Booker: It Is Wind Power That Will Send Our Bills Sky-High

[Torryloonmadegood]

To answer a few of the issues raised,

Current reliability data will be treated with the utmost confidentiality by the vendors particularly for R&D heavy, highly engineered products.

Old data is just that, old...however in reliability analysis its highly unusual - unless its being carried out by a vendor - to work with sufficient data newer than 5 years to give confidence in the results. Most data is by default historical therefore the historical data has to be considered.

The Client will have access to up to date reliability data during the bid process, it will be requested and used to normailise the bids, factoring the top line cost with life of asset, inspection, repair and maintenance (IRM in the lingo) costs and frequency and now adays, most importantly, abandonment costs to dervive a qualitfyable overall life of asset cost for bid comparison. These overall costs are risked and the NPV considered.

Reliability papers tend to be MSc/Phd outputs so are highly technical, not surprising some are struggling to understand the issues in this thread. Looking for the one scrap within a 400 page thesis that supports your opinion, kind of misses the point, don't you think ?

Anyways, at a basic level, initial failures covered by warranty - (the analysis either side of the warranty insurance premium, is acturial level mathematics), then we have a period of steady state operation with ongoing IRM followed by the inevitable end of life failures. This is the key, at what point to the commulative cost of end of life repairs equal the cost of replacement, any sophisticated piece of equipment has numerous sub systems all of which are made up of components, all of which have a mean time to failure. These are analysed to give an overall economic life expectancy.

Now this can be taken a stage further by looking at the impact of onshore vs. offshore, relative maintenance costs and the outage periods associated with the repair of the same component/subsystem in either environment.

The cost ratio on/offshore is 7 i.e if it a repair costs you £1 onshore it will cost £7 offshore, while you may be able to effect repairs in a few hours onshore it could be days, weeks or indeed months before a similar repair can be carried out offshore depending on the time of year, the availability of access platforms etc

These costs are factored back in and risked, to derive probabilities.

On Blyth, from memory, this was around 5 years passed on a P50 case.

To cut a long story short, to quote 5 years between turbine failure is very simplistic however it was and I suspect still is a pretty reasonable basis for discussion.

In any event, the economics of wind are so poor that no profit organisation would enter the market.

The politics of Europe are to have 20% (I think) renewable therefore incentives are required in the form of subsidies that you and I pay for.

Its our tax thats being wasted.

[Goat]

That's not checking the statistics; that's picking out a couple of the counter-examples you'd expect as a result of annual variability.

Kurt cherry picked the highest year on record and tried to pass that off as representative of all years. When challenged he claimed the annual variability was a result of "infant mortality".

I simply point out that there is no sign of this "infant mortality" in the longest running project.

Is cherry picking only allowed if you're in favour of windmills.

[Torryloonmadegood]

Should have added that the economics of wind are so poor even without considering the life of asset replacement/repair costs that you have to reset out of the "for profit mindset" so its not worth putting a huge amount of effort into understanding the reliability stats.

The generators company will look at the reliability stats but to maximise their profits (base line subsidy dependent).

So in a nutshell - wind turbines cost more to install that the electricity they generate over their life cycle is worth.

[alexw]

it really seems that UK and Nuclear does not work very well together at all; not sure why

so if we go back to France and EDF:

- they have one of the cheapest electricity in EU

- it is so cheap so they have the highest % of electric heating in EU

- and with electric cars charged over the night, households and heavy industries consuming cheap night electricity they are really setup quite well for the future

- the price of the nuclear electricity is almost irrelevant to the price of the fuel (1% only)

The French electricity price (which is similar to the UK one; German or Denmark is at least double) is about 15p per kWh

The costs of nuclear decommissioning and waste storage are included in the price and it is about 0.14 cents per kWh. It seems small but for a 1GW plant busy 80% of the time it is about 12 million Euros pa. What is about 600 million Euros for 50 years of the life span. This is for a single 1GW power plant.

In compare with the wind mills: they charge normal electricity price as anybody else plus the feed-in tariffs of 5 to 10p per kWh

this is the reason, why the wind electricity is so expensive

and Kurt just for you; all of this info is published so you can review it yourself ....

Yes and it's a load of crap, as i've previously shown you and which you were unable to disprove. So do I have to go through it again?

They base disposal costs on monitoring long terms wastes for 100 years. Their reference solution and so their 'plan' is to store for 10's of thousands of years, yet budget for 100. That's a fact. So their disposal costs are downplayed by a factor of a couple hundred.

