Reliance On Giant Wind “Foolishness”

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK0806/S00048.htm

Reliance On Giant Wind “Foolishness”

Friday, 6 June 2008, 12:03 pm
Press Release: Save Central
Attention: News Editor
06 June 2008

The failure of the 400 megawatt Otahuhu B gas-fired power station today has highlighted the foolishness of looking to industrial-scale wind farms for backstop solutions, says Save Central spokesperson Grahame Sydney.

A boiler tube fault means Otahuhu B will be out of action for at least four days, just as hydro storage levels reach lows not seen since 1992 and winter begins to bite.

The Government backs Meridian’s 176-turbine Project Hayes as a solution to such energy shortages, having made an All-Of-Government submission in support of the Central Otago wind farm proposal currently before the Environment Court.

“Yet we are being provided with a graphic illustration here and now that reliance on wind power doesn’t work,” said Sydney, speaking from a becalmed Central Otago.

...

[Beregond2]

1. How does the failure of a gas-fired power station

reflect on wind power?

[Massacure]

3. Because that gas-fired power station is backup for when its not windy.

The article mentioned that with the week ending May 25, wind only contributed an average of 30 megawatts of power even though there are 320 megawatts of installed capacity. That means they were operating at less than 10% capacity.

[Beregond2]

5. I still don't see the logic.

Seems to me the obvious point is that the gas powered plant isn't very relaible, and they need somethng better for backup.

[NNadir]

2. Nobody "relies" on wind power. Only in fundie land is wind power considered reliable.

Any form of energy that is available only 25% of the time at rated capacity is considered reliable.

It may be news to our fundies, but nowhere on earth does the wind blow continuously.

[newfie11]

14. Here in the Nebraska panhandle it is VERY reliable

Sometimes TOO much

[NNadir]

18. Really? Why are they building THIS powerplant in Nebraska then?

http://www.oppd.com/NewsandEvents/NewPowerPlant/index.htm

[newfie11]

19. I have no idea. It isn't in the panhandle maybe they don't have the wind there

There are windmills being put up all over around here

[tinrobot]

22. The wind is always blowing somewhere

Capture it everywhere and distribute it via the power grid.

[kristopher]

4. Nothing but disguised pronuclear propaganda

[NickB79]

7. Nuclear propaganda from from New Zealand???

They don't even allow nuclear aircraft carriers to dock in their harbors, much less allow a nuclear power plant to be built.

[kristopher]

9. Nuclear is the only realistic alternative offered. nt

[NickB79]

11. Offered by who?

It's not mentioned anywhere in this article. Is there any serious debate about building nuclear power in New Zealand?

I would think a country like NZ could turn to tidal or geothermal as a realistic alternative to nuclear.

[kristopher]

12. It is discussed.

"private conversations reveal a surprising degree of support for the nuclear option...nuclear power is carbon free, comparatively cheap and base-load dependable, and it would mean that the extraordinary national treasure of our outstanding landscapes are preserved from the devastating assaults of further wind farms and hydro inundations."

[NickB79]

26. That quote is nowhere in the OP's linked article

Is there another news story you've found that expounds more on this topic, because I would like to read it.

[kristopher]

29. You're right, my mistake.

It is from the same person in an article printed the previous day in a NZ paper:
http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/8471/nz-wrong-track-energy-strategy

I have so much clutter on my desk it's a wonder this doesn't happen more often.

[NickB79]

33. No problem

I kept re-reading the article wondering if I'd missed an entire page or something :-)

[diane in sf]

6. Bullshit article--every kind of power plant goes down and needs backups, the grid

allows rerouting of power. They'll fix this gas-fired plant and it may not break again for years. If you build wind towers you plan on the wind not blowing 24/7. If you put up nukes you have to allow for downtime for maintenance.

[NickB79]

8. Yet the result is still the same: burning of fossil fuels

"Planning" on the wind not blowing usually means building (and using) natural-gas-fired plants, which emit massive amounts of CO2.

When nuclear power plants go down for maintenance, their load is usually also picked up by natural-gas-fired plants.

The question is, does a nuclear plant go down for maintenance as often as a wind farm's output drops to the point that it's back-up has to fire up?

[kristopher]

10. No that isn't the question.

The question is what is the overall costs of the system? Considering all the (real) negatives associated with nuclear, a system of widely dispersed renewables with CAES augmented natural gas (which, in the smaller quantities required could be provided from carbon neutral sources) is preferable. If we can achieve 80-90% co2 emissions reductions, I'll be very happy.

