[Trusties] data rich post on challenges to scaling up wind energy (from Energyresouces list via BOSA list)

Mon Apr 14 08:53:42 EST 2008

25. Excellent data-rich commentary showing that the dream of running a large
part of the world's energy production on wind power is just a dream. A
quote, "All the World wind installed park from the beginning up to 2007

(93,212 MW) produces 5 times less electricity than JUST the increase of
electricity consumption worldwide between 2005 and 2006..."

--- In energyresources at yahoogroups.com, "Pedro Prieto"

<papp20032000@> wrote:

Congratulations for having reached 100,000 MW of installed wind power.

However, let me put some other data to cool down a little bit this
enthusiasm.

1.    Ken Zweibel, James Mason and Vasilis Fthenakis have recently 

wrote an article about solar energy in Scientific American. They claim that
by 2050, the US could get some 100% of its electricity needs, by installing
a combination of 2.9 TW PV fed into the grid,

7.5 TW to cumulate energy with compressed air; 2.3 TW in concentrated solar
plants; 1.3 TW of distributed solar plants and just to fill the gap, some 1
TW of wind fields. This 'just' is ten times more than today is installed in
all the world, just to satisfy a small, collateral portion of the
electricity needs in 2050 of the US.

2.    If we succeed in growing at 27% cumulative per year, and we 

reach, as the report of Science & Technology says, the 3 TW of wind
installed power landmark by 2020, this will represent the production of, let
us say and maximizing sizes and minimizing costs, some 1,500,000 times 2 MW
wind generators in the period. Considering each generator has 150 tons of
steel; that every ton of steel requires at least 1.5 tons of coal to be
produced; between 500 and 1,000 tons of concrete in the foundations; 30 tons
of glass fibre and some 5 tons of copper; the "clean" wind industry will
demand from now to 2020 (12

years) 225 million tons of steel, some 350 million tons of coke coal;

45 million tons of glass fibre; some 7.5 million tons of copper and some 1
billion tons of concrete. I am not counting the energy spent in building up
factories; transporting the huge wind generators, most of the time at big
distances, using heavy weight cranes or huge crane ships when offshore;
opening pathways to the generally inaccessible places where the wind blows
regularly (in mountain passes, plateau's edges, etc.) It is neither included
the steel to make long evacuating lines (in Spain, a small country with a
dense electric network) generally 10 to 25 km of evacuating high tension
line, per each 150 MW wind field average), or the copper or aluminium wires
used in the power lines; the additional power stations required, etc. Nor it
is included the maintenance or the infrastructure needed to stabilize an
intermitent source of energy.

3.    This installation of some 1.5 million generators of 2 MW 

each, from now -2008- till 2020, will require, for your information and
order of magnitude, some 2 times the present world annual production of
steel; about 30 times the present glass fibre world production and almost
the annual concrete world production. I strongly recommend to read the
article "Coal Can't Fill World's Burning Appetite With Supplies Short, Price
Rise Surpasses Oil and U.S. Exporters Profit" By Steven Mufson and Blaine
Harden. Washington Post Staff Writers of last Thursday, March 20, 2008; It
exemplifies very well how the industry is struggling to get coal and steel
and the effect of prices of coal and oil on them. 

Who says this is a `green' or non polluting industry? I would ask the people
to keep in mind that these are NON RENEWABLE SYSTEMS, able to capture some
renewable energies. These systems have a short life cycle, specially when in
offshore, or in dusty places, subject to heavy corrosion or grinding of
their mechanical parts. They have to be maintained very much and are heavily
underpinned in the fossil fuel society (helicopters for maintenance, huge
and heavy cranes and ships, long and heavy trucks, maintenance of compacted
gravel roads in mountains, the gravel in itself, metallic piece parts,
lubricants, high level (hence highly consumerist) people in maintenance
tasks with fossil consuming SUVS going everywhere, etc. etc.

4.    All the above assumption of 3 TW of installed wind power by 

2020, to generate some 1.5 TW times 2,000 hours/year nominal (if these
fields are available for the new parks; in Spain, for instance, they could
hardly find onshore fields and from now onwards with this load factor); that
is, to generate 3,000 TWh; that is a 15% of today present world electricity
consumption. (Not primary energy; just electricity. Not in 2020: today).

5.    When going to global figures and potential increase of wind 

energy worldwide to cope with the ever growing electricity (or

primary) energy needs, I think it is time to make wind energy prospects top
down, rather than we make them now as usual: bottom up. 

I am amazed that supercomputers are not used to simulate these huge dreams
of wind installations. An anemometer in Tarifa, close to the Gibraltar
Strait gives 2,500 nominal hours a year. Another anemometer offshore in the
Cadiz Gulf, some 100 miles of distance from Gibraltar, gives some 2,500
nominal hours. If I put 1 GW in Tarifa and 1 GW in the Cadiz Gulf, perhaps
both of them will run at 2,500 hours/year. But what if I put 100, or 500 GW
in both places? Is the wind obliged to go the same usual path, if friction
reaches certain levels, or could perhaps divert to the natural lowest effort
path, leaving the magnificent parks idle or with 1,000 hours/year? When
trying to get conclusions from wind maximum capacity, one should remember
that all winds at all altitudes in the globe represent some 70 times the
present human energy consumption. This is aparently too much, enough for us
all. But from that we could hardly capture a small fraction (with a huge use
of non renewable and polluting

materials) of the energy of wind flows of up to 150 m. over the surface and
those in offshore relatively close to the mainland. That a big portion of
these winds are at speeds that wind parks could not profit form them (over
80-100 km/h or lower than 5 to 9 km./h). Then, we could perhaps note that
these are going to be just a drop of relief in the ocean of the insatiable
human consumption. Not to consider the effect of being able to change some
wind traditional patterns, when reaching certain values of
friction/interception.

6.    All the World wind installed park frmo the beginning up to 

2007 (93,212 MW) produces 5 times less electricity than JUST the increase of
electricity consumption worldwide between 2005 and 2006

(765 TWh) and represented just 0.8 of the world electricity consumed.

7.    The increase of the electric consumption worldwide (some 4% 

annual) goes 25 times faster than the production of the installed capacity
in 2007. The industrial kart goes 25 times faster than the ecologic horses.

And ecologists still pretend to win that unbalanced and crazy Ben Hur race,
without saying a word of the insatiable energy consumption increase that the
Caesar Roman model is imposing into the arena of this unbelievable circus!!

Sorry if I have poured on optimistic and enthusiastic people a cold jug of
water. The above are available worldwide data. I just wanted to put the
article in the context and in front of the challenges we are going to face.

Pedro from Madrid

P.D. I have not said a word about birds, or about the financial
possibilities and sensible timings for these megaprojects in 180 of the 195
countries I see in the UN list.

--

Tim Winton

Permaforest Pty Ltd

www.permaforest.com.au

 <http://www.permaforest.com.au/> logo small 

Permaforest Trust

www.permaforesttrust.org.au

 <http://www.permaforesttrust.org.au/> permaforest trust logo small

+61 0427 937 904

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