Wind energy potential dwarfs today's electricity use, report says

[Rhiannon12866]

Winds blowing off the Atlantic coast could provide four times more electricity each year than the region currently uses, according to a new report.

“Wind Power to Spare: The Enormous Energy Potential of Atlantic Offshore Wind,” released Thursday by Environment New Jersey Research & Policy Center, said 12 of the 14 coastal states — including New Jersey — have offshore wind potential that exceeds their current electricity consumption.

On Monday, the Jersey Renews coalition and the Business Network for Off-Shore Wind will co-sponsor the second annual Time For Turbines off-shore wind forum in Atlantic City.

It will be held at the Atlantic County Utility Authority wastewater plant, which is powered by a combination of land-based windmills and a solar array.

All of the state’s off-shore wind developers, Board of Public Utilities President Joseph Fiordaliso, state Senate President Steve Sweeney, and other interested parties from labor and government will be there, organizers said.

The Environment New Jersey Research & Policy Center report also found that current wind leases off the New Jersey coast through Orsted and U.S. Wind for New Jersey have a combined capacity of 4,173 MW and will be able to power more than 1.5 million homes.


More: https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/wind-energy-potential-dwarfs-today-s-electricity-use-report-says/article_eaac06fa-51d6-549d-8b4d-04d85adf38d6.html



Offshore wind turbines like the ones in the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm in Rhode Island may soon be gracing the water off Atlantic City. The state is moving forward with plans to quickly solicit 1,100 megawatts of offshore wind power.

[DetlefK]

1. For the umpteenth time: The problem with wind-power is not total power.

The problem with wind-power is that it's sometimes there and sometimes it's not. It's unpredictable and leads to voltage-surges and voltage-drops in the grid.

Wind-power is useless without massive batteries to even it out.

[Kaleva]

3. Wind power can be used to produce hydrogen.

Hydrogen can be stored. Large scale natural gas turbines are being tested that are designed to accept a 30% hydrogen mix. Studies have shown that up you can inject hydrogen into the gas main up to at least 10 per cent of the total gas in there without modification of the system.

The Great lakes has huge wind power generating potential. But it is beyond me to find out what the total capacity of the natural gas system is in the Great Lakes region to determine what 10% of that capacity is but below are some figures:

"The total consumption of natural gas in Michigan was 765 billion cubic feet in 2010."

https://www.michigan.gov/documents/energy/michigan_energy_overview_605784_7.pdf

10% of that is 76.5 billion cubic feet. 76.5 billion cubic ft. of hydrogen weighs 398,437,500 lbs. or 180,731,250 kg.. It takes 39 kWh of electricity to produce 1 kg of hydrogen so to produce 180,731,250 kg would require 7,048,518,750 kWh or 7049 GWh. If one accepts a 25% capacity factor for a windfarm, then 7049/.25/24/365 = 3.21 GW or 3218.7 MW

A proposal was made back in 2008 to build an 1,950 MW off shore wind farm on the Mid-Lake Plateau region of Lake Michigan. 25% of 1,950 MW is 487.5 MW.

Note: The Mid-Lake Plateau region is just 18 miles off the coast from Milwaukee so it'd make more sense to transport the electricity there to produce hydrogen that could then be injected into the natural gas pipe system serving that metropolitan area.

1,950 X 365 X 24 X .25 = 4,270,500 kWh. 4,270,500 kWh divided by 39 kWh = 109,500 kg of hydrogen gas which is 46,349,206 million cubic ft. of gas.

[Finishline42]

4. Off-shore wind is more consistent

Off-shore wind is more consistent but more than having batteries to back up wind and solar the need is a network of HVDC lines that can distribute electricity efficiently from areas that have an excess.

We have a long way to go before the problems with the variability of wind becomes an issue on the Eastern Seaboard. Europe seems to be doing ok with over 10% of their power coming from wind.

There are lots of generators of power and the need is auctioned off in various increments - wiki says 5, 15 and 60 minutes are the most common. When the wind stops blowing it just opens up the market for somebody else just at a higher price.

[zipplewrath]

5. Hardly "useless"

Power on the consumption side always fluctuates, so the industry already has experience dealing with that. And wind power can (and is) "throttled". Wind is a part of the larger grid in which power comes from all manner of sources including hydro, and gas. Energy storage is a useful addition but even without it, sources like wind and solar, which are intermittent, still can provide a significant portion of the total energy usage.

[at140]

26. That was my first thought as well

However the wind does blow a lot, and during windy periods, we can save on fossil & nuclear fuels.

The same is true of solar energy, it goes to sleep when the sun goes to sleep.

