re: Wind Power Production Drops Despite 6.2GW of Added Capacity

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Different buckets B, different buckets.

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Different buckets even if massive tax dollars are being spent on dilute energy sources? I’ll admit my ignorance on the money side of it.

A study by Goering & Rozencwajg (natural resource investors) showed that no time in history has a society ever successfully shifted to a more dilute energy source. It has always moved the direction of more dense energy sources and all signs point eventually to nuclear. Wasting time on wind and solar (largely with Chinese manufacturing and mineral processing) weakens us while strengthening our adversaries and creates our own dependence on them. Here’s a link to the study.

LINK

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What land are you referring to, the land out in the middle of nowhere that maybe has a farmer who can plow right up to the 5' beauty ring at the base of a turbine

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Robert Bryce is keeping a database on this and the list is growing:

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The problem is going to be that the wind turbines and solar panels have lower lifespans than the manufacturer suggests. And a lot of the companies have gone belly-up (especially solar lately) so who is responsible for removing all the infrastructure from their properties? They also significantly affect property values because no one wants the sight or noise pollution of the windmills.

It’s not as simple as a farmer takes a cut and that’s it. This also ignores the maintenance and mineral intensity of the windmills. There really isn’t anything green about them, especially considering they are made with coal power in China.

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They minimize losses by having a collector substation and a short gen-tie to a step-up POI. It's not hard.

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With the cost of cables increasing along with everything else, this is a bigger deal than you’re making it out to be. Power distribution transformers are also insanely long lead right now and hardly any are made in the US. You also fail to mention the additional expense of the DC-AC conversion and capacitor banks compared to a rotating power generator that makes its own VARs. And all these expenses fall back on the ratepayers.

Good discussion.

Definitely time to shutter coal power

hoax=wind power

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hoax=wind power

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I wouldn't go that far.

not sure what else there is to explain. The power grid is not rated high enough, storage isn’t more widespread, substations are undersized to handle the demand, etc.

Think about rolling blackouts. They perform these when the systems are stressed to the max due to demand, weather, combination of both at times, EVEN WITH renewables entering the grid.

If utilities had substations sized more capably, more modern transmission lines with less losses, more integrated storage systems, they could take in more generation and distribute, causing less stress on the systems, removing the need for a rolling blackout.

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If utilities had substations sized more capably, more modern transmission lines with less losses, more integrated storage systems, they could take in more generation and distribute, causing less stress on the systems, removing the need for a rolling blackout.

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This is basically what VPP is trying to accomplish.

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I wouldn't go that far.

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If that graph took into account the massive wind and solar tax incentives and subsidies it would look very different. Just from a basic understanding of power it also doesn't make sense - every wind and solar project must be backed by baseload since it does not maintain a capacity near nameplate. To translate that, every solar and wind installation needs reserve capacity and that is usually picked up by redundant natural gas generation.

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The power grid is not rated high enough, storage isn’t more widespread, substations are undersized to handle the demand, etc.

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Utility storage batteries will not be the saving grace by any means unless some breakthrough happens. With the capacities that exist now, we are talking minutes or hours more of backup power for costs of billions of dollars. So if we double utility battery storage our capacity goes from 2 hours to 4 hours? That won't even make a dent in what is required on the grid and will cost billions. And when weather gets bad, you'll see a lot of nothing from it. Here is the energy mix in Texas during a cold front back in February.



And I wouldn't consider alternatives to be very weather resilient either.

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If utilities had substations sized more capably, more modern transmission lines with less losses, more integrated storage systems, they could take in more generation and distribute, causing less stress on the systems, removing the need for a rolling blackout.

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This I will certainly agree with. A lot of the transformers and substations are starting to get near the end of their service life in areas. And we are looking at lead times of multiple years for large power transformers. Even pole mount single phase transformers are out almost a year right now. This is going to become a problem regardless of how much the US ramps up its own production. Grain-oriented steel is primarily made in China and is critical for building transformer cores.

But again, we come back full circle to the original topic for new generation. Invest money where you get the most energy density and biggest return on energy investment. Unfortunately we are not going that direction and we will continue to have problems similar to Germany. California will be first.

I’m in no way trying to be contrarian for argument’s sake, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. I just know that if we can diversify our power generation and continue innovating, the US power market can become even more robust and ultimately protected. I absolutely appreciate the thought you’re putting into your responses and not just saying “wind and solar dum, oil only way”

You haven’t changed since college, bapple

For the record I’m for removing subsidies for all energy sectors but that could be another topic all together.

As for the actual cost per kWh, this article does a good job spelling out the levelized cost of energy. Let me know your thoughts:

LINK

And basically none of this even matters if the US is not building out its high voltage transmission network. And that’s basically happening no where. It’s a damn shame.

I've driven by a lot of these wind farms when I was driving OTR.
The thing that always struck me, even when there was plenty of wind, only 1/2 of the windmills would be turning.
Pretty sure that is on purpose to keep prices higher.