Wind farms - the truth please

[Fleegle]

I'm all for recovering energy from natural resources, in this case the wind. But the thing that gets my goat is the manipulation of the facts and the bending of the truth to suit the 'green' arguement

Can anyone here give me the true figures on recovery time in terms of energy amorization for one windmill. I have read a few snippets of info from various sources that claim between 3-6 months, which seems a small amount of time when you take into consideration the journey the raw material will take before it even goes through the smelting process

Links would be helpful too

[RedWhiteMonkey]

There seems to be two schools of thought on these windfarms. One says they are wonderful and are the future, providing lots of their own evidence to support their claims. The other says they are rubbish and a big con, providing lots of their own evidence to support their claims. I've yet to see any truly unbiased argument and evidence.

[CanadianScot]

I don't think the people that install them are worried at all about the actual green side to it, more the feeding tariff.

[Oakey]

There's a good link in one of the other threads about one of the huge windfarms being built off the Norfolk coast by Scandinavian companies for EDF who will then sell the energy back to us for a ridiculous price. Good business model isn't it? Paying the French for energy supplied by our wind. Well, obviously not for us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004971/Ma...

Edited by Oakey on Monday 20th June 20:17

[Parrot of Doom]

Ask yourself if any of them would be built without subsidies.

[RedWhiteMonkey]

Oakey said:

There's a good link in one of the other threads about one of the huge windfarms being built off the Norfolk coast by Scandinavian companies for EDF who will then sell the energy back to us for a ridiculous price. Good business model isn't it? Paying the French for energy supplied by our wind. Well, obviously not for us.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2004971/Ma...

Edited by Oakey on Monday 20th June 20:17

The Daily Mail as a source of unbiased evidence, really?

[Oakey]

RedWhiteMonkey said:

The Daily Mail as a source of unbiased evidence, really?

So these companies aren't building these windfarms then?

Scira said:

The wind farm is owned equally by Statoil and Statkraft through joint-venture company Scira Offshore Energy Limited. Statoil is operator for the project during the development phase and Scira will be the wind farm operator. This project will draw on know-how from Statoil’s longstanding offshore activities and Statkraft’s expertise in relation to renewable energy.

Is their website more credible then?

http://www.scira.co.uk/

[Eggman]

The government should knock the subsidised tariffs on the head.

I suspect all the turbines would flutter away to the steel mills of China very quickly indeed.

[Burrito]

Interesting article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-12985410

article said:

Statements made by the wind industry and government agencies commonly assert that wind turbines will generate on average 30% of their rated capacity over a year, it said.

But the research found wind generation was below 20% of capacity more than half the time and below 10% of capacity over one third of the time

[RedWhiteMonkey]

Oakey said:

RedWhiteMonkey said:

The Daily Mail as a source of unbiased evidence, really?

So these companies aren't building these windfarms then?

Scira said:

The wind farm is owned equally by Statoil and Statkraft through joint-venture company Scira Offshore Energy Limited. Statoil is operator for the project during the development phase and Scira will be the wind farm operator. This project will draw on know-how from Statoil’s longstanding offshore activities and Statkraft’s expertise in relation to renewable energy.

Is their website more credible then?

http://www.scira.co.uk/

I'm not saying that The Daily Mail link is wrong in terms of them building the windfarm in that location, that's simply a matter of fact. What I'm referring to is what said in first post, that there is very little unbiased argument and evidence on windfarms. Unsurprisingly The Daily Mail is generally against these things without any obvious supporting evidence. I'm genuinely interested in the pros and cons of windfarms as I'm undecided on them as a general idea. Of course there will be bad sites for them, just as there will be good sites for them. I can't see them ever really providing major electricity but do wonder whether they have a valid role to play in the future.

[Oakey]

It's been discussed to death in the climate change threads.

[thinfourth2]

Big wind turbines feeding directly into the grid

I'm far from convinced as to their worth as they can't compensate for peaks and troughs in demand


Small turbines feeding battery banks to supplement the power for a house

I think they are a wise way to go as they will reduce the baseload of the house

[Fleegle]

My question isn't about subsidies or whether they are good or bad, but simply what the break even point is of energy used to manufacture (from the mining of the raw material) to the energy produced to offset that amount

[F i F]

Parrot of Doom said:

Ask yourself if any of them would be built without subsidies.

The money post on the thread.

[s2art]

Fleegle said:

My question isn't about subsidies or whether they are good or bad, but simply what the break even point is of energy used to manufacture (from the mining of the raw material) to the energy produced to offset that amount

It will be a lot longer than their proponents claim. What is rarely mentioned is the reduced efficiency of the back-up generators when dealing with the highly variable power output of the windmills.

[AlfaFoxtrot]

http://www.withouthotair.com/

Couple of chapters on wind power, well worth a read for a well explained breakdown of what using lots of wind power means for the UK. In short, it's fine if you build enough storage capacity alongside (i.e. massively increase the amount of pumped storage, or have bigger interconnectors to nearby countries). The pumped storage however, is pretty expensive (and the turbines themselves are not desperately cheap - particularly offshore, which is what you would want to give the most reliable energy supply). And the problem if you skimp on energy storage solutions is of course that you need gas power stations that can be ramped up quickly enough to cope with a lull in the wind. Which damages the green credentials a bit, but (politically) more importantly, is frickin expensive as they aren't being used a lot of the time.

edit - got a bit sidetracked there, IIRC he also analyses the energy cost of them. It's not that bad tbh!

Edited by AlfaFoxtrot on Monday 20th June 21:01

[Otispunkmeyer]

I heard it could take 7 years for one windmill running 24/7/365 to make back the co2 produced in making it. Cant back that up as its just an anecdote.

What's more they don't work when its not windy, don't work when its too windy and need more maintainence than say a steam turbine in a power station.

IMO they will never provide the base load the country needs. This will rest at the feet of the steam turbine generator set. These things are huge and incredibly efficient at extracting work from steam, they are ideal for the job it's just a question of what generates the steam.

[dandarez]

The truth?
One word: Subsidies.

The other truth?
Bob Dylan.

'The answer my friend is ...'

[don4l]

If you want to know the truth about the costs of renewable energy, why not ask the man who make the most money out of it?

He gave a talk at the Heartland Institute last year. Unfortunately, their web site is crap, so I cannot post a direct link. You will need to scroll down the page to Leyland M.Sc., Bryan. However, if you click on this link, then you will learn what someone who makes money out of the AGW scare really thinks. It is VERY illuminating.
http://www.heartland.org/environmentandclimate-new...

Don
--

ETA the link. Doh!

Edited by don4l on Tuesday 21st June 11:41

[nelly1]