Since electrical energy is the hardest to store for use later, best is to use a combination of all forms of energy.

[yonder]

29. Batteries are not the only way to store energy.

[DetlefK]

30. I meant batteries in a general sense.

[msongs]

2. and it's hurrican/nor'easter proof too? nt

[Finishline42]

27. Is a nor'easter worse than what they get in either the North or Baltic Seas?

Because there are thousands of windmills that operate in those areas.

It's just an engineering problem to be solved.

[hunter]

6. How much is it going to cost to remove these bird killing navigation hazards...

... when they break down?

Or will they just be left there like all the dead wind turbines littering the California hillsides, left to rot from the last wind energy boom-and-bust cycle?

I'm never going to be a wind energy enthusiast.

Wind turbines do well to operate 40% of the time. If the primary source of energy for the 60% down time is fossil fuels then we are not making the world a better place. It's not something everyone in the world, billions and billions of us, can enjoy as standards of living improve. not without increasing our use of fossil fuels.

Yes, these hybrid gas-wind systems are better than coal in some ways, but that's a miserably low standard. If coal gets an "F" grade, hybrid gas-wind systems get no more than a "D" grade. We could do better without littering landscapes and seascapes with short-lived wind turbines.

[LakeSuperiorView]

7. So the only acceptable solution has to be 100%...

Sounds quite a bit like conservative binary thinking. Black/White, For us/Against us, Good/Bad. No partial solutions allowed....

A 40% (using your number) reduction of fossil fuel use is not a good thing?

[hunter]

10. As I said, fossil fuels are like smoking.

Let's suppose some first world nation is successful with hybrid gas-wind electric systems. Certainly this nation reduces their fossil fuel use, optimistically in half or more (and maybe coal use entirely) but what happens when billions of people, people who currently use very little fossil fuel energy, decide they deserve the same high energy consumer lifestyle? In that case, fossil fuel consumption increases no matter how many wind turbines you build.

One solution might be nuclear power. Another would be low energy economies powered entirely by renewable energy sources, societies that are able to cope with reduced energy supplies whenever the wind is not blowing, the sun is not shining, and the rain is not falling. Neither the nuclear powered society, nor the neo-Luddite society would look anything like the high energy fossil fueled industrial consumer economy many affluent people now enjoy.

I don't see the existing world economy quitting fossil fuels while they are cheap and legal. Fossil fuel use is only going to expand until global warming, climate change, and rising seas shatter the existing world economy.

An individual quits smoking by quitting smoking. A society quits fossil fuels the same way. It doesn't matter so much how you do it, only that you do it. That's not binary thinking.

[LakeSuperiorView]

14. How do you get to low energy economies powered entirely by renewable energy with no

renewable energy?

Requiring 100% solutions will never get one anywhere, because very few journeys can be accomplished with a single step.

Sorry to say that declaring that one does or does not do something is pretty much a definition of a binary choice. One can't be partial pregnant, but the idea that a cigarette twice a month is the exact same thing as four packs a day is ridiculous on the face of it.

[hunter]

16. I chose my simile carefully.

How many smokers who claim twice a month actually smoke twice a month???

It's a number, by calculus, approaching zero.

[LakeSuperiorView]

18. Please show your work.

My calculus is a bit rusty, since I haven't used it much in the last 35 years, so this should be a good catch to catch up on how you used it for probability purposes.

And also explain, instead of your straw man, how we get to a low energy consumption state using only renewable energy with no renewable energy use, since renewable energy is useless in your estimation.

[at140]

28. just for curiosity, how much do forest fires contribute

to global warming? Is it true that the total CO2 emissions from all the forest fires in country is less than 10% of fossil fuels used for energy production?

[NickB79]

13. Given how fast climate change is now accelerating? Yep

The days of incremental improvements in the fight against climate change passed 20 years ago

Now our only hope as a civilization is rapid decarbonization in the next 10-20 years to have a slim chance to escape Armageddon.

So yeah, 100%, because anything less will doom billions to death by the end of this century. My guess is that once we get a taste of how bad it's going to be, there will be some pretty draconian measures put into place as we collectively say "oh shit".

[Kaleva]

8. I fail to see how you can support your arguement that hybrid gas-wind is not much better then coal

The world's first floating off shore wind farm has achieved a 65% capacity factor.

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/worlds-first-floating-offshore-wind-farm-65-capacity-factor

More info:

"The Norwegian state-owned oil company Statoil is planning to add a 1-megawatt-hour lithium-ion battery system to a floating offshore wind farm in late 2018."

