Germany moving towards 100% renewable energy

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http://www.solartoday.org/2005/march_april05/Germany.html

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hot rod

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i'm not very enviormentally friendly, but

it seems like such a no brainer to use windmills i just dont understand why we aren't tripping over them..

The Amount...

... of power you can get out of a windmill vs the upfront cost isn't a very good ratio. And in any event, the power you get is dependent upon if, and how hard, the wind is blowing. They're noisy (they're basically just fans running in reverse), and there is also dreaded "flicker factor" (strobe light effect through the rotating blades) at sunup and sundown.

Research should definately carry on with windmills, solar power, etc. but to get a meaningful amount of power out of these is a long ways off yet.

soapbox

Since I do this for a living (that is, help people put up windmills), I thought I'd make some comments. Real life gets in the way of converting the US to renewable energy. And if you're not interested, here's a warning: this is boring.

1) Windmills make money. In fact, they're cheaper than fossil fuels today, energy-wise. HOWEVER, people won't build windmill farms unless the government provides tax credits. This has long been a crutch of the renewable fuel industry -- the government gets them started by giving tax credits to windmill owners, which makes them even more profitable. Utilities know this, and so they'll pay less for renewable energy -- not because it's worth less, but because they can get away with it. It's been hard to break from that trend and have the utilities pay more. This is changing as states are instituting mandatory "must get x% of your energy from renewable sources" laws. Windmills have only been profitable in the last several years, by the way. Solar energy is still not profitable on a large scale. Heck, it's more profitable to build a power plant to burn chicken poop than to use solar energy. In fact, I think there's a turkey-waste plant somewhere in the Midwest.

2) Windmills only work where it's windy. (Duh.) People want to live where it isn't windy. Therefore, wind farms tend to be in the middle of nowhere. Who is going to build the electric grid out to the middle of nowhere? That's not cheap.

3) We don't have good "battery" technology -- that is, we can't store electricity efficiently. So we only get the electricity when the wind is blowing. But the wind tends to blow at night, when fuel demands are lower. . . And besides that, it's intermittent. Is it not, and until good fuel cell technology is developed (and it isn't), it will never suffice as a primary source of energy. Germany (where wind farms are very common) I believe is tapping out on capacity for intermittent energy.

4) The government offers big-time incentives for wind farms. However, they keep letting the laws expire (there was no tax credit for building wind farms from January-September 2004, for example) and taking a while to re-enact them. Which makes the industry very antsy. Government is sloppy.

5) The tax credit thing again. Tax credits let you save money on the taxes. But the people who own the sites for wind farms, guys named Farmer Bob and Rancher Joe, they don't really make millions and millions of dollars, and hence, can't save millions and millions on taxes. The tax credits are so big that the only kinds of companies that would have enough taxes to pay them are. . . well, Bank of America, for instance. But they don't own farmland in the middle of nowhere. So it's complex to set it all up.

6) Only in the last few years has the technology gotten very reliable for big wind farms. Translation: GE has gotten into the windmill-making business very recently, when they bought out Enron's wind business.

There are plenty more reasons, but I should probably shut up now.

-Michael

Noisy?

Perhaps some small home sized windmills with fixed chord blade designs are noisy, but the large turbines that can each provide 24/7 energy to hundreds of houses run at about 40db (unless you are right underneath it and even then they are definitely still at the quiet end of the sound spectrum). Noise is a sign of inefficiency and the large ones are extremely efficient, both in terms of blade design and for the generator itself. Their efficiency is further enhanced by computers that continuously adjust their direction and blade pitch to optimize their output and protect them from overspeeding in high winds.


This is the first time I have heard about the "dreaded flicker factor". Since they spin at about 20 - 30 rpm, and not at 2000 - 3000 rpm like a plane's propeller, I can't quite see the concern. I have one just east of me that I commute past every day with the sun behind it in the morning and at night through most seasons and the only bizarre thing I have noticed is how on foggy days it reminds me of a WWII bomber's engine idling on a taxi way once it finally becomes visible. It's blades are about 80' long.


As far as the power to cost ratio not being good, what are you comparing it with and what costs are included? Where did you get this information?

Employment

Denmark has 21,000 people employed in the wind turbines manufaturing industry. In comparison, Canada has 34,000 people employed in pulp and lumber.

too many people

on the planet, that's our only problem.

Biofuels an especially biodiesel are what I want to see more of. Diesels that run on this stuff have almost 0 emmissions, at the same time many cities are forcing bus co's to install catalytic converters when all they have to do is switch to biodiesel, duhhhh.

Willy Nelson is even getting into it.

Apples and Oranges

Tony, my post was based on this thread being about large wind turbines and not on home systems. Your points are valid for home systems, and the flicker factor I would completely associate with the old wind powered water pumps with many close spaced flat metal blades used on farms. Small electric generating wind mills are noisy, high rpm and require much more maintenance compared to just paying an electric bill. To get a home windmill you either have to view it as an expensive hobby or have really huge hookup charges because electricity straight off the grid is a real bargain, even at $0.25/kwh. My post was strictly about the big turbines. I'm totally behind them. I wish there were more than just one between my home and work instead of an old coal generating station that is only cheap to run on paper. They aren't a panacea. A large one can only provide enough power for about 250 homes, but it all adds up.

Weezbo...

I love your sense of humor...although sometimes I must admit it takes me a while to decipher some of your posts! :-)

They actually did have to do some sort of study, and also monitor certain kinds of species near there...all part of the package I guess.

Take care, PJO

alt E

When I was in school back in the 70's all the "experts" said that we would be out of oil and the planet dead because of over population. Every day they would scare us to death predicting a new ice age-OOPS!We've gone way past their so-called limits on both counts. Now it's Global Warming...

