Thursday, May 6, 2021

Enough with Wind Power

Everyone loves wind turbines. They offer renewable energy at a supposedly reasonable price, and they do not harm the precious natural environment. Of course, as Texas discovered recently, if perchance the wind stops blowing, your reliance on wind energy does not look so smart. Remember Iphigenia.

Nothing warms our hearts more and generates more Schadenfreude than the news coming from those parts of the country that virtuously embraced wind farms, only to discover the downside of the wind. I will note in passing that the new administration wants America to start manufacturing wind turbine blades. Now they are all produced in China. 


Anyway, a Wall Street Journal op ed by Robert Bryce opens with the fact that most Americans love wind energy.


Gallup data show about 70% of Americans want “more emphasis” on wind energy. Plenty of politicians like the idea, too. President Biden’s proposed Energy Efficiency and Clean Electricity Standard calls for “tens of thousands of wind turbines.”


But then, the NIMBY crowd has arisen and has declared that wind farms are fine, when they are in someone else’s back yard:


... local governments across the country are rejecting wind energy projects. Since 2015, about 300 government entities from Vermont to Hawaii have rejected or restricted wind projects. In March the select board in Scituate, Mass., ordered a wind turbine in the coastal town to be shut down at night from mid-May to mid-October. The problem, according to the Boston Globe: complaints from neighbors who say “they can’t sleep at night because of noise” the wind turbine makes.


The planning board in Foster, R.I., voted 5-1 on April 7 to ban wind turbines. The board took action after hearing from residents of Portsmouth, R.I., who had turbines built near their homes. The Valley Breeze newspaper reported that Portsmouth residents warned the board “about their experiences, complaining about constant noise disturbances, vibrations, and loss in home values from turbines in their neighborhood.”


This puts a price on virtue, especially on green new deal virtue. If you are in the vicinity of wind turbines, they will destroy your health, cause you to vibrate when you do not want to vibrate, and make your property nearly unsellable.


The nice part is that the backlash is most fierce in blue states:


Some of the fiercest fights against Big Wind are happening in the bluest states. Good luck building a wind turbine in Vermont, home of Bernie Sanders, one of the Senate’s loudest proponents of renewable energy. In New York, so many communities are rejecting wind and solar projects that Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration recently pushed through regulations that will give Albany officials authority to override the objections of local communities and issue permits for large renewable projects. In California, wind turbines are so difficult to site that most developers have simply given up trying to build new projects in the state.


Did you catch the New York State solution? Gov. Cuomo, politically weakened, has still managed to introduce new regulations that will deprive local residents of any say in whether or not they have wind farms in their communities. Two cheers for democracy!!


Of course, wind farms are not viable economically. They cost so much that they need government subsidies:


These conflicts matter because the wind and solar industries are fueled by lucrative federal tax incentives. Between 2010 and 2029, tax breaks for wind and solar will total about $140 billion. The Biden administration is proposing a 10-year extension of those incentives.


The Green New Deal notwithstanding, the rantings of a Swedish school girl notwithstanding, renewable energy is a boondoggle. It cannot do what it promises, unless you are willing to run the country on a lot less energy. And that means, more blackouts, less heat and much higher energy prices.


The verdict seems clear, to those who can see, of course:


Every form of energy production takes a toll on the environment. But it’s time for policy makers to realize that wind and solar power can’t supply the quantities of energy the U.S. economy demands at prices American consumers can afford. The problems aren’t limited to cost, intermittency, noise, the death of wildlife, or the Bunyanesque amounts of copper, steel and rare-earth elements the industry requires. The fundamental constraint is land. Places like Scituate, Foster, Yates, and Madison County are fighting wind projects because, like people everywhere, they care about and want to protect their communities.


Paving rural America with forests of giant wind turbines and oceans of solar panels won’t solve climate change. It will, however, cost trillions of dollars, blight landscapes, kill untold numbers of bats and birds, make people sick, and lead to more economic pain in rural towns and counties.


As you know, China is happy to produce solar panels and wind turbines. Business is business, after all. And when your competitor is sabotaging himself, why not contribute. In the meantime, China keeps building coal power plants and even nuclear power plants. Somehow or other they are immune to the apocalyptic ravings of AOC and Greta Thunberg.



20 comments:

  1. Another problem that I rarely see mentioned: The incredibly annoying red flashing lights on them due to FAA regulations. Anywhere with long sight-lines (e.g. a wind farm near a lake) has the night view destroyed by blinking lights.

    It's a wind FARM. One would think a few warning lights at the corners or around the edges would be sufficient to prevent light aircraft from smashing into them. A light on each windmill seems vastly excessive, but RULEZ!

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  2. For a 1 GW powerplant, the land requirements are:

    Wind: 50,000 acres
    Solar: 600 acres
    Gas: 13 acres

    Numbers are from GE, which makes both wind and gas equipment. These are nameplate numbers, the maximum the plant can deliver. Wind won't do better than 50% of maximum on average, solar, more like 20%. So the numbers for 1 GW *average* capacity are:

    Wind: 100,000 acres
    Solar: 3,000 acres
    Gas: 18 acres (assuming 70% average utilization)

    In fairness, some uses (mainly farming) can coexist with the wind facility, and the 13 acre number for gas doesn't include the wells which provide them with the fuel.

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  3. . . . renewable energy is a boondoggle.
    Buffoondoggle.

    Remember Iphigenia.
    Now there's a T-shirt slogan.

