Wind Power Needs A Push: Greening The Grid Means Changing The Grid

The New York Times published a story today that might have a few people worried about wind power.

That is a symptom of a broad national problem. Expansive dreams about renewable energy, like Al Gore's hope of replacing all fossil fuels in a decade, are bumping up against the reality of a power grid that cannot handle the new demands.

The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.

It's true, but it's not exactly a secret. And luckily, there is a billionaire with his own motives -- which is what these problems often require -- getting after it. The story continues:

In Texas, T. Boone Pickens, the oilman building the world's largest wind farm, plans to tackle the grid problem by using a right of way he is developing for water pipelines for a 250-mile transmission line from the Panhandle to the Dallas market. He has testified in Congress that Texas policy is especially favorable for such a project and that other wind developers cannot be expected to match his efforts.

"If you want to do it on a national scale, where the transmission line distances will be much longer, and utility regulations are different, Congress must act," he said on Capitol Hill.

Also, we should point out that lumping all clean energy into this isn't quite fair. There is progress being made on the solar front, for example, that could result in easily stored solar power -- you know, for a rainy day.

Clean energy just needs the right combination of adopters, scientists and billionaires. But think, billionaires, what you could do with easily stored (and packaged) solar power.

Comments

[research]

05:46 PM on 09/02/2008

The "Base load" argument is a solvable technical detail. The power companies already have gas turbines they use for peak loads, usually air conditioning with solar directly reduces the need for.

So now imagine that wind solar and natural gas are used to supply 100% of our electricity. Wind farms are remarkably steady, but are occasionally idle, for brief periods. We use Methane in gas turbines and prevent a methane extinction as well.

If every home has a plug in hybrid, it might be used as a emergency generator for the whole house, for about an hour.

Home scale Natural gas co generation uses the waste heat for hot water and house heating, while generating electricity. We could have people turn on their natural gas electric generator and pump it into the grid, whenever the price made it worth it.

Even using natural gas as the primary backup, we will use 90% less than we do now. Plug in Hybrids can also be cheaply modified to run on Natural gas as an option.

We have plenty of time to install the needed backup and storage. We don't need it till solar is over 100% of peak load, or till wind is upwards of 20%

TBP may be a shark, but his plan will work.

[Gasparilla]

08:01 PM on 08/31/2008

We need to start talking about how overpopulation is making all our energy and pollution reduction goals harder to reach, in this country and around the world. In this country it's fueled by immigration, and in other countries it's fueled by, well, too many people.

[research]

06:16 PM on 08/31/2008

The "Base load" argument is a solvable technical detail. The power companies already have gas turbines they use for peak loads, usually air conditioning which solar directly reduces the need for.

So now imagine that wind solar and natural gas are used to supply 100% of our electricity. Wind wind farms are remarkably steady, but are occasionally non existent, for brief periods, during with we use Methane in the gas turbines and prevent a methane extinction as well.

If every home has a couple a plug in hybrid, it might be used as a generator for the whole house, for about an hour. Obviously much longer if all unnecessary loads are turned off. Good for emergencies.

Home scale Natural gas co generation uses the waste heat for hot water and house heating, while generating electricity. We could have people turn on their natural gas electric generator and pump it into the grid, whenever the price made it worth it. Distributed power reduces grid load and losses.

[GhiaccioPronto]

07:37 PM on 08/30/2008

HVDC High voltage direct current

The HVDC Transmission Québec - New England

http://www.abb.com/cawp/GAD02181/C1256D71001E0037C12568340029B5C4.aspx?

World Bank Paper

http://www.worldbank.org/html/fpd/em/transmission/technology_abb.pdf

[DRaymond]

01:35 PM on 08/28/2008

On the other hand there is rooftop solar, which puts the production very close to the demand.

But honestly how often do we build a power plant where the transmission lines already run? 'ooh, we can't put the nuclear power plant there...no transmission lines!' No, we built the transmission lines to the current plants. Why would we suddenly expect not to have to build a transmission line to a power plant?

[KillTheMessenger]

02:03 PM on 08/28/2008

They always build both at the same time, Ray. Don't get upset about things you don't seem to understand.

[twgbonehead]

10:51 AM on 08/28/2008

"But think, billionaires, what you could do with easily stored (and packaged) solar power."
(Well, wood comes to mind. Even a softwood like light pine has about 10 times the energy/volume as hydrogen at 500 PSI)

If you think Hydrogen is "easily stored and packaged" you've gotta read up some more.

