A Libertyville resident who goes by the name of “Mom” alerted me to the story of legal wrangling over a wind turbine months ago; today it’s covered in The Chicago Tribune. I have no particular dog in this fight, but the story highlights many of the practical difficulties presented to those who might like to use wind power. So, I thought I’d post what little I can glean from various news articles:
The short version of the story seems to be:
- Aldridge Electric wanted to construct a 120ft (140ft?, 150ft?) wind turbine and applied for permission. (I’ve read various heights.)
- Libertyville had some sort of meeting, and may or may not have posted something to inform the public about the application.
- Officials granted the permit. Aldridge installed the turbine issuing a press release that included this claim:
The EW50 wind turbine is projected to produce 40,000 kWh/year, sufficient to power four homes a year and to power all 125 computers and 42 printers used by Aldridge Electric at its headquarters a year.
- Residents near the turbine find the sound disturbing. At some point, they form Citizens for the Protection of Libertyville.
- Agitated residents asked the town to ban turbines. A temporary ban on building new turbines was put in place in August 2009. (See google doc. The moratorium has been extended at least 4 times. This doesn’t affect the existing turbine. The town also now limits the number of hours of operation.
- Someone filed a suit saying the town acted unlawfully in granting the permit; the town has spent $140,000 defending the suit. That law suit is pending. Presumably those interested can hunt down legal papers filed and learn details about steps the town took to inform the public prior to the meeting and vote.
- Meanwhile, the town continues debating future wind turbine ordinances
Having grown up in Libertyville, I was interested in seeing exactly where the turbine is located. I thought I recognized the house in some of the photos running with the story. Citizen’s for Protecting Libertyville provided a detailed image:
Citizen’s for the protection of Libertyville say “Folks, the Libertyville Wind Turbine is setback only 250 feet!” and that appears to be a fairly accurate representation of the distance between homes and the turbine.
To let people see how close this is to homes, I fiddled with Google Maps to let you look “up” that Riverside drive and took a screenshot. I think the tidy brick home on the left corresponds to the address of the home pictured in the Tribune. You can see some sort of industrial building near the end of that street. I bet the turbine is somewhere very near that building. A blog post reports complaints from people in the 400 and 500 blocks of 7th ave. Those are the blocks immediately north of Rockland Rd.
My mother lives within 2 or 3 blocks of the turbine. When she brought up the story, I asked if she could hear the turbines; I think she said she can’t. As far as I can tell, her hearing is fine. She happens to side with the home-owners on the noise issue; so admitting to not hearing the noise would be adverse to her position on the political issue. I know I couldn’t hear the turbine when I visit her– but I didn’t check whether it was operating. Based on what little data I’ve collected pertaining to families complaining about noise, and the fact that my Mom can’t hear it, I’d estimate the turbine that provides enough power for approximately 5 homes (if run 24/7) appears to be making enough noise to disturb one or two-dozen families.
As I said: I have no dog in this fight. But disturbing one or two dozen families to generate enough energy for 5 is not a very favorable ratio. I’d bet dollars to donuts that county boards will enact ordinances to increase set-backs and reduce permissible decibel levels for turbines. I can’t begin to guess whether turbine installations in towns will be feasible afterwards.
Personally, I suspect the subsonic vibrations are more unsettling to biological populations than those in the auditory range.
We shall see, won’t we?
==========
Kim–
Those complaining complain about noise in both the subsonic and audible ranges. Here’s a quote:
My mother said that one complainant is a deaf woman who is disturbed by the sub-sonic noise only. Evidently they make life very difficult for her.
The “CPL” group does discuss the subsonic noise:
A formal noise study would have to consider these factors.
Certainly, the turbine is going to affect property prices. If I were considering buying the tidy brick house on that corner and saw the huge turbine from my backyard, I would monitor the sound while the turbine is turning. I’d read past news stories.
But yes: We shall see. I do think, these stories are going to affect future decisions by elected officials, state and county laws. We’ll also learn whether Libertyville followed state law requiring officials to properly inform the public prior to voting. I have no idea about the outcome on that. But whether Libertyville officials did or did not follow state law, this suit is going to affect their future decisions and that of numerous town and county boards when applications are presented. Spending $140,000 on a lawsuit is something no town really wants to do.
Once they’ve approved an installation, and neighbors file the suit, I don’t think the board has much choice but to defend. If they overturned their decision after the turbine was in place, Aldridge would probably sue!
The wind, the water, and the sun are the planet’s natural climate regulating mechanisms. Because of efficiency losses, the value of the energy taken out of the wind by windmills will always be less than the value of that energy left in the wind.
=========================
Kim–
Sure. But I don’t see that taking energy out of the wind as having much impact on the earth’s ability to regulate it’s climate. Are you suggesting it does?
The plant appears to be Aldridge Electric from what I can tell on Google. The windmill must be on their property.
We are all downwind.
And, of course, it depends a lot on the magnitude of the energy withdrawn from the wind.
There is, of course, a massive amount of energy in the wind, and taking what is needed probably won’t effect climate much. But the amount it does take is worth less running our machines than regulating the climate.
It all depends upon how man’s use of that energy, and the earth’s use of that energy is valued.
I propose something so simple and demonstrable that it cannot be refuted. Let the lawyers and the politicians decide.
============
Mike–
Yes. If you examine the areal photo, the turbine appears to be in their asphalt covered parking lot. They must own and use all the buildings in that large concrete covered area. I’d guess Aldridge owns rather than rents the buildings in which they operate.
When I was a kid, I think International Harverster was located in that area. I know Foulds Macaroni was also, at one time, in that area. (They sold mostly to processed food manufacturers– like Kraft.)
If childhood-lore I picked up is correct, the small house shown in the Tribune photo was probably built by International Harverster, seems to have built many small houses to sell their employees back when they were a young company and Libertyville was a smaller town. For several blocks, Rockland road, 7th ave and a number of other street in that vicinity are lined with small, square foot print, 1 story, 2 bedroom- no basement- detached garage homes. ( Some have sprouted 2nd stories.)
However all those tidy homes got there, that particular area has the distinction that many small homes are within a close walking distance of an commercial/industrial area. Owing to the types of businesses that have operated there, I don’t think there has ever been a negative impact arising from the proximity. But right now, the does look like it’s just outside Laurie Renz’s back yard.
Kim–
I’m picturing you wearign a robe made out of tree leaves, closed shut with vines and waiting for you to say “Gaia”.
Why do these little green creatures want to rape Gaia for their own pleasure?
========
We have a couple of ongoing efforts on measuring infrasound from wind-turbines. It’ll be interesting to see how this comes out. We’ve not looked at the question of the near-field pattern emitted by the turbine (since usually they are located conveniently far away from residential areas). Something to put on the list (assuming continued funding…and given the nonsense going on in Washington, that is an assumption).
As a side, I believe the effect of changes induced in wind patterns due to modification of land cover are much larger than those from wind mills, urbanization being a big one. (Surface roughness effects.)
