Wind and Solar vs Coal, Gasoline, Nuclear

[Punx0r]

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Is this real degradation or comparing old and small wind power plants with new large ones?

I'm not sure, but if it's a real loss of mechanical efficiency I figured it would most likely be due to erosion of the blade aerofoils. That really shouldn't be hard to fix for future turbines though (and possibly the improvements have already been made to newer turbines). It is certainly not an inherent flaw of the whole principle of wind turbines.

I wonder what would be the efficiency losses of a coal plant would be if it weren't maintained for 20 years...

 

[Hillhater]

I wonder what would be the efficiency losses of a coal plant would be if it weren't maintained for 20 years...

Like any electro/mechanical system,....it would grind to a halt very quickly.
But with good planned maintenance they have been able to operate at high efficiency for 50+ yrs
Im sure all the wind turbines are regularly maintained, inspected frequently, and repaired as necessary. ( there is plenty of info online regarding windfoil inspection and repair practices,...its a well known issue)..
If the performance loss is found to be due primarily to windfoil efficiency degridation, then they could establish a replacement progtram based on " economic life" ..IE, replacemet foils improve output enough to justify the cost.
... But i suspect that the cost of windfoil replacement is too high compared to the overall ecomonic life of the generator , which seems to be 20 yrs or so, due to technology advancements.

 

[sendler2112]

I'm not sure, but if it's a real loss of mechanical efficiency I figured it would most likely be due to erosion of the blade aerofoils.

The reduced outputs with age wouldn't be from increasing inefficiencies of running turbines. This is mostly showing a loss of output as a whole in the farms from break downs and down times for various reasons such as bearing/ gear box issues and blade replacements.

 

[TheBeastie]

One thing I wanted to do was go over all of Germany's renewable generation that I started in this post with their wind https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&start=1550#p1358107
Germany wind capacity 49.6GW (49,600MW)
Generated 2017: 103.65TWh
There are 1,000,000MWh in 1TWh.
103.65TWh = (103,650,000MWh / 8765.5hours_in_a_year_average) = 11,824MW average power generation (11.8GW)
So ( 11,824MW / 49,600MW ) x 100 = 23.8% capacity factor

Solar
Germany Solar capacity: 40.7GW (40,700MW)
Generated 2017: 38.39TWh
(38,390,000MWh / 8765.5hours_in_a_year_average) = 4,379MW average power generation (4.37GW)
So ( 4,379MW / 40,700MW ) x 100 = 10.7% capacity factor for solar.
If you went into a restaurant and asked for a steak dinner that was 10% of its advertised size, you wouldn't buy it.

What's the capacity factor of your electric bike? Better than 2%? Would you say your electric bike is worthless shit, too, being idle most of the time?

What's the capacity factor of your bathroom or the capacity factor of your washing machine? Why do you own those?

Don't try to fool people if you can not find better arguments.

The reason why EVERY energy project/technology on Wikipedia has Capacity factor listed is that its very important metric have how useful or far the technology is from its claimed capacity.
If my ebike was somehow being used by millions of people simultaneously like a power-station/source then yes, I would find a capacity factor to be very important measure on my ebike.

Lets compare Germany's Nuclear for example.
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=89002&start=1625
Germany Nuclear capacity: 9.52GW (9,5200MW)
Generated 2017: 72.14TWh
(72,140,000MWh / 8765.5hours_in_a_year_average) = 8229.99MW average power generation (4.37GW)
So ( 8,229.99MW / 9,520MW ) x 100 = 86.4% capacity factor for nuclear.
86.4% Capacity factor. This is much closer to what a claimed capacity should be, what your buying is what you get. Just like everything with wind and solar the numbers and cheating/twisted and misleading to the point that they shouldn't be even used.

Whether its a hotel/rental or If you bought a house to live in you would want to be able to have your family live in it 100% of the time. If it was like Germany Solar and it was 10% of what it was claimed, so you could only live in there 10% of the time you would like, you would feel ripped off.
Unless you're mentally handicapped/deranged and you decide to sleep in a park bench instead of your house, like a hotel if you or your family are sleeping in your house every night your essentially using it every day so it's 100%.

