I've just read a claim that the European Renewable Energy Foundation has declared that wind farms are still too expensive for developing countries to use in place of coal.

The windmills produce only two thirds of their output when new, after 10 years. After 12 years, it is uneconomic to recondition moving parts.

If this is true, wind power seems doomed. It's not too good for developed countries, either, given the shrinking economies and incompetent politicians we now have. It's a pity that we have already spent billions on windfarms.

Dear ttbn,

I'm not sure if you can compare Australia with other
countries, especially underdeveloped countries.

However, the following website may be of interest:

http://theconversation.com/wind-power-why-is-south-australia-so-successful-9706

Foxy,

I wasn't comparing developed with developing. We can afford to experiment, but wind generators have a long way to go before developing countries without their own resources can do without coal. I was merely regretting the money we had spent, now knowing there could be huge expenses coming up less than a decade.

I looked at the piece on SA. I'm sure the windfarms have been a great success for providers, farmers and power companies. However, as a South Australian myself, I have a different opinion. We have the highest power prices in Australia. At one time, the prices were the highest in the world, but I can't say if that is still the case. We also have many people living near windfarms claiming associated illness.

I can't imagine how wind farms can affect health, but I know for certain that coal mines have affected the health of workers and surrounding communities for years.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080326201751.htm

I would rather live near a wind farm than a coal mine any day....

Dear ttbn,

My reference to the less developed countries
was simply to make the point that the
populous less developed countries are more
concerned with economic growth then investing
in renewable energy. Therefore they would
tend to see pollution as part of the price
they have to pay for it.

Of course there are problems with wind.
The following article explains some of them:

http://ramblingsdc.net/Australia/WindProblems.html

Suse,

I would not like to live near either.

The fact is that people who do live near windfarms are making formal complaints which will require proper investigation, not opinions. At the moment, the situation is similar to that with mobile 'phones.

The health problems with coal are established, but they have not always been. It could very well be the same with windfarms in the future. Denial is not an option, given the possibility of heavy litigation.

Dear ttbn,

We need to look at all sides of this issue
including the potentially complex environmental
impacts of continuing the burning of coal deposits to generate
energy. The use of a resource cannot be considered
in isolation from its potentially complex
environmental impacts.

The burning of coal produces sulfur and carbon dioxide,
and the more coal we burn, the more we pollute the
atmosphere. The sulfur helps form acid rain, which has
a drastic effect on another resource, forests.

We need trees for housing. We will have to rely for the
foreseeable future on whatever timberland can survive
increasing acid rain over the next decades.

We need to look at the potential of other energy sources
such as wind, and sunlight. However, admittedly -
they still appear after years of intensive research
to be either too inefficient or uneconomic for large-scale
use at present.

That does not mean of course that we should stop investigating
their potential. Reading quite a few websites on wind farms
in Australia the general consensus seems to be that
Australia has a huge potential for wind farm development
but if that potential is to be developed we're told that state
governments must take a more pro active part.

The fossil-fuel lobby apparently has a strong hold over
our state governments which according to the author
of the cite given earlier -
seem to be "under the thumb" of the coal mines,
and the development of
renewals is suffering because of this. Australia does
have the natural resources to be a world leader in
wind and solar but is in fact trailing a long way behind
countries like Germany and Denmark.

The same author also tells us that the greatest obstacle
to the development of windpower and sustainable power in
general is the lack of high-capacity electricity transmission
lines where they are needed, and state governments are
showing little willingness to build them.

So as stated earlier Australia does have a huge potential for
wind farm development but if that potential is to be
developed state governments must take a more pro-active part.

Foxy,

Wind and sunlight will never be reliable sources of power. They can only be adjuncts to coal. So, why not go straight to nuclear, which we also have plenty of. That is the only way to go if the environment is really as badly affected as some claim it is. Of course, the problem there is that the environmentalists don't want nuclear. Inside this decade, when they discover the costs of refurbishing turbines, they might not have a choice. And, I believe, it takes something like 15 years to get one nuclear plant started up. I should be well and truly passed on by then, and I'll miss seeing what eventually happens, but I will not have to worry about it.

