Thread: Hydro vs. Wind Power Industries

It mainly shows that the network doesn't have enough capacity to transport the electricity to another region.

Temporarily shutting down plants because of network/demand/supply issues is pretty common. Any utility company isn't happy when their best plants are sitting idle. Be it hydro, wind, coal, gas, nuclear...

Also note the article says "shut down the wind farms for nearly 200 hours over 38 days" (that's 22%). If the region network is good that means that in that period we didn't have to burn fossil fuels for power. That's very good news. Even though those 200 hours are probably at night when demand is low.

I agree about the distribution.

My complaint is that we(taxpayers) are paying someone to not produce electricity while we(consumers) are paying for electricity. It's a waste of tax dollars. They should have a clause in the agreements between the energy producers and the state utility controlling agency that allows for shutting down electricity production during times where energy is overproduced. The current policy masks the true costs of this RE energy.

Originally Posted by Texan

2. What is the best way out of this mess?

Natural Gas.

We are awash in Natural Gas with enough to last us for many decades (or until we find a better way to make energy). And now China has found that they have a 200 year supply of Natural Gas which means we won't have to be so focused on energy efficiency in order to save energy for China.

Kramer

Originally Posted by Texan

I agree about the distribution.

.....

I’ve worked on several projects in the electric sector. In each and every one of them the various plants would start up and shut down depending on the demand.

What we need is more transmission lines ( in the power world transmission is the long distance, high voltage movement of electrical power and distribution is localized movement of power at lower voltages). These lines need to be integrated into a North American wide grid that would optimize the production of power by utilizing the lowest cost sources of production first and leaving the high cost sources for use only in peak demands.

There is significant costs associated with this, the cost of the lines is significant as can be the line losses.

However almost everyone I have talked to in the electrical sector supports a larger more integrated electrical grid. We could for example put nuclear plants in the sparsely populated western states like Nevada and transmit power to the West coast as well to the east. The massive amounts of hydro potential in the Canadian north could be brought on line and sold to the more densely populated regions.

Originally Posted by kramer

We are awash in Natural Gas with enough to last us for many decades (or until we find a better way to make energy)......

We have a better way to make electricity.

Nuclear is by far the safest method out there.

from Deaths per TWH by energy source

Energy Source Death Rate (deaths per TWh)

Coal – world average 161 (26% of world energy, 50% of electricity)
Coal – China 278
Coal – USA 15
Oil 36 (36% of world energy)
Natural Gas 4 (21% of world energy)
Biofuel/Biomass 12
Peat 12
Solar (rooftop) 0.44 (less than 0.1% of world energy)
Wind 0.15 (less than 1% of world energy)
Hydro 0.10 (europe death rate, 2.2% of world energy)
Hydro - world including Banqiao) 1.4 (about 2500 TWh/yr and 171,000 Banqiao dead)
Nuclear 0.04 (5.9% of world energy)


Natural Gas is 100 time the number of fatalities per unit of power produced than nuclear.

It also produces less pollution.

Oh RDK...a statistical fatality calcualtion... A meaningless statistic that provide no meaningful context to the issue.
You just have to look at the result to know who paid for the study that produced such wonderful products of mixing data to fabricate a "fact".

Nuclear is expensive and corrupting the political cutlure. The waste magagement is an ever increasing burden for the society, that will need to passen on for generations.
Furthermore, the continuation of institutionalized nuclear lobbys like the IAEA or EURATOM,... is part of problems like we witness in Iran right now.
You can't disconnect spreading nuclear power around the globe and the threat of proliferation of dual-use technologies.

-------------------

On the topic of this threat.
The problem is caused by renewables not being utilized in a efficent way.
Renewable energy has a low energy density, but a gigantic potential. The inefficancy starts by pushing renewable generation into the paradigm of conventional electricity generation => centralized production.
It's neither smart nor neccessary to have massive centralized renewable energy generation to supply decentralized consumption.
Further more it's not economically for the consumers. That doesn't mean, that renewables aren't economically.

The state of technology has progressed to a point, that decentralized application of renewables technologies produces electricity significantly cheaper than coal, gas or uranium from the grid.
The question is simple:
1. Who can make use of this in a profitable way?
2. And how do you organize the installation of the required decentralized regional infrastructure?

