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#Post#: 2182--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: November 8, 2014, 2:22 pm
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UK Approves 750-Megawatt Offshore Wind Project
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Alex Morales, Bloomberg
November 07, 2014
LONDON -- The U.K. approved construction of one of the biggest
offshore wind farms as the country chases a European Union
target to get 15 percent of all energy from renewables by 2020.
The consent allows Dong Energy A/S to install up to 750
megawatts of turbines at the Walney Extension project in the
Irish Sea off northwest England’s Cumbria, the Planning
Inspectorate said today in an e-mailed statement. Denmark’s Dong
said it expects to put in about 660 megawatts of turbines,
enough to power as many as a half-million homes.
“This decision to grant development consent now clears the way
for the company to make a final investment decision on the
project,” Benj Sykes, vice president of U.K. wind for Dong, said
in an e-mailed statement.
The U.K. already has more than half of the world’s installed
offshore wind-generating capacity, and is pushing the technology
to help meet its renewable energy targets.
Dong expects to use 6- to 8-megawatt turbines, it said. The
utility owns 50.1 percent of the project, SSE Plc owns 25.1
percent and a joint venture between Dutch pension administrator
PGGM and Ampere Equity Fund own the remainder. The project was
awarded guaranteed power contracts by the government in April.
It’s the second approval in less than two months for a U.K.
project by Dong, the biggest offshore wind developer. Its 250-
megawatt Burbo Bank Extension project in Liverpool Bay was
granted approval on Sept. 26. That’s next to an existing 90-
megawatt farm, and the Walney extension is adjacent to the
existing 367-megawatts of Walney 1 and 2 wind farms.
The U.K. currently has 22 operational offshore wind farms
totaling 3,653 megawatts of capacity, according to the
RenewableUK lobby group. The biggest is the 630-megawatt London
Array, a collaboration between four companies, including Dong
and EON SE. While no bigger project is currently under
construction, today’s approval is the fifth of 750 megawatts or
greater to receive consent, according to the data.
Copyright 2014 Bloomberg
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#Post#: 2219--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: November 17, 2014, 2:17 pm
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Texas Wind Powers 3.3 Million Homes
Anastasia Pantsios | November 17, 2014 1:36 pm | Comments
When you think of “energy” and “Texas,” you probably think
“oil.” But those wide-open spaces sitting on those lucrative oil
fields also make it a prime location for another form of energy
generation: wind.
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[I]The Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas has an operational capacity of
781 megawatts. The wind farm started operations in 2009 and has
627 turbines installed.[/i]
Texas’ own top power source by far is gas (50 percent), followed
by coal (32 percent) and nuclear (9 percent). But it is also the
nation’s leading producer of wind energy—and growing. While the
state is home to the 3rd and 5th dirtiest power plants in the
U.S., it also produces nearly a quarter of the country’s total
wind power. It has created the second largest number of green
jobs after California. Currently, wind is the power source for
3.3 million Texas homes, driven by private investment, a
deregulated and competitive electricity market, federal
incentives and Texas’ own clean energy goals to reach 10 GW of
renewable energy generation by 2025, according to research done
by the Pew Charitable Trusts, released at a webinar today.
“Pew’s research demonstrates that a reliable electricity grid
requires both a diversified mix of affordable generation sources
such as wind and government policy to foster deployment,” said
Jeff Clark, executive director of the Wind Coalition. “Texas
consumers are benefiting because the state has capitalized on
the federal production tax credit to build its wind industry,
which provides more than 177,000 jobs.”
Sunny Texas is also rapidly increasing its solar energy
capacity. It ranked 8th in new installed capacity last year,
providing more than 4,000 jobs statewide. Progressive cities
like Austin and San Antonio took the lead with their own
aggressive renewable energy goals that encourage such new
projects and investment.
“Texas illustrates how state and federal policy can complement
one another to spur deployment of clean energy and attract
private investment,” said Tom Swanson, manager of Pew’s clean
energy initiative. “The outcomes include job creation across the
state, energy and cost savings for businesses, and reliable,
affordable energy for residential customers.”
According to the Pew report, Texas is also the leader in
industrial energy efficiency technologies which produced heat
and power from a single source or capture wasted heat to
generate electricity. “These technologies can help manufacturers
reduce energy consumption, costs, and water use—all of which are
critical in Texas given the state’s high electricity prices and
chronic droughts,” said the Pew report.
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Texas is leading the nation in installed wind capacity and is
coming up rapidly in solar generation as well. Image credit: Pew
Charitable Trusts
“Texas has emerged as a clean energy leader, with its
unparalleled wind and solar resources and a large manufacturing
industry ideal for exploiting industrial energy efficiency,” Pew
asserted. “With further policy support, the state can continue
to tap into this potential and use it for economic growth.”
