…with wind mills:
…the only feasible backup for the planned 25-gig wind base will be good old gas turbines. These would have to be built even if pumped storage existed, to deal with long-duration calms; and the expense of a triplefold wind, gas and pumped storage solution would be ridiculous. At present, gas turbine installations provide much of the grid’s ability to deal with demand changes through the day.
The trouble is, according to Oswald, that human demand variance is predictable and smooth compared to wind output variance. Coping with the sudden ups and downs of wind is going to mean a lot more gas turbines – ones which will be thrashed especially hard as wind output surges up and down, and which will be fired up for less of the time.
The fiends.
Maybe we can build huge wind-generating turbines and place them in front of the wind mills! Then there would always be wind-generated electricity even when there is no wind.
Of course, the turbines would run off oil and burn at least as much energy as the wind generates, but then again, that hasn’t stopped the production of ethanol..
I’ve been posting this idea here and there, and no one ever responds (which isn’t surprising, lots of words in the blogosphere) but I’m feeling Quixotic today, so let me tilt at windmills some more.
Since Bob Zubrin has been so vocal (and persuasive, to me)
about using Martian atmospheric CO2 and H20 to generate fuel
for a return from Mars, why not use the same generators powered
by windmills and solar panels to generate methanol or some
hydrocarbon here? Granted the loss of energy due to
inefficiency would keep them from generating a lot of fuel, and
if it’s volatile enough you’d lose to evaporation, but if you
have a few thousand installations each generating (WAG) a
gallon of methanol every week, seems like you’d accumulate a
useful amount after a while. If nothing else, it could be used
locally to make up for the slow wind/cloudy days by powering
generators.
At any rate, I doubt anyone will care, but at least I got it
out of my system.
Gee, it’s a pity we don’t have some carbon-free power source that produces electricity reliably, doesn’t depend on foreign fuels, doesn’t chop up birds or cover immense swaths of the landscape with panels or water and which produces waste that stays where you put it, and which can even be re-processed and used to produce *more* power.
But that’s just a silly fantasy. No power source could do all that…
Hmmm, wind, gas, and pumped storage? Doesn’t sound that bad. Looks to me like you can use pumped storage to remove the variability that he claims cripples the high efficiency gas turbines.
Hi folks,
For wind to work without this trap you have to overbuild your generation capacity by enough to deal with the predictability issues. This isn’t all that new for the industry since they have to overbuild other generation sources to deal with peak demands.
The first line of defense for rapid demand changes usually doesn’t involve the gas turbines. Hydro ramps up and down quickly. Grid controllers often keep some of it in reserve for that ability even though it makes them buy slightly more expensive power for the base loads. Where gas turbines come into the picture is when you run out of that reserve, hit high peaks, or need reactive power on the grid. Hydro is cheap (if you have it) while gas turbines are expensive, but quick to build since they are often co-located with other facilities.
To answer AJDiseker, there are a number of options, but none are considered economically viable yet. One could use excess wind power to crack water into hydrogen and oxygen. If we had a hydrogen distribution system it might make sense assuming water was available at the generation site. One might also consider desalinization of sea water. Do you pay for your water where you live? If you do it through a municipal ‘monopoly’ then you have to look at their pricing rules to determine if it is worth the investment risk.
There are many uses for the electricity, but the most important question is whether or not the utility/generator is _allowed_ to do it at a profit. Many utilities are regulated monopolies with business lines limited by PUC’s. Armies of lawyers get involved when changes are proposed. Many neat ideas do not pass muster in this real and gritty world. Independent generators stand a better chance, but they still face significant regulatory challenges when it comes time to sell the electricity on the grid.
We may buy kW-hr’s on our bill, but we really pay for reliability.
But Jason, if we don’t regulate all that scary stuff away electricity would be so cheap nobody could charge for it!