RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
NO...Because it is intermittent, wind can not be relied upon for use in the on- demand part of the power supply. The wind might die just when you need it. Therefore, if it is in the base supply, and the wind dies, the on-demand stuff such as gas turbine supply can kick in to make up the deficit. The wind generators spread through the Pyrenees in Spain cover such a large geographical area, that I would assume that there would be a fairly constant average production. This, IMO, would work well in the base power production, and would obviate any need to try to engineer storage solutions. Any storage mechanism I have ever seen was quite wasteful of power. They only were of use because they made use of 'waste power' during times of low use. If the swings in power consumption can be minimized, and the use of on-demand power optimized, there would be little need for storage. For the home producer of wind power, then some form of storage would be needed, or use of the grid as a large 'battery', since one would be dependent upon a single wind generator. For when the wind dies, one would need the storage backup or an alternate source of power, such as a biodiesel fueled generator. Derek Derek Derek intermittent power by its very nature cannot be used for base. Wind can displace gas turbine power because the gas turbine can quickly fill the gap if the wind drops. Kirk -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 4:16 AM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story My understnding is that in most places in the world they use the cheapest form of electricity in the base. Then, as demand increases, they add more expensive forms. So...they have a large base of hydro and coal. As demand increases in the summer, they might add gas turbine generated electricity to meet this peak demand. My feeling on wind power is that you would never need to worry about storage. Just feed it into the base use of electricity. Try to build it up to a relatively large percentage of total use. However, you wouldn't try to make it 100%. Maybe 80% of peak use, covering the valleys. Then, supplement with biodiesel fired generators, or some other source, for the final 20% or so. No need for storage, and all demands are met with renewables. Where my in-laws live in Spain, they are attaining approvimately 20% of the region's electrical demand from wind generation. Another percentage comes from burning straw/hay in a power plant. The remainder of need on top of this comes from various non-renewable sources, which hopefully will be diminished. Derek On Sat, 17 May 2003 12:20 am, Bryan Brah wrote: As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. actually, any environmentally derived power has this problem, potentially. specifically, the amount of power cannot be shifted to meet demand arbitrarily. so, we can either store the power, over provision, or change our lifestyles to match the available power not mutually exclusive ofcourse. personally I think we need to do all three. :-) storing power is actually relatively easy. batteries are fine but lossy and environmentally troublesome, but they work. energy density is a serious problem here... I beileve (from memory) that zinc is a reasonable material for storage of electrical power. better from my pov is PV decomp of water then use the Sabtier Reaction (reverse water gas) to make methane from H2 + CO2 over Pt hotwire or Alumina supported catalyst. - or just store the H2 - though this has other problems. when you want to use the power pass the methane or H2 through a fuel cell, keeping the reaction products for the charging cycle... :-) liquid fuel self presurising battery! -- Dr Paul van den Bergen Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures caia.swin.edu.au [EMAIL PROTECTED] IM:bulwynkl2002 And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. They say it is to see how the world was made. Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms
Re: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
My understnding is that in most places in the world they use the cheapest form of electricity in the base. Then, as demand increases, they add more expensive forms. So...they have a large base of hydro and coal. As demand increases in the summer, they might add gas turbine generated electricity to meet this peak demand. My feeling on wind power is that you would never need to worry about storage. Just feed it into the base use of electricity. Try to build it up to a relatively large percentage of total use. However, you wouldn't try to make it 100%. Maybe 80% of peak use, covering the valleys. Then, supplement with biodiesel fired generators, or some other source, for the final 20% or so. No need for storage, and all demands are met with renewables. Where my in-laws live in Spain, they are attaining approvimately 20% of the region's electrical demand from wind generation. Another percentage comes from burning straw/hay in a power plant. The remainder of need on top of this comes from various non-renewable sources, which hopefully will be diminished. Derek On Sat, 17 May 2003 12:20 am, Bryan Brah wrote: As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. actually, any environmentally derived power has this problem, potentially. specifically, the amount of power cannot be shifted to meet demand arbitrarily. so, we can either store the power, over provision, or change our lifestyles to match the available power not mutually exclusive ofcourse. personally I think we need to do all three. :-) storing power is actually relatively easy. batteries are fine but lossy and environmentally troublesome, but they work. energy density is a serious problem here... I beileve (from memory) that zinc is a reasonable material for storage of electrical power. better from my pov is PV decomp of water then use the Sabtier Reaction (reverse water gas) to make methane from H2 + CO2 over Pt hotwire or Alumina supported catalyst. - or just store the H2 - though this has other problems. when you want to use the power pass the methane or H2 through a fuel cell, keeping the reaction products for the charging cycle... :-) liquid fuel self presurising battery! -- Dr Paul van den Bergen Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures caia.swin.edu.au [EMAIL PROTECTED] IM:bulwynkl2002 And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. They say it is to see how the world was made. Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Derek, Unfortunately it is a misconception that hydroelectric is large. It is very few countries today, that have more than 10% of electricity generation from hydroelectric. In developing countries the peak demand is around meal times. In developed countries the peak demands are more complicated and include industries/offices. Bad engineering principles in the construction sector, creates exuberated peak demands in developed countries and some developing countries. By changing this, a lot could be achieved. It is an enormous storage capacity in the mass of our buildings. The problem for the energy industry is that it is a very large potential saving, that would have significant effects on their sales. Because of use of nuclear, it could be beneficial with larger storage and it is already a large waste because of lack of it. You are right in feeding it to the grid, because it is probably the most efficient way to gain from spread of use and utilization of storage capacity. The situation is that it needs a lot of work to solve the problems, but do it trough the grid is probably best. If I judge the movement of electricity supply, it is already preparing for diversified supply from combined consumers/producers. In future the management of the grid and storage will be the primary responsibility for present electricity suppliers, production of electricity will be diversified from many large and small sources. This is already happening. Again, the problems are more of political than technical nature. Protection of companies bottom line by liaisons with politicians and propaganda, inhibits many ready for use technologies. The strategy is to focus the discussion around future possible silver bullet solutions and by that avoid what already could be done today. Hakan At 10:16 AM 5/19/2003 +, you wrote: My understnding is that in most places in the world they use the cheapest form of electricity in the base. Then, as demand increases, they add more expensive forms. So...they have a large base of hydro and coal. As demand increases in the summer, they might add gas turbine generated electricity to meet this peak demand. My feeling on wind power is that you would never need to worry about storage. Just feed it into the base use of electricity. Try to build it up to a relatively large percentage of total use. However, you wouldn't try to make it 100%. Maybe 80% of peak use, covering the valleys. Then, supplement with biodiesel fired generators, or some other source, for the final 20% or so. No need for storage, and all demands are met with renewables. Where my in-laws live in Spain, they are attaining approvimately 20% of the region's electrical demand from wind generation. Another percentage comes from burning straw/hay in a power plant. The remainder of need on top of this comes from various non-renewable sources, which hopefully will be diminished. Derek On Sat, 17 May 2003 12:20 am, Bryan Brah wrote: As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. actually, any environmentally derived power has this problem, potentially. specifically, the amount of power cannot be shifted to meet demand arbitrarily. so, we can either store the power, over provision, or change our lifestyles to match the available power not mutually exclusive ofcourse. personally I think we need to do all three. :-) storing power is actually relatively easy. batteries are fine but lossy and environmentally troublesome, but they work. energy density is a serious problem here... I beileve (from memory) that zinc is a reasonable material for storage of electrical power. better from my pov is PV decomp of water then use the Sabtier Reaction (reverse water gas) to make methane from H2 + CO2 over Pt hotwire or Alumina supported catalyst. - or just store the H2 - though this has other problems. when you want to use the power pass the methane or H2 through a fuel cell, keeping the reaction products for the charging cycle... :-) liquid fuel self presurising battery! -- Dr Paul van den Bergen Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures caia.swin.edu.au [EMAIL PROTECTED] IM:bulwynkl2002 And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. They say it is to see how the world was made. Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives:
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