[Dead_Parrot]

13. A few thoughts and comments, if I may:

First off, the premise of Central energy is bollocks. Most of NZ's electricity is hydro, which is jaw-droppingly reliable: Granted, there isn't enough to power the country, but NZ is one of the few places where a wind/hydro combination is actually do-able. It would require re-engineering a lot of the hydro plants to increase peak power, but the availible energy should be enough to fill in the gaps without even building more dams. The only reason we're using fossil fuels is, because it's cheaper.

To paraphrase NNadir, we could use wind power, but rely on hydro.

As to nuclear power, there are two real and two not-real problems with it:
The first real problem is, we can't do it ourselves - we'd have to buy in the plans, engineering, fuel, operators, and oversight. Adds a lot to the bottom line.
The second problem is it's too good (WTF?). An AP1000 would supply, depending on exact spec, between 1/5 and 1/8 of our entire grid: Without large-scale storage (which I'd remind the renewables peanut gallery does not actually exist) we'd never get through a refueling cycle with burning fossil fuels. Which, despite Kris wafting CAES around like it runs off moonbeans, is the whole fricking point.
The first non-real problem is that it wouldn't be allowed. This isn't actually, true, there's nothing in NZ statutes against civilian nuclear power. There are laws regarding nuclear weapons, but for some reason the NZ government hasn't followed the "nuclear power = nuclear weapons" logic that flows from Greenpeace. I'll leave you to ponder why.
The second non-real problem is that we don't want it. In principal, subject to cost and suitability, it seems to be fine. In the last 4 years, I've only heard one person speak out against the evils of nuclear power - and she was an Australian who happened to wander into my local bar.

She pulled up in a Ford Explorer, with no passengers. You can imaging how much I warmed to her words of environmental wisdom. Grr.

To be fair, that might just be me hanging out with the mutants. Opinion polls run around 40-60% each side.

[cloudythescribbler]

17. Wind energy, like solar, can itself be used to produce HYDROGEN as a backup ...

Although people sometimes say (eg on DU) that Hydrogen is not an energy "source" only a way of storing energy, it IS a very effective way to store energy, and can be perfectly safe in the form of metallic hydrides (salts) that pose no danger of explosion.

Furthermore, in off-the-shelf technology for the past 30+ YEARS, the metallic (eg magnesium in magnesium hydride) can be recycled after the hydrogen is combusted. This way, solar &/or wind can have a nonpolluting form of backup, which neither nuclear, nor coal, nor oil, NOR HYDROELECTRIC (nb) is, though hydro is clearly preferable to some of the others.

[eppur_se_muova]

20. Are you referring to this (link)?

I wasn't sure what you were referring to, as I hadn't heard of any metal-hydride system for storing H2 that had all the kinks worked out yet, so I went a-Googling, and found this:

http://www.bsrsolar.com/core1-3.php3

I was going to post that MgH2 is *not* that safe, but Google also informed me that the so-called "storage" MgH2, produced under different conditions from pyrophoric MgH2, is in fact quite safe to handle, and appears to be well-represented in the patent literature. So I guess I learned quite a bit because of your post!;)

edit for omitted word

[cloudythescribbler]

21. about MgH2

MgH2 as used as a fuel in cars (in off the shelf technology for the past THIRTY YEARS) is a salt. It is far safer than gasoline or natural gas. It produces water vapor as a byproduct. And the canisters can be recycled by being rehydrized.

Back in 1981 (you have to jump through their hoops to get at the article from their archives) THE NATION magazine ran a piece called 'somebody doesn't like Hy-fuel' about a guy who was transferring cars over to be run on metallic hydrides like magnesium hydride, for less than $1000 per car, which even in those days wasn't much. The guy mysteriously kept getting run off the road (I think it was in Arizone or some place in the SW).

The technical/economic problem is getting enough cheap hydrogen. There is cheap hydrogen available, but like any type of natural resource, the lowest fruit on the tree which is cheapest provides a limited supply. Recently there have been some breakthroughs, some of which I learned about from DU, in getting cheap hydrogen, and not from oil or the limited-supply hydrogen-rich bogs in the one or two of the plains states (eg KS). This issue -- of coming up with plentiful cheap hydrogen, dismissed by some as "MERELY" a way of storing energy (eg using less steady wind and/or solar energy to produce hydrogen, which can be combined with this magnesium to be ready on demand, is now approaching a point where it could soon be mass produced for much more than the ~10% or so of vehicular use as of the early 80s (but would make a HUGE difference in smog-congested cities like Peking).

I am not expert in this, so beyond the nation and some of those threads (type in hydrogen and energy or something on DU) I can't tell you a whole lot more (just the general picture).