[JimP]

10:32 AM on 08/28/2008

Simple solution. Use the enery generated locally to make hydrogen (and oxygen) locally. Sell that hydrogen to local fueling stations to refuel new fuel cell cars. Non-believers should look at: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=hydrogen-power-on-the-cheap

[KillTheMessenger]

02:05 PM on 08/28/2008

Scientific American has become the now Popular Mechanics. If you get your "knowledge" from there, you can as well read graphic novels. They are about as "realistic".

And whenever someone says something is "simple", I know that they do not have the slightest clue about the problem.

[JimP]

09:09 AM on 08/29/2008

How about MIT news. Do you like that link better?
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/oxygen-0731.html

[SteepBumps]

09:20 AM on 09/01/2008

Let me rise to the defense of my favorite magazine, SA, and say that it has always been its liberal use of graphics (charts and photos as well) that have made the complex issues they cover more understandable. That hardly makes it a graphic novel.
As to your second premise, am I to understand that if someone says you are simple they really have no clue as to the depth of your simplicity?

[Viper]

10:07 AM on 08/28/2008

Just to make a point of the cost today of going green.. I yes pls do... But sometimes reality is needed.

One Indivudal went completely solar.. storing excess energy into Hydrogen for butining and heating and electric when there was no solar... Do become completely sefl sustaion the cost $500K for his 300L home.


Laryy Hagman of Dallas/Gennie Fame in OhI California spent 750K getting is 2,400 /mo electric bill in his much larger house dow to 50 per year... W/O the storage option... sells excess to powr company during day, uses pwoer from there at night.

Cost will come down... but it is daunting,.,

Mandating SEER 14 A/Cs in the south/west as Florida has done .. would result in 3-5% reduction on its own and it just slightly more expensive than the cheap a/cs. Adding the self cleaning filter systems besides being good for allergis keeps the systems running efficiently. Using the heat taken out of the air to heat your water with an exchanger as required in Floirda also is simple and agin provides savings.


Regards

[KillTheMessenger]

02:08 PM on 08/28/2008

None of this has anything to do with the solution to our problems. You are citing individual cases of individuals without any technical understanding of the matter who were sold expensive bridges to nowhere. They may even feel good about having been stolen from by their contractors.

[Ohg]

09:56 AM on 08/28/2008

I live in NW Missouri and we are seeing wind farms spring up - right in the middle of pastures. These huge windmills seem to be completely compatible with nature......
http://thefiresidepost.com/2007/10/29/wind-and-wild-energy-and-nature/

[ilovemydoggy]

09:25 AM on 08/28/2008

We need to build better structures. Has anyone heard of earthships? They are constructed with recycled car tires and bermed earth. Perfectly structured for solar power. The LARGEST NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IS THE SUN!

Baby boomer views: http://www.Vaboomer.com

[twgbonehead]

09:19 AM on 08/28/2008

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with the premise of this whole article. The fundamental issue is that our current electricity usage is already overloading the transmission systems in place. These systems will need to be upgraded, expanded, and improved REGARDLESS of whether the generation is green or gray or black.

Framing the problem as "Green is gonna cost us" is just a bunch of whitewash. I'm reminded of Texas announcing their new "Power transmission loop that will help take advantage of wind power" - but which just so happens to run right next to the sites of a whole bunch of existing and proposed coal-fired plants.

Rest assured; when these "Green costs" have driven renewable energy projects into bankruptcy, there'll be plenty of "cheap" power plants willing to take over the infrastructure.

And please stop citing that "Breakthrough" article. Unless it's been totally misrepresented by every news release I've seen, that's just a small and unproven improvement on a technology with very limited usefulness.

[miamirat]

08:22 AM on 08/28/2008

Distribution? Lets start production as local as possible. Make it where it's used. Get Fed regs NOW requiring local code accept solar hot water and Solarcell power production at least equal to the Dwellings Consumption. Even Windmills are already most readily available sized for single dwelling. Australia shines as the example for Small scale development for power production. Think about IT: most of Your production losts are in distribution!

Lets assist property owners in financing and dropping legal barriers to owner self-sufficiency. We spent a lot of money destroying local production, creating monopolies in the past century. lets not just create more of the same! We already have enough experience with megawatt systems to know about the un-necessary maintenance problems of that scale ... never mentioning the losses of production in the distribution systems.

[Kremfresch]

09:21 AM on 08/28/2008

Make it where it's used is fine up until you want to put the turbines in the biggest users backyards. then you get a remarkable level of resistance to this clean energy.

[mergina]

06:41 AM on 08/28/2008

Why are they so skinny, these windmills? Shouldn't they be larger, like a pinwheel? Irregardless, I cannot wait until the ENTIRE 50 MILE LAKEFRONT of Chicago is covered in windmills and solar panels. Just don't mess with the bike paths.

