Wind farms - ugly truths

Birdnuts

The Eurostat data doesn't give the spread of tariffs which is the important part
if you want to understand why average retail prices aren't declining despite
reduction in wholesale prices.

It gives the average Tariff which is the fairest measure. It mightn't suit your arguments but it is the fairest measure

. If you tried to understand them, you'd be able to frame
your arguments more convincingly.

That sounds like your ego getting the better of you. I understand enough to know spin and PR waffle when I see it

Yep, Denmark is pretty clear cut - my point on it is that their high headline
energy price is partly composed of money going back to the communities paying
it. It's not directly comparable to every other tariff across the EU as a
result.

Germany is simple. Up until 2011 they'd been talking about a
slow phase out of Nuclear. Then Fukushima happened and they speeded it up. On
top of that, they're trying to transition from Coal/oil baseload to gas. On top
of that, they're trying to increase the level of renewables on their grid. In
other words, they've high energy prices due to chopping and changing what
they're doing and driving up the amount of invested/stranded capital as a
result.

And yet those pushing wind here and in government continue to laud both countries approach to this issue and are determined to follow a similar path!!

It amuses me a little that you see anyone who doesn't jump on board with
"Windmills are the cause of all evil and eat babies" as pro-wind development.
It's an amazingly myopic view of a very complicated set of problems and
positions.

I've no problem with folks who want to power their own set-up with wind as they personally take on all the risks and costs without imposing such things on third parties. My point is that the technology is wholly unsuitable for national grid scale deployment for a whole range of reasons as already outlined in this thread

You realize you're the one who brought it up by claiming Eirgrid were doing
something crazy by talking about it...right?

Eirgrid where talking about something on a vastly different scale to DSM

If you frame a strawman question, you get the answer you want. Maybe ask how
it's beneficial to the system instead? You might learn something

Again your EGO appears to be clouding your judgement on this. If you don't know the answer to the question I poised - just say so.

Look up what net load is. Then apply what we were talking about earlier. You use
DSM to flatten out the shape of the load so you can use your generation
portfolio more effectively.

You already said DSM can't address the issues I raised and that are already impacting on the UK and other grids. Yet you persist with dragging it into the argument at every opportunity
.

You mean the transmission system operator wanted to build lines to allow it to perform its legal requirement to connect those generators? How appalling. They must really love wind a lot to be doing their legal duty

As for "North South interconnector is for wind" - read what the NI regulator had to say. Take a look at the data on what happens to NI's capacity without it (pages 45/46). The North-South interconnector isn't about wind - it's about NI being almost entirely dependent on the Moyle Interconnector and one or two obsolete generators that are being paid service contracts to buy time to finish the North-South interconnector.

[/QUOTE]
Oh but they do - it was the whole rational for the grid west project about which I got a load of documentation from Eirgrid mail shots to my address in North Mayo which stated that exact reality. Can you expand on your point about Eirgrids legal obligations as it relates to wind energy??. It appears to suggest that they have to provide network infrastructure to wind developers anywhere and everywhere. If Eirgrid didn't come up with this approach I'd like to know the clowns who did??

My point about the North-South interconnector was valid as wind developers themselves stated on the PT programme that it would facilitate wind farms in "virgin territory".

L

Birdnuts wrote: »

It gives the average Tariff which is the fairest measure. It mightn't suit your arguments but it is the fairest measure

If we were asking the question "Are retail tariffs high in Ireland?", it would be perfect. As is, we know the answer to that (yes), and we are discussing a related but separate point - "why are retail tariffs high in Ireland if wholesale is not?". The average tariff has no explanatory power and gives no illumination here.

Birdnuts wrote: »

That sounds like your ego getting the better of you. I understand enough to know spin and PR waffle when I see it

Birdnuts wrote: »

Again your EGO appears to be clouding your judgement on this. If you don't know the answer to the question I poised - just say so.

Seriously mate, why bother having this discussion if you're going to descend into ad hominem all the time? It's a serious breach of basic debate etiquette.

Birdnuts wrote: »

And yet those pushing wind here and in government continue to laud both countries approach to this issue and are determined to follow a similar path!!

Denmark is actually fairly successful once you take into account all the money flows, interconnection, and timelines involved. Give them a few years and they're going to be in quite a good place to profit from the integrated EU market (which means their high prices should flip to low).

Germany's a bit more complicated. If anything they seem like a cautionary tale on changing horses midstream. That said, they can afford it. I'd need to do some more reading around about their power system policies before I'd be comfortable dissecting it fully though.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I've no problem with folks who want to power their own set-up with wind as they personally take on all the risks and costs without imposing such things on third parties. My point is that the technology is wholly unsuitable for national grid scale deployment for a whole range of reasons as already outlined in this thread

I'd take a more balanced approach - wind is a part of a balanced grid mix where it offsets and complements fuel based generation and vice versa (what exact percentage of the mix is something I don't know, and, outside hard technical limits, is more of a philosophical question). As off-grid tech, it has some complications that would make me sceptical of its benefit versus solar. I would be in favour of local coop style models (where a village has most of its electricity needs met by self-owned local renewable generation but has the main grid for backup).

Birdnuts wrote: »

Eirgrid where talking about something on a vastly different scale to DSM

Can you get me the quote you're talking about please? I'll have a look and see can I understand what they're suggesting. It's sounded like DSM to me so far.

Birdnuts wrote: »

You already said DSM can't address the issues I raised and that are already impacting on the UK and other grids. Yet you persist with dragging it into the argument at every opportunity.

You brought it up mate - then brought it up a second time as a throwaway comment. I can give you reams of examples as to how it could be useful in cold snap situations (keeping peaker oil supplies as high as possible during periods where they may be critically necessary and resupply is difficult) but they're not hugely relevant to the conversation. Provide the original quote you were talking about and I can give you a better answer.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Oh but they do - it was the whole rational for the grid west project about which I got a load of documentation from Eirgrid mail shots to my address in North Mayo which stated that exact reality.

You were talking about being able to spot PR right? Make a divide between (bad) PR material and reality here. A few years back, wind was seen as universally popular and pylons were ...still not. Why do you think they were saying "building these ugly necessary things will facilitate this apparently popular thing we think you want"?

Birdnuts wrote: »

Can you expand on your point about Eirgrids legal obligations as it relates to wind energy??. It appears to suggest that they have to provide network infrastructure to wind developers anywhere and everywhere. If Eirgrid didn't come up with this approach I'd like to know the clowns who did??

This is massively complicated but it basically comes down to a handful of interactions (and is not just limited to wind). I'd encourage you to do some reading around on this as I'm running off memory/giving the gist.

1.) Eirgrid has a statutory duty to accept all reasonable connection requests (generators or demand) of a certain scale. If they say no, they need to be able to prove they can't accommodate it (or they're legally on the hook). Smaller stuff tends to be handled by ESB instead.

2.) A lot of smaller wind farms are distribution (small local level lines) connected rather than transmission (big country spanning lines) connected. This means that ESB are responsible for the connection as DSO rather than Eirgrid as TSO and there may not be transmission capacity to send power outside the local area. These are called non-firm connections.

3.) Eirgrid has a statutory obligation to run a reliable, economic and efficient transmission system. This means that if they leave a bunch of generation stranded (like the non-firm wind farms mentioned earlier), when they could build transmission lines to use them, they're on the hook legally again.

4.) This is further complicated by a set of legal agreements around infrastructure between ESB and Eirgrid which basically mean Eirgrid has to prove it's not technically feasible to make transmission reinforcements to support a project before they can say no to it.

5.) Eirgrid and ESB are mandated to follow government policy (as a result of having their shareholder be the government). Government policy is being informed by the 2020 EU targets on energy which mean ESB and Eirgrid are legally required to plan accordingly as system operators and have operational strategy in place for 40% renewable energy.

These 5 points all interact with one another to mean ESB and Eirgrid have to facilitate wind connections and build accordingly.

Birdnuts wrote: »

My point about the North-South interconnector was valid as wind developers themselves stated on the PT programme that it would facilitate wind farms in "virgin territory".

