Not a good news week for wind power.
First windpower probably doesn’t produce as much electricity as people though it could. If the new estimates are right, humanity would need to cover 3 million square kilometers of the Earth to get just 10% of our electricity from wind. (And how many storms will that prevent do you think?) Could the “cure” be worse than the condition?
Second, it appears that wind turbines in the ocean might snap like matchsticks in particular conditions — conditions that are different for each turbine and at the moment, impossible to predict. The authors explain that it doesn’t have to be big waves or big storms — medium sized waves were the worst.
Windpower’s theoretical maximum isn’t what we thought it might have been
When we account for the wind shadows that large installations produce, at best, wind power may only give us 1 Watt per square meter (or 1 MW per square kilometer). According to this team our global energy needs are in the order of 30 terawatts, and one terawatt is one trillion (1012) watts. If that is the case, to to supply 10% of our global energy needs we’d have to cover… 3 trillion square meters or 3 million square kilometers.
…the latest research in mesoscale atmospheric modeling, published February 25 in the journal Environmental Research Letters, suggests that the generating capacity of large-scale wind farms has been overestimated.
Each wind turbine creates behind it a “wind shadow” in which the air has been slowed down by drag on the turbine’s blades. The ideal wind farm strikes a balance, packing as many turbines onto the land as possible, while also spacing them enough to reduce the impact of these wind shadows. But as wind farms grow larger, they start to interact, and the regional-scale wind patterns matter more.
Keith’s research has shown that the generating capacity of very large wind power installations (larger than 100 square kilometers) may peak at between 0.5 and 1 watts per square meter. Previous estimates, which ignored the turbines’ slowing effect on the wind, had put that figure at between 2 and 7 watts per square meter.
In short, we may not have access to as much wind power as scientists thought.
“If wind power’s going to make a contribution to global energy requirements that’s serious, 10 or 20 percent or more, then it really has to contribute on the scale of terawatts in the next half-century or less,” says Keith.
If we were to cover the entire Earth with wind farms, he notes, “the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts, but at that point my guess, based on our climate modeling, is that the effect of that on global winds, and therefore on climate, would be severe — perhaps bigger than the impact of doubling CO2.”
… Keith says, “It’s worth asking about the scalability of each potential energy source — whether it can supply, say, 3 terawatts, which would be 10 percent of our global energy need, or whether it’s more like 0.3 terawatts and 1 percent.” [Science Daily]
To go “100% renewable” with wind, we could convert, say, four countries to windfarms (pick four of these: US, Australia, China, Brazil or Canada).
Offshore wind towers have their own major problems
You would think the ocean is the obvious way to fill millions of spare square kilometers, but it is harder than it looks. This week one study suggests that offshore wind turbines may unpredictably break “like matches” when the right sized waves hit with the right pattern. It’s like the damage from resonance on a suspension bridge, and known as “ringing”. It is a problem that is hard to predict. It depends on how deep the water is, the solidity of the bottom, the slope, size of the tower, and the spacing of the waves. But no one is able yet to model that.
“The problem is, we still do not know exactly when the wind turbines may break,” says Professor John Grue from the Department of Mathematics at the University of Oslo, Norway. Grue is one of the world’s foremost experts on wave research. In 1989 he discovered an inexplicable wave phenomenon called ringing, which is a special type of vibration that occurs when choppy waves hit marine installations. The discovery was made in a 25-metre long wave laboratory located in the basement of the mathematics building at Blindern Campus.
So far scientists have studied ringing in small and large waves, but as it turns out, ringing is more common in medium-size waves. For wind turbines at sea with a cylinder diameter of eight metres, the worst waves are those that are more than 13 metres high and have an 11-second interval between them.
The good news is that this work is mostly based on models
The bad news is that the models don’t work yet. Nonetheless, researchers are still convinced there is a real problem. They allege the devastating cracks in one oil platform were caused by ringing.
Oil rig damaged
Ringing does not just harm wind turbines. Ringing has already been a great problem for the oil industry. The designers of the YME platform did not take ringing into account, and lost NOK 12 billion.
“It is possible to build your way out of the ringing problem by strengthening the oil rigs. However, it is not financially profitable to do the same with wind turbines,” says John Grue.
Financially — the word you are looking for is “ruin”.
If medium sized waves in average storms can knock over a tower, it makes offshore turbines just that much more expensive…
“If we do not take ringing into consideration, offshore wind turbine parks can lead to financial ruin,” warns John Grue to the research magazine Apollon at University of Oslo.
Shame they can’t predict which ones might fall over.
REFERENCES
Amanda S Adams, David W Keith. Are global wind power resource estimates overstated? Environmental Research Letters, 2013; 8 (1): 015021 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/015021
University of Oslo (2013, February 26). Windmills at sea can break like matches. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 28, 2013, from
A couple of points. Firstly, the ringing effect was a known phenomenon before offshore wind farms were built. How come it was not taken into account by offshore designers?
Additionally, the concept of wind shadow is also well known. Why have the alternative power industrial complex kept so quiet about it?
Secondly the unholy alliance between governments and offshore wind farm builders means that inevitably any extra cost will be immediately transferred to the taxpayer regardless, as is already happening.
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The windmill industry has been developed without the experience of truly professional engineers.
This is because it is essentially a Pagan religion, with the windmills the equivalent of the Easter Island Statue Cult.
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Truly professional engineers have been involved; but left in the dark about dynamic load parameters which are impossible to guesstimate well enough for structural design purposes. Manufacturers compete to supply steel structures. The “makers” of the windmills seldom do their own structural steel manufacture.
25+ years ago, when I was designing steel pole structures for a manufacturer, I always included the primmary resonant frequency of the structure with the specified top-load. (That was for lighting, power transmission, solar collector, etc. etc. as well as wind loads.) It was hard enough getting the nominal rotation speed of the “wheel” out of the “turbine manufacturers” to ensure that the blade passing frequency did not coincide with any harmonic of the structure’s natural frequency.
If the dynamic and quasi-static loads on a struture are known well enough, then the structure can be ENGINEERED to withstand the loading. That includes wave loads and wind loads.
The “ringing” at the “back” of the structure is the action of eddies in the water (and to a lesser extent; air) that add transverse loads on the structure which, combined with the longitudinal wave load amplification if a low pressure coincides with the impact of a wave; as well as bi-axial bending loads from wind and turbine torque reaction, probably overload the structure; not as a resonance effect per sé. Prevalence of such failures make me wonder if the structural designers of today are at all familiar with Mohr’s Circle.
The competence of the whole industry and its supporters is questionable when one seen statements like
As if strain gauges didn’t exist.
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P.S.: Soldiers marching in step on a bridge, leading to the bridge’s collapse is an urban myth.
It’s shameful for a University to propagate such myths.
BTW: The easiest way to change the structure’s resonant frequency is to move all or part of the mass from the top of the pole to the base of the pole. The generator and main gearbox can be mounted (vertically) in the base, with an intermediate-speed, flexibly-coupled shaft between the top nacelle and the heavy machinery in the base. The industry isn’t interested in such change (which has signficant costs); probably because they get their subsidies even when the stuff they make doesn’t work. Having stuff that works may also lead to profitability which could spell an end to subsidies.
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TonyfromOz,
The complexity and mass of what is inside the nacelle also makes for it being practically unmaintainable in off-shore applications. Any maintenance requiring the lifting or lowering of heavy equipment can only be done using special vessels – with very large cranes. Conditions have to be favourable with calm seas and winds. So e.g. any breakages in the North Sea’s windfarms mean that a damaged unit can be out of service for more than 10 months. There’s a very narrow “build window” in which the absurdities can be erected; typically less than 4 months of the year.
The height also causes problems on land. If they catch fire, firefighters can only stand clear (at a safe distance of at least the tip-height of the highest blade) and try to limit the collateral damage to surrounding property. As a result, the windmills are almost always a write-off. With high demolition and replacement costs.
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I reckon wind turbos are more complex than computers with the quasi-frequency problem. computers don’t have that ‘ringing’ probelm!!! Never happen!!!
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Again, I’m linking into one of my own Posts, this one from three and a half years back now.
This one shows an image of a typical wind tower nacelle, the big thing on top of the tower. Click on the image and it opens in a new and larger window for better clarity, and then navigate back to the text. This explains the complexity of what is in that nacelle, what is actually quite a large weight on top of each tower, and just how little power they actually do generate on what can only be referred to as a sporadic basis.
Now perhaps you cam gain an inkling of why these things are indeed so damned expensive.
The Limitations Of Renewable Power (Part 3)
Tony.
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PPS: The caption on the photo:
Has he tried Wikipedia?
Look up “vortex shedding”
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Bernd,
It’s easy to agree with you. At the very base, I place accountability. If nobody is nominated as the place where the buck stops, you will more frequently get poor engineering, shallow engineering.
