Wind energy to power UK by 2020, government says

[kristopher]

Thousands of new offshore wind turbines could power every home in Britain by 2020, the government announced today, as it set out new wind-energy plans.

John Hutton, the business secretary, proposed the creation of up to 33 gigawatts of offshore wind energy at a European energy industry conference in Berlin.

He called for companies to invest in large-scale farm development to generate enough power for up to 25m homes in the next 12 years.

That would require around 7,000 turbines, or one every half-mile, Hutton told the BBC's Politics Show yesterday.

He admitted that "tough choices" would have to be made if the UK wanted to respond to climate change and become more self-sufficient.

"It is going to change our coastline, yes, for sure," he said.

"There is no way of making the shift to a low-carbon technology without there being change and for that change to be visible and evident to people.

"We've got a choice as a country about, you know, whether we rise to this challenge of change or whether we stick our head in the sand and hope it's going to go away."

The expansion will be subject to a strategic environmental assessment, which Hutton also launched today.

Currently just 2% of Britain's power comes from renewable energy sources, and wind provides less than half a gigawatt.

Hutton's proposals got cautious backing from opposition parties.

"We're an island nation - there's a lot of wind around," the shadow business secretary, Alan Duncan, told the Politics Show. ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/10/politics

[GliderGuider]

1. This is really good stuff

But it has too many stems and seeds for my taste.

"could power", "tough choices", "stick our head in the sand"

Ditchweed dreams.

[kristopher]

2. Those phrases refer to policy commitment, not technical capability

resource capacity or even costs.

The biggest obstacle to large scale commitment to wind, IMO, is the sunk cost in existing fossil fuel infrastructure. Society has a lot of trouble abandoning that much wealth.

[GliderGuider]

3. The biggest obstacles are always human

Political, economic and social barriers are much harder to overcome than technical ones.

That's a good thing, too. If it were any different we'd be extinct already due to our nasty combination of cleverness, short-sightedness and hubris. Fortunately we possess balancing qualities of complacency, timidity and vested self-interest that insulate us in some small degree from our worst instincts.

With any luck we will ignore the onrushing crises long enough that they will rapidly debilitate our species before we manage to wreck the biosphere for everyone else.

[kristopher]

4. As it applies to England

They made the commitment to withdraw all government support for coal and shift it to wind about 3 years ago. Their domestic coal mining lobby is still screaming.
They are solidly on their way to fully exploiting their wind resource.

[jpak]

5. I realize this doesn't agree with doomer philosophy

but it is feasible

Global wind turbine capacity is currently 94 GW and was deployed over a 20 year period (mid-80's to mid-00's) - achieving similar large scale (33 GW) turbine deployments over the next 15 years in the UK is therefore *entirely* feasible.

With existing and near-term storage technologies (plug-in electric vehicles, NaS batteries and hydrogen electrolyzers//fuel cells), the UK can provide most - if not -all - of its electricity with offshore wind farms...

[GliderGuider]

6. Everything about this is probably is technically feasible.

That's not what will throw sand in the gears.

On the technical side, I would note that none of this stuff has been proven out at the scales that will be needed. It's trite but true that assembling a big system is more complex than just lashing together a bunch of smaller ones. Scale brings its own set of unexpected problems that will likely require significant iterative re-engineering to detour around unforeseen roadblocks. There's a long way to go, and not much time to do it. Good luck.

Meanwhile, the nuclear guys will be doing their level best to back you up.
Oh, and of course the coal guys will be beavering away doing what beavers do.

It's going to be a fun couple of decades. :-)

[jpak]

9. Wind farms are redundant distributed power sources that result in a robust electrical grid

The loss of two nuclear power plants produced a widespread blackout in FL this week - the loss of two wind turbines out of 7000 UK offshore turbines would not be noticed.

Hundreds of offshore UK wind farms would have hundreds of cables connecting with the UK national grid - the loss of two cables would not have significant consequences for the national grid - the loss of two UK 1000 MW nuclear plants would.

Hundreds (or thousands) of distributed NaS batteries and/or H2 fuel cells would add further stability to the UK national grid.

The scale required is not a problem...

[GliderGuider]

11. "The scale required is not a problem..."

You're brave, I'll give you that. Ever done any large scale network engineering? It's never the problems you can foresee that bite you, it's those Rumsfeldian "unknown unknowns". Thinking we fully understand the dynamics of of large-scale complex adaptive systems is what got us into this mess. It's OK to say, "We might run into unexpected problems. If we do we'll cope as best we can, but there are no guarantees in life."

So we'll just put that bit of "not a problem" arrogance in the parking lot and come back to it later.

[jpak]

15. Ummmm...the arrogance parking lot is located in Upper Canada

:evilgrin:

I've studied dynamic complex systems for most of my life - renewable energy systems aren't that different...

[GliderGuider]

18. In that case I don't know how you can dismiss the possibility of complications so casually.

It seems axiomatic that the larger, more complex and dynamic a system gets, the greater the potential for unexpected problems becomes.

