Wind Power Falls Under $0.01/kwh 1064
js7a writes "Colorado State University's Rocky Mountain Collegian reports that, "as of June [the price of wind power] dropped to 1 cent per kWh." Even without further expected improvements in turbine technology, the U.S. would now need to use less than 3% of its farmland to get 95% of its electricity demand satisfied by wind power. Plus, wind power is the only mitigation of global warming, because if the whole world converted to wind power in 15 years, the amount of power being extracted from the atmosphere would be more than the increase in greenhouse gas atmospheric energy forcing since 1600. Don't say goodbye to coal and oil, yet, though; unless cell technology increases substantially, when we run out of oil we will convert coal to synthetic fuel." Update: 09/15 13:40 GMT by T : Note: the "1 cent" figure refers to the premium paid for the power over conventionally supplied electricity, rather than the final per-kWh price.
I've actually... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nothing big mind you, but I'd like to get a cabin up north in the middle of nowhere, and I'd love to power it via wind. Sure, generators are a possibility but all the noise sort of destroys my reason to go out there - to commute with nature.
Plus, I wouldn't have to worry about bringing fuel with me at all either - just let the wind do it.
The Problem Is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Problem Is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice on paper (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, there are definite weather and atmospheric side effects of absorbing all that wind power into giant fans.
Hey, there's a lot of wind down south now. Why don't they run down there and setup some turbines tonight so tommorow we can get a bunch of free juice?
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:5, Interesting)
Could hydrogen fuel cells potentially change this?
Re:sorry (Score:3, Interesting)
Is that the full cost or the extra cost? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, and for the millionth time, would the proponents of wind power factor in the cost of energy storage into their ridiculous claims that it's possible to affordably replace fossil fuel and nuclear generators with wind right now?
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:5, Interesting)
Use the power to pump water uphill and store it in a reservoir or heat a large amount of water. There are plenty of ways to store large amounts of electricity.
Re:Before you jump onto the Wind Powered Band Wago (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The Problem Is... (Score:5, Interesting)
And frosty cold beverages too! (Score:3, Interesting)
New Belgium brewing, completely wind powered.
Re:Nice on paper (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
effect on wind currents (Score:2, Interesting)
Wind power MUST be moderated. (Score:5, Interesting)
The issue with wind power is that it is, in effect, a run-away generator. To balance the system, another generator must be able to move to keep the grid stable (anyone remember First Power?) The _kicker_ is that a generator with 80%-90% is necessary to regulate the wind farm. The bigger the farm, the bigger the generator (and higher percentage) necessary to control the grid. So, in a perfect situation, if you've got 500 MW of potential wind power, you'll need 350-500 MW of conventional generation. Furthermore, most generators don't work very efficiently unless they're 70%-100% of their capacity.
Okay, I suck but these are the facts, if we're going to connect every control area together, we need a stable grid, for a stable grid, we must have the abilty to control, and do without, the "green" power. Utilities are for profit businesses and only the government can get away with running at a loss, even for idealistic reasons.
Hydrogen isn't Transportable (Score:2, Interesting)
Hydrogen has significant pipeline problems... it tends to LEAK out of them because it is such a small molecule... seals just don't work.
A better solution is to steam reform carbon dioxide into methane and add that to our existing infrastructure, or play around with Sodium Borohydride [ectechnic.co.uk] and put that through an underground pipeline system parallel to our oil pipelines. But the capital expense there may make the steam reformation a better interim solution.
some seriously out of kilter figures here... (Score:2, Interesting)
First of all, wind as an energy source is limited primarily by the ability to store it, and low transmission wattages.
Secondly, there is no way that 'only 3% of the US resources could provide us with equivalent amounts of electricity.
*All* wind, *everywhere* has been estimated at about 2-3 PW, and all wind near the surface (within 1 km) at about 1.2 PW.
From that 1.2PW, 70% of it is over oceans and hence unusable, and perhaps 10% of that 30% is in position (100m from the ground) to drive windmills. That comes out to about 3% of the 1.2 PW.
Then, there is the question of wind speed and blade spacing. Too high a speed, and windmills can't function. Too low, and windmills can't function. Put wind mills too close together, and they interfere with each other.
Hence, its been estimated out of that 36 TW, perhaps a 5th of that can be used - at profitable levels. This is about 6.2 TW - if we put windmills everywhere that we could hold them.