*shrug* They're pretty much the definition of a vested interest in wind though, no? They'll say whatever they want to say (and whatever they think is good for their business).

Macha

L wrote: »

Seriously mate, why bother having this discussion if you're going to descend into ad hominem all the time? It's a serious breach of basic debate etiquette.

[mod]It's also a breach of forum rules. Birdnuts has received a warning for these uncivil comments. Please report any problems you have with a post and avoid discussing in thread to keep the discussion on track. [/mod]

L

Macha wrote: »

[mod]It's also a breach of forum rules. Birdnuts has received a warning for these uncivil comments. Please report any posts you have a problem with and avoid discussing them in thread to keep the discussion on track. [/mod]

Right we are. My apologies.

Capt'n Midnight

L wrote: »

Germany's a bit more complicated. If anything they seem like a cautionary tale on changing horses midstream. That said, they can afford it. I'd need to do some more reading around about their power system policies before I'd be comfortable dissecting it fully though.

The UK will probably be referred to as a cautionary tale in future, with their 180 on renewables

Any chance they'll get taken to the Eu again over the govt guarantee on the Chinese money to pay for the French Nuclear ?


Also you have to take into account the politics. German policy has something like a 96% approval rating , except of course for the cost. But try to find any group of consumers who wouldn't prefer cheaper prices.

As off-grid tech, it has some complications that would make me sceptical of its benefit versus solar. I would be in favour of local coop style models (where a village has most of its electricity needs met by self-owned local renewable generation but has the main grid for backup).

Until energy storage gets really cheap a grid connection is the cheapest way for backup and redundancy, but once you have a grid connection it's hard to compete with the wholesale price. Local generation could compete on the retail price. It's a balancing act.

Investing in insulation might be the first step. Increasing insulation for space and water would mean heating wouldn't need to be as time critical and peak demand could be shifted.

Also for rural communities bio-gas but piping ain't cheap and the stuff is a lot more toxic than natural gas, though nowhere near as bad as the old coal gas.

SeanW

Also you have to take into account the politics. German policy has something like a 96% approval rating , except of course for the cost. But try to find any group of consumers who wouldn't prefer cheaper prices.

In other news, Germany is still opening new coal fired power plants. Some of it based on lignite, or brown/soft coal, which has been explicit policy for many years now.

German policy is based on makey-uppey pseudo science and lowest common denominator fear-mongering. It is not providing value, either to the consumer or, just as importantly to the environment.

Until energy storage gets really cheap a grid connection is the cheapest way for backup and redundancy, but once you have a grid connection it's hard to compete with the wholesale price.

It won't do anything to cover cases where an entire region is having the same demand and weather conditions. What use is interconnection to the UK if we both have the same power sources, and the same prevailing weather conditions?

Investing in insulation might be the first step. Increasing insulation for space and water would mean heating wouldn't need to be as time critical and peak demand could be shifted.

Investing in insulation is the only thing I've seen in this thread that makes any sense, yes it damn well should be the first step. People should also be encouraged to take these systems "off grid" (solid fuel stoves, locally used gas, keorsene, wood pellets or whatever) so that these functions are independent of the chaos Greens want to cause on the grid, and also because it's more efficient to use a modern stove/kerosene boiler to make heat and hot water than to use electricity for the same purpose.

However even this plan is subject to the caveat that in a Winter 2010 style crisis, home heating systems are likely to break down en-masse and people will rely on plug electric heaters to stay alive. There had better be a stable grid with plentiful cheap power available for such a crisis. That includes a super-peak demand, no wind and no sun - for which you've made no provision as far as I can see.

Macha

SeanW wrote: »

In other news, Germany is still opening new coal fired power plants. Some of it based on lignite, or brown/soft coal, which has been explicit policy for many years now.

This myth has been debunked on this forum so many times. No new German coal plants have been given the go ahead since the phase out of nuclear was announced in 2011.

When was the coal plant in your link first proposed? The story itself says it's been under construction for 8 years and is owned by Vattenfall, the Swedish state company, that has been ordered to sell its German coal assets by the Swedish government. There's the headline, and then there's the more complicated reality.

Ireland will have to figure out what it's going to do with its only coal plan, Moneypoint, and soon.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

However even this plan is subject to the caveat that in a Winter 2010 style crisis, home heating systems are likely to break down en-masse and people will rely on plug electric heaters to stay alive. There had better be a stable grid with plentiful cheap power available for such a crisis. That includes a super-peak demand, no wind and no sun - for which you've made no provision as far as I can see.

Peak demand was 5GW and that was in 2008 , not 2010.

And a repeat of the 5GW demand would be covered by the 7GW dispatchable on the grid.

And because you are talking an absolute peak it doesn't need to be cheap. It's pretty common to see peak prices on www.sem-o.com way above the base.




So if we have very cold weather, and no wind , and there are multiple units off line and the neighbours won't sell electricity over the interconector we still have capacity. And even if we didn't there is still the option of demand shedding during peak hours.

Birdnuts

.

As is, we know the answer to that (yes), and we are discussing a related but
separate point - "why are retail tariffs high in Ireland if wholesale is not?".
The average tariff has no explanatory power and gives no illumination here.

Wholesale prices tell us very little about the cost implications of wind on a grid - to extend that logic we might as well say wind power is free...scarily many proponents of wind energy actually believe that!!

Seriously mate, why bother having this discussion if you're going to descend
into ad hominem all the time? It's a serious breach of basic debate etiquette

.

I was merely responding to your attempt to crique my posting style, which I thought was out of order

Denmark is actually fairly successful once you take into account all the money
flows, interconnection, and timelines involved. Give them a few years and
they're going to be in quite a good place to profit from the integrated EU
market (which means their high prices should flip to low

).

The Danes seem to be loosing faith in that particular model

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/07/denmark-backs-away-from-green-energy/

Germany's a bit more complicated. If anything they seem like a cautionary tale
on changing horses midstream. That said, they can afford it. I'd need to do some
more reading around about their power system policies before I'd be comfortable
dissecting it fully though.

The problem is that the Germans dominate energy policy in the EU and are using that power to inflict their ropey energy policies on everyone else. At least a number of Eastern European countries like Poland and the Czechs are pushing against this(with the UK finally waking up and doing something similar). Ireland on the other hand, like so many other times in our history, will learn nothing from other country's mistakes and head merrily over this particular cliff followed by years of the usual hand wringing, inquiries etc.

Can you get me the quote you're talking about please? I'll have a look and see
can I understand what they're suggesting. It's sounded like DSM to me so far

.

I've already outlined this issue now twice in the previous 2 pages in this thread and I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself. It has nothing to do with DSM so can we drop that particular line

This is massively complicated but it basically comes down to a handful of interactions (and is not just limited to wind). I'd encourage you to do some reading around on this as I'm running off memory/giving the gist.

1.) Eirgrid has a statutory duty to accept all reasonable connection requests (generators or demand) of a certain scale. If they say no, they need to be able to prove they can't accommodate it (or they're legally on the hook). Smaller stuff tends to be handled by ESB instead.

2.) A lot of smaller wind farms are distribution (small local level lines) connected rather than transmission (big country spanning lines) connected. This means that ESB are responsible for the connection as DSO rather than Eirgrid as TSO and there may not be transmission capacity to send power outside the local area. These are called non-firm connections.

3.) Eirgrid has a statutory obligation to run a reliable, economic and efficient transmission system. This means that if they leave a bunch of generation stranded (like the non-firm wind farms mentioned earlier), when they could build transmission lines to use them, they're on the hook legally again.

4.) This is further complicated by a set of legal agreements around infrastructure between ESB and Eirgrid which basically mean Eirgrid has to prove it's not technically feasible to make transmission reinforcements to support a project before they can say no to it.

5.) Eirgrid and ESB are mandated to follow government policy (as a result of having their shareholder be the government). Government policy is being informed by the 2020 EU targets on energy which mean ESB and Eirgrid are legally required to plan accordingly as system operators and have operational strategy in place for 40% renewable energy.

These 5 points all interact with one another to mean ESB and Eirgrid have to facilitate wind connections and build accordingly.

