Westman to spend $1.5 B on Manitoba wind power

[jpak]

http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2006/03/08/westman-060308.html

Westman Wind Power Co. plans to spend $1.5 billion to develop eight wind farms in Manitoba, the company announced Wednesday.

The projects will have an initial capacity of about 700 megawatts and a potential maximum capacity of more than 1,400 MW – enough energy to power hundreds of thousands of homes.

Westman, a privately held firm based in Winnipeg, said financing is being arranged through CFI Group, which is partially owned by the Great-West Lifeco subsidiary Canada Life.

CFI said it has obtained significant funding commitments from investors in its equity fund, including the Manitoba Teachers' Retirement Allowances Fund and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan.

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[greenman3610]

1. just for reference

700 megawatts is about the size of your
typical large nuclear reactor.

this is more evidence that wind installations have
entered an era where they are making a regional
impact, not just boutique show pieces or demo
projects.

[Dead_Parrot]

2. The difference being...

...that a 700Mw reactor works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without anyone having to work out how to store dozens of TWh for those days when the wind doesn't blow - as Denmark have discovered.

[soothsayer]

3. ...and that wind power doesn't leave a million years of garbage

to have to contend with

[Dead_Parrot]

4. Unlike the fossil fuels we're burning in the meantime?

I agree, absolutely.

[NNadir]

5. That depends on the nature of the back up, doesn't it?

Or does the wind blow 100% of the time in Manitobia?

What exactly do you propose to provide the back-up power?

While you're at it, maybe you can describe exactly - what "garbage" that lasts "1,000,000 years." Do you have any specifics?

[jpak]

6. Denmark is interconnected with Sweden''s and Norway's hydro grid

Hydro-power supplies the juice when the wind dies... all perfectly renewable...

...and Denmark will soon make hydrogen from "excess" wind power that will be used in the hundreds of combined heat and power plants there.

...and there is a large biomass power plant near Copenhagen that supplies district heating and power to the city...

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Ex15BrTP4WQJ:www.inforse.dk/europe/word_docs/study_tours_DK06.doc+Copenhagen+wood+biomass+&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=2&ie=UTF-8


:)

[NNadir]

7. And Denmark has a special filter for Sweden's nuclear power too.

It makes triply sure that it never gets any electricity from Ringhals or any other Swedish nuclear plant. Almost 1 out of every two 2 powered in Sweden is powered by nuclear energy, but the Swedes, recognizing Denmark's status as a world powerhouse, have agreed to label all of the nuclear electrons red, and the hydroelectric ones blue, so that the Danish customs inspectors have an easy time of letting the right ones through.

Germany does the same.

This is somewhat surprising. Just one Swedish reactor, Forsmark 3, operating at full load produces 32% as much electricity as the entire nation of Denmark from all sources.

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf42.htm.

In fact this one reactor produces more electricity than all of Denmark's renewable sources combined:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

Denmark produces 0.0286 exajoules of renewable energy and a power plant of any type running with a power rating of 1000 megawatts produces 0.0315 exajoules. Fosmark-3 is a 1185 MWe plant.

That's right boys and girls. Let's say that again, since global climate change is a catastrophe of scale: All of the renewable energy in Denmark, a star of the renewable world, is less than the equivalent of one nuclear power plant.

Does this mean that the wind farms in Denmark are bad? No. They should be applauded, since whenever they produce, their operation prevents the burning of natural gas in Germany for peak loads and/or allows Sweden and Norway to save their hydro capacity for other loads by letting water build behind the dams. (It also allows Denmark to power down its own fossil fueled plants.) But does it mean that Denmark does not depend on nuclear power? Well, only if the Danish customs inspectors, hanging off those high tension wires at the border, magnifying glasses in hand, catch the colors on each Swedish and German color coded nuclear electron and block any nuclear electrons from coming in.

Just for reference, Denmark produces 0.128 exajoules of electricity by conventional thermal (aka fossil fuel) plants. These plants, of course, contribute to global climate change, like all "conventional thermal" plants everywhere.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table61.xls

(As always I have converted all energy units, including "billion kilowatt-hours" into exajoules.)

One would think that because Fosmark 3 represents just 1 out 10 operating Swedish nuclear reactors, the Swedes would just skip the expense of labeling each electron for export to their Danish brothers and sisters, but the Swedes apparently, are very tolerant and very supportive of the fantasies of their fossil fuel burning neighbors.

[jpak]

8. Norway and Sweden produce hydropower for Denmark on demand

something that nucular plants cannot do.

They are thus superior to nucular plants in that respect.

:)

[NNadir]

9. Really? Nuclear power plants don't produce energy on demand in Sweden?

Pray, do tell.

Oh, and how exactly do they get those color codes on the electrons? Do the Swedes have to write in Danish to keep the nuclear electrons out?

By the way, why doesn't Denmark simply live off grid? Why does it need all those trunk lines running into Sweden, Norway and Germany?

But most importantly, why does Denmark still burn fossil fuels? Up in Sweden only 8% of the electricity comes from fossil fuels, you know.

Here is a pie chart for Sweden's electricity in 2005:



Oh, and why did Denmark cancel 3 large wind projects in 2005?

[Dead_Parrot]

10. Could you clarify your thoughts on dams?

You seemed to be in favour of getting rid of them in another thread, but I don't think even Norway has enough spare hydro power to back up the grid of, say, India during those windless nights...

Oh, and "Denmark will soon make hydrogen from "excess" wind power" sits in between "ITER are going to produce fission power" and "Dead_parrot is going to give up smoking" on the pixie-dust scale of the unrealistic.

:smoke: