waves such as at the beach, but rather long rollers with long wave lengths.
While seawater is corrosive (particularly wet objects exposed to air), we have over a thousand years experience in dealing with that problem .... in the form of ships. I don't see corrosion as any more of an insurmountable problem than it is with ships or offshore oil rigs. That's what paints and other coatings are for.
It all gets down to the relative economics of the life-cycle costs of the competing wind power alternatives.
Does $25 Billion buy 5 GW of new nukes, or
5 GW of CSP plants ??
Does offshore wind have the ability to produce
power at a higher percentage of installed capacity
vs onshore wind to compensate for the higher costs ??
I'm sure we're going to need all the re-newables we
can muster, but this seems to be the more costly
siting choice ..
Triff ..
Does $25 Billion buy 5 GW of new nukes, or 5 GW of CSP plants ??
Of course, full lifecycle costs have to be factored in, with fuel, labor, waste diposal, etc.
Hi Will,
Add to that costs that are usually forgotten in most life cycle cost analyses:
The planning, development, manufacture, and maintenance of alternative energies consumes fossil energies. Proponents of alternative energies provide an analysis of net energy produced over the life cycle of a project or device, known as a life-cycle-analysis (LCA).
Invariably, such assessments are incomplete in accounting for only a portion of the energy inputs, usually confined to the energy required manufacture and install the device.
What analysts do not included is all of the energy used in all of the processes required to plan, develop, manufacture, transport, store, install, and maintain the turbines, including: the energy used to mine the ores; process the ores; transport the ores; mine the coal; manufacture various parts in diverse locations; transport those parts via ships and trucks from numerous diverse global locations; build, heat, and provide electric power for the factories and offices where all of the components and parts are designed, constructed, marketed, stored, and delivered; install and maintain major solar panel installations with gasoline operated vehicles and petrochemical-based cleaners; AND the salaries and stock dividends of all employees and stock holders for all of these processes that are then spent, thus consuming fossil energy in the products and services purchased.
Because there are many confounded energy input variables (for example the transport of wind turbine components may be transported with unrelated products), it is difficult to quantify the real energy inputs/costs of turbines.
The high dollar cost of wind turbines, however, is a rough economic estimate of these energy inputs.
cjwirth -
I would maintain that as long as one captures say 90% of the total life-cycle energy input for a wind farm or solar energy system, then one has done the energy analysis with sufficient detail for most purposes. And I think the primary purpose is to compare one energy alternative against another, in terms of which one has the earliest energy break-even point.
Going too far beyond that in an attempt to capture all the secondary, tertiary, and 'n-ary' energy inputs rapidly becomes an exercise in diminishing returns and may actual decrease rather than increase the accuracy of the analysis. This is largely due to the fact that once one gets beyond the direct energy inputs, then one unavoidably gets into an allocation game in which all sorts of assumptions and value judgements come into play.
In any event, I think that many of the secondary and tertiary energy inputs, such as the heating and electricity for the wind turbine factories can be readily shown to be a very tiny fraction of a wind turbines life-cycle energy output. In which case, they are not very important.
It all adds up, the use of oil that is, just saying it is small is not sufficient, as I said before, look at the price tag, that will give you an idea of how much oil the wind turbine used up to, but not including the maintenance.
"look at the price tag, that will give you an idea of how much oil the wind turbine used up to"
Not really. First,wind has a very high E-ROI according to all of the E-ROI experts, which means it doesn't use much energy. 2nd, what energy that turbine manufacturing does use is electricity, not oil. I know you have trouble with E-ROI analysis, but I think the burden of proof is on you to provide good evidence that people like Prof Cutler Cleveland don't know what they're talking about.
BTW, the idea that engineering design and development uses a lot of oil is...just silly. Think a few hamburgers and LCD screens as far as energy consumption goes.
I continue to be amazed at how you ever got that Ph. D. You suck at doing research so you clearly don't deserve it.
No ad-hominem attacks please - lets try and keep it civil.
Why? We've debated this before. Clifford ignored it all and continues similar rants in a different thread.
I don't see why we should debate reasonably with propagandists. It's not as if they'll actually learn something.
Well - its a site rule not to be rude, so if you do feel the need to respond to Cliff's comments, please don't be insulting - you can disagree (as vehemently as you like) just try not to make it a personal thing...
I do understand your sentiments though - I'm more than a little tired of our nuclear power PR troll doing his act in every single post on renewable energy, regardless of the fact that nuclear wasn't mentioned once.
Nuclear power PR troll? As one who lives within driving distance of several nuke plants and wishes there were more, I think that's a nasty characterization.
But cjwirth is on another level. His claims have been refuted with data time after time, but he continues to repost them in thread after thread. The language directed at him is directly due to his rudeness in so doing, and if anyone is going to be called on it, cjwirth should be first in line.
EP, you're anything but a troll...
I should hope not. I was coming to the defense of others, who I shall not name.
You are definately not a troll, and neither is the one you're defending. If more people were like this, we wouldn't have so many energy related problems at all.
But, you've neglected the second part of your name. When will we get some more poetry? A full sonnet, please. :)
I certainly understand your frustration: what to do when some people repeat propaganda over and over. Gav was referring to the reader guidelines that I'll admit I hadn't read before yesterday. Of course, the first three read;
# When citing facts, provide references or links.
# Make it clear when you are expressing an opinion. Do not assert opinions as facts.
# When presenting an argument, cite supporting evidence and use logical reasoning.
Some of the others that Gav was referring to include;
# Treat members of the community with civility and respect. If you see disrespectful behavior, report it to the staff rather than further inflaming the situation.
# Ad hominem attacks are not acceptable. If you disagree with someone, refute their statements rather than insulting them.
Again, I completely understand your frustration, though perhaps remarking that something has been debunked several times might suffice.
Cyril, as best I can tell, patience is the key.
Keep in mind that we have readers who don't know the history. Consider each of these events a "teachable moment", and debunk the incorrect assertions.
If the same arguments appear over and over again, just keep a copy of your well reasoned arguments, and paste it as a reply - quick and easy. Of course, if you actually get a reasoned reply, then you'll need to revise your text, but, :) that appears not to be needed often in this case.
I don't think that repeated debunkings are an adequate response to broken records or deliberate use of the Big Lie (if nothing else, the thread-pollution continues), but that's going to be a judgement call of the editors.
Exactly. This isn't a new guy on the block, it's cjwirth posting in many threads, debunked over and over.
How many repeated debunkings are necessary for one and the same person to get it? How many threads? At some point, it's easy to see a structural bias. Sorry if I lose my patience at that point. You know, I'm just going to ignore cjwirth. It works with Kit P. on the Energy Blog as well, whom the Engineer Poet is very familiar with.
cjwirth,
I rated upwards your comment because I think we do need to consider all these embedded costs. Nevertheless, I think that it is premature to conclude, without actually running all these costs, that they will overwhelm the EROEI and make technologies such as solar and wind a net loss. Simply mentioning them without quantification amounts to hand-waving.
For example, solar in many studies is found to have an EROEI of 10:1 or greater (a payback of 1-3 years, on energy invested). In a previous discussion, you mentioned C-EROEI but neglected to quantify it, even after several requests. The best summary of the available studies I can find that attempts to include everything up to and including the fuel consumption of the workers installing the system, is at http://www.energybulletin.net/node/17219. This still has solar with an energy payback of 4 years, or to be safe, a range of 2-8 years. Still a net positive, and that is with many conservative assumptions built in as discussed in the article.
There is one study out of many that indicates a negative EROEI, but the article points out why it may be flawed. It was a study of a large-scale (industrial) solar power plant; and the study concluded that due to the complexity of running and setting up such a plant, its payback was much longer. Distributed (e.g. roof-top) systems do not have this extra cost, and thus this study cannot necessarily be applied to them.
I still have an open mind though, if you can convincingly make the case that none of these technologies have a net positive EROEI (large enough to make them worthwhile). It's not enough to just say so and do some hand-waving about how the complete costs have not yet been factored in. I want to see quantitative analysis before I will be convinced; most of the analyses I have seen show they are worth it.
Here are links to previous Oil Drum studies of the EROI of wind and solar:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/17/18478/085
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3910
Bottom line, it is just fine for both, and in the case of solar PV is steadily improving beyond the figures in the study you link to, especially in it's thin-film variants.
Does offshore wind have the ability to produce
power at a higher percentage of installed capacity
vs onshore wind to compensate for the higher costs ??
That is what I have read - the wind blows more often and harder at sea than on land.
