A Wind Power Boonedoggle

[joshcryer]

After 30 months, countless TV appearances, and $80 million spent on an extravagant PR campaign, T. Boone Pickens has finally admitted the obvious: The wind energy business isn't a very good one.

The Dallas-based entrepreneur, who has relentlessly promoted his "Pickens Plan" since July 4, 2008, announced earlier this month that he's abandoning the wind business to focus on natural gas.

Two years ago, natural gas prices were spiking and Mr. Pickens figured they'd stay high. He placed a $2 billion order for wind turbines with General Electric. Shortly afterward, he began selling the Pickens Plan. The United States, he claimed, is "the Saudi Arabia of wind," and wind energy is an essential part of the cure for the curse of imported oil.

Voters and politicians embraced the folksy billionaire's plan. Last year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he had joined "the Pickens church," and Al Gore said he wished that more business leaders would emulate Mr. Pickens and be willing to "throw themselves into the fight for the future of our country."

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748704368004576027310664695834-lMyQjAxMTAwMDIwMTEyNDEyWj.html

---

Much more at link. What's notable is that the subsidies that natural gas gets aren't really counted in the economics because natural gas avoids the externalized costs because it has exemptions from the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, along with a long list of other environmental exemptions. Natural gas is costing the environment boatloads, and probably isn't economical if its technologies must deal with the environmental acts we created to, uh, protect the environment and the people in it.

[RandomThoughts]

1. Race to the bottom.

I think he proves why people with money, made by finding best 'business' deals, should not decide direction of society.

If it is not profitable, then some say it is wrong.


Why would it have to make a profit?

[joshcryer]

16. That's why I like Tom Blees, he says that all energy should be nationalized.

It doesn't go over well in some circles.

[TheMadMonk]

25. Pesonally I'm fine with privatised supply. However infrastructure...

...The trunk systems which connect the supply to demand should be a national asset or at the least have a mandated level of public ownership/control.

The only way to engineer a shift away from destructive fossil fuels is to make it unecconomical to keep using them the way we do. While they remain the most ecconomical choice, fossil fuels will continue to be used in preference to more expensive alternatives. Subsidy can only go so far.

The EPA has signalled an intention to exercise its remit to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. What now remains to be seen is what it will do with that remit. Will they put in place measures that encourage actual reductions in emissions? Or will they simply stand in the way of State authorities enacting their own regulations?

[The Croquist]

18. Because profits matter

Without profits there is no incentive by the private sector to do it leaving it up to the public sector and the public sector is rife with examples of horrible economic decisions.

You don't believe me? How about all those sports stadiums we build for professional teams? Offtrack betting in NY? Maybe bailing out the banks with no strings attached? That bridge to nowhere made sense right?

Here in Georgia we built an indoor football stadium so we could get a super bowl that would bring in huge amounts of revenue. After the super bowl we couldn't pay the cops the overtime they racked up. Now the NFL is telling us we need to build another stadium to get another super bowl.

We had the Olympics. Major cash cow there let me tell you. We disrupted the city for three weeks and ended up with a stadium that the Braves play in named after the owner, Ted Turner, who didn't pay for it. We built this crap with promises of huge rewards but it's a bunch of BS. Public buildings don't pay property tax. They don't pay school tax. They are funded by tax free municipal bonds that put the government in hock and are in effect subsidies. The corporations don't hold guns to the heads of the government. The governments willingly do this because the stupid voters would rather have a half-assed home team then a fiscally responsible government and the politicians get free seats and junkets.

Sorry about the rant. I'm not going to delete it because I think some people may get a laugh out of it even if it is at my own expense but I stand by by general premise that I trust the government even less then private industry. At least private industry risks their own money or they would if the governments wouldn't subsidize them.

[joshcryer]

19. You should check out Gasland and this guy who says he was screwed over by private gas companies.

But in some ways I agree with you. The government passes good regulations sometimes, but then those regulations are thrown out the door for some corporations, are they really even relevant anymore? My state is blue, thanks to people like me moving here (Colorado turned blue due to an influx of yuppies and immigrants, it will not go red again), but I fear that it'll be a long while yet before we can get politicians who actually do the right thing.

