Wind Energy Not Intended to Be Constant

Subtitle:  Wind Energy Supplements Other Forms

There is a massive misconception among the wind-energy detractors, one that should be readily apparent but is not.  The problem is the wind-energy detractors say that wind-turbines can never replace baseload, steady power plants such as nuclear, coal, or even gas-fired power plants.    That misses the point, entirely.   This post addresses this and provides a bit of history of wind power. 

Motor-sailer Yacht
Photo By David J. Shuler - Nordhavn Corporate Headquarters, CC BY 3.0,
 https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7094137

The first point is that wind is not steady, at least not in most places where wind-turbines would and are being built.  This is nothing new and should be obvious.  From the earliest days of sailing, those in the boats knew that sometimes the wind blew nicely and sailing was easy, sometimes the wind stopped and either the ship stopped or sailors had to row, and sometimes the wind blew fiercely and at times capsized the ship.   On land, similar things occur with the wind, totally calm, a nice breeze, or a devastatingly strong force. 

Therefore, at least up until quite recently, electricity generated by wind-turbines has been a supplemental source of power, not a replacement for the baseload forms of generation.  More later on the innovations that have changed that.    Wind-turbines act to supplement the traditional forms of power generation. 

An analogy is to consider a a bicycle ridden at constant speed up a slight slope, as a load-following power plant of a gas-turbine design.  The power that the rider must input to the pedals corresponds to the fuel the power plant consumes.   However, when the bicycle reaches a point on the road where the slope is not quite as steep, less pedal-power is required to maintain speed.   The more gentle slope is analogous to the wind-turbines in operation, they make the gas-turbine power plant use less fuel.    A more exact analogy would be a bicycle being ridden on a road with a slope that changes from time to time.  The changes in slope correspond to changes in the wind speed.  A flatter or more gentle slope corresponds to stronger wind.  A steeper slope corresponds to a decrease in wind speed.  

The same analogy holds for solar energy, where strong sunshine produces less slope for the bicycle.  Clouds passing over the solar energy plant cause the gas-turbine plant to use more fuel as the solar plant's output falls.  This corresponds to a slightly greater slope the bicycle must ascend.  

Another analogy is a ship that has both an engine and sails.  The sails plus engine can be used to achieve a constant speed.  When the wind blows stronger, the engine throttle can be reduced, and vice-versa.  see photo above. 

Therefore, it can be seen that wind-turbines alone can not replace load-following or baseload power plants.  They can, however, reduce the fuel consumed.   Next, the options available to a utility grid-operator when wind-turbines or solar, or both, are supplying power to the grid. 

When the amount of wind-energy is small, under 5 percent, the grid operator typically does little more than he did before the wind-turbines existed.  The load-following capability of power plants designed to follow the load cope quite well.  However, when wind-energy reaches a substantial fraction of the grid's load, perhaps 30 percent or a bit higher, the grid operator must take steps to ensure grid stability when the wind suddenly stops, or the speed increases from almost zero to 25 or 30 miles per hour.   These issues are discussed at length in the electrical engineering professional journals.  

The key issue is response time, the time required for other generators to either reduce their output when the wind blows more strongly, or increase output when the wind dies.   This is where fast-response storage systems are valuable.  Technologies such as high-speed flywheels, batteries, and hydroelectric are fast-responding.  However, the first two are very expensive, or have been up to now.   A fourth technology was recently patented and obtained environmental permits to proceed, this technology is the ARES rail energy storage system.  see link.   

Also, improved batteries with lower cost are in development by BioSolar Inc, with prototypes for industrial testing due to be in service in second half of 2016.  see link 

Another option available to the grid operator is to de-energize some of the wind-turbines during high wind episodes, or gusts that give highly variable output.   However, where grid-scale storage is available, such as the above four technologies, the grid can be balanced by appropriately charging the storage systems.   Of course, the storage systems have a limit and once they are fully charged, some of the wind-turbines must be idled. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

The Real Hockey Stick Graph - Wind Power

Subtitle: US Wind Power Increasing Rapidly 

There is a discredited graph in climate science that purports to show the past 1000 years of Earth's global average temperature was very flat, until the past 40 years more or less, when a large upturn occurred.  The long unchanging period is supposed to look like the handle of a hockey stick, with the upturned portion appears to be the blade.  