It does - but wind turbines do not produce power when the wind is too high, as well as too low, and maintenance costs increase if they are continually fighting a gale:
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/12/01/a-shore-thing-why-o...
The article quoted has hotlinks to the relevant figures quoted.
It all boils down to around $15million/MW for actual average annual output.
At a capacity figure of 60% or so for coal it would compare with around $1 million/MW.
Latest figures in the West show around £2.5 million/MW for a nuclear reactor, or $3.75 million MW allowing for the 1.6GW reactor design turning out 1.4GW of actual power:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/04/nuclear-power-edf-eon
Daft American regulatory procedures may up that cost, but OTOH it allows quite a bit of leeway.
Both of these alternatives would need fuel, but in the nuclear one the costs are tiny compared to the construction costs.
Around 10-15% each is typically added to allow for waste disposal and decommissioning.
In my view it is urgent to reduce costs for off-shore wind, and tethered alternatives etc need prototyping.
This means of course that they are in no way ready to roll out to provide substantial power.
I refuse to use web references for estimating capital costs of generating technologies anymore because inflation, currency exchange, interest (etc. etc.) rates are just too volatile to make any comparison meaingful. HOWEVER, $600 / kw is WAY too low for any coal technology last I heard and $600,000 / kw is WAY too high. Id suggest a useful figure prior effects most recent economic crash was in the $1,800 / kw range for simple coal no gassification or sequestration.
And I also note that Atomic Energy Canada was going around the US partnered with Dominion Energy a couple years ago offering to build CANDU ACR nuclear on your site with your permit for $1200 / kw, 4 years first shovel to first power. Probably would do it now for $1500 to $1800, given less defensive attitude from US regulators.
Point noted, Len. The costs anyway for capital are so much lower than off-shore wind that it is really moot.
Another thing to bear in mind is volatility.
I used to make efforts to go back to the most authoritative sources I could find, Government reports etc, but costs are swinging so wildly that I now find it better to go with the latest I can find, as long as it is not wildly out of line ( I haven't bothered looking much at coal prices, as it is certainly cheap, as long as you don't care about emissions, so I haven't studied it much )
The costs of coal plants will heavily depend on what emission regulations are imposed, and the ongoing cost of fuel is much larger than for alternatives.
Hopefully, this is a more reasonable figure:
http://www.ecoleaf.com/green_energy/coalpowerplants.html
At $2500 kw without allowing for capacity, that is in the same ball-park as the nuclear option considering the fuel costs.
Apologies.
It should also be noted that recent falls in material costs substantially favour renewables, as they are much more material intensive.
Thanks for that link Dave. 2000-3000 per kWe seems about right, although there is considerable geographical difference. But you need to calculate this stuff in terms of levelised cost. Investment cost alone excludes too many variables, and you can't just divide the investment cost by the capacity factor. Levelised cost allows everything to be included, such as production costs, back-end costs, grid integration costs, lifetime of the plant, etc. Even better, you can add sensitivity analysis on each of these variables, so as to get the most plausible range.
Cyril, I agree that levelised cots are nice, and that there are other costs apart from construction, which I often try to mention.
The problem I find is that it is pretty difficult to find levelised costs calculated on the same basis, and I have seen totally different costs turned out by organisations promoting this or that power source, always to the advantage of that which they advocate and to the detriment of competitors!
Getting back from them to the original assumptions put in is tough, for a start, and often simply not given.
A change of one point in the interest rate assumed leads to radically different levelised costs.
In a full engineering study you would undoubtedly work on a levelised cost basis, but it does not seem to be realistically possible for the purposes of this sort of discussion.
So I prefer the slightly sloppy basis of looking at the construction costs, and trying to mention some of the other costs, such as fuel for coal, and decommissioning and waste for nuclear, which I gave at around 10-15% each, which I believe is in the ball-park of current allowances.
Also of note is that in some northerly areas such as Britain and Maine, the excellent profile of wind strength over the year improves the economics greatly:
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/sinden05-dtiwindreport.pdf
This shows that power in mid-winter is two and a half times greater than in mid-summer.
My interest is not in proving that off-shore wind will not work, but in trying to figure out how to stay warm and keep some industry running.
I just can't see anyway in God's earth that the money will be available, at least in Britain, to build the damn things in the quantity needed to keep things going.
That is why new technology such as tethered rigs are important, as potentially they might reduce costs.
That's true. The solution is to show the assumptions used, and use sensitivity analysis on these assumptions. That way, you can show the effect of increasing interest rates, to show sensitivity to future discounting, revealing this particular risk. So it can also expose weaknesses or strengths under different interest rates (or cost of labor, or materials, or fuel cost for that matter). You can also show that increasing penetration of one technology carries grid integration costs (transmission/storage/power balancing). That's also why the levelised cost metric is the best to use.
Most of the decent reports reveal their financial assumptions so getting a decent comparison is often possible.
The tethered rigs are nice from an engineering viewpoint. Hope it works, but it's very early in development still.
It would be quite silly not to start with conservation and efficiency, as you'd agree. You've probably seen the builditsolar website before, which has some simple, practical, and (cost) effective designs for reducing space and water heating. Works very well even in not-so-sunny Britain.
http://www.builditsolar.com/
Now, I have to stop referencing that site before they call me a propagandist :)
Dave, let's talk again.
"wind turbines do not produce power when the wind is too high"
Turbines feather at high wind speeds, so they can continue to work fairly high speeds. The kind of operating characteristic you're talking about is very basic, and anyone making cost estimates would include it.
The WSJ article you quote isn't reliable. It says "Offshore turbines exposed to stronger winds more months of the year also take a battering, which leads to downtime for additional maintenance and repairs, pushing total output back down."
It's highly unrealistic (to use understated language) to suggest that maintenance outages will reduce capacity factor from 45% to 30%. That would suggest that 33% of the turbines were out of service at any one time. If it takes a week to repair a turbine, then you'd be repairing each and every turbine every 3 weeks. Onshore turbines have a Mean Time Between Failure measured in decades - turbines specially designed for ocean conditions won't have a MTBF of two weeks;
" experts figure offshore wind farms get about 33% capacity"
The WSJ blogger misrepresents the 33% figure: that's a sample "starting" figure in a BWEA mini-simulation for teaching purposes.
"In practice, U.K. offshore wind farms tend to produce between 25% and 35% of the listed power capacity. "
It's inaccurate to compare various wind resources, such as two particular ones in Europe, with a particular US project.
"It all boils down to around $15million/MW for actual average annual output."
The WSJ article doesn't prove that. Keep in mind, it gives a (maximum) capital cost of $W4.5/W - with 45% capacity factor, that's $10/avg watt, which makes it roughly competitive with nuclear, all costs included (as I discussed with you earlier).
Neil, I think that many have the impression that I am against off-shore wind.
I am not. It just has to be somewhere in the realms of possible financing - that is why I think that idea like tethered structures need vigorous backing, as some of them have the potential to greatly reduce costs.
It should however be realised that new systems take years to prove, although it is quicker for wind than most sources, and so in no way does it provide an answer to current needs.
What I am particularly keen on are kite-type systems, as at around 300 meters, as opposed to 800 meters on land, much higher average wind speeds are available.
Of course wind turbines feather in high winds, but winter storms are still very wearing, and during the course of them the power is out.
The links I have given give the actual capacity factors attained in practise, it may well be that they can improve in future, but we can't take that to the bank.
The US has indeed got an excellent wind resource, and the land-based systems operate at much higher capacity factors than most in Europe, so this cheap resource needs greatly expanding in my view.
Your view that anything like the maximum 45% theoretical capacity can be attained would seem to be unrealistic, and is at least very far beyond current practise.
But no matter, accepting that argument and putting the cost at $10watt, which assumes that everything works perfectly in new applications of technology to far beyond current practise and there are no cost overruns, it still would not be anything like the cheapest way of generating the power, even if the discussion is confined to wind power:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/109585-a-comparison-of-electric-storage-...
It would be enormously cheaper to build wind turbines in Wyoming or wherever, and operating well within known current practise they could transmit the power at a far cheaper rate to where it is needed.
In the North Sea, the 40% capacity figure refers to the depths of the North sea, and in reality not even 33% has yet been attained.
I am completely confident that Britain, at least, will not be able to finance off-shore wind on a very large scale - it would be very challenging even in the economic environment of the early 2000's, and is now utterly out of the question.
My best hope for off-shore wind in Europe is that the German's and perhaps the Dutch will go on to develop cheaper off-shore wind configurations as outlined in this article, but it won't be easy even for them.
