2 Va. firms seek to establish offshore wind farms (1500 MW)

[jpak]

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9E3AT000.htm

Federal regulators have received leasing proposals from two Virginia companies seeking to develop offshore wind farms capable of supplying clean energy to hundreds of thousands of homes.

Apex Wind Energy Inc. is proposing to lease 116,000 acres for an undetermined number of wind turbines with the potential to generate up to 1,500 megawatts of power.

Seawind Renewable Energy Corp. envisions building 240 turbines to generate enough power for more than 250,000 homes annually, according to a company statement.

Both wind farms would be located 12 miles off of Virginia Beach.

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[Tesha]

1. Just in case anyone's wondering, 1.5 GWe is about the output of a nuke.

So for everyone saying that renewables can't "get the job
done" at power levels comparable to baseload nuclear power
plants, here will be an existence proof that that's just so
much bullshit.

Tesha

[joshcryer]

2. About half a nuke, actually.

[Tesha]

3. No, that's the output of about one unit.

Many sites operate multiple units, of course. And you'll note that
I specified Gigawatts of electricity (the net output power of the plant)
and not the thermal output of the reactor core.

Let's consider my own local nuke: Seabrook Station. Its one completed
unit has an output of 1.27 GWe, about 80% of what this windfarm is
capable of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabrook_Station_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Tesha

[joshcryer]

4. That wind farm would need a capacty factor of .70 to equal one AP1000.

This is physically impossible.

[Statistical]

6. You have to consider capacity factor.

Without it you are comparing apples to oranges.

Wind has capacity factor of 25% on average. Nuclear has capacity factor of 92%.

[kristopher]

11. Offshore wind capacity factor is between 40-44%.

[Statistical]

7. Closer to 1/3 a single reactor. See below.

[joshcryer]

8. I was being generous to the wind farm.

Good to see you around, btw. :hi:

[Statistical]

5. No it isn't you are ignoring capacity factor. Annual output is roughly 1/3 that of a reactor.

1500 is roughly equal to the PEAK output (power) however we consume energy (power * time). Wind has a capacity factor of about 25% depending on location. Nuclear has a capacity factor of 92% (in US).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

Wind farm: 1500MW * 0.25 * 24 * 365 = 3.285 billion kWh annually

output of nuclear depends on reactor design

AP1000 1150MW * 0.92 * 24 * 365 = 9.3 billion kWh annually.
ESBWR 1600MW * 0.92 * 24 * 365 = 12.9 billion kWh annually.

Without capacity factor peak output is meaningless. Some university lasers have peak output that exceeds entire us power grid load combined. Of course they only operate for a femto second. That is a capacity factor of 0.00000000001%

[AlecBGreen]

9. a serious question

how do they power the laser? do they charge up capacitors first? energy/electricity/magentism have always been difficult for me to understand...

[Statistical]

10. I honestly don't know.

I always assumed they used some massive bank of ultracapacitors.

Likely the capacitor bank is more dangerous than the laser.

[kristopher]

12. The capacity factor red herring...

New wind is delivering energy much cheaper than new nuclear has any chance of doing.

DELIVERED energy.

FAR LESS THAN nuclear.

Even when you use the FALSE ESTIMATES to INFLATE the VALUE of nuclear.

[Statistical]

13. Not according to the DOE.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/aeo/electricity_generation.html

2016 price projections



$191 per MWh for offshore wind (that's $0.019 per kWh)
$119 per MWh for advanced nuclear (that's $0.012 per kWh)

Also capacity factor does matter because of the NIMBY crew. There is a limited amount of space that it is cost effective to build wind on that people will also allow near their homes. The lower capacity factor and higher footprint of wind limits potential deployment of wind.

[kristopher]

14. These are the same people who have consistantly forecast a 2% YOY growth rate for wind

over the past decade. Never mind that year on year growth was between 25-50% every year, they still maintained that NEXT year, it would be 2%.
I'd also be VERY interested in how they arrived at the delivered cost from the "advanced nuclear" technology and what they omitted from their costs.

Lazard pegs the numbers here:
On May 13, 2008, the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission released a comparison of the costs of of new generating capacity from various sources. The analysis for the comparison was prepared by Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc., a consulting firm that prepares studies for utilities, governmental regulators, law firms, and non-profit agencies.<1> These estimates include firming resource costs.

Busbar cost in cents per kilowatt-hour in 2008 dollars:

Coal:

* Coal Supercritical: 10.554
* Coal Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC): 11.481
* Coal IGCC with Carbon Capture & Storage (IGCC with CCS): 17.317

Alternatives:

* Biogas: 8.552
* Wind: 8.910
* Gas Combined Cycle: 9.382
* Geothermal: 10.182
* Hydroelectric: 10.527
* Concentrating solar thermal (CSP): 12.653
* Nuclear: 15.316
* Biomass: 16.485

Busbar means the price of the power leaving the plant. All capital, fuel, and operating costs are taken into account in busbar costs.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Comparative_electrical_generation_costs

[Statistical]

15. Actually DOE projects a tripling of wind/solar by 2020.

Even that would only be about 6% of consumption.

Total renwables (including biomass and hydro) grow to 17% of generation.

The DOE numbers are "delivered" = busbar plus transmission.

Nothing is excluded it includes capital (overnight) cost, interest, maintenance, operating costs, and fuel.

In the case of nuclear it includes disposal fee (0.1 per kwh) and decommissioning fund (as specified by NRC).

[kristopher]

16. You used EIA stats - they predicted the 2% increase.

And again, how did the get the numbers for nuclear plants whose prices - preconstruction - have increased up to 5X over the past decade. Remember the quote from Moody's about estimates for new nuclear being nothing more than (and I quote) wild guesses?

The numbers from EIA have no credibility. Their good at their primary function of recording statistics, but their track record for prediction (and not just wind) is total failure.