“Wind farms do not reduce emissions.” A commonly used talking point by those opposed to wind farms. This talking point is evidently enjoyed so much by some that this week the Global Warming Policy Foundation reposted a story from Natural News on the subject. Natural News is at a level nutbaggery that one would have thought that even the GWPF would be sensible enough not to use it as a news source. But one thing is clear, most of the people who claim that wind farms don’t reduce emissions first don’t care about emissions in the first place, and second don’t care if wind farms don’t reduce emissions. They just don’t want them built.
So, do wind farms reduce emissions?
Let’s first get out of the way that some don’t. Building wind farms on certain types of peat bog is probably not a good idea. There are of course plenty of onshore sites without peat bogs, and offshore wind farms quite obviously don’t suffer from this problem at all. What we are looking at is something that can be solved through regulation, or carbon pricing. As an anti-wind talking point it is quite limited.
This tweet by the United Kingdom Independence Party’s MEP Roger Helmer leads me to the other claim: “wind farms increase emissions.”
Excellent piece on the parliament web-site explaining why wind farms don't reduce emissions: is.gd/r6YY5N—
Roger Helmer (@RogerHelmerMEP) March 12, 2013
The gist of this argument is that wind farms have an average capacity factor of 25%. So, if wind farms have a total capacity of say 10 GW, on average 2.5 GW will come from wind farms and 7.5 GW needs to come from something else. The problem for wind power proponents is that when the wind farms aren’t running it will be less efficient gas power that provides the electricity. A CCGT gas plant running efficiently will produce 0.4 tonnes of CO2 per MWh, whereas a less efficient OCGT plant, or CCGT plant running inefficiently, will produce 0.6 tonnes of CO2 per MWh. Add in 10 GW of wind to the electricity grid, and you go from 10 GW of electricity supply from efficient CCGT gas plants at 0.4 tonnes of CO2 per MWh being replaced by 7.5 GW of inefficient gas and 2.5 GW of wind, which comes to 0.75*0.6 = 0.45 tonnes of CO2 per MWh. An increase, not a decrease in emissions. A major blow for wind proponents, and total nonsense.
Consider electricity demand on a typical day. I’ll show Spain’s, but you can easily find it for other countries at the data sources page on my blog.
These swings in demand are far greater than anything that can be expected for wind power less than between 20 and 30% of electricity demand. The impacts of wind on the need to run less efficient gas plants is currently negligible, and likely will be for the next decade in the UK. Just ask the UK’s National Grid, who using actual grid data found that wind farms currently have a close to zero impact on how often inefficient gas plants are run.
I can also refute the argument in the “excellent” analysis linked to by Roger Helmer above with one simple graph: wind power output in Germany today.
The total wind capacity in Germany is about 33 GW, but I believe only about 30 GW is represented by the graph above. Let’s think about what the “wind farms don’t reduce emissions” claim requires. Essentially between 12 am and 12 pm this morning German wind farms must have forced about 17 GW of electricity to come from inefficient gas plants. But, wind farm output is essentially flat all morning. So, the claim that wind farms increase emissions is blatant nonsense, which requires us to assume wind farms have magical powers.
The only problem is that China & India etc, do not give a shit about any of the detail in your article. The will continue building coal stations so that their economies can continue to grow. Your article is a load of crap becaus it fails to mention that wind power will bankrupt any country tat fully embraces it.
Any country choose the best financially and technically feasible option for the power generation. If wind energy is financially lucrative; project developer will opt for it. In India, where government used to provide tax benefits; there are around 18,000 MW of wind installations occurred till year 2013. Now the same tax benefits are shifted towards solar energy based projects and hence in next couple of years, solar sector will get boosted. So, money, government support and the technology is what we need to support renewable energy.
You fail to mention that the demand on fossil fuels may be small because nuclear is providing the UK and German baseload.
Mark
If you are not interested in responding to the subject I actually took the time to write about then please do not comment. It is a total waste of my time, and that of anyone who is reading through the comments.
This is interesting but it seems to me that a full simulation needs to be run before reaching conclusions. So far, my preliminary conclusion is that Wind does not cut emissions as much as claimed, but the claim that no emissions saved at all may be overstated. The issue is not just variation, but predictability. I read an interesting paper on Thermodynamic fluctuations as appled to wind energy. I’ll go dig it out. Conclusions not good for wind btw.
Keith
Please do not make another comment like this one. It is a waste of my time and that of anyone who reads it. Telling me you once read a paper, and are going to dig it out is anti-persuasive.
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What percentage of UK energy needs did our installed wind capacity provide today?
If you are not interesting in commenting on what this post is actually about then please do not waste my time and the time of people who are reading this post for its actual content.
The question of whether or not wind farms are net sources or sinks of co2 gains relevance only if placed in the context of how much extra co2 is generated or saved relative to the contribution of the windfarms to the UK energy budget. There has to be a cost benefit analysis somewhere down the line, because we’re going to need an awful lot more of these wind turbines before they are producing more than a symblic percentage of the UK’s needs. Getting a sense of the proportions is a sensible thing to do, because other considerations might come into play once the scale of turbine multiplication necessary is understood.
By the way, Kirstygogan on twitter just answered my question. At this moment: Wind 14% vs gas 12%. Nuclear’s always high at night (21%) & old king coal still out in front 43%
Tallbloke
I have a comments section so that people can have an informed discussion about the subject of each post. It is not for people to ask questions that can easily be answered by ten seconds on google.
Please do not comment here again if you are not willing to contribute anything of relevance to the subject of the post.
Point me to the article where you discuss the points raised in my comment then. Narrowly circumscribing debate limits transfer of understanding. Not that hundreds are flocking here to hear it.
Tall bloke
You’re just wasting my time. I have written a number of posts discussing wind power. If you want to read them you can find them by searching through my blog. I am not going to point them out to you.
Since you have repeatedly indicated your unwillingness to discuss the subject of this post I am blocking you from making any future comments.
your second graph refers to a 12 hr period. The problem I believe arises with transients (at the beginning and end of such periods). While the argument in favor may need hard substantiation, the argument against is, forgive my saying, bogus. Any and all measurements or calculations of actual (not imputed) fuel saved by wind power (Ireland, Germany, Falklands, Holland) suggest that depending on the details of a power network, emissions (and hence fuel) savings are of the order of, or less than, 50% of those corresponding to the wind MWhrs generated by wind. Wind advocate claims refer to fictitious CO2 savings. Why aren’t there hard data on ACTUAL fuel saved? Or to ask it in a slightly different way, “how many wind generators does it take to actually manufacture a single ball bearing? — I mean “manufacture”, not “theoretical energy requirements”, if you get the subtle difference…
Pick up two dumbbells, making sure that they are light enough for you to practice perfect form
or for simply warming up your triceps muscles.
Take a chest press for example; the main muscle worked is the chest, secondary maybe the triceps.
However, if you travel often, or even if you choose not to take that long break, there is no
reason to stop exercise.