The Wind/Tidal Energy Farce.

[havelock]

from www.offshorevaluation.org/

"The Offshore Valuation Group came together to answer a central question for the United Kingdom: What is the value of our offshore renewable energy resource?
What we found has exceeded our expectations. In harnessing 29% of the practical offshore renewable resource by 2050:
• the electricity equivalent of 1 billion barrels of oil could be generated annually, matching North Sea oil and gas production and making Britain a net electricity exporter;
• carbon dioxide reductions of 1.1 billion tonnes would be achieved by the UK between 2010 and 2050 – a major contribution towards 2050 climate targets;
• 145,000 new UK jobs could be created by industry.
The next four decades of technological development could enable us to harness a practical resource ten times the size of today’s planned deployments. Integration with neighbouring electricity networks though a ‘super-grid’ could provide access to a single European electricity market, enabling the UK to sell renewable electricity across the continent.
We assessed the extent of the practical resource through a detailed mapping process based on five electricity generating technologies: wind with fixed and floating foundations; wave; tidal range; and tidal stream. The full practical resource - 2,131 TWh/year - exceeds current UK electricity demand six times over.

The Offshore Valuation Group is an informal collaboration of government and industry organisations who have come together to address the question: what is the value of the UK’s offshore renewable energy resource?
1. The Department of Energy
& Climate Change
2. The Scottish Government
3. The Welsh Assembly Government
4. The Crown Estate
5. Energy Technologies Institute
6. Scottish & Southern Energy
7. RWE Innogy
8. E.ON
9. DONG Energy
10. Statoil
11. Mainstream Renewable Power
12. Renewable Energy Systems (RES)
13. Vestas
14. Public Interest Research Centre"

Any comments on this - particularly the points I have highlighted in bold?

[rsmith7]

Absolutely old boy.
AT WHAT COST???

"We assessed the extent of the practical resource through a detailed mapping process based on five electricity generating technologies: wind with fixed and floating foundations; wave; tidal range; and tidal stream"
Offshore wind - un-affordable electricity therefore useless.
Wave - No technology available. Existing trials met with abject failure.
Tidal Range - ridiculously un-affordable electricity therefore useless
Tidal Stream - as above.

"..what is the value of the UK’s offshore renewable energy resource?"

ZERO.
It costs the country a fortune and produces nothing of worth.

Your list of government lackeys and renewables technology manufacturers is laughable.

[havelock]

Sept 10, 2010 10:29:43 GMT 1 rsmith7 said:

Offshore wind - un-affordable electricity therefore useless.
Wave - No technology available. Existing trials met with abject failure.
Tidal Range - ridiculously un-affordable electricity therefore useless
Tidal Stream - as above.

and your source for any of this is... (bearing in mind you thought the ozone layer was 5mm think - are you Alan Davies in disguise?)

Your list of government lackeys and renewables technology manufacturers is laughable.

Yup - E-ON, Scottish and Southern, DONG Energy. Do you think there's a possibility that they might know more about the subject than you?

To go back to the COST, Scenario 2 of the three they looked at and are recommending has the following figures (my bold for emphasis)

Installed Capacity - 169GW
Resource Capacity - 29%
Capital Expenditure - £443B
Annual Revenue in 2050 - £62B net
UK is a Net electricity exporter

Why not have a read of some of the links that people dig out for you rather than just sitting there spouting nonsense that you cannot justify?

[rsmith7]

Then why are the government having to bribe people to build the silly things with idiotic prices for the pitiful, intermittant, unreliable electricity they (don't) produce?

Until you can answer this question you have no case old boy.

[chloepink]

From the heart of the Danish Wind Industry:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgUsun3hIT0

(As an aside to this worthwhile video, listen carefully to the video and you'll see another example of terminology that makes me cautious re the BWEAs terminology:
search.bwea.com/cgi-bin/ts.pl?index=416481&query=denmark
See words below the third report:
"It is clear to see how much wind energy has taken off in some countries, notably Denmark, Germany and Spain, the first of which now gets 20% of it's electricity from wind turbines")

[havelock]

Because the current price of oil does not make wind power cost effective at the moment.

