Expensive and unrealistic wind 'power'

Jen, much of your post was to the point but on one point I would correct you. You can turn wind turbines off at will, but you cannot turn them on at will. If there is no wind they will not produce electricity no matter how much you turn them on and off.

The same point applies to a point made in another post. Having lots of wind turbines doesn't help, essentially, one off, all off, and while regionally wind speeds and presence may vary there are times when weather systems engulf the whole country and there is a lack of wind country wide. I have quoted this February's example ad nauseam on other threads so I will not repeat it again here, you will all have already seen it.

Wind turbines are aesthetically pleasing, at times beautiful, at other times pretty, but aesthetic qualities do not generate electricity.

Because we are such a small island the wind turbines take up a huge amount of space and are relatively close to roads and homes. I was quite horrified at the noise they made. In France they make a beautiful picture in the distance.

“@Glenties_WiG: GDNG Renewables 16-turbine #windfarm near Letterkenny requires the excavation of 160,000 cubic metres of peat #greenenergy #ActOnFacts”

My late husband helped design DeNorwick pump storage scheme and explained it to me VERY MANY TIMES!

Excellent point jen re the switching off. Same with pumped storage hydro. If anyone wants to come and visit me I will take you to electric mountain to see how it works. They can turn it on the second the cup final half time starts so that the grid gets a boost in time for all those kettles. If you want to have an unwasteful, even supply of electricity you have to have a mix.
I don't think we have much choice other than build some new nuclear. It is the least worst option. We don't have earthquake faults like Japan but we could have global sea rises to deal with. Nuclear is on the coast because of the need for water cooling. Any design needs to allow for a significant rise in sea level (yes bags i know you are doubtful whether current warming is man made, or will continue, but I am talking risk analysis here. And these things have to be safe for 100s of years not just a few)
BTW newbuild dwellings are very energy efficient. The flat we have just rented is a middle floor, 2 years old. We anticipate that we will use very little gas for heating in the winter as the warmth of the fridges, the computers etc will probably be enough most of the time. Old housing stock is still a disgrace. As is the electricity wasted in shops etc.
I suppose from an artistic point of view turbines might fit better in some landscapes than others. In Mojave in California they went for the wind farm option very early and covered their dusty hills in turbines. Quite a sight - and a welcome one in that barren landscape. I would not put them in an area of outstanding natural beauty. But there are loads of windy hilltops and hillsides where they would add visual interest. Lot better to look at than: pit heads, slag heaps, pylons and cooling towers.

Good post, jendurham - wish I'd said that! I'm another one who likes the sight of wind turbines and find them restful to watch. Better than nuclear power any time; the theory may be good, but nobody has thought of an acceptable and safe way of getting rid of the waste and we have seen the consequences in Japan of an accident to a nuclear power station.

Sorry, LizG but I do not see how the same thing can look beautiful in France but ugly in Cornwall.
Anyway, I do not mind being placated by not having nuclear power stations being built. My electricity usage is not high anyway, but since my sons doubled the amount of loft insulation it has halved, mainly because the indoor temperature rarely falls below 18 degrees except in really cold weather.
Having a decent amount of insulation in a house is most important, and the government really needs to push this in newbuild and older houses.
Surely the fact that windturbines can be switched on and off quickly and easily is one of the USPs for turbines. When nuclear power stations get decommissioned, which they will soon, it will not be necessary to switch off the wind turbines.

If we had one turbine each,we couldn't cope on still days, without adequate backup.The cost would be enormous,we couldn't afford it.
The figures given for the increase in power being provided, up to the beginning of this year, only approach 10% of the power required,for the previous year, even then the cost of providing this pathetic amount are not usually given, or if this increase was for every day or just those days when the wind was blowing in the right direction at the right speed, (not too fast, and not too slowly).
The increase in power usage is not mentioned either,we will be having programmed power cuts in the near future, the very near future if we persist trying to placate the "greens"and don't get a move on and build atomic power stations and forget all this nonsense about wind and tide power.Hydro electricity is another matter, we could generate some power by this method if we had sufficient sites suitable.Time however is against us, to much procrastination seeing (excuse the pun) which way the wind is blowing, and the direction, and the amount of votes that are available for which particular group you need to kowtow to.

Unfortunately just one wind turbine does not do the trick. In the French wide open spaces they can have fields of them looking majestic and beautiful as well as generating power In Cornwall they look ugly and are noisy. We are a very small island with insufficient room for our people let alone hundreds of wind turbines.

As long as it is proven safe for the environment I say wave power any time.

Approximately 75% of the total cost of energy for a wind turbine is related to upfront costs such as the cost of the turbine, foundation, electrical equipment, grid-connection and so on. Obviously, fluctuating fuel costs have no impact on power generation costs. Thus a wind turbine is capital-intensive compared to conventional fossil fuel fired technologies such as a natural gas power plant, where as much as 40-70% of costs are related to fuel and ongoing costs and management.

