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Wind Farming
President-elect Obama has called for the creation of more "wind farms." Before jumping on that bandwagon, however, we ought to take a look at West Texas where wind farmers are farming subsidies almost as well as their agricultural cousins and, as a result, they are paying distributors to take their power. Mike Giberson has the story:
In the first half of 2008, [electricity] prices were below zero nearly 20 percent of the time...During these negative price periods, suppliers are paying ERCOT to take their power....the negative prices appear to be the result of the large installed capacity of wind generation. Wind generators face very small costs of shutting down and starting back up, but they do face another cost when shutting down: loss of the Production Tax Credit and state Renewable Energy Credit revenue which depend upon generator output. It is economically rational for wind power producers to operate as long as the subsidy exceeds their operating costs plus the negative price they have to pay the market. Even if the market value of the power is zero or negative, the subsidies encourage wind power producers to keep churning the megawatts out....You could, as a correspondent put it to me, build a giant toaster in West Texas and be paid by generators to operate it.
If President-Obama is serious about green energy it's not wind he needs to look at but nuclear. Nuclear is clean and green and we can build power stations where we need power, instead of having to invest in costly and inefficient transport networks.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on November 25, 2008 at 07:35 AM in Economics, Science | Permalink
Comments
Could a better grid get this power out to people who can use it? I mean, apparently the Texas grid was saturated (while coal plants were running or cold?), but someone somewhere was vacuuming the living room.
Posted by: odograph at Nov 25, 2008 7:56:53 AM
(Nukes? They fail on actual costs.)
Posted by: odograph at Nov 25, 2008 8:00:54 AM
A better grid is a good investment also for nuclear power. Nuclear electricity is not good for accommodating fluctuations in energy demand. Hydroelectric power is best, much better than coal. And a hydro power plant can be even used for storing energy at times when electricity costs nothing or very little. But hydro power, like wind, is not available everywhere. And balancing demand over longer distances can help all forms of energy production.
Posted by: Riku Österman at Nov 25, 2008 8:09:58 AM
Obama has mentioned nuclear and I think he as well as most rational people support it. The problem is however that nuclear projects take a very long time (like 15-20 years) from start to finish, including the permitting, siting and building. Just as a sidenote wind also isn't likely to become a major source of power in the US and as we all know, it doesn't work everywhere and requires a backup source, generally natural gas. So, the point is to use natural gas fired generation as a bridge fuel until nuclear projects are built, clean coal can be implemented on a larger scale and other cleaner technologies can be developed.
i cant speak too much to what's going on in Texas, but their regulators permitted more wind buildout because they're expecting more power demand. I'll bet this won't be a problem down the road.
Posted by: pants at Nov 25, 2008 8:10:38 AM
"Nuclear is clean and green"
And would also require lots of subsidies, according to that report.
Posted by: Jim at Nov 25, 2008 8:25:33 AM
pants,
You mention that building a nuclear power plant takes up to 15 years for building and permits and overcoming NIMBY, but building power lines to transmit electricity over large distances can take almost as long. See for instance, this Forbes article:
The year before, Poff had completed negotiations that had dragged on for 12 years with the National Forest Service to win a right of way across protected mountains nearby. [...] He had been working on building the line since 1991 and had originally expected the electricity to flow by 1998. The first electrons finally moved in 2006, after he had spent $9.6 million on a zigzagging right of way.
Posted by: at Nov 25, 2008 9:13:09 AM
Here you are: starting again a sterile debate on which is the best green energy and the nuclear option. The latter is not considered green unless you tell me where you put the waste. Uranium is a scarce resource. It takes years to build a plant and it is not cheaper unless the construction of a plant is largely subsidized and grid are ready for it.
I think Rifkin can tell you more.
Posted by: Massimo GIANNINI at Nov 25, 2008 9:20:28 AM
"Hydroelectric power is best, much better than coal. And a hydro power plant can be even used for storing energy at times when electricity costs nothing or very little. But hydro power, like wind, is not available everywhere. And balancing demand over longer distances can help all forms of energy production."
True but the storage capacity of hydro is a limited resource and an expensive one. Wind power destabilizes the power system since wind tends to blow when power demand is low (during the night and the winter) and doesn't blow when demand is high (during summer). This increases the cost of using wind
Posted by: assman at Nov 25, 2008 9:43:13 AM
"The problem is however that nuclear projects take a very long time (like 15-20 years)"
So what. The time is not long when compared to the time scale of global warming.
Posted by: assman at Nov 25, 2008 9:45:30 AM
Was the question "are nuclear plants perfect?" or "which is the greenest green energy?" or was the question "do we need the government building wind farms or nuclear plants?"
