Tim W wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Tim W wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
You have to love all that diversity ('the wind is always blowing
somewhere'), in the equinoctial windiness of March, today the metered
wind output (23MW) dipped below 1% of 'metered capacity' and looks to
stay that way all day.
It's nice to know that that capacity that 'could supply up to (insert
own bull**** value here) millions of homes' (in themselves not where the
largest consumption of electricity takes place) is in fact barely
capable of driving 10,000 electric kettles to make a morning cuppa.
Or about 4 electric locomotives of decent power output.
(http://www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp_home.htm)
It is, in fact, to put it in perspective, about 1/50th of the nice
nuclear energy currently being imported from France..
You can always rely on windmills to ....completely fail to deliver,
randomly.
Not too sure what you are on about.
Wind power doesn't work when it isn't windy? We knew that.
So it needs to be mixed with other sources? We knew that too.
German Wind farms produced about 7% of the energy consumed in Germany in
2009. That is a heck of a significant delivery.
I bet you will find that they produced no significant carbon reduction in
so doing.
And that figure is not in fact in any case correct.
Still puzzled.
I thought you said something about wind power failing to deliver electricity
but I am not sure what.
Now you say German Wind power hasn't produced a 'carbon reduction' . Not
sure what that means.
Wind power hasn't delivered carbon emission reduction. Certainly nothing
like 7% of Germany's CO2 attributable to electrical generation. I can't
say clearer than that.
Also that the German Govt's own figures for electricity consumption and
generation are wrong.
No, you simply 'misquoted' them. 7% of electricity generation NOT 7% of
'Germanys energy'.
Dont worry, most of the wind lobby has trouble dsistuingusighing between
electrical power and total energy requirements and none have a clue
about exported carbon footprints to e.g. China in terms of energy used
to make stuff there we use here..or a clue about what load average means
or when 'could power X homes' meas 'will on average power 30% of X homes
the home being about one sixth of the power we use altogether, with
transport, industry and so on making up the other 5/6ths), and sometimes
won't power anything at all)
Actually:
Wind farms can produce substantial amounts of electricity and do so in
Germany.
So they can! Mostly, however, they don't.
Wind farms do not release CO2 into the atmosphere for every kWh produced so
if the alternative is combustion of fossil fuels they represent a big saving
in carbon emmissions. Its incontrovertible. Try to fudge it how you will.
Sorry, the facts don't bear that out.
If the *extra* fuel you have to burn to compensate for the wind output
going up and down loses all the advantages the wind seemingly has, you
end up with an net zero change in carbon emissions.
The point being that the more wind you have - as against nuclear or
hydro - the more fossil fuel stations you need to balance it.
Having to bring - say - 20GW of fossil online in a hurry when the wind
drops overnight, and not necessarily very good fossil either, since its
not used fully, so there is little incentive to make it efficient, costs
you a huge amount of fuel JUST TO GET IT UP AND RUNNING.
As near as I can judge over 75% of winds 'zero carbon' gains are lost to
that process.
That's the trouble with simple pictures. The world is not simple.
Germany remains one of the highest CO2 emitters in Europe with respect
to electrical power generation. DESPITE all this so call low carbon wind.
Denmark is similar. The real stars of Europe are France and Switzerland,
both hugely nuclear and in Switzerland's case, with abundant hydro as
well to cover short term demand fluctuations.
If you want to permanently get rid of fossil fuel usage, nuclear for the
base load and hydro for the demand fluctuations is the way. Wind is
completely useless. A grid that had - say - 30% wind and no nuclear or
hydro at all would at times have no fossil in use at all, but on average
would need *70% fossil to balance it*.
Now if we say that without wind, a good CCGT can do say 60% thermal
efficency IF FULLY WARMED UP AND LEFT RUNNING, then your carbon fuel
rate is 1/60% = 1.667 times grid power
If the use of that fossil fuel plant drops to 70% due to adding 30%
wind, you still cant get rid of it. You are just using it on average 70%
of the time.
Let's say its efficiency running like that is is X, so that the fuel
burn is then 0.7/X the grid power. And calculate when it's no better
than the kit running without any wind. its when 1/0.6=0.7/X
which makes the critical value of X = 42%.
SO *if the net result of adding 30% average wind to the grid is to
reduce the CCGT efficiency from 60% to 42%*, there is *no net emissions
gain from wind whatsoever*.
A CCGT set running before the secondary cycle gets going, is simply a
37% OCGT gas turbine..every time you start that CCGT set up, it takes
fuel to warm it up. Energy that you lose when you switch it off and it
cools down.
If you add more than 30% wind to the grid, there will be times when you
have to throw it away as well, because peak output will mean you have
more than you need when the wind DOES blow.
You MIGHT put it in pumped storage, at 75% efficiency losing 25% of the
value..if you HAD any pumped storage capacity..
We don't really have much, neither does Germany...
So at best, 30% windpower on the grid (more is unlikely to actually
achieve much more because you start to throw it away)might reduce carbon
emissions from electricity generation by perhaps 20%. At best. Maybe
5-10% is likely.
20% nuclear on the grid that totally replaces fossil, could net you a
real 20% decrease in fossil fuel usage for electricity.At one fifth the
cost.
80% Nuclear - as France has - reduces fossil usage by 80%.
The optimal UK mix would be something like 80% nuclear and 20% fast
start CCGT. If you really want low carbon electricity. If we had a bit
more hydro, we could do a bit better. Sadly geography doesn't favour us
there. Dumping our total coal stations could net us something like
70-80% CO2 reduction.
No amount of wind can ever produce anything like that sort of emissions
reduction.
It is simply a complete waste of time and money. It's only there because
the Greens run Germany, and the Greens hate nuclear power, and Germany
runs the EU.
And the windpower companies are..German. Or Danish - Denmark being a
sort of lump on the end of Germany for all intents and purposes.