But further policy support is the big question mark. While Texas
surpassed its renewable energy goal for 2025 in 2010, there are
signs of possible retrenchment. :P
According to an interactive tool released last week by
Earthworks, “A bill is pending that would eliminate the
renewable portfolio standard and strip the Public Utilities
Commission of its authority to regulate trading of renewable
energy credits.” That’s part of a coordinated nationwide push by
heavily fossil fuel-funded groups like the Heartland Institute,
Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange
Council (ALEC). Similar legislation has been introduced in about
two dozen states with only one scalp so far: Ohio froze its
clean energy standards in July and its legislature is currently
considering repealing them entirely.
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#Post#: 2262--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: November 26, 2014, 5:24 pm
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11/26/2014 01:44 PM
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Finally, US Gets An Offshore Wind Farm, Deepwater Starts
Construction Next Spring
SustainableBusiness.com News
After too many years of delays to count, the US is finally about
to get our first offshore wind farm.
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Deepwater Wind will start construction this spring now that it's
received final state and federal permits. Don't get too excited
- it's just five turbines near Block Island, considered part of
Rhode Island.
To give you an idea of what these permits are: one is a
submerged lands lease with Rhode Island. Deepwater will pay
$150,000 a year for the right to anchor its turbines to the
ocean floor. The other permit is federal - giving Deepwater the
right of way for the transmission cable that carries the
electricity to the grid on land.
The area is prime habitat for migrating right whales, which are
extremely endangered, and Deepwater - in concert with
environmental groups - came up with a way to make sure they are
protected:
•a traffic-light system of red (no construction allowed in early
spring) yellow and green is based on when whales are likely to
be in the area.
•ships will be slowed to 10-knots from Nov. 1 through May 15 to
prevent collisions
•noise-reduction and attenuation technologies developed in
Europe will be used
•better surveillance measures will spot right whales - expert
ship-based observers; restricted work at night and when
visibility is low; and aerial surveillance.
In August, the Department of Interior held its third auction for
offshore wind leases, this time offering 80,000 acres off the
coast of Maryland, an area which could power 300,000 homes
(850-1450 megawatts).
It took 19 rounds of bidding for US Wind (subsidiary of Italy's
Renexia) to win the entire lease for $8.7 million against two
competitors, Green Sail Energy and SCS Maryland Energy.
Notably, the winning bid is much higher than the first two
auctions, where winners bid just $1.6 million near Virginia and
$3.8 million off the coast of Massachusetts.
The competition was more intense and resulted in much higher
bids because Governor O'Malley got the first legislation passed
in the US that subsidizes offshore wind. It offers developers up
to $1.7 billion for a 200 megawatt (MW) project and higher
prices for electricity once it starts producing.
Here's how ocean leasing works:
The winner has a year to submit a Site Assessment Plan for
approval, which describes how it will measure wind resources in
the lease area. If that's approved by BOEM, the lease has 4.5
years to submit a Construction and Operations Plan, which
details the wind project. BOEM then conduct an environmental
review of the project, which includes public input, and if it's
approved, the lessee gets a term of 25 years.
Including this latest Maryland auction, 357,000 acres in the
Atlantic Ocean have been leased for about $14 million. Last
week, New Jersey regulators rejected Fishermen's tiny 5 MW wind
project for the second time.
Leases awarded to date:
•Cape Wind - Massachusetts
•Deepwater Wind - Rhode Island/ Mass.
•NRG Bluewater Wind - Delaware
•Dominion Virginia Power - Virginia
On January 29, 742,000 acres off the Massachusetts coast will be
auctioned in the largest lease sale to date.
New UK Projects
Danish utility Dong Energy has been cleared to build a 700 MW
offshore wind farm off the coast of England, to start operations
in 2023. One of the countries biggest, it will power 500,000
homes.
This year, five offshore projects have been approved in the UK,
which together will produce 4% of the country's electricity -
powering 3 million homes - while creating 8500 jobs. The UK has
22 operational offshore projects with a capacity of 3.7
gigawatts, according to RenewableUK.
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Read our article, DOE Announces Three Offshore Demo Wind
Projects, Shooting For 35% of US Energy by 2050.
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#Post#: 2326--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 4, 2014, 6:39 pm
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12/02/2014 03:53 PM
Innovative Wind Turbine Designs From Australia
SustainableBusiness.com News
In the past five years, bigger, more advanced wind turbines have
greatly improved performance and lowered the price of wind
energy, but that's nothing compared to what scientists in
Australia are working on.
A team at the University of Wollongong is in the final stages
of developing offshore wind turbines that are 1000 times more
efficient at one-third of today's price.
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They hope to see the
turbines installed along Australia's wind-blown coast within the
next five years.
The key seems to be the use of superconductors and elimination
of the gear box. While gearless turbines have been around for
years, replacing it with a superconducting coil captures wind
and converts it to electricity without any power loss.
"In our design there is no gear box, which right away reduces
the size and weight by 40%," explains lead researcher Shahriar
Hossain. "We are developing a magnesium diboride superconducting
coil to replace the gear box. This will capture the wind energy
and convert it into electricity without any power loss, and will
reduce manufacturing and maintenance costs by two thirds."
