Wind power the best kind of mirage - NY Times Recites Wind Integration Myths By Michael Goggin

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.evwind.es/noticias.php?id_not=4506

Wind power the best kind of mirage

07 de marzo de 2010

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NY Times Recites Wind Integration Myths By Michael Goggin

Haphazardly dropped into the middle of an interesting and otherwise technically accurate New York Times article about a new type of solar power plant are a couple of paragraphs of unsubstantiated nonsense on the topic of wind energy integration. The only source for the “information” in these paragraphs appears to have been an interview with Lester Lave, a wind opponent who is well-known among wind power integration experts for making technically specious claims on the topic.

To refute his misleading or outright incorrect claims point-by-point:

1. "'As long as the contribution of wind and solar is very small, utilities can handle it very well,' Mr. Lave said. But what happens once the share of renewable power rises to 10 percent? Or 20 percent? 'No one knows what the magic number is.'"

That statement would certainly come as a surprise to utility system operators in Germany, Spain, Denmark, Portugal, or Ireland, or for that matter any of a number of regions of the U.S., all of which have successfully integrated wind farm penetrations of around 10% up to 20% and beyond. Ireland, for example, is at approximately 10% wind penetration, and its government recently completed a study concluding that there are no major technical barriers to reaching 40% wind turbines penetration. That is especially noteworthy because integrating wind energy onto the grid is more challenging on a small island than it is on a large interconnected power system like we have in the U.S. Denmark currently stands well over the 20% wind mark and is working to increase that amount several times over. At the very moment that I am writing this (the evening of March 4), wind is providing over 20% of the electricity being used in Texas. In these places there may be some costs to operating the power system differently than it would have been operated without a large amount of wind, but any wind integration expert would laugh at that the idea that there is a “magic number” ceiling on the amount of wind that can be integrated with the power system.

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[RandomThoughts]

1. Well first off for the people that are against wind power.

A nice song, Against the Wind.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcDCvQbOdig *


There is no one fix, it is an integrated solution with many components.


But to the argument, mostly I think the problems come with how wind power is variable. The article has the quote that sums up much of the problems that cause wind issues.

Because electricity cannot be stored easily

I think Germany had an idea where electrical energy was stored by pumping water up to a reservoir then in lower wind times, the water could run down and run hydro plants. Although there is a loss of efficiency to that.

But there is another way, but it is tough to integrate because of chicken egg type paradigm. Hydrogen and oxygen are separated easily using energy. So excess generation could be used to create fuel for almost no pollution engines running on fuel cells.

Basically if wind gets high enough of a percent that there is too much wind during peak times, that power can be used to create hydrogen, and if spread out not centralized, anyone could add to the grid with power or if grid is maxed, then use that power to add to hydrogen fueling stations. Anyone could open a gas station with just windmills.

Sure it might not be as cheap as coal, might even be more labor intensive to build and maintain in the beginning. But the only reasons for wanting less labor is more profit or cheaper end user price.

If more people have jobs, that is a good thing, and if it cost more, is that really more then the other issues around being dependant on foreign oil? Seriously, what is the cost to try and maintain the oil fields in the middle east over the last 10 years.

It is almost the difference between how it effects one person, and how it effects many people. If a way is made to make massive investment into industries like wind, then instead of paying people unemployment, they can be paid to build windmills, or electric engine replacements, or even more labor intensive fuel stations that have hot swap energy cells.

People are going to be paid enough to have food and shelter anyway, so why not instead create some jobs with that tax money and put those people back to work, most of them want to work, and the feeling of having a job is a good thing for most people.


You could argue that government should not create jobs, but the jobs government creates is for social good, since that, in theory is how they get elected. The argument that business creates jobs is not true, demand creates a need for product, then business will fill that demand by hiring people. The demand for product creates jobs, if left to business they will cut jobs every chance they get, only when forced by demand for some service or good will they create a job. Because in the business world, an unemployed person does not hurt the bottom line, but in the governmental social model it does, since everyone pays taxes for it. So government is incentivized to put people to work, and business is incentivized to cut labor costs.

Same thing with economies of scale, it makes for less need for labor, if the divide between rich and poor was not increasing, you could argue that, but the effect of such matters is for those that want more at the top. Most of society does not want that.


And to the people that think there are verses that say those with money should get more money, those without money should lose money, I think they think of everything in terms of money, which is the opposite of the comments in the rest of that source. It is possible those with compassion, comfort, peace of mind, delight, happiness, will get more of those things.

If consolidation of wealth is argued with that verse, then it may end up they get all the money, but it may end up that would be the only thing they would have, and nothing else, as they lose some other things.





*Note on the song, when it says never worrying about paying or how much I owe, do you think that is about money? Why would a person think that?

[Statistical]

2. "Hydrogen and oxygen are separated easily using energy."

No.

Hydrogen and Oxygen are separated using energy.

A lot of energy.

Best efficiencies for hydrogen creation from water are about 60%.
Best commercially available fuel cell efficiencies are ~50%.

So 0.60*0.50 = 0.30

Of course that is before the losses from compression (which is needed unless you want a storage tank the size of Arizona). Factor in another 10% for compression and you are looking at total losses in the 75% range.