And yet the UK is on track to become the biggest offshore wind power producer in Europe, courtesy of a just approved 750 MW plant for Wales.
http://peakenergy.blogspot.com/2008/12/750-mw-offshore-wind-farm-approve...
I think wind is on a roll in Europe that is basically unstoppable now (at least until its generating about 25% of the continent's power needs).
You following method of storing wind energy might be of interest to some of the readers of this thread - you have mentioned it before:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5119585.ece
I am happy for us to have as much off shore wind as we can afford, but it should be noted that at the moment the build is tiny compared to energy use, and that even the projected enormously expensive future builds will only provide a relatively small fraction of current energy needs.
The UK economy is also falling off of a cliff, so I doubt that the money will be available.
Germany might do better.
In the US a far cheaper alternative would seem to be building land based turbines and transmitting the power, and money is going to be pretty short there.
The only thing I have against off-shore wind is the cost, as I don't think that many places will be able to afford it.
That is why technologies like tethered rigs are important, as they may reduce costs to more realistic levels.
That reverse pumped hydro storage island is interesting. The primary disadvantages are the low head (less than 50 meters) and the large amount of materials used in construction. But it's multi-functional, facilitating wind turbines, and maybe some recreational amenities, and some aquaculture etc. So costs could be shared. And there's no shortage of shallow heavy clay seabed in the North Sea. They should build it. I'd be pleasantly surprised if it can be built within budget though. But that's typical for large first of a kind engineering projects like this. It has to be big enough to be economical, but too big makes it risky and prone to cost overruns. If it proves succesful, many more might be constructed at lower cost.
This data suggests the project to be cheaper, but perhaps costs have escalated since:
http://www.west-vlaanderen.be/NL/BestuurRegio/kustbeheer_nl/eengreepuito...
The potential for underground pumped hydro should be mentioned as well. Much larger head (>1000 meters), low footprint and low materials use make it a very promising utility grade energy storage development. If existing underground wells are available (very large abandoned mines etc.) the cost could be very low. There was some work on it in the US in the 80's and 90's , but it appears to have died down over the years.
even the projected enormously expensive future builds
How much, and how much per watt over the full LC, including decommissioning, assuming 45% capacity? How does that compare, say, to current nuclear projects (averaging in the low and the high)? Using words like "enormously expensive" fails to get your point across.
I have already given the information you are asking for upthread, with linked sources.
I used the latest information that I could find for cost, as changing exchange rates, fluctuating materials costs and interest rate uncertainties make calculation difficult at this time.
The main thrust of my argument in any case in respect to the projected off shore build in Maine is that it would seem to be far more economical to build on-shore and transmit the power.
I do not have current information on US land based wind-turbine costs, but it is far cheaper, and importantly the engineering is well established, so that difficulties and unexpected costs are less likely to occur.
The latest information I have for April this year gives a cost of around $1.5bn GW installed for on-shore wind in the US, which at the excellent capacity factors in, in this instance Texas, of around 33% works out at around $4.5 billion/GW for actual average annual output, or around half the cost of the Maine project, which comes out to around $10/watt, even using their capacity figure of 45%, which would take some doing as it is far beyond current practise.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/bus/stories/DN-pickens_18bus...
The cost of transmission I have provided elsewhere in this thread, but here it is again for your convenience:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/109585-a-comparison-of-electric-storage-...
It should be noted that since April the costs of commodities have gone up vastly, and then down again.
Falling materials costs are very important for wind power, as it is materials intensive relative to other energy resources.
The relative advantages of land base wind will have remained constant in this respect, but off-shore still suffers the full disadvantage of using cutting edge technology, which may encounter difficulties and extra costs.
The situation is radically different in Europe, which does not have vast amounts of very high quality on-shore wind resources as the US does, and so the extra costs of off-shore have to be borne if the decision is made to use that energy resource, although on-shore resources in the Uk are still substantial.
The relative advantages of land base wind will have remained constant in this respect, but off-shore still suffers the full disadvantage of using cutting edge technology, which may encounter difficulties and extra costs.
Why do you believe this? How many GW of capacity in offshore wind do you believe exist today (not just US)?
even using their capacity figure of 45%, which would take some doing as it is far beyond current practise.
Does not the capacity factor primarily depend on the reliability of the wind at a specific location? What do you know about the wind statistics at the Maine location?
I'm looking at the data given in the original article, and links to the Maine off-shore wind project.
It appears you have limited time to read links and information given in this thread, and so perhaps if you have further questions you would read the information already provided.
It appears you have not troubled yourself to acquaint yourself with the basis of the discussion here, let alone the many references which you apparently found inadequate.
I also note that you did not respond to my invitation to provide links to your assertion that you had on many occasions 'corrected' statements that I had made, and that you were upset that they were repeated by myself on other occasions.
It appears to me that not only is this a rather patronising phraseology, which you have not substantiated, but that you likely mistake your offering an alternative viewpoint to 'correction'.
In fact, people have a variety of viewpoints, many of which may not agree with your own, and some of which rely on a closer acquaintance with the information on the subject in question than you appear to find necessary to form an opinion.
This is yet another ad-hominem attack by you - one more in a long and sorry history here.
Cut it out.
Its also entirely inaccurate - you are the one who needs the post more carefully as demonatrated in a number of misinterpretations elsewhere.
There was no personal attack involved, therefore the comment was not ad hominem.
Please do not exercise prejudice in your comments, as personal likes or dislikes are neither here nor there.
I have already referred your persistent personal attacks to the editors here, as it appears difficult to understand how you can reconcile your inability to refrain from continual personal and prejudicial comment on an on-going basis to any pretensions to either abiding by the site rules, common courtesy or impartial arbitration.
" winter storms are still very wearing"
I'm not sure what you mean. Do you have evidence that turbines can't be designed to withstand storms?
"and during the course of them the power is out."
No, not really. Some of the turbines will be out, if the storm exceeds their max speed, and others won't. That's why a windfarm is much less variable than a single turbine.
"The links I have given give the actual capacity factors attained in practise"
Ah, no, the WSJ article doesn't give good info, as I explained.
"accepting that argument and putting the cost at $10watt, which assumes that everything works perfectly in new applications of technology to far beyond current practise and there are no cost overruns"
Well, I wouldn't say that. The WSJ article gave $4.50/W, but I suspect that's an artifact of the recent shortages of equipment, steel, concrete, etc. I think that's a max, rather than a minimum.
"Your view that anything like the maximum 45% theoretical capacity can be attained would seem to be unrealistic, and is at least very far beyond current practise...In the North Sea, the 40% capacity figure refers to the depths of the North sea, and in reality not even 33% has yet been attained."
Hmm. Anyone have better info on the maximum capacity factors attained so far? Big Gav?
"I am completely confident that Britain, at least, will not be able to finance off-shore wind on a very large scale - it would be very challenging even in the economic environment of the early 2000's, and is now utterly out of the question."
Hmmm. Why do you say so? That's not consistent with any mainstream economic thinking I've seen. If you feel you have a source that overturns conventional wisdom, I think it needs a fair amount of evidence (the kind that TOD has spent so much time providing for PO, for instance). I have spent a bit of time on Automatic Earth trying to identify their basic ideas - if that's your source could you point me to the best places to start to understand their approach?
Just taking the obvious point from what you are saying, the $4.50/watt is for installed capacity, not actual annual average output, and so is meaningless.
If you follow the links I have given, you will find actual practise, which is around 27.2% capacity, which I accept will improve.
I will decline to argue the rest of your propositions, until the obvious lacunae are filled.
Automatic Earth - read Dec 1st and 2nd.
Denninger is also good.
They may not be mainstream, but they have a lot better predictive record than those who are - a lot of mainstream commentators 'talk their book' - ie they are financially involved in the ideas they push.
'Seeking Alpha' also gives a variety of different opinion, of variable quality.
A lot of my commentary on the state of the UK economy is becoming more 'mainstream' by the day anyway - both materials and nacelle costs for windturbines, for instance, depend on import costs, so if the pound sinks, they go up - here is the latest on the pound:
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=3&subcatid=14&th...
I trust 'The Times' is mainstream enough for you?;-)
Prior to the latest fall in the pound, costs for the 40GW of projected wind turbine capacity were given as around £80 billion, including 7GW of cheaper on-shore.
Regardless of what may be the case in Maine, in the UK this is reckoned to give less than 14GW of annual average output, and for that modest contribution to put already large electricity bills up substantially.
EDIT:
Here is an overview of the current state of British indebtedness:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/108421-is-bankrupt-britain-trending-towa...
Feel free to check those figures in detail.