[kristopher]

23. Magnesium for Hydrogen Storage

http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2006-0919-200658/UUindex.html

Title: Magnesium for Hydrogen Storage : from Micrometer to Nanometer
Author: Wagemans, R.W.P.
Year: 2006
Publisher: Utrecht University
Document type: Dissertation
Full text: index.htm
Abstract: Energy systems of the foreseeable future will have to be more reliable, flexible and cost-efficient and have a higher availability to meet the increasing energy demand. Especially considering greenhouse gas emissions, combustion of fossil fuels will be replaced by cleaner energy production. The “Hydrogen Society” is a scenario in which hydrogen (H2) is used as an energy carrier for mobile applications and for energy-load balancing. For widespread use of hydrogen, progress is required in several fields, of which H2 storage is one of the most tenacious. Metal-hydrides are promising candidates for safe, compact and efficient hydrogen storage for mobile applications. However, none of the presently known materials meets all requirements in terms of hydrogen sorption conditions, hydrogen storage capacity and reversibility. Magnesium hydride (MgH2) can store hydrogen up to a weight fraction of 7.7%. However, the major impediment for MgH2 is its H2 desorption temperature of 300 C. The research described in this thesis explores, both theoretically and experimentally, the possibilities to decrease the desorption temperature of MgH2 by decreasing the particle size. First, hydrogen sorption rates and durability of magnesium hydride were enhanced by a bulk-applicable process, comprising fluoridation of the surface and application of a Pd catalyst. Analogous to alloys and thin films, nm-sized metal hydrides are expected to behave differently from the bulk materials. Such particle size-effects on H2-sorption behavior were experimentally observed for a palladium-carbon model system. A theoretical study showed a particle size dependency of the hydrogen sorption thermodynamics of magnesium hydride. Since MgH2 destabilizes stronger than Mg with decreasing particle size, the hydrogen desorption energy decreases when the crystal grain size becomes smaller than ~1.3 nm. These results imply that sub-nm MgH2 crystallites should have a significantly decreased desorption temperature; for instance an MgH2 crystallite of 0.9 nm would already desorb hydrogen at 200 C. This predicted decrease of the H2- desorption temperature is an important step towards the application of Mg as a hydrogen storage material. Since such small particles would coalesce or sinter upon repeated hydrogen charging and discharging, a support material is needed for stabilization. Inert and low weight carbon matrices were tested as a support material for nanoscale magnesium. Mg/C-nanocomposites with 25% weight in Mg were prepared by infiltrating molten Mg into carbon matrices under argon and hydrogen atmospheres. With different TEM techniques Mg(O) nanoparticles of 3nm diameter and smaller were detected in the nanocomposites. Hydrogen-sorption measurements with a high-pressure magnetic suspension balance show 76% of the initial Mg still accessible for reversible hydrogen storage. Up to one third of the magnesium in the composites had increased hydrogen sorption pressures with a corresponding absorption enthalpy of 45 kJ•mol(H2)-1. For this part H2-desorption temperatures were determined around 175 C, 125 C lower than for bulk-MgH2. These results of making the thermodynamics of H2-sorption more favorable by lowering the desorption energy with downsizing could have a major impact on the efficiency of magnesium-based hydrogen storage materials and can most likely be extended to other hydrogen storage materials and other areas of science.

[cloudythescribbler]

24. As a nonscientist, I would need some explanation of the PRACTICAL import of this desorption stuff

I do know that one issue (probably not difficult to solve) is that water vapor (the sole chemical by-product of combustion of MgH2 with Oxygen to form water vapor, leaving the recyclable magnesium) is in fact a greenhouse gas. But sequestered WATER is hardly something we don't can't find ways of using, so some kind of recapture system could easily dispose of the byproduct, unlike the sequestration of CO2 in huge quantities (what do we do with all that CO2?).

Since we're dealing with politics here, and among nonscientists, it's especially helpful to articulate in plain terms, (please) the bottom line significance of the science presented, in terms of policy options.

Do you really think that, presented with this piece on hydrogen desorption, either Bill Clinton or Barack Obama would, offhand, grasp its precise significance for policy without further explication -- and those are two of the MOST intelligent people in national politics, not W's or Quayles (or, for that matter, me).

[kristopher]

25. Taking what is evident

You stated something to the effect that the technology was 30 years old and ready to use. So the natural question is, why isn't it being used? The policy takeaway from paper is this (and yes, I think Obama would get it):
"...Metal-hydrides are promising candidates for safe, compact and efficient hydrogen storage for mobile applications. However, none of the presently known materials meets all requirements in terms of hydrogen sorption conditions, hydrogen storage capacity and reversibility..."

