Thanks for the Wind Farms

[meic]

The woodland opposite my house was harvested about a year ago, there is still no sign of replanting there. Nothing to do with windmills.

In this area the forestry has been hit by some disease which has killed off the spruce (rumour has it that oak is vulnerable too), those trees have been left standing and unharvested, even though crumbling to the touch and many falling over for years. Nothing to do with windmills except that particular bit of forestry with the rotten spruce is where we are about to have another 38 windmills built.

Everything else takes priority over forestry in the UK, the trees get the very last dregs of land that nobody else wants for anything else. To condemn windmills because they are taking a share of the least wanted land in the UK is clutching at straws.
The farmers fields around the forestry would be forestry too but they were good enough for growing crops or building houses, or roads or schools or siting conventional power stations and were felled years ago.

[meic]

Doing a bit of research, I find that it does appear to be the case that both my own Brechfa Forest windfarm and the Pen Y Cymoedd windfarm projects are on areas of woodland devastated by Phytophtora Ramorum. The money from renting the land is helping to provide funds for replanting, which is required (for the windfarm development) under the Environment (Wales) Act 2016.

So "No healthy trees were harmed in the making of this movie".

[Abradable Chin]

Of course at the present time, with much of the UK under a big anticyclone, with clear blue skies from horizon to horizon and barely a breath of wind (and I'm looking out of the window as I write this), wind power generation is going to be down on the yearly average. That's what the meaning of 'backup' is! We have fossil fuel generators to provide top-up when there isn't enough coming from the renewables.

A big issue here as I see it is that on a day like today we still require 99% of the fossil/nuclear generating plant that we required before solar panels and wind turbines were implemented to provide the 'top up'. As a result, the cost of electricity from conventional sources is going to eventually rise around 30-fold because it will still cost £100s of millions or billions to construct and maintain the plant, yet it will only be needed 10 days of the year. No one wants to invest in such an uncertain business as building power stations, so we re going to face a power shortage very soon.
If we want to use wind and solar power exclusively, we would need (guessing) 20x the current quantity, say, to give us a bit of over capacity, and some very large energy storage schemes, the technology and geography for which we don't have. There is talk of undersea pumped storage, but a lot of concrete would be needed, unless we can find subsea caves.
There's a conflict between capitalism and the environment that needs resolving. If we knew we were all going to die next month from catastrophe, money would become worthless, and we'd suddenly find we could mobilise/perform research/develop/build to the maximum of our abilities. As it is, civilisation is going to dwindle and die over a much longer period, and the cost of that is too heavily discounted.

[kwackers]

A big issue here as I see it is that on a day like today we still require 99% of the fossil/nuclear generating plant that we required before solar panels and wind turbines were implemented to provide the 'top up'.<snip>

It's always sunny / windy somewhere.
A better solution is to invest in a global power network - in fact I believe there are discussions along those lines.

Even without wind power the problem of intermittent supply will happen, solar cells will eventually be so cheap that the only people without them (and backup batteries ala Tesla) will be those with nowhere to put them. Nobody is going to pay top whack for most of their electricity when they can be mostly self sufficient and so I can't see how we can avoid the problem of intermittent demand / supply.

If you look at it that way wind power can fill in the gaps when it's not sunny, just as solar can fill in the gaps when it's not windy. Combine with local storage and you fill even more gaps.
It's a problem however you look at it, so we'd best get a move on and fix it rather than blaming wind power for creating an issue that's happening regardless.

[661-Pete]

There is another technology - pumped-storage hydroelectricity - which might offer a solution to the 'windless/sunless days' problem. I don't know enough about the subject to expand on this. The downside is that such a system requires a hilly or mountainous location, so is likely to be constructed in areas of natural beauty where it could be deemed an eyesore. But a non-polluting eyesore, at that!

A pity that there is only one such facility in the UK (Dinorweg). Other countries have more.

[Paulatic]

Abradable Chin wrote:
A big issue here as I see it is that on a day like today we still require 99% of the fossil/nuclear generating plant that we required before solar panels and wind turbines were implemented to provide the 'top up'.<snip>

On a day like today
Today at 7 pm

Living/working at near 1000ft for 30 years taught me those who rarely leave their 300ft abode have little appreciation how much wind is up there.

[ambodach]

661 Pete. Cruachan hydro station near Oban acts as a pump storage system and there is another on Loch Ness ( cannot remember the name just now) which also does pump storage. There may well be other smaller ones I do not know about.

[PDQ Mobile]

A pity that there is only one such facility in the UK (Dinorweg). Other countries have more.

Stwlan Dam near Blaenau Ffestiniog is also pumped storage.
It was built to store excess power from the now decommissioned Trawsfynedd Magnox reactor. But is still in operation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ffestin ... er_Station

[dodger]

Lots of talk about generating energy, but the best thing we could do is simply to use a lot less energy than we now do, particularly through much better insulation. If you live in a recently built house you will know how energy efficient they are.
Forget the nightmare of dealing with future nuclear waste, push on for more renewables, more insulation, reduced power usage.
PS
France can't export electricity at present because of ongoing problems with many of its nuclear reactors, so going nuclear is a chancy (and expensive) option. Anyone see the programme about waste storage at Sellafield? Multiply that many times over and we have a doomsday scenario bequeathed to our children, grandchildren etc - for the next 100,000 years.

[Abradable Chin]

the best thing we could do is simply to use a lot less energy than we now do, particularly through much better insulation.

CFL/LED lightbulbs have helped hugely to reduce electricity demand, but aren't the majority of houses heating using gas or oil?