Dave, the Times article didn't come through.
Weird. The link works for me.
Here it is again:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5119585.ece
Failing that, go to the Times and put energy Island in as a search term.
Dave, I think we were talking about an article about how "both materials and nacelle costs for windturbines, for instance, depend on import costs, so if the pound sinks, they go up - here is the latest on the pound".
I think you must have been thinking about another conversation.
I can't resist a comment about your conflict with a couple of other people in this thread - I think that you may be trying to do too much, or not reading things carefully enough, or some such, because you sometimes miss my points, and I have to repeat them a couple of times. Similarly, sometimes you draw the wrong conclusion from references (something which is oddly common lately - remember all those references Gail used recently, that didn't support her points?), and sometimes mix up references. The above confusion about Times articles is one example. Another is that at one point in this thread you responded to a comment of mine, but called me Neil (if you want to search for it, it started out like this: "Neil, I think that many have the impression that I am against off-shore wind.").
I have no doubt that you're sincere. I think if you just slow down a bit, and process things one at a time, that it will work better.
Nick, I do type rather fast and at times inaccurately!
However, in the context of which Times article you were referring to, it is sometimes not easy to find what is being talked about due to the thread structure here, so that can lead to difficulty in locating it.
I meant to make a comment to you regarding mainstream economists. You remarked that mainstream economists do not seem to support some of the constructions I was putting on the fate of the British economy.
I don't know if you are familiar with Taleb's 'The Black Swan', but part of his argument is that the risk assessment models used to provide insurance are radically flawed, as they discount unusual events, so that the assumption is always that not everything can fail at once.
In the insurance business over the course of the years profits have been non-existent, Taleb argues, because rare events were too heavily discounted and that wiped out the profits from years of work.
The derivatives saga is essentially one of insurance - they tried to cover their risks for dodgy loans, on the basis that if they bundled enough of them together then losses would average out, and a world wide fall in values for houses and commercial property was inconceivable.
They are also heavily biased to the production of mathematical models, thinking that that is more 'scientific', and forgetting the laws of GIGO.
This is rather a similar mistake to the one that economists typically made in looking at oil production, where the assumption was that demand calls forth matching supply, with some moderation via the price mechanism, and pretty well ignoring the geology.
Not all the economist's were fooled, of course, and some said that you couldn't just keep on piling up debt forever, but they were drowned out by the ones who were telling people what they wanted to hear, that these ponzi schemes were fine.
This is very similar to Volker, who was prepared to take strong measures to ensure balance in the economy, costing Carter the election, and the appointment of Greenspan, who followed the idea that markets were self-regulating, which was at the time a far more convenient philosophy.
What is happening at the moment is that enormous efforts are being made to disguise the scale of the losses, as, for instance, house prices are at a quite unsustainable level in the US as a multiple of income when jobs are being lost at a heavy rate.
If you have a look at TAE today , they are talking about the banks putting a lot of their 'assets' into level 3, which means that they are loans which if sold today would raise little or nothing, but the hope is that underlying asset values will recover enough to make them worth more in the future.
IOW they are gambling everything on a rapid recovery, and inter-bank lending is frozen as other banks realise that their peers are holding a lot of worthless junk on their books, just as they are, and can't even find out how much.
This swift recovery seems virtually impossible, certainly until banks are forced to properly value their assets - they are all bankrupt, BTW, with reasonable accounting, as they underlying asset values are far less than the outstanding loans.
Roubini correctly predicted the recession, but was not big on mathematical models and could not predict when the house of cards would fall down, and so is heavily discounted by professional economists who were telling us last February that everything is fine.
The reason prospects look grimmer in the UK than the US is that we are still more heavily involved in financial services than the US, that the pound is not a major reserve currency and is small compared to the dollar, euro and yen, and that a fall in the currency will take a very long time to translate to better exports, as manufacturing has been greatly run down and many of it's costs are in other currencies, so the export bounce from a lower currency will be limited.
Energy policy here is truly disastrous, as there is no coherent plan, with a lot of capacity coming off line, and the assumption has been that gas imports will be available to fill any gaps at a cost we can afford.
Power cuts will hinder any attempt to export our way out of the mess.
There are umpteen other reasons such as the balance of payments going from bad to worse as oil and gas depletes, but the poor prospects are pretty solidly based, and unless by some miracle any recession is short and financial services rise Lazarus like, then a massive drop in living standards and income is pretty well written in stone.
If you have a look at the British financial heavies, then you will see that is becoming more and more mainstream.
You have to bear in mind though that many commentators in the papers are heavily involved with the financial situation, and so have little incentive to reveal the true scale of the disaster.
Anyway, I hope that rather wordy overview serves to clarify the reasons for my pessimism on the UK economy, and why expensive energy solutions may not be affordable.
Just a word on sources - although of course government data etc is nice where available, it is often at such a lag that more current data is preferable.
Within the sources I use, I usually use the one which most succinctly expresses the core of the argument to hand, but in most cases similar arguments and data are expressed elsewhere, as for instance in wind costs in the US I have a wide variety of sources, which vary in age and how they express the data, in levelised costs etc.
In general I try to use the data least favourable to my argument, so for instance when looking at nuclear construction costs I rarely refer to Chinese experience, save where construction in the East is being discussed, as that would unfairly bias the data to the cheap side for the west.
Should any reader dislike the particular source selected, a quick google will usually come across similar data, as I try to make it clear where the information is out of line with other reading I have done.
Hope you find at least some of this useful/interesting! :-)
Whoa! I'll have take a little while to read this, and answer.
New Zealand has some of the highest capacity factors of wind farms in the world. The Tararua wind farm gets 46%.
http://windenergy.org.nz/nz-wind-farms/operating-wind-farms/tararua
Expect capacity factors to go up with developments in the pipeline:
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:WhalePower_Corp
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:ExRo_Technologies
Plus: taller turbines of course.
Dave,
An Australian listed company Babcock and Brown Wind partners( ASX listed as BBW) gives a table of wind projects and capacity factors. One farm in Australia with 54 turbines has a capacity factor of 47%, and one in US 40%. Most in Australia and US are 33-37% capacity factors (all on-shore), most in Europe are 25-27% capacity factors.
If you look at the wind power curves, the wind is only above 25m/sec where turbines shut down, 1-2% of the time at most locations. If you had a site like Antarctica, you could design turbines to be able to operate at higher wind speeds( ie smaller blades) to take advantage of >25m/sec wind speeds, but not generate as much power at 10m/sec.
I am not sure why wind turbines are being sighted off-shore when there are many good sites on-shore in Scotland. It may be due to approval delays, or the lack of grid capacity, but in any case many new on-shore sites have been approved or are under construction.
There is an excellent wind resource in many areas of Australia and the US, and in parts of the UK.
I am in favour of developing them.
It is the cost of off-shore wind which it seems to me may be difficult to finance - so for instance I am suggesting that on the figures given it would appear to be much more economic to build on-shore turbines elsewhere and transmit the power to Maine than build the projected off-shore field at high cost.
Germany and perhaps the Netherlands may have the money to develop off-shore wind, but substantial development of this seems likely to be too expensive for the UK.
And, as you say, large resources remain undeveloped in the UK on-shore.
Offshore wind is really more of a development thing, promising to get lower costs with more development, but one that needs substantial funding to get off. In this light, the UK government is getting ahead of the facts with their massive offshore wind schemes, and I agree it is not a very sound plan just yet. What offshore wind needs IMHO is a couple billion/year in RD&D (maybe a combined EU/US partnership), and after that a carbon tax (or production tax credit/feed-in tariff) to get scale up.
The Netherlands has the money, but has so far induced inertia through petty politics. There's dozens of stakeholders with an interest in offshore wind (or in not having offshore wind) and they're all involved in endless fruitless debates with little coordination. When there's a crisis though, everyone seems to be able to come to terms. Maybe we need a little load shedding to wake people up here :)
If anyone can do it, I would back the Dutch.
As the lead article says, alternative approaches seem to be the way forward, as we need to take out perhaps 50% of the cost of current practise.
If the obstacles can be overcome, then off-shore wind would be a fine resource for northern countries, as it has very good load following characteristics, in the winter providing on average two and a half times the power in the North Sea that it does in the summer, as indicated in the Sinden report which I have linked to elsewhere.
Maybe a brute force approach will work, building bigger and noisier turbines than are acceptable on land, there is a 6MW one going on trial, but I would prefer a more subtle engineered approach to greatly reduce costs.
It does the present capabilities for off-shore wind no service in my view to exaggerate it's present preparedness and cost effectiveness - there is much still to do.