).[/QUOTE]

Sounds like too many unaccountable quangos are running the show here like SEI,CER in addition to Eirgrid. They bare a large part of the blame for current government energy policies as government ministers in the area simply regurgitate what they hear from the top table of these organisations - none more so then the current minister who was badly exposed on his lack of knowledge in this area on RTE radio, just 2 weeks ago during a discussion on wind farms and related grid issues . As for EU targets. The EU Directive actually states an overall 20% target across all energy users, the 40% target on electricity is an add on thanks to Eamon Ryans ego while in government. Like what the UK and other governments in Eastern Europe have done, that latter target can be re-negotiated as it is not binding under the Directive. In any case the problem here is the governments fixation with wind in the power grid above anything else in this area and ignores much opportunity in generation from agri-waste, sustaineable biomass production on worked out BNM bogs, domestic micro-generation etc. Like everything else in this country though, such things are usually shaped by the strongest vested interests and not for the overall good of the country.

My own opinion is that many EU directives in this area will be revised anyway in the coming years as the cost implications for the industrial base in many member states, growing complaints about energy poverty etc. become more into focus with each passing year. Indeed many of my links in this thread refer to such growing issues in many EU states.


PS: Another issue here is Eirgrid offering connections to wind farm projects that don't even have planning permission yet. This doesn't exactly inspire faith in a planning process that already has lost a lot of public confidence over the years.

L

Birdnuts wrote: »

Wholesale prices tell us very little about the cost implications of wind on a grid - to extend that logic we might as well say wind power is free...scarily many proponents of wind energy actually believe that!!

You can adjust the market price to account for the cost of wind - it's a pretty straightforward calculation.

As for wind being free, it's important to draw a distinction between having zero short run marginal cost and not costing money.

Now, that aside, even assuming that wholesale was a poor indicator of retail price, you'd expect the retail prices in a competitive market to converge tightly. This doesn't happen in the Irish electricity market - which as we discussed earlier helps to explain the high average retail price of electricity.

Birdnuts wrote: »

The Danes seem to be loosing faith in that particular model

http://dailycaller.com/2015/12/07/denmark-backs-away-from-green-energy/

The original article is better. Daily Caller is pretty dodgy.

The Danish situation is a bit strange to say the least - the current government (Venstre) is a minority government and it's not entirely clear that their current policies (balancing the budget by slashing and burning research funding across the board and immigration/social security) are particularly popular. Since they've been in power less than six months, too early to say either way.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I've already outlined this issue now twice in the previous 2 pages in this thread and I'm getting a bit tired of repeating myself. It has nothing to do with DSM so can we drop that particular line

I'm asking for a verbatim quote or transcript as I think something is getting lost along the way. If you want to drop it, no bother.

Birdnuts wrote: »

Sounds like too many unaccountable quangos are running the show here like SEI,CER in addition to Eirgrid.

I'm no fan of quangos but I'm not sure Eirgrid and CER as electricity reg meet the definition (they're not government funded). SEAI have a range of functions relating to research and energy efficiency grants - nothing particularly controversial.

That aside, Eirgrid and CER both perform vital aspects of running the power system. Eirgrid is TSO and MO - without those functions, we've no operational power system. CER is a watchdog that prevents blatant market abuse by participants. Which of those functions shouldn't exist and would you trust a market participant with any of them?

Birdnuts wrote: »

They bare a large part of the blame for current government energy policies as government ministers in the area simply regurgitate what they hear from the top table of these organisations - none more so then the current minister who was badly exposed on his lack of knowledge in this area on RTE radio, just 2 weeks ago during a discussion on wind farms and related grid issues .

I don't buy that - a poorly briefed minister is the responsibility of his civil servants.

Birdnuts wrote: »

As for EU targets. The EU Directive actually states an overall 20% target across all energy users, the 40% target on electricity is an add on thanks to Eamon Ryans ego while in government.

It's more a function of the basic structure of our energy demand. Ireland traded off heat and transport targets (which we basically had no chance of meeting) for more renewable electrical generation to feed in to them.

We've a low population density compared to most of Europe with relatively mild winters. This screws with our heating target (no district heating or cogeneration to convert) and our transport target (large long range vehicle load).

That aside, I'm pretty sure a 20% CO2 reduction would have been the smarter policy for the EU to put in place - and let the countries sort out how to do that themselves whether by renewable energy, demand reduction or whatever.

Birdnuts wrote: »

In any case the problem here is the governments fixation with wind in the power grid above anything else in this area and ignores much opportunity in generation from agri-waste, sustaineable biomass production on worked out BNM bogs, domestic micro-generation etc. Like everything else in this country though, such things are usually shaped by the strongest vested interests and not for the overall good of the country.

Microgeneration yes, biomass - not really. The napkin math on it looks very bad - we couldn't even begin to approach 20% of any target with the arable land in Ireland (and that's with gutting our agricultural industry). MacKay has some good bits on this.

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

As I mentioned earlier your definition of a "subsidy" appear to encompass pretty much every commodity and service on the planet. Same goes for "tax breaks".

I’m very clearly not – you’re just not prepared to admit that you’re wrong.

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

However even this plan is subject to the caveat that in a Winter 2010 style crisis, home heating systems are likely to break down en-masse and people will rely on plug electric heaters to stay alive. There had better be a stable grid with plentiful cheap power available for such a crisis.

Oh, you mean like there was in 2010? Even though there were lots and lots of big, bad wind turbines connected to the grid, everyone still had electricity, didn’t they?

Capt'n Midnight

djpbarry wrote: »

Oh, you mean like there was in 2010? Even though there were lots and lots of big, bad wind turbines connected to the grid, everyone still had electricity, didn’t they?

Looks like my stats were way off the peak was higher than I thought it was. Still not as record demand though. And there was less dispatchable available since some of the 7GW was offline.

Week of Jan 11 2010 - 11MW of wind minimum , 4950 MW peak demand and the dispatchable margin at peak was only 800MW
http://www.cer.ie/docs/000602/cer10007.pdf

800MW margin and the East-West interconnector has opened up since. And that's before demand shedding or trying to get some of the offline capacity back on line.

Two weeks later the margin was over 2.2GW


Just like Germany and Italy dealing with the Solar Eclipse that wiped out GW's of solar in the middle of the day, the question of "how would the grid cope with a theoretical scenario" can be answered by saying "actually it handled worse with room to spare"

fclauson

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Week of Jan 11 2010 - 11MW of wind minimum , 4950 MW peak demand and the dispatchable margin at peak was only 800MW
http://www.cer.ie/docs/000602/cer10007.pdf

any idea where the more up to date versions of these are ?

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

I’m very clearly not – you’re just not prepared to admit that you’re wrong.

I suggest you actually read the link you provided on the subject. Even the IEA and that other crowd you quoted had different definitions of what a subsidy was. In any case they were applicable to any industry or service you care to mention and how it is treated by the tax system, in pretty much any modern industrialized country. Indeed you could argue that pretty much all foreign and much domestic investment is Ireland is subsidized to the hilt when you look at how little actual tax the likes of Apple,Starbuck etc. pay. That's before the likes of ongoing IDA support to various private firms enters the conversation

PS: That reminds of another form of support wind companies get in this country - via very generous investment from the Irish state via the state pension fund. .

Birdnuts

L wrote: »

Now, that aside, even assuming that wholesale was a poor indicator of retail
price, you'd expect the retail prices in a competitive market to converge
tightly. This doesn't happen in the Irish electricity market - which as we
discussed earlier helps to explain the high average retail price of electricity

.

Theres a similar trend in the UK and other countries that have large installed wind capacities so your explanation really doesn't hold that much water

The original article is better. Daily Caller is pretty
dodgy.

The Danish situation is a bit strange to say the least
- the current government (Venstre) is a minority government and it's not
entirely clear that their current policies (balancing the budget by slashing and
burning research funding across the board and immigration/social security) are
particularly popular. Since they've been in power less than six months, too
early to say either way.

How so?? - it expands on the issue and explores topics like energy poverty and the high cost of energy in such EU countries compared to the other countries with less installed wind/solar capacities etc. Sounds to me like its another case of wind energy advocates wanting to brush inconvenient truths under the carpet!!