intermittent power by its very nature cannot be used for base. Wind can displace gas turbine power because the gas turbine can quickly fill the gap if the wind drops. Kirk -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, May 19, 2003 4:16 AM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story My understnding is that in most places in the world they use the cheapest form of electricity in the base. Then, as demand increases, they add more expensive forms. So...they have a large base of hydro and coal. As demand increases in the summer, they might add gas turbine generated electricity to meet this peak demand. My feeling on wind power is that you would never need to worry about storage. Just feed it into the base use of electricity. Try to build it up to a relatively large percentage of total use. However, you wouldn't try to make it 100%. Maybe 80% of peak use, covering the valleys. Then, supplement with biodiesel fired generators, or some other source, for the final 20% or so. No need for storage, and all demands are met with renewables. Where my in-laws live in Spain, they are attaining approvimately 20% of the region's electrical demand from wind generation. Another percentage comes from burning straw/hay in a power plant. The remainder of need on top of this comes from various non-renewable sources, which hopefully will be diminished. Derek On Sat, 17 May 2003 12:20 am, Bryan Brah wrote: As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. actually, any environmentally derived power has this problem, potentially. specifically, the amount of power cannot be shifted to meet demand arbitrarily. so, we can either store the power, over provision, or change our lifestyles to match the available power not mutually exclusive ofcourse. personally I think we need to do all three. :-) storing power is actually relatively easy. batteries are fine but lossy and environmentally troublesome, but they work. energy density is a serious problem here... I beileve (from memory) that zinc is a reasonable material for storage of electrical power. better from my pov is PV decomp of water then use the Sabtier Reaction (reverse water gas) to make methane from H2 + CO2 over Pt hotwire or Alumina supported catalyst. - or just store the H2 - though this has other problems. when you want to use the power pass the methane or H2 through a fuel cell, keeping the reaction products for the charging cycle... :-) liquid fuel self presurising battery! -- Dr Paul van den Bergen Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures caia.swin.edu.au [EMAIL PROTECTED] IM:bulwynkl2002 And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. They say it is to see how the world was made. Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824 Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --- Incoming mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.476 / Virus Database: 273 - Release Date: 4/24/2003 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
On Sat, 17 May 2003 12:20 am, Bryan Brah wrote: As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. actually, any environmentally derived power has this problem, potentially. specifically, the amount of power cannot be shifted to meet demand arbitrarily. so, we can either store the power, over provision, or change our lifestyles to match the available power not mutually exclusive ofcourse. personally I think we need to do all three. :-) storing power is actually relatively easy. batteries are fine but lossy and environmentally troublesome, but they work. energy density is a serious problem here... I beileve (from memory) that zinc is a reasonable material for storage of electrical power. better from my pov is PV decomp of water then use the Sabtier Reaction (reverse water gas) to make methane from H2 + CO2 over Pt hotwire or Alumina supported catalyst. - or just store the H2 - though this has other problems. when you want to use the power pass the methane or H2 through a fuel cell, keeping the reaction products for the charging cycle... :-) liquid fuel self presurising battery! -- Dr Paul van den Bergen Centre for Advanced Internet Architectures caia.swin.edu.au [EMAIL PROTECTED] IM:bulwynkl2002 And some run up hill and down dale, knapping the chucky stones to pieces wi' hammers, like so many road makers run daft. They say it is to see how the world was made. Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well 1824 Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Bryan, It looks like an enormous storage problem if you look at any energy system on its own, but if we look at combinations and better usage technologies it might be better. Hydroelectric is already today using pumping of water to storage reservoirs and it is economical. Excess water must either be wasted or pumped and the pumping is the done with energy that otherwise would not be used. For excess capacity wind and solar, it is the same case. We are not talking about efficiency, we are talking about recuperation from waste. Hydrogen produced from this excess capacity is the same thing. On the energy usage side is very large possibilities for the heating/cooling. If you read what we are saying on our site about storage/emission and body system, it is very large savings to be done and reduction of peak demands. It is very much to be done on this side. Solar power does cover peak demands for countries, where offices and industries have large demands during day time. The best system for this is to let users feed it to the grid and make it a part of the peak demand coverage and storage procedures. In this case it could also go towards hydrogen production. Hydroelectric dams would be a renewable resource that can be combined with provider for energy storage. It is no longer necessary to only see it as producer from natural rivers etc. But all of this is large projects for large corporations and those who can afford it is the industrialized countries. I think that it is very important to start diversified biofuel production in all countries and especially the developing ones. It is to extract the solar power in biological form and then refine it as fuels. I have said this many times and it is both affordable and advantageous for