True. What's needed is research, development and demonstration. So far most offshore wind technology is just slightly modified onshore tech. What's needed is specifically engineered wind turbine systems for use offshore. That means higher durability (mechanical, corrosion issues), lower maintenance, etc. It's been really crude so far, and it's not a surprise that most offshore wind systems have been expensive and less reliable than onshore. Using expensive offshore rigging and drilling equipment for a few MWe wind park, of course that is not cost effective. The most promising approach so far appears building the systems up completely in a sheltered harbor and simply towing the finished system in place. Couple thousand tonnes of gravel as an anchor is cheap. Although, the SWAY design looks elegant and effective as well. The two bladed turbines are more challenging, it is not clear whether their benefits will weigh up to the disadvantages in an offshore application.
Like you, I think throwing billions of government money to accellerate deployment of existing tech right now is a bad idea. Such an approach is highly likely to end up being very expensive and inefficient I'd reckon.
As for capacity factor, there's some very promising work in the pipeline which I referenced above, that should make a big difference.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:WhalePower_Corp
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:ExRo_Technologies
I think the claims about performance are a bit too optimistic for the larger MWe turbines but the concepts look valid.
Like you, I am a big fan of passive solar heating, and it has a very big contribution to make.
I think that they are missallocating resources because not using the energy in the first place should count against carbon emission standards.
It's a heck of a lot cheaper than current off-shore wind.
There is a tiny project to upgrade the insulation in some houses, with £100 million allocated to insulate 60,000 houses, which works out to around £1,666 each.
Coincidentally the £20 billion they are chucking away on VAT reductions would insulate 12 million houses, the same 50% of British stock which is in the worst two bands for insulation.
That compares to the planned spend of around £80 billion for wind power.
EDIT: Forgot to add that in the UK the first units of electricity and gas are charged at a premium rate, and the rate goes down for additional units, thus penalising at one stroke the poor and the conservation conscious.
Simply reversing this charging pattern which would cost nothing should lead to large reductions in use and make the installation of insulation and other conservation methods more viable.
The idea in the UK that I think has got a lot of potential is the scheme for tidal lagoons in the Severn Estuary, which would both provide more power and do less ecological damage than a barrage:
http://www.foe.co.uk/cymru/english/press_releases/2004/tidal_lagoon_powe...
http://r-energy.co.uk/lagoon.html
http://www.foe.co.uk/resource/briefings/severn_barrage_lagoons.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7013068.stm
There is more work to do to prove feasibility and financial viability, but most of it seems to be well within current engineering practise and does not need breakthroughs.
Thanks for the link to ExRo - hadn't come across that before - whales I knew about!
In the back of my mind I am wondering why the wind kite system already in use for shipping can't be adapted:
http://www.skysails.info/index.php?id=472&L=2
Probably I am missing most of the constraints, but it does seem that many of the issues are already addressed by this system - deployment, control and furling the kite.
AFAIK no mention of interest in power generation from the company, but they seem to be a conservative medium sized German business, and so don't like to talk far beyond what they can currently do.
Strong consistent winds at a height of only 300 meter are mouth-watering!
Skysails for ships saves oil directly without the repeated mechanical stresses in the proposed high altitude wind systems. So it's an easy high ROI market for them. I'm really not so sure whether high altitude wind is practical. The concept is rather old and the investment cost claimed is often very low, but so far no one's got a working system. The hope now is that advanced modern materials would change that. It's still very risky if you ask me. I like the tried and true MWe class three bladed turbines. They're reliable and efficient. Any advances there will be most welcome, which is why the Tubercles and variable coil generators are such an interesting development, even though the real world performance may not be as good as claimed for very large turbines.
I don't quite follow you, Cyril.
Why are the mechanical stresses greater for a fixed system rather than a ship?
I would also have imagined that no practical system of control could have been developed until now, so it is not just the materials being ready but the electronics.
The Laddermill type would have issues with mechanical stresses by continuously folding the kites near the generator below. I think this is a long term reliability showstopper. But don't take my word for it. Could be that certain DuPont polymers can take it.
The Kitegen type would not have this particular issue, but the sinuous movement of the kites have to work in unison, and control is indeed the problem for this type of generator. The devil is the rotation required for powering a generator. There's all sorts of things that can go wrong, from tangled up lines to twisted kites etc. Real world wind performance is tricky. Commercial powerplants need very high reliability to be interesting.
And for a merry-go-round, the lines would still be subject to much more serious and repeated mechanical stresses from the sinuous movement than for pulling a ship. Steel would not like this at all. Again, the hope is that very advanced polymers can take the repeated strain.
Well, seeing is believing. Let them build and operate a large system and we'll see.
Dave,
We may be missing the point debating the merits of onshore versus offshore wind energy. Both are growing quickly, costs have increased due to shortages of steel manufacturing capacity but these are short term and prices will probably decline in next few years. There will be local advantages for both onshore and offshore. Capacity factor is partly due to design for optimal cost per kwh of power produced.
Since there is massive unused sites, except in Denmark and Germany, for both onshore and offshore wind, it doesn't matter which is the cheapest, individual investors can make this decision. Costs are higher than nuclear, but wind turbines can be installed in a few months, not years or decades so risks are lower than investing in nuclear. The towers should last 40-60 years, but the turbines will probably be obsolete in 20 years, even if they last longer than 20-25 years.
It would be great if nuclear was also rapidly expanded in next decade but it is not happening yet, while wind energy is expanding rapidly. Possibly when wind power catches up with nuclear we will see limitations due to: sites, resources or the ability of the grid to accept more wind power, we will have to wait and see, but so far no obvious limitations to having wind account for up to 20% of electricity production. Like nuclear power, it's not going to completely replace all FF but it could make a big contribution in reducing FF use.
Meanwhile, while we are waiting, conservation and higher efficiency of FF use is probably the most cost-effective method to make FF last a bit longer.
I am afraid that what will actually be built is more coal plants - Germany is leaning in that direction.
It will take years to ramp up nuclear production, as it has been allowed to deteriorate so greatly.
More on-shore wind can certainly be built, at least in some areas of Europe, but I doubt that it will be possible to finance very substantial off-shore wind, certainly not in the current economic climate.
That is why the technologies mentioned in the article are so important, costs need to come way down.
And yet Jerome still seems to be doing deals for offshore wind plants.
But never mind him - he's just a guy who works in the industry...
There are substantial subsidies available for wind in Europe, both on-shore and off-shore.
I don't believe anyone is arguing that the build would take place if these large sums of money were not available.
Difficult economic times seem likely to reduce their availability.
The cost figures I am using are based on your own article which at $25 billion for 5GW nominal, and rounding up their capacity figure from 45% to 50%, gives a cost of $10/watt, far more than just about any alternative save solar PV, and far more expensive if the discussion is confined to wind power than building on-shore wind elsewhere and building transmission lines.
1. You said all offshore wind.
2. The gulf of maine figures are very hazy, as I noted in the article.
Please try to make accurate comments.
The off-shore wind resource in Europe is not so good as the figures quoted for Maine - save possibly deep out in the North Sea, which is far beyond any current practise.
40% for far off-shore is the figure I have linked to, and present practise to which I have also linked gives nowhere near this figure.
You also chose to bring in Jerome, who finances projects in Europe, as an argument, and so I responded by outlining the role of subsidies in Europe, so I do not follow your criticism.
It would be very unusual for the figures to work out to be less than the cost estimated by the people who wish to build the system, or for performance in relatively new technology to match their initial estimates.
The haziness in universal technological experience would seem to be likely to fall on the side of increased costs.
Any substantial cost reductions seem likely to come from materials costs falling.
This reduction would also be available to competitors such as on-shore wind, and so the relative viability of the resource is not changed.
The only economic reason Europe is interested in of-shore wind at all is due to the relative poverty of on-shore resources.
In America the political difficulties of building transmission lines is the only economic reason that they are looking at off shore.
If you wish to criticise my accuracy, please do so on a more substantial basis, other than my using your figures.
Apparently you didn't read the article properly.
1. Look at the map provided.
2. Note my comments about the economics of floating offshore technology and the possible improvements it offers.
As usual your goal here seems to be to spread FUD and confusion while performing nuclear PR work.
1. I have looked at the map - have you looked at my sourced links to capacity factors?
2.Note my comments that I am hopeful that the economics of off-shore wind can be greatly improved, and my comments throughout this thread that devices such as tension leg provide good prospects that this will be the case.
It is the present economics with commercial systems that I am looking at the figures you have given and cannot make work.