In that vein we're fucked. It doesn't help that the people on the Energy and Minerals committee openly admit their ties to the gas and oil industry, and likely use their open, public, relationship in political ads. It doesn't help that the fucking people voting for these same people actually buy it.

But don't think that the gas industry isn't getting away with bullshit, and don't think that they'll ever pay back those people that they harmed.

[Laelth]

2. Wind power BLOWS. n/t

-Laelth

[w4rma]

3. Yup. Natural gas subsidies and exemptions need to be compared properly. (nt)

[bananas]

4. Oh great - an anti-renewable article by that right-winger Robert Bryce

Some posts I've made about Robert Bryce:

"Debunking Robert Bryce’s power hungry gusher of lies" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x259100

"Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Conservative Idiots" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x251126

"In defense of right-wing hucksters like Robert Bryce" http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x260171

[joshcryer]

9. Is there anything in *this* article you do not believe is true?

[bananas]

5. One myth about the Wall Street Journal: It still practices serious journalism

Earlier this year, Joe Romm wrote "One myth about the Washington Post: It still practices serious journalism" in response to article by right-winger Robert Bryce. I guess the same can be said about the Wall Street Journal.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/04/27/one-myth-about-the-washington-post-it-still-practices-serious-journalism/

One myth about the Washington Post: It still practices serious journalism

<snip>

This Sunday, the Post published its most nonsensical piece in the series, “5 Myths about green energy.“ They farmed out the task to the right wing Manhattan Institute, which, surprise, surprise, has received $800,000 from the big-time polluters at Koch Industries in recent years, on top of money from ExxonMobil. It’s no surprise Big Oil and polluters fund right-wing disinformation. And I suppose it’s no longer a surprise that the Post reprint their misinformation as fact.

I don’t have the time to debunk the entire piece. Fortunately, Matt Wasson Director of Programs for Appalachian Voices, dismantled the first one thoroughly at HuffPost, which I excerpt below:

Readers of the Washington Post were served up some jaw-dropping whoppers yesterday about why renewable energy — and wind in particular — supposedly doesn’t reduce CO2 emissions, increase our national security, or create jobs in the US. The author of the op-ed is climate change denier and long time fossil fuel cheerleader Robert Bryce….

<snip>

[bananas]

6. "The author of the op-ed is climate change denier and long time fossil fuel cheerleader Robert Bryce

Just want to emphasize that.

[joshcryer]

17. Is there anything untrue in the statements by the author? He omitted externalized natural gas...

...subsidies. I pointed that out in my OP.

Otherwise there was nothing untrue about what he wrote.

[joshcryer]

10. Actually, it was the first hit for the Picken's move. I found nothing in the article that was untrue

[bananas]

7. "Only someone center-right would quote Bryce, who works for the right wing Manhattan Institute..."

http://climateprogress.org/2010/07/15/michael-lind-the-dr-doolittle-of-the-new-america-foundation-misinforms-on-both-climate-science-or-energy/

<snip>

Only someone center-right would quote Bryce, who works for the right wing Manhattan Institute, which has received $800,000 from the big-time polluters at Koch Industries in recent years, on top of money from ExxonMobil. That doesn’t make Bryce wrong or his book wrong, of course, but peddling easily debunked nonsense about energy does. Lind quotes him:

<snip>

[joshcryer]

11. Fine. Let's quote Forbes' Andrew Schenkel:

Oilman T. Boone Pickens was a great voice for wind energy. Now he’s backing off and touting natural gas as the answer to America’s energy challenges.

The Pickens Plan, which was unveiled back in 2008 with a barrage of advertisements, interviews and events, was a plan to wean America off Middle Eastern energy sources and onto domestic sources like wind. Pickens talked about building the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, a 500-megawatt facility that was to be based in the town of Pampa, Texas. Now, citing delays in transmission line construction, Pickens has changed the plan.