Solar power is more worthy of persevering with, if the battery storage can be perfected, but I think our only real options are coal or nuclear.

A fool can ask questions that a wise person finds hard to answer.

For example on another thread, I asked more expert contributors about the production of CO2 in the production of wind-power, i.e. in the construction and maintenance of wind-farms, from digging up the iron ore and cement inputs, producing all the components, and of all the special bits of the turbines, maintenance over the life of a wind-tower, AND one other factor which seems to be completely ignored:

* renewable energy sources are subsidised. How does that subsidy come about ? From government revenue. How is that generated, mainly ? From taxes, from taxable incomes. How is much of that income generated ? From the production of goods and services. Using what as their energy sources ? Electricity, usually generated from non-renewable sources. Which produces how much CO2 ?

So, including all those inputs, how much CO2 is produced over the life of a wind-farm ?

No fudging now :)

Joe

Just to add some bits: I'm not suggesting that, if any CO2 whatever is produced in the life-cycle of a wind-farm, then they should be scrapped. No, if the net production of CO2 is positive, but not appreciable, then go for it. But don't expect it to be price-comparable with non-renewables for a while yet.

As well as that, I do think wind-towers are beautiful: if restaurants were built near them, I would be happy to watch them for hours.

As for infra-sound, that may be another issue entirely: I have a friend who lives at Waterloo here in SA, I'll ask him about it next time I see him.

Joe

Dear ttbn,

I'm a bit nervous about nuclear.

I recall reading that in the years immediately
after World War II, nuclear power was seen as the
energy resource of the future - one that would
provide electricity "too cheap to meter."

Today, nuclear reactors are seen by some as
monuments to a god that failed. There are nuclear
plants in many countries, but many of them are
managerial, financial or engineering diasasters.

The principal public fear is that a "meltdown"
at a nuclear reactor could release a plume of
deadly radiation into the atmosphere, perhaps
before people in surrounding communities could be
warned and evacuated. Despite consistent assurances
from the industry that nuclear reactors are safe,
opinion polls show that the public is unconvinced -
especially since the serious nuclear accidents in
places like Chernobyl (Actually, a nuclear accident
of much greater magnitude occurred near Kyshtym in
Russia in 1957, spreading radioactive
debris over a wide area which is now believed to be
uninhabitable for centuries. The full story of the
disaster has never been told, but the names of of about
50 small towns in the region have disappeared from
Russian maps, and an elaborate system of canals
have been built presumably to carry rivers and other water
systems around the contaminated area).

Nuclear reactors produce notoriously hazardous wastes.
What is needed is a place that will safely contain the waste
for at least 10,000 years, which is long enough for most of
it to decay. The location of such a site is a ticklish
political problem, for the obvious reason that people are
generally unenthused about the prospect of having a radioactive
dump in their own neighbourhood.

The disposal problem seems to be one that has no acceptable
technological fix.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

In the modern industrialised world, we often feel
insulated from nature and confident that our
technology can give us mastery over the natural
environment. We forget all too easily that we too
are animals, ultimately as dependent on the
environment for our survival as any other species.

After decades of carelessly dumping noxious gases
and particulates into the atmosphere, most of the
industrialised societies are now enforcing clear-air
standards, and air-quality in these societies is
generally much better than at any time in the past.
In the less developed countries there are few controls
on air pollution, and as these nations industrialise,
they are steadily increasing the sum total of
planetary pollution.

We're at the early stages of investing in renewable
technologies. Many problems need to be sorted out.
However, we do need to make a start. Of course this is
politically difficult for the economic interests
behind "smokestack" industries are a powerful political
lobby that is reluctant to commit the necessary resources
to the task.

However, the planet has a finite amount of resources and it
can tolerate only a limited amount of pollution.
As I've stated many times in the past on this forum -
if world population continues to grow rapidly, if
industrialisation spreads around the world and if pollution and
resource depletion continues at an increasing rate -
and all these things happen - human society one way or another
will be in for sweeping massive changes.

