Guess what. The sun doesn’t shine as much in winter, so your home solar system won’t generate much power in the cold months. Oh, and it might SNOW on your solar panels, so you’re gonna have to get out there and sweep them off. But relax solar fans. You’ve got it better than those wind junkies, who could be hurt or even KILLED by ice chunks being shot off the ends of turbine blades! The N.Y. Times coughs up an odd piece today looking at how renewable energy systems can be challenged by Mother Nature’s wintertime tantrums. What’s next in the series? A piece on kite-eating wind turbines in March???
source: The New York Times
‘Heretic’ battles straw man
Gore on the Daily Show: extended dance remix
Comments
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cavecanem Posted 8:48 am
26 Dec 2008
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racc Posted 3:15 am
27 Dec 2008
This lets just go do it without thinking it through attitude is the reason why we are in the mess we are today. Remember the automobile was the "environmentally sound" alternative to the horse.
This is why it is critical we concentrate on using less energy so we have more time to do things right. Bush's depression is doing a fine job of that.
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Delay And Deny Posted 10:15 am
27 Dec 2008
Any intermittent source of energy can be buffered by using it to convert water to hydrogen using the 100 percent efficient Nocera process.
A wind turbine could work 6 months a year and still be useful because when active it could constantly generate hydrogen.
Same with solar, hydro-power, nuke, even coal (yuk!) could be run optimally. Hydrogen is the perfect storage medium...what "battery" could store energy for days and weeks at a time?
Hydrogen can also be used for cars, planes, buses and trains, so if there's too much energy, it can be siphoned off for transportation fuel.
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Wolverine Posted 11:03 am
27 Dec 2008
caused by using the combination of coal, natural gas, dams, and nuclear power and their powerlines? Giving the benefit of the doubt, let's just say that this was an ignorant piece written by an air-head reporter who didn't even consider its propaganda value against alternative energy.
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BruceMcF Posted 12:51 pm
27 Dec 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:12 pm
27 Dec 2008
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AndyKruse Posted 2:32 pm
27 Dec 2008
As one person stated, storage is an option. Another is looking at President-Elect Obama's strategy of a larger connected grid so if wind farms in one area cannot operate due to weather, a wind farm from another region can. Wind is a great technology and will be a key component to dealing with climate change and energy security.
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Gar Lipow Posted 2:35 pm
27 Dec 2008
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:32 pm
27 Dec 2008
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GreyFlcn Posted 12:25 am
28 Dec 2008
I'd keep an eye on "Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage".
Basically CAES, except instead of burning natural gas, to create heat, to released the compressed air.
You instead use the heat stored during compression.
_
If that pans out, you might have a killer storage tech on your hands.
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Roz Cummins Posted 2:07 am
28 Dec 2008
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amazingdrx Posted 2:19 am
28 Dec 2008
Here's the fortunate facts. Ground heat is over 50 degrees. That will melt snow. So when panels are snow covered, 50 degree water, transferring free ground heat can melt it off and help prevent a lot of heat loss from the building as a side benefit.
When snow melts off of a normal solar setup on your roof, it is sucking a huge amount of heat out of your house, that you pay for.
In fact, a tubing or forced air system that forms a "heat envelope" all arounmd your home, using free ground heat, can cancel 80% or more of your heating bill.
Want to melt a sidewalk at a school or hospital? Same principle use free ground heat from tubing in the concrete.
Here's a really radical solar/ground heat highway melting/power generating system. In the hot sun the road or parking lot absorbs a lot of heat, that heats water in tubing embedded in the surface. A Carnot cycle turbine uses the heat to generate electricity.
In winter snow conditions free ground hear is pumped through the road way tubes to melt snow. What do you think? Should Obama check into this? Hehehey.
PS. Maybe put some heat storage salt into the system so power generation could continue after dark.
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biodiversivist Posted 2:39 am
28 Dec 2008
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Gar Lipow Posted 4:03 am
28 Dec 2008
About $600 per kWh but dropping in price. A strong contender for utility scale batteries. Also fairly light, so also a contender for BEV battery as well.
>Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage
Yeah, but so far not even a prototype. (There are compressed air electricity storage systems that don't use natural gas for the recovery, but existing ones don't have advanced heat storage either. So they recover about 400 watt hours for each kWh input, 40% round trip efficiency. The advanced ones you are talking about will store the heat of compression and thus recover 60% to 70% of power input. That is the low end of battery efficiency. But the much much lower cost compared to battery efficiency will be made up for by the much much lower cost. Adiabiatic storage would probably end up at $35 per kWh or less, one tenth the cost of the best expected for batteries with a 10,000 cycle lifespan or better in the near future. That huge cost difference more than makes up for being slightly less efficient than the best best batteries.
All we need is to actually make it work. "If we had some ham we could have ham & eggs, if we had some eggs".
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Jon Rynn Posted 4:39 am
28 Dec 2008
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Gar Lipow Posted 10:05 am
28 Dec 2008
But some of the current big flow battery makers say that on a hundred megawatt or more scale they can deliver for $250 to $350 per kWh of capacity. The thing is Sodium Sulphur is new, and may have similar economies of scale. And with Sodium Sulpher you have the added bonus that you might be able to make them light enough to use in cars. Downside (for cars) they have to be run hot, don't work at room temperature. I gather there are ways around that though, especially in PHEV systems.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 10:52 am
28 Dec 2008
Erik
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:58 pm
28 Dec 2008
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engrjim Posted 1:01 pm
28 Dec 2008
Hot rock geothermal is the way to go. It can use the existing grid, doesn't disturb the environment, requires almost no development, uses well established technology, and costs less.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 1:09 pm
28 Dec 2008
And hey, dn't ice chuncks also fall from roof awnings and gutters?
Let's get rid of those too.
Oh, and power lines! The ice can also fall from powerlines, so we better get rid of those too!
...okay people, the point here is, you're not babies, and we don't need to (nor can we) baby-proof the entire planet. Get a grip. Just take a few sensible precautions and get on with life.
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JMG Posted 2:01 pm
28 Dec 2008
I surveyed state and international regulations on setbacks to determine whether the common industry thumbrule (1.1 times max. blade tip elevation) was adequate for turbines placed in zones where freezing is a problem. With wind-following modern turbines running at 2-5 MW, the blade tip speeds are getting quite fast. If you launch a 20 kg chunk of ice at those speeds and hit a minivan or schoolbus, you are going to have a big, big problem. (My conclusion is that a minimum 1.1H setback from any boundary/roadway ought to be enough setback for ice, but what I really found was a real dearth of data.) The Danes require even greater setbacks anyway, so they haven't really had any issue with ice throw.
But in the US, a lot rides on the answer --- how many towers a landowner gets to site (and collect royalties on); how much property tax the counties get to collect; how much capacity the region gets to forecast from wind, how much carbon fuel can be displaced ....
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amazingdrx Posted 2:36 pm
28 Dec 2008
And of course there is the idea of emergency batteries in homes and other buildings that can be used for grid storage too. Current dual rate plans from utilities give these systems a very short payback period in lower monthly bills alone.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:46 pm
28 Dec 2008
These big machines will need to be out on the deserted prairie, offshore on floating platforms, or located on large farms or existing industrial sites. No problem with setbacks in these locations.
For residential machines, very light blades made of a plastic framework with sail material forming the air foil, and very light towers, and systems that shut them down in ice storms or high winds would be best. Residential machines are limited by the site anyway, not many homes will be able to get to a minimum average wind speed at which these are practical, say around 10 to 12 mph.
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racc Posted 5:19 am
29 Dec 2008
Again, massive conservation efforts should be our priority. Regarding transportation, lets focus on rail, rapid transit and cycling instead of electric cars which will only serve to increase the amount of electrical generation capacity we need. Problem with "green" energy is people think they can just keep on consuming and everything will be OK. Beware of the silver bullet. It can misfire.
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racc Posted 5:28 am
29 Dec 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/12/24/145435/41
"The kinds of utility energy efficiency programs found in Massachusetts are arguably among the very few measures that can achieve the scale of emission reductions we need in the short amount of time we have. Nothing else -- carbon pricing, renewable energy, carbon sequestration -- is big enough and fast enough."
Given the economic "crisis" is reducing demand and making the financial case for supply expansion (green or otherwise) shaky, now is the time to focus on conservation.