[Cyril Haearn]

There is another technology - pumped-storage hydroelectricity - which might offer a solution to the 'windless/sunless days' problem. I don't know enough about the subject to expand on this. The downside is that such a system requires a hilly or mountainous location, so is likely to be constructed in areas of natural beauty where it could be deemed an eyesore. But a non-polluting eyesore, at that!

A pity that there is only one such facility in the UK (Dinorweg). Other countries have more.

There is another at Tan-y-grisiau.

[Cyril Haearn]

There is another technology - pumped-storage hydroelectricity - which might offer a solution to the 'windless/sunless days' problem. I don't know enough about the subject to expand on this. The downside is that such a system requires a hilly or mountainous location, so is likely to be constructed in areas of natural beauty where it could be deemed an eyesore. But a non-polluting eyesore, at that!

A pity that there is only one such facility in the UK (Dinorweg). Other countries have more.

[irc]

A big issue here as I see it is that on a day like today we still require 99% of the fossil/nuclear generating plant that we required before solar panels and wind turbines were implemented to provide the 'top up'.<snip>

It's always sunny / windy somewhere.
A better solution is to invest in a global power network - in fact I believe there are discussions along those lines.

Firstly on a European scale it isn't always windy somewhere.

Pan-European lulls in the wind stretching from Spain in the South to Sweden in the North, Britain to the West and Germany in the East are commonplace. The combined wind capacity of these six countries is 97.9 GW. On occasions the output from this gigantic resource falls below 3 GW, a load of 2.9%.

http://euanmearns.com/the-wind-in-spain-blows/

Secondly do you want the UK's electricity to depend on political events in the Sahara or elsewhere. Global isn't good for security of supply.

Even without wind power the problem of intermittent supply will happen, solar cells will eventually be so cheap that the only people without them (and backup batteries ala Tesla) will be those with nowhere to put them. Nobody is going to pay top whack for most of their electricity when they can be mostly self sufficient and so I can't see how we can avoid the problem of intermittent demand / supply..

At present solar energy is a parasite on the electricity grid. At low levels it doesn't matter. At high levels it causes huge problems. Best countered IMO by reducing the grid cost to the consumer per unit of leccy but increasing the standing charge. Much of the cost of electricity is the cost of running the grid and having backup power on tap. So if people want to be off grid they can go off grid. If they want to be part of the grid everyone else pays for then the tarrifs need to reflect that.

Nevada has recognised this.

On December 23, 2015, the Nevada State Legislature passed Senate Bill 374, following which the state Public Utilities Commission cut the rate payable to owners of domestic solar installations who sell surplus power to Nevada Energy. The rationale was that intermittent solar power sold to the NV Energy grid “differs from” the dispatchable power the grid sells back and that domestic solar owners were getting paid too much for the former and not paying enough for the latter:

http://euanmearns.com/net-metering-and- ... top-solar/


We didn't have the problem until we built so much subsidised wind and solar. So we can avoid it getting worse by not subsidising them and not building any more. So we could go back to a mix of coal/gas/nuclear/hydro. Problem solved.

[irc]

There is another technology - pumped-storage hydroelectricity - which might offer a solution to the 'windless/sunless days' problem. I don't know enough about the subject to expand on this. The downside is that such a system requires a hilly or mountainous location, so is likely to be constructed in areas of natural beauty where it could be deemed an eyesore. But a non-polluting eyesore, at that!

A pity that there is only one such facility in the UK (Dinorweg). Other countries have more.

There is another at Tan-y-grisiau.

And another a Cruachan near Oban. To compensate for a long lull in wind though we would need far more.

Dinorwig stores 9 GWh. In the absence of any other power it would power the UK for about 20 minutes before the reservoir was empty. Current UK demand is 42GWh

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

[kwackers]

Firstly on a European scale it isn't always windy somewhere.

I'm pretty sure I said "global".

Secondly do you want the UK's electricity to depend on political events in the Sahara or elsewhere. Global isn't good for security of supply.

Where do you think most of our energy comes from? Gas from Russia, electricity from various places even the raw materials for energy generation come from other countries (including uranium) so I'm not sure what your great plan for energy independence is but I doubt we're capable of it without some outside help.
I realise it's populist idea these days for countries to be "great" and "independent" but the reality is we're dependent on global supplies of everything from energy through food and resources and despite the right wing twaddle that's not about to change. If we can't negotiate energy from other places then we're pretty much screwed anyway.

At present solar energy is a parasite on the electricity grid. At low levels it doesn't matter. At high levels it causes huge problems. Best countered IMO by reducing the grid cost to the consumer per unit of leccy but increasing the standing charge. Much of the cost of electricity is the cost of running the grid and having backup power on tap. So if people want to be off grid they can go off grid. If they want to be part of the grid everyone else pays for then the tarrifs need to reflect that.

Won't be long before it becomes cheap enough to go off grid for a lot of people. Economies of scale mean those left on the grid will pay more for their power. I wonder which social group will be more likely to go off grid? The poor???
Here's a better idea. An integrated energy system, we're still a long way from producing too much solar energy so I wouldn't worry too much - as for "parasite" it's a bizarre word that means nothing in this context. At their current levels solar panels feed into the grid with no problems therefore the term is nonsense.

As for Nevada, so what? Reducing the FIT only matters whilst solar is more expensive than conventional power. That's pretty much past now, even if there was no FIT solar can provide power pretty cheaply, the issue is storage and for domestic supplies that's fast becoming a reality.

We didn't have the problem until we built so much subsidised wind and solar. So we can avoid it getting worse by not subsidising them and not building any more. So we could go back to a mix of coal/gas/nuclear/hydro. Problem solved.

No we simply had/have a completely different set of problems.