However, a valid hockey-stick graph is shown at right, which is the past few decades of grid-scale electric power produced in the US from hydroelectric dams (blue line) and from wind-

turbines (orange line).   The significance of this graph is that wind-turbines now produce a significant portion of the total power to the grid, an amount equal to that of hydroelectric dams.   Future wind-turbine installations will add to the wind's contribution, so that it exceeds the hydroelectric contribution.  

For those who say that wind energy is too small to matter, it is growing rapidly.  If wind is too small to matter, then perhaps hydroelectricity is also too small to matter.   Both represent approximately 5 to 6 percent of the total power generated in the US.  

For those who complain that wind energy is subsidized, the reality is that wind turbine projects receive only a small subsidy, of 2.3 cents per kWh sold for the first 10 years of operation. Wind-farm owners must put up their own money or borrow the money to purchase and install the turbines, lease the land, pay for operations and maintenance, and collect the electricity and connect to the grid.    In contrast, more than 70 percent of all hydroelectric dams and generation plants were built entirely with federal funds, a 100 percent subsidy.  Yet, nobody complains that hydroelectric power should be stopped.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

US Power Grid Transitioning

Subtitle:  Wind Energy Climbing Fast

A few things occurred recently that have already shifted the way power in the US is generated.  These are most certainly a preview of things to come.  This article explores some of the issues. 

A key point is that two things most certainly will occur over the next ten years: first, many nuclear power plants are reaching the end of their economic lives and will be shut down, probably 50 to 60 of the existing 100 reactors; and second, many of the coal-fired power plants will shut down due to inability to comply with environmental regulations, plus a lack of coal to keep running, as coal is expected to run out within 20 years in the US.   The power produced by those two categories must be replaced.  The question is, what energy source is ready, economic, and can be built within that time frame?

For a bit of perspective, 30 years ago the US power mix included the following, and the relative percentages of the total electricity provided:

US Electricity in 1986
Source     Percent

Coal	55.6
Nuclear	16.6
Hydro	11.8
Nat Gas	10.0
Oil	5.5
Wind	-

Coal was the main energy source in 1986, with nuclear a distant second.    The situation has changed dramatically by 2015, 30 years later.

US Electricity in 2015

Source     Percent

Coal	33.18
Nat Gas	32.66
Nuclear	19.50
Hydro	6.14
Wind	4.70
Oil	0.70

Coal is still the main energy source, but only barely as natural gas is a very, very close second.  Nuclear has slipped to third position.  Wind has increased from almost zero in 1986 to almost the same percentage as hydroelectric.  Oil use has dropped to almost zero.  

US Electricity Generation by Resource Type -- EIA

Here is a graph of US power production since 2001, by energy source, from EIA.  The graph has a number of interesting aspects, including almost no increase in total electricity use (blue line) over the past decade.  

Notable items are the merging of the coal (brown) and natural gas (green) lines in 2015.  Also notable is the merging of the hydroelectric (purple) and wind (black) lines in 2015.  Finally, and a subject for another post, the nuclear (yellow) line is not at all constant but has substantial fluctuations.  

The output of wind energy nationwide has now grown to equal that of hydroelectric power.  The future will without a doubt see wind energy increase and surpass hydroelectric.   The

Add caption

next chart shows how wind energy production (orange line) has grown over the decades, along with hydroelectric power production (blue line).  The data is also from EIA, for the US only, and shows the growth of wind energy so that the two lines merge in 2015.   The future will almost certainly have wind energy surpassing hydroelectric, as there are no substantial increases in hydroelectric dam construction, but wind-turbines are being built at a rapid pace in many states. 

