Wind to make 20 percent of (US) power by 2030: advocates

[jpak]

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?alias=wind-to-make-20-percent-o&chanId=sa003&modsrc=reuters

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The U.S. wind power industry will see half a trillion dollars of investment by 2030 to take the renewable source up to 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation, an industry conference heard on Monday.

This would be a lofty rise from wind's use for less than one percent of U.S. power today, but many advocates at the American Wind Energy Association's (AWEA) annual conference this week were bullish as the United States develops green energy alternatives.

Many aim to catch money blowing in the air that Ric O'Connell of engineering and consulting firm Black & Veatch says will total $500 billion in wind energy development in the next 25 years.

"It can be bigger than the entire dot-com revolution," said wind energy advocate and former South Dakota Democratic Senator Tom Daschle. "This can have the same economic impact.

<more>

[NNadir]

1. 500 billion for 20%?

I understand why the wind lobby would be happy about this state of affairs, but shouldn't the rest of humanity be concerned with the other 80%, or does the largest fraction of the world's energy demand not count?

[pipoman]

2. I don't get your point here...

because the proposal/estimate doesn't supply 100% why bother?

[NNadir]

3. If you look at the argument made by "renewables will save us" advocates

you see that they are unfailingly way over optimistic and that they are always based on predictions presumed to take place in a future generation.

I am old enough to have seen many similar predictions not pan out.

JPak is a reflexive nuclear opponent. He and a few others here keep pretending that the world doesn't need nuclear energy because he can find a lobby saying how wonderful wind, solar and geothermal are. I merely note that even his unduly optimistic predictions are even remotely capable of solving the problem. The problem is 100% of fossil fuels - without poverty. This is very difficult to achieve even with nuclear industry but it is impossible without nuclear energy.

I therefore contend that threads like these are designed to produce unwarranted and in fact, extremely dangerous and immoral complacency.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. The fact of the matter is...

...while nuclear power may be a part of a solution, it takes several years to build a nuclear plant, and it takes thousands of years for the resulting waste to decay. Your statements suggesting that nuclear power is the sole workable solution (I feel) may tend to "produce unwarranted and in fact, extremely dangerous and immoral complacency."

We can start building your beloved nuclear plants, but in the meantime, we should be putting alternatives in place which are more quickly deployable. Most importantly we should be encouraging people to conserve.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3071926/

Replace dirty coal with the wind, engineers say

Health, environmental costs make it twice as expensive

MSNBC staff and news service reports

Aug. 23, 2001 - Wind power is now cheaper than coal and could become a leading source of electricity with the right political support and investment, researchers said Thursday. The Stanford engineers calculated that building some 225,000 wind turbines across the country would be expensive — at an initial cost of $338 billion — but that the payback would include a huge drop in emissions tied to global warming.

“There is no reason not to invest in wind at this point,” said Mark Jacobson, a Sanford University professor of environmental engineering. “Wind is so obviously cheaper if we look at total costs.”

...

http://www.designnews.com/article/CA6439648.html

The Dodge Report

The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

John Dodge, Editor-in-Chief -- Design News, May 14, 2007

As I stared out the window of the train speeding between Frankfurt and Hannover, wind turbines — sometimes thick as a grove of trees — dotted the countryside. Some 18,000 of them gracefully spin (see the video) in the Federal Republic of Germany, weaning the nation off fossil fuel dependency and creating 64,000 jobs in the process, according to the German Wind Energy Assn. (BWE). The accomplishment is impressive.

The BWE has set a target of 25 percent of Germany's energy needs coming from renewable sources. If the goals are met, renewable energy by 2020 would account for 35 percent of Germany's electricity, 25 percent of its heat and 20 percent earmarked for fuels production. In 2005, wind turbines in Germany produced 26,000 megawatts. Had that come from coal, 21 million tons of CO2 would have been the byproduct, BWE calculates. Another 1,208 turbine units were added in 2006 producing 2,233 megawatts.

