The Fallacy of Renewable Energy -- The LA Times

Updates

December 10, 2012: My, my, my. A reader sent me this link: the government's own numbers for cost of electricity to end user.  California has the highest cost except for Connecticut, New York, and Hawaii (and Hawaii is a special case). Compare California's rates with those of Washington state. Wow.

But Californians are content/satisfied: they consistently vote for ....

Original Post

I guess now that the election is over, "we" can start talking about inconvenient truths again.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting what MDW has already blogged about -- some time ago. If I stumble across the earlier posts, I will link them.

The Delta Energy Center, a power plant about an hour outside San Francisco, was roaring at nearly full bore one day last month, its four gas and steam turbines churning out 880 megawatts of electricity to the California grid.

On the horizon, across an industrial shipping channel on the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, scores of wind turbines stood dead still. The air was too calm to turn their blades — or many others across the state that day. Wind provided just 33 megawatts of power statewide in the midafternoon, less than 1% of the potential from wind farms capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

As is true on many days in California when multibillion-dollar investments in wind and solar energy plants are thwarted by the weather, the void was filled by gas-fired plants like the Delta Energy Center.

This almost sounds like it could have been written by the conservative, reality-based WSJ, but it was the front page story in the, can we say, liberal LA Times. The "many days in California" phrase was particularly noticeable: that sounds like an opinion one would find in the WSJ, not the LAT.

Promoters focus on the "capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity" and fail to be transparent about the reality.

But there is a bigger issue that wind promoters do not mention at all. It is counter-intuitive. Ideologues won't believe it (elsewhere it was pointed out that "global warming advocacy" has become a religious cult) and science-challenged young adults won't understand it. But it is this:

One of the hidden costs of solar and wind power — and a problem the state is not yet prepared to meet — is that wind and solar energy must be backed up by other sources, typically gas-fired generators. As more solar and wind energy generators come online, fulfilling a legal mandate to produce one-third of California's electricity by 2020, the demand will rise for more backup power from fossil fuel plants. [Good.]

Wind and solar energy are called intermittent sources, because the power they produce can suddenly disappear when a cloud bank moves across the Mojave Desert or wind stops blowing through the Tehachapi Mountains. In just half an hour, a thousand megawatts of electricity — the output of a nuclear reactor — can disappear and threaten stability of the grid. [Yup.]

To avoid that calamity, fossil fuel plants have to be ready to generate electricity in mere seconds. That requires turbines to be hot and spinning, but not producing much electricity until complex data networks detect a sudden drop in the output of renewables. Then, computerized switches are thrown and the turbines roar to life, delivering power just in time to avoid potential blackouts. [And if they don't kick in fast enough, not only is there a risk of a blackout, but a risk of damaging the grid.]

A lot of words to say this: even while wind turbines are rotating, back-up fossil fuel power plants must continue operating to be ready to ramp up immediately if wind/solar stops abruptly.

For all practical purposes, electricity generated by power plants and wind turbines is not stored. So, natural gas plants keep burning natural gas even when wind turbines are turning, so that when wind dies down, the natural gas plants can kick in to provide the full amount of electricity needed.

Counterintuitive.

But great for Bakken folks.

As an energy source, wind has no redeeming feature: a) it will increase the use of fossil fuels; b) it will increase utility costs to everyone in a most regressive manner; c) it precludes dual-use in many cases; d) its slicing and dicing effect on migratory birds is so well known that the industry requires unconditional waiver from all migratory bird and bat kills, the only industry to have such an unconditional waiver to the best of my knowledge (childhood vaccinations are probably one [and an appropriate] exception; and, e) wind farms are an eyesore for all except developers/promoters. And, of course, if provided tax credits or incentives, monetary loss to the state and/or federal government. The Eurozone can speak to the last item in the list.

Blowin' In The Wind, Bob Dylan