Please see your own comments earlier in the thread regarding ad-hominen attacks.
My chief points of comparison, specifically for the project you mention, off-shore in Maine, has been not nuclear, which as I have said in this thread will take many years to ramp up to produce much additional power, but on-shore wind.
I have also mentioned coal, because I fear that if the economics are not there for other sources, that is what will actually be built.
This seems to be a bigger danger in Europe than in the US, because as I have repeatedly stated on-shore wind in the US can provide much more power with a quick build than it currently does.
Yes, Gav, please do. I often disagree with DaveMart regarding wind power, but it does seem that he's arguing in good faith.
Being able to discuss disagreements in a civil manner is a cornerstone of rational discourse, and of understanding tough problems. Attack the arguments, not the person.
A year ago I thought he was arguing in good faith, but I learned (painfully) that I was mistaken over the months since then.
Every thread that covers renewable energy has Dave pop up, pick the most pessimistic interpretation, then say he thinks the situation is even worse than that and that we need to consider nuclear power.
Its a slow, painful "concern troll" act that I became fed up with long ago - no matter how many times I disprove his varous random assertions he just keeps on going.
If this was my personal blog rather than a group effort I'd simply ban him as he adds no value whatsoever, just noise and FUD.
I view this as an accurate description of his modus operandi rather than an ad hominem attack (something Dave himself has been guilty of on numerous occasions - ask kiashu, mdsolar and various other people for examples) - thats just the way it is I'm afraid.
It appears that you are unwilling to take your own strictures on ad hominem attacks in any way seriously.
You said:
If you dislike previous threads where you feel that there were ad hominems, then the most appropriate reaction would appear to be to avoid instigating them in the present.
If on an ongoing basis you are unwilling to try to keep to the site guidelines or to observe the restraint which you urge in others, or to allow your ideas to be questioned, then perhaps it would be appropriate for you to consider your relationship to this site.
If you make statements such that 'Europe can be run on renewables' then it is reasonable to ask how, at what cost and over what time frame.
I invariably quote sources for the data I provide on wind, for instance, but it seems that you are reluctant to accept that others may have drawn different conclusions to yourself, or accept honest divergence of opinion, or to allow your statements to be questioned.
Previously you have closed a thread to comment when the argument was not to your liking.
The point of discussion threads would seem to me to be to examine ideas put forward critically, so I find it difficult to see how your responses contribute.
For instance, I was doubtful about how dry cooling would work for solar thermal, and your response was to question my motivation.
However, when Cyril provided the data I was looking for, I was quite happy to accept that prospects for this cooling were realistic and financible, which serves to demonstrate that my reservations were the result of reason, not prejudice.
Statements which a contributor is unable to substantiate in detail are IMHO the real cause of FUD.
Fine contributors like Stuart were given a much harder time than anything you have received, and it is perfectly valid to question your statements and even to differ from yourself in conclusions.
In this particular instance the figures I was looking at in more detail are the ones you provided, so I am at a loss to understand why you should consider this inappropriate.
If you are not willing to put your ideas up for critical examination by others, many of whom may have different opinions to yourself, then there would appear to be little point to your contributions.
Allegations of bias in my comments on wind are also wide of the mark.
For instance, I frequently link to the Sinden report, which is very bullish on wind, and have done so previously in this thread:
http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/publications/downloads/sinden05-dtiwindreport.pdf
Your allegations of poor faith are entirely unsubstantiated, so please respond to the actual arguments made and accept that others will differ from your conclusions and ask you for substantiation of statements you make.
Every thread that covers renewable energy has Dave pop up, pick the most pessimistic interpretation, then say he thinks the situation is even worse than that and that we need to consider nuclear power.
Yes, I've noticed this as well. I've tried to provide correcting evidence to some assertions; sometimes it sinks in for a thread, but then it usually doesn't stick.
Dave, do what you can to keep it as balanced as possible.
Perhaps you would re-check the many references I have made in this thread to the desirability of ongoing research to reduce the cost of off-shore wind, and to expanding the installation of on shore wind.
Far from assertions, I provide links to many studies - please study the link I gave in the reply above quoting the Sinden report, which can hardly be described as negative to wind power.
Unlike some I consider that we should use resources as available and where appropriate.
It never sticks - he refuses to acknowledge every inaccuracy he is caught purveying and just moves on to another red herring.
Its a classic concern troll act, hence my belief its really a subtle PR effort.
It's worth noting that DaveMart has provided 17 links (so far) to back up his arguments, which is more than the number of links in the original article, and appears to be by far the largest number of citations in support of any commenter in this thread. I may not agree with what he's saying (for example, I've argued in the past that his pessimism about UK wind is misplaced), but in providing citations to support his arguments, he puts his arguments head and shoulders above most. One can carefully choose citations, but at least that's more objective than just making unsupported claims.
Moreover, you're factually incorrect to say that he always picks the most pessimistic interpretation. For example, here he appears rather optimistic about the potential of kite-style wind systems. In fact, he was optimistic about a wind system you were pessimistic about.
Moreover, and as DaveMart explicitly pointed out in the post I replied to, he hasn't been boosting nuclear power in this thread. He's used it (and coal) as a price comparison point for wind, but if anything he has been pessimistic about nuclear.
He's optimistic where you're accusing him of pessimism, and he's pessimistic where you're accusing him of boosterism; from the perspective of a not-that-interested third party, if anyone is arguing in bad faith, it's you.
4) Treat members of the community with civility and respect.
"It's not ad hominem" is not enough; the reader guidelines call for respect and civility.
One of the reasons they do so is to avoid precisely what we have now - useful discussion has been derailed by a completely pointless batch of sniping and complaining. No matter how much you disagree with or dislike someone, lashing out at them in a forum like this will always be unproductive.
If it helps you keep your cool, think of people you congenitally disagree with as helpful triggers for educational moments. Just keep around a pre-written response to the matter you and they always disagree on, including a link back to the last time you feel you demolished their arguments, and leave it at that.
I can pretty much guarantee that will leave you and your arguments looking better than a round of petty sniping will.
Pitt,
I support your comments about DaveMart's posts, as I always troll for his comments. Whether I agree or disagree he supports his ideas with valuable links.
BigGAv also has made some great posts so its disappointing to see a spat between these two.
It's worth noting that DaveMart has provided 17 links (so far) to back up his arguments,
Almost all of these are after the point was raised. Of those before, one was from Politico and two were from SeekingAlpha.
One can carefully choose citations, but at least that's more objective than just making unsupported claims.
This is not a Dave bashing contest, but on numerous occasions, I've had to provide citations that showed him he was making assertions that were not based in fact. And then a week or so later, he's back to making the same assertions.
Moreover, you're factually incorrect to say that he always picks the most pessimistic interpretation. For example, here he appears rather optimistic about the potential of kite-style wind systems. In fact, he was optimistic about a wind system you were pessimistic about.
And he did so after Gav first complained above. Just keep an eye out for the next few months; I'd love to be shown that there is no subtle PR bias, honestly.
" one was from Politico and two were from SeekingAlpha."
Could you expand on that? Are these flakey sources?
Perhaps you could provide links to these occasions you mention, as this is not my recollection.
Start with Stuart's Powering Civilization to 2050, where he talked about HVDC moving solar power from sunny tropical/subtropical locations to energy consumption destinations, such as Europe or N. America. You then choose Germany as a poor example for solar power. Your post at January 28, 2008 - 10:22am
There was another post recently where I had to correct an assertion of yours that there was current approach to storing solar thermal energy for release after sundown, and I showed you a 50MW solar thermal plant that did just that and was already online.
Tell you what; we'll simply keep an eye out for the next few months to see if you have the tendencies Gav was mentioning.
You don't need to wait - there is 12 months of history available for analysis.
Just read through all my renewable energy posts (starting with the ocean energy one I think) and you'll see the pattern repeated again and again and again.
Hence my conclusion about the reason for Dave's presence here and the endless amount of time he has available to swamp the comments threads...
Would it be feasible to link the "towers" together by the "duck" type of generator?
Seeing as one is going to all the trouble of tethering stuff out in the middle of the ocean anyway...
Just a thought
The decision on the Massachusetts Cape Wind project has been postponed up to two weeks:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/greenblog/2008/12/cape_wind_decisi...
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/green/articles/2008/12/02/us_backing_of_...
As long as we're considering making these big semi-submerged structures, they ought to be compared to the seaside wave powered air-column turbine generators discussed the other day. A huge floating caisson catching wave energy would be a lot tougher than a very top heavy wind turbine.