On April 11, the American Wind Energy Assn. (AWEA) released its numbers for the U.S., which now generates 11,600 megawatts or enough to power 3 million households. That's also less than half what Germany — a smaller nation in almost all respects — was producing in 2005. The U.S. brought on 2,400 new megawatts of wind power in the past year and California and Texas lead the nation with output topping 5,000 megawatts. That outpaces the growth in Germany. The Horse Hollow Wind Farm in Texas produces a fifth of the nation's total output while New York's Maple Ridge Wind Farm has come on strong.

...

[NNadir]

6. The fact of the matter is that the growth of energy is measurable.

On no place on earth in the last 50 years has the growth of renewable energy kept pace with the growth of demand for energy, never mind the huge problem of the existing use of dangerous fossil fuels and the existing generation of dangerous fossil fuel waste (chiefly carbon dioxide).

I remember people producing the same sort of overly optimistic balderdash and marketing crap about wind 15 years ago. (I am old enough to remember the split wood/not atoms cretin campaigns as well).

Now I am going to take the rate of increase in units of energy, delivered as electrical power per year in the period between 1993 and 2005 (12 years). The units of this calculation will be thousand megawatt-hours/per year.

Wood (biomass): 96 thousand megawatt-hours/per year.

Waste: - 259 thousand megawatt-hours/per year. Negative number.

Geothermal: - 190 thousand megawatt-hours/per year. Negative number.

Solar: (Usually everybody's favorite): +8 megawatt-hours per year.

Wind (Another favorite): 1345 thousand megawatt-hours/per year.

Overall, renewable energy in the United States has increased at a rate of 1000 thousand megawatt-hours/per year.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epmxlfile1_1_a.xls

All this time everyone was cheering for renewable energy. Nobody was trying to stop it.

Here is the figures for the growth of coal, that renewable fantasies did nothing to stop:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat1p1.html

Note that unlike the so called "nuclear waste" about which you worry so much, used nuclear fuel has injured zero people.

Note also that the growth in nuclear energy 141,456 thousand megawatt-hours easily outstrips the entire nonhydro renewable portfolio, not just growth but the entire portfolio combined. This improvement occurred while people were maligning nuclear energy and saying all sorts of nonsensical and fanciful things against it.

Note I have used units of energy and not a bunch misleading balderdash about peak power.

This contention about how fast renewable energy can be built is pure wishful thinking mythology. It is slow and ineffective. It has no connection whatsoever with reality. One could in fact, easily build one or two nuclear plants and easily out produce all the solar electricity produced on the entire planet. Given that the solar energy on the planet has taken 50 years to build, that's pretty pathetic.

I don't care what renewable energy is built. I don't oppose it. What I do oppose is the nonsense that represents this pathetic praying as a realistic approach to climate change. It's just toys.

If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. Renewable energy is slow and ineffective

Somehow, my brother's household manages to live "off-the-grid" using a combination of:

• Solar panels
• A wind turbine
• A wood stove (he splits wood instead of atoms)

Based on your analysis, I guess I should tell him that what he's doing is impossible.

"If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up."

[pipoman]

10. I have investigated this

for myself. I own enough land with sufficient wind to produce my own current. It would take me almost 20 years to break even not accounting for interest on the investment or repairs beyond battery replacement. It would be nice to be off the grid but I am better off investing the money in an energy mutual fund and staying on the grid. It isn't impossible, just cost prohibitive as far as I can see.

[NNadir]

11. I always hear some anecdotal crap like this in response.

"My house, Maine solar house, my brother's house, my uncles house..."

I guess you think the EIA numbers are made up.

You made a claim that renewable energy is slower than nuclear energy and I answered your made up claim with numbers. So you change the subject to some untinteresting and irrelevant bullshit about your family. I don't give a rat's ass what your brother does. The numbers make it clear that he is strictly small time and essentially without any relevance.

I don't care what your sister or your cousin's best friend's brother's business partner's sister-in-law's cousin does.

If it happens that riding bicycles is my hobby, I haven't solved the international crisis in transportation and climate change.

The solar energy mostly is a toy for people who are in denial about the scale of the world's problems with respect to climate change. Significant energy is not measured in anecdotes. It's measured in exajoules. All the world's off grid hobbiest combined haven't produced an exajoule of energy. It would be nice if someday they could. No one would object. But they have nothing to do with people who haven't seen clean water or a light bulb in their lifetime.