Mr. Jimmy gave us tax credits on solar and all the scammers came out of the woodwork with over priced crap that did not work. "Look at all the money you get back from Uncle Sam" was their main sales tool.A dozen people on our block were stung by these jerks(3 different companies). The "dealers" got their money and left many people with a bad feeling about alternative energy.

I agree with some of the other posts- when you look at ALL the costs of energy, alternative energy is very close now. Yes, converting will difficult and expensive- kinda like re-hab I would quess. There were a lot of people who fought the switch from gas to electric lighting, from the horse to the car. The list goes on and on.I would also prefer the woosh-woosh of a windmill to the smoke stack of a coal plant any day. Plus, there would be cool new equipment to work on. Besides, I want to save the petrol for my SUV. Since the city won't let me keep a horse, I need some way to get back to the fishin' hole with the kids.

Unfortunately...

Tony, the objections you make just simply aren't factors for large windmills. I frequently visit a park in Toronto that has a large wind turbine. There is a quiet whirring sound when you stand directly underneath. My yound children love it. If it were noisy, they wouldn't. As you walk away, it quickly becomes inaudible. If research ever tells me that this is noisy, I will lose my faith in science. I have also visited different windmill farms in California when visiting friends in the Bay area. Noise just isn't a factor, even when there are many of them. Proof positive of how quiet they are is that Toronto put one up in its major lakefront park.


Also, I drive past it morning and night with the sun behind it during spring and fall and it never has a "flicker factor". It's been years since I have flown single engined planes but I know what is being talked about. That simply isn't a factor with 30 rpm blades. It takes 2 seconds at its top speed for the blade to do just one full turn. Come up to Toronto and I'll show you first hand. It is actually an interesting project and was done as a energy shareholder investment for the residents it serves. It's paying dividends already.

Here we go...

Getting a bit testy are we, Tony? :-)

Can't you make that same argument of the 250 homes going off grid to pay for a fossil-based plant? Two differences; 1) Yes you would have constant power... 2) Oh, by the way, you have to pay for EVERY dollar the fuels really costs for the life of the plant - as opposed to nothing for the other.

Up-front cost is much higher for most renewables - that's a fact. Planned and done right, the long-term costs will get closer and closer.

What if petroleum doubles in price in the next five years? What if it quadruples?

I'm Well...

...aware of ALL of the costs for fossil plants. I worked for a privately owned combined-cyle district heating/cooling co-gen operation for a number of years. I live in Ontario, so get to have MY money chipped-in for a feel-good windmill/lawn ornament on the Toronto waterfront. With windmills, it is necessary to do one of two things - you have to have an application that you can elect NOT to run while there isn't enough wind to make power, or INSTALL DUPLICATE GENERATING CAPAPCITY, driven by some other source. Wind-power guys often overlook that little nugget. Testy? You betcha.

The VERY best thing that could be done for conservation would be to charge the actual cost for electrical power. Probably too much political fallout for that to happen, though.

Should money be spent on research into more effective wind power? Absolutely. Does it make ANY financial sense at all to install vast numbers of windmills, as the technology stands right now? No it doesn't. Want to actually DO something constructive that saves fuel with relatively low environmental impact, and actually has some sort of reasonable capital/operating expense? District energy can actually deliver that in build-up urban areas. But you've got to be able to get enough money for the electrical power you generate to make it economically fly. Right now, that's not the case, in most locations.

Does \"ALL\" include

the military cost as well?

Being from Canada, maybe you don't see the same picture...but from where I sit we are running about 35% to 40% (depending who you talk to) of the U.S. total military cost in the Middle East. This is not counting the current efforts in Iraq...

I knew it would start to get political...sorry. :-)

Take Care, PJO

Ummm... allow me to quibble.

Windmills would make money if the local laws, etc. allowed them to be errected with a minimum of hassle. However, their popularity frequently seems to be only eclipsed by cell-phone towers. Thus, like nukes, the approval process becomes a very large proportion of the installed cost.

My view of how windmills and people locate differs from yours. Usually, windmills have and will continue to be placed where its windy. People may or may not live in those locales as well. In my experience, the two are not necessarily negatively correlated, as you suggest.

After all, some folks on Cape Cod seem to have their underwear tied up in knots over having windmill farms several miles offshore. Many seashore areas/barrier islands are ideal windmill locations, and up and down the coast, people pay huge premiums to live by the sea... Given what barrier islands in areas like NC are subjected to, you'd think people would know better and leave the barrier islands to the seabirds.

As for the transportation of energy, nothing seems to stop Boston from buying lots of HydroQuebec energy, midwest energy, etc. There is a huge transportation grid spanning this country and it's only poised to get bigger as the urban centers expand and NIMBY forces relocate plants further and further away from the actual point of use.

In my mind, the biggest issue for getting large-scale alternative energy off the ground is a guaranteed market. Banks don't like risks, and the memories from the 70's continue to linger.

However, the technology issues were solved well before GE bought themselves into the market. Modern IGBT's and other solid state electronics simplify and replace many of the mechanical components that made the older windmills so difficult/expensive to maintain. Nowadays, modern mills can deliver energy across a much broader range of wind conditions for that very reason.

Lastly, the tax credits are, once again, simply a question of extant markets. If the market had even manageable risk, then leasing deals spring up easily. How else do you explain that the tax shields of the airline industry continue to be passed on to lessors? It's not like leasing planes is without risks these days...

Just leave the kids at home...heh?

Michael usually plans a sleepover for the boys...warm milk...cookies...cuddling. Couldn't help it....The freaky one will likely have to sell neverland since he is now 275 mil in the hole...better go soon. i bet Michael would LOVE the wind=mills...... Mad Dog

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