That cuts the cost of turbines to $3-5 million each, down from
$15 million today ;D, and they would be much easier to
transport without the heavy gear box, they say.
Researchers are making superconducting coil from magnesium and
boron, which is inexpensive, durable and easy to make. Since the
materials don't generate electrical resistance, they can store
electricity without losing any energy, and they can circulate
the current indefinitely.
"With industry support, we could install superconducting
offshore wind turbines off the coast of Australia in five years,
no problem," says Hossain.
Power WINDows ;D
Another innovative wind design from the same university is Power
WINDows, invented by Professor Farzad Safaei
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You can see it placed
between two city buildings:
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WITHOUT Power WINDows wind electricity generators
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WITH Power WINDows wind electricity generators
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Wind Turbine Australia
"My primary aim was to overcome some of the key shortcomings of
current wind turbine technology, in particular, enable modular
manufacturing, transportation and installation, reduce noise,
land usage footprint, and better integration with living
environments."
To do that, he developed a modular design that looks like a
large window and can be deployed in metropolitan areas as well
as wind farms. Panels inside the window rotate slowly with the
wind, replacing spinning blades. This quiets the turbine and
creates less turbulence around it, greatly decreasing its
overall footprint. It also makes it cheaper and easier to
manufacture, install and operate. Need more energy? Just add
more panels. ;D
A prototype is under development.
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--- Quote ---
> Petronas Twin Towers - Wind Tunnel Analysis
> Published on Jan 22, 2013
>
> This video presents an external aerodynamic analysis of the
Petronas Twin Towers at real scale. The simulation features the
adaptive wake refinement scheme available in XFlow to refine
progressively the wake as it develops, and ended with a maximum
of 315 million elements.
--- End Quote ---
Agelbert NOTE: Let's USE THAT WIND on our skycrapers to generate
electricity!
The new and vastly more efficient wind generator technology
orders of magnitude greater than we have so far achieved is
further proof that Fossil fuels are a DEAD MAN WALKING.
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#Post#: 2372--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 11, 2014, 5:49 pm
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[move]MUST READ article on wind power and it's history in the
USA![/move]
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Energy Innovation Doesn't Just Happen: How Government Policies
Destroyed and Regenerated the U.S. Wind Turbine Industry, Twice
Posted December 8, 2014
By Nathaniel Horner
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and<br
/>Inês Azevedo
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After a decade of annual near-death experiences, the production
tax credit (PTC)—a tax benefit for generating electricity from
certain renewable sources like wind—was allowed to expire at the
end of last year. Like other policies such as investment tax
credits and renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), the PTC was
designed primarily to help shift the country’s energy supply
towards more renewable sources. The response to these policies
has largely come from wind generation, which now contributes
over 4% of U.S. electricity supply. A different set of policies
in various European countries has enabled wind to meet over 7%
of E.U. demand.
There are generally two ways to increase electricity generation
from wind: we can construct more wind plants, or we can make the
wind plants we build more productive. Arguments for the PTC tend
to focus on the former: counting new project starts and added
capacity, and noting ancillary benefits like jobs and economic
stimulus. This makes sense, since it’s easy to count wind
turbines cropping up over the landscape, and the relationship
between the presence of incentives and the pace of construction
can be readily seen.
The second means of increasing production is through technology
innovation, and, in contrast to construction projects, it can be
difficult to measure—innovations are not as easily countable as
turbine towers, and the response time between implementation of
an innovation policy and the appearance of any resulting
technological advances in the commercial market is not
immediate. Furthermore, when considering incentives for
innovation, policymakers face difficulties of determining the
counterfactual, i.e., would the advance occur even without the
incentive? Nonetheless, innovation has been an immensely
important part of the wind electricity success story: turbines
today are larger and have higher capacity factors than their
predecessors, reducing the cost of wind electricity to levels
more or less competitive with conventional generation. If
advances in technology had not happened, then wind projects
would likely always need subsidies to be economically viable.
Thus, it’s worth looking beyond building wind plants to think
about how government policies incentivize technology innovation
as well.
Innovation policy design
There are two general theories of innovation policy. Under
technology-push policies, governments aim to reduce the costs of
investing in innovation by providing direct subsidies—most
often, R&D funds. Under demand-pull mechanisms, policymakers
hope to increase the payoffs of investing in innovation by
enhancing the market for the technology. The PTC and RPSs fall
under this category—they create a demand for wind capacity,
thereby (perhaps) inducing wind turbine suppliers to invest in
creating better technology. Within each of these categories,
policies can either be market interventions, like the PTC, that
give one technology preferred treatment in the market, or
command-and-control regulations, like the RPSs, in which a
certain standard must be met. We often think of these respective
options colloquially as carrots and sticks.
Command-and-control policies can be particularly effective at
promoting innovation when they are stringent enough to be
technology-forcing, that is, when meeting them is difficult
using current technology. Notable examples of technology-forcing
regulations in the U.S. occurred with emissions control
technologies for power plants and automobiles.