So 4kWh to be stored -> 1 kWh when you need it + 3kWh "lost". That doesn't even include the cost in terms of production, storage, and fuel cells. Money that could be used instead to simply build out stable reliable nuclear power to provide baseload with 92% uptime.

Maybe someday but that day isn't here yet.

[NNadir]

3. Given that wind power already has a capacity utilization under 30%, the economics are even more

apalling.

When you build stuff that works part of the time, an environmental cost is inevitably involved as well.

Hydrogen is generally a shell game, except in cases where it is made in thermochemical cycles, although these are not industrial anywhere in the world right now.

Even in that case it is only useful as a captive synthetic intermediate and will never be a consumer product, despite what the twit Amory Lovins says.

Almost all of the world's hydrogen is made from dangerous natural gas, with only about 1% being made electrolytically, and the electrolytic part exists only as a side product to the chlorine industry.

[kristopher]

5. The economics are much more favorable than nuclear - wind is one of the best deals going...

Cooper Report:
http://www.vermontlaw.edu/it/Documents/Cooper%20Report%20on%20Nuclear%20Economics%20FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf


And it is best in an overall evaluation of what best meets our energy security, climate change and air pollution mortality concerns:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Check out Daniel Nocerra's work at MIT

http://www.google.com/search?q=daniel+nocera+MIT+hydrogen+catalyst

He claims he has a close to 100% efficient catalytic process to electrolyze water.

[kristopher]

7. Large scale hydrogen conversion is already about 80% and Nocera hasn't significantly improved that

What he has done is claim to have a cheaper catalyst than platinum. Even with perfect efficiency in the conversion step (ain't happening) the overall system efficiency of the hydrogen process is at best 1/2 of what we get with electrochemical battery storage. That means that going with dedicated hydrogen home energy storage system to take you off the grid would require you to install 2 to 3 times the solar panels to get the same final output.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. I just love it when you make definitive statements like that, without a single citation

I'm wrong, and you're right. You bear no burden of proof. Things are true or false, simply because you claim them to be.

http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209900956

…

A liquid catalyst was added to water before electrolysis to achieve what the researchers claim is almost 100-percent efficiency. When combined with photovoltaic cells to store energy chemically, the resulting solar energy systems could generate electricity around the clock, the MIT team said.

…

http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/ArticleLinking.cfm?JournalCode=CS&Year=2009&ManuscriptID=b802885k&Iss=1

…

Oxygen catalysis

Electrodeposition of the film is accompanied by vigorous effervescence of O2, as confirmed by mass spectrometric analysis. Mass spectrometric detection of O2 in real-time from ¹⁸OH2 enriched Pi and MePi indicate an isotopic ratio of ^16,16O2, ^18,16O2 and ^18,18O2 in agreement with the predicted statistical ratio, indicating that water is the source of the O-atoms in the evolved O2. The data shown in Fig. 2a for films prepared in Co²⁺/Pi solutions is exemplary. Signals for all three isotopes of O2 rise from their baseline levels minutes after the onset of electrolysis and then they slowly decay after electrolysis is terminated and O2 is purged from the head space. The O2 isotopic ratios are invariant over hours (Fig. 2b). The Faradaic efficiency of the catalyst is most conveniently measured by a fluorescence-based O2 sensor. Fig. 2c shows the current passed during an electrolysis performed at 1.3 V (blue line) is completely accounted for by the quantity of O2 produced (red line). Moreover, the amount of O2 produced (95 moles, 3.0 mg) greatly exceeds the amount of catalyst (0.2 mg), which shows no perceptible decomposition over the course of the experiment. Thus, all current passed through the catalyst is used for O2 production.


…

See Also:
Science 22 August 2008:
Vol. 321. no. 5892, pp. 1072 - 1075
DOI: 10.1126/science.1162018

[kristopher]

4. Wind Power Myths Debunked from International Electrical and Electronic Engineers pub.

http://www.ieee-pes.org/images/pdf/open-access-milligan.pdf
Wind Power Myths Debunked

November/December 2009

Michael Milligan, Kevin Porter, Edgar DeMeo, Paul Denholm, Hannele Holttinen, Brendan Kirby, Nicholas Miller, Andrew Mills, Mark O’Malley, Matthew Schuerger, and Lennart Soder

International Electrical and Electronic Engineers Power and Energy Magazine

The natural variability of wind power makes it different from other generating technologies, which can give rise to questions about how wind power can be integrated into the grid successfully. This article aims to answer several important questions that can be raised with regard to wind power. Although wind is a variable resource, grid operators have experience with managing variability that comes from handling the variability of load. As a result, in many instances the power system is equipped to handle variability. Wind power is not expensive to integrate, nor does it require dedicated backup generation or storage. Developments in tools such as wind forecasting also aid in integrating wind power. Integrating wind can be aided by enlarging balancing areas and moving to subhourly scheduling, which enable grid operators to access a deeper stack of generating resources and take advantage of the smoothing of wind output due to geographic diversity. Continued improvements in new conventional-generation technologies and the emergence of demand response, smart grids, and new technologies such as plug-in hybrids will also help with wind integration.

Much more detail in the paper.