Preston Sturges -
Not necessarily.
I've looked into ocean wave power a few years ago but am by no means an expert on the subject.
One of the fundamental principles of ocean wave power is that the 'wave energy converter', whatever form it may take, must in some way resist the motion of the wave in order to absorb its energy. A wave energy converter (WEC) in the form of an oscillating water column that pushes air through a turbine, such as the caisson type you described above, must be either tightly moored to the sea floor or otherwise restrained from bobbing up and down with the waves. If not, then the WEC will not absorb much of the wave's energy.
However, once you tightly moor a large floating object to the sea floor, then the WEC is subject to incredible stresses during heavy storm conditions. For example, an experimental WEC built in Norway during the 1980s, and which was actually rigidly built into the side of a seaside cliff, was ripped right out during a severe storm.
This is one of the chief advantages of the floating Pelamis WEC, now operating off the coast of Scotland ..... it is not rigidly moored and provides the necessary resistance by means of the relative motion between its three or four sausage-like floats. During severe storms the hydraulic system that provides that resistance is turned off, and the whole thing then just bobs about over the waves without fighting them.
Besides, with the right amount of ballast and a design that provides the right compromise between hydrodynamic stability and steadiness, a floating wind turbine does not have to be 'top heavy' at all. It can be made to roll with the punches, so to speak.
I agree that the Pelamis looks like it would capture a lot more energy since it harvests mechanical energy over its entire hull and is made up of units that are strung together head to tail and then put out in large arrays. There's a lot more energy in those thousands of tons of water than in the wind.
But it's still a floating object moored to the sea floor. If it were floating as passively as you seem to suggest, it would capture energy only as long it happened to be at an angle to the waves, but if weren't moored it would a lot of time wallowing parallel to the troughs.
I think coupling wave power devices with offshore wind farms is probably a good idea - it helps further reduce any issues of intermittency and lets investment in infrastructure like transmission lines be better utilised.
We had quite a long discussion about ocean power a few months ago :
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/3643
Preston Sturges -
Actually, the Pelamis system, consisting of a link of four floating steel 'sausages', is faced directly into the incoming wave, i.e., its long dimension is perpendicular to the advancing wave front.
It is very loosely moored to the sea floor, and therefore puts relatively little stress on the mooring system. The four sausages are connected to each other by sort of U-joints that allow relative motion in the up-and-down and (I think) also the side-to-side directions. This motion is resisted by hydraulic rams, which in turn pressurize air into an accumulator, which then runs a hydraulic motor and thence a generator. In other words, the hydraulic systems is trying to keep the four sausage links rigid, while the action of the passing wave is trying to bend them relative to each other. Thus the required resistance.
During periods of severe storm conditions, the hydraulic system can be deactivated, thus removing the resistance to motion between the sausages. In this mode, the four linked sausages (more or less) gently ride it out with the waves. From what I can see, the big advantage of the Pelamis system is that it superior in its ability to ride out a severe storm without experiencing damage. In other words, it is highly survivable.
However, I have no idea as to how its total life-cycle costs compare with other wave power systems.
i guess they would need to have it moored using a cable at least 5x than the depth of the water, probably with a very hefty buoy proximal to the anchor. This would put tension on the line at a vector so that it can absorb shock.
I think the direction of the waves would do nothing to orient the unit since waves only go up and down. The wind would be a much greater effect and it would be roughly parallel to the direction of the waves most of the time, which is lucky.
Those plataforms look like great candidates to support wave generators, toghether with the wind ones, since they are tied to the floor and already have a cable to the continent.
By the way, what keeps disturbing me is that I can't look at the drawings and not see those towers turning upside-down during a stom. Of course I am as far from ship designing as one can get, so I'm probably wrong.
Could be a good idea to have them floating rather than fixed to the seabed. I saw a program on National Geographic channel here in Australia about the problems the Dutch had in fixing their wind turbines to the sea bed. Basically the sea was too rough a lot of the time and , surprise surprise, it was also very windy! These floating cranes cost a lot of money to be sitting idle in port a lot of the time. Maybe it would be easier to deploy these floating versions from a sheltered harbour and tow them where they are needed?
That is indeed one of the benefits of floating platforms - they are assembled onshore then towed out to see and fixed to their moorings.
As you note, this saves on expensive offshore construction projects.
$25 billion is not chump change.
The big dig in Boston started with a price tag of one billion dollars, and was completed at $15 billion, an increase of 15X.
We can expect even more price inflation for wind turbines, as Peak Oil catapults the price of everything, especially stuff manufactured and transported from long distances. Getting the one billion dollar Big Dig project passed in Congress took the muscle, brains, log-rolling, and experience of House Speaker Tip O'Neil and the powerful Massachusetts congressional delegation. By comparison, Maine is one of the weakest states politically.
Maine will be competing against a hundred similar big ticket projects, none of which has much chance of being funded.
I would like someone to explain where $25 billion or $250 billion will come from.
Considering that such projects appear beyond the realm of possibilities, one has to wonder why TOD has so many of these big ticket posts and so few posts about preparing for Peak Oil impacts.
Regards,
Cliff Wirth
You think there'll be a 10x inflation of costs, when such projects are being completed on time and on budget elsewhere? The Big Dig is not a comparable effort, being (a) a government project, (b) subject to massive political manipulation, and (c) sui generis.
Preparing for impacts means more than lying down and dying. It means building the infrastructure to go on without so much oil; offshore wind is ideally suited to be a part of that.
Hi Engineer,
If this would not be a government project, what would it be? Not subject to political manipulation, why not?
No answer to where the many billions will come from, for example: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=anke7EXixP9s
Not only would the 250 billion in hardware be made with fossil fuels, but it would have to be maintained by them. The parts would come from all over the world, on highways all over the world, and then the global economy will collapse, the highways will fail and with them the power grid that carries the power from the turbines. And these wind turbines, if ever built would then stand idle, as monuments to poor planning and the same type of thinking that got us into this mess -- we can eat our cake and have it too. :)
Regards,
Cliff Wirth
Looks like Greenland may be in luck. I know there are a lot of potential mining projects being considered in southern Greenland.
Does anyone know how an offshore wind turbine compares to an onshore turbine as far as lifetime/extra maintenance and capacity factor? You would think that salt water spray would cause some nasty corrosion problems. Do we even know what a wind turbine's average lifetime is yet?
Another thing I'd like to know is where are the geographic cutoff points where hurricanes or other strong storms make offshore wind turbines "unfeasible." Would a floating system increase the ability of wind turbines to sustain hurricane winds or are the vendor guarantees based on blade stresses? I'm not trashing wind power, I'm just interested.
Check out Jerome's post on (regular) offshore wind power in Europe.
I don't think there is sufficient data to be sure of long term lifetimes and maintenance costs yet - these sorts of wind farms have only started to be built in recent years.
Presumably you could extrapolate data about offshore oil rigs and coastal wind farms to come up with some sort of guesstimate though.
One of the most promising paths to reduce the cost of wind while improving it's usefulness is to increase the energy harvest per turbine. New airfoils, individually switchable coil generators, laser optics, bigger turbines with longer blades using advanced fiber materials or GLARE, there's a lot of potential remaining.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/2/45728/4661
I wonder if these fiber materials would have a reduced or eliminated radar signature, and thus help to re-start the Cirrus Array of NW UK?
The radar impediment argument is rather weak. Software can easily be adapted to take into account or filter out these things; after all, they are in a fixed location. Modern radar technology is very advanced, and the turbines would be spaced apart with large gaps so would not prohibit the use of radar. It strikes me as some kind of interest group poking around to disfavour offshore wind. Similar to bird killings that are often used against wind, which is also not an inherent problem and indeed very manageable. But some people don't like onshore/offshore wind turbines, and are not ashamed to go against the science in order to promote their agenda. Fortunately, this group appears small (though vocal).
http://www.selsam.com/
No floating turbine talk is complete without mentioning his design. Look at the simple physics of keeping a typical turbine up and floating VS the Selsam design.
What a beautiful design!
Here is the data from recent performance testing of a prototype:
http://dyn.politico.com/members/forums/thread.cfm?catid=3&subcatid=14&th...
The performance at low wind speed is especially good, and widens the places it might be viable for enormously.
Windmills and blimps? Sweet!
That's a cool looking device - however the company web site doesn't fill me with confidence that it isn't a scam of some sort....
Thanks for pointing it out though.
Selsam has at least a patent and can demonstrate actual devices. His big water-turbines seem to need 100's of meters of shaft - and that is hard.