Incentivizing the wind
So which policies, if any, have been successful in the U.S. at
not only incentivizing construction, but also inducing
innovation? The history of wind technology development in the
United States[1] provides a clear example of how important the
policy environment can be for innovation.
Many of us think of serious wind development in the U.S.
beginning in the 1970s, but the first wind buildup actually
occurred in the early half of the twentieth century.
Enterprising rural farmers connected parts from water-pumping
windmills, generators, and batteries to provide household
electricity, and by the 1930s mass-produced “windchargers” could
be purchased (via the Sears catalog, among other outlets).
Hundreds of thousands of these small turbines soon dotted the
American Midwest, but the establishment of the Rural
Electrification Administration in 1935 and its subsequent
aggressive push to connect these isolated farms to the electric
grid essentially killed this industry by the 1950s.
The promise of atomic energy and cheap fossil fuels in the
post-WWII era meant little interest in wind. By the latter half
of the 1970s, however, stubbornly high nuclear plant costs and
the oil embargo sowed the seeds for the first wind renaissance.
The U.S. government took two significant policy actions to
encourage wind technology. First, the Large Wind Turbine (LWT)
R&D program administered by DOE and NASA attempted to develop
commercial, utility-scale (multi-megawatt) wind turbines (Figure
1).[2] Second, the government issued what amounted to a 25%
investment tax credit on wind turbine construction. Combined
with state-level policies, the tax credit in California totaled
50%, and the wind rush was on. Instead of investing in large,
complex machines, the order of the day was to build small and
build fast. By 1985, 13,000 150-250 kW plants were constructed
(Figure 2).
Boeing MOD 2, Goodnoe Hills
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Figure 1: Boeing MOD 2 turbines at Goodnoe Hills, Washington,
developed as part of the Large Wind Turbine research program.
Erected 1980, dismantled 1986. Photo: US Government/Public
Domain.
Were these policies successful? The LWT program failed to
produce a turbine that made it to commercial production. The
large plants proved technically complex and generally
unreliable, and while some prototypes met with limited success,
many met the fate of the Boeing MOD 2 turbine at Medicine Bow,
Wyoming, which was dynamited and sold as scrap for $13,000 just
five years after being built at a cost of $6 million.
In California, the tax credit incentivized construction of the
turbines, but there was no incentive for those to then produce
electricity. As a result, many plants were unreliable: the worst
wind farms had capacity factors of less than 10%, and a not
insignificant portion were later removed. The most successful
turbines were of an older, simple, Danish design.
Altamont Pass Turbines, CA
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Figure 2: Old turbines installed at Altamont Pass, CA. Photo:
David J. Laporte / CC-BY-2.0
By some accounts, these two policies were high-profile failures
that set the industry back a decade as people became
disillusioned with wind. To be fair, though, these programs at
least established a foothold for wind generation in the U.S. A
DOE report found that the R&D program laid the technological
foundation for later growth, while in California, the state
retained enough working turbines in 1990 to produce over 2.5 TWh
of electricity annually.
A second wind renaissance began just before the turn of the
millennium. Coincident with the PTC (enacted in 1992) and
state-level RPS policies—which mandate a certain proportion of
electricity generation come from renewable sources—established
beginning in the late 90s, the U.S. has seen dramatic growth in
wind production over the past fifteen years.
Measuring innovation
We have mentioned four main policies involved in the history of
U.S. wind generation: the level of federal R&D spending, the
investment tax credits of the 1980s, the PTC, and the
state-level RPSs—one technology-push policy and three
demand-pull policies. It seems reasonable to conclude that the
investment tax credits were not “technology-forcing,” and thus
unlikely to have spurred innovation. But how do we assess policy
effectiveness? First, we need to a way to measure innovation.
Economists use patent counts as one possible proxy for
innovation, for reasons mainly related to data availability.
Notwithstanding the well-documented limitations of this metric,
it is not an unreasonable way to get a rough idea of the
relative level of innovation activity within a particular
technology area over time.
You can see a chart of patent counts juxtaposed with these
policy variables in Figure 3 and can probably make a few
reasonable hypotheses about the relationship between each policy
and patenting activity. If we can also represent these policy
variables (and additional “control” factors) quantitatively, we
can set up a regression equation to determine which policies are
most correlated with innovation. This is exactly what we do in a
recent paper, to which we refer you for all the modeling
details.[3]
Wind patenting and policies
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Figure 3: Wind patenting rate over time (blue) juxtaposed with
various wind policies: level of federal wind turbine R&D funding
(top, green); counts of state-level renewable portfolio
standards (bottom; red); and periods during which various tax
credits were in place (bottom, shaded). Image from our paper
(Horner et al 2013 Environ. Res. Lett. 8 044032).
Our results support the conclusion that the investment tax
credits had no effect on innovation. Federal R&D had a
significant, but small correlation, supporting the idea that
these investments have been marginally effective. Perhaps the
most interesting finding is that the state-level RPS policies,
and not the PTC, are most correlated with patenting activity.