One company I worked for built the Ranger Uranium mine and processing plant. You can imagine how the critical eyes of the world’s engineers, especially those who were anti-uranium, watched for the slightest sign of design or material failure. It did not cost so much more for a Rolls-Royce plant. Thirty years of ops with no significant accident is on the record.
In 1975 I managed a large pilot plant for a year. It used 10 tonnes of chlorine gas a day when at full steam, the gas being at 1,050 deg C and 7 psi. Steel burns in chlorine like a pyrotechnic under those conditions, if oxygen gets into the system. Safety was paramount as there were several thousand people living within earshot.
What can one say? Professionally correct design and operation is possible, adoption of premature designs is most unwise and is probably known before the event by somebody. It often comes out during an accident investigation that someone knew the likely cause.
These are some more reasons why I keep ratting on about poor standards in the science and technology of climate change work dragging down the professionalism of proper people.
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It often comes out during an accident investigation that someone knew the likely cause.
Accident’s dont’ happen. Errors cause them.
One of these days one of these giant farces will collaspe and kill some more people (as it is my understanding that there have already been deaths from a tower collapsing – please correct me if I am misinformed), and the media friendly excuse of ‘freak accident’ will no doubt be wheeled out.
At best the failure rate of these towers is ‘disturbing’.
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Tesla should get some credit here as resonator (ringing) harmonic oscillation were his specialty.
Those of you in electric fields (pun intended) should also relate to high rise time waves and frequency.
That would be off topic for today though.
00
.. which in future times will lie abandoned, as monuments to a failed religion of the arrogant elites.
(Maybe some will also be knocked down by angry peasants, whose work had to pay for the things).
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The pagans will rebel in rituals of demonic carbon worshiping!!!
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Not really comparable.
1. You got perks if you worked in the quarry where they were cut (eg tuna caught by someone else).
2. It only takes 35 people to shift one
3. Having them visible was good PR (eg don’t mess with us)
Derelict windmills won’t produce the same PR. “Airheads ‘r Us” more likely.
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Turned out nice:
Brilliant! I should think some neighbors of the Statue Cult may have said the same thing in their day. That would have been a few years before the Statue Cult passed a carbon tax.
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“How come it was not taken into account by offshore designers?”
Simple really, left green cult members don’t do engineering or science. They prefer to power their thinking with hyperbole and emotion.
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So, let me get this right:
This is a study based on models, right? Models which don’t work in any other area of climate science, but they work here?
And, according to this model, wind farms bigger than the biggest that exist at the moment anywhere on the planet only produce 1w/m2.
Which is weird, because commercial turbines are rated at 200 – 2,000 w/m2.
And off-shore turbines could get shaken up up a ‘moderate’ 13m wave? That’s not big? Really? That’s 11 on the Beaufort scale (Beaufort was really heavy metal, his scale went to 12.)
A wave that big would snap most yachts. I wouldn’t want to be on Clive Palmer’s Titanic in 13m seas. Extreme surfers fly the world looking for waves that big, generally way out in the middle of nowhere with an isolated reef or something that can create a wave. Are there any wind farms anywhere near traditional big wave locations? Have any wind turbines ever ‘snapped’ in the way described? Jo’s article doesn’t mention any.
On the other hand: have any nuclear reactors ever broken down? Have any coal mines ever killed workers? Have any dams ever failed? Have any gas or oil pipes ever exploded?
Wind is probably the safest form of electricity generation and this article is fanciful.
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I’ve seen big tall trees on the west slopes of the Cascade Mtns of Washington State with 15 – 20 meters snapped out of the top from something similar to the “ringing” mentioned. Being quite flexible, in strong winds the tree gets blown one way and when the wind suddenly stops the trunk breaks during the snap-back. Many fall in a chaotic pattern (pick-up sticks) but I know of one that came down top-first and buried itself vertically into the middle of a hiking trail. At ground level it was a little less than ½ m across and got wider as it went up. The trail crew cut it off and left the rest buried in the trail.
A wind turbine has a mass (weight) centered at the top and has to be deployed where winds are expected. A large fetch and sustained winds seems to be an major unavoidable design flaw of the industry.
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Looks like Don Quixote’s services won’t be required after all …
Pointman
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Nice one
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He’s not here yet.
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He’s been quite active on the Helen Caldicott/Monckton post crossing swords with me.
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Remember to thrust.
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I have practiced my Agrippa.
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Another example of perpetual motion bites the dust, apparently transferring energy from wind to propeller only works once.
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Tough for them, isn’t it? All this learning.
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I just wish they’d do it with their own money.
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I would have no complaint if they wanted to use their own money.
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Windmills are definitely overblown.
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As Snoopy would say, “Pheeept, or words to that effect.
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Snoopy was born in Minnesota, I knew Snoopy and you sir are not Snoopy.
On the other hand……
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Careful …
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Snoopy had more sense than the windmill blowhards. 😉
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Serious question to the engineers. How do the offshore oil/gas guys contend with this issue ?
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They have four legs ?
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Thanks Streetcred –I thought it maybe as simple as that. So why didn’t the windmill engineers learn from that experience ? Also I believe the Danish offshore windmills are now experiencing serious issues with the condition of the concrete they have used –its breaking up.
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Concrete and seawater are a very poor mix.
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It needs to be super high strength and extremely dense … something that quality control hasn’t mastered yet.
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As an interesting aside …
The Ancient Romans discovered (or acquired) a recipe for concrete that could, and still does, withstand the ravages of seawater. Many of the wharfs in Mediterranean ports use the old Roman docks as foundations (the Mediterranean sea level has risen over the last 2 millennia). The newer modern concrete is deteriorating but the older foundations persist.
Modern science cannot figure out what the Roman recipe was. A lot of money is awaiting anybody who can crack it.
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Rereke:
The concrete for marine use would seem to have consisted of slaked lime paste, pozzolanic sand and fine stones. The use of pozzolanic sand of volcanic origin and the technique of minimal water seems to have been all it took.
Egg albumen might have been added, although no references seem available. If used, it would have acted like some modern additives i.e. forming a film on the surface helping water retention. Results in denser concrete with less micro-cracks to weaken it.
Portland cement is so called because it used a similar composition, and resisted sea water. The pozzolanic sand introduced small amounts of iron and aluminium which may have helped durability. (High amounts of aluminium are deleterious).
Pozzolanic comes from the town of Pozzuoli near Naples where they mined the sand. Its other claim to fame is a the birthplace of Sophia Loren, note how long she kept her looks.
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The other 3 legs would get in the way of the blades?
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Rerekek; I’m told it was egg albumen
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Thus was born “four part harmony”.
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keeping things short and squat, rather than long and spindly makes a big difference too.
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Hmmm… room for an off color joke here.
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Surely not. I don’t know any. 😉
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It doesn’t matter what the cost or how efficient when you are backed and even encouraged by politicians who have an agenda. So when our world cools even more for how many low income people will unaffordable electricity result in death?
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Lots.
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How much discussion of these findings will occur in the MSM? At a guess-none. CO2, CAGW, wind farms, solar panels dirty coal etc., etc. are all so intertwined with the desire of politicians to keep power by raising money to bribe voters that proper discussion has long been abandoned.
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God I love coal. All my life, I flick a switch, turn a knob, everything happens. No smoke, no flame, no noise, no rationing, no brown outs. I hardly ever get to see or smell a power station, which is a pity in some ways, but coal power is centralised, it is potent, it is abundant. I don’t need to see anything more than some wires.
God I love coal, especially Australian coal. Chocolate sunshine. I’ve had to live for long periods with Spain’s countless wind turbines. They disgust me.
God I love coal. We need to goldplate our coal industry, top to bottom. It deserves it. It’s so wonderful.
God I love coal.
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“Chocolate sunshine”
Robert, the coal is only brown in Victoria.
up here in the Hunter it is a nice shiny black, as all good coal should be 🙂
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Oh, yeah, once you’ve tried black…
But the Victorian milk choc is super-recoverable, and it’s quite tasty too.
Coal. Love it. LOVE it.
I remember once hiking past some EU funded solar park in Europe. It was so busted up and grimy and abandoned-looking. Hey, those panels get left out in the sun all day! You wouldn’t do that to a Manly supporter. All I could think of was how much I totally love Australian coal.
And did I mention that I LOVE coal?
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Robert, I may be going out on a limb here but are you saying you LOVE coal? 😉
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What makes you think that? Where is your data?
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No, but seriously, I do quite like coal. In fact…
I like to sing this as I go through the Hunter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElTt6vUZPYk
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I actually really like watching the coal trains, sit in the BBQ area, with sausage sanga and a beer..
or on the back verandah with a glass of wine….
and watch them go by.
I’m actually near where they often have to slow down or stop.. darn can that get noisy at times, brakes, the clanging of buffers,
and when they are empty, the doom of empty wagons..