Given that we use 10 TW equivalent in fossil fuels, that's about 60% of our total power - and that doesn't include any of the other factors like conversion efficiencies, storage efficiencies, intermittancy problems, and low transmission wattages.
We can convert - at theoretical maximum - 60% of that 6TW into electricity, or 3.6 TW. Now, this is about our electricity consumption today, but we haven't stopped there - efficiencies of storing wind power are 50% or less, and no good technology has been developed to store it.
So - the upshot? We could put windmills everywhere, all over the US, and still they would not solve our energy problems. They might take a chunk out of the usage, but they come nowhere close to solving the problem..
My guess is that people are just cherry-picking the best sites, and that wind is being subsidized in the process. Which, given our current state of peril, is a dangerous thing to do.
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:2, Interesting)
Splitting water and storing as a gas is not an efficient way of doing things.
Because hydrogen is such a small atom, when stored as a gas, hydrogen leaks out of almost any container at a significant rate (I seem to remember ~10% per day).
When bonded to metal and stored as a metal hydride, hydrogen is incredibly heavy, and this is not a very efficient means of storage.
When bonded to carbon, you get various fossil fuels. This is the most efficient way of storing massive quantities of hydrogen at the current time. And yes, it is dangerous.
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:5, Interesting)
Kiwi renewable energy (Score:3, Interesting)
From memory the wind farm generates about 70% of energy requirement of the city, it's outlying townships and farms. As an added bonus, it's cheap for the consumer.
Because New Zealand is a Nuclear Free Zone [icrc.org] the alternatives to Wind Power are primarily Geothermal [ew.govt.nz] which accounts for 18% of the national total, Hydroelectric [laketaupodevelopment.com] which accounts for about 75% and Natural Gas [mycontact.co.nz] making up the bulk of the remainder.
Scattered thoughts on this (Score:2, Interesting)
That 3% of the farmland we would be using is unfortunately mostly located in North Dakota and surrounding states. The problem is transmitting the power from North Dakota to the rest of the country.
The power output of a windfarm is, of course, dependent on the wind. It varies throughout the day and by the season. For off-peaks, other sources are still needed, either in the form of more turbines, more sources of other kinds, or some temporary storage. All involve significant capital investment.
Offshore farms are also an option. The Danish produce a significant portion of their energy using turbines anchored offshore. Noise and safety concerns are reduced, and the turbines can be made bigger since the blades don't have to transported by road. The conditions aren't as favorable in the US as they are in Denmark, but a lot is still available. I for one think they would look a lot better off the coast by Long Beach than all those oil rigs.
A lot of people have asked about climate changes. No serious studies have been done, but I would expect the effect to be negligible. They only affect the air up to around 200m and they fall far short of exhausting all of the wind's energy in that zone.
As simple as they seem, wind turbines have advanced quite a bit since all those little mills were installed in California. People complained about noise. Blades fatigued and broke. Birds flew into them. GE's new turbines are far quieter, spin higher up than most birds fly, and extensive fatigue testing is required on all new designs. They are really quite fascinating...and huge
Visit NREL's site [nrel.gov] for information on current wind development.
Re:The Problem Is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Life does adjust. Remember, before plants evolved, the atmosphere was nearly 100% CO2. Oxygen exists in the atmosphere only as a waste product of photosynthesis.
Wind power may be bad for birds (Score:2, Interesting)
There have been some serious changes to migratory bird populations in California since the wind-turbine farms started springing up along the mountain ridges. Lots of birds die by hitting the towers or the turbines themselves (note: I don't think they get "sliced", the blades aren't so fast), and many others just plain adjust their flying patters around the ridges. This also has an effect on INSECT populations in the California heartland, which can be bad for AGRICULTURE, which has farmers fairly concerned...
There's no free lunch, gang.
Re:Oil is subsidised by the Govt. (Score:3, Interesting)
was just watching a PBS show coincidently... (Score:1, Interesting)
Wind is nice because it's so scalable, and at small joe homeowner size, battery banks aren't much of a space or maintenance issue, and it's a really nice way to have a real decent whole house UPS system.
In a lot of places a hybrid system of wind and solar is pretty good. Usually in the winter, you get more wind and a lot less sun, and vicey versa in the summer, so for year round you might want both. Commercially though, wind has it over all the other schemes I have seen, so far any way.
Peak? (Score:3, Interesting)
whole world? (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazing how the whole world lives in areas where there is strong enough and steady enough wind to run reasonably local wind power generator farms.