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  4. The worst wind power is in Congress and politicking. It's an underground cavern of a dry hole.

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  5. @markedup

    We have that exact problem up on a place on a Great Lake, but I can't say it really bothers me all that much. There's not a whole lot to see out on the water at night anyway, but it is a legitimate complaint for many people and I can understand how they feel.

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  6. Andrew Cuomo’s administration recently pushed through regulations that will give Albany officials authority to override the objections of local communities


    Sounds like some kinda illustration to put after the definition of tyranny in case anyone failed to grasp it.

    I Really don't give a shit what the proven liars say,
    The blades kill all kinds of insects and birds.
    And the blades can't even be recycled so they get
    Hauled
    (Diesel)
    Buried
    (Toxic crap in soil)
    Replaced
    (Big crane,more diesel,)
    I don't know the numbers, but I Do Know the numbers are not made public for the purpose of actually deciding on the cost/benefit of those horrid things, but I doubt seriously that by the time the windmill is built, land /foundationprepared,cables to connect them together built (takes energy), the maintenance on them, I don't think they justify their own existence.

    I think raising a crop to turn into alcohol to dump in gas is a huge mistake too.
    The water usage is nuts, gotta have tractors ,weed control
    The Energy to run the still to Make the alcohol,,
    And do All That to make gasoline less energy dense, and cost more.

    We Could be Raising FOOD...
    When stuff doesn't make

    Sense

    Bet it's making

    Cents

    For someone.

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  7. The only windmill I'd go for is one to pump water for cattle, sheep, or goats. Of which I have none. Don't have even a little one decorating my back yard.

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  8. I don't like wind turbines. Nothing personal, it's just that they leave me in the dark half the time.

    The only time I like wind power is when it's driving a round-bottomed hull, without an unfair curve from stem to stern, preferably built of wood as God intended. Such a thing of beauty would catch my attention quite quickly.

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  10. In the meantime, China keeps building coal power plants and even nuclear power plants.

    While China does continue to build coal power plants, China is also the world's largest producer of wind power, which accounts for about 12% of power generation.

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  11. Phil Jr...."The only time I like wind power is when it's driving a round-bottomed hull, without an unfair curve from stem to stern, preferably built of wood as God intended. Such a thing of beauty would catch my attention quite quickly."

    There is probably actually a market for sail-powered ocean freight to service the niche of people who really, really hate fossil fuels. Need to focus on high-value, non-perishable products. I believe someone is actually doing this now, on a very small scale.

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  12. In March the select board in Scituate, Mass., ordered a wind turbine in the coastal town to be shut down at night from mid-May to mid-October. The problem, according to the Boston Globe: complaints from neighbors who say “they can’t sleep at night because of noise” the wind turbine makes.


    The planning board in Foster, R.I., voted 5-1 on April 7 to ban wind turbines. The board took action after hearing from residents of Portsmouth, R.I., who had turbines built near their homes.




    Take a look at a U.S. Wind Speed Map. . Note where there are a lot of wind turbines: western parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, for example. Compare the wind speeds there to those in Rhode Island or Massachusetts. It appears to me that those who wanted to have wind turbines in Rhode Island or Massachusetts were doing to on the basis of virtue signaling- the "good" thing to do- instead of economics. Put wind turbines where the wind speed is high enough. Yes, better to place them in areas with low population density.

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  13. That was my statement.

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  14. Zach..."China is also the world's largest producer of wind power, which accounts for about 12% of power generation."

    12% of nameplate capacity, or 12% of actual kwh generated?...They are very different.

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  15. China's Wind production is greater than that of the US:
    466,500 GWH versus 337,510 in the US in 2020.

    Capacity factor is lower in China.
    US Wind Energy Capacity Factors.
    2016 31.50%
    2017 32.60%
    2018 32.50%
    2019 32.40%
    2020 31.50%


    US Wind Energy Capacity Factors
    2016 18.50%
    2017 21.30%
    2018 22.70%
    2019 22.00%
    2020 18.80%


    Note that Wiki listed capacity factors for China for 2016-2019, but didn't calculate it for 2020, so I calculated it.
    I calculated US capacity factors myself.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_China

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_the_United_States

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  16. Gringo...thanks. I've seen claims that capacity factors for new wind farms in the US are expected to be in the 35-40% range. You'd expect many of the better sites would have already been developed, so 35-40% may be pretty optimistic.

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  17. Correction:

    US Wind Energy Capacity Factors.
    2016 31.50%
    2017 32.60%
    2018 32.50%
    2019 32.40%
    2020 31.50%

    China Wind Energy Capacity Factors
    2016 18.50%
    2017 21.30%
    2018 22.70%
    2019 22.00%
    2020 18.80%

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  18. According to this link:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China

    China's installed wind capacity (as of 2019) was 10.4% of the total, which is reasonably close to Zach's 12%. But the actual *output* was only 5.5%.

    For solar, it's 10.2% of capacity but 3.1% of actual generation.

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  19. David Foster: 12% of nameplate capacity, or 12% of actual kwh generated?...They are very different.

    We should have noted it as "power generation capacity." Per your comment, solar and wind account for about 8% of actual power generation. That is hardly insignificant, though obviously insufficient to power their economy. In any case, China has plans to rapidly expand both sectors.

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  20. It is interesting how small natural gas is as a component of Chinese energy supply (4.5% of capacity, 3.2% of generation)...the leadership must be highly allergic to any dependency on Russian gas, which could surely be supplied by pipeline.

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