These results make sense for several reasons. First, of these
policies, the RPS is the only command-and-control mechanism[4]
and is thus most likely to be technology-forcing. Wind farm
operators desire to meet renewable generation mandates as
efficiently as possible. Some of the costs of building and
operating a wind farm, such as land acquisition and tower
construction, would be expected to scale on a per-turbine basis.
Larger turbines also utilize better quality wind at a higher
altitude. Therefore, larger turbines likely achieve lower
per-MWh costs. The experience of the federal R&D program
indicated the need for technological advances to achieve
reliability in these larger sizes, and thus there was an
incentive to invest in innovation.
Second, the lack of an effect from the PTC in spurring
innovation may have had a lot to do with how the credit was
implemented. Beginning in 2000, the credit was renewed for
periods of only one or two years and was allowed to expire
briefly three times. Because there is a lag between innovation
investment and delivery to the market, this short renewal period
did not inspire confidence in suppliers that a payoff for
investment would still exist in the future. RPSs, in contrast,
provided a stable, long-term signal that there would be a market
for better turbine technology.
The history of wind turbine technology is quite fascinating, and
there’s much more that can be said about how policies have
affected its development. However, we’d like to end with two
takeaways. First, transformative innovations often need
government support to transition from the high-risk early period
to a state where industry can take over. The fact that wind
turbine technology has needed policy intervention to achieve its
current level of success should not be seen as an indictment of
it. After all, the IT and aerospace industries are full of
technologies now providing huge societal benefit but that needed
government support early on.
Second, the manner of this support—policy design—is critically
important. Successful policies balance between rolling out
existing technology and incentivizing investment in the next
generation of technologies. The investment tax credits of the
1980s were mis-targeted, and a careful survey of the technology
landscape could perhaps have provided a more fruitful direction
for the LWT program. One important policy attribute is time
horizon: when dealing with innovative technology areas, often a
longer-term view is warranted. The lack of predictability in the
PTC renewal schedule likely hindered its effectiveness in
inducing innovation (though it clearly led to turbine
construction), and an expiration date further in the future
would perhaps have made it a more effective driver of
technological progress.
Policy decisions arguably killed wind in the U.S. in the 1930s
and 1980s, and policy decisions brought it back both times.
While it doesn’t look like wind is headed for a third death in
the near future, the talk of rolling back RPS policies in some
states does threaten to bring the same sort of instability that
plagued the PTC. In any case, the lessons learned from the
history of wind policy should be useful as we look to
incentivize development of other energy technologies.
[1] For an excellent history of U.S. wind energy through the
early 1990s, see Robert Righter’s Wind Energy in America: A
History (University of Oklahoma Press, 1996).
[2] Only one multi-megawatt turbine had ever been built—forty
years previous! The 1.25 MW Smith-Putnam turbine successfully
fed electricity into Vermont’s electricity grid in 1941, but
suffered two equipment failures, and interest faded in the
postwar environment.
[3] Horner NC, Azevedo IL, & Hounshell DA (2013). Effects of
Government Incentives on Wind Innovation in the United States.
Environmental Research Letters 8 044032.
[4] Admittedly, this is a simplistic characterization of how
RPSs are deployed in practice. RPSs vary drastically from
state-to-state; many allow for at least some of the mandate to
be fulfilled via purchase of renewable energy credits and have
cost-effectiveness requirements. These attributes can make RPSs
less stringent than typical command-and-control policies, and
thus less effective technology-forcers. For a detailed look at
how each state’s RPS is set up, see dsireusa.org.
The Authors
Nathaniel Horner is a doctoral student in the Department of
Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University,
where his research includes innovation policy, energy systems,
and energy use in the information technology sector.
Inês Azevedo as an Associate Professor in the Department of
Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University,
where she also serves as Co-Director for the Climate and Energy
Decision Making (CEDM) Center.
HTML http://theenergycollective.com/nathaniel-horner/2167751/energy-innovation-doesn-t-just-happen-how-government-policies-destroyed-and
#Post#: 2417--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 19, 2014, 5:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Transforming the Grid with Clean Energy — Reliably — Every Day
;D
John Moore, Senior Attorney, The Sustainable FERC Project
December 19, 2014
Despite years of successful experience, dozens of studies, and
increasing utility support for clean energy, urban myth holds
that electricity from renewable energy is unreliable. Yet over
75,000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power have been
integrated, reliably, into the nation’s electric grid to date.
That’s enough electricity to supply 17.9 million homes.
And, as a new NRDC fact sheet published today illustrates, the
electric grid can handle much higher levels of zero-carbon wind
and solar power, far more than what’s necessary to achieve the
relatively modest carbon emission reductions in the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to limit pollution from
existing power plants. But first, a little background on how our
nation’s electric system works.
Grid Basics
The nation’s high-power transmission system is made up of three
largely separate grids: one on either side of the Continental
Divide (roughly) and the third in Texas. The two largest grids
are further subdivided into regions managed by different
regional and local utility grid operators.