There is no point building something that is supposed to simultaneously service 100,000s to maybe millions of people and not want it as available as possible, especially if its suppose to be delivering clean free energy and is the reason why it was built in the first place.

This is what I can't get over with folks in renewables, the bias and the brute force of not willing to look at the numbers like its some kind of tribal survival thing is amazing.

 

[billvon]

If you bought a house to live in you would want to be able to have your family live in it 100% of the time.

A lot of people work; they are in their homes only about 66% of the time. People with long commutes might be using their homes less than 50% of the time.

Their homes must be worthless shit.

 

[Punx0r]

On the implication that anything less than 100% is worthless, what use is a nuclear plant that only works 7/8ths (~86%) of the time? So approx. one day a week it's lights off, industry stop and try not to freeze to death? Clearly worthless!

I'm not sure, but if it's a real loss of mechanical efficiency I figured it would most likely be due to erosion of the blade aerofoils.

The reduced outputs with age wouldn't be from increasing inefficiencies of running turbines. This is mostly showing a loss of output as a whole in the farms from break downs and down times for various reasons such as bearing/ gear box issues and blade replacements.
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Ah, right. As with more resilient blade surfaces I would expect continuous improvement to reduce all of these effects. For one I'd expect improved generators to not require gearboxes at some point.

 

[sendler2112]

Check out this pdf to learn about the many different types of wind turbines.
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http://mragheb.com/NPRE%20475%20Wind%20Power%20Systems/Modern%20Wind%20Generators.pdf
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[Hillhater]

The reduced outputs with age wouldn't be from increasing inefficiencies of running turbines. This is mostly showing a loss of output as a whole in the farms from break downs and down times for various reasons such as bearing/ gear box issues and blade replacements.

Ahh !,.. yes much more logical than windfoil efficiency losses.
....especially when you read in your linked paper that average gearbox life is approx 5 years.

 

[liveforphysics]

The reduced outputs with age wouldn't be from increasing inefficiencies of running turbines. This is mostly showing a loss of output as a whole in the farms from break downs and down times for various reasons such as bearing/ gear box issues and blade replacements.

Ahh !,.. yes much more logical than windfoil efficiency losses.
....especially when you read in your linked paper that average gearbox life is approx 5 years.

Modern turbines are all direct-drive due to gearbox lifespan issues. The tips of blades get damaged by lightning strikes and it causes drag that reduces output, but I doubt direct drive turbines motor output changes by much as the bearings age (bearings generally run lower drag as they age up until near failure threshold).

 

[Hillhater]

Modern turbines are all direct-drive due to gearbox lifespan issues. .....
......I doubt direct drive turbines motor output changes by much as the bearings age (bearings generally run lower drag as they age up until near failure threshold).

Not all Luke,
Direct drives are less than 50% of new installations,
Conventional gearbox driven turbines still dominate the market, due to their cost and weight advantages.
The market for wind turbine gearboxes alone is expected to be $7 billion by 2020
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2014/09/19/report-on-wind-turbine-gearbox-and-direct-drive-systems-out-now/
even the biggest ( 8+MW) units are useing gearbox drive..
[youtube]2oAzrBORRN0[/youtube]

 

[jimw1960]

I found this study encouraging. It's all about getting the right mix for your market and climate conditions. There is a good future to be had with a career in optimization modeling:

We model many combinations of renewable electricity sources (inland wind, offshore wind, and photovoltaics) with electrochemical storage (batteries and fuel cells), incorporated into a large grid system (72 GW). The purpose is twofold: 1) although a single renewable generator at one site produces intermittent power, we seek combinations of diverse renewables at diverse sites, with storage, that are not intermittent and satisfy need a given fraction of hours. And 2) we seek minimal cost, calculating true cost of electricity without subsidies and with inclusion of external costs. Our model evaluated over 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage, each tested over 35,040 h (four years) of load and weather data. We find that the least cost solutions yield seemingly-excessive generation capacity—at times, almost three times the electricity needed to meet electrical load. This is because diverse renewable generation and the excess capacity together meet electric load with less storage, lowering total system cost. At 2030 technology costs and with excess electricity displacing natural gas, we find that the electric system can be powered 90%–99.9% of hours entirely on renewable electricity, at costs comparable to today's—but only if we optimize the mix of generation and storage technologies.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378775312014759