The small turbines like the one mentined here, is all show and no gain. Fact is that compared to 2-3MW turbines, these small one are inefficient, also due to poor placement, as a town does not have optimal wind conditions, and their cost of energy produced cannot compete will utility sized wind parks.
I have myself worked 150m from a 1MW turbine (for a large turbine manufacturer) and normally you don’t notice the noise. Only in medium to high wind, as it is the (blade) tip speed that is likely the culprit in noise generation. That is partly why modern large turbines are designed with a maximum tip speed below 250 km/h.
Also these small turbine use the grid as bank, so there is a hidden cost, as wind energy is not dispatchable when the wind does not blow. Something we see here in Denmark with a high penetration of wind power.
Rgds Troels
RE: Troels Halken (Comment #78685)
Yes. A useless monument to faux green energy. The last place it should be sited is a residential neighborhood. It reminds me of all the highly subsidized windmills dotting across the open fields of Germany and sitting idle 90% of the time due to poor location.
In Calif. we have three very extensive wind farms producing significant energy in high wind passes. They are noisy and a blight on the landscape though. It is an interesting experiment but personally I would rather have 1 good nuke producing 10 times the continuous power while restoring our picturesque mountain passes. I wonder what John Muir would say…
RE: ivp0 (Comment #78700)
The combination of a turbine with a low hub height and the buildings, trees and so on in a residential area is not ideal for power production, as it slows down the windspeed. Secondly the small turbines are not very energy effecient, nor do they deliver as promised in the test that I have seen. Germanys problem is that there is not a lot of good sites for wind parks, and those that are good, has been developed. This in turn increases the cost of energy, because the turbine cost the same to install and run, no matter the load factor. However I believe that a poor siting in Germany amounts to 20% load factor.
The conditions in the passes of California is extraordinary and are rare. Personally I don’t mind turbines in some landscapes, but I would not like to have one in my back yard, nor one in the wilderness when hiking 😉
I have worked in the industry, but have changed to something else. It is funny how that changes ones perspective. When I worked in the industry, I fancied wind power. Today I guess I have a more balanced take on it all and the economics behind it, seen from the soceitys view. A good nuke or combined cycle natural gas plant will produce power much cheaper than current wind turbines of any size.
RE: Troels Halken (Comment #78705)
One of my good friends was involved in wind energy in Denmark for some time. He now lives in Calif. and is in the helicopter business. Shared technology but wind generation of another type altogether.
The University of Delaware has a wind turbine at their Lewes DE campus (about a 230 ft pedestal and 140 ft blades). It’s in a marsh next to their Enviornmental studies program campus. I’m about a mile away from it and can hear it depending on the wind direction. My guess is that the noise is tip vortices based on the direction of the blades when I hear it. My wife, however can’t hear it. There have been a number of people much closer than I am that are upset with the noise, but supposedly it’s within standards. They claim it powers the campus and about a 100 homes in the area. Of course it seems to have a lot of times when the blades aren’t moving, so it’s an exercise for the students to explain where the power comes from when that happens ;).
We have a nest of them here in Dekalb county. There is a funny hum/vibration? each time the moving blade aligns with the post. You have to close to sense it. They are situated in farm fields so the farmers will find out what effect they have on crops. Also during storms they seem to draw lightening down to the ground.
RE: BarryW (Comment #78708)
I would think that the noise from the blade tips makes a woosh kind of sound.
I don’t now much about the sound issue. As stated I did not feel bothered by it, but then again, I was on work, not enjoying a easy sunday on my couch or having dinner outside. That might have changed my perception of the noise. One thing to keep in mind is that individuals has different sensitivity to noise. Also like Lucia describes above with the deaf lady, who is bothered by the frequencies we cannot normally hear. Here in Denmark there is a lot of discussion and controversy going on with exactly that kind of sound or noise. But no clear conclusion. It is a grey area and I don’t think we know enough about infrasound and it’s impact on humans. Her in DK, they have passed a law, where the owner of wind turbines has to pay damage due to loss of value of property incurred by the property owner due to closeness of wind turbines. That has effectively stopped the development of onshore wind power, as that of cause adds to the price of produced power, making the business case less viable.
The point on where power is coming from when the blades are not spinning is the real weak spot of wind power.
RE Andy Krause (Comment #78713)
In front of the tower, there is a standing wave of wind, as can also be observed around pillars on a bridge over a river on the upstream side of it. When the blade passes through this wave of air, it compresses slightly, and that also effects the tower slightly. That might be the cause of the humming sound.
Modern wind turbines are protected against lightning and also carry detectors to detect lightning strikes of the turbine. Investigations on which turbines are hit by lightning shows that the first row in a offshore wind park in the direction of the thunderstorm get hit quite a bit, while the turbines after the first row seem to attract lightning less frequently than a stand alone turbine. As there is no objects on the sea to attract lightning, the thunderstorm will build up charge until there is enough to cause lightning to hit the surface of the sea. When meeting a object as a wind park that forms a lower path of resistance than through air, the storm discharges surplus charge in the first row of turbines it meets, lowering the charge of the storm while passing over the rest of the park.
I hardly think the turbines has any significant impact on crops. If that was the case, then farmers would have noticed (and complained) about it here in Denmark or in Germany.
The problem with the wind power debate, is that for some people it is a very emotional debate, and some people advance any possible and a few impossible arguments against it. Try looking at a wind power discussion on WUWT. I once tried to correct some of the mistaken claim made there, but gave up, as they where mostly not interested in facts when the facts did not support their opinion. The thing is that there is enough to be said against wind power on a factual basis, but these wild claims does not support that such end.
One fact is that onshore wind parks with the latest generation of turbines on a good site can almost compete in price with conventional power. But that only goes for very few parks. However when the penetration of wind in the system reaches a critical limit, this no longer holds true as backup power is then required, and raises the cost of wind power. So compared to (clean – not co2 free) coal, gas and nuclear, it is not competitive on a large scale. It is however the best alternative of the renewable energy sources, as many of the other RE technologies are way more expensive, as wave and photo voltaic.
FWIW: About 10 years ago I built a cabin east of Galena, IL in an undeveloped area(farmland). I considered powering with a windmill and had a very nice talk with a man at one manufacturer. I can’t remember the name of him or the company. He said he didn’t exactly want to lose a sale but went through some of the important issues sort of man to man: 1. huge investment, especially installation 2. I would need 10 batteries for storage, very expensive,and they would be outside in a shed 3. NOISE..he said noise might drive me nuts. 4. Some people find them unsightly, especially in a serene area like mine. 5. Need a converter to go from DC to AC. There is a small loss I think
I decided to heat with wood and use the grid for lights and cooking.
I probably should have commented on this:
This is pure unadulterated nonsense. The inner ear is insensitive to infrasound because the middle ear, to which it couples to , does not transmit sound at those frequencies. Sensorially you may become aware of intense infrasound because it makes the ground move in response to it, and you might become aware of the motion associated with it and this in turn may produce a sense of unease, but that is a very different thing that “wrecking havoc in the inner ear.” That’s pure bullocks.
