Wind turbines

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

On the insulation front .... keep going, forget what the guidelines say, if you have less than 0.5metre of insulation in the loft with a U-Value of >0.1 you're just playing at being green

HTH
Z

There is, of course, the law of diminishing returns to consider!

Installing double glazing @ £xthousand being a case in point. In most cases it cannot be justified!

Cardew

keith_r59 wrote: »

There is a new four part series starting on BBC2 tonight called Windfarm Wars. Worth a watch whether you are pro or anti this type of renewable energy.

Reading the synopsis of the first two programmes, it appears that it is about the NIMBY aspects of Wind Farms rather than the economics. Developer versus Locals concerned about noise eyesore etc.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

There is, of course, the law of diminishing returns to consider!

Installing double glazing @ £xthousand being a case in point. In most cases it cannot be justified!

Hi

Agree, but if you can pick the insulation rolls up when the energy companies are effectively paying the DIY sheds to shift them in order to greenwash their image then it's well worth considering investing in another 200mm over the recommended level and still maintain a decent return ....... I could probably justify another 200mm in my loft at the price I paid for the last batch and still just about beat the returns in a building society, but after that it would be a purely ethical decision.

Z

grahamc2003

celerity wrote: »

I suspect social bias may be affecting my (and possibly both) of our opinions on this. I've lived most of my life in areas that I would class as "British town house estates". In those kinds of houses a fair proportion would be suitable for solar PV.
If I'd lived in cities all my life I might have differing views.

.

Celerity, mind if I use this extract to describe where I think much of the dsagreements with renewables arise?

In the uk, imo, there are excellent renewable technologies, and there are utterly dead-loss renewable technologies. Take hydro, an excellent resource, fully utilised by Scotland. It would be engineering madness not to utilise all this natural resource has to offer. And guesse what - engineers had already utilised it well before the word 'green' became part of our everyday life.

So, engineers don't oppose renewables at all. Where they make sense, they have already been exploited - there was no need for anyone else to suggest anything, in the natural course of events, engineers did their job.

The rest of the uk (and ngc only covers england and wales) isn't as fortunate as Scotland, the topography isn't suitable for much hydro. But as one incredibly efficient solution to lower the costs of increasing generation in E&W, engineers long ago (again before other influences came to light) designed, built and successfully operated Dinorwig, which has been mentioned here a few times. (and as an aside, the reason for Dinorwig was NOT to store cheap electricity and sell it expensively, it was to supply reserve, which is quite different and much more profitable).

The problem as I see it these days, is that what is proposed for our grid is not born out of engineering considerations. The ideas usually emerge through governments and the bodies that influence them. Usual engineering onsideratios, like cost, efficiency, consideration of alternatives etc etc just aren't made. Yet these things are forced onto the grid, whether or not they are solutions to any problems, or indeed make those problems worse.

Take windpower. It has been around for yonks. I visited the San Gorgonio Pass Windfarm about 30 years ago. If that was judged to be an engineering success, we would have had windfarms in the uk around the same time. I think it's reasonable to conclude that the 'free' power from the wind must have some drawbacks.

In answer to your question - Yes, I would have no problem in stopping all windfarm development and subsidy, and instructing an immediate substantial Nuclear power build. That would be my decision, based on engineering principles and detailed knowledge of the complexities of operation of the grid.

I'm more on the fence concerning tidal. It is leaps ahead of wind in most respects, but still suffers from the necessity of redundacy of capacity because at the period of peak demand, occasionally it would produce zero output. ('redundancy' rolls off the tongue, but we are really talking mega amounts of cash to build and maintain things which would be underutilised - again of little concern to some, but a powerful disincentive for every engineer).

I think the hysteria over co2 is just alarmism with no substance. But even if I were of the mind that co2 had to be reduced, then I wouldn't back any and every method of reducing it. I would back the most effective method. You often read on here demands to accept that co2 would be reduced by eg, wind. That really is not a valid consideration. Wind may cost £1m per ton of co2 saved, wheras other technologies may cost £1 per ton saved. Merely saving it at any cost is what you see implied on here over and over again.

So basically, I doubt many object to ideas which make engineering sense (like hydro eg), but there are several (probably all engineers I expect) who will object if the ideas make no engineering sense (like solar imv). But I don't want to speak for others.

celerity

grahamc2003 wrote: »

The problem as I see it these days, is that what is proposed for our grid is not born out of engineering considerations.

It may be a problem from a certain viewpoint, but it's also important to realise that the situation is more complex than simply building a tool for a job. The environmental, political and social issues surrounding any plans are huge factors.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that the 'free' power from the wind must have some drawbacks.

Absolutely, but all the alternatives have drawbacks too. Wind power has positives in that it is non-polluting, renewable and will get cheaper in the long term.

I would have no problem in stopping all windfarm development and subsidy, and instructing an immediate substantial Nuclear power build. That would be my decision, based on engineering principles and detailed knowledge of the complexities of operation of the grid.

Based on the numbers alone, I have no particular problem with this proposed solution.
As I said before though, it's more complex than that.
My concerns with nuclear for the UK are that we have to buy the fuel in (OK, we probably have some stockpiled for the short-term, but we can't possibly have that much, can we?) and the world's supplies of decent grade uranium are dwindling. As supply starts to get a bit tight we are going to get royally fleeced when it comes to buying it from "friendly" countries. In other words, the price is going to rise steadily.
The reverse is true for renewables (provided appropriate tech is chosen for the location of course). That is why Spain is investing in solar and wind, Germany in wind etc.

My next concern with nuclear in this country is that we'd have to spend increasingly more on securing the plants against terrorist activity. It's those dashed annoying socio-political/religious issues screwing with the engineers' logical plans again!