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Well what can I say about that song, it was both disturbing and arousing at the same time, I guess we coal lovers have truly gone to the DARK side. May Gaia have mercy on our souls.;)
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no, no, no..
We are releasing carbon that was accidentally buried and SHOULD be in the atmosphere.
GAIA LOVES US FOR DOING THIS.. 🙂
Only REAL environmentalists understand this.
(not the facade that is the modern day greenie)
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I told you there was room for an off color joke!
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Please pardon this OT, but there is a famous song from the Hunter, Bob Hudson’s “The Newcastle Song”.
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/t/thenewcastlesong.shtml
Now, the real question. There is another song that we used to hear occasionally in the 1960s. It was like the Newcastle Song but it was somewhat for non-mixed company. Tells about a girl in size 12 steel capped boots and her activities behind the number something blast furnace. It’s quite immoral really, but having heard it and laughed your heart out, you want to hear it again. Anyone know it? You might need to be a retired coalie to know it.
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Geoff I don’t know it but I’d love to hear it so how about,
Newcastle is famous for coal
In trains that forever roll
But if the greens have their way
This will all go away
Thanks to a socialist redheaded mole
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Not to mention the ultimate irony here in that coal is essential ingredient to the manufacture of the steel that makes the towers that mounts the generator narcelle that holds the…
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Wind is natures way of cooling the earths surface through evapotranspiration as well as redistributing heat both laterally and vertically. If the greens are truly concerned about global warming why on earth are they mess with the wind?
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Each windmill takes a bit more energy out of the wind … what happens at the other end where that energy is supposed to be used ? Do windmills thus cause global warming ?
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Indeed , what planet hating evil slime, would seek to strangle the breathe of mother earth?
the eco-loones are killers, they seek to choke the very breathe of mother earth.
Probably should amp this to even more hysterical levels and post at Greenpeace.
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Been trying to get my head around that.. The pressure difference that drive the wind must still exist, so I suspect that any climate effect is only likely to be local, and like any other warming of the atmosphere will immediately be catered for by the pressure temperature gradients.
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Lots of new artificial reefs ! 🙂
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No surprises with this information, an engineer at my work explained (or tried) to me a lot of the design flaws of large wind turbines and said you can only do so much with such an old idea until it’s design limit is reached. In Geelong a company called Austeng makes a smaller less intrusive turbine the “eco whisper” which is a 30 blade unit with an outer ring (impressive fabrication in the flesh) sizes range from 5 to 20kw and can withstand a cat2 cyclone, but that means it would take 100 of these to replace a 2MW turbine and the whispers are lower to the ground thus less wind. So you can see how an old idea can reach it’s limits and you have to move on to other ideas,the old “necessity is the mother of invention” has never been truer when it comes to wind power.
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Do the blades of these offshore wind disasters sink or float? If they float, will we see an abundance of them washing up on distant shores in years to come? Can we build anything out of them? If I had a house on the beach, I’m sure I could find a use for them.
Roof slats? Trimmed down for picket fencing? Surfboards, maybe…? Hmmm, I wonder if I could turn a profit on that one…?
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Seriously, you’re doing a good thing by dreaming up ways to recycle the crap. I’ve seen a dismantling figure of 15% of original cost, but that doesn’t take into account all the fixtures, bases and underground stuff, as well as law suits and contractual wrangling. Also, once governments lose interest – I know of one government that can lose interest quicker than a blink – and Vestas, GE, Siemens etc aren’t copping the “incentives”, there’s going to be the mother of all messes.
Spain has been utterly disfigured by these piles of junk, which have created a bizarre privileged class of landowners who are paid massively to accommodate the towers. Maybe TonyfromOz has ideas on the cost of ditching/recycling a planet-load of whirlygigs.
Don’t you just LOVE coal?
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We could develop a slip-on mask of Malcolm Fraser to pull over them when they all break down. Then future generations will wonder about it, but only think we were silly to build so many big religious statues, instead of thinking we were crazy enough to want to use big windmills to power our society.
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Might be cheaper to encase them in concrete, and put a warning on them.
“DO NOT LISTEN TO THE GREENS”
It will provide work for future archeologists to decipher the mystery of the Green Obelisks.
Some bright spark may determine that there was a short lived Luddite death worshiping cult called “The Greens” that was connected to the construction of the strange monoliths built in the early part of the 21st century.
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.
Robert & A D Everard
Here is an article from the Netherlands (appropriate name) on the successful recycling of wind turbines. They call it a sustainable use of old turbines redone for useful purposes?? Bloody Green Liars.
Millions of subsidised dollars to build one bloody playground (picture).
This is where they will all end up – useless bloody windmills. $3 million plus.
Next they will hand them out for sustainable housing for the worlds poor (which will include us if this garbage continues).
And in one of the photos – there are still bolts sticking out in the inner tube where children are playing.
These GREENIES are a joke.
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Dave, that neo-beat hipster daddy! And what a perfect hidey hole for hitting up. Never mind the bolts, watch for the syringes in the stagnant puddles (images not available).
And what about the Unhappy-Hipster architecture on that website? Every sterile inch is an act of smug self-congratulation.
Warmies and hipsters, go away. Go far away. No, that’s not far enough. Keep going.
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I read that there are thousands of turbines from earlier generations since the Seventies standing literally in huddled, rusting forests of junk in reservations in California.
No,I know that sounds like a joke (it does to me anyway) but its literally true.
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…yerst, sounds like a make-me-believe, wondered if I had seen it in adreambrought onby hypoxia at high altitude, but I just looked, its true, its dismal, its something everyone should know about and see pictures of, 14000, FOURTEEN THOUSAND abandoned wind turbines inthe USA!
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
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These aren’t the windmills you are looking for.
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I’ve seen them in California ,Ace.
That sailing ships were swiftly replaced by early primitive steamships tells you all you need to know about wind power.
Just like sailplanes are utterly useless for anything except having a little fun.
00
.
Now the whole thing will be washed up on a beach near you.
NEW FLOATING OCEAN WINDMILLS.
These people are losing the plot badly.
Imagine Cyclone Yasi crunching and blowing these thing all over the Great Barrier Reef.
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Great feedback, guys, thanks. 🙂
Actually my dream would be to have all the greenies clean up the mess – they started it!
I reckon you wouldn’t see a greenie for dust if such a task was brought in as fitting punishment for green propagandists. We should make sure it’s not just the little people, either, but the masterminds of all this, the planners and manipulators. The big guys.
I know, I know… it won’t happen, they’ll all tiptoe away quietly, but it’s a lovely thought, isn’t it? I wonder if we should take their wheelbarrows away from them and all other tools, you know, for not being “green”.
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Oh, I dunno. Some people just love making lists like that. There is something very satisfying about a nice long list of names …
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anyone yet heard the Coalition promise to build any coal-fired power stations?
Britain’s power output hits 15-yr low, CO2 likely up
LONDON, Feb 28 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Power production in Britain fell to the lowest level in 15 years in 2012, according to government data published on Thursday, but carbon emissions in the EU’s second biggest emitting nation likely rose as electricity produced from coal soared…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2201781?&ref=searchlist
what is our CO2 price again?? funny how so many Reuters Point Carbon articles are from Beijing!
NZ spot carbon softens on thin demand
BEIJING, Feb 28 (Reuters Point Carbon) – Spot permits in New Zealand’s Emissions Trading Scheme fell 5.7 percent in the seven days ended Thursday to close at NZ$1.65 amid weak demand…
http://www.pointcarbon.com/news/1.2201201
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I have never heard ‘climate change’ alarmists raising the alarm about what would happen if we started directly removing 3 TeraWatts of power from the climate system (via wind turbines). That would probably have a truely measurable impact on the climate…
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Two types of Environmentalist: Type A: evil (and I do mean that in the literal sense) duplicitous, manipulative far-seeing schemers and Type B) sheep. The sheep are largely too thick to understand that energy cannot be made but only converted and cannot ever be sustainable or free.
The Type A’s know this, their scheme is first to get everyone dependent on wind power, THEN to start arguing that because of what we and they both understand, gigantic scale wind power may also produce climate change and therefore, they would argue, must be cut back. The ultimate aim of all Type A Environmentalism is at least the total de-industrialisation of the planet and quite often the total elimination of humanity also.
The compromise where most probably sit is in wanting humans reduced to the jibbering, cowering, defenceless, cold and hungry spectacle depicted inthe opening scenes of 2001 A Space Odyssey, primitive primates before the discovery of tools. That is their ideal. That is what everything in Environmentalism ultimately reduces to.
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I have a poll for anyone who wants to participate.
Q: Does anyone here like wind turbines? ie do you think they are effective or a good idea or overall positive for some reason?
If you “like” hit the green thumb. If you dislike hit the red.