None of these plants have insurance to cover the cost of any serious accident such as happened at fukishima or chernobyl. When it happens and it will because nothing is ever 100% safe, that cost will be paid for by taxpayers. It is in fact an implicit subsidy to the nuclear industry. If they were to bare this cost themselves through insurance french electricity would cost 15-45p per KWh. It doesn't matter a damn that EDF is publicly owned, it's still a cost on the electricity that is hidden and not paid for through power bills.

Factor both of these costs that are being passed on to future generations and the cost of nuclear power will be closer to 60p per KWh than 15p. So stop posting nonsense you know to be untrue.

[alexw]

all the required costs for the nuclear clean up and insurance are included in the French electricity price

sorry for the disappointment

the wind mills require at least 10x extra costs than nuclear: 5/10pence per kWh against 0.15cent per kWh

I hope you clearly see the difference between these 2 numbers

Except you don't mention that they (edf) are 'required' to only have insurance for 600 million worth of damage. EDF has set £400 million of its capital against this cost, never mind that its capital won't be worth a hill of beans if it has a serious nuclear accident. So in truth EDF has 200 million worth of insurance for any accident. What was the cost of chernobyl again, £300+ billion? Fukishima ~£100 billion?

"Operator Electricité de France (EdF) has chosen to cover 400 mln. FF of its 600 mln. liabilities

by a fixed capital stock for that purpose, while 200 mln. FF are covered by an external

insurance (Assuratome). The premiums for the latter insurance amount to approx. 42 mln.

FF per year for all 58 reactors operated by EdF. The insurance premium for each reactor

hence costs EdF about 720,000 FF"

http://www.mng.org.uk/gh/resources/EC_env_subsidies.pdf

So when we are talking 100's of billions of damage how exactly is 200 million worth of insurance going to cover it? The answer is of course it won't. The rest is an impicit subsidy provided by the french and other european states which will experience wind-blown fallout. A subsidy worth some billions per year.

[alexw]

I'm no expert, but I doubt that very much. The Wikipedia article on nuclear power seems to be backed up with good references and states that:

Can you support your assertion with links to references that dispute this?

Its the way he used the word "required". He makes it seem like the plant operator pays the full clean up costs. But the truth of the matter state law 'requires' that they only have 600 million in insurance to cover clean up costs (EDF in truth have 200 million).

And 200 or 600 million is frankly peanuts when compared to what the cost of a clean-up operation would be. Out by a factor of 1000 in densely populated europe.

[Charlie The Tramp Returns]

Whether they like it or not the Greenies will have to accept it or not that the only way in the future to supply the needs of the massive increasing populations is:

NUCLEAR POWER OR HYDRO POWER.

[snowflux]

Whether they like it or not the Greenies will have to accept it or not that the only way in the future to supply the needs of the massive increasing populations is:

NUCLEAR POWER OR HYDRO POWER.

As a "Greenie", I'd happily support whatever combination of energy sources turns out to be the most competitive when all subsidies, including implicit ones, are removed and externalised costs, such as environmental damage, are properly assigned through appropriate taxation.

Hydro power, while attractive, is unlikely to make many inroads due to the shortage of suitable locations in the UK. I would expect some combination of nuclear power and gas-backed wind power to provide the bulk of the UK energy needs given the above conditions, but they also leave the way open for any other suitable energy sources that might be developed. Demand management will also have a crucial role to play in maximising the utilisation of renewable energy sources.

Energy prices will inevitably increase - clean costs money - but using taxation rather than subsidies to level the environmental playing field will at least be a source of income rather than a drain on the government's coffers and would provide the opportunity to lower other taxes, such as income tax.

Edit: clarity.

Edited November 23, 2012 by snowflux

[alexw]

Time for another round of our favorite e-sport, climate-change-denier-baiting :

(or reverse if your a skeptic)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9699001/Doha-the-world-holds-its-breath-before-climate-change-summit.html

Here we go again. This weekend, as in every year for the past 18, thousands of negotiators, lobbyists, activists, journalists and assorted hangers-on are converging on a cavernous conference centre to haggle over one of the most complex, frustrating and urgent tasks of our times – the prevention of catastrophic climate change.

This time, the travelling circus is pitching up in Doha, in Qatar, which emits the most carbon dioxide per person in the world, nearly three times the US level. As always, it will have its fair share of clowns, big beasts (with a few would-be tamers), and people trying to ride two horses at once. And no doubt, as usual, it will end with a tense all-night highwire act, in which everything almost comes crashing to the ground.