(I also am skeptical that a deaf person is going to have an improved somatosensory system to compensate for their hearing loss, which is what would be needed to explain her improved sensitivity to infrasound, so the claim by the deaf woman seems implausible.)
The one mechanism that I can propose that would be a nuisance is the coupling of the infrasound to the building itself. Most buildings have vibrational modes in the near infrasound range, and it is very possible that the infrasound emitted by the wind turbine is causing the building to literally shake. When this happens, you hear high frequency noise associated e.g. with glass panes rattling.
(What makes this worse is that infrasound can travel long distances without substantial atmospheric attenuation, especially at night, when there is a layer of air near the earth that traps the sound and creates a acoustic duct.)
The other comment I should make is most engineers are lazy, by which I mean they are going to show up in the middle of the day to take measurements. The time where it would matter the most is on a cold, clear night, with a well developed surface boundary layer and associated enhanced propagation of infrasound. (Briefly, in free space, sound level falls off as 1/r^2, in a horizontal duct, it falls off as 1/r.) There is even a “focussing” effect that is sometimes observed, if the wind direction changes with altitude, so that you can get “hot spots” with sounds that are enhanced relative to the predicted nocturnal 1/r transmission loss.
This has been reported in the community noise literature in respect to stadiums and amusement parks (Disneyworld is one that comes to mind).
Jack—
I would think the potential for noise from wind power for a cabin near Galena might be nix it. After all, you are weekending or summering in Galena precisely to have a nice quite break from the Chicago area congestion and noise! OTOH, if you had vast acreage and could could run the turbine and store the energy during the week and just draw from batteries on the weekend, that might work out.
Carrick
I don’t think the deaf woman made the claim about the inner ear. I heard 2nd hand (by way of Mom) that the vibrations bothered the deaf woman. I don’t know any more details than that.
The sports complex about 3 blocks from me used to over amplify, and sometimes I could feel the house vibrate from way too much power in the bass. Our neighborhood had gone to the village to complain about nightly fireworks, over amplification at family sleeping times etc. We weren’t getting any action. (Theories why abounded — including the fact that the Mayor supposedly frequently attended those games and was a big fan. I don’t know if that was true.)
Fortunately for us, it turned out that no amount of amplification/fireworks etc. could draw in crowds. Teams left for other venues. So, now, no more fireworks, bass etc. I can hear mostly unamplified college and high school marching bands from half-time shows during daytime games– but I kind of like that. I can also sometimes hear summer band camp during mid day. It can be repetitive– as practice is. Just like it was when I was in band in junior high. But it’s unamplified. Not a problem.
When I went on my road trip this summer, I drove thru NY on I90 and I saw a turbine off to the right at one point. Of course, the blades weren’t moving. I told my nephew it was a monument to stupidity, like the temple of the unknown god.
Andrew
As a matter of practice and policy, wind turbine setbacks are supposed to be a function of the average income in the area affected. If the average citizen is wealthy enough (e.g., Cape Cod beachfront property owners) a setback of several miles off shore is still too close. So a 250 foot setback for an affluent neighborhood like Libertyville is clearly an aberration or legal error.
I think they should litigate for it’s removal on the grounds that this sort of nuisance belongs in places like West Virginia, west Texas or west anywhere else. This legal strategy will usually work if the judge lives in the same neighborhood.
Troels Haken astutely points out this this particular placement is unlikely to be cost effective. But inefficiency, visual and audio intrusiveness and overall power inadequacy is the essence of its green charm and part of its symbolic defiance of the world the market has built.
George–
Those homes aren’t particularly affluent for Libertyville. Libertyville is not as affluent as Lake Bluff and Lake Forest to the east, relative to other houses in Libertyville, a single story, no basement 2 bedroom house is smallish. But they were well built, in a good school district and many families love those. They have decent back yards and the neighborhoods are nice. But as you get a few blocks away, you’ll find a larger proportion of 2 story houses, split levels and generally larger homes.
Oh. Also, Rockland road has been rather busy because there aren’t enough bridges that cross the Des Plaines. So, there is quite a bit of traffic on that street. That depresses prices relative to those only a few blocks away.
Believe it or not…. one of the homes on that street was hit by car driven by a drunk driver when I was in 6th grade. I don’t actually remember which house, but it was either the house in the tribune story or the house exactly 1 block west directly north of Kenwood ave. It was amazing to see all the bricks pushed in in the side of the house! Quite a story. (The house was repaired. )
Carrick
I think part of the difficulty is that the people who hire someone to monitor the sound level often don’t want a result that identifies the maximum sound levels. I developed this impression when we were complaining about noise levels for games to the mayor and village board. (Our town had something of a financial stake in the sports complex. Oddly, it probably would have done BETTER if they hadn’t aggravated the potential fans who lived near the complex. But I think they just assumed that you needed lots of noise and fireworks to attract people to ball games.)
Anyway, the engineering measuring sound is sent out when he is sent out. He’s probably not even an engineer, but a technician from a company that is headed by an engineer who has gone into management. (Perfectly respectable, but his business doesn’t benefit from doing “research”. It benefits from selling a service to people who pay. The people who pay don’t want anyone to report high decibel levels and they may not be entirely frank about the nature of the dispute. They just ask him to measure sound…. sometime….)
“the town has spent $140,000 defending the suit”
At 3 cents per kwh, which is the wholesale average price of electricity, the interest alone on $140,000 can buy more power than the turbine produces. They should have simply sold the turbine to someone else and invested the money saved to buy power. They would have been much further ahead.
The problem with wind turbines apart from noise and damage to property values is the high capital costs and maintenance. The cost of energy from fossil fuels is so low in comparison that turbines cannot compete except by the introduction of punishingly high taxes on fossil fuels.
Once you factor in environmental and property costs, wind turbines are considerably more expensive than at first thought. Similar to having power lines near your property. Maybe there is a problem, maybe not. But for prospective buyers the risk cost effects the sale price, reducing property values.
Carrick,
Are you sure the inner ear is insensitive to infrasound? Being filled with fluid, one would expect it to experience low-frequency vibration even if the vibration is not recognized as “sound” by the brain.
I found articles that suggested that the inner ear was responsible for the detection of infrasound in fish and other mammals. Examples:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7148438
http://jeb.biologists.org/content/171/1/163.short
There were studies that suggested the same with regard to humans, but as they were all related to wind-turbine noise I refrained from linking them in case the conclusions were biased.
I found this Sierra Club article amusing and thought I’d share it.
http://www.sierraclub.ca/en/blog/matthias-purdon/how-wco-uses-scientific-uncertainty-example-infrasound-and-wind-power-debate
My conclusion from the above: If you are sufficiently dedicated to saving the earth through wind power, you will not experience any wind turbine-related noise problems.