As someone who lives in Colorado and has visited the wind farm in question, I can tell you that the northern Colorado / southern Wyoming areas where they have those generators are seriously windswept. Nonstop, hard wind. Not everywhere has such an area nearby, which shoots an unfortunate hole in the proposed worldwide plan.
As a side note, that area has one of the nation's highest suicide rates that is often blamed on the nonstop wind making people lose their minds.
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:5, Interesting)
????
Profit!!
comparison is incorrect (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, since we're comparing energy and power, that doesn't really make sense. And as others point out, redirecting mechanical energy around doesn't reduce heat dissipation, so its nonsense on that basis as well.
Anyway, the reason we are worried about greenhouse gas forcing rather than direct thermal pollution is because the power of the surface anthropogenic greenhouse forcing (about 3 watts per square meter and climbing) exceeds the direct human utilization of energy by some orders of magnitude.
Exercise: Calculate per capita wattage of 3 watts per square meter worldwide divided by 6e9 people. That is your current share of artifical greenhouse heating, assuming you are a mean contributor. If you are North American or Australian, you may reasonably quadruple it for good measure.
Re:Not right now... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that has to be traded off against the lifetime of fuel cells vs turbomachinery and generators, although the former have essentially no moving parts and hydrogen (vs natural gas or other fuels) doesn't poison a fuel cell catalyst or electrodes very quickly.
OT: Fluoride's downside (Score:3, Interesting)
You may argue that the benefits out weigh the risks but nevertheless there is a downside and that is why, at least in the UK, less than 10% of drinking water is fluoridated.
Woo CSU! (Score:3, Interesting)
Nuclear power and WAR.. (Score:2, Interesting)
Bombing a functioning nuclear reactor makes sense from a war standpoint - when the USA invades a sovereign country it makes sure to bomb the power plants first. Of course the radiation risks from this can be high (possibly depending on reactor design) - and if we power civilization with nuclear energy it almost becomes certain it will happen. This is a very significant long-term risk to consider, in my opinion.
Flywheels for storage. (Score:5, Interesting)
To store more energy, electricity is applied to a motor which causes the flywheel to spin up. To get energy out, the motor is reversed as a generator and the electricity is sent off to do whatever. Flywheels can provide more energy storage per unit volume than batteries, although I don't know about hydrogen fuel cells -- but flywheels are pretty simple technology and tend to be very low in nasty chemicals (compared to, say, lead-acid batteries, or even the catalytic components found in fuel cells).
The carbon-fiber itself, even if spinning at several thousand RPM, will basically explode into sand if it happens to rupture or exceed its design limitations. There would be no chance of a high-velocity flywheel careening out of its containment chamber and killing everything in its path (as cool as that would be).
It's not a highly developed technology yet, but mostly because we have little need for large-scale energy storage (because we have enough power plants that can provide peak production when it's usually needed), but flywheels combine well with intermittent generation technologies like wind and solar.
Of course, any good energy solution should be comprised of a reasonable mix of different generation, distribution, and storage methods, to avoid a monoculture; having enough wind turbines to meet (at most) 50% of our peak generation means that we're using that much less coal, oil, and other nonrenewable resources. I personally am in favor of safe nuclear reactors (like pebble beds), but nuclear is so much harder of a sell in the U.S. these days that we might find wind, despite its costs, more feasible as an alternative to fossil fuels.
Just some ruminations on the subject, anyway.
Re:Wind power MUST be moderated. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now... about that info... It's not "First Power", it's "First Energy". I happened to be in a chem plant when the lights went out, and we all thought someone dropped a screwdriver. But I digress. Yes, generators don't work well unless they're near or at rated capacity, but I've never heard of needing that much reactive power to keep things stable. In fact, I bet I could probably do a pretty good job with a bunch of small windmills in the backyard, hooked up to Baldor 22H Regen VFDs, with isolation transformers to keep the transistor's switching harmonics to a minimum. Oh, and a very small 60Hz generator for the drives to have a reference should the power go out during a thunderstorm. Then there's the windmills themselves. All the power mills I was taught (primarily the 2- and 3-vane type, though we did consider Darrius) always had vane feathering as a design requirement to prevent the sort of runaway generation you seem to be worried about. Are you saying I was taught incorrectly? Wind gets too strong, you feather the vanes back or lock the rotors entirely. Yeah, kills that generator until the weather settles down, but there's no kVAR problem because of it. In short, I'd love to see how you come up with needing to maintain so much "conventional" generation, because that sounds more like a fossil fuel "you can't live without me" than anything else.
