The windmill debate rages back and forth. Heated discussions on AGW and carbon foot prints move mountains and yet we don't seem closer to a reasonable conclusion about this : is all the money that goes into research of renewable energy through windfarms well spent - or a complete waste?
I have an opinion, and as a non-professional (on renewable energy production) average citizen, whose tax money contributes to the fray, I thought the following might open some sort of debate - - or end up in the usual Cyber-space black hole far beyond the Event Horizon!
Let's take the arguments one by one and perhaps catch all clauses by saying, that if anyone has good supporting or contra-arguments, I am more than willing to listen and change tack!
- Windmills are ugly? Invalid argument. Pylons, nuclear/coal/gas/oil power generators are ugly too. And so are cars. We learn to live with them. This doesn't add to a serious debate. The most windswept areas in the UK are around the coast with a steady supply, off people's "radar". People don't like change - a lot of the debate therefore focusses on emotional facts, caused by our failure to have a proper plan for "least annoyance", thereby irritating the wrong (=influential) people.
- Windmills are inefficient. This surely depends on which level of development and sophistication we have achieved. All new technology goes through phases, usually from rough, tough and expensive to smooth and cheap. Car engines, walkman players, Jet engines, iPads, PCs, mobile phones, etc. all did it.
If we don't undertake a concerted development while the pressure is low, we may find it exceedingly difficult when and if the house catches fire, i.e. war or lack of traditional energy supply in case of political unrest.
A free market with healthy competition, initially backed by a political will to seek alternative renewable energy sources, are in my opinion a prerequisite to find out, whether windmills are the way forward.
If we don't try, we will never know and in my opinion we must look 100 or 200 years ahead, not 20.
- Windmills can't store electricity/ are useless when no wind/ stopped when storming. When the wind blows, we should be able to use less conventional fuel (gas/ oil/ coal) despite a need to run conventional power plants on empty. One way would be to export the surplus into a larger grid, e.g. European. This principle has long been used in Scandinavia in respect of hydro-energy plants.
This amounts to a storage of fuel, i.e. NOT USED fuel somewhere in the grid, i.e. energy storage.
And the Storm-argument? How often do we have this situation? (Actually quite rarely, as I can see).
Windmills can also be used to store energy by e.g. pumping water into reservoirs, from where it can be released to drive turbines, when there is no wind or when the need arises.
As late as Sunday 18 March 2012 a UK researcher wrote a major article in the Sunday Times about this principle, presenting it as a novel thought. It is neither rocket science nor new!
The problem for the UK is that there are no suitable mountains in England and often wind still, so Scotland would have to carry the burden - and in Scotland the wind is almost always present.
But then the pumped up water could be used alternatively to supply an increasingly drought ridden South during the summer - a project that has been discussed with no end in sight for the last 40 years.
The combined need for water and energy could perhaps bring implementation a step closer.
- Cost/Pricing: The inefficiency (if any) is to a large degree due to political pricing and inter-country agreements, artificial support (which tends to generate either no research or just make producers rich) and not referring to the actual relationship between building cost and utilization benefit. Moreover, the initial costs (actual) will always be higher, when changing to a new system due to lower volume, learning curve and supply issues, etc.
Simplistically, compare the price of HD-TVs today to 5 years ago and you see what I mean.
The price tag will always be relative - when oil was $3/barrel (1970) and supply expected to last forever, only silly farmers or Dutch canal builders thought about their private windmills as water pumps.
But now that oil has broken the $100 mark and seems sure to hit $150-200 over the next decade, what then?
We want to begin preparation and thinking now and not in 10 years time.
At the moment the installation and maintenance cost of windmills, in particular sea-bound wind farms, are exceedingly high due to the extraordiniary requirements to steel and concrete and complicated grid connections. I am not aware what the life expectancy of these windmills is, but the price and complexity is probably one of the reasons why various governments have to put an enormous amount of money into the scheme. Tax-payers' money! And that is bound to create friction.
- Experience: There are plenty of succcess stories concerning wind-energy, both when implemented land-bound and in coastal areas. e.g. The Danish island of Samso, which is almost 100% energy supplied through windmills with traditional supply as back-up through a connection to the general grid.
A couple of German towns likewise.
So experience shows that it works!! Why are the English so negative about European innovation, only believing it works if invented here? If you do a bit of investigative research into the success stories you'd see what I mean.
We are ideally positioned with vast coastal stretches.
- Political bargaining power of Oil and Gas suppliers. This is totally uncontrollable and actually unacceptable: Russia and an increasingly volatile group of states in Africa and Asia are slowly tightening the noose.
What if Israel bombs Iran and all hell breaks loose in the part of the world that supplies Europe with 85% of its oil and gas?
It is easy to imagine other, comparable situations. Ukraine showed it in 2009 and the Baltic gas-pipe could rupture during a frosty winter.
This implies a serious threat to Western Europe, incl. the UK, even if our shale deposits of gas in principle may take us through the next 75 years.
As I said, we need a 100-200 years planning process.
- A longer term assessment of our energy use is long overdue. With an exponential increase in the Earth's population, wealth and energy demand, we will over the next 100 years create a major disaster for the planet, totally irrespective of the greenhouse gas effect (if there is any). This is only a slightly longer time horizon than the estimated guess-work concerning CO2.
Even with a stagnating population on Earth there will be a huge problem, as the BRIC countries demand their share. At present, India and China add 10mill cars/year to their parking lot!
An important consideration here is of course: why do we think traditionally? Why do we need an increased energy supply at all? How about fewer people? Spending the money on population control would perhaps be more effective?
Question-1: Is this a good idea? Absolutely.
Question-2: Is this realistic? I think not - unfortunately.
- Other (simultaneous/ non carbon) approaches. Tidal water and wave power stations have huge potential in many parts of the world - but it is still an emerging technology. I hate to consider the maintenance/repair effort due to mud-blocked turbines in the Severn estuary, where the UK could build enough generators to supply most of the country. Sun panels on every single house in the UK? Surely a possibility and lots of people are already doing it. Surplus energy could be channelled into the public grid.
Nuclear Power stations are an obvious option and I believe development should be accelerated immediately.
There is an immense scope for building a UK power industry, earning money for the GDP many years ahead off loading the reliance on an immoral weapons industry.
- Political short sightedness. 100 MPs have started a rather farcical protest against the "windmill drive". I find it scientifically and socially myopic and defeating most objectives required for a proper and fact oriented discussion. This action is only topped by German politicians, who in panic have decided to close down the german Nuclear Power Plants in the next 8 years. Are they mad? It is a sad illustration of the incompetence demonstrated by our politicians (Labour, Lib. Dems or Tory - all of them), comparable to investing Billions of £££s in the High Speed train line (HS2 London-Manchester) when our communication society's technology could solve the presenting problem at only a fraction of the investment without physically moving the fragile human body around. But perhaps Virtual Office solutions are less attractive than a 1st class, bar-supported train ride for our leaders?
The 100 complaining MPs will really find something to complain about when their fridge-freezers stop working or when they can't afford to run them or their cars any more.
- Stopping unwanted money squandering to India and other countries. The UK sends in excess of $1Bill to India every year in 3rd world support. This to a country that spends loads of money on a nuclear industry. India has even said they don't want the money. The UK continues. This would pay for hundreds of Windmill installations along our coast - and provide work for a lot of people. Or heating for hypothermia suffering pensioners.
Hello!!!! Anyone home?
- A Massive change in life-style is required - whatever else we do - Home insulation, more efficient car-engines, fewer holidays - the list is longer than this article.
But we probably won't adapt before it is too late!!!
Comments are welcome.
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