Quote from this study:
“Evidence in Pederson et al. (2009) suggests that people who benefit economically from wind turbine developments are less likely to have issues related to wind turbines noise”
Yes, and dairy farmers are less likely to be annoyed by flies 😉
There’s a wind turbine/bird mincer ontop of a leisure centre or Council building (can’t remember which), near Tatton Park, Chester, England.
It’s really noisy when there’s a decent wind, like a propellor-driven plane, but without the engine noise.
A “proper” wind(subsidy)farm, gets shut down due to noise!
http://www.northern-times.co.uk/News/Exasperated-planners-shut-wind-farm-down-6934757.htm
Andrew_KY said in Comment #78726)
“When I went on my road trip this summer, I drove thru NY on I90 and I saw a turbine off to the right at one point. Of course, the blades weren’t moving. I told my nephew it was a monument to stupidity, like the temple of the unknown god.”
____________
Monuments to stupidity have become Spain’s biggest source of electric energy.
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2011/03/wind-becomes-spains-biggest-energy-source
Tamara, the reason our hearing cuts off at low frequency is due to the response of the middle ear (which couples sound from the external ear to the fluid-filled cochlea).
The reason some mammals can hear lower frequencies is because their middle ear is adapted to allow transmission of lower frequencies. Fishes hearing couples directly to water, so there isn’t an issue with transmission loss, like there is in land-based animals.
If you generate a large enough infrasound signal, you will get a non-zero response of the inner ear, and there could be physiological effects associated with this, but the levels are much higher than are typically generated by wind turbines (e.g., you’ll need levels greater than e.g. 140 dB SPL). This is not well studied–for good reason because it is potentially hazardous—but the pain threshold associated with large infrasound signals may be due to the effect of the infrasound on the nasal passages, which is unrelated to audition of course.
There is nothing “mysterious” about infrasound itself, it is just lower frequency sound, which humans haven’t adapted to sensating…mostly because there apparently is no benefit conferred from such an adaptation. There is a lot of bull-hockey out there from tin-foil hat people, my advice is learn to spot it and stay clear of it.
(It is common place for people to develop physiological symptoms to psychological stimuli. This is called “hysterical” behavior. Remember the Salem witch trials?)
Lucia:
Most of the engineers I know who do this sort of thing pick what time they want to set out. They aren’t exactly technicians because they know how to use and calibrate high end mikes like the B&K 4191. So they generally know what they are doing, know how to do more with a signal than just compute A-weighted loudness or something dumb like that, and are autonomous enough to be able to take the data at night, if they wanted to. My speculation for why they don’t has more to do with “I have a life” than “my livelihood is dependent on wind-generated power.”
I can’t answer to whether they have any other agenda or not. The group we are working with to characterize the infrasound/audible sound generated by a windmill farm is government run, and as far as I tell, don’t have a horse in this race. For ourselves and our collaborators, this work is associated with community noise issues, not the alternative energy sector.
I probably shouldn’t have read this. It’s got me thinking about noise.
I have never liked the sound of forced air from our heating and cooling system.
I am annoyed by the chirping of the thousands of birds that roost in our neighborhood.
Loud-mouthed bugs offend my ears, especially Cicadas.
I dislike the sound of our dishwasher almost as much as I dislike loading and unloading it.
When the wind is from the right(wrong) direction, I can hear a waterfall from a nearby river. I don’t find the sound pleasing.
And of course I don’t like the sound of traffic from nearby roadways.
Tamara:
And if you are sufficiently against wind-power, you’ll find a million reasons why it doesn’t work, why it is harmful, a terrible idea, etc. I’ve seen few people who are strong supporters either way who aren’t primarily influenced by political considerations (even if they claim otherwise, the bias is obvious to spot, especially when you see what is clearly parroted rhetoric, e.g. how about the one about wind mills killing gazillions of birds with no comparison given to other anthropogenic activities that are also harmful to wildlife).
Max_OK,
Thanks for the link to the misleading article (read the comments) on the renewable energy advocacy/pr site. My comment still stands. 😉
Andrew
Carrick said in Comment #78741
‘There is nothing “mysterious†about infrasound itself, it is just lower frequency sound, which humans haven’t adapted to sensating…mostly because there apparently is no benefit conferred from such an adaptation. There is a lot of bull-hockey out there from tin-foil hat people, my advice is learn to spot it and stay clear of it.
(It is common place for people to develop physiological symptoms to psychological stimuli. This is called “hysterical†behavior. Remember the Salem witch trials?’
_________
I hope you are right. The linked article quotes some scientist claiming sounds you can’t hear can hurt you, and now I’m worried about sounds I can’t hear.
http://tucsoncitizen.com/wryheat/2011/07/05/health-hazards-of-wind-turbines/
Andrew_KY said in Comment #78745
Max_OK,
Thanks for the link to the misleading article (read the comments) on the renewable energy advocacy/pr site. My comment still stands.
______
Fossil-fuel lovers might be reluctant to acknowledge the success of wind power.
Spain’s wind-power developers are now selling those “monuments to stupidity” to China, India, Brazil, Argentina, and many other countries.
Troels Halken (Comment #78715)
It sounds more like a helicopter blade (such as a huey which has a very massive blade for it’s size). You could call it a whoosh with a thump. My guess is that I’m hearing the equivalent of a wingtip vortices type of noise. It’s not straight behind or at right angles to the blade orientation.
Troels Halken (Comment #78715)
“I hardly think the turbines has any significant impact on crops. If that was the case, then farmers would have noticed (and complained) about it here in Denmark or in Germany.”
I would think that the turbines leave a wake, like the water behind an outboard motor except we can’t see it. This would mean a path of turbulent air over the crops in the wake. This could be good or bad. More turbilence may mean drier corn with less fungus. I agree the effect is not noticed yet.
I like this guy’s personal turbine. $30k+ though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAujHlUfiqA
RE: Max_OK (Comment #78749)
Since Calif. wind energy KWh production is roughly equivalent to all of Spain I can attest that it does work when ideally placed in a few high wind locations. It also comes at a price as electricity rates in Calif. are nearly double that of neighboring states due to high renewable penetration and coal fired generation approaching zero. High renewables = high energy costs.
http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_pricing
Max_OK:
Whoever wrote that was on acid.
ivp0 said in Comment #78767
RE: Max_OK Comment #7874)
“Since Calif. wind energy KWh production is roughly equivalent to all of Spain I can attest that it does work when ideally placed in a few high wind locations. It also comes at a price as electricity rates in Calif. are nearly double that of neighboring states due to high renewable penetration and coal fired generation approaching zero. High renewables = high energy costs.”
http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/elect…..5_6_a.html
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_installed_capacity.asp
_____
If you are comparing wind power capacity and cost of electric power by State, both Texas and Iowa have higher capacity and lower power cost than California. Iowa’s cost is only 9.64 cents per hour compared to California’s 14.83 cents. On the other hand, some Northeastern States with higher costs than California have little if any wind power, and rely mostly on coal-fired plants for power.
http://www.windpoweringamerica.gov/wind_installed_capacity.asp
RE: Max_OK (Comment #78772)
No Max,
Since wind energy is so dependent on ideal siting, capacity is essentially a useless number. If you combine it with actual site capacity factor you begin to get useable numbers. Annual KWh generated is really the only way to compare wind energy because it is so highly variable.
