How efficient and effective is wind power?
Friday, July 31st, 2009 at
2:14 am
I've heard that most wind farms would be far away from heavily populated areas, and that peak seasons for electricty are the worst times of the year for wind.
I've also heard that it's cheaper to produce electricity with coal than wind?
This IS a political issue!
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Tagged with: coal • electricity • peak seasons • Wind Farms
Filed under: Wind Power
The real problems are:
The current design of wind turbine is inefficient. Not only does it, naturally, produce no power in a calm, but also it conks out in a high wind. Who designed the thing?
If you add together infrastructure, installation and maintenance costs (including building foundations and motor roads right across the peaks) over their design lifetime the turbines, I am told, consume more power than they produce. This cannot be a good bargain, quite apart from the pollution incurred by the manufacture of all that metalwork, concrete, tarmac and machinery.
What we need is some real engineering brains to work on the problem. An efficient wind farm would surely be a good idea – but the ones we’ve got look like a fashionable Green Party bandwagon, no more.
True
Place them near Washington DC all that hot air could make us an energy independent nation in no time.
It depends on how the wind power is being produced. There are many types beyond simple windmills, which can be inefficient and should be used for localized energy sources.
There are "balloons" in testing which float at very high altitudes where there is constant wind. These balloons are fairly inexpensive and have some possibilities of being very efficient when used in conjunction with other sources. They are a perfect example of why we need further research and funding into alternatives, as the possibilities seem endless. It does no good to declare wind as off the table simply because our current method of harnessing it is inefficient relative to coal.
Not terribly efficient, yet. I think our best bet is to use a mix of all potential sources of power. This will keep us less reliant on a specific source and could cause competition between those providing power..
The problem with wind is that it is inneficient if you put it in the wrong spot. It can be quite efficient if it is in the right spot.
We will need to produce power in many different ways. Wind-power is one of them.
You should see the windmills in other countries and they works extremely well.
It’s a middle of the road efficiency where the cost doesn’t quite equal the output yet. I’m sort of interested in one company that are making the windmill also a solar collector hybrid. That’s sort of makes more sense to me.
It is only cheaper to use coal, because we don’t pay for the true costs (which are borne by society and the environment). Pollution, climate change, environmental degradation from mining are unseen costs that impact us in many ways.
Wind energy has potential, but requires long distance transmission. Such transmission results in loss of energy, as a function of: distance, gauge of wires; material of wires; and conversion of electricity into various other forms of electromagnetic radiation (heat, magnetism, etc).
Further, the eminent domain necessary to obtain more right of way for transmission lines; the installation, and maintenance of the power grid, are also unseen energy consumers… Further, the national system of power grids, which we are all dependent upon, is a serious national security risk.
Wind may be a component, but perhaps using it as a means to fractionate water and isolate hydrogen may be a better alternative towards moving towards the hydrogen economy. I feel that decentralizing power generation and reducing the dependence on the grid would be much more efficient, secure and rational. And, in spite of high energy requirements to make hydrogen, we end up with an energy source that we can use on demand, versus the inefficient over-generation of electricity we currently conduct.
Here’s where the technology stands:
In some areas–Texas, several countries in Europe, wind power is already used widely and profitably (2% of the electricity in Texas comes from wind turbines). It’s clean, reasonably cost effective (competitive at market rates).
It is not appropriate for all regions. You need a climate and terrain that features stable, continuous wind most of the time. Plains ares like Texas–or the Dakotas where T Boone Pickens is talking aobut building wind power plants—is ideal.
Wind isn’t a "magic bullet"–no one technology is. But it’s a mature (that is, cost-effective) source that can be implemented on a large scale.
I partly have to disagree with your view that it’s a "political issue." This is a technology the private sector can–and there are many investors who want to–put money into the industry. That’s a business matter, and not a political concern.
But you are partly right–there is a political dimension. Currently, policies in the US favor oil and coal companies and effectively bar alternative enrgy sources by driving up the cost. So far, the only candidatewho supports dismantling those policy barriers so the private sector can move ahead with wind power is Barack Obama. The Republicans–and I’m sorry to say,some Democrats–oppose policy reform.
Ironic, when you think about it. The free market would provide wind power–if the "champions of capitalism" would get the government out of the way. but the person who’s supporting market -driven solutions to provide alternative energy is being called a socialist and communist! Go figure.
Very. There is a ton of info on this subject out there, so you can probably Google it to find detailed answers. My brother in law heads up an Engineers Without Borders team and they just got back from Asia where one of the things they did was help build wind generators. If you Google SENEA you can learn more.
I hope the links are of use.
Yes, it is cheaper to produce electricity with coal than wind, but the cost in global warming is not taken into account with such measures.
The move to renewable energy sources will require multiple solutions – we tend to look at potential solutions as problems because they can only satisfy a percentage of current needs.
If you google for wind power potential you will find a variety of articles – looks like wind power could ‘potentially’ provide all of our needs but this would take many years and would probably never really meet the full requirement.
Clean coal isn’t a bad option right now, but coal is also a fossil fuel, meaning the supply is limited. Coal mining is also a dirty business with a lot of environmental issues. It can’t be a final solution.
I would think the best plan would include clean coal and natural gas for now, while we build the infrastructure (power transmission systems), research new technology and and construct the machinery to move to a combination of wind, solar, tidal, and other renewable sources- I read a story recently about the effeciency of using algae for biofuel production. There are also experiements going on that mimic photosynthesis, which would greatly improve solar technology.
Research and development of energy saving technologies and some reasonable changes in lifestyles will help reduce demand as well, so we aren’t necessarily talking about current consumption levels.
Consider the move to reusable grocery bags. Buying locally produced goods would reduce resource use. Lowering winter thermostat settings and raising summer thermostat settings would save a lot. I know they made fun of Barack Obama, but making sure your tires are properly inflated will save huge amounts of gasoline.
So, I don’t think there is one simple answer – the solution lies in a bunch of smaller things done in combination, and government support for research and infrastructure improvements.