[Nihil]

20. Ignore the apples/oranges bit and you're right.

> The loss of two nuclear power plants produced a widespread blackout in FL
> this week - the loss of two wind turbines out of 7000 UK offshore turbines
> would not be noticed.

Apples & oranges (as in "orders of magnitude difference").
Lose 2000 wind turbines and I bet you'd notice the impact.
Lose two wind farms (more comparable to losing two nuclear plants)
and I bet you'd notice the impact.

But I agree with most of the rest of your post! :-)

> Wind farms are redundant distributed power sources that result in a
> robust electrical grid

This strategy is particularly viable for domestic use, especially on
the East side of the country.

> Hundreds of offshore UK wind farms would have hundreds of cables
> connecting with the UK national grid - the loss of two cables would not
> have significant consequences for the national grid

And more importantly, the UK national grid is generally in much better
shape than the US one (no snark intended, just stating the fact that most
of it has had more investment in maintenance).

This is one of the strengths of European wind energy: it already has a
pretty good infrastructure to extend rather than needing new or rebuilt
transmission networks as much would do in the US.

> Hundreds (or thousands) of distributed NaS batteries and/or H2 fuel
> cells would add further stability to the UK national grid.

Ugh no, please NO!
The limited benefit they provide is more than outweighed by both the
cost (it would be a major boondoggle for certain companies) and by the
multiplication of risk.

For someone who doesn't like the terrorist risk of nukes, you seem sadly
quick to promote the distribution of chemical bombs around the country.
NaS batteries run at nasty temperatures even when behaving normally and
burn like the dickens if the casing is fractured.
H2 fuel cells have a nice lot of hydrogen (strangely enough :-) ) waiting
around for "a suitable event".
Distributing these targets around the country - especially if sited in the
locations more likely to need them = cities - will create a major security
nightmare: if you are not convinced that a single nuclear power station has
sufficient security to prevent evil-doers from gaining access, how do you
propose this propagation of targets be protected?

No, as much as I want the increased offshore wind farms capacity, I think
that the "load balancing" needs to come from elsewhere (guess where? :P).
Let's just concentrate on getting the base load down, the renewable
contribution up and the population more energy aware.

[jpak]

21. Are cars, petrol tankers and petrol stations more dangerous than NaS batteries and H2 systems?

don't think so...

:hi:

[Nihil]

22. Petrol tankers are when they get up to the operating temperature of NaS batteries ...

:P

I appreciate the thought but do you really think that such "battery power"
would be a realistic national solution? Personally I don't and (again IMO)
think that the lack of such a "transparent failover" mechanism would do
wonders for focussing people's attention on their own power usage/wastage.

:hi:

[pscot]

7. The Royal Engineering Society

says 20% wind powered electricity generation by 2020, tops. That would be a huge accomplishment in 12 years time. There's no estimate of what this would mean in terms of reducing Britain's total carbon output. This would be a hopeful first step, if fully implemented. Globally, it's a drop in the bucket.

[dbackjon]

8. There goes the coastline

And all the millions of breeding seabirds.

Hope everyone likes chopped puffin.

[jpak]

10. Sorry - offshore wind farms in Denmark had NO adverse effect on seabirds (or other sea life)

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/18167/

Ecosystem collapse associated with rising sea surface temperatures have a greater adverse impact on UK seabirds...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0730-05.htm

[dbackjon]

12. There are not huge nesting colonies off Denmark's Coast

No seacliffs filled with hundreds of thousands of petrels, gannets, puffins, etc.


While the Danish study is encouraging, it is site-specific. More studies, in other areas, are needed before you can make a blanket statement that they are safe.


Just as you can't extrapolate Altamont Pass' HUGE toll on migrating raptor to other wind farms in different locals.

[jpak]

13. You have no evidence to back up your claims - only conjecture

n/t

[dbackjon]

17. You have one place, I have one place on-shore that chops up thousands of raptors...

[LiberalEsto]

16. Mmmmmm

:9


Sorry, couldn't resist

[Nihil]

19. Not really.

> There goes the coastline
> And all the millions of breeding seabirds.

There will be no need to site the wind farms near breeding colonies.
A lot of the North Sea coastline is available (for offshore use rather
than land-based use) and it saves having to ship the power the length
of the country.

> Hope everyone likes chopped puffin.

The puffin's main problem isn't slicing but starvation: the sand-eel
population (that makes up most of the puffin's diet) has collapsed over
the last year or so and is in the process of taking that beautiful bird
with it.
:cry:

[kristopher]

14. Graphic of the avian radar tracking over time at Nystad

This paper is probably one of the best available on how avian studies are done. I recommend it particularly because of a graphic tht shows migrating puffins behavior as they encounter Nystad Wind Farm. Sorry, I can't post it because it is locked in a pdf.

Here is the title. If you can get your hands on a copy it is worth the read.

kwell Publishing Ltd
Remote techniques for counting and estimating the number of bird–wind turbine collisions at sea: a review
M. DESHOLM,1* A. D. FOX,1 P. D. L. BEASLEY2 & J. KAHLERT1