 

[Hillhater]

A good video of the inside of a modern DDrive wind turbine.
https://youtu.be/2kqIV489ITc
[youtube]2kqIV489ITc[/youtube]

And some impressive size DDrive generators parts..
https://youtu.be/MgGk2WvK80M?t=426
[youtube]MgGk2WvK80M[/youtube]

 

[Hillhater]

And another view of the True Cost of Wind Generation...
https://youtu.be/WC8z9GTQOYA
[youtube]WC8z9GTQOYA[/youtube]

 

[billvon]

And another view of the True Cost of Wind Generation...

Given that that's been the home base of both Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz, two of the most prominent climate change deniers out there, probably best to take their opinions with a grain of salt, and go with a more science-based organization.

 

[Hillhater]

Bill, ...You are attacking the messengers instead of the adressing the facts in the message, ..
Its obviously not the sort of information you would expect Al Gore to present.

 

[billvon]

Bill, ...You are attacking the messengers instead of the adressing the facts in the message

OK, I will pick an easy one.

Birds killed by wind power per year - 570,000
Birds killed by wind power, per GWHR - .269

Birds killed by fossil fuel power per year - 14,000,000
Birds killed by fossil fuel power, per GWHR - 5.18

Birds killed by buildings (collisions with windows) - 988,000,000

Birds killed by pet cats per year - 3,700,000,000

(top range estimate used in all cases)

So if you want to save the birds, shut down as many coal power plants as you can and switch to wind. (And if you want to save even more, require pet cats to stay inside.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Birds

Its obviously not the sort of information you would expect Al Gore to present.

I would be just as suspicious of something from Gore.

 

[TheBeastie]

Bill, ...You are attacking the messengers instead of the adressing the facts in the message

OK, I will pick an easy one.

Birds killed by wind power per year - 570,000
Birds killed by wind power, per GWHR - .269

Birds killed by fossil fuel power per year - 14,000,000
Birds killed by fossil fuel power, per GWHR - 5.18

Birds killed by buildings (collisions with windows) - 988,000,000

Birds killed by pet cats per year - 3,700,000,000

(top range estimate used in all cases)

So if you want to save the birds, shut down as many coal power plants as you can and switch to wind. (And if you want to save even more, require pet cats to stay inside.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Birds

Its obviously not the sort of information you would expect Al Gore to present.

I would be just as suspicious of something from Gore.

I like Wikipedia because it provides a consistent platform for summarized information but it doesn't mean its always perfect, you have to look at the SOURCE the Wikipedia page has used as citation/reference these are always listed with a number and a URL at the bottom of the page. A source like EIA.gov is good, as a source to some baloney 404ing website/book is bad.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#Birds
This particular Wikipedia page is a perfect example Wikipedia failing to reference acceptable data as its using a single source from 2009 "63" "The avian benefits of wind energy" which is obviously some silly book that's purely about pushing the greatness of renewables that is probably funded by a renewables subsidy mining corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power#cite_note-Sovacool-2009-63 , this is not a reliable or respectable source of data, if it was the EIA.gov then I would feel differently about it.

It even states in that table that only power-lines from conventional power-stations kill birds, transmission power-lines somehow from windfarms magically don't ever kill birds. It also references that book only for most of its information.

That's why I like the renewable energy project pages of Wikipedia of USA projects as all the numbers are sourced from the EIA.gov. When looking at wind farms in Australia I have found one claim the wind farm capacity factor is 100% and the citation reference is to a hardcore pro-renewables webpage complete with a 404 erroring URL, so there is no proof the page even exists, on top of the fact the windfarm isn't even built yet, so its a total joke.