Climate change is a real issue involving billions and billions of people, some of whom are not rich trust fund brats. In fact, most of the people who will suffer are desperately impoverished. Your brother's expensive (and probably indulgent) solar system has nothing to do with the reality of these people.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. You don't seem to understand (perhaps because you don't want to)

If a single house is capable of providing its own power, then multiple houses are. You say that solar and wind are both unworkable because they don't provide power 100% of the time. True enough, that's what batteries (and other storage media) are for, or the grid.

We don't need to replace all generating plants overnight with solar or wind (or nuclear for that matter.) As it stands, we have plenty of nighttime capacity. So, lets put solar panels on top of houses to generate electricity during the day (during peak demand.)

It's taken more than a century, but solar is now becoming economically viable. http://www.findsolar.com/index.php?page=rightforme

What prevents more people from doing this? I believe that in most cases, its the initial investment. That's why I'm excited by the prospect of Citizenrē http://www.citizenre.com/ I like their business plan, and hope they make a go of it.

As the economics of solar-generated power improve, more people will adopt it, especially if they care about the environment. Economies of scale will then tend to improve the economics, making it an attractive alternative for still more people to buy, and businesses to manufacture.

[NickB79]

17. To clarify, this $500,000 house is capable of providing its own power

I can't afford a $500,000 house, and judging by the now-popped housing bubble, neither can a very large majority of Americans. Is this technology "economically viable" if it is unaffordable to 90% of the US population?

[jpak]

7. The US is on track to install 3000 MW of new wind capacity this year alone.

These turbines will produce as much electricity as a 1000 MW nuclear plant.

If commenced today, it would take at least 10 years to complete a new nuclear plant in the US.

In that amount of time, the wind power industry would have installed 30,000 MW of wind capacity - even if there was no further growth in annual installations.

That's equivalent to ten 1000 MW nuclear plants.

Wind and other renewables - faster better cheaper than nuclear.

:thumbsup:

[XemaSab]

15. Color me stupid:

How does 3k Mw of wind = 1k Mw of nucular? :shrug:

[OKIsItJustMe]

16. Not stupid at all

A 1k Mw nuclear plant will continue generating pretty much nonstop. A 3k Mw collection of wind turbines will generate different amounts (up to 3K Mw) depending on the wind conditions.

This is one of the problems with wind and solar, and one of the reasons they're sometimes used in concert (cloudy days are frequently windy days.)

[pipoman]

9. Gotcha

I am for energy independence, not just talk and forecasts. IMO we need to start construction of nuclear power plants coast to coast yesterday, in fact I can't figure out why we aren't. I live near one of the air capitols w/4 major aircraft manufacturers. There have been 2 companies spun off of this technology building wind turbines and production has increased dramatically over the last 24 mos....it is awesome. I don't believe there is one answer but all of these industries are important to get us off of the international energy tit ASAP.

[bananas]

4. There are a few annoying doomer luddites

who've convinced themselves that only nuclear will save us.
They are wrong. According to the IPCC:

"Renewable energy generally has a positive effect on energy security, employment and on air quality. Given costs relative to other supply options, renewable electricity, which accounted for 18% of the electricity supply in 2005, can have a 30-35% share of the total electricity supply in 2030 at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq"

"Given costs relative to other supply options, nuclear power, which accounted for 16% of the electricity supply in 2005, can have an 18% share of the total electricity supply in 2030 at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq, but safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints"

http://news.mongabay.com/2007/0504-ipcc.html

[pipoman]

12. I hear both sides

I do believe that arguments against nuclear energy based on safety and waste disposal are vacant threats. My limited understanding indicates waste is harmless when stored properly and accidents among modern facilities is nearly unheard of. Even the accidents which have occurred have not resulted in the wide spread destruction described by nuclear energy opponents.

[philb]

13. I think there is a better chance that ocean power will be 20% by 2030 than wind

Ocean is much more energy dense, provides more continuous power, and assessment of current
commercial and pilot projects under construction by EPRI makes the economics look more favorable.
Most of the current projects in operation have done even better than projected.