I'm no fan of quangos but I'm not sure Eirgrid and CER as electricity reg meet
the definition (they're not government funded). SEAI have a range of functions
relating to research and energy efficiency grants - nothing particularly
controversial.

All are constantly pushing wind energy in their documentation and public statements. And the stuff in the links below doesn't exactly inspire confidence either

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/whelan-warns-on-sustainable-energy-bosss-windfarm-conflict-of-interest-29365613.html


http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/02/20/conflict-of-windrests/

The government releases a white paper on energy this week. It will be interesting to see just who the winners and losers will be and what submissions will have been looked favourably on

That aside, I'm pretty sure a 20% CO2 reduction would have been the smarter
policy for the EU to put in place - and let the countries sort out how to do
that themselves whether by renewable energy, demand reduction or whatever

.


That would have been the commonsense approach alright - but no doubt lobbying played a big role in the final outcome, just like our current energy polices

Microgeneration yes, biomass - not really. The napkin math on it looks very bad
- we couldn't even begin to approach 20% of any target with the arable
land in Ireland (and that's with gutting our agricultural industry).
MacKay has some good bits on this

I wasn't talking about arable land. I was taking about the vast landholding of Bord Na Mona and Coillte

fclauson

this is neat

https://www.electricireland.ie/news-media/article/news/2015/11/18/our-interactive-guide-on-why-electricity-costs-what-it-does

L

Birdnuts wrote: »

Theres a similar trend in the UK and other countries that have large installed wind capacities so your explanation really doesn't hold that much water

Correlation doesn't always mean causation though. What's more interesting/useful is understanding the dynamics of the trend (and trying to understand why people don't consider the retail price a great marker for what is actually going on).

I'm not dismissing your point but I am saying that the answer is a great deal more complicated than saying "wind is expensive" and leaving it at that.

Birdnuts wrote: »

How so?? - it expands on the issue and explores topics like energy poverty and the high cost of energy in such EU countries compared to the other countries with less installed wind/solar capacities etc. Sounds to me like its another case of wind energy advocates wanting to brush inconvenient truths under the carpet!!

Well, the NYT is a (broadly) politically neutral Pulitzer winning publication of record and Daily Caller is a Republican spin site by a guy who works for Fox news.

Other headlines of theirs from the last few days involved how US constitutional protections on free religion didn't apply to Muslims (and how Trump was right).

It's much the same way you feel about the Guardian - except turned up to eleven.

Birdnuts wrote: »

All are constantly pushing wind energy in their documentation and public statements.

I'm not sure I've seen anything from CER on wind (off the top of my head). Link?

That aside, SEAI's job is sustainable energy research - I'd be surprised if they weren't putting out material dealing with Wind. CER and Eirgrid have legal responsibilities to do with the current grid state (Eirgrid in particular doesn't get to ignore it for their prudent System Operator legal requirements - they have to be able to keep the grid going no matter what politics happens).

Birdnuts wrote: »

And the stuff in the links below doesn't exactly inspire confidence either

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/whelan-warns-on-sustainable-energy-bosss-windfarm-conflict-of-interest-29365613.html


http://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/02/20/conflict-of-windrests/

No, it does not.

Birdnuts wrote: »

That would have been the commonsense approach alright - but no doubt lobbying played a big role in the final outcome, just like our current energy polices

I'm a fan of Hanlon's razor - never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity. Considering the vested interests (renewables are small fry compared to fossil fuel), it's more likely that it was badly thought through policy or intended to achieve something different from a CO2 reduction.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I wasn't talking about arable land. I was taking about the vast landholding of Bord Na Mona and Coillte

Fair enough. MacKay has some good figures on biofuel energy density that make it pretty clear that even growing biofuel on every scrap of Coillte/Bord Na Mona land in Ireland wouldn't make a dent in our energy needs. I'll stick up some numbers when I've some free time.

Edit:
Ireland's energy demand is about 13.3 Mtoe or 154.7 TWh. Per hour, this is about 17.7 GW. Bord na Mona owns 80k hectares (800 KM2), Coillte owns 445k hectares (4450 KM2). Assuming MacKay's coal equivalent figures, these would give 200 KW/KM2 or about 1 GW - 6% of our energy needs.

Converting all arable land (about 16.8% of Ireland's 84,421 KM2 - or 14,200 KM2) at the same rates would get us to about 16%. Sugar beat or the like would be more complicated - MacKay's estimates would put us at maybe 32%. This discounts the energy required to convert the beats to ethanol - which seems to conservatively be between 25% and 50% of the final ethanol energy.

As a thought experiment, if we completely covered Ireland in coal equivalent growth, we'd reach 16.9 GW - about 96% of our energy needs.

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

Indeed you could argue that pretty much all foreign and much domestic investment is Ireland is subsidized to the hilt when you look at how little actual tax the likes of Apple,Starbuck etc. pay.

No, you could not, because there are not specific provisions in Ireland’s tax code for “the likes of Apple and Starbucks”.

Meanwhile, there are a number of permanent provisions in the US tax code for producers of fossil fuels. You can continue to deny this all you like, but it’s clear as day:

In total, the United States government has identified eleven Federal fossil fuel production tax provisions, as shown below. Combined, these provisions total USD 4.7 billion in annual revenue cost (nominal annual average figure based on the 10-year revenue estimate).

https://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf

Birdnuts wrote: »

Theres a similar trend in the UK and other countries that have large installed wind capacities so your explanation really doesn't hold that much water

Possibly because consumers in the UK & Ireland seem to be tremendously reluctant to switch energy suppliers. The same seems to be true of bank accounts, for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34600941

Birdnuts wrote: »

That would have been the commonsense approach alright - but no doubt lobbying played a big role in the final outcome, just like our current energy polices

The idea that the renewables industry has any lobbying clout whatsoever is ridiculous.

Markcheese

L wrote:

that make it pretty clear that even growing biofuel on every scrap of land in Ireland wouldn't make a dent in our energy needs. I'll stick up some numbers when I've some free time.

Eek... didnt think biomass was as poor as that.

L

Markcheese wrote: »

Eek... didnt think biomass was as poor as that.

When I took a closer look, it wasn't quite as bad as I'd thought (MacKay gave his figures in W/m2 and I'd read Wh/m2 initially).

It's still not a winner - all the land in Ireland growing biofuel (regardless of land quality or buildings) would get about 96% of our energy need.

His numbers on algae though are much more interesting. Carbon sequestering or hydrogen producing algae have much more promising sounding biofuel production ratios. That'd be massively disruptive though on the landscape - slime as far as the eye can see.

fclauson

A more promising angle is to look at the consumption end

If (using SEAI numbers) around 50% of input energy is lost in conversion to electricity why not use heat pumps,

My HP runs at an alleged 420% i.e. 1kwh in = 4.2kwh out (based on standard testing)

Now that makes sense to me - new ground source units can stretch to 600% or more

Markcheese

fclauson wrote:

My HP runs at an alleged 420% i.e. 1kwh in = 4.2kwh out (based on standard testing)

Thats great, but to be honest how many homes in ireland mainly heat their homes using electricity.... ( personally i'm heading to heating the house with wood ) , and if as a nation we move significantly towards electricity for heating and transport - how much will we need ... and will that mean moving to much more gas...

Capt'n Midnight

Markcheese wrote: »

Thats great, but to be honest how many homes in ireland mainly heat their homes using electricity.

Mostly apartments built during the boom where they didn't build to the spec that would have allowed the usage of gas. Places which have almost zero chance of using ground based heat pumps


And besides Gas boilers are fairly efficient.
Converting gas to electricity , distributing it and then converting it back to heat means that even if you achieve more than 100% efficiency there's still the difference between retail electricity and retail gas price per KWh to compare too. Gas can be a quarter of the cost of electricity ( eg: Flogas 5c/KWh offer)

Yes you may use less fossil fuel with electric heat pumps. But there is still the install and construction inputs too.

Birdnuts

I'm not dismissing your point but I am saying that the answer is a
great deal more complicated than saying "wind is expensive" and leaving it at
that

.