Of course, we could wait until the price of oil goes skyward as it starts to run out or becomes more expensive to extract and our coal fired power stations come to the end of their life before doing something about it.

Perhaps some people are planning for the future?

[rsmith7]

By producing cripplingly expensive electricity?
That's like economising on petrol by buying a Hummer.

Have you been on the big fags?

[havelock]

Sept 9, 2010 20:21:22 GMT 1 chloepink said:

0.4% of our electricty was generated by wind turbines in the last 24hrs - to see these figures (updated every 5 or 10 mins) go to this link:
www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp.php#generation_by_fuel_type_table
and click on the 'Generation by fuel type table ' link on the left hand side.

This is a very useful site, I've book marked it and will be looking in every now and then.

I see that currently wind power is 2.3% - not very windy where I am but perhaps it's better for others.

Only 1.0% over the last 24 hours but then, as Chloepink showed above, it was particularly low yesterday and so averages must take a while to 'catch up' with current measurements.

[rsmith7]

havelock,
When the petrol prices go through the roof, will you trade in your small economical car for a Hummer?
The logic you display above suggests you will.

[chloepink]

From the Generation by fuel type table here -
www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp.php#generation_by_fuel_type_table
1.6% of our electricity came from wind in the last 24hrs

This was from an installed capacity of 2430MW (taken from the Peak Wind Generation Forecast at the above link).

Hugh Sharman's report (although written a few years ago) is well worth reading Havelock; as you say, electricity generation from wind is an interesting subject:
www.ref.org.uk/images/PDFs/sharman.ice.pt2.pdf

This report provides the detail supporting the comments on the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgUsun3hIT0

[rsmith7]

Interesting links cloe, I like these quotes from the second report:

"However, the BWEA consistently insists
that wind turbine load factors are much
higher than the evidence suggests."
42% load factor of wind as opposed to actual 24%

More eco-lies

"If the wind capacity
was 20.4 GW, it would be an impossible
situation to manage."

"The total CO2 savings achieved by a
10 GW wind power capacity will be in
the region of 9–11 Mt/y. This is roughly
1.5–2.0% of the UK’s 2004 emissions
(550 Mt) and 0.046% of global emissions.
Global CO2 emissions were about
24 000 Mt in 2003 and are increasing at
about 2% per year, mainly from India and
China.18 This is a very modest saving, but
would cost the UK consumer more than
£10 billion (including transmission and
distribution expenses)."

Madness

[chloepink]

Re msg 120 from Havelock:

Re the Offshore Valuation Report: www.offshorevaluation.org/downloads/offshore_vaulation_full.pdf


The report is definitely visionary, indeed in the preface, the report identifies itself as “setting out to describe the potential value of the UK’s offshore renewable resource”:
“This study is not designed as a predictor of the future. Our vision, while exciting, is not the only way forward. We recognise that our analysis is sensitive to many unknowns, including technological change across multiple industries, movements in energy and commodity prices, and the practical challenges of building a new industry. Therefore we have set out to describe the potential value of the UK’s offshore renewable resource without trying to predict the future, nor to propose prescriptive recommendations.”

But is the vision described in the report practical, quick, affordable and tested – no.
It is full of limitations, assumptions, estimates, modelling, supergrids, smart grids, demand side management systems, inter-connectors, intra-connectors, storage, wide area storage (e.g. electric vehicles), floating wind, peaking plant, HVDC, ‘with technological advances’ etc
For example:

“Therefore a high level assessment of value has been made in the table below, noting that this is very sensitive to specific assumptions.”

