Here we go again. Nameplate values (once again quoted here as if they have any significance whatsoever) are meaningless. Wind proponents appear to think that is all that matters.

I note that the author does admit that the capacity value (Capacity Factor?) for wind is a mere 10 to 40%. Nothing else but solar power comes close to that abysmal level of performance.

No mention is made of the harmonic instability problems associated with the installation of large numbers of these facilities into grids. Neither is there any mention of the limits that most grid operators are applying to limit these effects to prevent blackouts. The Alberta (Canada) system operator is limiting wind generation to no more than 10% of capacity (that IS nameplate capacity).

Most grid operators are having wind generators forced on them by political decisions not by good engineering or economics and we are going to pay a hefty price for their stupidity. Landscapes and seascapes destroyed, bird habitats wrecked and all for a measly 20% average capacity factor and most of the time generating when the grid does not need it and not generating when the grid does need it.

Wind energy is a waste of time as any sane person will attest.

Malcolm Rawlingson
8.2.07

You were right Todd!!!! The Spirit of wind visited me last Thursday. but it was in a bad mood.

Here is what the spirit said.

Last Thursday was one of the largest electricity demand days in Ontario Canada of the year - it was very hot - 33 to 35 degrees centigrade with high levels of humidity across most of the Province. Quite typical of this part of the world in the summer time. It is what makes it such a great place to live. A bit sticky but one can retreat into an air conditioned building or house if you need to cool off a bit.

The wind spirit directed me to the IESO (Independent Electricity System Operator) website. Once there it told me - with great bluster and huffing and puffing with pride - that Ontario has an installed wind capacity...(and so there is no mistaking it - that is the sum of the NAMEPLATE RATINGS of all wind generators installed in the Province of Ontario) ....of 400 Megawatts. YES we have FOUR HUNDRED MEGAWATTS OF WIND GENERATION IN THE PROVINCE and growing. (I can hear you all cheering and see you all throwing your baseball caps in the air with glee)

But sadly the spirit of the wind was having a very lazy day last Thursday. During the peak hours of demand and for most of the day in Ontario the sum total of ALL of the wind generators in the Province was 4 Megawatts

Yes, you read the number correctly..... that is FOUR MEGAWATTS - FOUR WITHOUT A ZERO MEGAWATTS from 400 MW installed....a 1% capacity factor. I asked the spirit of the wind why it was not blowing on all of the wind generators in Ontario to help us shut down all the nasty fossil plants when it was so hot and all it said was "you can't control me" and blew away.

So for all you sad individuals who think this is the way to operate an industrial economy I did the following bit of arithmetic. If wind generation had a nameplate installed capacity of 10% or about 3200 megawatts we would have received a gigantic contribution from wind on the hottest day of the year in Ontario of just 32 megawatts. System line losses account for more than that.

Let me assure each and every one of you that wind WAS being backed up by fossil fuelled plants in the USA and CANADA. If we were to have relied on wind to do the job I do assure you the lights WOULD have gone out. The air conditioners WOULD have gone off and factories WOULD have been shutdown and the Province WOULD have had blackouts....all on the hottest day of the year.

Now do you people REALLY want to rely on this energy source for your prosperity. Good luck to you if you do. It doesn't work - it never has and it never will simply because you have no control over the source of energy.

So since the spirit of the wind has departed and reality has set in please don't tell me that wind will be anything more than a highly subsidized uneconomic fringe player. If you cannot control the fuel when you have the demand then it is a complete waste of time and money. And not even you folks can control the spirit of the wind.

I am sure that once the astute politicians (the few who are left) realize that what they have been fed is complete codswallop we will see these edifices as monuments to an era of human stupidity that they really are.

I'll bet my money and prosperity on the spirit of the atom thank you.

Just for the record my plant was running flat out at 100% capacity during the entire period as it has for months now. For those who still don't get it 100% capacity factor means the nameplate rating equals the power going out. Nuclear did that, fossil did that - wind sadly did not because it could not deliver.

I am now certain through all the nonsense I have read on wind that the ONLY thing that will convince you is that the lights DO go out when the wind does not blow and there is nothing left to support it. That time is fast approaching so better buy a diesel generator.

Malcolm....on another hot and windless day in Ontario.

The point is that with the techniques mentioned in the good Mr. Smith's article, this resource, and many others, can contribute towards the end goal. That goal is to get all our energy from truly renewable and truly green sources. Today's nuclear advocates sound like the oil promoters did one lousy century ago: "Oil is unlimited so why bother with anything else?" That statement is no less simple minded then as it is now.

As I see it, your only argument that holds any water is cost. Even though I'm not 100% convinced that nuclear is cheap now, I am convinced that there are many alternatives that will be much cheaper in the near future. I've seen proposals that offer net surplus energy homes or businesses for less than a 10 year payoff period.