If you look at my posts across this thread I have always sought to back up my points on this issue with real world examples. On the other hand certain other posters from the otherside(not yourself to be fair) simply sound like a broken record, endlessly repeating "wind is cheap" mantra with little or no supporting evidence

Well, the NYT is a (broadly) politically neutral Pulitzer winning publication of
record and Daily Caller is a Republican spin site by a guy who works for Fox
news.

Other headlines of theirs from the last few days involved how US
constitutional protections on free religion didn't apply to Muslims (and how
Trump was right).

It's much the same way you feel about the Guardian -
except turned up to eleven.

I'm sceptical of much media on many subjects, no matter what political wing they represent. But the subject of energy poverty is a very real and increasing issue across many countries in the EU with high retail power prices. Below is an example from Germany

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

The SVP submission on the most recent government Energy White paper is also worth a read on this subject. You can download it from the CER site

SEAI's job is sustainable energy research - I'd be
surprised if they weren't putting out material dealing with Wind. CER and
Eirgrid have legal responsibilities to do with the current grid state (Eirgrid
in particular doesn't get to ignore it for their prudent System Operator legal
requirements - they have to be able to keep the grid going no matter what
politics happens

).

SEAI views on and promotion of wind energy is totally unbalanced and might as well be PR material from the likes of the IWEA. We've already discussed Eirgrids role in pushing projects like Gridwest and their interaction with affected communities. CER have played a major role in the current high cost energy market that has been very beneficial for wind power interests.






.

I'm a fan of Hanlon's razor - never attribute to malice what can adequately be
explained by stupidity. Considering the vested interests (renewables are small
fry compared to fossil fuel), it's more likely that it was badly thought through
policy or intended to achieve something different from a CO2 reduction

.

Never said oil companies were angels, but there's plenty of cowboys involved in the wind industry too

Fair enough. MacKay has some good figures on biofuel energy density
As a thought
experiment, if we completely covered Ireland in
coal equivalent growth, we'd
reach 16.9 GW - about 96% of our energy needs

I never claimed that willow biomass was the total solution to our energy needs - just part of the mix. And I certainly don't support the growing of crops simply for energy on conventional farmland(or expanding them into intact habitat) as is happening in tropical countries like Indonesia with Palm oil and the environmental scam that is ethanol fuel production from corn as it is practiced in the US. However as well as my BNM willow biomass example their are also opportunities in this area on a local scale that could make many rural communities in particular more or less independent of the grid using wood fueled stoves, generators, as well as energy from farm waste, biogass etc.

Birdnuts

djpbarry wrote: »

No, you could not, because there are not specific provisions in Ireland’s tax
code for “the likes of Apple and Starbucks”.

Meanwhile, there are a
number of permanent provisions in the US tax code for producers of fossil fuels.
You can continue to deny this all you like, but it’s clear as day:

https://www.treasury.gov/open/Documents/USA%20FFSR%20progress%20report%20to%20G20%202014%20Final.pdf

Your wrong again cos the tax code in the US is structured differently to here and your earlier link included general tax treatment too. In any case there are specific provisions in the US tax code for many industries. Including your lot

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nancy-pfotenhauer/2014/05/12/even-warren-buffet-admits-wind-energy-is-a-bad-investment

Possibly because consumers in the UK & Ireland seem to be tremendously
reluctant to switch energy suppliers. The same seems to be true of bank
accounts, for example:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34600941

So were back to "blame the consumer on this one" - as I said earlier the consumers in Germany and Denmark must be really thick!!

The idea that the renewables industry has any lobbying clout whatsoever is
ridiculous

.

You need to get out more if you believe that. There's hardly a week goes by without the current minister opening a wind farm somewhere or addressing some function hosted by the IWEA. Also the CEO of Element power, the biggest wind developer in the state, is a prominent FG supporter and was actually going to run for them in the last election

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/fine-gael-banking-on-candidates-in-business-world-to-deliver-extra-seats-26613449.html

"Fine Gael's hierarchy is thinking about adding Tim Cowhig -- a leading figure in the energy sector"

L

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Mostly apartments built during the boom where they didn't build to the spec that would have allowed the usage of gas. Places which have almost zero chance of using ground based heat pumps

Well, air source seem to have CoPs around 3 for Ireland's temperature range - and fitting those to apartments should be straightforward. Do any of us have figures on how much of Irish heating is electric?

L

Birdnuts wrote: »

If you look at my posts across this thread I have always sought to back up my points on this issue with real world examples. On the other hand certain other posters from the otherside(not yourself to be fair) simply sound like a broken record, endlessly repeating "wind is cheap" mantra with little or no supporting evidence

What I'm saying is basically this: the power system as a whole is the most complicated and largest mechanism ever built by human hands. On top of this technical complexity, we've layered markets (wholesale and retail) with their own complex behaviours/interactions and then we've stuck political policy in the mix.

With this level of complexity and complication, if we start from a fixed assumption (ie. wind is expensive or wind is cheap), we need to be very careful to test every step and every section of our logic or we'll arrive at a foregone conclusion in support of our starting assumption (and much noise back and forth inevitably ensues as everyone on all sides does this and assumes everyone else is stupid/corrupt).

With that in mind, I'd suggest that average retail price, while useful for showing us the level of the retail market (and that Irish consumers are paying too much), loses a lot of valuable secondary information in the averaging process.

When we look at the spread of individual supplier tariffs and volumes of sale, we can see the decision isn't being made on a purely economic basis (as all else being equal, this spread of tariffs should still be reflected in the final bill after adjustment for the other factors). Part of this is loyalty, part of this is the status quo bias.

This means we can, given the understanding that all suppliers have to purchase at the same price, say that the average retail tariff will overestimate what the minimum electricity price in the current retail market is.

Further, since we can see the tariffs haven't converged across suppliers downwards towards a single price (which we'd expect in perfect competition), it is highly likely that there is still fat even on the lowest tariff in the market. This is supported by the large mismatch between wholesale electricity price (even when adjusted for PSO etc.) and the lowest retail tariff.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I'm sceptical of much media on many subjects, no matter what political wing they represent. But the subject of energy poverty is a very real and increasing issue across many countries in the EU with high retail power prices. Below is an example from Germany

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/high-costs-and-errors-of-german-transition-to-renewable-energy-a-920288.html

The SVP submission on the most recent government Energy White paper is also worth a read on this subject. You can download it from the CER site

Der Spiegel is a fairly decent source and that's an interesting article (given Der Spiegel's stock in trade is political controversy, it's worth reading them with that in mind though of course).

Can you pass me a link for the SVP submission? There's a heap of submissions from them to the CER so it's proving a little difficult to track down the one you mean. I can get the gist of what they've likely said from their other submissions though.

Energy poverty is a very real problem and a difficult one to lick. Putting aside relief programs as a necessity, one of the contributing problems (perverse and ironic as it seems) is the average tariff retailers charge. It creates a rate which is both too high to be affordable for those in danger of the energy poverty trap, and too low to drive changes in behaviour among the better off.

Hourly tariffs would at least provide some possibility of mitigating energy bills by shifting behaviour (which in turn would help to lower energy prices).

There's actually an interesting consultation bit from the department on energy poverty and the retail market issues.

Birdnuts wrote: »

I never claimed that willow biomass was the total solution to our energy needs - just part of the mix.

Birdnuts wrote: »

However as well as my BNM willow biomass example their are also opportunities in this area on a local scale that could make many rural communities in particular more or less independent of the grid using wood fueled stoves, generators, as well as energy from farm waste, biogass etc.

Fair. I suspect the contribution it can give is relatively minimal though. Local individual use is grand but I don't think it's scale-able to the size necessary for it to be a major factor in energy policy (see below).

Birdnuts wrote: »

And I certainly don't support the growing of crops simply for energy on conventional farmland(or expanding them into intact habitat) as is happening in tropical countries like Indonesia with Palm oil and the environmental scam that is ethanol fuel production from corn as it is practiced in the US.

Ok. So, these numbers are rough and ready (pulling them from Teagasc and they're from 2010) but it looks like we've about 64% of the land in Ireland as agricultural (pastoral or arable) and about 10.8% planted for forestry.