Similarly, the next chart shows the US electricity production from coal (brown line) and from natural gas (green line), with coal production declining recently as natural gas production increases to match that of

coal.   As more and more coal-powered plants are closed in the coming decades, and clean-burning natural gas power plants are built in greater numbers, natural gas-derived power will easily surpass that from coal. 

Future Energy Sources

As stated before on SLB, great changes are coming for the US electricity grid, and soon.  Environmental regulations that prohibit toxic air emissions, and a lack of long-term supply are driving the closure of coal-fired power plants.   Also, the simple passing of years is making the US nuclear plants exceed their 40-year design lives, and many are shutting down before that benchmark as they can no longer compete to produce power profitably in the market.   Being old, they would require massive capital infusions to retain the level of safety required by the NRC, but they have too few years of life remaining to recoup those costs.  In the next decade, one can expect to see dozens, perhaps 50 or 60 nuclear plants shut down in the US.    Presently, nuclear produces approximately 65,000 to 70,000  GWh/month from 100 operating reactors. 

Fortunately, the US has more than sufficient wind resources to meet the power demand, as nuclear and coal plants are retired.   Some critics assert that wind is too variable, too unreliable to meet the grid's needs, but there are several answers to that.  First, existing natural gas power plants operate at only 29 percent capacity on an annual basis, or 29 percent capacity factor (per EIA data).   On days that have less than peak loads, which typically occur only in the hottest summer months, the existing natural gas power plants can increase output.  More natural gas power plants are required, though that is but one option, to meet the demand on the hottest days.  Another option is grid-scale storage, which can be accomplished by offshore pumped storage hydroelectric (PSH), or by the new polyacetylene batteries that were announced recently.   Yet another option is to store off-peak power, no matter what produces that power, in shore-based PSH plants as the Japanese did on Okinawa Island.  That PSH plant uses the ocean as the lower reservoir, and pumps seawater up into an artificial, lined lake on higher ground near the shore.  

Practicality

It must be noted that powering a grid with little coal and nuclear has already been done, with California an example, but there are others.  Presently, with only two reactors operating in California (at the Diablo Canyon plant), nuclear produces approximately 5 to 10 percent of the grid's needs.   As today for example, the California grid had a minimum demand at approximately 4:00 a.m. of 20 GW, and the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant was producing 2 GW, as it stubbornly refuses to reduce output even though demand is low.   During peak summer demand, which typically is approximately 45 GW, nuclear is a bit less than 5 percent.  Wind energy in California is modest, providing only approximately 15 percent of the grid's daily needs when the wind is strongest and demand is low, such as occurs in April weekends.  But, other states have much more wind as a percent of their overall power, with Iowa leading the nation at the moment at just over 31 percent of electricity produced by wind in 2015.  South Dakota had 25 percent, Kansas had 24 percent, and others are in double-digits.  

The future is more wind-turbines in states with sufficient wind resources (but not California, where there is much un-tapped solar in the desert).  The future is also more natural gas power plants.  The future also has far fewer nuclear and coal plants.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Subsidies for Wind vs Nuclear Power Plants

Subtitle: Wind-Turbine Projects Thriving Despite Only One Subsidy - Nuclear Dead With Six

Much is written about subsidies for renewable energy systems in the US, in particular for wind-turbine systems and solar power systems.  One blog, WUWT, recently ran a cartoon that is supposed to highlight the subsidies that are bestowed upon wind-turbines.  The

Wind Turbines in US

cartoon shows an angry, broken wind-turbine with smoke rising from the nacelle, red stains on the blades, and a dead bird near the tower's base.  There are also what appear to be two bags of cash near the tower's base, with the cash blowing in the wind.    The little broken turbine is given a name, "Subsidy Sam."  

The reality of wind-turbines is shown in the photo at right, clean, bird-free, and silently producing power. 