Good question Joe. I know that you will not be holding your breath waiting for an answer. I think the whole idea of CO2 being the bogey man is silly. Wind power is expensive, too conumers and industry. The last thing this country needs is dearer power just to try-something-out. Leigh Creek in SA is looking like becoming a ghost town because all the climate BS, and Labor redtape BS that doesn't allow the power company to offer prices that would cover their costs - and that's using cheap coal - the only thing that enabled Australia to be competitive in the past.

I am still nervous about nuclear , Foxy. I suggest it only as a sure-fire thing for the environment, but the alarmists reject it. It is expensive, too. A choice has to be made between cheap, reliable power and a strong economy, or airy-fairy stuff and a dead economy.

Dearest Foxy,

My understanding is that major problems with nuclear energy plants occurred thirty (Chernobyl) and forty (Three Mile Island) years ago, with much earlier versions of nuclear technology. By the time any plants were in operation in Australia, even if the governments involved approved them tomorrow, it could be 2030, eighty years or so after Chernobyl was built, and around seventy years after Three Mile Island was built. I would be confident enough now, and certainly by then, if I'm still around, to live next door :)

As for 'rapid population growth', that's history now: without immigration, most European countries would be losing population. Russia and Japan both have declining population. Australia, the US, South Korea and many other countries have low 'natural' population growth. And China's population story is a disaster waiting to happen.

Only Africa and South America seem to have relatively rapid population growth, but not as much as popular myth would suggest, and their growth rates are slowing.

Yes, even if there was zero population growth everywhere, population would still slowly rise, simply due to more people living longer.

Meanwhile, world food production has risen faster than population over the last forty years, although I can't cite where I read that, sorry.

As for resource exhaustion, the big producers are capping their mines and wells because of over-production around the world, and it seems that there are literally oodles (1 oodle = 1.35 billion tonnes) of iron ore, copper ore, etc. - BHP doesn't know how far the Olympic Dam deposits extend, there is so much of it. And technology is likely to find ways to use less and less materials each decade.

Smile, and have a nice day, Foxy,

Love,

Joe

//Today, nuclear reactors are seen by some as
monuments to a god that failed. There are nuclear
plants in many countries, but many of them are
managerial, financial or engineering diasasters.//

They aren't in France. The French generate over 75% of their power from fission and are the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation. Their power industry also has a much better safety record than our own predominantly coal-based power industry. If the French can do it I see no reason why we can't.

// Despite consistent assurances
from the industry that nuclear reactors are safe,
opinion polls show that the public is unconvinced//

People's attitude towards expert advice is remarkably inconsistent. They seem to have great faith in medical opinion, and most people will take physicists at their word that black holes exist. But if a climate scientist tells them humans activity is causing climate change, or a nuclear engineer tells them that nuclear reactors are extremely safe, they reject the advice out of hand.

Call me naive, but when it comes to technical and scientific matters I have far more faith in the advice of experts than I do in the poorly-founded beliefs of the great unwashed.

//The disposal problem seems to be one that has no acceptable
technological fix.//

Abject nonsense. Somebody hasn't done her homework. There are acceptable technological fixes for the problem of high-level waste disposal. The obstacles to waste disposal are political - NIMBYism - not technical.

If the government wants to put a high-level waste disposal facility in my backyard that's OK with me but I will have to move inland because the coast is not sensible location for such a facility. And get a bigger backyard. Other than that I see no problems with the idea in principle.

//especially since the serious nuclear accidents in
places like Chernobyl//

Chernobyl was no accident. If I use a meat-slicer without the safety guard in place and do myself a mischief, is that an accident or self-harm?

The operators in the Chernobyl plant intentionally shut down or overrode six different safety systems in order to conduct an unauthorised experiment. Any one of those six, had they been left on, would have prevented the disaster. I'd like to think that any nuclear power plant operators we might employ in the Australia will have a better appreciation of OH&S than Ukrainians from thirty years ago.