Selsam turbines is definitely not a scam. I've been following his development (with keen interest) for several years now. His progress has been steady, controlled and cheap. Too bad such a brilliant and dedicated inventor has to work on shoestrings while banker con-men are given trillions.
One thing that's immediately obvious is that the tiny rotors on the quill shaft do not intercept as much air as a conventional rotor disc (the width of the capture area is quite small). This idea is clever but the site seems to be heavy on (gorgeous) graphics and light on details of how the inventor would make it scale. Given the skinny shaft I don't see how this thing would even stay aloft in a calm; it appears likely that it would be too flexible to avoid falling to the surface and thus could not restart.
One thing that's immediately obvious is that the tiny rotors on the quill shaft do not intercept as much air as a conventional rotor disc
Yes. The normal complaint about his design. And yet, Mr. Selsam can show his design working over various wind speeds.
light on details
The patent numbers listed lacked descriptions?
make it scale. Given the skinny shaft
Hence the design 'requirement' of carbon on fiber.
I'd like to see money spent on players like Selsam and Bergney. But small wind doesn't get the love of grants like GE (used to be Enron wind).
it appears likely that it would be too flexible to avoid falling to the surface
And I can remember people thinking carbon from crops + zinc would provide all the energy needed (and being told he was wacked - that would deny soil of micro nutriants), only later to pimp terra perta (which would keep the micro nutriants in the soil).
If somehow man can make effective long carbon fiber tubes for mounting air foils - I'm guessing Man could figure out how to make 'em short enough to avoid your concern.
Hi, beginner question here:
His Superturbine off-shore concept says "No transmission". How can this be?
How is the power usable if it is not transmitted?
I can build something that works very easily. Making it worth building is another matter entirely. If the energy captured by individual shafts is small, the number of shafts and generators must be very large for the same output as large conventional turbines.
I don't have time to dig through patent-ese to get the data which ought to be in a white paper on the website. I didn't go through the whole thing but the emphasis was definitely on glitz and not meat. Perhaps this is an error of the firm hired to design the site, in which case I'll try to find time to read any link you can provide.
And if that's too short, the economic basis is again weakened. I'm guessing instead that Man might dispense with the rigid supports entirely and go with something like gyromills.
The independent scientists of the Energy Watch Group (who are pro solar/wind) conclude in a current report titled: “Peak Oil Could Trigger Meltdown of Society:”
http://www.energywatchgroup.org/fileadmin/global/pdf/EWG_Press_Oilreport...
Cliff;
For most people who buy into Peak Oil, it's clear that there won't be 'enough' energy to match with today's expectations or usage.. so while it can be fair enough to say that installing scads of Renewables won't fill the gap, let's not forget that NOT installing renewables won't fill the gap either.
If municipalities choose to build a wind turbine or two, maybe put PV onto the roof of city hall and the public schools, then even if every other source goes offline, there's still a little something there. It could keep city hall, some radio transmitters and an operating room running, drive a few electric tools and trucks that are busy building the town some more generating capacity, because they realize how useful and essential it can be to have a bit of generating capacity. Whether society has melted down or not.
ps, I'm in Mexico, stuck in Puerto Vallarta for another day. Lovely country, but I'm glad I don't have to deal with this bureaucracy on a regular basis. Hope your homestead is doing well, sorry I didn't bring any Syropa de Mapia with me. You're a ways north of here, no?
Bob (who is at least still connected to the world through the versatility of the ensnared electron!)
Hey Bob,
Great to hear from you, and I just ran out of maple syrup, but can get some of the real stuff from COSCO.
Homestead is doing fine, thanks, house is under construction, plans for planting a bunch of stuff underway, over here in the State of Veracruz, small town near the city of Xalapa, come on over and visit sometime.
I don't have any trouble with the bureaucracy, what is the problem?
I don't have anything against solar/wind/hydro, looked into it mysef, and will do it if need be.
The problem is that folks up north will someday be without heat and food, and the solar stuff does not do much, and they will be in trouble, some of my friends and relatives too, lookie here:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4844#comment-442453
Come visit, time does not take a holiday, but you should.
Cliff Wirth
Hi Cliff;
The bureaucracy and political roadblocks down here are legend, tho' I'm sure there are ways to steer clear of them, as it seems you have done. The way NOT to avoid these problems is to be on the crew of a Television show that got it's approvals from one department and not all the others.. alas. Mongo just pawn in game of life.
"The problem is that folks up north will someday be without heat and food, and the solar stuff does not do much,"
I just don't get how you make such blanket denials, Cliff. There is a great amount of work to do getting it going,[but that's jobs], and noone denies this, but heating, lighting and cooking with solar can offset great amounts of FF power. I get a ton of bright sunny days throughout the winter off of Casco Bay, and if I were inland, I'd be burrowed into the sub-frostline ground where I'd have unlimited access to 45 degree temps year round. We have growable soils, forests, water, wind offshore and in the mountains, sun up the coast. What's not to love? As they say in Outward Bound, 'There's no such thing as bad weather, just inadequate clothing.'
Believe me, we're not 'ready', so I am very anxious for New England, but we also have a lot of available but misallocated or unused resources both for energy and for Agriculture, so by the same token, I'm not worried about New England's survivability. It's Phoenix and Vegas that I'm really worried about.
(ps, we're waiting for clearance to get our gear out, so my paid vacation must be borne out right here.. I just helped release some Olive Ridley SeaTurtle babes into the sea the other night, and got to see some baby tigers yesterday, so I'm trying to find the upside of conflated political bureaucracies. But my daughter is very eager to get me back so we can start trimming the tree! But as my wife says, a career freelancer shouldn't diss his first and possibly last ever paid vacation.. I'm spending a lot of it reading TOD and Omnivore's Dilemma.)
Bob
Three things:
Do you have a link to a list of the report's errors?
Cliff,
On 4th December you posted the same link.
My reply was;
"Please read the links you provide.
For example the Energy Watch Outlook for renewable energy study is projecting 17-29% of the the energy demand based on IEA's 2006 projected demand. This study excludes increases in today's largest renewable energy, hydro electricity because they did not have sufficient data."
You seem to be thinking in a "doomer loop"; the world economy will collapse because of a shortage of oil, therefore no solutions to replace peak oil with alternative energy will work, therefore the world economy will collapse!
Are you capable of estimating how little oil is essential for example to maintain railroads or water supply or electric grid maintenance? What about how much oil is used to manufacture and install wind turbines?
If we had used your reasoning in 1870, whale oil would never had been replaced by kerosene, because we would be unable to drill oil wells because we didn't have whale oil to light factories producing steel required to produce oil wells!
Transportability and the ability to relocate may be a very useful asset for wind-farms. As the Arctic transitions to a seasonally ice-free state there will be an intensification of what already looks like abnormal behaviour in northern hemisphere circulation. The result may be a significant shifting of prevailing winds and wind climatology for parts of the Northern Hemisphere.
From the map above, it looks like there are very nice sweetspots right off the coast of Norway and in the Mediterranean sea on the border of France and Spain. Good place for pilot projects.
Duplicate post. Server disconnect. Argh!
There is a project here in the Netherlands that couples a small natural gas rig with an onsite generator for power, using the nearby offshore wind's powerline to bring the electricity to shore. This way, a wind/natgas hybrid is created, with the gas generator throttling up when there is less wind. This could make many of the smaller offshore natural gas deposits economical.
If I understand correctly their are quite a few projects like this planned for various parts of the North Sea. As the gas depletes you can add more offshore wind or convert the system into a compressed air energy storage system. This would allow you to use a wind turbine with compressors in the nacelle instead of electrical generators (much cheaper) and the maximum rating of the system could be much higher. E.g modern turbines start spilling wind above 12m/s, since power available is a function of wind speed cubed there is a lot of power available at higher winds speeds although there are not that many hours per year when they occur. Exploiting this with an oversized electrical generator in the wind turbine would not be cost effective, but compressors are much cheaper and lighter so it could be a good option. Thinking about it you could also farm seaweed and use a digester to create methane then have ships come to take the digestate to shore to use on fields.
Compressed air can also be stored in inflatable bags under the sea in order to buffer wind generation.
The new generation on LNG tankers will be able to liquify gas in situ, and could make smaller gas fields expolitable.
Most compressors would not have the right requirements for this application, although there is at least one company, General Compression, that claims to have a very reliable and efficient power dense compressor for use in the nacelle. They have yet to get large scale field proof though.
The benefit of deeper offshore would be that things like large bags for storing compressed air that you mention become available using the pressure of the ocean water column to compensate rather than large amounts of structural material in surface tanks.