What is indisputable is that wind-turbines presently have a very small subsidy from government to encourage their construction and operation.  The subsidy exists as a choice between a one-time rebate of 30 percent of the installed cost, and a production tax credit of 1.5 cents per kWh sold that is adjusted for inflation.  Most plant owners elect the production tax credit.  

However, what is conveniently overlooked by the anti-wind crowd is that nuclear power plants, their favorite form of power generation, has far more, and far more costly forms of government subsidies.  The chart below illustrates the many forms of subsidy that the two forms of power generation presently have. 

For US Plants, as of 2016

Even with all the subsidies for nuclear plants, only four reactors are presently under construction in the US, two each at Vogtle and at Sumner.   Meanwhile, thousands of wind-turbines have been installed in recent years, with more thousands on the way.  In 2015 alone, 8,000 MW of wind-turbine power was installed in the US.   The nuclear plants under construction will be lucky indeed if they are started up within the next decade.  Within that decade, it is probable that another 80,000 to 100,000 MW of wind-turbines will be installed. 

For more details on the multiple subsidies enjoyed by nuclear power plants in the US, see this link to an SLB article, "US Nuclear Plants are Heavily Subsidized."

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California

copyrignt © 2016 by Roger Sowell, all rights reserved

Renewable Energy Innovations in the Private Sector

Subtitle:  An Open Letter to Secretary John Kerry re Renewable Energy Innovations 

"Government can provide the structure, the incentives, the framework.  But I know – and so do you – that it’s the private sector that will ultimately take us to the finish line.  And it will be the private sector – innovation, entrepreneurial activity, maybe something we haven’t discovered yet – the breakthrough on battery storage, a breakthrough on a clean fuel burn – I don’t know what it is, but I trust in the ingenuity and the capacity of the American people and of our allocation of capital and our capacity to make this work." -- Secretary of State John Kerry, Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit, Grand Hyatt Hotel, New York City, April 5, 2016.   

Dear Secretary Kerry, 

There are already several important innovations in the private sector that meet or surpass the criteria you described at the Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit on April 5..  Among them are the following seven innovations:

1) the patented process to convert human waste to clean-burning synthetic methane, invented by University of California at Riverside professor Dr. Chan Park; see link

2) the patented process to convert landfill-clogging municipal solid waste to useful energy, invented by Peter A. Nick and his team of Southern California chemical engineers; see link

3) an improved method to create ethanol from cellulose through genetically modified lignin in fast-growing poplar trees, so that much more of the cellulose converts to ethanol compared to unmodified trees, discovered and published by Dr. Rebecca Van Acker, see link  

4) offshore wind energy that stores the power, until it is needed, in underwater hydroelectric hollow spheres as invented by engineers at MIT; see link

5) much larger, 50 MW wind-turbines with blades that flex and fold to prevent damage, similar to the fronds on palm trees, as published by Sandia National Laboratory, see link,  

6) the patent-pending, vastly enhanced battery that uses modified polyacetylene invented by Nobel Prize-winning physicist Dr. Alan Heeger, from University of California at Santa Barbara. see link   and 

7) renewable energy via river-mouth osmosis, in which fresh water produces hydroelectric power before passing through osmosis membranes, then mixing with ocean water, see link. 

Each of these innovations would benefit from additional investment.  

I would be pleased to provide more details on any of these, or introductions to Dr. Park, and Mr. Pete Nick. 

Sincerely, 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq., BS Chemical Engineering
Marina del Rey, California
email rsowell@resowell-law.com


UPDATE 1 - 4/11/2016:  There may be a quibble about including an innovation from Sandia National Laboratory as a private sector item, but then, two of the items of this list are from public universities, which are state-supported.   MIT is private, Pete Nick is not affiliated with government, and the river-mouth osmosis technology is decades old and patented.  

Also, almost all of these innovations are related to chemical engineering, with the large wind turbine and the underwater storage spheres not.   

