It would appear there is a misunderstanding about wind energy and it's relationship to use of fossil fuels.
This is most recently demonstrated in a comment made on the previous posting but is also heard in the media and from all levels of government, including a past Minister of Energy who really should know better.
In Nova Scotia, wind energy has not, does not now nor will anytime in the near future, replace coal generated energy. It can replace some oil and natural gas but, by its very nature, cannot replace coal. This is discussed in the NSPI website http://www.nspower.ca/about_nspi/generation/dispatching.shtml and confirmed in a conversation one of my contacts had with their media contact people.
Power demand can be predicted and met by energy generated from dispatching generating stations. The two basic ways dispatched (scheduled) power is generated in Nova Scotia can be compared to the tortoise and the hare.
Everyday energy use is called basic load. In Nova Scotia, we only have one way of generating power for basic load and this is from generators fueled by coal and coke. Other provinces have nuclear and hydro stations that produce basic load. These are big generating stations that take days to start up and shut down. This is the tortoise: slow, dependable, expensive to initially invest in, but relatively cheap to maintain.
The intermediate load comes from oil and natural gas fueled generators. These can kick into action fairly quickly to supplement energy demands at peak load times which vary during the day and with the time of year, but are still predictable. This is the hare: quick and adaptable, cheaper to set up, but with higher operational costs.
To supplement demand on really cold, really hot or long dark winter days, peak load generators which can be started up even faster than the intermediate generators. In NS, they are oil, gas, wind and hydro generated. These are the hare's cousin: relatively inexpensive to invest in, often with high fuel costs (if oil or gas) but are only required intermittently.
Wind and tidal power is considered non-dispatchable because it cannot be depended upon to be there when required. There is no predicting when the wind will blow. Tidal can be predicted, but is not always available at a time of day that makes it useful to supplement basic load. These forms of energy are useful to supplement intermediate load, but too unpredictable to be used for basic load.
To carry on with the analogy:
The tortoise works just fine left alone to produce basic load. He cannot respond quickly enough and adjust his pace to input from the hares. It is very costly to slow down or shut down just to accept power from the hares which could just as easily stop mid race.
That is more-or-less how it works in this province as things now stand.
There is technology that could allow wind or tidal turbines to pump water to a hydro station which could then generate power for basic load, but that does not exist here right now and is highly location dependent - not only do they have to be where there is a good wind/tidal regime, but they also have to be in the right territory for an extensive reservoir or lake.
If dependable, inexpensive power storage becomes available, all of this could change.
In the meanwhile, NSPI can only handle a maximum of wind generated power. Too much undependable, fickle power can affect the other generating stations and cause brown outs.
As Charles Demond of AWPC told us at a Pugwash Chamber of Commerce meeting last summer, the Province can currently only tolerate about two hundred 2MW turbines. (More could be tolerated if power is exported out of the Province.)
Germany has over 19,000 wind turbines and is dedicated to eliminating nuclear power. Electrical demand has continued to increase and despite all these turbines, they are planning on building at least 20 coal burning generating stations to produce base load. So, anyone who thinks wind can replace coal is, unfortunately, wrong.
Until we can find sources and/or technologies that can produce clean, dependable basic load what we have to do is start reducing consumption.
If you really, really want NSPI to burn less coal, then use less power!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
It takes energy to build,transport,erect wind turbines.
It takes none to turn the switch(s)off!
THree things.
Few want to conserve, so demand continues to rise.
Population continues to grow , so demand continues to rise.
Industry ( 50% of demand ) wants to grow, so demand continues to rise.
Nobody knows how many new generation plant would be needed in Germany if they hadn't been offset by 10% total production from wind. It is part of this expansion that wind replaces. Poor understanding of this rise in demand lets anti wind groups use a bit of smoke and mirrors: some even claim that each wind farm causes a new coal plant to be built.
Nova SCotia Power is in the busines of buring coal and selling us as much power as possible. Renewable energy and conservation, while given lip service by NSPC flacks, are not in their financial interest.
Burning coal = burning oil. NSPC gets its coal from Venesuela. Oil is used to mine, process and ship this coal.
I hope that everyone cuts back on their kwh's, ( mine average 12 / day ) but other steps will also be necessary to meet ever increasing demand ( just think about demand for fossil fuels in India and China).