I’m a red thumb, if I was permitted to thumb myself.
Please don’t give me a red or green thumb if you think this poll is a good or bad idea, or if you thought my suggestive comment about thumbs was good or bad! thanks.
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Poll,
A red from me.
Dave
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Well I must say I am a windmill fan. I think they are a good way to pump water (not generate electricity) on a small scale.
As small scale water pumps they work.
Aye they have been pumping water since we tapped the artesian basin and they stay in operation until they rust away to nothing.
And Aye, I like things that work cost effectively, which is why I hate wind turbines for electricity with a passion.
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fine… the poll is only about turbines. Agree that wind power has provided useful service for many centuries. International trade depended on it, millers depended on it etc etc.
I’d be interested to know who gave the thumbs up.
Another poll, although hard to organise in this format, would be to find the response to the same question from people who self identify as accepting the IPCC position (or similar).
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Which IPCC position?
Total arrogance?
Cowering Submission?
Or coulda,mighta,maybe, don’t know but we are really sure that its highly likely?
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I’ll take that as a comment. I’ve learned here that question marks are not always an indication that someone wants an answer or even that one is possible.
20
well for the last one I’d say kudos to the author because they may have formed the perfect debate question.
10
While I am totally against them on any widescale basis, I can see that there might be some rare cases where they might be useful. (inedible gives a good example)
But for providing a decent solid efficient supply of electrity, WAFWOTAM !
20
the poll states “turbines” and it also state that a thumbs up is only to be given if you think the positives outweigh the negatives.
I wrote it in a hurry but I don’t think I wrote it badly.
10
I just read it badly 🙂
Don’t worry, I gave a down. !! I think on balance they are the one of the most evil, ugly, environment destroying, contraptions ever devised by man.
Maybe there is a very rare case where a turbine might actually be useful, without mutilating the environment. Can’t think of one at the moment though.
30
I think some of those cute small ones might charge up a few batteries in remote locations or on boats to a useful extent, although I’d still worry about being hit by dropping bird parts.
30
ouch.. weird image in my head..
A parrot actually sitting on a blade of a small turbine while its spinning.
Reminds me of that Chiinese guy… Wu Flung Pu
I think I need some alcohol to steady the vision !!
10
As a source of energy to replace other forms of stable generation they are a far from being compatible with human existence. They may have some application in scenarios where reliability is not an issue.
20
Brilliant Gee, flash mob of a different kind.
I was red (with qualifications).
10
It is hard to write a yes know poll question. Everyone has some level of qualification. The alternative is to make the question so specific that it either loses meaning or is too difficult to interpret.
Qualifications aside, and in retrospect, the result was obvious – even if I had written it badly or complicatedly.
I think a better poll would break it into four groups with accept and reject AGW as two more groups. This would still be confined to readers of this blog; I would not want a public survey as they don’t have the knowledge of the subject.
My feeling is that the AGW proponents would give more red thumbs than green.
20
sorry that first line should read a “yes/no” not “yes know”.
10
Yes/know would be a pretty strong bias I think.
10
I never understood why these people never gave tidal power more consideration. Tides are as dependable as moonrises. I’d be interested to know the opinions of the many engineering buffs on this site.
00
I’m torn. I think they are good for target practice. Does that count?
00
A report by Kimberly Diamond called ‘Extreme Weather Impacts on Offshore
Wind Turbines: Lessons Learned’ describes some of the risks:
“Due to more intense weather conditions than originally
anticipated, hundreds of offshore wind turbines in
Europe are undergoing extensive repair.
“Extreme weather conditions have also caused about four fifths
of all North Sea offshore turbines to sustain failing
grouted connections.
“Hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs
are associated with rectifying this grouting issue.
“Sea floor dynamics, including wave conditions, tides, currents, water
flow velocity, marine growth, terrain, and ice formation, can
create chronic scour, or the depletion of seabed sediment.
Scour can cause erosion around offshore turbine bases located
in sandy soils, making such turbines’ foundation anchoring
less sturdy and reducing the turbines’ stability.
“Similar to scour, sand wave migration can cause cable exposure.
Sand wave migration rate can have adverse consequences for turbine cable installations. This is because if a cable was originally buried under a sand crest on
the ocean floor, it can become exposed if the crest migrates and
leaves a trough in its place.
“Cable exposure is an expensive and difficult problem to fix.
Few installation vessels available globally can lay subsea cables
or conduct cable repairs.”
“Anticipated global temperature increases and elevated sea
levels associated with climate change may impact offshore
wind turbines scheduled to be located in U.S. waters.
“Carnegie Mellon University researchers
found that turbines placed in U.S. waters may be vulnerable
to hurricane-force extreme winds because offshore turbines
currently on the market are only designed to withstand Category
1 hurricane wind speeds.
“Replacing a severely damaged turbine
also may not be cost effective……..Consider what may happen if numerous turbines
in an offshore wind farm simultaneously experience severe damage.”
The report makes interesting reading:
http://www.lowenstein.com/files/Publication/23b0d113-b158-4a06-a140-9c2e76fa6b25/Presentation/PublicationAttachment/a677f0c5-52bc-4af4-b09c-9d183737da5a/Extreme%20Weather%20Impacts%20on%20Offshore%20Wind%20Turbines.pdf
51
we are being scr**ed:
28 Feb: Daily Mail: Nick McDermott: So much for global warming! Four out of the last five winters have been COLDER than average
Over the last five years, only last winter saw the mercury rise above the 3.3C (38F) average – taken from 30 years of statistics from 1981.
Met Office says figures are ‘part of normal weather patterns’
*Soaring gas prices* are not the sole reason for our increasing heating bills – four out of the five past winters have been colder than average, the Met Office has revealed…
The figures are likely to be seized on by sceptics of man-made climate change, who claim that global warming has flatlined despite a large rise in greenhouse emissions in recent decades.
But Met Office officials suggested the recent crop of cold winters is part of normal weather patterns, which have previously been recorded in the 60s and 80s.
And looking further back, both 2006/07 and 2008/09 were two very mild winters with UK mean temperatures of 5.6C(42f) and 4.9C (41f) respectively.
Forecaster Helen Chivers said a cyclical phenomenon known as the North Atlantic oscillation (NAO) could be contributing to the nippier seasons…
‘This is the classic example of the variability that we can see in the British weather…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2286041/So-global-warming-4-5-winters-COLDER-average-reveals-Met-Office.html
28 Feb: Bloomberg: Eduard Gismatullin & Sally Bakewell: Shell Sees Solar as Biggest Energy Source After Exiting It
Shell’s solar estimate, *which assumes higher energy prices*, follows an industry boom that saw capacity grow to about 102 gigawatts in 2012, according to data compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-28/shell-sees-solar-as-biggest-energy-source-after-exiting-industry.html
10
Morning all.
You can quote me on that.
Cheers,
Speedy.
40
Wouldn’t that be more of a Non-Problem, which is just as well because the Solutions are turning out to be pretty much Non-Solutions too. Non-Solutions that are proving fantastically expensive for what benefit too. ?
10
Speedy, you need to add the all important “manmade” to the beginning of that quote. It makes a world of difference.
00
A must read study on Wind Generation here,
http://www.clepair.net/windSchiphol.html
And another ‘Solar Power’ joke here,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/05/solar-showdown-weeds-vs-silicon/
Read and have a laugh.
20
It should now be obvious that we will reach “peak-wind” and “peak-solar” long before we reach peak oil, peak coal and peak gas. Because of the very low energy density in wind and solar power, there will soon not be any physical space left on which to erect these things.
30
“Windpower’s theoretical maximum isn’t what we thought it might have been”
Oh my god, no, its worse than we thought…..
LOL
20
Only partly off-topic. I was tramping across France with a pack three years ago and happened to have dinner with a retired geo-thermal electrical engineer called Michel. I asked him about hot rocks and he said it was very old tech that worked well in parts of Europe for certain heating and cooling purposes. I asked him about its power-gen potential as proposed by our Timmy. Michel laughed.
That’s all. He just laughed.
30
Say,
here’s me being shameless again, and linking in to one of my own Posts, this one from more than 3 years back now.
Ken Salazar, U.S. Secretary Of The Interior, (same as an Australian Federal Government Minister) offhandedly said that all U.S. power could be generated by Offshore Wind.
So, I went and did the Maths on that.
What a shock.
Salazar’s Wind Power: First Open Mouth, Then Change Feet
Tony.
60
That’s just great TonyOz; all power could come from windpower along the East coast says the idiot; that would require 1 million of the stupid things and you can only fit 30,000 along the coast!
A really good contest would be to list the stupidiest claims and things said on behalf of AGW and renewable energy; some are already here.
30
Mmm, that’s ambiguous; TonyOz is not an idiot, the person in his link, Ken Salazar, is the idiot!