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/statoil-adds-battery-storage-to-offshore-wind

[hunter]

9. These types of battery storage are measured in seconds or minutes.

Sags and surges in wind power are also measured in days and weeks. Dealing with sags and surges lasting days or weeks would require lot of batteries, more than will ever be practical.

In Norway these sags and surges in wind power are compensated for using hydroelectricity. In places without large hydroelectric resources, nimble fossil fuel power plants are used, mostly fueled by natural gas.

The environmental impacts of variable hydroelectricity production are not negligible. Gas power plants, especially plants using fracked gas, are hardly any more desirable than coal.

More to the point, Norway is the world's third largest exporter of natural gas so it has a very large vested interest in the success of hybrid gas-wind energy systems. Just like Texas...

[Kaleva]

15. Natural gas turbines are being tested that can run on a 30% hydrogen mix.

Also, our natural gas pipeline system can handle up to a 10% hydrogen mix without major modification to the system.This would allow transporting of hydrogen produced in areas that have excellent potential for wind energy and lots of water, such as the Great Lakes, to much of the rest of the US. Providing fuel to hydrogen stations for fuel cell vehicles and natural gas power plants that can run on a 30% hydrogen mix.

In a previous post, I tried to put together some numbers that showed the potential of using using the natural gas pipleline grid to transport hydrogen and that figure is huge.

[hunter]

17. By the magic of natural gas...

... every argument in support of wind power ends this way.

[Kaleva]

19. Natural gas is going to be around for a long time and hydrogen, produced by wind power,..

has the potential to replace 30% of natural gas used in power production and also to make a notable reduction in the amount of fossil fuels used by vehicles.

The natural gas pipe line grid is already in place.

[NickB79]

11. If the gas comes from fracking, it's releasing a lot of fugitive methane

Enough to cancel out most of it's carbon savings over coal.

[Kaleva]

20. So are you arguing that we ought to build more coal plants....

rather then natural gas plants which could, in the near future run on a 30% hydrogen mix? Hydrogen that is produced by wind and/or power.

[NickB79]

21. Nope, but thanks for putting words in my mouth

Speak all you wish, it doesn't change the shitty carbon logistics of fracked gas (much less the groundwater pollution associated with it). And hydrogen as an energy storage medium has been a pipe dream for decades. Battery storage, on the other hand, is advancing by leaps and bounds.

[Kaleva]

22. I'm kind of baffled about why you go on and on about natural gas when I'm talking about wind power..

and hydrogen and advocating using the natural gas pipe line grid to transport hydrogen to hydrogen charging stations to refuel fuel cell cars and to natural gas power plants that could be potentially upgraded to run on a 30% hydrogen mix.

There is no fracking involved when using wind power to produce hydrogen.

[NickB79]

23. Do you really believe we'd give up gas so easily?

If we build a power system today that uses wind backed by gas, on the premise we'll voluntarily switch to renewably-generated hydrogen in a few years, we'll end up burning fracked gas for decades to come as the fossil fuel industry uses their influence to delay the switch as long as possible.

[Kaleva]

24. I believe the horse has already left the barn as far as you are concerned.

Natural gas is already the primary energy source for electrical power generation in the US and its share is projected to increase over the years.

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=34612

But as you can see by the chart, non-hydro renewable energy sources are also taking up a bigger share as coal continues to plummet.

Because there is a demand for non-hydro renewable energy, major companies such as Siemens, GE and Mitsubishi Hitachi, are investing a great deal of money into research on using hydrogen.

[mountain grammy]

12. Sure gonna need it for all that air conditioning

the heat waves will get much worse.

[Finishline42]

25. Another negative feedback loop

The hotter it gets the more electricity we need the more CO2 gets into the atmosphere the hotter it's going to get.

Too bad CO2 doesn't just dissipate in a year or two.

[Finishline42]

31. Instead of talking theory how about we talk about Texas?

This from PV Magazine:

The Texas power grid is going green, and at an increasing rate. Texas wind capacity is already larger than coal, and sometime in 2018 or 2019 we’re going to see total electricity from wind be greater than coal. After this summer’s heatwaves the Texas grid is begging for solar power, and a UT-Austin analysis says the grid is ripe for 11 GW of it.

And developers are listening. New records for largest solar plants in the state are being signed regularly, and a recent gauntlet was dropped for largest energy storage projects. This of course means investors are moving large amounts of solar powered money.

Now, to complement the deals being signed everyday, we get a view of the future. The most recent Generator Interconnection Status Report (GIR) from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), shows a pipeline of 80 GW of potential capacity at various level of approval – of which 38 GW is wind power and 30 GW is solar power plants. The 12 GW of gas is the lowest value that has been in the report during the last two years.