The energy 'experts' keep asking where they are, but they don't realize that this new generation (pun intended) isn't being supported by some Manhattan Project. It's a thousand small groups, each with their own funding issues. The way our illustrious grant system works, most don't even qualify for any grants! So it's taken half a decade so far, but they have begun to show up all over. I'm guessing the spirit of wind future and all her buddies will show up pretty soon.

But properly planned and with the very high power density and miniscule environmental impacts from their operation I would rather have a nuclear plant than ten thousand windmills or square miles of farmland covered with PV cells with weeds growing in between that don't work half the time.

Once you have the political will (as was and still is the case in France) it is indeed quite possible to build nuclear plants by the dozen. It is the continual "yes we will - no we won't" start stop policies prevalent in North America that prevent the mass production approach necessary to achieve the dramatic cost reductions that are possible. With a properly organised and planned approach I believe that current construction costs could be halved by mass producing components and standardised designs.

Wind and solar proponents need a reality check when it comes to the amount of power these sources are really able to produce - and of course why I get so annoyed at the continued use of "nameplate ratings" whose only purpose is to fool those who do not understand - mostly politicians.

Of course I have maintained all along that, with the appropriate low cost storage wind and solar could play a role in large scale generation but when you add in all the costs of doing that it's uneconomic.

Todd is quite correct in that nuclear power did benefit from much basic research done for the Manhattan Project. As every miner knows - dynamite was invented for military purposes but sure has found practical peaeful uses. Would we consider NOT using dynamite, nitroglycerine or any other explosive developed for military use simply because it has a military use? Much of our GPS technology was military in origin. The internet that we are using now had its roots in military research so to say we should not find a peaceful use for a technology that had its roots in military projects is rather foolhardy.

If that is so all you Hummer drivers out there need to turn in your vehicles now.

I am not against the use of wind or solar or any form of energy - I am very much against claims that it can be more than it actually is.

Tidal energy may be practically a better method than wind since the tides and wave motion are fairly steady...much less variable than wind. But we will see what that technology can bring to the table.

Wind and solar cannot bring that much unfortunately.

Malcolm Rawlingson
8.8.07

Without wind we will build combined cycle plants with heat rates around 7000 btu/kWh and declining incrementally with technology. With wind we will build about 95% of the nameplate capacity of gas fired plants we would build without wind. But most will be flexible plants with heat rates in the range of 8500 to 9200 btu/kWh. These areo derivative plants are at least as expensive per installed kW as the combined cycles.

At an average capacity factor of 20% for wind the annual average heat rate with wind is as good as:

20% * 0 btu/kWh + 80% * 8500 btu/kWh = 6800 btu/kWh.

That is a 3% reduction in CO2 emissions compared with current F generation combined cycles without wind. With the H generation combined cycles the CO2 reduction with wind falls to 0% or a little lower.

IF wind can run 30% of the time the % of CO2 savings can reach into the teens. Still unimpressive. Up to some level of penetration combined cycles can help to pick up some of the variation in wind production. If the wind can blow somewhere within reach of transmission at all times things are not as bad as described above. But real world experience shows that areas the size of California, Ontario, and the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. fall below 5% during peaks. The systematic problem is that high electric demand is caused by weather conditions that include little or no wind.

I would love to see wind contribute to a better environment. But it appears that when wind penetrations are high we fall into the problem described above.

Dick Maclay
8.9.07

If you don't like natural gas plants you may not like wind, since they seem to come as a pair.

Dick Maclay
8.9.07

For many of us, this has created the necessity of a fundamental realignment in our thinking. We must understand all the implications of this and go about the business of helping to create the future.

1) A carbon tax should be negotiated on a global setting, i.e. the World Trade Organization. Each country that does not apply the negotiated tax, will then free ride the global system.

2) Most of the discussions are indirectly supporting generation as a monopoly. Generation competition is not only possible, but absolutely necessary to go forward.

3) Wind generation variability is an important consideration, but wind generation uncertainty is even more important. Power system systemic risk management of system failure (system security) responds to uncertainty. Supply side management of systemic risk of system failure should be complemented by demand side management of systemic risk of system failure. See An Alternative Business Case for Demand Response and a Dominican strategy.

4) Wind generation best performance will come from balancing areas, in which generators are widely dispersed and mostly located in the distribution system. Open transmission access is insufficient to integrate wind generation in the state of the art.

5) There is thus a need for full transportation access. Transmission and distribution reintegration requires dismantling native loads, which changes the concept of a utility to wires only utility. See NERC Compliance and Power Sector Structure.

6) Fully functional and competitive wholesale and retail markets can then allow the development of the resources of the demand side. See We Need 2GRs as the Forecast is Always Wrong.

All of the above implies an emerging EWPC is Pragmatics' Winning Market Architecture and Design.

To go forward to EWPC as the End-State of the electricity industry for quite some time, I made a presentation at Carnegie Mellon University that can be found on the Grupo Millennium Hispaniola Blog, as A Generative Dialogue to Reach the End-State of the Power Industry.

Jose Antonio Vanderhorst-Silverio
8.20.07

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