Pickens is now setting his sights on a possible giant wind project — but not in the United States. He’s looking north of the border, in Canada, where renewable energy standards make wind a more attractive investment. He still has an energy plan within the United States, where he has jumped on the natural gas bandwagon. Not only is he on the bandwagon, he partially owns the bandwagon. More on that in a moment.

The new Pickens Plan calls for Congress to pass legislation that will incentivize the conversion of 18-wheel trucks to compressed natural gas (CNG). This conversion, according to a report on msnbc.com, would “cut in half the amount of oil imported to United States,” if just 8 million tractor-trailers in the U.S. switched to CNG.

http://blogs.forbes.com/eco-nomics/2010/12/17/t-boone-pickens-plans-giant-wind-project-in-canada/?boxes=Homepagechannels

---

More at link.

[joshcryer]

12. How about this editorial:

Boone Pickens once had an idea that would have turned much of the Texas Panhandle into the world's largest wind farm. That idea, shall we say, has been swept away by economic forces like a Panhandle tumbleweed.

The former Amarillo tycoon's plan now is to concentrate on natural gas, given that the Texas wind farm project has fallen through.

But the goal remains the same as when Pickens touted wind as part of the nation's answer to weaning itself from imported oil: to make the United States energy independent.

http://amarillo.com/opinion/editorial/2010-12-18/editorial-pickens-steps-gas

---

More at link.

[joshcryer]

13. Have a problem with the Mother Nature Network?

Oilman T. Boone Pickens was a great voice for wind energy. Now he’s backing off and touting natural gas as the answer to America’s energy challenges.

The Pickens Plan, which was unveiled back in 2008 with a barrage of advertisements, interviews and events, was a plan to wean America off Middle Eastern energy sources and onto domestic sources like wind. Pickens talked about building the world’s largest wind farm in the Texas Panhandle, a 500-megawatt facility that was to be based in the town of Pampa, Texas. Now, citing delays in transmission line construction, Pickens has changed the plan.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/energy/blogs/pickens-plan-no-longer-includes-wind


---

More at link.

[joshcryer]

14. Fact. T. Boon is no longer considering wind for the United States. Fact.

[jpak]

8. No - T. Boone Pickens Boondoggle - wind power works just fine

Pickens schemes?

not so much

[joshcryer]

15. T. Boon thinks natural gas is better. And so do a lot of E&E posters.

[GliderGuider]

20. Define "better"

Economically, yes NG is "better" than wind. And who would ever disagree with an economist? :evilgrin:

[joshcryer]

21. Economically, in an unregulated market.

Which doesn't appear to have any regulations being clamped down any time soon.

[NNadir]

22. Really? Can you name a single gas plant on this planet that has been shut by wind power?

Just one.

If wind power works so great, how come they're fracking all over the Northeast to make sure that the fantasy based idiot squad have electricity in places like, um, Maine?

If wind power works so great, how come the Danes are drilling oil and gas wells all over the North Sea?

Wind power "works great" only for those who don't give a rat's ass about the environment, including Earth's atmosphere.

[joshcryer]

23. Fuck fracking, seriously. I'd rather drink fucking tritium than the shit they put in our water.

[txlibdem]

24. Wind Power is viable if energy storage is added - works in symbiosis with solar

T. Boone Pickens backed off his wind power plan probably because he couldn't get the taxpayers to foot the bill --citing difficulties getting the grid extended, what he meant is that he'd have to pay for it so he scrapped the project. That's how the rich do things, how many stadiums has the NFL actually paid for? Answer: zero.

The wealthy are always the first ones to demand free money from the government (aka OUR tax dollars).