HTML http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jmoore/assets_c/2014/12/Grid%20Map-thumb-500x271-18213.png
Source: MJ Bradley & Associates using Ventyx Velocity
Grid operators are the air traffic controllers of the power
system, managing the flow of electrons from power plants to
customers across thousands of miles of transmission lines. They
operate the grid under extremely detailed procedures and
standards.
Planning for the Next 5 Minutes and the Next 10 Years
To ensure a reliable transmission system, grid operators think
in several time frames. In the immediate seconds to hours, they
run the grid according to a detailed set of economic and
electrical engineering rules embedded in sophisticated computer
programs. These programs dispatch power plants with the lowest
operating costs first, subject to important constraints to
preserve the grid’s stability and avoid blackouts.
Grid operators also plan years into the future to ensure
reliability. In the same way that one would not set out to drive
across the desert on a half-tank of gas, they want to ensure
enough power exists and can be delivered to meet consumer demand
years ahead. To do so, they identify factors that could either
increase or decrease the need for more power and power lines,
and then plan accordingly.
Wind and Solar Power Hit the Big Leagues
There is more renewable energy flowing through the power grid
than ever before. At times, wind has supplied more than 60
percent of the total demand on some utility systems, without
reliability problems. And solar power now routinely contributes
10 to 15 percent of midday electricity demand in California,
which has more solar panel installations than anywhere in the
country.
HTML http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/jmoore/assets_c/2014/12/Wind%20Across%20the%20US-thumb-500x765-18212.jpg
Source: American Wind Energy Association independent analysis
based on real time data publicly available by ISOs and utilities
Accurate Forecasts and Advanced Technologies Matter
Due to more precise weather forecasts and sophisticated
technologies, grid operators increasingly can predict--and
control--wind and solar generation levels. Accurate predictions
of wind speed and solar conditions help grid operators
efficiently schedule renewable energy into the system. Using
advanced and often-automatic control systems, grid operators can
both increase and decrease the power output into the grid, which
helps to stabilize the grid’s electrical frequency and maintain
reliability.
Wind and Solar Need Less Backup Power than Coal, Gas and Nuclear
Every power plant on the grid needs “backup” power in case
something happens to prevent it from generating as much
electricity as planned. PJM, in charge of most of the grid from
New Jersey to Illinois, currently holds 3,350 MW of expensive,
fast-acting contingency reserves 24/7 to ensure that it can keep
the lights on in case a large fossil or nuclear power plant
unexpectedly breaks down. In contrast, MISO – the grid operator
for the middle part of the country with the most wind power in
the nation – needs almost no additional fast-acting power
reserves to back up its 10,000-plus MW of wind power on the
system.
Why is so little backup power needed for wind and solar? In
contrast to the large, abrupt, and often unpredictable changes
in electricity output from coal and nuclear power plants, wind
output changes tend to be gradual and predictable, especially
when wind turbines are spread over larger areas. The fact that a
wind farm is a collection of many smaller turbines also helps,
since the failure of one has little impact on the farm’s total
output.
Our Grid Is Successfully Integrating Clean Energy Now and Will
Continue
The power grid has always adapted to changing state and national
energy trends and needs, thanks to regular operations and
planning frameworks. Forty years ago grid operators learned to
accommodate the sudden losses of generation that can come from
integrating very large nuclear power plants into the system.
Now, as utility-scale wind and solar power rapidly expand, grid
operators are successfully integrating these new resources into
the grid while retiring many outdated, costly, and polluting
coal plants. And they’re doing it without most Americans even
noticing. Maybe that’s the best proof that wind and solar power
are not just ready for the big leagues, they’re already there.
This article was originally pubished on NRDC and was republished
with permission.
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/12/transforming-the-grid-with-clean-energy-reliably-every-day
#Post#: 2428--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 21, 2014, 3:00 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
WSJ's $21 Billion Subsidy Hypocrisy
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714183543.bmp
by
ClimateDenierRoundupFollow
for
Climate Action Hub.
The Wall Street Journal — continuing its tradition of providing
free advertising for fossil fuels in the form of opinion pieces
— published an oped by Tim Phillips arguing that we should end
the wind power Production Tax Credit (PTC), a 22-year-old
subsidy for wind power. It just so happens, however, that
Phillips is none other than the president of Americans for
Prosperity, the oil-loving, Koch-funded right-wing "free market"
advocacy group.
Full truth filled article:
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/02/1348794/-WSJ-s-21-Billion-Subsidy-Hypocrisy
HTML http://blog.ucsusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PTC-Graph.jpg
Agelbert NOTE: This is not hard. Wind is eating fossil fuel
profits even though it receives a PITTANCE in subsidy compared
with fossil fuels. Consequently the fossil fuel fascists are
DOING what they HAVE ALWAYS DONE to make it go away. Free
market, MY ASS!