developing countries. It is many possibilities and it is possible to do very good energy planning for the future. An energy plan that do not have biofuels as one of the key elements, is not a plan for the people, it is a plan for the corporations. Hakan At 09:20 AM 5/16/2003 -0500, you wrote: As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. Currently electricity generated by wind comprises a small fraction of total MW's produced, so it can be easily absorbed into the current system. When wind power represents a significant percentage, there will be serious problems meeting peak demand. We use more electricity during the day than at night, but the wind blows... whenever it blows. That is the biggest single advantage that fossil fuels have over wind; capacity is scaleable. Need more power, burn more coal. Pumped hydro is one method to store the energy from wind, (and it doesn't have to be a dam it can be a closed system with tanks). Unfortunately converting electricity to mechanical force and back to electricity is not very efficient. Other options are capacitor banks and batteries, both are very expensive and add to the overall cost of wind power. Using wind to split hydrogen is a good idea, but doesn't solve current electricity needs since most people don't have fuel cells. Furthermore, in order to make hydrogen from water, you have to have water, which eliminates many of the areas with the good wind resources. Most of the land in west Texas and the panhandle is devoid of surface water, and requires deep wells (sometimes over 300 feet deep) to tap ground water. So the pickle is that we have all this free energy, but it is inconsistent and inconvenient to integrate into our current infrastructure. Fortunately we have a long way to go before wind generated electricity comprises even 10% of our total production. Hopefully this will be enough time for us to solve the storage problem. -BRAH -Original Message- From: Kim Nguyen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 5:59 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Wind has its own unique set of pros and cons like everything else...and I see it as a vital component to a sustainable and balanced energy portfolio for the world. Unfortunately, wind's geographic distribution and intermency make it difficult to integrate into electrical grids whose cost and stability are based on distances to load centers and schedulability of the generating resource...neither of which wind is particularly great at...some say that wind can provide up to 10-20% of a control area's generating resource without causing load-resource balancing problems (electrical control areas are balanced every two seconds to maintain 60 hertz, any deviation is typically corrected by electrical units on Automatic Generating Control, i.e. units that have the reserve capacity to almost instantaneously increase or decrease output to keep the system balanced). What geographically remote and highly concentrated wind is good for is to generate the electricity needed for the electrolyis of water
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
http://www.enn.com/news/2003-05-16/s_4482.asp GE's move into wind power business seen as significant 16 May 2003 By John Christoffersen, Associated Press FAIRFIELD, Conn. - General Electric Co. is injecting some pinstriped corporate muscle into the still-evolving world of wind power. A year after its purchase of Enron Corp.'s wind turbine business, GE expects the operation to generate more than $1 billion in revenue during 2003 and expand about 20 percent annually. GE Wind Energy has landed several major orders, including turbines for a project that would be the first offshore wind farm in the United States. As a major supplier to the electric power industry, GE's lead is closely watched. The purchase of the wind manufacturing company by GE is really a historic move that symbolizes the maturation of the wind industry, said Randall Swisher, executive director of the American Wind Energy Association. The company's foray into wind energy comes as its Power Systems Division, which makes traditional gas turbines for power plants, is on the down side of a very long business cycle. GE has laid off hundreds of workers at its turbine plants, shipments are down, and the near-term outlook is weak. At the same time, wind power - which in the past often involved smaller companies - has become one of the fastest growing segments of the global energy industry. Wind turbine sales represents a $7 billion business globally and should grow to about $20 billion in the next five to 10 years, Swisher said. The market has been doubling about every three years, Swisher said. Government incentives and advances in technology have made wind power more economical, while utilities are under pressure to develop alternative sources of energy, Swisher and GE officials said. Thirteen states now require utilities to include renewable energy such as wind and solar power as a portion of their business, Swisher said. GE chief executive Jeffrey Immelt said at the company's annual meeting last month that the wind energy business has taken in more than $2 billion in orders in the past year. The revenue it produces is a small fraction of GE's total revenue of $131.7 billion last year and won't be enough to totally offset a sharp decline in gas turbine sales. But wind energy is one of several new growth areas targeted by GE; others include Hispanic media, security, and water treatment. John Rice, president and chief executive of Power Systems, which operates the wind business, said of the operation, It's met or exceeded our expectations in the year we've operated it. GE studied