Also, the Chernobyl plant lacked a secondary containment building, in order to facilitate the easy extraction of plutonium for the soviet military nuclear program. If they'd had one there wouldn't have been a disaster. There's no way we'd be silly enough to build a reactor without secondary containment. There is no way Chernobyl could have happened in Australia, and no way that it can happen.

And yet the irrationally anti-nuclear people like to drag out its dead corpse to flog as often as they can. What's up with that, Foxy?

Foxy,
You can stop worrying about nuclear power as we have missed the
boat and we will never be able to finance a fleet of nuclear stations.

The article to which you referred and everyone else on here have
ignored, or are simply unaware of, is why wind farms are a failure.
Some are, usually for geographical reasons bigger failures than others.
Sth Australia and Albany are examples of good sites, but never the
less they will be failures.

The reason is simple, ERoEI, Energy Return on Energy Invested.
The best wind farms are around 8 to 10 without taking backup into
account. Once you add backup, and can you not have backup (?), then
the ERoEI is around 4. Solar cells are worse.

For those reasons a new energy regime cannot be built by wind & solar.
This is why the attempts to ban coal WILL fail as without it being
available we CANNOT build whatever the next energy system will be.

Now there is a real problem coming over the horizon.
It is the ERoEI of oil and coal. Oil's ERoEI is down to 10.
Coal's ERoEI is around 30 so it is giving us a bit more time than
oil has available.
To put is all into perspective the ERoEI for oil & coal in 1930
was Oil 100, coal 80.

So you can see that we are on borrowed time.

Tony Lavis,
A deceased friend of mine was at a conference at the Atomic
Energy Commission in Vienna in 1956 when the Russians described the
power reactor they were building, the same type as Chernobyl.
After their presentation a number of nuclear power station designers
got up and warned the Russians of a problem with their design.
The problem was associated with the carbon moderators.
The warning was that under some circumstances the moderator could store
very large amounts of energy and then suddenly release it causing the
water to turn to steam instantly.

The Russians poo pooed the warning but that was exactly what happened
at Chernobyl when they were doing a scram test.
My friend had supplied to him all the commissions investigation papers.

No doubt that sort of accident will not happen again.

Foxy said;
is the lack of high-capacity electricity transmission
lines where they are needed, and state governments are
showing little willingness to build them.

The only reason they are not built is because there is no incentive.
However if geothermal could be made to work at Coober Peady and in
the Hunter Valley where there are large deep down hot granite rock
then if the power was available they would build them.
A transmission line in the megavolt DC range is already in use
between Victoria and Tasmania.
The heat in the granite is generated by radio activity in the rock
so it would last for a very long time. Origin put a lot of money
into it and they got steam blowing back out the output pipe but
gave up for some reason, corrosion was one mentioned.
A UHV DC line to Coober Peady would be reasonable from Adelaide, Sydney
or Melbourne.
I have not seen any ERoEI figures for geothermal so it may not be a goer.

Sorry, Bazz, I know I'm a bugger, but I couldn't help trying to imagine your deceased friend attending a conference in his condition. No disrespect to your friend or you intended.

I doubt that another Chernobyl will occur. The Russians were notoriously slapdash when they threw that plant together; they probably still are. The one in Japan was much overblown by the media. I've contact with people living in Tokyo, and the drama fizzled out over a few days. However, I would never take issue with fears about nuclear. I think that the facts haven't been properly spelled out. There are still scientists, like the climate kind, who think that we plebs should accept what they say simply because they say it.

ttbn, ah yes I always re read my posts several times, but I missed that.
He was in charge of designing the nuclear station we were to build at
Jervis Bay and was really p*&^%ed off when Billy McMahon called him
to Canberra to tell him the project was cancelled.
He had some interesting stories to tell. He was involved with the
invention by Taffey Bowen of the magnetron and went to the US during
the war to show the US how to build them as they were necessary for a
major improvement in radar.

I suspect, but he never said so, that he got involved in the nuclear
business on that trip. He ended up at Sellafield in the UK and was at
Monte Bello Islands for the British nuclear tests.

A very interesting man and sore missed. He only died early this year.