Does wind energy really work?
No, it doesn't, and here's why
Wind energy doesn’t work. To understand why, you have to understand the electricity “grid” and how our power system works.
Electricity is unlike any other commodity. In our system it must be consumed the instant it is produced. There is no ability to store it. Electricity demanded by a consumer has to be instantly produced and “dispatched” from a generating plant. Electricity-in has to constantly balance electricity-out. Our “grid” is simply a set of transmission lines, transformers, and distribution lines connecting generating plants and users, be they residential, commercial, or industrial.
Where does our reliable electricity come from?
Large, high reliability plants like nuclear and coal are assigned the “base-load” task of supplying the underlying, consistent demand. They can not be ramped up and down very easily or quickly, so they work all the time supplying the consistent, base load. They are very efficient and produce our lowest cost electricity.
Natural gas plants are more easily kicked in and out of production, so they are assigned the “peak-load” task. When power demand goes up, they must be activated to instantly dispatch the electricity required in excess of base load. When demand goes down, when we all turn out the lights to sleep, they must be idled to reduce the electricity dispatched. Some of these plants run all the time, in “spinning reserve”, and automatically engage or disengage their generators as they sense the required load. These plants are also very efficient, but increases in the “market” price of the fuel, natural gas, has made them higher cost than nuclear or coal.
Where does wind energy fit in?
It doesn’t. It is classed as “intermittent”. No one knows when the wind will blow, or for how long, or how hard. It is not “dispatchable”; it is not controllable by our system operators. Typically, the wind blows at night during the winter, when we need it least. During times of “peak electricity demand” in late afternoon in July and August, when every air-conditioner in Kansas is straining, wind is largely absent. The summer heat results from a high-pressure weather system sitting over the state, and the wind is not blowing.
So what do we do with wind generated electricity? In 30 states electricity retailers are now required by law to buy it, under legislative mandate. When the wind kicks in, a gas fired plant has to go into spinning reserve to accommodate it, and to be instantly available to replace it when the wind dies. Wind energy has to have an equivalent amount of conventional back-up generation shadowing it at all times, or brownouts and blackouts would result when the wind died. The lights would go out. Contrary to popular myth, wind energy can never replace a single fossil fuel or nuclear plant.
Wind energy is the most costly!
Wind energy is extremely inefficient and the most costly electricity. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the operator of much of Texas’ grid, reports that during periods of peak demand when electricity is needed most, all wind turbines in Texas have historically produced only 16.8% of rated design capacity. ERCOT goes on to state that this is an average; many were producing nothing. See p. 7-8 of ERCOT Report. A typical 1.5 Megawatt turbine, costing $2 million each to install and hook-up, only produces 16.8% of that 1.5 Megawatts in the heat of the summer. It produces absolutely no electricity when the wind is less than 8 mph. It produces at rated capacity only when the wind reaches 33 mph. It has to automatically shut itself off if the wind exceeds 55 mph, or it would tear itself apart. As much as 35% of the time, it is producing nothing. The inefficiency is staggering.
The graph above shows comparative costs of electricity generation for various types of plants. The calculations of "Generation" and "Backup" costs were made by PB Power (Parsons Brinckerhoff), an international engineering consulting firm, for the Royal Academy of Engineering and updated in March 2006. See the PB Study and Update. "PTC" is the federal production tax credit of $.019/kWh. We have added a conservative $.02/kWh for sale of Renewable Energy Certificates and benefits from the 5-year DDB write-off. Wind energy is the most expensive, even without considering the cost of required backup and subsidies. When they are included, wind is four times the cost of our most efficient coal, gas, and nuclear technologies.
If too many turbines are built, it can destabilize our grid
As long as the amount of wind energy is small in relation to the total size of the grid’s generating capacity, its intermittent, in-and-out, on-and-off nature can be managed. It creates problems, but they are manageable. As the number of turbines increases, additional back-up plants must be built, and it has the potential to destabilize the entire grid. Issues of system stability due to wind plant trip-out in response to a remote line fault (voltage dip), balance power management, and reserve adequacy challenge our grid operator.
Let's summarize
Wind generated electricity has to be backed up at all times by conventional plants in spinning reserve. It is produced at times when it is least needed, and is largely absent when it is needed most. It is grossly inefficient and expensive. It is unpredictable, variable, non-dispatchable, and uncontrollable. Is it any wonder that electrical engineers and grid operators are less than enthusiastic about this “renewable energy”?
To think that modern civilization can be powered by the intermittent wind, is absurd on its face - an exercise in wishful-thinking that would have the effect of turning us into a windmill-driven, pre-industrial society with a third-world electrical grid. To paraphrase Richard S. Courtney, PhD, a member of the European Science and Environment Forum and an expert on Energy and Climate Change, "if wind power really worked, oil tankers would be sailing ships."
Our country needs abundant, reliable electrical power to meet enormous challenges ahead. Declining world-wide petroleum production spells the end of our gasoline autos, diesel trucks and trains, and jet fueled airplanes, with thoughtful engineers proposing the conversion of our transportation systems to electrified high-speed rail, as in Europe and Japan. Declining supplies of fresh water and depleting aquifers will require enormous amounts of electricity for desalination plants to convert saltwater to fresh. Wind cannot begin to supply our needs. Besides "clean coal", what will? For most of us, conditioned by decades of negative publicity, it will come as a surprise. Scientists and educators at MIT studied alternative sources of power and selected modular pebble-bed nuclear electrical generation as the best choice for the future.