the wind power business for at least three years and saw an opportunity to make the acquisition when bankrupt Enron began shedding its assets, Rice said. He cited three main reasons for entering the industry: The cost of electricity generated from wind power dropped to the point where it was competitive with other sources; the business could benefit from technology from other GE businesses; and GE customers were increasingly interested in renewable energy sources. The company said it's using its expertise from other businesses, such as rotating machinery parts, grid technologies, and gearbox advancements, to expand the business and introduce new models with the latest technology. GE also could benefit in terms of public image. It has been battered for years because of PCB pollution in the Hudson River and GE's opposition to a dredging project to clean the river. GE argues that dredging could make the problem worse. Chris Ballantyne, director of the Hudson River campaign for the Sierra Club, said he was encouraged that GE was recognizing the value of wind energy. If they weren't so scurrilous on other environmental matters, they'd probably get much higher marks, Ballantyne said. All you have to do is look at the Hudson to see the whole other side of the story. GE officials deny buying the wind business for image reasons and defend the company's environmental record, saying many of its products are more energy efficient than those of other manufacturers. They also cite GE's move into other clean forms of energy. Swisher said he is convinced GE is a serious player and not just looking for a public relations coup. They are positioning themselves to be one of the leading companies in the industry, he said. But the company faces competition, mostly from companies in Europe, where wind power is more widely employed. And more than a dozen U.S. wind turbine manufacturers have come and gone in the past two decades, with many first-generation commercial turbines unable to handle the fatigue of continuous, powerful winds, Swisher said. I think it's an extraordinarily challenging business, Swisher said. It requires a special combination of technical capability and business acumen. GE has landed several significant orders since its entry into the business. GE Wind Energy was selected to supply 130 wind
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Wind has its own unique set of pros and cons like everything else...and I see it as a vital component to a sustainable and balanced energy portfolio for the world. Unfortunately, wind's geographic distribution and intermency make it difficult to integrate into electrical grids whose cost and stability are based on distances to load centers and schedulability of the generating resource...neither of which wind is particularly great at...some say that wind can provide up to 10-20% of a control area's generating resource without causing load-resource balancing problems (electrical control areas are balanced every two seconds to maintain 60 hertz, any deviation is typically corrected by electrical units on Automatic Generating Control, i.e. units that have the reserve capacity to almost instantaneously increase or decrease output to keep the system balanced). What geographically remote and highly concentrated wind is good for is to generate the electricity needed for the electrolyis of water into hydrogen...if we are moving to a hydrogen economy, we have to cleanly make hydrogen...making it from fossil fuels and/or nukes is not the suistainable solution though probably the most likely one. Kim [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/15/03 03:10PM Problem with storage. The energy is there but not all the time. Kirk -Original Message- From: Bryan Brah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:58 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Small-scale wind power utilization is definitely NOT the trend in the US. Installed capacity here generally consists of 80 - 300 MW farms of hundreds of 1MW + turbines. There is great popular support for wind in the US as evidenced by the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for wind-generated electricity. Additionally, many political jurisdictions are mandating that a percentage of electricity production come from renewable sources. There is definitely a market for wind power, but the biggest obstacle to wind development is economic. While turbine designs have evolved, in order for them to be cost effective over their 20 year life-span, they still need fairly constant wind blowing at 15 meters per second. Most of these prime wind resources are located in sparsely populated areas, where the electrical infrastructure is either far away or too small to support the added load. This forces developers to build and/or reinforce transmission lines, which adds expense to the project and makes wind power more expensive than federally subsidized fossil fuel. We are almost to the point of price parity, so every penny increase in oil makes wind more attractive to investors, developers, and consumers. As a finite commodity, the price of oil can only go up, which means that eventually wind will be cheaper. When that happens, there will be an explosion of wind development in the US. It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources in Texas and the Dakotas alone. -BRAH Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/aM1XQD/od7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Hakan, Wind/Solar-Hydro Integration is a big subject at DOE EREN (Peter Goldman)...but otherwise is getting ignored even by agencies like the one I work for. You are right but the contentious politics and costs of