Fact is you can easily watch videos of birds being killed on youtube or photos of large beautiful birds piling up around wind turbines, but you won't ever find dead birds piling up around conventional power-stations, if these existed someone would be posting a video of it every single day.

 

[Hillhater]

Bill, ...You are attacking the messengers instead of the adressing the facts in the message

OK, I will pick an easy one.....

...??? Avoiding the real issues ?..

 

[jimw1960]

Here is perhaps a better article on wind turbines and bird fatalities, includes links to studies.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2018/02/17/wind-farms-are-hardly-bird-slayers-made-out-be-why

 

[billvon]

Bill, ...You are attacking the messengers instead of the adressing the facts in the message

OK, I will pick an easy one.....

...??? Avoiding the real issues ?..

Nope. Addressing the facts.

The real issue is renewable energy - and it will continue to grow, thus reducing bird deaths, improving health in the US and reducing total energy costs in the long term.

 

[billvon]

Bill, ...You are attacking the messengers instead of addressing the facts . . .

And then one post later:

"The avian benefits of wind energy" which is obviously some silly book that's purely about pushing the greatness of renewables that is probably funded by a renewables subsidy mining corporation

Beastie, you are attacking the messengers instead of addressing the facts.

It even states in that table that only power-lines from conventional power-stations kill birds, transmission power-lines somehow from windfarms magically don't ever kill birds.

Of course they do. And as conventional power plants are shut down those transmission lines will go away, and new transmission lines will be built to renewable facilites. So the transmission line portion of bird kills will be roughly a wash.

Fact is you can easily watch videos of birds being killed on youtube or photos of large beautiful birds piling up around wind turbines, but you won't ever find dead birds piling up around conventional power-stations, if these existed someone would be posting a video of it every single day.

??

You do know that the damage that fossil fuel plants do to birds comes primarily from pollution, spills and mining, right? And the those things aren't within the boundaries of the plant, right?

 

[sendler2112]

Self driving ride hailing will help stretch what we have left in the near term.
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Concept of a future self driving electric mini bus. everyone sets their trip via smart phone and the best available vehicle swings by to pick you up while letting others on and off. Creates a custom bus route every day depending on who is going where.

 

[Hillhater]

Lightning seems to be a major downtime and repair factor for Wind Turbines..

. According to a German study, lightning strikes accounted for 80% of wind turbine insurance claims (Gromicko, available at: http://www.nachi.org/wind-turbines-lightning.htm).

During its first full year of operation, 85% of the downtime experienced by one southwestern commercial wind farm was lightning-related. Total lightning-related damage exceeded US$250,000.

The German electric power company Energieer-zeugungswerke Helgoland GmbH shut down and dismantled their Helgoland Island wind power plant after being denied insurance against further lightning losses. They had been in operation for 3 years and suffered more than US$540,000 in lightning-related damage.

The statistics presented in this article are quoted in IEC TR 61400-24 First edition 2002-07, a highly informative paper which presents data on the European countries that are known for events of the turbines damaged by lightning strikes (Germany, Sweden, and Denmark) and where lightning is comparatively infrequent; in general, data show that 4%–8% of all wind turbines suffer lightning-caused damage every year. However, in areas of greater lightning density, this figure is reported to be considerably higher.

In some countries, the percentage of damage by lightning doubled ...

..Damage to the blades:
A lightning strike to an unprotected blade will raise its temperature tremendously, perhaps as high as 54,000°F (30,000°C), and result in an explosive (Figure 1) expansion of the air within the blade. This expansion can cause damage to the blade surface, melted glue, and cracking on the leading and trailing edges. Much of the damage may go undetected while significantly shortening the blade’s service life. One study found that wood epoxy blades are more lightning-resistant than glass-reinforced plastic (GRP)/glass epoxy blades....

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0309524X15624615

 

[Punx0r]

Sounds like some sort of lightning rod would be in order, then.

 

[sendler2112]

Anyone still think megacities in NE USA will still be viable in Winter when liquid fuel for road maintenance runs out in 50 years? Everything we are doing and where we live needs to change.
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