[Tom95134]

12:37 AM on 08/28/2008

In our rush to become more "green" someone forgot about the fact that most of the renewable energy will be generated in areas where there is little demand and must be transmitted to those locals where it is needed. Why are we so stupid? Europe has been working on the planning for large scale solar tower generating system to be located on the north coast of Africa and the power transmitted via ultra-high voltage DC into Europe where it will be used. One company in the U.S. has been studying the issue but they are but they are trying to work into the existing long-haul 765kV AC distribution system which, when you have to deal with large loads and long distances is very inefficient because of the losses inured when using AC.

The new system will have to be designed from the ground up and be government financed, owned, and operated. It will have to come into being just as the Interstate Highway System came into being. {paid for by Federal Tax dollars because it was a matter of national security). Eisenhower initiated construction of the Interstate system because he was impressed with the highway system in Germany and how it allowed the Nazis to move vast amounts of men and material quickly.

Building a new long haul, ultra-high voltage DC electrical distribution system will create tens of thousands of new jobs and a lot of new technology. A literal Manhattan Project of electrical energy.

[KillTheMessenger]

01:49 AM on 08/28/2008

"In our rush to become more "green" someone forgot about the fact that most of the renewable energy will be generated in areas where there is little demand and must be transmitted to those locals where it is needed."

Your first sentence is not even true. Solar panels and geothermal energy storage are just as effective in your home as they are in the desert. And energy conservation starts where energy is being consumed. And that, again, is your home.

Americans consume twice as much energy as Europeans and Japanese. Until that changes, renewable energy sources will make no difference, no matter how high the voltage on new transmission lines.

[swift goat pet for truth]

02:22 AM on 08/28/2008

You did not even count passive solar and geothermal, which is mostly a matter of proper house design.

[HarrisK]

10:46 PM on 08/27/2008

Really, HP?

Ok, I admit that this article did brighten my mood about our current grid's (or grids') viability. This fuzzy feeling lasted for a few moments before my editor's brain kicked in and I realized I was reading a supposed refutation that relied on the only two ambiguous phrases in the original piece, taken out of context and stitched together with a few sloppy, un-researched sentences.

Sorry if I sound annoyed, but this is the journalistic equivalent of putting your hands over your ears and yelling "LALALALALA!"

The original piece ran about 1500 words and was an example of the kind of reporting that the NYT should be doing more of.

This gist: many grids are not equipped to receive the level of load that these wind farms would add. Moreover the grid system is balkanized, inefficient and controlled by interests that are vested in the status quo. Getting green energy onto a single grid can be a Kafkaesque nightmare of politics and red tape, let alone crossing the dozens needed to reach densely populated areas.

The solution? Electricity superhighways to take the energy from the plans where it is generated to the coasts where it is used. In the mean time, debate, awareness, action.

This article, on the other hand seems to take the view that we can use the hopeful scraps of good new to ignore the issue and hope it will go away. Excuse me, but I don;t like my journalists lobotomized.

[KillTheMessenger]

01:53 AM on 08/28/2008

If you don't like to be lobotomized, why don't you start thinking the problem through before you completely zoom in on a tiny detail that is of importance to Mr. T's money making machine but has nothing to do with the real solution?

The American energy problem is on the demand, not on the supply side. Unless we manage to cut our demand in half, "energy superhighways" (what a joke of a name for the equivalent of a wire) won't do a thing but make a rich old man even richer.

[HarrisK]

12:45 PM on 08/28/2008

KTM, you seem to have misunderstood my comment completely.
Again,
- NYT published a powerful piece about a stumbling block to scalable wind technology.
- The grid issue need to be researched, discussed.
- This HP article says that we can ignore the issue. No reason is given.

This Pollyanna mentality is good for no one, least of all the environment. It has nothing to do with Pickens. As for conservation, I agree with you entirely. All these "green products" drive me up the wall. If you want green products, get a good wool sweater, a ceiling fan, two-ply windows and a bicycle with a luggage rack. "Socolow's wedges" is a phrase that should be on everyone's lips, but it is not what I was talking about.

[KillTheMessenger]

02:17 PM on 08/28/2008

"The solution? Electricity superhighways to take the energy from the plans where it is generated to the coasts where it is used."

Your words, not mine. America uses twice the amount of energy of other developed nations, including the ones with a higher standard of living. So if we use more energy without getting more use out of it, why build even more capacity to generate and transmit it? Shouldn't we rather start at home and improve the efficiency with which we use it?

Instead, America lets the big players lobotomize it by separating supply and demand side and completely staying silent about the demand side. And you are gullible enough to buy into that game.