10
For saying that, Salazar proves he is an idiot and not qualified for the job.
20
I forsee an international betting pool, coming up.
Stick cameras or tap into those already there, on all wind generators and bet on which will self-destruct in each gale.
20
Hey it was a good week for wind power elsewhere.
http://www.evwind.es/2013/02/21/wind-energy-surpasses-nuclear-power-in-china/29571?goback=.gde_1885418_member_216837109
Wind made more electricity than nuclear in China last year. More than nuclear. Think about it guys.
010
Exactly the kind of idiot parrot that TonyOz and myself are aiming at
Now tell us please, in your own words, the difference between nameplate (claimed installed) capacity and actual delivered power as this relates to wind and nuclear power. Your naive, breathless link actually uses the word “installed”, not delivered or “made” (your word)
I’m sure you’ll take your time. You haven’t understood a single syllable of these threads, have you ?
31
Sorry meant to post as a reply
Excellent. So, obviously the difference between nameplate capacity and delivered power is the capacity factor.
The way to sidestep this is by using actual electricity generated, not capacity. Exactly as it does in the link. How do I know this? Because the graph is in TWh, while capacity is measured in TW. So they’re different. I know it must be complicated for a lay person.
05
Really? the graphs I see are BOTH labelled Terawatt-hours. Further, on the (impressive) second graph wind power is labelled “Wind Power POTENTIAL”.
I trust you think that is voltage?
30
Ahhhha hahahah ahhahhahhahha ha ha ah ha.
Can you believe it? the long hair says “It must be true” cause some one said it (or I found it on the internet) And China ALWAYS is a reliable source!
Dumbass hippie, few other windpower farm manages over 10-15% on average over time, of nameplate capacity. (that I’ve seen). You’ll have to provide much more data before I’ll believe the report.
Keep on hugging your artificial trees though.
51
We deal with information from China all of the time, and I can tell you, official figures are only ever correct when they show the Chinese State Administration of Industry and Commerce (SAIC) in a favorable light.
Also, China has ambiguous state secrecy laws, and although total power production is not a state secret, often components of that production are, forcing commentators to guesstimate how much was from wind, how much was from coal, how much was from nuclear, etc.
Ergo, you cannot reasonably make any comparisons between China and any other country.
50
Oh, ho ho ho!
What a side splitting, lay down, roll on the floor moment this is.
Evcricket, oh thank you so much for showing this wonderful fact.
So then, let’s look at this absolute wonder shall we.
True, Wind did provide more power than Nuclear in China.
Wind 88 TeraWattHours of power to Chinese Grids.
Nuclear 85 TeraWatt Hours to Chinese grids.
That’s 3.5% more power. Hey, man, that’s huge, HUGE. Think of it. 3.5%. Wow!
Wind Capacity 75,564MW
Nuclear Capacity 11,816 MW.
So wind Capacity is almost 7 times higher and it manages a monstrous 3.5% more power.
I am Impressed, and I mean IMPRESSED.
Umm, wait a minute.
That’s 38,000 Wind Towers.
That’s 6 Nuclear Power Plants operational.
That, err, sort of puts it all into perspective now, doesn’t it.
Thanks again Evcricket.
And yes, now we’re all thinking about it.
Oh, nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Tony.
90
You’ll have to make your point a little clearer Tony. It doesn’t make sense to me.
011
Poor greenie; Installed capacity and capacity factor are the difference between 24/7 power from the installation and what is actually produced as an average over a year; wind’s capacity factor is between 20 and 30% as shown in table 1 here.
But that is not the whole story because the POWER produced by wind as shown in the capacity factor is an average; from moment to moment the power produced is termed the Reliability Point which is the % that the capacity factor occurs at any time to a 90% certainty which is the lowest standard for scientific validation.
From Table 1 we can see that there is only a 2-6% chance that the 20-30% average power output, the capacity factor, will be achieved at any one time.
What this means, greenie, is that wind POWER is useless as an actual electricity source; it is useless because its intermittency is so great that reliable fossil and nuclear power must be kept running constantly to make up for the unreliability of wind.
So that POWER generated by wind is not used as electricity, it is just a duplication, a waste, bled up a pole.
50
This person is NOT a greenie, he is an environment HATER.
30
Evcricket:
It doesn’t surprise me.
I’ll give you extra credit for a little honesty.
50
That would be …
Of capacity built in China paid for by the Clean Development Mechanism of the UNFCCC drawing money from the people living in the Kyoto signatory countries.
China with it’s $3T USD (Equivalent) in foreign reserves just loves being subsidized by the bankrupt Developed world.
10
Don’t worry mate. Tony the coal engineer rarely makes sense.
08
Look, you’ll all have to forgive me here, as the figures I have used do not reflect the same as what Evcricket has used.
Mine are from the actual Chinese Power Portal, and are accurate as to this current year.
His data, well, I have no idea where that came from.
Note his says wind generated 2% more, and my Chinese data shows a 3.5% increase.
Also note how the actual Capacity data also differs.
76,000 towers and 6 Nuclear power plants.
You choose.
I’m still laughing.
Tony.
60
From here.
Where …
Actual data is here (mostly in excel).
As to the quality of the data in the excel spreadsheets, and the validity of the assumptions underlying the data – well that’s an open question.
30
In a one minute video you can get the full sense of Lester R Brown.
20
In year 12 at high school – I would have agreed with Lester R Brown
Then I came across people like Julian Simon.
10
Give him a break you lot, he only just got the email and arrived unprepared.
10
If you have basically zero nuclear power, of course wind produces more.
Wind produces more energy than nuclear in Australia too, and many many other countries,
but its still a PIDDLING amount compared to real power requirements.
20
Excellent. So, obviously the difference between nameplate capacity and delivered power is the capacity factor.
The way to sidestep this is by using actual electricity generated, not capacity. Exactly as it does in the link. How do I know this? Because the graph is in TWh, while capacity is measured in TW. So they’re different. I know it must be complicated for a lay person.
011
.
Evcricket
You must love killing these beautiful birds. This is only one of thousands YOU SO CALLED GREENIES KILL every year.
You are an environmental vandal & criminal.
20
I will need some evidence that thousands of Tasmanian Wedge-Tails are killed every year. My apologies, but I don’t really trust your rendering of the facts.
07
.
That is Bird Species – you’re not much of a bird lover are you?
You’re a Wind Lover.
How sad you are.
40
Hahaha, you chose the wrong person to argue about birds with champ. Anyway, who cares. Windmills make loads of electricity.
09
Windmills turn a stone that crushes things champ.
60
“Anyway, who cares.”
The topic is killing birds, and you say “WHO CARES’
Well obviously NOT YOU. You slimy, evil, anti-environmental GIT.
60
“Windmills make loads of electricity.”
Ummmm.. Only when you have thousands of them, and of course, if the wind is actually blowing, or not blowing too hard.
Nuclear and Coal provide power 24/7/365.
40
Hey, wood, nuclear and coal plants get shut down on a regular basis. How many nuclear plants running in Japan at the moment? Um, two. That’s 4%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/world/asia/japan-to-begin-restarting-idled-nuclear-plants.html?_r=0
Fukushima had two of six reactors off-line at the time of the tsunami.
06
Still capable of 24 hr production.
Try picking a country that DIDN’T have a earthquake and Tsunami to shut down it’s nuclear industry as an example.
10
Sure Heywood, let’s talk about France, the poster child for nuclear energy. They had to import electricity from, ahem, Germany, last February, because they’d shut down some of their reactors. Oh, and they’ve extended the operating licenses of a few others. And the ones that are closing down are going to cost slightly more than a gazillion Euros to decommission. Oh, and they use fresh water for cooling which is running short in summer since there isn’t as much water in the rivers any more – couldn’t possibly be climate change, could it?
But don’t worry, the French have only got six functioning reactor sites in seismically-active zones.
06
Ricky you’re doing it again….
Well, ahem, that’s because Britain is buying up all the French carbonless electricity so they can brag to the EU about how gooooood they’ve been at reducing.
Couldn’t possibly be irrigation to feed thirsty biofuel crops now could it?
You really need to stay away from the cool-aid Ricky.
50
And don’t forget to vote at comment #17
50
Evcricket, I swear there will be a time when wind TURBINES will be be regarded as a relic of totalitarian thought, much like those seemingly countless statues of Marx and Lenin littering many formerly Eastern Bloc countries. There is nothing wrong with admitting to being wrong but it does take a lot of guts and self respect.
30
So if it so easy for the Chinese and they have so much potential( as per the Harvard data) why are they building and commissioning coal fired power stations at the rapid rate they are?
Why are the Chinese manufacturers of wind turbines struggling (financially)?
40
So who gives a shit ? Both pale into insignificance compared to power generated by coal and gas. In fact, other than France, nuclear generation the world over is pretty much of little consequence.