building large reservoirs is so high that pumped storage is nothing but a small player in the world of energy lately. With that said, I am working on a potential pumped storage project that is a joint California/Federal endeavorpart of the study is analyzing the ecomomics of pump energy...I hope that alternative energy sources for pump power get a fair consideration. Kim [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/15/03 03:53PM Already now it is use of storage dams for hydroelectric power and this could be combined with both wind and solar in the future. Surplus electricity is used to pump water up to the dams. With a large expansion of nuclear, storage dams must be considered also. This to even out low and high peak demands, since nuclear cannot operate on the short time periods and have to run with load in a minimum configuration. Hakan At 04:10 PM 5/15/2003 -0600, you wrote: Problem with storage. The energy is there but not all the time. Kirk -Original Message- From: Bryan Brah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:58 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Small-scale wind power utilization is definitely NOT the trend in the US. Installed capacity here generally consists of 80 - 300 MW farms of hundreds of 1MW + turbines. There is great popular support for wind in the US as evidenced by the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for wind-generated electricity. Additionally, many political jurisdictions are mandating that a percentage of electricity production come from renewable sources. There is definitely a market for wind power, but the biggest obstacle to wind development is economic. While turbine designs have evolved, in order for them to be cost effective over their 20 year life-span, they still need fairly constant wind blowing at 15 meters per second. Most of these prime wind resources are located in sparsely populated areas, where the electrical infrastructure is either far away or too small to support the added load. This forces developers to build and/or reinforce transmission lines, which adds expense to the project and makes wind power more expensive than federally subsidized fossil fuel. We are almost to the point of price parity, so every penny increase in oil makes wind more attractive to investors, developers, and consumers. As a finite commodity, the price of oil can only go up, which means that eventually wind will be cheaper. When that happens, there will be an explosion of wind development in the US. It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources in Texas and the Dakotas alone. -BRAH Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/aM1XQD/od7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
As Hakan has said storage of wind generated electricity will be the hardest problem to solve if we are to rely on it for our power needs. Currently electricity generated by wind comprises a small fraction of total MW's produced, so it can be easily absorbed into the current system. When wind power represents a significant percentage, there will be serious problems meeting peak demand. We use more electricity during the day than at night, but the wind blows... whenever it blows. That is the biggest single advantage that fossil fuels have over wind; capacity is scaleable. Need more power, burn more coal. Pumped hydro is one method to store the energy from wind, (and it doesn't have to be a dam it can be a closed system with tanks). Unfortunately converting electricity to mechanical force and back to electricity is not very efficient. Other options are capacitor banks and batteries, both are very expensive and add to the overall cost of wind power. Using wind to split hydrogen is a good idea, but doesn't solve current electricity needs since most people don't have fuel cells. Furthermore, in order to make hydrogen from water, you have to have water, which eliminates many of the areas with the good wind resources. Most of the land in west Texas and the panhandle is devoid of surface water, and requires deep wells (sometimes over 300 feet deep) to tap ground water. So the pickle is that we have all this free energy, but it is inconsistent and inconvenient to integrate into our current infrastructure. Fortunately we have a long way to go before wind generated electricity comprises even 10% of our total production. Hopefully this will be enough time for us to solve the storage problem. -BRAH -Original Message- From: Kim Nguyen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 5:59 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Wind has its own unique set of pros and cons like everything else...and I see it as a vital component to a sustainable and balanced energy portfolio for the world. Unfortunately, wind's geographic distribution and intermency make it difficult to integrate into electrical grids whose cost and stability are based on distances to load centers and schedulability of the generating resource...neither of which wind is particularly great at...some say that wind can provide up to 10-20% of a control area's generating resource without causing load-resource balancing problems (electrical control areas are balanced every two seconds to maintain 60 hertz, any deviation is typically corrected by electrical units on Automatic Generating Control, i.e. units that have the reserve capacity to almost instantaneously increase or decrease output to keep the system balanced). What geographically remote and highly concentrated wind is good for is to generate the electricity needed for the electrolyis of water into hydrogen...if we are moving to a hydrogen economy, we have to cleanly make hydrogen...making it from fossil fuels