John McManus
Lisa, you should know by now that noone disputes that wind could not replace coal. You should also know that there are many people leading towards conservation as a way to reduce their carbon footprint. You should especially know that with tidal energy, although it is not dispatchable, it is known exactly how much power you will have and when for as long as we know tidal schedules. Once we have commercial tidal sites setup in 10 years or so we will be able to predict loads of energy and when they will be online for a thousand years into the future. The reason is because we know exactly when the tide is coming in and going out and hence when our machines will generate power for many centuries into the future.
This particular posting should lead more towards what combination of renewable energy sources best suits Nova Scotia? As opposed to Wind cannot replace coal. You are sounding too much like an advocate for the current polluting system which is destroying our planet. You mention conservation, but don't mention techniques other than shut the switch off. You attract a posting like the one on top that is perhaps suggesting that the amount of carbon used to erect a turbine doesn't make it worthwhile given its long term carbon reduction attributes. As always you are anti wind with no alternatives. How long will it be that you are in the anti business and not something more productive like the recommendation or alternative business. Perhaps you should try thinking of things that will help us with our reliance on fossil fuels. You have the ear of a few folks now, why don't you put it to good use and stop posting stuff that is not helping the larger issue!
I just found a great new blog. Try Googling " The Invisible Green Hand". I'm still reading, then I'll try the links, but here are some highlites from what I have read so far.
Last year 22 coal generation plants, planned for construction, were cancelled. Click to coal section on the left and scroll down to a chart of the cancellations.
Idaho Power cancelled 250 megs of coal developement and will develop natural gas, wind and geothermal.
Xcel Enery, Colorado will close 2 coal plants and double their use of renewables.
In the US, wind accounted for 1/3 of generation plant construction for 2007.
It seem obvious that, in the US at least, wind farms are replacing coal burning plants and even closing some.
Look for the bis on demand management,smart grid management, combiningdifferent renewable sources and connecting geographically diverse wind arms as a way to reduce intermittancy.
It is possible to use free, non polluting, renewable wind for more than 15% of Nova Scotian electric demand. It may not b possible with NSPC in charge.
Check out the German " Combned Power Plant" a combination of wind, bio-gas, solar and pumped storage energy with central control as a solution for the inermittancy issue.
John McManus
You know it's really too bad that there aren't more good folks like John that actually cut through the crap that is thrown around on this blog. Thank you John for all the efforts that you put into proving Lisa and her cronies wrong.
The wind only blows some of the time.
Anyone investing in wind power is libel to be stung as the health and wildlife environmental problems from the unnatural low frequency infrasonic sound(pressure fluctuations) and electromagnetic fields these produce become better understood and find their way into mainstream medicine and the legal system and become viewed as unacceptable environmental hazards and have to be shut down.
The glory days for the unproven technology of tidal power will be short lived because they also produce electromagnetic fields and low frequency sound.
It has been shown that some species of fish are extremely sensitive to electromagnetic fields.Millions of species have not been studied,millions more remain to be discovered.Salt water is a conductor of electricity and responds differently than air to electromagnetic disturbances.As does sound in water.
Our life style has been grown by fossil fuel burning practises.Its environmental effects are being left for the future to deal with.
The demand is growing and the supply is dimishing.
The price of this is only going up
The sooner you adapt and learn to turn off the switchs the easier it will be for your children to afford to live.
This is the quickest,simplest,cheapest way to reduce co2 generation levels.
Switching the lights off is an excellent form of conservation as is having your hot water heated by the sun and electricity provided by moving water, air, the sun or heat thermals within the planet. Teaching people to conserve energy is known to have only a fractional impact on energy demand and therefore needs to be balanced with alternative forms of energy production. Just swicthing the lights off is not realistic at this time and anyone that thinks so needs to get there head checked. So putting your ducks in one basket as anonymous did just above this posting shows how the opposition to wind farms and now surpisingly tidal farms is lacking the knowledge and wisdom that is necessary to make the change that you so depserately need. If for some reason society leans towards awarding damages to people suffering from the, yet to be proven, negative effects of electromagnetic and infrasonic waves than every electronic durable good, street lights, busses, power plants of any type and size, boats, trucks and just about anything in this world that makes sound that is at times inaudible to most will come into question. If you honestly think this will happen than you really are out to lunch as is the rest of you wing nuts that are in line with Lisa.
Post a Comment