China generates more hydro-power than wind-power. China pretty much generates more power by any other means than windmills. Windmills are anti-human, but you knew that already 😉
30
looks like the total power comsumption in China is 3.5-4 thousand TWh..and wind managed only 100 TWh.
00
Australia – Capacity of every power source – 41GW
China – Capacity just from Hydro – 197GW
Australia – Total Power Consumption – 250TWH
China – Total Power delivered just from Hydro – 660TWH
Tony.
50
You da Man ! 😉
10
“Today nearly 440 nuclear reactors produce electricity around the world. More than 15 countries rely on nuclear power for 25% or more of their electricity. In Europe and Japan, the nuclear share of electricity is over 30%. In the U.S., nuclear power creates 20% of electricity. Among these are China, India, the United States, Russia and Japan, which together represent half of world population. Other nations – such as Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Finland, South Korea, South Africa, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and several other countries in Central and Eastern Europe – are acting to increase the role of nuclear power in their economies. Key developing nations without nuclear power – such as Indonesia, Egypt and Vietnam – are considering this option. ”
France gets the highest percentage of electricity from nuclear sources, but Switzerland and Sweden get roughly half their electricity from nuclear. The Czechs are doing well selling nuclear power to the Germans, until the new German brown coal stations start up. Lithuania wants to build a new reactor and one is building in Finland.
Countries like Denmark and Italy, which claim to be nuclear free, import substantial amounts of nuclear power from their neighbours.
50
Graeme No 3,
Dead right. And if we have to reduce GHG emissions (e.g. if a UN treaty is signed), then going nuclear avoids the huge compliance costs of emissions monitoring, trading, fraud etc. It even avoids having to measure the emissions from your paint factory (in joke: to get it see Graeme No3’s excellent and interesting comments about the realities of emissions monitoring near the end of this thread: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2012/06/what-the-carbon-tax-and-ets-will-really-cost-peter-lang/ ).
20
Yeah Graeme, we’ve managed to completely retire 8 of those nuclear reactors and only 11 have blown up
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf19.html
05
Excellent. So this is definitely complicated for you, maybe ?
Green Energy Has A Brownout Problem
20
I wish the neighbouring state to California would just say.. “NO, make your own b*****y power”
That would wake them up to reality quick sharp !!!
10
California suffers from the problem of having too many people who are wealthy enough to have a salient thought in their heads.
00
..should read ..NOT to have a salient thought… AARgh!! (Must preview)
10
Indeed they are. Now again, in your own tiny words, tell us the difference please. Remember that a WATT is a metric of energy converted/time, ie. a rate
In fact, 1 watt = 1 joule/second
So, the difference between TWh and TW, please. Then the difference between nameplate capacity and actual energy converted
Baby steps, but I’m sure you’ll get there
But I’m with TonyOz, I’m laughing too hard to avoid spelling errors, so I’d better stop
40
OT. But really?
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/summer-records-fall-after-long-heatwave-20130301-2f9xh.html
PETER HANNAM
00
I don’t think so:
Australian Heatwave? Not So Unusual After All
10
Right. And there’s no difference between NSW and Australia, is there?
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/ho/20130301.shtml
03
There actually is something we could use as a ready reference as to how little Wind Power actually generates.
Australia’s Total electrical power capacity from every source of power generation in the Country comes in at 42,000MW
Currently in the U.S. there is 60,000MW of total installed Capacity for Wind Power, and that’s 43% greater than Australia’s Capacity for ALL its power plants of every type.
Australia currently consumes around 250TWH of power each year.
Every one of those Wind Towers in the U.S. delivered in the last 12 Month period 140TWH.
Note here how even though the U.S. has a far greater Capacity just from Wind than ALL of Australia’s Capacity from every power Plant, all those Wind Plants can only deliver 56% of our total power requirements, which, in fact, does not even equate to the Australian Base Load requirement.
For some perspective, that Wind Capacity in the U.S. is greater than Australia’s Total Wind Capacity by a factor of 24.
All of that U.S. Wind Power supplies only 3.4% of all Power consumed in the U.S.
Tony.
50
Okay then, while we’re discussing the ridiculous power delivery from Wind Power, let’s reference the total wind power delivery from every U.S. Wind Plant to Nuclear power, and here we are talking about 40,000+ wind towers.
There are 65 Nuclear Power plants in the US, running 104 reactor/turbine/generator complexes.
Those Nukes deliver 770TWH to U.S. grids, 5.5 times as much power as delivered from those 40,000+ towers.
What that effectively means is that the same amount of power that wind delivers is delivered from 12 Nuclear power plants.
Makes you think, doesn’t it?
Tony.
50
Makes me think the Americans could retire a few nuclear plants.
And then wait a couple of decades.
And then try to work out what to do with the radioactive waste.
One thing for sure: you don’t get terrorists plotting to crash into wind turbines, or steal the left-over blades to use as weapons.
http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RS21131.pdf
06
Note to Mark D… I’m not disagreeing with Tony on this thread.
31
I was interested in researching wind energy so
I submtted a Don Quixote essay in the Spectator
Ridley competition. I included and referenced some
of Tony from Oz’ excellent study of wind turbines
in Esperence,WA,towers 200 feet high supporting a
turbine housing.or nacelle, the size of a bus …
say, listen to that thrummm!
The generator can’t be too large though for
mounting off the ground so units most commonly
generate about 3/4 MW power output and are
designed to operate in wind speeds between 8/16MPH.
Guess yer could say that efficiency and intermittency
are a constant problem.
10
in fairness it would be worse if they were only an intermittant problem. at least you can plan for constant intermittency.
11
Stop teasing Matt
10
MSM in full flight with another CAGW meme:
1 March: Australian: AFP: Carbon dioxide and warming lock-step in last Ice Age
Writing in the US journal, Science, a team led by French glaciologist Frederic Parrenin looked at ice from five deep drilling expeditions in Antarctica…
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/carbon-dioxide-and-warming-lock-step-in-last-ice-age/story-e6frg8y6-1226588345935
28 Feb: NYT: Justin Gillis: Study of Ice Age Bolsters Carbon and Warming Link
A meticulous new analysis of Antarctic ice suggests that the sharp warming that ended the last ice age occurred in lock step with increases of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, the latest of many indications that the gas is a powerful influence on the earth’s climate…
The latest paper was led by Frédéric Parrenin of the University of Grenoble, in France, and is scheduled for publication on Friday in the journal Science…
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/01/science/earth/at-ice-age-end-a-smaller-gap-in-warming-and-carbon-dioxide.html?_r=0
00
Hey, now I’ve made some points on how ridiculous Wind Power really is, I would like to direct you all back to the Link in Joanne’s text at the main Thread here.
Science Daily
It’s a confusing article because I can’t figure out what this guy is getting at really.
In it he says in one place (and Joanne mentions it in that second last para of her first block quote there):
Currently, on the whole of Planet Earth there is 282GW of Nameplate Capacity for Wind Power.
That comes in at 0.282 TeraWatts, so what this person is getting at is that they could realistically ramp up the total Wind Power Capacity by a factor of 355.
That existing total of 282GW is around 200,000 towers.
The current average for generators on top of these towers is 2.5 to 3MW, so for an installed Nameplate Capacity of 100TW, you are looking at around 40 Million towers, (with 2.5MW generators) and there’s currently only 200,000 of them.
See now why the article is quite literally ‘pie in the sky’.
In the direct para before the other one the article says:
Okay, so now we have 50 years at the latest, and keep in mind the lifespan of a wind tower is 25 years, and there’s some modern thinking that has that down to 15 years now, but lets’ say it’s good for that 25 years.
So where this guy says 100TW in 50 years, and that’s 40 million towers, that effectively means that, providing they had all the nacelles and equipment for this construction, and they work 24 hours around the clock, because it’s always light for half the Planet at any one time, that means they finish off, connected to the World’s grid, one complete wind tower every ….. 8 seconds.
Eight seconds.
And even then half of them will have time expired.
Do you seriously think this will happen, even if they have the money to do it?
Not on your life.
See how easy it is to write something down, and how impossible the actuality is.
Even if they have literally millions of crews working on it, it won’t happen.
By the way that current total World Capacity of 280GW is only delivering its power at an 18% Capacity Factor.
You can say all you like about how great Wind Power is.
Get in your car and drive into town. Using Wind Power efficiency, you’ll only get there one time in five. Would you keep your car?
Tony
50
“so for an installed Nameplate Capacity of 100TW, you are looking at around 40 Million towers, (with 2.5MW generators)”
And that’s just nameplate capacity. He actually said “the system could potentially generate enormous amounts of power, well in excess of 100 terawatts” which I take to mean that at a given moment 100 TW is actually being produced… which would require what some 400TW of nameplate capacity?
11
And you know what? No-one ever suggested generating our entire energy supply from wind. Go on, beat the stuffing out of that straw man.