Assuming we don't want to rip up existing forests (community benefit and a state money source) or convert land from agriculture, that rules out 74.8% of the land in Ireland. It looks like urban areas are another 2.4% so 77.2% of land is ruled out. That gives about 22.8% of land to work with - which should give a max supply of 3.85 GW or 21.8% of our energy needs.

This isn't too bad - but it doesn't account for why the land currently isn't being planted (you'd expect land that could support biomass to be either forested or farmed already to be honest).

djpbarry

Birdnuts wrote: »

Your wrong again cos the tax code in the US is structured differently to here…

Which is what I said.

Birdnuts wrote: »

In any case there are specific provisions in the US tax code for many industries.

I know. That’s what I said. But you denied it several times.

Birdnuts wrote: »

So were back to "blame the consumer on this one"…

Blame them for what?

Birdnuts wrote: »

You need to get out more if you believe that.

I really don’t. For example, SSE, the parent company of Airtricity, had revenues of about £30 million in 2014. For the purposes of comparison, Tullow Oil, for example, had revenues of $2.2 billion for the same year.

Capt'n Midnight

L wrote: »

Well, air source seem to have CoPs around 3 for Ireland's temperature range - and fitting those to apartments should be straightforward. Do any of us have figures on how much of Irish heating is electric?

I'd assume most of the difference between winter and summer load would be heat with some lighting.

Yes some it would be water heating or cooking, and of course driers.



Not sure I'd believe those CoP's compared to people's real world experiences. see the Heat Pump threads over on http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1041

Retro fitting wouldn't be cheap either so payback time would be interesting.

L

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I'd assume most of the difference between winter and summer load would be heat with some lighting.

Yes some it would be water heating or cooking, and of course driers.

You'd capture the heating load, true. I think it's too messy as a guide though - winter peak isn't just heating driven. You have a lot more secondary effects due to less time spent outdoors (entertainment for example).

This is part of someone's taught master's degree so I'd take the numbers with a grain of salt, but it seems to have some good information and the supervisors are relatively well known competent experts in heat/energy.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Not sure I'd believe those CoP's compared to people's real world experiences. see the Heat Pump threads over on http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=1041

Yep, no argument (real world performance always sucks compared to theoretic) - I just wish there was better info on it. All I've got so far is SEAI heat pump info and another from that forum.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Retro fitting wouldn't be cheap either so payback time would be interesting.

Very. Do we have good numbers on costs? Reading around it looks like there's also a requirement for a secondary heat source of some type.

I think we've sidetracked a bit but this interests me - is it worth starting a new thread?

L

White paper has been released. I haven't had the chance to digest it properly yet but this struck me as relevant:

Onshore wind will continue to make a significant contribution. But the next phase of our energy transition will see the deployment of additional technologies as solar, offshore wind and ocean technologies mature and become more cost-effective.

SeanW

L wrote: »

White paper has been released. I haven't had the chance to digest it properly yet but this struck me as relevant:

So we're going to continue slaughtering bats on an industrial scale. Great news :rolleyes:

Remember that bats provide essential services to mankind in the areas they live in, they eat insects by the ton, so they save us a lot of insect bites, a lot of disease, and reduce the need in some parts of the world for chemical insecticides and insect repellants. So anyone who proposes allowing bats to be killed by windmills on any kind of scale ... really is no kinder to Planet Earth than an American energy hog that drives a massive SUV/Hummer everywhere they go.

Macha wrote: »

This myth has been debunked on this forum so many times. No new German coal plants have been given the go ahead since the phase out of nuclear was announced in 2011.

The Energiewende was first proposed in 1980 and was ramped up in its current form in 2002. Abadonment of nuclear elecrtricity has been a key plank in the Energiewende since the term was first popularised. In 1980. Germany was still connecting coal fired power plants in 2015 - and no-one has provided any explanation of why new coal plants were approved after 2000 except as replacements for nuclear, which could have been retained/commissioned new instead.

When was the coal plant in your link first proposed? The story itself says it's been under construction for 8 years and is owned by Vattenfall, the Swedish state company, that has been ordered to sell its German coal assets by the Swedish government. There's the headline, and then there's the more complicated reality.

There also the "complicated reality" that people have been so mad to get rid of the horrible evil atom, that they've been building new coal to replace or avoid reactors. Again, why was Green, Energiewende driven Germany was still connecting New Coal to the grid in 2015? Are you claiming that it had nothing to do with their nuclear phase out?

Ireland will have to figure out what it's going to do with its only coal plan, Moneypoint, and soon.

Here's what I would do with it: I'd mothball it and teach an army group how to run it in an emergency. So if there's ever another Christmas 2010 type scenario, the army can fire it up to provide cheap power with a limited notice. I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

djpbarry wrote: »

Oh, you mean like there was in 2010? Even though there were lots and lots of big, bad wind turbines connected to the grid, everyone still had electricity, didn’t they?

Renewables expansion is an ongoing process, there has presumably been a lot more renewables commissioned since 2010. And more in the future.

L wrote: »

Unfortunately you're focused on wind being responsible for everything regardless of actual root causes. If you tried to understand them, you'd be able to frame your arguments more convincingly.

What's to understand? They kill bats on an industrial scale, they spoil the landscape, they cost a fortune, and they have never replaced a single nuclear/fossil fired power plant, only made them more difficult to operate.

Look up what net load is. Then apply what we were talking about earlier. You use DSM to flatten out the shape of the load so you can use your generation portfolio more effectively.

Isn't DSM for business extremely expensive? Because you have to compensate a company for its profits that it would have made had it continued production when the wind stops blowing ...

Saying it's bad because it doesn't replace generation is broadly the same sense as saying that you don't need feet cos you have a car or that a biscuit isn't very good at being a cup of tea. They're complementary things.

They're not complimentary. One imposes problems on the other.

The SVP submission on the most recent government Energy White paper is also worth a read on this subject. You can download it from the CER site

Is that Saint Vincent dePaul? I'd imagine their main concern would be fuel poverty. Precisely what would happen if we had German/Danish electricity prices (which, in the latter case, let's remind ourselves are worse than those of remote island chains hundreds of miles into the Pacific like Kiribati). I'm not sure quoting anything by SVP is a good idea because I cannot seriously imagine that anyone advocating German/Danish style energy policies is particularly concerned about poor people.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

So we're going to continue slaughtering bats on an industrial scale. Great news :rolleyes:

This is the measured impact of US energy sources on birds.

http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/16/german-wind-turbines-killing-migratory-bats/
And of course, nothing comes anywhere close to causing bird deaths more than the cat, which on the whole manages to kill anywhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion per year!

Germany was still connecting coal fired power plants in 2015 - and no-one has provided any explanation of why new coal plants were approved after 2000 except as replacements for nuclear, which could have been retained/commissioned new instead.

How many times have I posted that old coal plants are about 25% efficient while their replacements are perhaps 45% ?

Since polls have shown up to 96% of Germans are in support of the energy policy it's hardly surprising that haven't done a U turn on it.


Meanwhile in the UK the Tories won't allow fracking in National Parks or Areas of Outstanding Beauty. But it's OK to setup beside them and drill sideways.

Here's what I would do with it: I'd mothball it and teach an army group how to run it in an emergency. So if there's ever another Christmas 2010 type scenario, the army can fire it up to provide cheap power with a limited notice. I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

And by Christmas 2010 scenario you mean business as usual because of oodles of spare dispatchable capacity?


I'm going to keep pointing out to you that
- the trend is for bigger reactors so where will you get the 1GW ?
- they still haven't fully debugged or even built the promised next generation reactors
- we won't be able to get a better deal than the UK, no loss leaders for us and we don't have 60+ years of running reactors that they do
- and there is the slight problem that you'll need 1GW of spinning reserve , congratulations you'll need to keep Moneypoint running to back up it's replacement.
- even if it comes in on time and on budget, and the track record is abysmal on that, it won't generate until the late 2020's

And it takes a while to get a coal fired power station up to speed. Ever see the Three Men in a Boat in Scotland ? Took 36 hours to fire up the boiler on a steam boat. (Nuclear can take up to 72 hours to do a restart)

fclauson

fclauson wrote: »

any idea where the more up to date versions of these are ?