All but one are sustainable, renewable, and have essentially zero adverse environmental impact.  Dr Park's process uses organic solid material in a slurry form from waste treatment plants.  With 7 billion people on the planet, plus billions more animals, there will be no shortage of feedstock for Dr. Park's process. 

Pete Nick's process uses any organic waste material, from bio-medical hazardous wastes to organic wastes that would otherwise go into a landfill.  With the millions of tons of waste thrown away each year around the planet, there will be no shortage of feedstock for Mr. Nick's process, either. 

Dr. Van Acker's modified lignin process uses fast-growing poplar trees that can and do grow on hillsides and other marginal lands, so no valuable crop-producing lands are used.   Trees are, of course, the very definition of sustainable and renewable.  

Dr. Heeger's modified polyacetylene is a petrochemical, no doubt, but actylene is a byproduct of many chemical processes, one of which is ethylene production from steam cracking of ethane.  There will be no shortage of feedstock for Dr. Heeger's battery. 

The river-mouth osmosis process has some limitations with rivers near 300-foot deep ocean areas, but those are plentiful around the world.   A river is also entirely sustainable and renewable, as long as the rain falls somewhere in the river drainage area.  

The two that use wind-power are of course, forever renewable and sustainable.  

-- end update 1

Most Important Event of 2015

Subtitle: US Temperatures in Pristine Areas Show Massive Cooling

As the year 2016 has arrived and 2015 is gone, once again I take keyboard under fingers and review what, to me, were the important events of the year just past.  As I wrote at this time a year ago, (see link)  many other writers have already discussed what they view as the most important event or events of 2015.  This is a very common thing, reviewing the old year as the new year arrives.    The big event of 2014, in my opinion, was the weak peak of the solar cycle 24.  The implications for a much colder future are indeed grim.  

This article addresses briefly a half-dozen events (more or less) that made the news in 2015, in no particular order, then discusses the most important event of the year: Pristine areas in the US show a pronounced cooling - not a warming - over the past decade (see graph at right).  

Oil Price Collapse - this was on last year's review also; late in 2015 the price dropped to $35 per barrel, and OPEC could not agree on a production ceiling in 2015; unregulated production will create further glut of oil and price declines.   Energy-related industries will see reduced profits, and declines in employment, the further effects will see declines in real estate prices.  However, increased consumer spending and reduced operating costs for many industries that consume oil products will boost the economy.  

El Niño Begins - and skews the surface temperature record upward; the beginning of a strong El Niño event, perhaps the strongest such event on record, (Noting that "on record" is highly subjective, as it usually refers to modern scientists and their modern instruments that measure things like ocean surface temperatures in many places around the globe.  However, it is certainly true that local fishermen have longer records of the El Niño events, particularly along the fishing waters offshore western South America.)  Previous El Niño events produced a sudden increase, or step-change, in surface temperature records.  Scientists have a difficult (impossible?) time explaining how that is consistent with their insistence that carbon dioxide, CO2, is slowly but inexorably warming the planet.   The good news from an El Niño is the rain and snow that falls in the parched desert Southwest in North America.  Drought conditions will end.   The bad news is the severe flooding and storms, including tornadoes in other parts of the US.  World-wide, a big El Niño also creates droughts and crop failures, with the accompanying misery.  

Look for some, especially the false-alarmists, to claim that "the pause" is over now that El Niño is here and has increased the surface temperatures.    (Note, "false-alarmists" is my term of choice for describing those who fervently insist that global warming is man-made, is due to fossil-fuel burning, and will create catastrophes in the very near future.  The only "man-made" aspect of global warming is the man-adjusted data that the false-alarmists use to prove their point.)  

Coal Power Plants to Shut Down in US - coal-fired power plants in the US are now subject to the MATS rule from the US EPA, the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards.  The legal wrangling, while not finished, is sufficiently complete so that the timeframe has arrived at which the coal-fired plants must either comply, or shut down.   The EPA, though, has new proposed rules that are being challenged in court, this time to limit the CO2 produced from coal-burning power plants.   see link to my recent post on "Energy Supply in Post-Coal America."  The US is running out of domestic coal anyway, so it might as well begin the economic and development aspects of renewable energy with appropriate storage.  