Here are the figures for the United States. I doubt there will be much relative variation between US and UK www.eia.gov/forecasts/capitalcost/xls/table1.xls

I agree, nellie, on both points. But I think we have made and are still making progress on reducing industrial pollution.

https://restats.decc.gov.uk/cms/national-renewables-statistics/#Electricity
This might be of interest.

I have no biases to any of these forms of energy production. I would prefer them to be minimally polluting.
All I was asking for having looked at the article, is that the costs of each particular method of power generation including the infrastructure are published and costed out in a manner that allows proper comparison per Kwh produced.
I do not think there are any easy solutions to solving our future energy needs. Better energy conservation would help. This depends on all of making savings where we can. Changing peoples attitudes is difficult.

The effects of pollution from the processes are yet another issue that needs to be addressed but harder to quantify in financial terms.

I don't think it is biassed, and I don't think anyone with an 'interest' in wind power production is qualified to say that the numbers are biassed.

flickety, your contributions to this and related subjects are always interesting and to the point. It's good to get some balance.

Nellie the problem is, not the power taken from the grid to maintain wind turbines when they are switched off for servicing. I doubt anyone would argue with this, the real cost is the large amount of back up facilities that have to be maintained to deal with the fact that windpower is undependable and uncontrollable.

According to Renewable UK there is 10,000Mw of installed windpower capacity in the UK, somewhat more than I had realised. If we assume that, allowing for maintenance and downtime 8,000Mw of this power is operational, it is only operational if the wind blows. Well, on one cold day in February when power demand was at its highest the whole UK stock of wind turbines on and offshore could only produce 29Mw of power - and there are probably a significant number of days when production is below 1000Mw.

This means that the windpower capacity of the UK has to be backed up by an equal capacity of conventional capacity that has to work in a polluting energy and money wasteful way to support our wind industry.

Why polluting and wasteful? Because the government's answer to this back up problems is
1) to pay hundreds of million of pounds every year for diesel back up facilities all over the country that can fire up, using diesel, a fuel far more polluting than gas, and not covered by emission control standards, when ever required. One wind power company has diesel generating equipment on a site beside far more efficient and less polluting local gas-fired power station four miles from my home.
2) to pay equally large sums to conventional power stations to keep generators warmed and ticking over so that they can reach full power almost immediately it is asked for. This is because under normal circumstance large generation equipment needs to take several hours to gently warm up before it is possible to push the lever to 'full power ahead'. Over a year a power station may need to have at least one generation set on standby for a total of months, consuming fuel, making emissions but crucially making no electricity and earning no money in order to be ready to respond the moment the wind turbines stop turning, that or blackouts. Quite reasonably the generators expect to be paid for the fuel, manpower and maintenance needed to keep their generation equipment in this state.

Sorry this is so long but few people realise the dirty polluting back story to 'clean' windpower.

Yes nanaej if someone suddenly produced one out of the blue (before they had been invented) and said "this is a wind sculpture" then it would be accepted as a piece of art.

I am always disappointed that wind power is not a stronger contender for power!
Such a good idea in principle and I am one of the people who like the windmills..I find them quite beautiful!

Well of course they don't that is to be expected! So they will use other sources for maintenance when there is no wind.

What are the the stand by costs of all the other types of power plants we have, they have to be kept maintained with power when not at full capacity.

It is wrong to publish an article like this without some comparison of the costs of maintaining the idling times of all the other means of power generation.

There is no easy way of comparing these costs without spending time digging on the internet if it is even available. Without that information it is just a cheap headline.

thatbags as you know I have been making this argument for a long time, see some of my recent posts on environmental issues on Gransnet.

Biased use of numbers gone mad in this article. If you choose the least windy time of the month as the basis for your argument, then its a bit like saying that photovoltaic panels are useless in the night. Or that the hydroelectric plant in N Wales does not generate electricity when all the turbines are switched off.
It is a waste of money subsidising very small wind turbines on houses and industrial estates, or wind farms that are not in windy places.
But the UK is signed up to reach renewables targets and there is a way to go yet. The only way they are going to reach them is by using subsidies to encourage a wide range of renewable sources that will complement each other. The government wimped out on the Severn Barrage that would have provided a large amount of reliable energy.

I much prefer the idea of wave power. Not that I think it will cost any less than wind but because if placed where the coast is being eroded it will help protect it and therefore we get a double benefit. Also if your back garden is slowly disappearing into the sea you tend to have a different viewpoint on things and don't see them as an eyesore, so not so many objections. Coastal protection costs a fortune and so does green energy but by combining the two it may be cost effective.