If it tumbles off the tightrope this time, the world will be left without any international provisions to control emissions: those under the Kyoto Protocol expire on December 31. But the betting must be that it will again shakily survive.

Not that the negotiations have so far had any great effect. Total annual greenhouse gas emissions have increased by about a third over the past decade, even as the delegates have deliberated, and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere are now higher than at any time in the past 15 million years.

Last month, the US government has just reported, was the 332nd in succession in which the global temperature was above the average for the 20th century: though individual areas have sometimes suffered cold spells, the last below-average month worldwide was February 1985. And the effects are increasingly showing. The European Environment Agency this week published a 300-page report detailing the impact of global warming on the continent, from crops to coasts, floods to forests – and earlier this year the giant Climate Vulnerability Monitor report concluded that it was already costing about 1 per cent of global GDP and, together with the carbon-based economy, causing five million deaths a year, mainly in poor countries.

Authoritative alarms have been sounding almost daily while the Government has been grappling with its deep divisions over clean electricity generation. Last week, the International Energy Agency warned that the world was about to “lock itself into an insecure, inefficient, and high-carbon energy system”. On Monday, the un-alarmist World Bank reported that “devastating” climate change threatened to make the world “dramatically different”. And on Wednesday, a report by the United Nations Environment Programme showed that the pledges so far made by countries on cutting emissions fall far short of what will be needed to bring global warming under control.

So no pressure, then. The delegates’ first task will be to ensure the survival of the Kyoto Protocol, with countries that agree to be bound by it signing up to new reduction targets. This is of enormous symbolic significance to developing countries; the negotiations are likely to collapse without it. But its practical impact is far smaller. Only Europe, Australia, Switzerland and Norway are likely to sign up: the really big polluting countries – China, the United States and India – are unaffected.

The big task, therefore, is to make progress on a commitment made at the last climate summit, in Durban last year, to reach a new agreement “with legal force” by 2015, binding all countries to control emissions. This, in itself, was a breakthrough, and there are some reasons for cautious optimism that progress will continue.

Many of the obstacles to progress in the past are diminishing. The United States – through regulation and using shale gas – is likely to hit its target for reducing emissions by 17 per cent by 2020, and President Obama has started to talk about acting on climate change, for the first time in years, after his election and Superstorm Sandy.

China – the main problem at the 2009 Copenhagen summit – is starting its own emissions trading scheme to control carbon releases, and its new leadership is expected to give a higher priority to the environment. And Saudi Arabia, long the strongest opponent of change, is now investing heavily in solar power.

But even a strong new agreement, if it happens, would not be due to take effect until 2020, by which time emissions will already have to be decreasing if dangerous climate change is to be avoided. So delegates will also discuss what measures might be taken in the meantime.

It all adds up to a big test for Ed Davey, the Climate Secretary, whose predecessor Chris Huhne was central to brokering agreements at the past two summits. Fresh from fighting George Osborne to a score draw over energy policy, he now needs to cultivate a new skill – as a circus ringmaster.

Edited November 24, 2012 by alexw

[Kurt Barlow]

Kurt cherry picked the highest year on record and tried to pass that off as representative of all years. When challenged he claimed the annual variability was a result of "infant mortality".

I simply point out that there is no sign of this "infant mortality" in the longest running project.

Is cherry picking only allowed if you're in favour of windmills.

No I didn't. I simply quoted the figures for 2011. Cherry picking would have involved selecting the best year for each wind farm (which was not always 2011 by any means).

Furthermore in regard to the concept of 'infant mortality' this was simply a reference to the fact that in many cases the first year or two of operation involves ironing out teething problems which tends to result in better performance a few years later> Year to year variation in performance due to wind speed is another factor altogether.

Edited November 25, 2012 by Kurt Barlow

[Compounded]

If wind power was any good it would be taxed not subsidised.

[1929crash]

If wind power was any good it would be taxed not subsidised.

A similar argument applies to nuclear power.

[corevalue]

If wind power was any good it would be taxed not subsidised.

Would you like you have an alternative source of power, however intermittent, ready for the time that fossil fuels become ludicrously expensive? Perhaps you'd prefer the dark ages instead.

Nuclear takes decades to roll out, and is a high-risk option (see Fukushima).

[1929crash]

Would you like you have an alternative source of power, however intermittent, ready for the time that fossil fuels become ludicrously expensive? Perhaps you'd prefer the dark ages instead.

Nuclear takes decades to roll out, and is a high-risk option (see Fukushima).

Fukushima appears to be destroying swathes of marine life in the Pacific.