Mexico Becomes largest supplier of energy to US... (Score:4, Interesting)
They will export both electricity to the grid, and generate huge quantites of hydrogen (which will become the new "portable" fuel). that will be transmitted to the US.
This will result in a tremendous rennisance of Latin America, and result in a generally graceful transition from fossil fuels to an electric and hydrogen economy. This will "solve" the energy problem for the US. It will move money that is currently going to small groups of people in the Middle East, to our hemisphere, and create prosperity here at home.
China will be doing the same, as well as India and Pakistan and probably South Africa and Japan.
The oil economy will come to an end, and the nuclear economy will prevail.
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:2, Interesting)
Max
Hydrogen storage isnt impossible (Score:5, Interesting)
I've done a fair bit of plumbing for hydrogen systems (for measuring properties of metal hydrides) and have been able to make quite tight systems for high pressure, high temperature H2. We were actually very carefully accounting for the H2, since we needed to know how much went into and out of the hydrides. The system was full of valves, fittings, and welds. You have to be aware of what hydrogen can do to materials, but if you pick the right materials it's fine.
Dewars for storage of any liquid cryogen generally have vents (and burst disks in case the vacuum goes bad). This isn't because the stuff is hard to contain, but because they aren't made to hold high pressure, and there is always some heat leaking in that evaporates the liquid (increasing the pressure in the dewar if it's not vented). If you were doing power production you would probably plan a way to use this H2 rather than blowing it off.
Hydrogen can also be stored in metal hydrides (quite effectively), which can be less of a pain to deal with than dewars full of liquid.
(As an aside, you can even make containers to seal superfluid helium, which is *way* harder to contain than hydrogen. Helium is a pain in gaseous form, but the superfluid state is an extra big pain.)
Re:Whoa. Wait a minute. (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyway, Denmark is an important route for migratory birds. It also has a lot of wind turbines. Yet the wind turbines fail to kill any significant amount of birds. Buildings are much more of a concern.
The ice thing is interesting. I have never heard of it being a problem, even back when people were silly enough to build turbines close to houses. My guess would be that ice is most likely to get thrown off when the blade vibrates because of passing the tower. That would limit the throwing distance. Also, people don't generally spend much time in the vicinity of turbines in conditions of freezing rain.
Oh and if the landowners end up with 400 foot towers that aren't paid for, I'd suggest taking them down and selling them as scrap metal. That ought to cover the lost rent for many many years.
Re:That's the problem with wind power. (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Denmark the power companies have started to see wind turbines placed in big windfarms as stabilising the grid, whereas they the old individual turbines destabelished the grid.
Re:Before you jump onto the Wind Powered Band Wago (Score:3, Interesting)
It's like we are feeding the atmosphere a giant spicy beef burrito - we are unfortunately going to find out the hard way what will come out the other end.
Re:Just for the record... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no infinite supply of oil, and the oil that is being found now is getting harder to find. Oil and molten lava do not mix well, so we don't have to look very deep to find all the oil there is.
As the joke says, the economist is the guy who smiles while plummeting from an airplane - because he sees that there is an opportunity and someone will turn up to sell him a parachute soon. Sometimes there is no parachute. Things are finite. Saying otherwise is just silly, whether there is a lot of a resource or not.
Re:Not right now... (Score:3, Interesting)
And speaking of space, that's where we see the best evidence that hydrocarbons are created by planets devoid of life. So, there's likely a nearly endless supply of hydrocarbons within the Earth itself which will eventually make the existing worries about non-renewable resources seem ridiculous since they're probably all renewable.
But the point, of course, is cost. And here is where this story is quite impressive.
Funny You Should Say That... (Score:1, Interesting)
The farms supposedly cause problems with natural habitat and birds flying into them and stuff. So all the environmentalists say too many farms cause damage.
You look for a more green solution, and the green's bash it.. Guess power co.s will just keep burning coal until they shut up and realise a small improvement is better than nothing.
Moving my house to wind powered.. heat (Score:4, Interesting)
I want to move the house to a wind-powered heating solution.. I live in rural area so neighbours aren't a problem. I am usually very skeptical of alternative energy claims, but wind is attractive enough for me to invest a little money in a test. Rather than convert the power, to store the heat I am using a 1000gallon tank in my basement. I'm looking to get between 10 and 20kW of power from my windmills on a nominal basis. I may also do tests with solar collectors, but they would provide energy gains only about ~4h per day in this part of the world.