I think the question is more the latter. GE is selling wind turbines. Why subsidize what we already are getting? In fact, I think the question is this, "if the government is dead set on throwing money at the recession, what is an investment that we absolutely know for sure is going to provide some return?"
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 25, 2008 9:53:21 AM
Massimo Giannini,
The place to put the nuclear "waste" is into a breeder reactor, for recycling into nuclear fuel. This is what the French do, for example. Doing this cuts the amount of waste that actually needs storing by a factor of somewhere around 100.
In the US, that would of course require rescinding some legislation (which prohibits private operation of breeder reactors) or executive orders (which prohibit the US government from operating them). Then it would require building some breeder reactors, which is a largely solved techonological problem.
Posted by: Boris at Nov 25, 2008 10:01:20 AM
I love this! What is it, carbon financing week on MR?
Those who truly believe the climate issue is crisis #1 - those most likely to be hard-core green - always hit the wall on this issue. Nuclear seems like it has to be some part of the solution prima facie - but of course part of "being green" is being "anti-nuke." Those who are urgent about carbon have to accept that it's a problem that would require the kitchen sink: we have to do some of everything. And more.
But of course Green Politics Isn't About Green Policy.
On a more grown-up note, of course carbon trading is what will provide the financing so that new nuclear energy plants won't require government subsidy, or at least substantially less. However, the consumer impact on electricity prices will be, um, interesting, as nuclear isn't the cheapest form of energy. And the timescale for nuclear to come online is slow.
Some activists claim it actually takes more energy in total to build, maintain, decommission and store waste for a plant than it ever gets to generate over its actual working lifetime, but I can't judge the accuracy of that myself. All I can say is nuclear seems to work well for France.
Posted by: StreetWalker at Nov 25, 2008 10:01:21 AM
The problem is however that nuclear projects take a very long time (like 15-20 years) from start to finish, including the permitting, siting and building.
The newest plant in the US seems to be Watts Bar in Tennessee. Construction begain in 1973 and it was finished in 1996. So that's 23 years right there, not counting planning, surely, and it has the side benefit (?!) of also creating fuel for weapons. So military budgets can't even get these things built quickly.
Nuclear power may be the answer environmentally and technologically, but the chances of them becoming politically viable solutions to the problem seems small at best.
Posted by: Mike at Nov 25, 2008 10:01:55 AM
Nuclear power is clean and green in its generation, but it presents two specific problems:
1.)Containment. Terrorism, etc.
2.)Products of Fission. Plutonium is the most toxic substance on earth, which is why disposal is a
contentious issue.
There's something disturbing about assuming that the disposal location will remain unperturbed
for hundreds of thousands of years.
Posted by: Phil at Nov 25, 2008 10:03:40 AM
StreetWalker, that calculation (total operating energy costs vs total energy production) is an interesting one. For example, hydroelectric dams have a known problem where silt builds up on the upstream side of the dam. A number of the dams in the US are approaching the point where the silt buildup will soon start threatening the dam's structural integrity.
Of course dams bursting or falling down is bad (e.g. floods cities downstream), and the solution is to dredge the silt out. The problem is that the energy cost of dredging is approximately equal to the sum total of all the energy produced by the dam during its operating time so far.
In other words, the energy cost to build a dam and keep it from collapsing is greater than the total energy produced by the dam. In effect, a hydroelectric dam is a way of borrowing energy now and paying it back later. In practice, we borrow electricity and pay by burning hydrocarbons.
I would be quite interested in seeing what the total energy cost numbers look like for other means of power generation. I suspect they're all not pretty.
Posted by: Boris at Nov 25, 2008 10:07:21 AM
Nukes, wind, conservation, solar and many other promising green options exist.
We should not ask Congress (or Alex) pick the best one and give it targeted subsidies.
Instead, we should impose a carbon tax (or cap and trade system) which reflects the externalities of pollution and then let the market decide.
300 million Americans would be working on innovations large and small and their collective decision-making would be more likely to find the levels of investment that maximize benefit minus cost for each option. If and when nukes can outcompete wind in the externality-adjusted marketplace, then they should win. But switching the battlefield to Congress or the blogosphere is unlikely to lead to efficiency.
Posted by: a student of economics at Nov 25, 2008 10:18:04 AM
Phil, I'd love a respectable reference for that "most toxic substance on earth" thing.
http://yarchive.net/physics/plutonium_toxicity.html mentions studies that put the LD50 for plutonium at "20-60 micrograms per kg of body weight".