CER no longer produce the dispatch margin report - they told me to ask Eirgrid

Birdnuts

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

[QUOTE[/B][/B]
http://cleantechnica.com/2015/02/16/german-wind-turbines-killing-migratory-bats/
And of course, nothing comes anywhere close to causing bird deaths more than the cat, which on the whole manages to kill anywhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion per year!

That pro-wind industry link provides no basis for any of those "estimates". I'd love to know how they calculated the coal and nuclear impacts in particular??. The reality is that wind farms are having a growing impact on many species, particulary rarer ,larger soaring birds like storks,vultures, pelicans etc.. The cat issues is a red herring as they are not a threat to such species and mainly kill smaller more common species like sparrows,blackbirds that to a large degree withstand such mortality.

A more reliable source for such things are the organisations that work in bird conservation such as the American Bird Conservancy

http://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/blog/2015/02/14/abc-renews-call-for-regulations-to-reduce-the-number-of-birds-killed-at-wind-farms/


"Based on the operation of 22,000 turbines, FWS estimated in 2009 that at least 440,000 birds per year — including threatened and endangered species — were being killed by wind turbines (PDF). Since then, another study, published in the March 2013 issue of the Wildlife Society Bulletin, expanded that estimate to 573,000.

The number of wind turbines in the United States is expected to increase 10-fold by 2030, or perhaps earlier. Together, the projects are projected to kill between 1.4 million and 2 million birds each year.

Because these estimates do not include mortality at associated power lines and towers, which are also undergoing massive expansion, ABC believes the projection will be exceeded significantly. Power lines and towers currently kill more than 6.8 million birds annually

"

The point about increased killing from wind farm related pylon sprawl is also significant and this is not included in wind energy kill figures.


As pointed out in another part of that link - oil companies are rightly heavily fined for killing protected species via oil spills whereas the wind industy gets a free pass despite having a particular impact on rarer soaring species. Also the fact that wind has failed to reduce the need for fossil fuels to any significant extent further underlines the dubious environmental benefits of many wind farm developments. And that's before you start talking of their impacts on fragile upland peatlands etc.

L

SeanW wrote: »

So we're going to continue slaughtering bats on an industrial scale.

Got some figures on that (peer reviewed by preference or reputable newspaper/organization of record failing that)? That's not something I've done much reading on.

SeanW wrote: »

What's to understand? They kill bats on an industrial scale, they spoil the landscape, they cost a fortune, and they have never replaced a single nuclear/fossil fired power plant, only made them more difficult to operate.

Quite a lot actually I'm afraid.

I won't comment on the bats (not something I have done a lot of reading on) or the landscape issues (opinion is everyone's right), but on cost and power systems, you've the wrong end of the stick.

Cost wise, they're front loaded - high initial investment cost, minimal operational costs. Large fossil fuel gen tends to be medium initial investment cost, medium to high operational costs (small peakers or diesels tend to be low initial cost, painfully high operational costs). Basically, over a life time, wind doesn't cost a fortune any more than a gas turbine does.

Replacement wise, that's another foot and car comment. Fossil fuel generators aren't interchangeable with every other fossil fuel generator. Portfolios of power plant cover each others weaknesses (even without wind, you have peakers/midmerit/baseload distinctions).

That means that 10 GW capacity of one plant mix may have very different cost implications to 10 GW of another (as well as very different capabilities). Having wind in the mix changes the balancing of the portfolio towards more lower capital cost fossil fuel gen with less run time (as what's needed is secondary services such as system inertia or voltage support). This moves away from high capital cost inflexible baseload (unless they make improvements to be able to supply services that the portfolio is short on). This is currently a little more complicated to see due to a number of factors (new high efficiency gas tech, lower fuel prices, SRMC based markets) but is still the case.

SeanW wrote: »

They're not complimentary. One imposes problems on the other.

They're still complimentary - every grid technology imposes problems on every other and always has. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater because of that misses the point of having a plant portfolio in the first place.

The first generators used to rip themselves apart (literally) when they tried to run them together. That problem got solved. Same for early fossil fuel generator inefficiencies - the main reason we have an electrified society today is because generators needed more load to build bigger (and hence more efficient) generators to increase their profitability.

The grid's been changing for as long as it's been around to route around the problems that come with incoming tech. It's just not been as visible to the man on the street until now.

Wind changes what other generators are required on the grid and incentivizes them to look at what services they can provide that wind can't. On balance, it forces improvement onto complacent vested interests and results in a stronger portfolio.

SeanW wrote: »

Isn't DSM for business extremely expensive? Because you have to compensate a company for its profits that it would have made had it continued production when the wind stops blowing ...

Not really. DSM typically doesn't mean "all stop" but more streamlining power consumption for that period of time - so a datacenter might shift some secondary operations to a different datacenter or industrial processes might work from stockpiles rather than producing components as they need them.

Basically industrially DSM seems mostly to be about shifting load in time or space as opposed to getting rid of it entirely.

SeanW wrote: »

Here's what I would do with it: I'd mothball it and teach an army group how to run it in an emergency. So if there's ever another Christmas 2010 type scenario, the army can fire it up to provide cheap power with a limited notice. I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

This is an idea I'd be curious about. I'm unsure how well it would work in practice, but in theory this conversion might help bring moneypoint down to a more reasonable emissions output as well as reducing the fuel input (which might make the maths work out for biomass). That said, some of the limitations on moneypoint are going to be increasing maintenance costs - there's only so long that a plant can keep operating before it starts bleeding too much money on repairs.

SeanW wrote: »

I'd replace its day-to-date operation with relatively small (1GW or less) nuclear.

Woah, I hope you mean multiple plant as opposed to one reactor. A 1GW gen would more than double the spinning reserve required by the power system (and completely murder generation efficiency). We'd be talking potentially doubling the current balancing cost of the grid to somewhere around 300M-400M.

fclauson

L wrote: »

Woah, I hope you mean multiple plant as opposed to one reactor. A 1GW gen would more than double the spinning reserve required by the power system (and completely murder generation efficiency). We'd be talking potentially doubling the current balancing cost of the grid to somewhere around 300M-400M.

True - spinning reserve needs to match the largest generator on line at any time. Therefor a 1Gw plant - needs a 1Gw spinning reserve

This is why spinning reserve for wind is fairly low - as with the combination of good weather forecasts which can predict multiple hours in advance along with each turbine failure not having a big impact - spinning reserve can be kept down.

this does not mitigate the need for plant to be available when there is no wind - but the need to bring it on line is fairly limited given winds short term predictability

L

Pretty accurate. A 1GW plant would need 750MW of primary spinning reserve, 1000MW of secondary and 1000MW of tertiary (different bands are different response times). Wind, as you say, has negligible impact on reserves as the failure of individual turbines has such little impact on power production and wind fall off is much more gradual than spinning reserve.

Markcheese

Cant see even solar aided thermal taking off here ... and I cant really see the esb investing in moneypoint so it can use a fuel thats 3 times the price of its current coal ... if we're going to incentivise biomass production in the future I think i'd rather see it go toward replacing home heating oil or domestically burnt coal rather than burnt in a relatively inefficent converted turf station...
Nuclear keeps being trotted out - oh,we should invest in nuclear now-cos the next big thing in safer more sustainable nuclear is just around the corner- grand, invest in nuclear when thats ready , not now.
Carbon capture and storage may be money points big saviour. Wont be cheap though (probably still cheaper than american wood pellets) , but as it'd probably need a completly new plant I cant see the esb ditching whats there and paid for in any rush...
Which kind of leaves us where we currently are, base load of dirty coal,quite a few newish combined cycle reasonably efficent gas plants- plenty of nameplate capacity wind generation ( with the costs front loaded,) a small amount off hydro -peat generation about to go off line.. and the peaking plants....
No major change gonna be coming down the tracks so then,,,

Capt'n Midnight

Markcheese wrote: »

Cant see even solar aided thermal taking off here ...