Now to wind power. The fact that some rich a-hole got pissed off because he couldn't get someone else to pay for his profit-making venture and backed out says nothing about the usefulness of wind power to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

The wind does not blow 100% of the time nor at the same speed all the time so the power output from a wind turbine (and by extension a wind farm no matter the size) is quite variable. That is the challenge with integrating wind power into the grid. Studies have shown that the larger the size of a wind farm (Pickens' was going to be 500 MW) the less the likelihood that its energy output will drop to zero but there is always a variability in the power output. Others here on DU have posted that the "rated" power output of a wind farm is almost never achieved, that the percentage of the output of a wind farm that can be counted as "reliable base power" is around 23% of its rated output. All that says to me is that we need to do two things: 1.) use energy storage at each wind farm to even out the peaks and valleys in the energy output, and 2.) build more wind farms.

The best scenario combines a massive build up of wind with a massive build up of solar power farms and rooftop solar. In the wind-rich middle of America there is less variability than elsewhere but there are still seasonal variations in wind speed. The interesting thing I noticed when comparing wind maps from the DOE to their solar power maps I noticed that when solar output is highest over the largest areas the wind is less and in the winter the reverse is true.

So it struck me that we can't rely solely on wind. Nor can we rely solely on solar power for 100% of our energy needs. But when you add the two together they work in synergy, each adding what the other lacks. In terms of our energy needs we must have both wind and solar because either one alone will not get us to where we need to go. Neither wind nor solar can end the dominance of fossil fuels alone. But when working together, wind and solar form a mutually beneficial whole that is greater than the sum of its parts, a symbiosis, or more accurately, a mutualistic one where each benefits the other.

Energy storage is the linchpin in any strategy for getting off of fossil fuels, though, I want to make that point very clear.

[kristopher]

26. A bit more is needed to complete the picture...

The profile of a single generating station can't be projected onto a networked grid. The article below specifically tests wind, but the current grid also performs this way with it's variety of generating sources. The grid is vast and the flowing body of the electricity pool in the grid wires is a product of innumerable fluctuating inputs and withdrawals that precisely resembles in its entirety none of the individual generating sources. So the characteristics of any one system are automatically mitigated by the a sort harmonic coalescing of the individual units into a larger whole.

This lessens the importance of any one specific technological generating niche - including storage.

It is precisely that same design feature of the grid that negates the claims that large-scale thermal "baseload" generating sources are needed. This "baseload" characteristic is greatly over-valued on the technical side by many that are unaware that the fundamental value of "baseload" is an economic product of a centralized system, not an overall technical prerequisite to electric supply in a modern industrial society.

Electric power from offshore wind via synoptic-scale interconnection
Abstract:
World wind power resources are abundant, but their utilization could be limited because wind fluctuates rather than providing steady power. We hypothesize that wind power output could be stabilized if wind generators were located in a meteorologically designed configuration and electrically connected. Based on 5 yr of wind data from 11 meteorological stations, distributed over a 2,500 km extent along the U.S. East Coast, power output for each hour at each site is calculated. Each individual wind power generation site exhibits the expected power ups and downs. But when we simulate a power line connecting them, called here the Atlantic Transmission Grid, the output from the entire set of generators rarely reaches either low or full power, and power changes slowly.

Notably, during the 5-yr study period, the amount of power shifted up and down but never stopped. This finding is explained by examining in detail the high and low output periods, using reanalysis data to show the weather phenomena responsible for steady production and for the occasional periods of low power. We conclude with suggested institutions appropriate to create and manage the power system analyzed here.

From the body of the paper:

Leveling Wind Fluctuations. The variability of wind power is not as problematic as is often supposed, since the electric power system is set up to adjust to fluctuating loads and unexpected failures of generation or transmission. However, as wind power becomes a higher proportion of all generation, it will become more difficult for electric system operators to effectively integrate additional fluctuating power output. Thus, solutions that reduce power fluctuations are important if wind is to displace significant amounts of carbon-emitting energy sources.

There are four near-term ways to level wind power and other fluctuating generation sources.
(i) Expand the use of existing control mechanisms already set up to handle fluctuating load and unexpected equipment outages—mechanisms such as reserve generators, redundant power line routes, and ancillary service markets. This is how wind is integrated today (5).

(ii) Build energy storage, as part of the wind facility or in another central location.