07
Gee, and I thought the anti-wind lobby in Australia was fixated on the fact that windmills cause so much death and destruction, and disrupt Rupert Murdoch’s view from his country estate at Yass.
http://www.independentaustralia.net/2011/environment/the-ugly-landscape-of-the-guardians/
Jo, when are you going to address this issue:
http://theconversation.edu.au/floods-fires-and-lots-of-heat-summing-up-summer-2012-13-12510
Australia’s hottest summer on record, and that’s in an ENSO-neutral year.
07
So?
30
Whose record Ricardo? Yer mates?!!!. Yer soul buddies?!!!. What happened 200 years ago? Can you tell us? What about 400 or 800 yrs ago. Nah, didn’t think so. Rack off you pygmy.
40
G, C.T., U R A gr8 conversationalist. With witty comments like that, I’ sure you’re a hit on the dinner-party circuit. Taking lessons from Monckton, R U?
You want a long-term temperature record? Here you go.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
BTW, I’ve got the hide of a rhinoceros, and your puny little insults don’t even tickle.
05
“I’ve got the hide of a rhinoceros”
and you have the brain of a stunned mullet !
10
She has addressed such issues in the past, it goes something like:
Observe these pieces of anecdotal evidence.
See it’s happened before!
Therefore it’s not unusual, nothing to see here folks.
16
And..? Please expound.
20
Not to mention that is her blog, and doesn’t have to pander to warmist’s requests for subject matter.
Besides, it’s not like you can provide EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE that the ‘hottest’ summer (since records began anyway) was caused by AGW.
20
Gee Heywood, I thought “it’s not hot” was the core of your argument.
04
Never said it wasnt.
10
Never said it wasn’t hot, or wasn’t your argument?
01
Sorry for taking so long to respond. I actually have a life and enjoy Friday nights with family and friends rather than carpet bombing blogs.
Never said there hasn’t been some warming. I just skeptical about the cause, severity and consequence. I also find it annoying people who blame every breath of wind and warm day on AGW.
“Australia’s hottest summer on record”
You said in an earlier post, “NSW isn’t Australia.”
Well guess what champ, Australia isn’t global either…
Just because
00
Did you know that quoting the “conversation” immediately invalidates your argument?
I have “conversations” with myself and there is never any disagreement, we all agree. The matter is settled. Ahh… consensus.
30
I think that’s the point, Bowlie. Try having a conversation with someone who doesn’t agree with you violently. It’s stimulating, I guarantee.
11
Can I interrupt the GetUp climate report just to mention how much I lurv coal. Coal is exquisite. The black is pure and shiny, the brown is so earthy and so…
I just love the stuff, okay?
20
So Robert, I get a distinct impression that you love coal.
Do you have a preference for Black or Brown?
11
Heywood, I’ve been asked that question before. It’s tricky, since I’m from NSW. It’s like choosing between dark and milk chocolate, depends on mood. There used to be a coal loader at Wollstonecraft when I was living there. When they sprayed it down on a warm day the aroma was heavenly.
These days I never see or smell it. It just powers everything I do with safety, reliability and, at source, economy. I hate to think of it being burnt in old clunkers. I’d love to see it powering some flash, ultra-light turbines so not a grain is wasted. I don’t want it to last us two hundred years, I want it to last us three hundred years. By then, we’ll be using something else for our power – nobody knows what, because only carnival frauds and climate bedwetters pretend to know the future – but I hope there’s still a bit of the nice black or brown being burnt somewhere. Just to make us feel like progressing, as opposed to progressive, human beings.
Did I mention that I love coal?
50
Still going on about coal Robert? check out my spur of the moment limerick on #10.2.1 hope it holds your apparent coal fetish at bay for awhile! LMFAO.
30
Yes Robert, you said so. I’m waiting for you to tweet a picture of you tucking into a delicious meal of carcinogens.
04
Australian Heatwave? Not So Unusual
☂
❝ It is only a few weeks since we were being told how the heatwave in Australia was unprecedented, and proof of global warming.
Now the GISS systems are up and running again, we can check just how hot it really was last month down under.
.
★ In none of the examples is the January temperature a record, or even close to being so, and in most cases higher temperatures were recorded 50 years or more ago.
NSW was probably the worst affected state, yet, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM), it was only the 5th warmest January since 1910, and all the others occurred prior to 1940. In other words, a once in 20 years event.
.
★ The BOM explain the causes of the heatwave in Tasmania, which lasted just two days, very well.
“The high combined with an approaching cold front on the 3rd and 4th to direct a very hot air flow over Tasmania”.
In other words, weather. But don’t expect the Railway Engineer to tell you this.❞
☼
Any corrections below, or see author.
Complaints; take the left corridor, two doors down.
10
From the BOM’s NSW January weather summary:
Warmest January mean temperatures since 1939
• Almost 500 fires across the state; first
Catastrophic fire day since December 2009
• TC Oswald brings heavy rain and flooding in
eastern NSW
• Dry weather continues west of the divide
Meanwhile, in the Northern Territory:
• Hottest January on record
• Driest January since 1994
• Longest hottest streak for the Alice Springs
And those are the first two on the list. Feel free to consult the experts for further details.
04
So?
Since 1939? Why so hot then?
10
Heywood, the 30s were the decade good weather forgot, right across the world. Our Big Heat of 1938-39 was just part of the story in Oz. Globally, floods in China were the biggest killer by far. The ’38 catastrophe was due to horribly bungled politics and military strategy more than nature, but the natural ’31 flood was, in the opinion of many, worse than 1887. No way of counting, but estimates of deaths have gone into the millions.
But the amazing year in terms of extremes was 1936 in North America. The heat was not spread as wide as 2012, but the intensity toward the north and centre, and into Canada, combining with the effects of the preceding Dustbowl years, made it a climate horror. What some don’t know is that it followed one of the most severe winters on record, then and still. Like with the heat, the cold was worst in areas west of the Great Lakes. The heat and cold of that year affected most areas, but Iowa was totally the place not to be.
Mind you, the shift from heat to cold in parts of the US right now must rate pretty high as a radical shift between extremes.
The Northern Hemisphere has a new record for cold, pushing out 1933? -71.2°C in Oymyakon just the other day? Oh well, no big deal. Hang about long enough and every record goes. Gaia never was anybody’s mummy.
Welcome to the old normal.
30
Silly me, Heywood. Did I mention that the Coldwave-Heatwave of 1936 was preceded in September of 1935 by the renowned Labor Day Hurricane? Cat 5 at landfall, 295 km/h and 892 mbar! Fortunately, its aim wasn’t as good as Sandy’s.
And did I mention that I totally LOVE coal? (I think I did, actually.)
30
.
Seems the ARTIC ICE is back – but don’t tell anyone.
The GAIA followers are now concentrating on a hot patch 52 kilometers SW of Alice Springs to see if they can find another heat wave. But they got bogged at a flooded creek before they could get there.
00
Juicy cherry-pick Devo. However, if you look at ice volume rather than extent (which is defined as the amount of water covered by at least 15% ice) you get a different picture, a steady downward trend.
Your sidetrack about Alice Springs is also a bit mind-boggling. Maybe it’s meant to be sarcastic. Here’s the February rainfall map for the NT. Bugger-all rain anywhere, for a wet season. More likely to get bogged in bulldust, like you just did, than in a flooded creek.
01
Ricky, don’t you think ice has to gain area before it gains volume?
Besides that, open water at the northern latitudes in the winter months will cause ocean COOLING. MUCH COOLING! Get that? COOLING! DO YOU HEAR ME?! THERE’S COOLING IN THE PIPELINE!
00
Mr.K: Warmest January mean temperatures since 1939
Answer: Australia – was hot and is hot. So what? This is not an unusual heatwave-Jonova
.
Mr.K: Almost 500 fires across the state; first
Answer: Some Australian flora and fauna has evolved to coexist with bushfires,
and in the case of eucalypt forest, fire forms an integral part of its regeneration cycle. Further evidence this is “first”.
.
Mr.K: TC Oswald brings heavy rain and flooding in eastern NSW
Answer: UN-IPCC/CSIRO tar wg2 2007:
Similar but less extreme results were found by Walsh et al. (2000) for estimates of meteorological drought in Queensland, based on simulations with the CSIRO RCM at 60-km resolution, nested in the CSIRO Mk2 GCM.
That’s right – the IPCC prediction for north-east Australia (Queensland) was less rainfall, more droughts, and a generally drier climate.
.
Northern Territory is irrelevant.
The focus this year was on Tasmania.
.
As for your “experts”, check your links, and point out where they highlight this important climate information: Official-Australia Is drought free.
.
If you are the sort of person who likes to question things, a skeptic possibly, you might ponder why, an official national recorder of metrological information would omit, or delete this important information.