This is a 2006 paper (I only read the abstract) that answered that question.
200C = 392F
300C = 572F

As I read it, while solid storage solves some of the problems associated with H, it still requires a large amount of energy to facilitate the process. This lowers the overall efficiency of the system. Along with energy density of the material, I was trying to find the specifics of that system efficiency when I ran across the abstract. I never did locate the information I was looking for.

From memory, the system efficiency of storing H is around 26% (I could be wrong). This is a product of the production, compression and transport costs associated with compressed storage. On the plus side, liquid H does have a high energy density - higher even than gasoline.

The next question I have is, how do you envision the H being used for transport? Would you burn it, or use it in a fuel cell? Both of those approaches have some negatives which should be considered.

[wtmusic]

28. Liquid hydrogen has 1/4 the energy density of gasoline by volume

(the more critical limiting factor). And compressed hydrogen, more practical from a fueling standpoint, has 1/7 the density.

IIRC you're correct on the system efficiency of around 30%, but that also fails to take into account the direct and environmental costs of establishing a half a $trillion infrastructure.

[kristopher]

30. Apples and oranges

You are comparing by volume, I'm comparing by weight.

By weight, liquid H2 has about 3X the energy of gasoline.

Agree that the infrastructure is a killer by itself for widespread use. However, a system based on wind/solar for a farm or other specific application wouldn't require the infrastructure.

With the progress being made in biofuels (I particularly like the vertical algae farm approach just posted) I don't know if there is much of a future for H at all.

[cloudythescribbler]

31. that article (from THE NATION) described mgH2 canisters, which worked fine

were not dangerous and did not pollute. I am not a scientist so I can't really get into depth as to the science of it.

Maybe if you go back to the article then you'll be able to contact whoever was making those canisters. Obviously if a technology is suppressed and ignored by the big money, and would require a significant infrastructure, then it won't move forward.

I DO NOT ACCEPT THE REASONING THAT IF THE TECHNOLOGY WASN'T PURSUED HEAVILY THAT WAS FOR REASONS OF TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITATION. I'VE SEEN TOO MUCH CONTRADICTING THAT NOTION OVER THE YEARS

(like the blue-ribbon whitewash commission -- bluewashing -- that concluded that Persian Gulf War Syndrome was psychosomatic. (and there's plenty more stories like that!)

[kristopher]

32. I understand your scepticism

However, as far as H goes, that really is the way it is. My worries are similar to yours, but I end up at a different place. Why, I frequently find myself asking, are technologies that AREN'T viable, the ones that are pushed most vigorously by government programs?

It isn't too far out to interpret it as a sort of aversion therapy for taxpayers that is being pushed by the entrenched power industry. Push H, spend a lot of money and then show it doesn't work. Push ethanol, spend a lot of money and they show it doesn't work. How long before people just say "screw this, I've heard it before!"

[eppur_se_muova]

34. The issue of H2O exhaust as a greenhouse gas is trivial...

There is such a huge reservoir of water already present in the oceans, and it equilibrates sufficiently rapidly with atmospheric water, that burning fuel to produce H2O has minimal impact. If the H2 is obtained from electrolysis of H2O, then it is "H2O-neutral" in any case. If not -- say H2 is obtained from fossil fuels -- the net result will be to increase by some incredibly tiny fraction the amount of water present in the oceans (the phrase "drop in the ocean" springs to mind). The reservoir of CO2 present in the atmosphere is much smaller and hence can be altered significantly by unearthing buried carbon. A similar problem with water just doesn't exist -- the surface is pretty well saturated with it already.

(True, climate modeling does have to consider H2O as a greenhouse gas, and it is difficult to deal with, but the major effects are due to increase in water vapor due to changing temps, and changes in reflectivity due to changes in clouds and surface ice, which are complicated to model.)

[ElectricGrid]

15. Sounds like bunk to me.

[Dead_Parrot]

16. Care to eleborate? nt

[JohnWxy]

27. see VRB Power site re vanadium redox storage batteries.

www.vrbpower.com

Headquartered in Richmond, Canada, VRB Power Systems Inc. is an energy storage technology developer which is marketing, selling and manufacturing products utilizing the patented VRB Energy Storage System (“VRB-ESS™”). The VRB-ESS can economically store and supply large amounts of electricity on demand and is focused on stationary applications. It is a long life, cost effective, low maintenance, efficient technology that allows for the scalability of power and storage capacity independently. The VRB-ESS is particularly beneficial to renewable energy providers, utilities and end users through its ability to “inventory” electricity, allowing for the optimal match of supply and demand.