(iii) Make use of distributed storage in loads, for example home heaters with thermal mass added or plug-in cars that can charge when the wind blows or even discharge to the grid during wind lulls (6).

(iv) Combine remote wind farms via electrical transmission, the subject of this article...

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/
0909075107/DCSupplemental.

[txlibdem]

27. bad link

Something's wrong with your link, just FYI.

And your post pretty much confirms what I wrote in terms of wind power and the need for energy storage to be integrated into wind power farms. Your chart shows pretty much the same as my comment; that wind power generation does not exactly match the needs of the grid and produces too much power at times and too little at other times during a 24 hour period. That is why I suggested we need energy storage for these wind farms, preferably enough storage for 24 hours reserve power if not more but that may stretch the economics of the wind farm so I expect they will probably settle on somewhere between 4 and 8 hours of energy storage per wind farm. With a smart grid able to intelligently distribute the wind power on the fly, telling some wind farms to store more of their energy while causing others to use their stored power for use on the grid, and given enough wind turbines along the midwest wind corridor, the eastern seaboard and the western seaboard combined to form a single wind energy resource we might be able to provide 100% of our electrical power needs from wind alone. I prefer not to put all my eggs in one basket, though, so I proposed a secondary source of power generation, solar power.

Here is the DOE wind and solar power maps I spoke of:
Offshore wind potential shows both coasts have great wind potential with the north easter seaboard and northern california to southern oregon coasts having the best potential to generate massive amounts of wind power.
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/windmaps/offshore.asp

Onshore wind potential shows the highest wind energy potential covering a huge swath of the middle of the country that stretches from Texas all the way to Canada.
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_maps.asp

Seasonal variation in wind power can be found here, by region:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/chp2.html#seasonal
... with a breakdown given for winter, spring,summer and fall here:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/wind/pubs/atlas/maps.html#2-12

El Paso, TX solar power potential variation by month from 1997 to today which shows the numbers that illustrate seasonal variability:
http://www.me.utexas.edu/~solarlab/ElPaso.txt
... explained at this url: http://www.me.utexas.edu/~solarlab/EP.html

Other areas can be researched here:
http://rredc.nrel.gov/solar/new_data/confrrm/

Here are the DOE solar power maps, separated by Solar PV and Solar Thermal generation potential:
http://www.nrel.gov/gis/solar.html

Contrast the solar potential in January versus in July, compiled from recent data:



A thorough comparison of both the wind potential and the solar potential shows that solar and wind power are both needed if we are to succeed in getting off of fossil fuels, including oil if we all stop buying gas guzzlers and drive an electric vehicle (as soon as it is financially possible for you --their costs will be coming down between 2012 and 2015 as mass production ramps up).

Solar power output is highest when wind is producing less and wind power is greatest when solar power output is lowest. They will work together to ensure a stable electricity generation.

[Kennah]

28. Fact check: Robert Bryce misleads with WSJ op-ed

http://97.74.195.121/blog/index.php?mode=viewid&post_id=545

[joshcryer]

29. Did I not, personally, point out the subsidies for fossil fuel omission in my OP?

My OP agrees with that link, and indeed, the original article, for which I found several supporting sources, doesn't disagree with that link.

[joshcryer]

30. The key is that *economists* hate even *considering* externalized costs.

So the externalized costs of natural gas is never ever taken into consideration. As long as they can get away with fucking up the environment, they will. Indeed, we have people on this very forum quoting the Heritage Foundation and insinuating that externalized costs are irrelevant.

And really, to the status quo, they are.

[kristopher]

31. Economists do not "hate even considering externalized costs".

Externalized costs is a concept that was clarified BY economists.
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=define%3A+economics&btnG=Google+Search

Over-generalizing is a nasty habit that is a commonly associated with limited education. The work of economists is a vital part of understanding the problems that confront us. The field deals with all aspects of providing goods and services to an individual, group or society *including* the environmental costs.

[joshcryer]

32. You are right, it's conservative economists that hate externalized costs.

My bad.

[joshcryer]

33. Unfortunately the world is run by these types of people.