1. Well it's definatly not very profitable to replace coal, gas & uranium energy by renewables, when your company (utility/energy corporation) is also involved in mining, transportation, enrichment and distribution.
It's actually a threat to the self-interessts of such corporation, if a huge part of their old investments in the neccessary supply chain to produce&distribute conventional energy aren't completly paid off.
In such a case, increasing renewable capacities decreases their profits, no matter how cheap the electricity from a windmill is.

2. Having that in mind, it makes the most sense for the consumers themselves to become energy producers. Investments in renewables do not require that much capital, so the barrier to get into this buisness isn't as high as with conventional energy production, that requires huge investments and an entire supply chain. A modern windturbine can produce electricity at relativly low wind speeds.
For example the Enercon E-101 from 2011 is such a low-wind speed turbine that has a capacity of 3MW. It costs about $5-7 million Dollar and produces electricity at $0.03-0.06 per kWh.
It is a gearless, low maintainance design, the generator cooling system uses the heat to prevent icing in winter...



If you got a factory that has constant demand of more than 3MW, you could build one of those immediatly and enjoy cheap energy whenever the wind allows it.
That company could save alot of cash, even in the US where energy is (kept) rather cheap.

A utility on the other hand, has no desire to install such a system...
For the company / community that installs something like that by themselvs it's cost efficent, increases the value added in their region/of their products and they life the spirt of independence.

Originally Posted by RDK

We have a better way to make electricity.

Nuclear is by far the safest method out there.

Maybe but look what happened to Japan's nuclear reactor after the earthquake. If they can make these reactors fail proof, then I would agree with you.
But then, there is the issue of what do we do with the nuclear waste that stays radioactive for thousands of years.

Originally Posted by RDK

Natural Gas is 100 time the number of fatalities per unit of power produced than nuclear.

It also produces less pollution.

The byproduct of burning natural gas (CO2) isn't pollution. It's food for plants and trees.


Kramer

Originally Posted by Texan

Wind Farms In Pacific Northwest Paid To Not Produce | Fox News

Cliff's notes: Too much energy is being produced by RE industries during certain seasons. Wind energy providers were upset that they were forced to shut down and damage their profits. Meanwhile, the hydro industry is afraid they will lose their relevance if they are forced to shut down and are claiming that stopping hydro production would damage the salmon in the water. The tax payers are now subsidizing the wind industry to not produce electricity.

The tax payers are paying the government to not have electricity while they pay the energy companies to provide electricity.

2 questions:

1. Whose fault is this mess?

2. What is the best way out of this mess?

This isn't intended to be an elephant vs. donkey thing. I'm just curious what kind of answers we can come up with.

1. Lobby groups for the coal industry and corporate influence

2. Make lobby groups illegal and greatly restrict access that big business has to elected officials

Originally Posted by Texan

...

1. Whose fault is this mess?

2. What is the best way out of this mess?

....

1. Liberals, since they don't trust the free market.
2. Trust the free market.

Originally Posted by Damn Yankee

1. Liberals, since they don't trust the free market.
2. Trust the free market.

Is the energy market free? And if you should say "yes", please define the characteristics of a free market.

Originally Posted by El_Zoido

Is the energy market free? And if you should say "yes", please define the characteristics of a free market.

A market economy based on supply and demand with little or no government control. A completely free market is an idealized form of a market economy where buyers and sellers are allowed to transact freely (i.e. buy/sell/trade) based on a mutual agreement on price without state intervention in the form of taxes, subsidies or regulation.

Read more: Free Market Definition | Investopedia

Energy is not, but it should be.

Indeed. It's not...
So wouldn't it be best to establish a market based energy system?
Shouldn't the energy sector be reset & transformed from it's disfunctional over regulated, subsidie feed nature into a (more) free makert based system?

Because historically the causes of / incentive for state-intervention/regulations have always been disputes. National regulations usually come from disputes / conflict of interessts between regional entities. Local regulations comes from disputes between local legal entities (citizens, companies, ...)
Since disputes don't disapear by simply removing the regulations within a disfunctional system, the cause of the dispute has to be removed to ensure a functioning market without regulation...
At least it would be naive to believe that disputes would disapear, when simply removing the regulation... especially without causing significant harm to the conditions of a republic.
If you say can follow my line of thought, wouldn't you agree, that a decentralized energy supply without the elemental neccessastiy dependencies is the best way to remove the incentives for state intervention?

If you would have a really free market energy sector, wouldn't that also require the possibility of any town or even an individual citizen to be able to provide all their energy by themselves?
Since independence is just that = not being dependent. And independence is the essence of economic freedom, isn't it?

So you agree with me that the free market is the way to fix this.