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Delay And Deny Posted 5:46 am
29 Dec 2008
http://www.thestar.com/News/GlobalVoices/article/558984
David Scott, scientist, engineer and author of Smelling Land: The Hydrogen Defence Against Climate Catastrophe, puts it bluntly:
"The more you research and the more you think about a post-petroleum world, the more you realize that hydrogen isn't just the best answer, it's the only answer," he says.
Review of Honda FCX:
http://www.thestar.com/News/GlobalVoices/article/558984
Got My Chips Cashed In:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28417623/
Time to "lay pipe" -- for Hydrogen!
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=1017& ...
The infrastructure and technology exists today to begin using hydrogen as a fuel. This will involve the proliferation of onsite hydrogen production using electrolysis or reformation from natural gas as well as neighborhood stations.
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Alexander66 Posted 5:49 am
29 Dec 2008
How could the very weak and extremely unreliable initial energy source of a wind turbine ever produce a steady power of any significance?
Please think!
And read: "Wind energy- the whole truth" at: http://www.windenergy-the-truth.com/
And to show how completely irrelevant wind power is in regard to the worldwide energy and climate crisis visit the following link: http://www.bp.com/iframe.do?categoryId=9024179&conten ...
And play around with the charts you see there (The BP charts regarding energy reserves and energy consumption worldwide over the last 20 to 40 years.) and make some calculations. And if you don´t get confused with the zeros, you will get my point.
The resources now poured into futile, but very ingenious and high-tech windmills, could be far better used for, for example:
Burning coal in a cleaner way,
Efficiency of energy use in the broadest sense of the word
Promoting a drastic change of life style (There are about 6.5 billion people, who all have the right to have some energy to their disposal).
Just 3 ideas.
Alexander
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racc Posted 6:48 am
29 Dec 2008
Agree with your 2 and 3. We forget there are other people in the world that could use a bit of energy to really improve their lives. Meanwhile, we seem to be focused on how to keep people in cars and suburbs. We need a big head shake.
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anyone Posted 8:36 am
29 Dec 2008
http://www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_1 ...(1).pdf
However this report assumed capital overnight costs of only $2950/kW and new nuclear power plants to be built in Florida already assumed capital costs of over $7000/kW and this at prohibitively long planning and construction times.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8916 ...
On the other hand, according to the Department of Energy the costs of wind power are between 3 and 6.4 cents per kWh.
Average capital costs of Windturbines are $1480/kW (2006).
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41435.pdf
South dakota alone has enough wind to power half the US: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/05/14/s ...
No wonder wind capacity has currently a yearly growth of 45 in the US:
http://www.enn.com/energy/article/37883
And interconnected Windfarms do provide baseload:
http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/winds/aj07_jamc.pdf
HVDC can transmit power from coast to coast with losses of only 3% per 1000 km at costs of €70/kW per 1000 km (transmission line only):
http://www.abb.com/cawp/GAD02181/C1256D71001E0037C1256834 ...
http://www.iset.uni-kassel.de/abt/w3-w/projekte/LowCostEu ...
And: Hydro power plants already installed can simply be turned off when too much wind power is generated.
And: Gas power plants already in place can simply be turned off when too much wind power is generated.
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racc Posted 10:44 am
29 Dec 2008
People keep trying to find technical solutions for social and behaviour issues. It won't work. We will just end up in a similar mess caused by way to many windmills to serve an every increasing "need" for power.
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:13 am
29 Dec 2008
http://www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_1 ... ...(1).pdf
However this report assumed capital overnight costs of only $2950/kW and new nuclear power plants to be built in Florida already assumed capital costs of over $7000/kW and this at prohibitively long planning and construction times.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8916 ... ...
On the other hand, according to the Department of Energy the costs of wind power are between 3 and 6.4 cents per kWh.
Average capital costs of Windturbines are $1480/kW (2006).
http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy07osti/41435.pdf
Keep in mind though that you'd need 3x the wind turbines to meet 1x nuclear plants, due to the capacity factor difference.
And then a bit more for grid infrastructure.
But even then you'd still probably end up less than $7000/kW
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GonzoDon Posted 12:33 am
31 Dec 2008
Hydrogen is not a significant energy source on our planet at this time, it's a convenient energy storage alternative. It is unclear where we will harness the energy to break all those H-0-H bonds. Please enlighten me.
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Erik Hoffner Posted 12:44 am
31 Dec 2008
Erik
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