Wind Power vs. Nuclear Power: How they compare

[sparkey321]

I have'nt read the article but i presume this is about what would what happen if Wind Power got into a fight with Nuclear Power.....I reckon Nuclear Power would be defeated because Wind Power would have mother nature on its side and would have the support of the majority of the public....hope my contribution helps.

To continue your anology.

The wind would slow down or stop so wind power would cease to exist and nuclear can kick its ass.

Wind power is a very interesting technology but unless and until a method of storing the power generated is developed it is in effect useless. What good is generating 25% of our power requirements at 4am when there is limited requirement for power? Can you guarantee wind power will be available at peak demand times ?? Can you even guarantee the availability of wind power at set times ?

Either we learn to accept intermittent blackouts or we develop a method of storing this power. Otherwise wind power is nothing more than an expensive public relations exercise.

Wake up people the emperor has no clothes.

[MacCoise]

What if there's an accident and one of these fancy wind-plants explodes?

and how do we deal with all the toxic windy waste?

[generick]

Right, i think everyone here is looking at this the wrong way.

Firstly, long distance electricity transfer is a mugs game, you lose way too much of it with AC, and we dont have enough metal to build it with DC. Superconductors may help here though.

Therefore, we should be building our electricity generation locally, that is wind and solar on every home and round every town. This would cut down on losses through transmission. The storage problem is a bigger issue though, but i would probably use biomass to run the back up stations. There was a recent discovery by scientists in MIT that promises to improve the ability of solar power to produce energy while keeping the cost low and that is definitely something we should look into.

Its also worth noting that the connection of all of Europes energy grids would probably solve the intermittency problem, and i believe that someone (Buckminister Fuller, i believe) once worked out that the wind blows somewhere at all times in a one mile radius. Scientists in germany worked out that using wind and connecting the grids, 80% of the EU's energy needs could be produced.

Nuclear, on the other hand has a long, long lead in time and normally requires government guarentees to store the waste. Lets bear in mind that the waste will last a VERY long time (even in geological terms), and the fact that no private operator believes they can handle these costs makes me suspicious of the long term viability of nuclear.

Those are my thoughts anyway. A news google search should throw up most of the articles i referred to.

The most important thing though, is to do something to wean ourselves off carbon based fuels ASAP.

[Magror14]

Right, i think everyone here is looking at this the wrong way.

Firstly, long distance electricity transfer is a mugs game, you lose way too much of it with AC, and we dont have enough metal to build it with DC. Superconductors may help here though.
Therefore, we should be building our electricity generation locally, that is wind and solar on every home and round every town. This would cut down on losses through transmission. The storage problem is a bigger issue though, but i would probably use biomass to run the back up stations. There was a recent discovery by scientists in MIT that promises to improve the ability of solar power to produce energy while keeping the cost low and that is definitely something we should look into.

Its also worth noting that the connection of all of Europes energy grids would probably solve the intermittency problem, and i believe that someone (Buckminister Fuller, i believe) once worked out that the wind blows somewhere at all times in a one mile radius. Scientists in germany worked out that using wind and connecting the grids, 80% of the EU's energy needs could be produced.

Nuclear, on the other hand has a long, long lead in time and normally requires government guarentees to store the waste. Lets bear in mind that the waste will last a VERY long time (even in geological terms), and the fact that no private operator believes they can handle these costs makes me suspicious of the long term viability of nuclear.

Those are my thoughts anyway. A news google search should throw up most of the articles i referred to.

The most important thing though, is to do something to wean ourselves off carbon based fuels ASAP.

My understanding is that it was discovered at the very early stages of electricity generation that DC output decreased in power over very short transmission distances compared to AC output. Also, Superconducters operate at cryogenic temperatures so are a non-runner in terms of large transmission systems. All those nice ideas about windpower may be viable but they are still at the experimental stage. Overuse of biomass impacts on food prices. We need an immediate base-load energy production source soon to take us into the era of next generation resources (such as fusion circa 2050). Nuclear is the only such source and there are new fission technologies which are gas cooled and inherently safe i.e pebble bed reactors. Waste is an issue but it is going to be the price we pay to avoid societal meltdown in the West. We still need to pump massive resources into conservation and nature-based renewables but we should stop pussy-footing around.

[riven]

The problem with local production is effeciency. Larger plants are more efficient as they work at higher temperatures etc. For example a small turbine will have an efficiency of ~30% because of its non isentropic operation/temperature losses/frictional losses per unit volume). Further for each local production you need local distribution network thereby increasing the amount of transmission losses.

Local production is useful for reducing some amount of your electricity grid input but is not yet useful for joe soap as the effeciencies are far too low.

[sparkey321]

Right, i think everyone here is looking at this the wrong way.

Firstly, long distance electricity transfer is a mugs game, you lose way too much of it with AC, and we dont have enough metal to build it with DC. Superconductors may help here though.

Therefore, we should be building our electricity generation locally, that is wind and solar on every home and round every town. This would cut down on losses through transmission. The storage problem is a bigger issue though, but i would probably use biomass to run the back up stations. There was a recent discovery by scientists in MIT that promises to improve the ability of solar power to produce energy while keeping the cost low and that is definitely something we should look into.

Its also worth noting that the connection of all of Europes energy grids would probably solve the intermittency problem, and i believe that someone (Buckminister Fuller, i believe) once worked out that the wind blows somewhere at all times in a one mile radius. Scientists in germany worked out that using wind and connecting the grids, 80% of the EU's energy needs could be produced.

Nuclear, on the other hand has a long, long lead in time and normally requires government guarentees to store the waste. Lets bear in mind that the waste will last a VERY long time (even in geological terms), and the fact that no private operator believes they can handle these costs makes me suspicious of the long term viability of nuclear.