and/or nukes is not the suistainable solution though probably the most likely one. Kim [EMAIL PROTECTED] 05/15/03 03:10PM Problem with storage. The energy is there but not all the time. Kirk -Original Message- From: Bryan Brah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:58 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Small-scale wind power utilization is definitely NOT the trend in the US. Installed capacity here generally consists of 80 - 300 MW farms of hundreds of 1MW + turbines. There is great popular support for wind in the US as evidenced by the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for wind-generated electricity. Additionally, many political jurisdictions are mandating that a percentage of electricity production come from renewable sources. There is definitely a market for wind power, but the biggest obstacle to wind development is economic. While turbine designs have evolved, in order for them to be cost effective over their 20 year life-span, they still need fairly constant wind blowing at 15 meters per second. Most of these prime wind resources are located in sparsely populated areas, where the electrical infrastructure is either far away or too small to support the added load. This forces developers to build and/or reinforce transmission lines, which adds expense to the project and makes wind power more expensive than federally subsidized fossil fuel. We are almost to the point of price parity, so every penny increase in oil makes wind more attractive to investors, developers, and consumers. As a finite commodity, the price of oil can only go up, which means that eventually wind will be cheaper. When that happens, there will be an explosion of wind development in the US. It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Small-scale wind power utilization is definitely NOT the trend in the US. Installed capacity here generally consists of 80 - 300 MW farms of hundreds of 1MW + turbines. There is great popular support for wind in the US as evidenced by the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for wind-generated electricity. Additionally, many political jurisdictions are mandating that a percentage of electricity production come from renewable sources. There is definitely a market for wind power, but the biggest obstacle to wind development is economic. While turbine designs have evolved, in order for them to be cost effective over their 20 year life-span, they still need fairly constant wind blowing at 15 meters per second. Most of these prime wind resources are located in sparsely populated areas, where the electrical infrastructure is either far away or too small to support the added load. This forces developers to build and/or reinforce transmission lines, which adds expense to the project and makes wind power more expensive than federally subsidized fossil fuel. We are almost to the point of price parity, so every penny increase in oil makes wind more attractive to investors, developers, and consumers. As a finite commodity, the price of oil can only go up, which means that eventually wind will be cheaper. When that happens, there will be an explosion of wind development in the US. It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources in Texas and the Dakotas alone. -BRAH -Original Message- From: Keith Addison [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 11:53 AM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Cc: biofuels-biz@yahoogroups.com Subject: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15899 Wind Power -- a European Success Story By Craig Morris, Telepolis May 13, 2003 As we saw in the last installment on wind power, http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15900 (Are Wind Turbines Actually Bird Blenders?) wind turbines are neither dangerous for birds, nor is wind power more expensive than the fossil competition. However, there remain two common bones of contention, both of which we can disprove: Wind turbines are said to be loud and ugly. Ever stood under a modern wind turbine turning full-blast? You may not be able to hear it, if the leaves in nearby trees are rustling. Several advances were made around 1990 to make wind turbines quieter. First, the rotor blades were slowed down, for the tips of the rotor blades are one of the main sources of noise. This did not, however, mean that less power was generated. More power is generally generated at lower speeds when 3 rotor blades rather than only 2 are used, but the major advance came when rotor blades were developed with adjustable pitch. Rotor blades can now be turned into and out of the wind, allowing for more optimal rotor speeds at various wind velocities - hence greater power gains. Another major breakthrough came in 1992 from Germany. Enercon developed a gearless wind turbine that was more robust, powerful and quiet than anything before, the E-40. Noise and energy losses from gears were now a thing of the past. And the industry was increasingly centered in Europe. Today, you can't hear a modern wind turbine near a street over the noise from the traffic - and that has been the case for many years, as the web site of the Danish Wind Industry Association explains: A survey on research and development priorities of Danish wind turbine manufacturers conducted in 1995, however, showed that no manufacturer considered mechanical noise as a problem any longer, and therefore no further research in the area was considered necessary. The reason was, that within three years noise emissions had dropped to half their previous level due to better engineering practices. Still, some people claim to be disturbed by an inaudibly deep droning said to