California is very experimental and we have lots of different solar and biomass technologies along with wind power. It all adds up to high rates at the meter.
Even large wind turbines produce an audible noise. And I know from sailing in the Netherlands that they also very much produce a “wake”, so much so that when you sail in their lee, you can use this vortex/wake to “luff in the puff” and gain height to windward [ I first discovered this sailing in a night race, when I felt the puff, being at the helm used it to luff, without knowing where it came from, until -in the dark- I was able to hear the wind turbine, and figured it out].
The real problem with wind turbines is not their noise -although living close to a smaller one on our island, I can attest to the fact that the blades at times get annoyingly noisy – but their indisputable effect as bird grinders and bat killers. This is a harsh reality that “environmentally attuned” folks have great difficulty coming to grips with, and a stark reminder of the law of unintended consequences [in particular for the birds and bats..].
Bats are killed in large numbers when they fly through the pressure gradient caused by the turbine blades, which causes their lungs to collapse. The environmental effects of this decimation are not yet properly understood, but it stands to reason that taking out of the prey/predator equation large numbers of a primary, broad spectrum, insect predator, must have an [growing] impact on insect populations.
A broad variety of birds -including at risk species such as golden eagles- are killed in considerably larger numbers than wind power proponents would like to admit. Bird watchers and other ornithologists around the world have flagged for years that this is a very real problem. By way of example, Jimmy Carter’s signature wind farm in Altamont, California admits to some 5000 birds killed per year. If we accept that number at face value -which I do not, given that the operators have a pressing PR reason for downplaying the matter- this means that in the 30 years or so of operations, at least 150.000 birds have been killed by those turbines.
I leave to your imagination the howling we would be hearing from the environmental NGOs if it turned out that 150,000 birds had been killed in the 30 years of Alberta/Saskatchewan oil sand operations. If Altamont were to be fined at the same rate of $2000 per duck that Syncrude was fined for the 200 ducks that died in its tailing pond in 2008, that would amount to a fine of [2000 x 150,000 =] $300 million. Which given that we are dealing with “environmentally friendly” wind power, will of course never happen.
tetris, I think the issues with bats is a real one, the issue with birds largely inflated by detractors of wind power.
I still find it a bit sad that people who are anti-wind power are so willing to talk up the ecological implications of wind power…and ignore the variety of other negative anthropogenic effects on bird and other fauna population.
(If you seriously care about bird populations, make owning cats illegal.)
ivpo,
Your link shows the cost of electricity per kilowatthour to users in all sectors is lower in California than in N.Y., N.J., and all six New England States. Since these eight States use little wind-generated electric power compared to California, obviously it’s not the reason for electricity costing more in these States. Apparently, there is more to the cost than the source of the power.
Carrick said in Comment #78777
“If you seriously care about bird populations, make owning cats illegal.”
______
That goes double if you seriously care about rats and mice.
Max_OK– I’ve owned lot of cats. I’m pretty sure mine have killed more birds than rats. Mice– not so sure.
One reason for this is that I don’t think very many rats live around here or anywhere else I’ve lived.
Two of the cats were major rabbit killers. The current grey one kill LOTS of rabbits. Adult. Baby. He kills them all.
“If you seriously care about bird populations, make owning cats illegal.â€
Sorry Carrick, if you were serious here, this is ridiculous. Owning a cat or cats might not have any effect on the local bird population, for many reasons.
Andrew
Carrick
We’ve had cats, and of course they kill birds [and mice, and rats and rabbits]. So do dogs. So why no do away with them? Keep up that line and soon you will find yourself in the same room as a the people who advocates precisely that, on the moral/ethical grounds that we in North America spend a couple of billion dollars a year on pet food, when people are starving in Africa…
You are annoyed that there are people who talk up the negative aspects of wind power. Well, we maybe that’s because we are being told that wind power is a “green”/renewable energy source, and between the lines, that it is environmentally benign and sustainable. That is manifestly not the case. Wind turbines are a source of esthetic pollution in that they wreck the landscape, creating a lot of opposition from otherwise environmentally “astute” folks [just ask the residents around Martha’s Vineyard for comment]. Wind turbines are a source of -audible and sub-audible- noise pollution. And they exact a terrible toll in terms of loss of animal life, which because its “only” [your implication] birds and bats and we are no dealing with big eyed seal pups, seems to be OK. Well, its not.
That said, my fundamental problem with wind energy [and photovoltaic for that matter] is not for the reasons above, but with its two main shortcomings: 1] the technology is fatally flawed in terms of reliability, requiring back-up conventional -coal or gas fired- generating stations, at an infra-structure cost recently estimated by the government in the UK at $10 billion, in order to pick up the slack in output when the turbines don’t produce when they are needed the most. 2] The technology is financially/economically unsustainable other than by means of obscenely high subsidies. Take away the subsidies, and you are faced with an electricity price per kW/h that is the equivalent of oil at $500/barrel. I might add that the reason we’ve seen the proliferation of wind power in the EU, is that governments in e.g. the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain and Germany poured vast amounts of tax-payer funds into “green” technologies over the past couple of decades. That in turn, has been possible because of prevailing socio-political conditions, because in all those countries a] the public has been told for 20 years or so to believe that renewable energy is a viable alternative to hydrocarbons, and b] in those same European welfare states tax payers sadly, long ago stopped asking what the government was spending their taxes on. In Canada and the US we haven’t [yet].
Re: Max_OK (Jul 7 23:15),
The Northeast and especially New England is going to have high electricity costs because there is no local source of fuel. Pennsylvania coal production peaked in the early twentieth century. Shale gas is changing that, and will change it more if the greens allow it. New Jersey gets over half it’s electricity from nuclear power plants and 1/3 from natural gas fired plants.
Tennessee, OTOH, which has fairly low electricity cost generates half its power from coal, 34% nuclear and 13% hydro. Coal is cheap in TN, being right next door to West Virginia. In 2009 on a per btu basis, natural gas was twice as expensive as coal. Most of the nuclear and hydropower plants are owned by TVA which, as a government entity, has lower credit costs.
DeWitt Payne
Where coal is not readily available, the growing availability of cheap shale gas is changing the equation to the point that several observers recently -more or less tongue in cheek- have suggested that shale gas represents not just “peak nuclear” but “peak renewables” as well.