Or you don’t.
10
N.B. Meteorological
00
Oh alright Handjive, since you want to focus on Tasmania:
Hobart recorded a maximum of 41.8 °C, Tasmania’s
second-highest temperature and the highest ever
observed in southern Tasmania. Several fires flared
in hot and dry conditions on the 4th, one that started
near Forcett causing extensive damage to Dunalley
and surrounding areas. Rainfall was below average
throughout the state.
• A record 41.8 °C in Hobart on the 4th
• Hottest day on record at several other sites in the
southeast
• Highest January minimum temperature on record
at some sites in the southeast
• Destructive bushfires
• Below average rainfall
01
Sorry ‘Jive, I didn’t notice your link to a year-old statement from the BOM that Australia was drought-free. You need an update: Severe rainfall deficiencies for the 6 month (August 2012 to January 2013) period have expanded in central Australia and in large parts of the inland southeast of Australia following below average January rainfall.
When the February map comes out, the drought will be seen to have extended into western Queensland. So wow, imagine, the IPCC might be right after all.
I’m sorry, Jo’s wrong, January WAS an unusual heat wave. The fact that you deny it makes me wonder.
02
In summary.
Rickardo K denies the giss records that conflict with BoM propaganda.
Rickardo K denies there are older records that show it has been hotter before 1939.
Rickardo K Denies the scientific evidence of evolution that proves him wrong. Offers NO evidence that 500 fires is a “first.”
Rickardo K ignores the UN-IPCC/CSIRO junk science and failed predictions. IPCC/CSIRO is specific. East coast ONLY.
Rickardo K FAILS to comprehend it was the ABC, Gillard who “focused” on Tasmania as proof of global warming, NOT the Northern Territory.
Rickardo K FAILS to see the irony that only HE can refer to incomplete BoM records for supportive data.
The BoM denies/deletes the reality of climate change.
Rickardo K’s link to rain deficiency will be shortlived, according to Rickardo’s high priests, the BoM, if they are right.
Cherry picking 1939 is disingenuous at the very least.
00
“Australia’s hottest summer on record, and that’s in an ENSO-neutral year.”
Do you have a clue what the alarmists indicator of global warming is?
No? Then try global warming.
Have you read about recent record low temperatures in the northern hemisphere? Perhaps you didn’t know that those locations have winter when we have summer.
To the end of 2012, despite record high temperatures in the US, 2012 was only about the ninth hottest year in the last 34 years.
Thus local or regional temperature anomalies have not been an indicator, in the last decade and a half, of any global warming that exceeds the error bands.
You can come here and learn a bit of science or waste your time at places like the ABC and skeptical science and remain an ignoramus all your life. Your choice.
00
Well lleW, I prefer to go to the source for data, and rely on news and analysis sites for updates and analysis. How’s this for record low temperaures? Global temperature maps for December 2012 and January 2013. February data not available yet.
I’m sorry, what was that you were saying about regional variations and global warming?
01
Abatement cost of wind with backup is roughly twice the abatement cost of gas.
Calculate cost per tonne CO2 abated for new wind and gas in NEM.
Cost of electricity and emissions intensities for new wind and gas technologies sourced from BREE AETA Report (2012).
CO2 emissions intensity (existing black coal) (approx) = 1.0 t/MWh
Average wholesale electricity cost (approx) = $30/MWh
Gas only (CCGT):
CO2 emissions intensity (t/MWh) = 0.368
Cost of electricity ($/MWh) = 89
CO2 abatement cost ($/t CO2) = (89-30) / (1.0-0.368) = 59 / 0.362 = 93
30% Wind + 35% CCGT + 35% OCGT:
CO2 emissions intensity (t/MWh) = 0.3 x 0 + 0.35 x 0.4 + 0.35 x 0.7
Cost of electricity (wind) ($/MWh) = $116
Cost of electricity (CCGT) ($/MWh) = $89
Cost of electricity (OCGT) ($/MWh) = $196 (@ 10% CF)
CO2 abatement cost ($/t CO2) = 178
CO2 abatement cost Summary
Gas only = $93/t CO2
Wind + gas back up = = $178/t CO2
Therefore, wind costs about twice as much as gas to abate CO2.
I recognise there are many simplifications in this (some would decrease and some would increase this cost). But you can get the big picture. Wind is a very expensive way to reduce emissions.
Some that would increase the calculated abatement cost are adding the increased grid costs (up to $45/MWh) and allowing for the ineffectiveness of wind abatement (wind was just 53% effective at avoiding emissions in Ireland in 2011 (17% wind energy penetration). We don’t know in Australia because we have no way of estimating the emissions avoided accurately enough and at the time scale required)
20
.
The scuba diver instructor.
The survivor of cyclones (Tracy & Yasi etc).
The holder of three tertiary qualifications.
Currently going for a fouth.
Expert on Wind mills.
Expert on Nuclear.
Expert on Lord Monkton.
Hide of a rhinoceros.
Expert on terrorism.
Currently studing BIOLOGY & ECOLOGY (concurrently)?
etc, etc etc
I though Tim Flannery was a bullshlt artist – but:
The GOOSE of the day goes to RICKARDO K.
30
Good onya Deviously Attentive, Very Ordinary. Keeping track of me.
I’ve been through more than two cyclones. Lost count, to be honest.
Add these facts to your list: I’ve also got a taxi-driver’s license, and I know a thing or two about sheep. Come on, there has to be a joke in there somewhere. I’m practically spoon-feeding you.
Thanks for calling me a goose. Geese are awesome. The Romans used them as guard animals on the Capitoline Hill, and I’ve used them to protect other fowl against snakes and goannas. Their livers make fabulous pate, there’s a lot of meat on them, and their feathers are in the best doonas. They’re also great for slug control in the veggie patch. Very practical animals.
01
[…] http://joannenova.com.au/2013/03/wind-fa […]
00
.
Ricardo K.
1. It was Larry (three)
2. When the Romans were there it was called Capitolinus Hill not Capitoline Hill .
3. There were no geese on Capitolinus Hill – only two temples.
4. Pigeons are very different from geese.
5. The rest is just SHLT.
Now explain Peter Langs coment: Abatement cost of wind with backup is roughly twice the abatement cost of gas. Justify wind turbines as any sort of power supply in relation to CO2 abatement. Also tell me the Realibility Point of Wind power?
00
Dave, down boy. Here’s a refresher on Roman history. “When the Gauls attacked Rome, the Capitoline did not fall because of geese who honked their warning. From then on, the sacred geese were honored and annually, the dogs who had failed in their job, were punished.” If you’re talking Latin, it’s the Collis Capitōlīnus. So, ouyay ailfay ogday atinLay.
Chris Monckton could have put you right. With his background in classical architecture he’d be the right person to talk to about Roman temples.
03
The U.S. precedent offshore Cape Wind project features (130) wind turbines. As specified by the developer, and as approved by U.S. Department of Interior under Secretary Salazar, and based on the 4,000 page Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and the developers’ Construction Operation Plan, Cape Wind turbines are “discontinued”, “sinking”, “shifting” and “corroding”, as deployed offshore U.K.
http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2012/07/29/13018297-cape-wind-is-discontinued-sinking-shifting-and-corroding-by-developers-specifications
There are no public or environmental benefits associated with land-based or offshore wind energy that is unreliable and cost prohibitive as well as environmentally damaging.
Public subsidies are a magnet to organized crime.
Meet your wind developers-UPC, First Wind, DeepWater Wind, Cape Wind Associates, LLC, EMI, IVPC:
http://bjdurk.newsvine.com/_news/2010/12/30/5737860-meet-your-wind-developers-upc-first-wind-deepwater-wind-cape-wind-associates-llc-emi-ivpc-
10
It’s not “unreliable”.
Maybe you meant “intermittent”?
Might be good to provide accurate commentary, or people might accuse you of being nothing more than an ideologue.
01
I think that if they are “sinking”, “shifting” and “corroding” and many other things, then “unreliable” is a very good description.
10
But we don’t actually know if that’s happening because we are good sceptics and we wouldn’t in a million years rush to believe something based on a bunch of dodgy news clippings from unverified sources.
00
The curious thing about this article is its title, “Turbines break like match-sticks” – I’ve spent the last 3 days searching, and I can’t find any recorded instance of any Turbine breaking like a match stick.
The research quoted in this article doesn’t appear to contain any evidence of this ever happening either.
What a curious situation this is….
00
What you don’t understand, is that ‘break like matchsticks’ actually means that a theoretical wave, could break a theoretical wind turbine, because all waves and all wind turbines are different.
This poses a problem, because it means that we don’t know when or where the next wind turbine will fail. It could fail anywhere. Anytime. Especially in the ocean.
00
I see, and if, one day, a wind turbine fails, it will make Fukushima look like a walk in the park?
00