“For the purposes of this report we have defined market as the wholesale market, i.e. the costs of generation and grid connection are included, but the costs of electricity distribution and supply are not.”
I am not completely clear what the implications of this are. And I don’t know where the ROCs sit in this valuation. And I don’t know if the 25 year lifespan of a wind turbine versus the 60 year lifespan of a nuclear plant has been taken into account, never mind the cost to marine life.

The report does acknowledge “variability”;:

“Within these reports variability was identified as a potential constraint, and further research would be required to model the impact on cost and security of supply.”

And
“Many potential solutions to the impacts of variability have been identified including but not limited to flexible plant (new and existing), Demand Side Management (DSM), intra-country connectors, inter-country connectors, smart grids, electric vehicles (using either variable charging or vehicle to grid technology) and decentralised storage. There is at present no agreement on the specific role of each of these options, but it is probable that a combination of some or all of these will help to address the primary impacts of variable renewables outlined above. All of these options will have an incremental cost, in addition to constraints on timing as summarised in the figure below.”

And:
“Under situations of low or no wind Europe-wide, such as the well characterised ‘Atlantic blocking’ events, sufficient backup (most likely dispatchable thermal plant) will be required.”

“As noted in an earlier chapter, there is an implicit assumption that the electricity generated from offshore renewables will receive the average market price. However in scenarios 2 and 3, where Europe is purchasing large volumes of electricity from the UK, it is possible that this price realisation will drop significantly below 100% – either due to the weak negotiating position of the UK, or because of a general surplus of electricity in the market due to windy conditions elsewhere in Europe.”

There is some comfort though regarding the pending “energy gap”;:
“However in the short term there is the pressing issue of a potential supply gap towards the end of this decade. Current plans for new nuclear and CCS are for new capacity to start coming online between 2017 and 2020, but this may not be sufficient to close the capacity gap. If onshore renewable generation cannot grow quickly enough to fill this gap – for example due to planning, grid, or financing constraints – then new combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) plants are the most likely fallback option as they can be built both quickly and relatively cheaply.”

And even more comfort as there are options other than renewables to reduce our carbon emissions:
“Looking ahead to 2050 there are only three groups of technologies that are likely to provide the majority of the UK’s low or zero carbon electricity supply: nuclear, renewables (onshore and offshore) and fossil fuel generation with carbon capture and storage (CCS).”

However although Tim Helweg-Larsen (Director, Public Interest Research Centre) says the fight against climate change is “urgent” and he wants a zero carbon Britain, he doesn’t want nuclear: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTkmbJO4BBM
But hey who does; it is however tried, tested and would reduce our CO2 missions.
From www.bmreports.com/bsp/bsp.php#generation_by_fuel_type_table -
Wind 1.7% and 6% from our nuclear neighbours, France.

There are a couple of pretty formidable characters on the PIRC Board of Trustees but also a few too many “greenies” for my taste (Don’t get me wrong here, I’m all for a greener live style; ‘greenies’ is a term I use for fanatical greens).
www.pirc.info/about/board-of-trustees/

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/7996606/An-ill-wind-blows-for-Denmarks-green-energy-revolution.html

[marchesarosa]

Have a look at the criticism by Richard Tol on the "IPCC insiders speak out thread" about how the sort of stuff you are discussing has been supressed by the IPCC in the AR4.

Hans von Storch also involved. anyone who speaks German should look here, too
www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/beitrag/video/1129600/Neues-vom-IPCC#/beitrag/video/1129600/Neues-vom-IPCC

[rsmith7]

www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/sep/09/wind-power-growth-europe-green-coals

A most disturbing picture.

And the eco-propagandists say that sucking massive amounts of energy directly out of the environment, won't affect climate??

[rsmith7]

From the above report:
European Union has passed a host of progressive policies — including tax credits, financial incentives, and priority access for renewable energy to the electricity grid — that have encouraged the growth of wind, solar, and other forms of green energy. But the EU also wields a stick, requiring member states to set renewable energy targets and retaining the right to sue those countries that fall short.

Coercion and bribes in other words.
Why?
Decarbonisation?
or
Destabilisation?