Re: ivp0 (Jul 7 21:45),
According to this source, CA generated 9.3% of its electricity from ‘renewables’ in 2009. In 2003 from this source the breakdown of the 10.4% renewable contribution that year was:
Renewables Breakdown:
Source ………. GWh
Biomass …….. 5,574 … 2.0%
Geothermal .. 13,771 … 5.0%
Small Hydro .. 5,146 … 1.9%
Solar …………… 758 … 0.3%
Wind ………… 3,491 … 1.3%
——–
total ………… 28,740
It gets a little tricky because CA gets ~30% of its power needs from outside the state. There are very few large (> 1GW ) power plants that have been built or are under construction inside CA since 1996. In it’s infinite wisdom, the government in CA decided that utilities should sell many of their power plants and purchase power in the spot market rather than maintaining old and building new base load capacity. All of that and putting a cap on retail prices was called ‘deregulation’ of the industry in yet another proof that irony always increases. That led directly to the California electricity crisis of 2000.
Lucia,
I’m sure you know the way to keep cats from catching birds and rabbits is to keep them indoors, and the way to live peaceably with indoor cats is to neuter them. I suppose one could argue that it’s not right to deny a cat its sport and romance, but a cushy life is some compensation.
Max_OK,
All my cats have been neutered or spayed. This is insufficient to make them stay inside.
The grey one was neutered by the previous owner who could not keep him in. He wandered to our house and broke in one dark and stormy night. (First sighting; later visit. Notice we thought he was a she. )
tetris
Wind-battery systems may be the solution.
http://www.grist.org/wind-power/2011-04-15-no-trees-big-battery-texas-to-install-worlds-largest-wind
Re: Max_OK (Jul 8 16:49),
Sure, and increase the capital investment by at least 50%. $44 million is more than $1 million/megawatt installed. They also don’t say anything about storage capacity or the type of battery either. My bet is that it’s sodium/sulfur ( see here where the listed cost is $2.9 million/MW). Note that the battery will have to have the nameplate capacity of the turbine as opposed to the actual duty factor of ~30% of nameplate. It’s very unlikely the battery will live as long as the wind turbines too.
lucia said in Comment #78838
Max_OK,
All my cats have been neutered or spayed. This is insufficient to make them stay inside.
The grey one was neutered by the previous owner who could not keep him in. He wandered to our house and broke in one dark and stormy night.
____
That’s a healthy looking cat. He sure knows how to work the system.
Has your pet-door been entry entry for raccoons, skunks, snakes, or other unwanted guests?
Max_OK–
Our previous cat liked to play ‘catch and release’ which resulted in chipmunk and bunnies appearing in the house. The bunnies — if not fatally wounded, were easy to catch and release. The chipmunks were not.
I have four cats(not purposely)one of them is constantly catching rats and mice,sometimes birds.I wonder how the rat and mice population would fare with no cats,or even dogs(Jack Russell for example)in the world.I don’t think I would like to find out.
DeWitt,
Hopefully, advances in battery technology will help make wind-power more competitive.
Re: Max_OK (Jul 8 20:25),
I’ve already commented elsewhere on the low probability of significant advances in battery technology. A lot of smart people’s time and a lot of money have been spent to get to where we are. Sodium/sulfur battery technology has been around for nearly fifty years. The low hanging fruit was picked long ago. It’s not clear that there’s even any fruit left on the tree.
tetris:
I think your argument would be strengthened if you didn’t conflate the aesthetic & environmental issues, or with the accuracy of claims & counter claims, with the underlying question of feasibility.
I suspect we could learn to live with the (minor compared to other anthropogenic activity) problems introduced by wind power, if the efficacy were there.
DeWitt Payne said in Comment #78801
“The Northeast and especially New England is going to have high electricity costs because there is no local source of fuel. Pennsylvania coal production peaked in the early twentieth century. Shale gas is changing that, and will change it more if the greens allow it.”
________
As an owner of mineral rights in an area known to have shale gas, I am less optimistic than you. I suspect it’s potential has been oversold to attract capital, and investors are backing off. At least interest in leasing and buying seems to have cooled in my area.
I’m not convinced fracking is as environmentally benign as advocates of shale gas would have me believe. Years ago we had a water well muddied by seismographic shots, so I can see how fracking also might affect underground water.
I hope my pessimism is unwarranted. I would like to make money on my mineral rights.
DeWitt Payne said in Comment #78853
“I’ve already commented elsewhere on the low probability of significant advances in battery technology.”
__________
DeWitt,
What else does your crystal ball tell you?
I’m looking for hot investment tips.
Carrick [78854]
No Carrick. You can not simply set aside the environmental impacts of a purportedly environmentally friendly energy source. No can do, no matter how “sustainable” it’s supposed to be.
The esthetics of wind mills are in the eye of the beholder. Holland has had windmills for a very long time, as has Spain and the Greek islands. In the case of the Netherlands, in the early 17th century their ability to harness wind energy and marry it to a unique cam system gave the country a crucial and dominant technological and economic advantage: the ability to saw timber 8-10 times faster than any other maritime nation on the planet: and so to produce the dominant fleet of their age. The little mud flats country at the mouth of the Rhine dominated the world trade routes for more than a century.
How? A technological breakthrough based on an available energy source, driven by what has become known as the “Protestant work ethic”, which said in passing was the foundation of capitalism. No state subsidies to be found anywhere.
To your point. If the efficacy of modern wind turbine technology were there in terms of reliability and economic cost efficiency [including environmental inputs such as the impacts of fabricating the machine itself], the venture capitalist that I am [no apologies in that department] would do a cost benefit analysis and try and weigh the environmental pros and cons as part of the overall equation. The incontrovertible problem for wind energy “believers” is that since modern wind turbine technology can deliver neither reliability nor economic cost efficiency, we are left with no environmental pros. Only cons. And that holds in a slightly different way for photovoltaic technologies as well.
Andrew_KY:
Um, why do you think it “might not” have an effect? LOL. Jeez.
tetris:
I disagree of course. The first point to consider is, “can it work”? If it can’t work, any other questions are irrelevant.
But if you want to discuss the ecological impact (to make it clear, I think it really is irrelevant), I think you’ll need to put it in context with the ecological impact of other anthropogenic activities (how about pushing nitrogen fertilizer in intensive farming practices, destroying the habitat of bats–how does the death rate from wind mills at a fraction of a percent of the land usage compare to that?)
You might want to review estimates of bird deaths by source too, if that really is a concern of yours.
(I am sure you couldn’t actually care less, so I don’t see you as arguing an honest position here. Correct me if you really are a bird-hugger.)
tetris:
Between you and DeWitt, I’d swear we haven’t advanced beyond fire in caves.
We use photovoltaic cells all of the time. And batteries. And strangely, we rarely have batteries fail (2 out of 250 in the last deployment), and the only lost solar panel was due to it being too close to a “loud sound source”.
Let me guess, PV cells kill birds. Or ___insert some other made-up worry here___
Carrick, there is nothing about “owning cats” in your chart. And it looks like windows are the biggest problem. You should also have suggested making “owning windows” illegal, too.
Andrew
Re: Carrick (Jul 8 23:29),
Oh, puhleeze.