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/08/23/texas-going-green-86-of-future-capacity-solar-or-wind-zero-coal/

The Texas grid is governed by ERCOT. The key to getting to 17% of their electricity from wind last year was the construction of transmission lines from mainly West Texas (where the wind resources are) to the population centers (DFW, Austin, etc). Now they are seeing the need to add solar as well for when the wind doesn't blow.

Without a doubt we are going to need gas as a main contributor to our grid for some time but wind and solar will be increasing contributors due mainly to their principle advantages - they don't have to pay for fuel and they are both benefit from economies of scale. Just like cars and flat screen TV's - the more you build the better they get and the cost decreases.

[hunter]

32. That's not good news, it's terrifying.

Even if we quit coal then natural gas, especially fracked natural gas, will ruin us.

Gas is not a "transition" fuel in this case, there's no foreseeable future where wind and solar completely displace fossil fuels, as there might be with either nuclear power and/or the abandonment of high energy industrial consumer lifestyles.

Hybrid gas-wind systems do not make me feel optimistic about the future. If the entire world, billions of humans, adopts that energy model we are still cooked.

Talk about Texas? We know Texas tends to be politically regressive outside the more liberal urban areas, and beholden to the fossil fuel industry. If the fossil fuel industry thought wind and solar were an existential threat they would not tolerate it. But the gas industry recognizes wind and solar systems lock them into a controlling share of the electricity market simply because the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine. For every megawatt of wind and solar capacity installed you have to have a megawatt of gas capacity installed, and it's likely those gas plants will provide more than half the electric demand.

Nobody likes coal, especially when natural gas costs less, but fracked natural gas is hardly any better.than coal, even with a substantial wind and solar assist.

I remember a cartoon, Gary Larsen's Far Side I think but I can't find it, where Hansel and Gretel's parents are standing indignantly outside the wicked witch's gingerbread house exclaiming to the witch "You ate them BOTH???" as if eating only one child wouldn't have been quite so reprehensible.

[Finishline42]

33. I think your read on Texas is a bit off

While you are probably correct on the political power of the oil industry in Texas you are missing the politics of wind and solar. It's one of the main the reasons why there are still tax breaks for wind and solar. Property owners in the wind belt make somewhere around $500 per windmill per month. I read years ago about a rancher in West Texas scrub land that was going to get over $900k a year for 150 windmills on his land. Do you think people like him are for wind? I imagine the same kind of deals are now being made for solar.

Something else I think you are missing is that when wind and/or solar are producing that is the cheapest power on the grid. It all gets bought with the mechanics of the auctions. And every kwH that they sell increases the cost of the power for every other producer. Nuclear and fossil fuel plants have much higher operational costs and when you reduce the number of hours they are being used then the cost per unit of electricity goes up. So basically what we are seeing is a positive feedback loop for renewables. The more that gets bought, the cheaper the windmills and solar panels get, the more expensive the power from nuclear and fossil fuel plants become.

[Finishline42]

34. So Exxon has started asking for bids for Wind and Solar?

Maybe this confirms you have an incorrect read on Texas where wind and solar are concerned.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-24/exxon-is-said-to-seek-wind-solar-power-delivery-in-texas

Link from Jpak topic.

Since refineries are so energy intensive I believe this just a logical way to cut the cost of oil products.

[hunter]

35. I think you are proving my point.

[NNadir]

36. As a citizen of New Jersey, I strongly object to this plan to install this consumer crap...

...will be nothing more than rotting eyesores spilling grease into the seas in less than 25 years, and thus wreck, forever, the Jersey Shore.

I'm a veteran of having heard of thousands of these bullshit "studies." I'm an old man, and l've lived to see thousands of them become as useful as Tarot card readings at Jersey Shore boardwalks, pure soothsaying entirely disconnected with reality.

Reality:

The fact is that it's 2018, and as of yesterday, the concentration of dangerous fossil fuel waste is 23.26 ppm higher than it was just ten years ago.

When people hype this crap, all they're doing is stating they're oblivious and have no idea what is actually happening.

With due contempt for Rudy Giuliani, the truth is the truth.

I always feel pressure to lie and join the lemming like cheering for so called "renewable energy," but I don't get my "facts" by daydreaming and cruising websites. So called "renewable energy" hasn't worked; it isn't working; and it won't work. It's trash. It can't even run all the servers on the planet dedicated to saying how great it is.

"Renewable energy" is lipstick on the gas pig.

I will fight against wind power in New Jersey.

If nobody can tell what 23.26 ppm over the readings from 2008 means, well, it's par for the course.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.