[move]The "Welfare" of Society is ALWAYS the alibi of
Tyrants[/move]
#Post#: 2443--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 24, 2014, 2:42 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
The Fossil Fuel Funded Profit Over People and Planet PROPAGANDA
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-200714183404.bmp
HTML http://windtoons.com/images/Wind-power-dollars-Leaving-Town-150.gif<br
/>
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-300714025456.bmp<br
/>
HTML http://www.u.arizona.edu/~patricia/cute-collection/smileys/lying-smiley.gif<br
/>
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/mocantina.gif
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/acigar.gif
The REALITY:
[center]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-301014182234.gif[/center]
[center]The Project: Manzana Wind Power Project Creates
Renewable Energy and Local Jobs [/center]
Project profile of the Manzana Wind Farm
Renewable Energy World Editors
December 24, 2014
In the wind-rich Tehachapi area near the town of Rosamond,
California the 189-MW Manazana Wind Power Project, developed by
Iberdrola Renewbles, generates electricity and sells it to San
Diego Gas and Electric under a 20-year PPA. The project came
online in 2012 and boasts 126 GE turbines.
At the height of construction, when these photos were taken, the
wind farm created 290 construction jobs. Minnesota-based
Blattner Energy managed construction, with the majority of the
work sub-contracted to local California companies. Today, there
are twelve permanent Iberdrola Renewables operations and
maintenance staff who run the facility and eight or nine
additional contractors work for the facility while it is still
under warranty.
Click through to see a slideshow presentation of the project.
HTML http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2014/12/the-project-manzana-wind-power-project-creates-renewable-energy-and-local-jobs#comment-138675
[center]
HTML http://www.freesmileys.org/emoticons/emoticon-object-081.gif[/center]
HTML http://cleantechnica.com/files/2012/02/washing_rotor_assembly_Manzana.jpg
HTML http://iberdrolarenewables.us/images/00-manzana-sunlit-hills-7983.jpg
Manzana Sunlight Hills
HTML http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BMO83zHKF7U/T2aECjTF1OI/AAAAAAAAvz4/-b4EI5FgQ0g/s1600/11-309g.png
[center]
HTML http://dl10.glitter-graphics.net/pub/2491/2491210ovie015m90.gif<br
/>= 111%[/center]
[center]
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/looksmiley.gif
[/center]
Fight for the truth. Destroy the lies and deliberate
misperceptions pushed by the fossil fuelers so they can continue
to degrade our biosphere AND what's left of our Democracy. Pass
it on.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/176.gif
We need fossil fuels like a HOLE IN THE HEAD!
HTML http://www.freesmileys.org/custom/image/tongue%5E_%5Earial%5E_%5E0%5E_%5E0%5E_%5EBurning<br
/>Fossil Fuels IS SUICIDE%5E_%5E.gif
#Post#: 2470--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 29, 2014, 6:17 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lz9kuJFyAoE&feature=player_embedded
The above video is from the Department of Energy (DOE). It is
WAY too conservative in its projections of wind power growth.
In fact, they admit that their 2008 study projection, prepared
by 100's of scientists from 70 plus organizations (like the one
NOW they are about to publish), of 48 GW of wind power by 2013
was A BIT OFF. ;D
By 2013 the USA had 61 GW of installed wind power. The REALITY
was 127% of the projection! That's why the Koch brothers and
friends have gone nuts trying to kill "big wind". That's why
recently, not one, not two, but THREE stalking horses for fossil
fuel foot dragging have wormed their way into the DOE.
The video talks about all the REAL cost savings from increasing
percentages of wind power in our grid. The FACT that wind power
saves HUGE amounts of WATER is mentioned as well.
HTML http://cleantechnica.com/files/2011/09/power-plant-water-use.png
What it fails to mention is that we DO NOT NEED to wait until
2050 to get a lousy 35% or so. We CAN get that by 2020! That is
why the friends of dirty energy in Congress want to kill any
benefit, no matter how small, compared with dirty energy
subsidies, to slow down the wind renewable energy juggernaut.
The WAR is RAGING!
HTML http://www.websmileys.com/sm/violent/sterb029.gif
Watch the
video. Keep in mind that the DOE has an "all the above" policy
DICTATED by our fossil fuel government. But at least they are
not lying about the Social Costs of dirty energy pollutants.
They are REAL costs and we-the-people are sick and tired of
paying them. >:(
#Post#: 2471--------------------------------------------------
Re: Wind Power
DIR By: AGelbert
Date: December 29, 2014, 8:29 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
Report finds Iowa’s wind jobs come out on top ;D
HTML http://aweablog.org/uploads/images/5288518999_8121ddde17_z.jpg
Photo from AWEA's Flickr, all rights reserved
A new report on advanced energy employment in Iowa shows that
the wind industry employs an impressive 3,600-plus workers in
the Hawkeye State.
The report by the Advanced Energy Economic Institute found that
wind energy “dominates” among jobs supported by advanced
electricity generation industries in Iowa,, with 68 percent of
workers in that segment working in wind. The report is
consistent with research by the American Wind Energy
Association.