Those are my thoughts anyway. A news google search should throw up most of the articles i referred to.

The most important thing though, is to do something to wean ourselves off carbon based fuels ASAP.

You miss the point entirely.

I completely agree that we must wean ourselves off carbon based fuels but the current spend of wind power is only expensive window dressing and does nothing to address this issue.

Lets look at this is the broader context.

Ireland has a known energy requirement with known peak times and low demand times.
We need to have a reliable power source to match each of these times.

With wind power you may be generating maximum output at low demand times and generating nothing at peak demand times. As a result you still need to have traditional generation capacity to match peak demand. As these plants cannot be turned on at the flick of a switch they need to be on or at least generating steam all of the time. Wind power is not really an alternative supply, its not really creating extra capacity it is simply a PR exercise. We are spending million, hundreds of millions on a technology that gives minimum benefit.

All that will change when a reliable and efficient way of storing energy is developed and in my mind that is where the government should be spending its money not building a load of effectively useless wind farms.

[joel]

Right, i think everyone here is looking at this the wrong way.

Firstly, long distance electricity transfer is a mugs game, you lose way too much of it with AC, and we dont have enough metal to build it with DC. Superconductors may help here though.

Therefore, we should be building our electricity generation locally, that is wind and solar on every home and round every town. This would cut down on losses through transmission. The storage problem is a bigger issue though, but i would probably use biomass to run the back up stations. There was a recent discovery by scientists in MIT that promises to improve the ability of solar power to produce energy while keeping the cost low and that is definitely something we should look into.

Its also worth noting that the connection of all of Europes energy grids would probably solve the intermittency problem, and i believe that someone (Buckminister Fuller, i believe) once worked out that the wind blows somewhere at all times in a one mile radius. Scientists in germany worked out that using wind and connecting the grids, 80% of the EU's energy needs could be produced.

Nuclear, on the other hand has a long, long lead in time and normally requires government guarentees to store the waste. Lets bear in mind that the waste will last a VERY long time (even in geological terms), and the fact that no private operator believes they can handle these costs makes me suspicious of the long term viability of nuclear.

Those are my thoughts anyway. A news google search should throw up most of the articles i referred to.

The most important thing though, is to do something to wean ourselves off carbon based fuels ASAP.

You miss the point entirely.

I completely agree that we must wean ourselves off carbon based fuels but the current spend of wind power is only expensive window dressing and does nothing to address this issue.

Lets look at this is the broader context.

Ireland has a known energy requirement with known peak times and low demand times.
We need to have a reliable power source to match each of these times.

With wind power you may be generating maximum output at low demand times and generating nothing at peak demand times. As a result you still need to have traditional generation capacity to match peak demand. As these plants cannot be turned on at the flick of a switch they need to be on or at least generating steam all of the time. Wind power is not really an alternative supply, its not really creating extra capacity it is simply a PR exercise. We are spending million, hundreds of millions on a technology that gives minimum benefit.

All that will change when a reliable and efficient way of storing energy is developed and in my mind that is where the government should be spending its money not building a load of effectively useless wind farms.

The government is NOT building them - firms are, unsubsidised. So, therefore they must be making a profit by selling the electricity to the Grid. Therefore they can't be useless.

There you are, thats logic for you.

[sparkey321]

The government is NOT building them - firms are, unsubsidised. So, therefore they must be making a profit by selling the electricity to the Grid. Therefore they can't be useless.
There you are, thats logic for you.

Not true.

All power generated by wind power is heavily subsidised. Every single customer of the ESB pays a levy to allow for the much higher cost of wind power. Plus the ESB is forced to buy power at a fixed price. It is forced to buy the power when it is available not when it is required.

The wind power market is so artificially scewed that its bears no relation to real world demand or conditions. Without a reliable and efficient method of storing power wind power is in effect useless.

[joel]

The government is NOT building them - firms are, unsubsidised. So, therefore they must be making a profit by selling the electricity to the Grid. Therefore they can't be useless.
There you are, thats logic for you.

Not true.

All power generated by wind power is heavily subsidised. Every single customer of the ESB pays a levy to allow for the much higher cost of wind power. Plus the ESB is forced to buy power at a fixed price. It is forced to buy the power when it is available not when it is required.

The wind power market is so artificially scewed that its bears no relation to real world demand or conditions. Without a reliable and efficient method of storing power wind power is in effect useless.

Ireland is an "unusual market" and in many instances "Wind will be cheaper than Natural gas":

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9759901-7.html

[sparkey321]

Ireland is an "unusual market" and in many instances "Wind will be cheaper than Natural gas":

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9759901-7.html

Again no argument from me on that. It will be cheaper when we have wind. What about when the wind does not blow or just isn't strong enough to delivery enough power ? We will either have blackouts (which is not acceptable) or still need traditional generating stations to maintain capacity.

Until we can get constant guaranteed, reliable output from alternative power sources or a method of storing the power so we get reliable consistent delivery it is nothing but an expensive PR exercise with minimal if any tangible benefits.

I could be wrong here but as far as I understand the issue (and I have asked the question) wind power cannot be used to create additional capacity. In other words you need traditional generation stations to serve your demand and switch from them to renewable sources when they are available. However you cannot just switch off traditional power stations they need to be kept up to temperature and generating steam so that they can be turned back on when renewable sources are no longer available. You will get some reduction on emissions when they are operating in standby but not eliminate them. When you take this into account and add the non renewable energy consumed manufacturing the wind generating equipment and the infrastructure around them the benefits quickly fade away.

It also means that as power demand grows we will still have to build additional generating capacity using non renewable sources. Funding needs to be spent on looking at power storage technology not on fancy windmills.