At the moment, there is a great deal of popular support for wind power in the United States, and in Nebraska in particular. Due to our impressive wind reserves, many organizations have advocated increasing our wind power as in an effort to decrease our reliance on coal. However, there is no real way for wind power to replace coal power.
There are two types of power plant: base load and peaking. Base load plants, such as coal and nuclear plants, are relatively difficult to turn on and off at a moment's notice, but can be used to produce relatively large amounts of power. These provide a certain, relatively constant level of power, but cannot compensate for rapid fluctuations. These fluctuations are usually at certain times of day (in England there is actually a statistically relevant increase in power consumption after people get off work, go home, and make tea,) so additional plants are made, called peaking plants to provide the extra power. This brings us to the first problem with wind. Wind is highly inconsistent, and cannot be predicted with any significant accuracy. As such, it is not a reliable source of energy, and cannot be used for base load power.
The second problem with wind power is economic. Wind power is simply too cost-ineffective to be worth using. A Vestas V100 1.8 megawatt turbine costs roughly $6,000,000.00 to purchase and install. However, most wind turbines, even in optimal locations only have a capacity factor (what percentage of the year they are producing power) on the order of 35% at an altitude of 50 meters. This means that an optimally-placed can only produce approximately 5,150 megawatts of energy in a year. Given the cost of energy in Lincoln is 7 cents per kilowatt-hour (public power is a wonderful thing, said turbine will generate $360,500 worth of electricity in a year. THis means it will take an average of nearly 17 years to pay for a turbine. Unfortunately, this is simply to cost-inefficient relative to, say natural gas to be worthwile, and is to irregular for major deployment
All that being said, wind power isn't a bad thing, it is simply not well-understood, and many people see it as being the best solution to a problem it is simply not capable of handling on its own. Ultimately, wind power is not capable of replacing coal, nuclear, hydroelectric, or natural gas as a major source of power in the United States
Sources:
http://www.umass.edu/windenergy/publications/published/communityWindFactSheets/RERL_Fact_Sheet_2_Community_Wind_Performance.pdf
http://www.neo.ne.gov/renew/windresources/NE_spd50m_0408052.pdf
http://www.neo.ne.gov/statshtml/119.htm
http://gloucester-ma.gov/DocumentCenter/Home/View/954
The cost effectiveness of wind turbines has been greatly overlooked in many of the discussions that I have heard concerning wind energy. You bring up very valid and statistical arguments. I agree that the low price of electricity makes them economically unsuitable for Nebraska, but it may make more economic sense for other states with higher electric costs to purchase wind farms in states with suitable wind capacity. Overall, I feel it is a good idea, but with very limited potential.
ReplyDeleteAlso consider the impacts to wildlife, noise pollution and to the landscape. The turbines are 400 feet tall and kill bats and birds. Many people don't like living near them.
ReplyDeleteI very much like your argument. Another thing to consider about how inefficient wind power can be is that there isn't an effective way to store the energy produced by the turbines. The kinetic energy harnessed by the turbines is converted into electrical energy, but because neither the states, public, or government have a huge store of lithium on hand. Therefore, if the energy garnered from the turbines isn't used immediately, it ends up being wasted.
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