HTML http://aweablog.org/uploads/images/windiowa.png
The state numbers are impressive, but what may be most telling
in the report is its meaning beyond Iowa’s borders. The report,
for instance, notes the correlation between jobs and a
commitment to renewable energy. Iowa has a long history of
providing a conducive policy environment for tapping its
renewable resources. In the 1980s, Iowa became the first state
to institute a renewable portfolio standard.
“It’s easy to see why Iowa has a sizable workforce,” the report
notes. “The state is a national wind energy powerhouse, as these
[2013 American Wind Energy Association] statistics demonstrate:
first in the nation in the percentage of electricity generated
by wind (27 percent), third in megawatts installed, and third in
the number of utility scale wind turbines.”
The report also notes how the growth of wind power has
contributed to Iowa economic development beyond the industry
itself, citing as examples the decisions by both Google and
Facebook to locate data centers in the state—in part because of
the availability of clean, affordable wind energy.
Another takeaway that’s applicable elsewhere: Those states most
familiar with wind energy seem to like it the most. From the
Iowa report: “Iowans overwhelmingly support the growth of the
wind energy segment. Fully 85 percent of people in the state
view wind energy more favorably than any other energy source,
providing political support for pro-wind policies.”
However, the report also found that wind energy employment in
the state has declined compared to 2013. The report states that
“[t]his decline occurred during a sharp downturn in the U.S.
wind industry associated with the expiration, followed by
renewal, of the federal production tax credit (PTC), which
resulted in the 90 percent drop in wind industry revenue in
2013.” :evil4:
To avert more of the all-to-familiar boom-bust cycle, Congress
must implement long-term policies to promote wind -- states
like Iowa depend on it.
HTML http://www.emofaces.com/png/200/emoticons/fingerscrossed.png
HTML http://aweablog.org/blog/post/report-finds-iowas-wind-jobs-come-out-on-top
HTML http://aweablog.org/blog/post/report-finds-iowas-wind-jobs-come-out-on-top
HTML http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0BwHkvYAh-Y/VDku9RQBULI/AAAAAAABGEk/jsA6jUsSf5k/s1600/10-14-2014a.png
HTML http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yWPjNiMBZDI/VDku9v53SfI/AAAAAAABGEo/06popuQaqNc/s1600/10-14-2014b.png
Agelbert NOTE in regard to the relation between our survival and
the autotrophic biomass health: Already, Negative effects on
MIDDLE TROPHIC levels of climate change are being documented.
--- Quote ---
> Climate change enhances the negative effects of predation risk
on an intermediate consumer.
>
> We found that both predation risk and increased air and sea
temperatures suppressed the foraging of prey in the middle
trophic level, suggesting that warming may further enhance the
top-down control of predators on communities. Prey growth
efficiency, which measures the efficiency of energy transfer
between trophic levels, became negative when prey were subjected
to predation risk and warming.
--- End Quote ---
HTML http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24947942
HTML http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24947942
The proof that the autotrophs (phototrophic - algae,
phytoplankton, grass, trees - photosynthetic life forms and the
prokaryotes, the cyanobacteria, the lithotrophs and the
methanogens) are affected by higher temperatures to the point of
endangering Homo SAP survival has already been documented.
I will provide more info on the growing awareness of the
scientific community about our UNSUSTAINABLE path BECAUSE of the
danger to autotrophs as well as the middle trophic levels.
--- Quote ---
> Autotrophs, being the primary producers, are always at the
bottom of the food chain. They are responsible for converting
CO2 to a form required by the heterotrophs.
--- End Quote ---
They have not been able to make FIRM conclusions because of the
complexity of life form interactions but they are getting there.
HTML http://www.pic4ever.com/images/reading.gif
--- Quote ---
> Research has already found that due to global warming,
bacteria and fungi reproduce more rapidly (Agren, 2013). At the
same time, they even use a larger share of the available carbon
for their own respiration, bringing more CO2 into the atmosphere
which stimulates atmospheric warming even more (Agren, 2013).
This is how micro-organisms are believed to contribute to global
climate change. Both in the carbon and nitrogen cycles there are
certain levels of complex metabolic activities which are
influenced by inorganic nutrients (Six et al ., 2006).
>
> These activities are quite vigorous and fluent but will tend
to alter if there is change within the surrounding environment.
This may result in vehement effects and impacts on global
climatic phenomena leading to change in its natural occurrences.
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-310714182509.png<br
/>
--- End Quote ---
HTML http://www.academia.edu/7609928/Role_of_micro-organisms_in_climate_change
HTML http://www.academia.edu/7609928/Role_of_micro-organisms_in_climate_change
[move][i]Save the autotrophic biomass from climate change so
your ass won't be grass. Demand 100% transition to Renewable
energy PLUS (for sequestering of carbon and bioremediation of
planet polluting poisons) NOW![/I][/move]
*****************************************************
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