For comparison, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LD50 (with references), poison dart frog poison has LD50 of 2-7 micrograms/kg, and botox has an LD50 of .001 micrograms/kg. So botox is about 20,000 times more poisonous than plutonium (and the toxicity study for plutonium was looking at injected plutonium, which usually lowers the LD50).
In any case, the real problem with plutonium is your point 1 (easy to weaponize). Storing plutonium as "waste" is just the wrong thing to do, since it can be used for energy generation instead. Just extract the plutonium from the spent fuel (illegal in the US right now because of proliferation concerns 40 years ago), and put it right back into the reactor.
http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf15.html hasa good writeup on the whole thing.
Posted by: Boris at Nov 25, 2008 10:18:43 AM
Yes the power industry will never take advantage of low cost wind power. Extremely cheap power can not be channeled across America. Right.
I like the Picken's Plan for the good next ten years.
Posted by: Glenn at Nov 25, 2008 10:18:45 AM
I'm not spooked on nuclear power and can see it as being an important part of a green energy program. That said I think a more modern energy grid is very important. It seems like in the future electricity will be increasingly centralized to places where sun or wind or hydro or nuclear projects are. These forms of energy production because of geography, scale, or safety, are unlikely to be in the same places where people are.
Posted by: Michael Foody at Nov 25, 2008 10:21:29 AM
The problem is that the energy cost of dredging is approximately equal to the sum total of all the energy produced by the dam during its operating time so far.
What??
Let's approximate the energy required to desilt a dam and the energy produced by a dam as mgh (mass * gravity * height).
For the sake of argument, let's assume that we'll desilt to a height equivalent to the water drop of the dam.
Then what you're asserting is that the mass of silt to be removed is equal to the mass of water that has passed through the dam over its entire life.
Or per unit volume of water, mass dirt = mass water.
That's some seriously dirty water you've got.
Posted by: Jody at Nov 25, 2008 10:21:46 AM
Nuclear power will eventually supply most of the electrical power used in the entire world barring a technological breakthrough of some unforeseen type. There is enough nuclear material in the accessible crust of the Earth, and the requisite technological know-how, to power the world for thousands and thousands of years.
The only real barrier to this future is the cost advantage enjoyed by fossil fuels. This advantage almost certainly has a time limit since such fuels are probably going to become increasingly scarce at some point thus raising their cost.
Posted by: Yancey Ward at Nov 25, 2008 10:23:08 AM
Storage important, not just Energy Generation
1 million of the large windmills (or 10 thousand of the 30-story 60-acre cylinder super windmills) would generate the equivalent of today's grid power.
While windmills generate energy fitfully, they only need be matched with appropriate storage technology.
Perhaps storage technology needs more research than electrical generation technology.
Yet, hydroelectric in reverse certainly stores energy -- pump lake or ocean water up into dams.
Energy can also be stored chemically -- convert the windmill energy into petroleum products.
Both reverse hydroelectric and chemical energy storage accommodate wind energy's fitful nature.
Posted by: jamesonburt at Nov 25, 2008 10:32:28 AM
Despite getting countless mailers from the Navy nuclear program, I don't know so I must ask. If we don't buy uranium, deplete it in power plants, and then secure it in mountains, is it not a nice thing for terrorists to get their hands on?
Posted by: Andrew at Nov 25, 2008 10:33:28 AM
I recommend that everyone read James Hansen's new piece: Tell Barack Obama the Truth--The Whole Truth to see what the world's premier climate scientist has to say on this issue. Long story short: fast-track Gen IV reactor development NOW.
Posted by: Sovietologist at Nov 25, 2008 10:34:28 AM
Assman,
"'The problem is however that nuclear projects take a very long time (like 15-20 years)'
So what. The time is not long when compared to the time scale of global warming."
Most apocalyptic global warming forecasts would say that in 15-20 years, it will be too late because the world is already over. Placing all of the chips on nuclear is really only a serious option if you believe:
1) Today's consensus on global warming seriously overestimates the severity and urgency.
2) Fuel sources such as coal, oil, and natural gas will remain cheap and accessible for the next 15 years (until more nuclear power plants can be built).
3) There will not be large enough advances in solar, wind, or other alternative energy sources that nuclear power will become relatively expensive.
I am of course leaving out the need for government financial intervention to build nuclear power plants, as it's impossible to privately fund such a project even with properly functioning credit markets. Any reasonable person supports building nuclear power plants, but you are also stupid if you don't recognize that nuclear is not a short-term (take forever to build) or a very long-term (eventually, we do need to tackle the waste issue). Nuclear power is one good option for the timeframe 20-100 years from now, but probably not otherwise.
Posted by: Derek at Nov 25, 2008 10:41:31 AM
