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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (45705)	9/8/2010 11:20:11 AM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

No I don't mean that. Maybe I expressed it better (certainly more thoroughly, but perhaps in a way many would find more boring). Re: "wind simply can't be counted on to produce when you need it." So what? NOTHING is ever 100% dependable Nothing isn't 100% dependable, but that doesn't mean some things are reliable and some are not. Individual gas power plants can be counted on to produce at over 90% of their rated capacity, over 90% of the time, and that's being conservative, they probably could do much better than that. A decent sized collection of gas power plants can be counted on to produce over 90% of its rated capacity almost 100% of the time. Wind can't be counted on to produce 1% of its rated capacity well over 90% of the time. And can't be counted on to produce even over 50% of its rated capacity often enough to be useful as peaking power. Gas is almost always there when you need it, wind is not. Adding a lot of extra redundant wind capacity helps a little (while adding costs) but the extra capacity can be down at the same time, as the wind can be calm (or way too high, requiring wind turbines to shut down) over a large area. With gas other than a general shortage of gas (which is unlikely without price controls, or massive war, or a natural disaster so large that its the main worry not the gas supply), the extra capacity is unlikely to go down at the same time. As a niche you don't need to figure out a role for wind, you just grab what power from it that you can, and there isn't any big problem (other than the fact that its not cost effective without subsidies). As a major supplier (think something like a third of electricity production, and not that's production, not production capacity, a 2MW w) it just doesn't fit if your counting on a reliable supply, unless you back it up nearly completely with fossil fuel generation capacity. But if you aren't getting rid of any fossil fuel plants, its not going to be cost effective. The cheapest way to back it up would be with coal, but coal plants are not so efficient when they are turned on and off all the time. So then maybe you back it up with gas. But buying all that gas capacity and also buying all the wind capacity, makes wind unlikely to be cost effective even if fuel prices go to multiples of today's level in real terms. That's esp. true if you also have to invest in greatly expanding and modernizing the grid so that you can transport power from the best wind areas to where its needed (yes coal plants are not going to be built in the middle of cities, but they can be placed more flexibly than large scale wind power, and the existing ones are already connected to the grid). A way to supposedly solve the problem with the unreliability of wind (and solar) is to store power. But that isn't practical beyond a niche either. Batteries or fuel cells are way to expensive to even get serious consideration for storing a significant portion of the countries generating capacity. Reduce the cost by 100 and its still too high, they couldn't even be used for a very large niche (fitting only things that are important, don't use a ton of power, and aren't connected to the grid). Pumping water to higher elevations then running it through a turbine is cheaper, and scales up better, but still doesn't scale up nearly enough. There simply isn't enough area that is both good for wind power, and has the appropriate terrain. None of which means that either subsidies, or rising fuel costs, wouldn't be able to result in a lot more wind capacity, but you could get a lot more without wind being a major player.