Wind Power: Facts & Fairytales

Congress and the President have dedicated hundreds of millions of dollars in their economic stimulus spending bill on wind power. Of all the possibilities for renewable energy, wind power is one of the most popular with the public, the most touted by Congress, and the least likely to have any effect on either energy output or reduction in carbon emissions. In this article, I'll go out on a limb, and splash cold water on the pipe dream that is utility-scale wind power.

Utility-scale wind power is NOT residential-scale wind power. We are not talking about individuals owning and maintaining small turbines to reduce their energy consumption from the grid. What we are discussing here is the construction of huge wind farms that are attached not to individual users, but to the nation's electrical grid and are supposed to supply clean wholesale power.

Spinning Reserve

When the wind reaches a productive speed on a utility-scale wind farm, the power companies switch from their base load plants (coal, natural gas, nuclear) to the wind. The problem is, base load plants cannot quickly be powered down or ramped up; they continue operating in what is called spinning reserve. While in spinning reserve, they burn nearly as much input energy to produce nothing as they do when producing electricity. Base load plants remain in spinning reserve because no one knows when the wind will stop blowing and the base load plants will need to be brought back online.

Batteries Not Included

Electricity is a unique commodity in that, for most part, it must be produced at the exact moment of consumption. Therefore, the wizards that control our nation's energy supply are constantly adjusting their output to the current demands being placed on the grid. This requires planning and the wind cannot be scheduled. Hydroelectric dams can be scheduled by controlling water flow and building potential energy behind the dam to be released at peak demand. Photovoltaic cells in the desert can be counted on for a certain level of production during daylight hours. What wind farms need to work is a way to store the power produced so that it can be released at a scheduled time, but a battery large enough to accommodate grid storage does not exist.

There are some methods of storing wind energy. One way is to use wind turbines to pump water behind a hydroelectric dam. Another way is to use them to compress air into an underground mine shaft (Wikipedia: Grid Storage). At peak demand time, the air can be heated with propane and used to spin turbines to produce electricity. These types of storage require unique sites that have both heavy winds and the other required geographical features. Therefore, this is not a large scale solution.

Residential Use

Individuals who live in terrain that meet the requirements can build their own wind turbines. The battery pack required to load-level for a home is fairly small and the waste of generating electricity far from the consumer is eliminated (Chautauqua Wind Power). Also currently being discussed in New York City is the possibility of putting wind turbines atop skyscrapers. If designed on a small scale concept where that power is used by the building holding the wind turbine, this is workable. If they are merely attached to the grid, they are no different or more effective than large wind farms.

Follow the Money

As is often the case with government subsidized projects, the economics of wind energy are neither market-based nor logical. Without the hand of government, wind farms would not be built. First, they do not make economic sense. A plant in spinning reserve produces as much pollution and costs as much to run as a plant online. Therefore, the cost of wind energy is the cost of the equipment and maintenance of the wind farm plus the cost of running the base load plant that was online before the wind started to blow. To relieve this cost, government subsidizes the building of wind farms. Subsidies are required whenever what's being produced does not have enough economic value to generate demand. In addition to subsidy, government then generates demand by requiring fixed percentages of power produced to be from "renewable sources."

Other Problems

Actual energy output promised by developers is not always what is produced. When advertised, wind turbine output is sold to the public often at assumed wind speeds of 28-30mph. These winds are uncommon and because of the physics of wind power generation, cutting the wind speed in half reduces the output of the turbine by a factor of 8. In other words, a turbine advertised to produce 1.6 megawatts at 30mph will only produce .20 megawatts at 15mph. Here it is on paper demonstrated with a small turbine (hat tip: Energy Self Sufficiency Newsletter):

Some people claim health problems from the low-frequency noise generated from wind farms. There are enough claims to warrant further study on how far these farms need to be set back from residential areas. Also, if the sounds do affect people, they most certainly affect wildlife and may drive mammals away from the site. Wind turbine blades cannot be seen by bats and are referred to by the Audubon Society as "condor Cuisinarts." None of these are a problem when wind power is restricted to small-scale use where a smaller navigable airspace is occupied by turbine blades and there is no low-freq noise.

Conclusion

Wind farms are not about "green" energy; they are about business. Companies make millions selling something that the market does not want (because it has no economic value) but must buy (because government mandates it). Since there is no economic value, government must subsidize the farms making the taxpayer, in effect, pay for the same electricity twice, once in taxes and one in our utility bill.

No power plant anywhere has ever been decommissioned because it was replaced by wind power. If Congress and the President wish to focus on workable wind power, then the focus should either be on new technology for grid storage, or tax breaks for small-scale wind turbines. Building utility scale wind farms on our current grid is nothing but political masturbation; it feels good to do it, but it accomplishes nothing.