Then you have normal safety and waste disposal worries, as well as the fact that the true cost of nuclear is pretty pricey already - and the whole solution starts to look a bit less of a great idea.

Like I said, all the alternatives have drawbacks too .

You often read on here demands to accept that co2 would be reduced by eg, wind. That really is not a valid consideration. Wind may cost £1m per ton of co2 saved, wheras other technologies may cost £1 per ton saved. Merely saving it at any cost is what you see implied on here over and over again.

I'm certainly not saying or implying we should save carbon at any cost. I am saying that we can just about afford to invest in wind farms, and they will save us money in the long run, as well as giving us a degree of flexibility and independence.
I'm also saying this strategy should be hand-in-hand with nuclear and traditional power plants.

In summary then, it's not all about the economics of the next twelve months, and it's not all about pure engineering of the grid as it exists today. You have to factor in both long-term consequences, and long-term benefits.

/\dam

Mankysteve

celerity wrote: »

It's a good debate though, with a wealth of information - I've certainly learned a fair bit from both the people who support my views and those who oppose them.

Also, the OP's question has been answered in detail, and the discussion is still highly relevant to the subject heading.

/\dam

I must say its been a very rounded and to the facts discussion rather than the slinging matches that occur on other boards in here.

Makes me proud

grahamc2003

celerity wrote: »

It may be a problem from a certain viewpoint, but it's also important to realise that the situation is more complex than simply building a tool for a job. The environmental, political and social issues surrounding any plans are huge factors.

Absolutely, but all the alternatives have drawbacks too. Wind power has positives in that it is non-polluting, renewable and will get cheaper in the long term.


In summary then, it's not all about the economics of the next twelve months, and it's not all about pure engineering of the grid as it exists today. You have to factor in both long-term consequences, and long-term benefits.

/\dam

I'd just like to comment on these three points.

para 1 - I think you are misunderstanding the role of engineers. It is their job to look into the complexities introduced in any system - to examine all its effects. We hear day after day these days about 'unintended consequencies' - and that is purely from insufficient analysis, or insufficient engineering practice. I think basically you agree with me on this aspect, but we disagree on who does what - it isn't politicians who understand the complexities, it is the engineers. All grid developments are now driven by politics, and politics easily trumps all engineering considerations -i.e. we get systems which really don't make sense.

para 2 - yes, All generating techniques have pros and cons. Unfortunately, today, the main 'pro' of many proposals is that they are politically imperatve (or, in other words, fit into an ideology). When that is a 'pro' one of the cons is that the system may be inefficient, expensive, incurr greatly increased costs to industry, incur greatly increased power bills for consuers, drive many into fuel poverty, and generally lower the standard of living of everyone, be a long way off the best soilution. The idological 'pro' easily trumps this 'con'

As to wind power being non-polluting - are you sure of that? Firstly, the grid has to have more reserve with more wind. This means conventional plant have to hold excess steam pressure in their boilers - and that doesn't coe cheaply - so when the grid frequency drops, energy is available to bring the frequency up again. Wind power therefore has some degree of polution.

I don't know if you followed environmental issues decades ago. But at that time, there was a vociforous campaign against cement - it is extremely energy intensive to make, and really was a prime enviromnmental target in those days. You rarely hear concerns about it these days. One medium sized windmill needs approx typically 2000 tons of concrete to form its foundations. Point made?

Para 3 - That is exactly the role of engineers! Again, we agree about the principle, but seem to disagree who takes the necessary and desirale actions.

PeterZ_2

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I don't know if you followed environmental issues decades ago. But at that time, there was a vociforous campaign against cement - it is extremely energy intensive to make, and really was a prime enviromnmental target in those days. You rarely hear concerns about it these days. One medium sized windmill needs approx typically 2000 tons of concrete to form its foundations. Point made?

No, the point is not made at all.

Would you care to quote your source or calculations for this claim?

"Myth: Building a wind farm takes more energy than it ever makes
Fact: The average wind farm will pay back the energy used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation4. This compares favourably with coal or nuclear power stations, which take about six months. A modern wind turbine is designed to operate for more than 20 years and at the end of its working life, the area can be restored at low financial and environmental costs. Wind energy is a form of development which is essentially reversible – in contrast to fossil fuel or nuclear power stations."

http://www.bwea.com/energy/myths.html

4 Milborrow, Dispelling the Myths of Energy Payback Time, as published in Windstats, vol 11, no 2 (Spring 1998).

grahamc2003

non sequitur, straw man.

zeupater

PeterZ wrote: »

No, the point is not made at all.

Would you care to quote your source or calculations for this claim?

"Myth: Building a wind farm takes more energy than it ever makes
Fact: The average wind farm will pay back the energy used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation4. This compares favourably with coal or nuclear power stations, which take about six months. A modern wind turbine is designed to operate for more than 20 years and at the end of its working life, the area can be restored at low financial and environmental costs. Wind energy is a form of development which is essentially reversible – in contrast to fossil fuel or nuclear power stations."

http://www.bwea.com/energy/myths.html

4 Milborrow, Dispelling the Myths of Energy Payback Time, as published in Windstats, vol 11, no 2 (Spring 1998).

Hi

I think that the point was that a windfarm cannot be claimed to be 'non-polluting', not that they are a comparitively 'low-pollution' energy source ...... remember also that pollution has many forms ......

If consideration is taken of the CO2 impact of cement (~1TonneCO2/1TonneCement) or Steel (~1.75TonneCO2/1Tonne Steel) then the processing, manufacture, transport, maintenance, distribution infrastructure, etc. carbon elements too, there will be a CO2 footprint which would need to be amortised over the energy production lifetime of the plant ...... I think that was all that grahamc2003 was raising, so effectively, from both an engineering and an environmental standpoint, he is correct.

HTH
Z