Nuclear Plants Continue to Shut Down, and New Construction Woes - a favorite and frequent topic on SLB, nuclear power plants in the US continue the parade of shut-downs, while the feeble efforts at building new reactors continue to see set back upon set back, both in cost increases and schedules running longer and longer.   Despite all the clams of the nuclear advocates, some of whom clearly have no idea what they are talking about, nuclear power via the current best available technology, Pressurized Water Reactors (PWR), is too costly and takes too long to build to be economic in the US.  Overseas, where labor rates are far less, concerns over safety are far less, and there is great insecurity of alternate fuels such as coal and natural gas, nuclear plants are still being planned and built.  Woe to them, though, when the plants begin spewing forth the deadly radioactivity.  Woe to all of us who are in the downwind path of such deadly radiation.  

California Grid Is Fine at 31 Percent Wind, Solar - see link   Renewable energy supplies into a grid are not supposed to exceed 30 percent, however it is clear from the recent California experience that 30 percent is not a problem at all.  Grids that have substantial amounts of nuclear power, inflexible and stubbornly refusing to reduce output, will have the greatest problems.  California, though, now has only two nuclear reactors operating as two more reactors shut down a few years ago due to a completely botched steam generator replacement project (see link).   California's grid now must deal with nuclear baseload power at only 2,100 MWe, or just under 10 percent of the load at the lowest point each night.  During the peak loads in the summer of 50,000 MW, nuclear now is less than 5 percent of the load.  Economic, flexible gas-fired plants on the California grid make the integration of wind and solar, with their intermittent characteristics, much easier than on a grid that is supplied primarily by coal and nuclear.  

Off-shore Wind Turbines Under Construction - see link  construction began on the US' first off-shore wind turbine installation with 5 turbines, off the coast of Rhode Island.  Startup is expected in late 2016.  The project has 5 wind turbines of 6 MW each, for 30 MW maximum output.  It is a good first step, with many hundreds of similar, or even larger, turbines to follow.  Advantages of building off-shore include much stronger wind, more consistent wind, and no angry neighbors complaining about noise. 

On-shore Wind Turbines Height Increased - see link concrete towers instead of steel allows much higher wind turbines, making wind energy more economic and producing much more energy over a wider area.   Taller is better in the wind energy world, as the wind at greater heights is stronger, and more consistent. 

The most important event of 2015:

US Temperatures in Pristine Areas Show Great Cooling - see link  to the SLB article "US In A Cooling Trend - Winters Much Colder;"  2015 marked ten years of data collection from the USCRN, United States Climate Reference Network, of temperature measuring stations located in pristine areas of the US where man-made influences are zero, or very close to zero.  These stations require no adjustments for any of the usual reasons that allow the false-alarmists to manipulate the data and create a warming trend where none exists.  The results from the first 10 years of data show zero warming.  The US trend is minus 2.68 degrees C per century.    Only in the drought-stricken regions of the far West is there a slight warming trend.  However, all the winter seasons show a very rapid cooling.  The winter season cooling is at a rate of minus 10.9 degrees C per century.   

In the upcoming weeks, the data for all of 2015 will be available so the annual trend can be extended to 11 years.   By March, another winter can be added to the winter trend.   The El Niño will likely create a slightly warmer winter across the northern and eastern tier, but that will be but a small blip in the long-term.   It's very tough to show a warming without the influence of artificial structures, asphalt parking lots, air conditioner exhausts, and all the other issues that created a warming trend.   The false-alarmists no longer have a credible story on man-made global warming due to fossil fuel use.  

Indeed, the great concern for all of man-kind should be what to do about the entire Earth running out of coal, country by country, in 10 years, 20 years, and ultimately by 50 years from now.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq.
Marina del Rey, California
copyright (c) 2016 all rights reserved