emanate from wind turbines. In addition, the flickering shade caused by the rotating blades is another reason why wind turbines should not be erected where they would cast shadows on buildings. But modern wind turbines are so quiet that in densely populated countries like the Netherlands - where on-shore space for wind turbines is dwindling - new ways of integrating small wind turbines and architecture are being sought. This is how researcher Sander Mertens of the Technical University of Delft (NL) envisions a university building with wind turbines on the roof. These vertical-axis Darrieus wind turbines turn irrespective of the direction of the wind. Don't expect to see any 60 meter tall wind turbines in the grachten of Amsterdam, but don't be surprised either if you soon see smaller models popping up on the roofs of the town - and producing more electricity over the year than the residents of the house
Re: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
I would be willing to bet that it could be taken care of just with all the hot wind from the politicians in D.C. alone. Greg H. - Original Message - From: Bryan Brah [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:58 Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources in Texas and the Dakotas alone. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Problem with storage. The energy is there but not all the time. Kirk -Original Message- From: Bryan Brah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:58 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Small-scale wind power utilization is definitely NOT the trend in the US. Installed capacity here generally consists of 80 - 300 MW farms of hundreds of 1MW + turbines. There is great popular support for wind in the US as evidenced by the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for wind-generated electricity. Additionally, many political jurisdictions are mandating that a percentage of electricity production come from renewable sources. There is definitely a market for wind power, but the biggest obstacle to wind development is economic. While turbine designs have evolved, in order for them to be cost effective over their 20 year life-span, they still need fairly constant wind blowing at 15 meters per second. Most of these prime wind resources are located in sparsely populated areas, where the electrical infrastructure is either far away or too small to support the added load. This forces developers to build and/or reinforce transmission lines, which adds expense to the project and makes wind power more expensive than federally subsidized fossil fuel. We are almost to the point of price parity, so every penny increase in oil makes wind more attractive to investors, developers, and consumers. As a finite commodity, the price of oil can only go up, which means that eventually wind will be cheaper. When that happens, there will be an explosion of wind development in the US. It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources in Texas and the Dakotas alone. -BRAH Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Lj3uPC/Me7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story
Already now it is use of storage dams for hydroelectric power and this could be combined with both wind and solar in the future. Surplus electricity is used to pump water up to the dams. With a large expansion of nuclear, storage dams must be considered also. This to even out low and high peak demands, since nuclear cannot operate on the short time periods and have to run with load in a minimum configuration. Hakan At 04:10 PM 5/15/2003 -0600, you wrote: Problem with storage. The energy is there but not all the time. Kirk -Original Message- From: Bryan Brah [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 12:58 PM To: biofuel@yahoogroups.com Subject: RE: [biofuel] Wind Power -- a European Success Story Small-scale wind power utilization is definitely NOT the trend in the US. Installed capacity here generally consists of 80 - 300 MW farms of hundreds of 1MW + turbines. There is great popular support for wind in the US as evidenced by the fact that consumers are willing to pay a premium for wind-generated electricity. Additionally, many political jurisdictions are mandating that a percentage of electricity production come from renewable sources. There is definitely a market for wind power, but the biggest obstacle to wind development is economic. While turbine designs have evolved, in order for them to be cost effective over their 20 year life-span, they still need fairly constant wind blowing at 15 meters per second. Most of these prime wind resources are located in sparsely populated areas, where the electrical infrastructure is either far away or too small to support the added load. This forces developers to build and/or reinforce transmission lines, which adds expense to the project and makes wind power more expensive than federally subsidized fossil fuel. We are almost to the point of price parity, so every penny increase in oil makes wind more attractive to investors, developers, and consumers. As a finite commodity, the price of oil can only go up, which means that eventually wind will be cheaper. When that happens, there will be an explosion of wind development in the US. It is estimated that with current turbine technology, all of our (US) electrical needs could be met by the wind resources in Texas and the Dakotas alone. -BRAH Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor -~-- Get A Free Psychic Reading! Your Online Answer To Life's Important Questions. http://us.click.yahoo.com/aM1XQD/od7FAA/uetFAA/FGYolB/TM -~- Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