The thrust of my argument is that the problem with renewables isn’t that they don’t work, they obviously do. Solar PV is the obvious choice for small remote loads. The problem is that they will always be a more expensive source of energy than current fossil fuels. That will have significant economic consequences in the long term, i.e. a lower standard of living at the least. The only way unsubsidized renewable energy become economically attractive is if the price of fossil fuels goes up a lot. You won’t like the result.
Carrick,
Solar and batteries have their place (heck, I sometimes rely on batteries for power up to 2 days at a time!), but they are economically not competitive in most places, most of the time, when compared to power grid energy.
.
Politically forced buy-backs of private solar power by the local utility company makes small solar installations more economically viable for individuals, since you don’t then have battery costs to consider to maintain 24/7 power. But I don’t think that is an economically viable option if too many people choose to install solar panels. In sunny regions where demand peaks during early afternoon due to air conditioning use, the mismatch may be reduced, but not eliminated.
Andrew_KY:
How did the the cats get there Andrew? You are suggesting they are all native to America? Cripes man, you are dense.
And yes, there is an implication about transparent windows for the people who are making the big deal about wind mills killing birds ….if they are seeing red over the in-the-noise-floor “bird chopping” wind mills they should be seething uncontrollably over transparent windows.
So why aren’t they? (Ans: Because the people bringing up “bird chopping” are starting with a fictitious argument that nobody is making, namely that apparently somebody thinks windmills have no impact on environment. Wind mills do affect environment, but so do a host of other anthropogenic activities that get conveniently ignored. )
Carrick
Now that I’ve seen the chart, I consider it my duty to rarely clean windows. Previously, my windows were unclean out of laziness, but now I’ll claim I’m being virtuous.
I also feel much better about the grey cats robin killing proclivities.
He only kills birds that ground feed. He can’t seem to catch starlings. The starlings buzz my cat and the neighbors cat.
Carrick, no need to name call. Your chart says “feral cats”. I would take this to mean that “unowned cats” are the issue.
Andrew
DeWitt:
OK, I’d agree that “currently” they are more expensive than fossil fuels for home use. There is a hook up fee for using the grid, and if your power needs are low enough, there is a break-even point right now, even when the grid is available. If I had a 3.5 W sensor (OK I do), do you really think putting it on the grid would ever be competitive, if it were the only sensor for miles?
There is a break-even point where the infrastructural costs associated with providing grid powers will overwhelm the costs of providing solar or wind. If you are using passively heating and cooling (which can be inexpensively installed yourself), the costs of being on the grid can be competitive for a homeowner. (As I mentioned I know somebody here in Mississippi who is off the grid. He installed his own passively heated and cooled home and uses a wind turbine to provide the now limited electrical needs for his home.)
SteveF:
Generally the buyback is at the electric companies avoid rate (just what it would have cost them to buy the power), rather than retail rate. In other words, you’ll sell it to them at a fraction of what it would cost you to buy power…so the analysis is complicated when and whether it becomes cost beneficial to you to do so.
Nor is it obvious to me it is unfair to expect electric companies to pay for what would otherwise be free power. In fact, if there were enough capacity within the system, it might even be the case that the power company would be paying less than the “true” avoid rate (during peak hours their low-costs providers can get overwhelmed and they may be forced to purchase power from higher cost providers).
The issues are complex, you make them sound simple and straightforward. For example, my home power is partly subsidized… if I were a business it would be about 2x the rate it costs me.
I haven’t had your experience with batteries being such a huge headache, but then again, I suspect, neither have you guys.
Lucia:
LOL that’s my view too.
Andrew_KY:
I’d assume outside cats in general. My cats catch plenty of ground-feeding birds too (and rabbits, moles, voles, mice and rats). Either way, the cats are there as a consequence of anthropogenic activity, which is the part I think you’re being dense about.
Re: Carrick (Jul 9 11:25),
Umm. Did you actually read what I posted?
Next.
Not in California. Excess home solar PV generated power is credited to the owner at the retail cost. In fact, only Arizona and New Jersey pay the avoidance rate. Most states with a solar energy net metering program credit 1 for 1.
http://www.cleansolarliving.com/webpage.php?page=36
In CA, then, it doesn’t pay to have a system that generates more power than you actually use in a year.
Forcing utilities to buy back excess power at the retail rate is a ripoff of the rest of the ratepayers.
DeWitt:
Yes, but I don’t think you understand the implications of this.
At current fossil fuel prices, there is already a break-even point where PV is more economical. Do the math, does the break-even point remain constant if fossil fuel prices increase?
You may want to update your information source. Here are current California owner incentive rates.
For a typical home owner, from what I am reading, it may not even reach their avoid rate.
Secondly, while it can reduce your costs, it generally cannot go below zero (the power company can’t end up owing you money).
Yes I agree, but to the extent that this actually happens, I think you need to provide better documentation. Indeed the link you provided seems to contradict you:
What I get from this is, few if any states require buyback at 1-to-1 for all or even most home producers of PV energy.
As I said before, the rate you get depends greatly on which electric power association you are in and who their provider is. As I said, it’s very complicated, as in some cases, the providers also offer incentives for customers to install PV systems with buyback capability.
(There is an economic breakpoint where it makes sense for a provider to buyback power from the consumer, since the consumer is underwriting most of the costs of the installation. Think about it.)
DeWitt Payne (Comment #78872)
July 9th, 2011 at 9:35 am
“The only way unsubsidized renewable energy become economically attractive is if the price of fossil fuels goes up a lot. You won’t like the result.”
————————————————
But isn’t the likely scenario one in which oil prices continue to go up (peak oil) and photovoltaic continue to decrease (economies of scale, technological advances (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-05-26/solar-may-be-cheaper-than-fossil-power-in-five-years-ge-says.html)?
From Wikipedia: “In 2005, the United States Department of Energy published a report titled Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management.[119] Known as the Hirsch report, it stated, “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking.”
I would think that it will take decades to move from fossil fuels to other alternatives and to real attempts at conservation (I hope the day comes when we think as much about conservation as we do about our already high standard of living). I think we need to encourage the immediate development of now-more-expensive technologies for the future pay-off they offer.
Re: Carrick (Jul 10 13:34),
Your link is for rebates for the capital cost of the installation, not the rate paid the customer for excess power generation. CA does use Net Metering, i.e. 1 for 1 exchange. Obviously states, including CA, restrict the number of customers for Net Metering precisely because it’s a ripoff in spite of their (obviously false) claim that it saves the other rate payers money. As of March, 2010 CA has raised the cap from 2.5 to 5%.
Sure there will be a break-even point for renewables if fossil fuel prices continue to increase. I’ve never disputed that. What I said was that renewables will never produce power competitive with current price non-renewable power. At the break-even point, the economic disruption from high energy cost will have already occurred. The break-even point is also going to be affected by the price of energy. Consider the installed cost of, say, PV arrays if the PV array manufacturing plant had to use PV power rather than grid power at current prices. Wind turbines would probably be even worse. Coal or gas to liquids plants have the same problem. With a high percentage of renewable in the supply, will it make economic sense for utilities to give discounts to industrial customers? Not rhetorical, I don’t know. I suspect not, though. Industrial discounts and large base-load power plants go hand-in-hand. Because there’s no such thing as a base-load renewable power plant other than hydroelectric or geothermal, which are geographically limited, much of the rationale for large user discounts goes away.