No a chance. Global warming will mean even more clouds.
The mean daily bright sunshine at Rosslare is almost 1.9 hours in winter, 5.3 hours in spring and 6.1 hours in summer. And that's as good as it gets.
Solar panels can still generate upto a third of max power in diffuse light.

and I cant really see the esb investing in moneypoint so it can use a fuel thats 3 times the price of its current coal ... if we're going to incentivise biomass production in the future I think i'd rather see it go toward replacing home heating oil or domestically burnt coal rather than burnt in a relatively inefficent converted turf station...

Turf is in a lot shorter supply than coal, there's hundreds of years of coal left.

Nuclear keeps being trotted out - oh,we should invest in nuclear now-cos the next big thing in safer more sustainable nuclear is just around the corner- grand, invest in nuclear when thats ready , not now.

Don't hold your breath. They moved the badgers out of the Hinkley C site back in 2010 and operation date has been pushed back to 2024 at the earliest.

Nuclear allows you to use more fossil fuel while remaining within emissions targets. if they included total life inputs like mining, (re)processing, concrete and decomission and storage the emissions might be a tad different.

Carbon capture and storage may be money points big saviour. Wont be cheap though (probably still cheaper than american wood pellets) , but as it'd probably need a completly new plant I cant see the esb ditching whats there and paid for in any rush...

Might be possible to retro fit

I like the idea of greenhouses full of oil or hydrogen producing algae ponds heated by hot water. But without knowing the mass balance I can't say if it's practical.

Which kind of leaves us where we currently are, base load of dirty coal,quite a few newish combined cycle reasonably efficent gas plants- plenty of nameplate capacity wind generation ( with the costs front loaded,) a small amount off hydro -peat generation about to go off line.. and the peaking plants...
No major change gonna be coming down the tracks so then,,,

The changes will be in the grid being able to handle more wind and interconnector so a reduction in base load and the number of peaks.

As always if someone figures out a cheap way to store electricity then renewables win.

BoltzmannBrain

Just need to hold out til fusion becomes a reality, about 30 years I believe.

monument

BoltzmannBrain wrote: »

Just need to hold out til fusion becomes a reality, about 30 years I believe.

Which is what people have said for the last 30 years or more.

SeanW

Apologies for not responding to this earlier, I forgot about this thread over the Xmas, then the boards DDOSes, work etc.

L wrote: »

Got some figures on that (peer reviewed by preference or reputable newspaper/organization of record failing that)? That's not something I've done much reading on.

One widely quoted study, quoted in this post from Popular Science, indicates an estimate bat kill of more than 600,000, possibly 900,000 in a single recent year in the United States. That's Six. Hundred. Thousand. Each Year. In just one country.
The U.S. let us remind ourselves, is already in extreme danger of the extinction of many bat species because of the White Nose Syndrome (first identified in 2006 and had killed 5.7 million bats by 2012, given by my rough calculations, 950,000 bats each year over each of 6 years), so adding an additional threat on a comparable scale can only be considered obscene and gravely irresponsible in my view.

The figures in Germany are nearly as bad, though somewhat more approximate, in this study quoted on CleanTechnica. It suggests that Germany is killing 250,000 bats each year with windmills. The problem with Germany is so much worse because Germany is smack dab in the middle of key bat migration routes - so it's having an extraterritorial effect on bat numbers in other countries. Combine all of this with the other problems with windmills, the bird kills, the visual pollution, the extreme need for grid expansion to remote mountaintops etc, the sky high cost, the lack of correlation with demand, and as highlighted in another thread, the proven inability of weather based renewables to deliver cost-effective low carbon energy in comparison with other strategies, makes the whole idea seem to me to be misguided at best, at worst ridiculous and bizarre in the extreme.

Edited to add: One estimate puts wind mills as a bigger cause of Mass Mortality Events of bats than White Nose Syndrome. Granted, though the gap is not large and WNS is still a very close second.

djpbarry

SeanW wrote: »

One widely quoted study, quoted in this post from Popular Science, indicates an estimate bat kill of more than 600,000, possibly 900,000 in a single recent year in the United States. That's Six. Hundred. Thousand. Each Year. In just one country.

The article also suggests an easily-implementable solution: increase turbine cut-in speed, because bats don't fly when it's windy.

Capt'n Midnight

SeanW wrote: »

The figures in Germany are nearly as bad, though somewhat more approximate, in this study quoted on CleanTechnica.

As with most wildlife climate change is the big killer. Here in Ireland we get more electricity from renewable than coal.

further research found that wind turbines played a comparatively minor role in the death of birds when compared to other energy generation sources

Markcheese

Would have thought it'd be reasonably easy to design studies to examine how bats are affected by wind turbines..
Most sites have a long lead in time so multi -annual studies with bat detectors before commissioning would give a base line .. this could be compared with other similar sites with and without wind farms.. similar studies could be done once the turbines are operational... college research ?

Do we have many migatory species of bat .... and how are bats affected by things like high speed traffic and motorways ?

Birdnuts

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

As with most wildlife climate change is the big killer. Here in Ireland we get more electricity from renewable than coal.

There is growing concern in the EU about the impacts of wind farms on birds

http://www.birdlife.org/europe-and-central-asia/news/bulgarian-government-condemned-court-failing-nature


Wind farms kill a disproportionate number of larger rarer birds like storks, pelicans etc. The "estimate" in that link of yours for coal and nuclear is frankly bizarre and I'd like to see some evidence to back it up In any case wind power has done little to reduce the amount of coal used in power generation in this country. The same trend is apparent in most other European countries, notably Germany. I think its important too that the share of generation from renewables includes Hydro which tends to be ignored by those who like to claim its all about wind energy.

PS: Only now is the Irish government attempting to carry out a Strategic Environmental assessment of wind. Despite the scale of wind farms already in the country, many of them in close proximity to important upland protected areas

http://www.dcenr.gov.ie/energy/en-ie/Renewable-Energy/Pages/Renewable-Electricity-Policy-and-Development-Framework.aspx#

This recent development has almost certainly come about thanks to the efforts of the likes of Pat Swords,local community groups and others who are trying to bring some accountability to this governments planning record on these matters via the courts both here and internationally

Macha

BirdNuts, that link talks about the incorrect building if all sorts of things in a Natura 2000 sure in Bulgaria. To use it to support the claim that there is growing concern about wind farms is a ginormous leap.

The biggest environmental NGO in the UK and Ireland is RSPB and BirdWatch Ireland. They, and their EU umbrella group BirdLife both fully support renewable energy, including wind turbines. In fact, they supported an ambitious target for renewable energy to deliver 45% of Europe's energy by 2030.

Yes, they want policies like bird sensitivity mapping to minimise any impact on birds and their habitats but they recognize that climate change is the biggest environmental threat to birds.

Capt'n Midnight

Birdnuts wrote: »

Wind farms kill a disproportionate number of larger rarer birds like storks, pelicans etc.

For smaller birds cats are the big killer

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/killer-cats-take-down-billions-of-birds-report-says-1.1312489

Cats may kill up to 3.7 billion birds and 20.7 billion mammals in the United States alone each year, a new study has found.

That means predatory felines are likely the leading human-linked cause of death for birds and mammals, surpassing habitat destruction, collisions with structures such as buildings, and pesticide poisoning

In any case wind power has done little to reduce the amount of coal used in power generation in this country. The same trend is apparent in most other European countries, notably Germany. I think its important too that the share of generation from renewables includes Hydro which tends to be ignored by those who like to claim its all about wind energy.

Oh look it's another variation on the wind is intermittent augment.
Coal is used for base load, but our base load is no longer minimum demand because our grid can handle 55% non-synch sources.

In the case of the UK one could argue that nuclear allows more coal while still staying within the carbon limits, but like Germany they are phasing out coal.
Very, very roughly speaking coal produces twice as much carbon dioxide as gas (plant efficiencies vary a LOT 25%-60%) but costs a lot less. Has anyone done the short term economics of Coal + Wind vs Gas at the same emissions level per KWh ?

BTW here wind produces about an order of magnitude more power than hydro. Pumped hydro doesn't count because it's storage not generation.