Wind is a primary motivator in how fast my house loses heat, but the windier it gets, the more power is produced.
Heat distribution will be through in floor hydronic heating distribution. It won't replace the wood, but I bet it can reduce the amount of energy used by a LARGE factor, and provide me with nearly unlimited hot water.
Re:Generation and distribution are unrelated. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not right now... (Score:2, Interesting)
Some facts on the 14 cylinder version: Total engine weight: 2300 tons (The crankshaft alone weighs 300 tons.) Length: 89 feet Height: 44 feet Maximum power: 108,920 hp at 102 rpm Maximum torque: 5,608,312 lb/ft at 102rpm A single cylinder is 1820 Liters
The pictures are even more impresive: [bath.ac.uk]
Re:Wind power MUST be moderated. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not right now... (Score:1, Interesting)
OF course you can. Two sentences later, you tell HOW you can:
you end up having to make massive tanks with super-thick walls
And you are wrong there, too. Hydrogen tanks can be made any size.
http://www.venturer.rutgers.edu/students/engine
http://puhep1.princeton.edu/mumu/target/mulholl
Besides, the whole point isn't to store the hydrogen for long periods, just to store it until the next windless period, which might be just a few hours, or maybe a few days. So 'perfect' storage is not needed.
Where are the Power Companies? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not right now... (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, I think this is a common misconception about how capital operates.
The idea here is that Foo Motor Corporation might consider creating the Omega car, but the loss of their future profits in making replacement cars automatically stops them. While it is true FMC is going to consider the loss of future revenues in its decisions, these future revenes are discounted, based on how long they take to come in and how risky they are.
It's the financial version of the bird in the hand theory. Suppose I can, with a reasonably safe investment, take a dollar and turn it into two dollars in ten years. In a sense, this means that one dollar in the hand today is worth two in the bush ten years from now, and perhaps four in the bush twenty years from now. Suppose FMC makes two billion dollars in a year then goes out of business producing the Omega, but the status quo is two billion dollars in ten years. That's a no brainer -- two billion dollars in ten years is, financially speaking, only one billion dollars in the short term. Even if they could make only half a billion in short term profits before they go out of business, they still might decide to do it, because if the Omega car is possible, one of their competitors might make one and drive them out of business with no short or long term profit.
So, what keeps the Omega car off the streets is not planned obsolescence, it's the fact that this car could not be manufactured and sold at a price that justifies the effort. If it did, then FMC would create the Omega, then take the proceeds and get into a different business. Planned obsolescence does happen -- engineers do have to have some kind of timeframe for how long something is supposed to last. However style is a bigger form of planned obsolescence than operation. Capital has no problem at all destroying long term productive assets if the short term gain is high enough; the mobility and fungibility of capital assures that it will simply seek the next source of returns. That's its greatest strength and its greatest weakness.
The problem comes when you look at assets that have value aside from pure finance (if you even believe such a thing exists). Suppose a course of action destroys a community. So what? Capital simply moves to another community. Suppose a course of action ruins an entire country? Well, capital can move to a different country. Suppose a course of action destroys most of the planet? Well, capital can buy the nicest plots of what is left. I'm not anti-capital, I'm just pointing out that if you assume that things have value aside from their measurable financial productivity, it leads you to different conclusions than if you assume that everything has a clear price.
Birds really aren't that stupid... (Score:4, Interesting)
Really they just don't want to spoil their view. Vermonters don't really care about the environment, they care about the view that they have.
I think the savings we get both monetarily and environmentally outweigh one or two birds a year. besides, the new windmills don't have nice places for birds to sit so the risk to birds is probably even less. Most "green's" are a bunch of crotchety wackos that make people that want to actually do something about the environment embarrased.
May not be the silver bullet were looking for (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Power Company Web Worth a Visit (Score:3, Interesting)
So what is the ultimate source? It must either be something that came from nothing for no reason, or else something that was never created (and therefore doesn't exist.) Unfortunately neither option makes any sense.
optimum middle ground (Score:3, Interesting)
would be cheaper, if it weren't for NIMBY lawyers (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't have the figures ready to quote, but I heard that a majority of the costs of installing this wind farm have been legal bills. This of course will result in less economic efficiency, further fuelling (excuse the pun) the propaganda of the naysayers that wind is a losing proposition.
We need to have legislative support to block these types of lawsuits before they can harm alternative energy. We need to have a voice to shut down the NIMBY evil groups and shame them.