It's ironic that after decades of renewables?seeming all but ignored at a federal policy level that some are now growing "too fast" and problems are?showing. I too am an enthusiastic proponent?of windpower and get quite angered by all the nimby-ish blocks it seems to encounter ( while understanding that problems do need toi be worked out) given the urgency of? of getting past fossil fuels...peak oil and that fact that we are aleady possibly beyond?the point of preventing dangerous climate change, especially now that Hansen and others are saying that 350 ppm?Co2 may be the limit (and we are now at 380-- or higher --according to some.)
I fully agree that conservation and energy efficiency are paramount and absolutely necessary to the transistion. I'm very interested and excited about?Bio-char and any information on it. I?have archived the pieces previously posted to this list. It's?one of the few things at keeps me from feeling hopeless.? I'm also intersted in that?German Univ study Jeanne????? -----Original Message----- From: Ryan Hottle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: Sustainable Tompkins County listserv <[email protected]> Sent: Thu, 10 Apr 2008 2:44 pm Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] wind's "growing pains" Margaret: Thank you for this interesting article on challenges for wind energy. I am presently working for a renewable energy firm in NE Ohio (but plan on moving to Ithaca shortly) and much of my work revolves around analyzing sites for potential wind power. I completely agree with you that Conservation is certainly the most crucial place where we can reduce energy needs and save money. As opposed to "conservation light" (switching lightbulbs and upgrading appliances) energy scarcity is likely to demand for us to adopt "radical conservation" strategies. As for wind--it certainly is an intermittent resource. I recently read (and I will attempt to find it for you) a paper by a German University that outlined a strategy to transition to a fossil fuel-free electricity generation infrastructure by 2020. First, they used a combination of PV solar and wind power which are, to an extent, complimentary. That is, he wind tends to blow when the sun is not out, and the sun tends to be out when the wind is not blowing. Baseline power generation and spikes in demand were proposed to be moderated by the use of biomass power generation. On an early post, I highlighted the production of biochar using pyrolysis which produces electricity from high-lignin feedstocks such as switchgrass, forest waste, and crop residues. This makes for a pretty tidy system... rely on wind and solar when you have it, start burning the biomass (and sequestering the carbon) when you need more. Of course, the challenge is going to be building this infrastructure as we face peaking of gas and oil supplies. Medium-scale and microhydo is certainly an option I am very interested in learning more about for community scale power generation. I see that Renovus has information posted about systems. Has there been any work done to quantify the amount of energy that could be potentially be generated in the County using medium and small scale hydro systems? I know that within the Permaculture World capturing and storing water at the highest point of one's landscape offers the ability to control the direction and flow of water to various area's on one's land. Often this is done using buildings with roofs that provide adequate surface area for collecting water and directly into some sort of container whether it be ferro-cement tank, pond, or 55-gallon drum. With the area's valleys and hilly landscape I wonder about the possibility of storing large amounts of water in ponds that could be released in a controlled manner in order to create on-demand power generation. Thoughts? Ideas? Look forward to responses. Thanks, Ryan D. Hottle On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:56 AM, Margaret McCasland <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I received this from a Quaker peace and social justice list-serve, > where a member received it from a technical list he's on. > > Grid stability and storage of power from intermittent sources need to > be addressed ASAP. I am a big promoter of wind, but renewables will > only be able to start replacing coal and nukes after we have balanced > wind generation with more solar, more appropriate-scale hydro (which > will also be intermittent in many cases, especially as we see more > droughts) and LOTS of conservation and efficiency. > I also assume that geo-thermal can eventually play a major role in > reducing demand for electricity or other forms of power for heating > and cooling (because it is not intermittent). --Margaret > > > Too much success too fast exposes problems. An article from a technical > mailinglist. > > /dan > > > Subject: Wind Power Risks > > It is now becoming more common to hear of wind power caused outages. The > outages are either a loss of service because the wind has stopped > blowing or, surprisingly, because there is too much wind. > > These problems were not so apparent when the percentage of wind power > was low compared to the overall capacity, and in particular to rapid > response generators such as hydro. > > It seems that wind power has become too successful and the engineering > required to integrate it into different grids has lagged behind. In > particular, the correct balance is not being achieved between wind power > capacity in a region and the available replacement power sources - > transmission and local non-base load sources. > > A recent outage in Texas illustrates the low wind example. An *IEEE > Spectrum* article by Peter Fairley explains the overload scenario. > > The Texas outage on February 27 as reported by Reuters: > > http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN2749522920080228?feedType=RSS&feed > Name=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true > > "Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) said a decline in wind > energy production in west Texas occurred at the same time evening > electric demand was building as colder temperatures moved into the > state. > > The grid operator went directly to the second stage of an emergency plan > at 6:41 PM CST (0041 GMT), ERCOT said in a statement. > > System operators curtailed power to interruptible customers to shave > 1,100 megawatts of demand within 10 minutes, ERCOT said. Interruptible > customers are generally large industrial customers who are paid to > reduce power use when emergencies occur." > > The IEEE article on power surges from wind farms is at > http://spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5943 and the key paragraph is this: > > Wind-farm installation in Europe grew an estimated 38 percent last year, > up from 19 percent in 2006, bringing the total capacity to about 67 > gigawatts (roughly the equivalent of 20 to 25 standard-size nuclear > power > plants). At those rates, European grid operators report, windmill > construction is outstripping growth in transmission capacity. The result > is that in wind-farm-rich countries such as Germany and Denmark, high > winds cause large and unanticipated power flows that saturate the > grids of neighboring nations. In recent years this has forced grid > operators to curtail scheduled transfers of power between grids. In > 2008, > the grid operators warn, the unanticipated power flows could overload > lines > anywhere from the Czech Republic to the Netherlands. > _______________________________________________ > For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, > please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ > > RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: > [email protected] > http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins > free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org > -- Ryan Darrell Hottle The Renaissance Group Program Manager www.ConserveFirst.com Global Climate Solutions www.GlobalClimateSolutions.org (coming soon!) Ohio Peak Oil Action (OPOA) Co-Founder, Director www.ohiopeakoilaction.org 30 N. Rose Blvd. Akron, OH 44022 (740) 258 8450 _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