OTOH, shale gas could keep the price of energy from reaching the break-even point for renewables for quite some time. There’s a lot of hype, possibly too much, for shale gas, but as this article points out (scroll down to the second part of the article, New York Times damage, Fukushima damage), if there weren’t something to it, the price of natural gas wouldn’t be as low as it is. On a cost/btu basis, gas should be priced at about 1/6 the price of oil. Right now it’s about 1/24 the price.
Re: Owen (Jul 10 15:36),
Economic incentives for installing currently uneconomical energy sources damage the economy. So the question is, do we shoot ourselves in the foot now to prevent hypothetical damage later or not? It’s not a trivial question to answer. The long term viability of shale gas, for example, is one unknown that has a major effect on policy. If we shoot ourselves in the foot and China, India and Brazil, don’t, then our position doesn’t look too good. But yes, the disruption during the transition period is precisely the point of the sensible Peak Oilers like Kenneth Deffeyes.
Carrick,
Here’s an (overly optimistic, IMO) presentation on PV ENERGY PAYBACK VS PV INPUT ENERGY DUE TO MARKET GROWTH.
[emphasis added]
DeWitt, thanks for the comments. Net metering, according to what I’ve read, refers to the mechanism for tracking power consumption and production, not whether it’s retail or not. In fact, it’s codified into federal law:
There’s a table here. I got the US law excerpt above from there too.
From this table, I count 13 states that require retail rates with no subscriber limit. Those are the ones I would agree with you (based on this quick survey at least) where the law is certainly problematic.
If I’m reading this right, offering a retail rate, but only for a fraction of the power you generate (then getting the rest of the power generated by the consumer for free)…how is that substantively different from charging a below retail rate for the generated power? [I understand the “why”…it is a progressive system designed to favor small PV suppliers, such as home use.]
I figured I’d let you point out that market growth has reduced PV costs and also helps raise the break even point for solar power. 😉
[My comment about rising energy costs are still true even if market based improvements in PV eventually bottom out.]
DeWitt Payne (Comment #78929)
July 10th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
“Economic incentives for installing currently uneconomical energy sources damage the economy.”
————————————–
I have often heard this assertion. I would think that it might be true for the short term, but may well have the opposite effect in the long term.
Does a fuel tax fall under such incentives as you have defined them? According to Wikipedia, Germany has a fuel tax “of €1.03 per litre for ultra-low sulphur Diesel and €1.22 per litre (approximately USD 6.28 per US gallon) for unleaded petrol (March 2009).” The US fuel tax (averaged across all states) in 2009 was $0.45/gal for gasoline and $0.51/gal for diesel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax).
Two observations – the order-of-magnitude difference in fuel taxes between the two countries is quite large, yet Germany is an economic powerhouse. Secondly, the fuel taxes vis-a-vis gasoline and diesel in the two countries are reversed in order. Perhaps if the US simply raised taxes on gasoline to make it more expensive than diesel, higher CAFE standards could be more quickly attainable.
Finally, I think Germany is positioning itself for the long term, hoping to reduce its dependence on Russian gas (even in the face of its recent decision on nuclear energy). I believe they will succeed and be stronger for it in the end.
Carrick, DeWitt,
An interesting exchange between two pretty smart guys. Carrick seems a bit ahead of the curve… maybe DeWitt and I are a little behind it.
.
But I think battery cost (including lifetime/replacement costs) continues to be what makes small photovoltaic power economically limited to special circumstances where grid power is not easily available, or not available at all.
.
BTW Carrick, I have indeed had bad experiences with batteries, before I realized that the only way to go is the very best quality available…very expensive per KW capacity, but on a lifetime cost/performance basis, they are way better than less expensive batteries.
.
Will photovoltaic power ever be economically competitive with fossil fuel power? Maybe someday, maybe not; it depends on the batteries.
Owen,
Well yes, but there are lots of differences in how Germans and Americans live. Look at commute distances, house sizes, car sizes, and a host of other things. I do not doubt that it is possible to live like Germans, but I think you will find the German lifestyle model a very hard sell in the USA… and a lot of other places. Try sometime telling a suburbanite who lives 25 miles from Philadelphia that he will have to sell his 300 square meter house and move to a small apartment in the city.
.
WRT Germany being an economic powerhouse: I think a large part has to do with Germany’s very low spending on the military. Depending on the USA to fund most of your security costs has substantial economic benefits, especially in the long term.
SteveF, there is definitely a learning curve for using batteries. Matching the right battery to the application is most of the issue. Underspending on batteries is a common problem that leads to trouble down the line.
Yep, it’s a lot easier to make a socialist economy function if somebody is underwriting your defense for you. I’m ready for that to end, personally.
SteveF,
“Well yes, but there are lots of differences in how Germans and Americans live. Look at commute distances, house sizes, car sizes, and a host of other things. I do not doubt that it is possible to live like Germans, but I think you will find the German lifestyle model a very hard sell in the USA… and a lot of other places.”
—————————————-
I lived in Germany for three months (Berlin). Wonderful lifestyle.
IMO, the American suburban lifestyle will become less sustainable as oil prices continue a strong upward trend due to peak oil production and increasing demand. Perhaps in 30 years we will see solar panels on all suburban homes (on the grid) and electric cars in every garage.
Re: Carrick (Jul 10 19:15),
In CA, the cap is on the number of subscribers, i.e. a percentage of the utilities customers, not the power generated by an individual subscriber. Even with subsidies for the installation, I doubt anyone would sign up if only 2.5 or 5% of their excess power was credited to their account.
Re: Owen (Jul 10 19:24),
Diesel isn’t going to make substantial new inroads into the US unless oil companies build new refineries, which they haven’t done for over 30 years. The ratio of diesel to gasoline from a given refinery has a limited range. A large increase in the ratio of diesel to gasoline powered cars in the US would result in a substantial increase in the price of diesel compared to gasoline. Diesel doesn’t have to go up much before the fuel cost per mile for a diesel is equal to that for gasoline. Combine that with a premium charged for a diesel engine and you aren’t going to sell many diesel powered cars.
DeWitt:
I think there is a cap on the amount you can claim too, again the rules are complicated because they depend on the state, the energy provider, and the energy producer.
The TVA for example gives you a $1000 subsidy for hooking onto their system plus an incentive fee for 10 years.
There’s always a cap on how much you can sell back, because the energy provider (in general) will never owe you money under the current system, and often a cap on how much you can roll over and for how long…
Owen,
Perhaps you will, though I don’t think that is likely. I almost certainly will not… I will most likely be ashes sitting in an urn.