User:Theanphibian/Wind power debate

The debate on wind power weighs the harmful effects and the benefits of the energy source.

Wind power exists on several scales, which can be easily distinguished. On one extreme, there are large windfarms which are financed by communities and/or large companies and almost always connected to the electric power grid. There are also smaller wind turbines which are run by an individual or a farm, these may be isolated, connected to the grid, or serve a purpose other than electricity generation.

Wind power is not new. Mills in the area of Mancha, Spain.

Environmental aspects

The wind power is a renewable energy whose layer is not épuisable on a time scale of human civilizations.

It is regarded as a clean energy which does not directly produce carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, mercury, or fine particles, or any other type of air or water pollution.

However, from and other the type carbon dioxide of pollution air and water are released during the extraction and of the manufacture of building materials of a wind mill (see gray energy). To note however that on average a wind mill restores into 2 to 3 months the energy which it consumed for its construction (for one operation life 20 years). However the quantities of steel and concrete necessary (by MWh/an) are much higher than those necessary to the construction of a power station of any other type, including the nuclear power supported by its very high density of power.

Dismantling

Dismantling forms integral part of the solutions to at the end of the lifetime limit the harmful effects of all indutrial resource.

With regard to the wind mills, the dismantling of an installation must include/understand:

• the disassembling of the wind mill;
• the disassembling of the secondary equipments;
• the leveling of the foundations.

This last stage does not leave any significant trace on the site. The estimates of the cost of the dismantling of wind mills become obsolete show that this cost is lower than that reported by the sale of the “scrap” of the turns and other components [1]

Sound pollution

According to a recommendation with the authorities of the Academy of Medicine, the noise risk implies not to build of wind mill of 2.5 MW to less than 1500 m of dwellings: “It can have a real impact and ignored up to now, on the health of the man, and in addition, with intensities moderated, the noise can involve reactions of stress, disturb the sleep and resound on the state general”. [2]

In Australia, March 2005, Dr. Foster known as to have indexed a hundred people victims of harmful effects due to the wind mills [3].

A wind mill produces a noise of 55 dBa to the foot of its tower, which corresponds to the sound environment of an office. This noise level is in general regarded as acceptable. The French regulation is not based on the intrinsic noise but on the concept of emergence sound, i.e. the difference between the ambient noise level and this one plus that of the wind mills. It is a question of remaining in on this side 5 dBa the day and 3 dBa the night, this whatever the speed of the wind.

Risk of wind accident

Main article: Wind power accidents

Wind mills present risks of accidents: a strong wind is likely to break the structures of the wind mills. In 2000, the rupture of propellers to the park of Burgos sent remains whirling for more than one kilometer [4] [5].

Worldwide, nobody has yet been recognized as a victim of a wind accident.

Aesthetic

Compared to the first wind parks, very dense, the new parks see their more spaced wind mills, those being larger cuts and power. They thus lost their over-populated aspect.

The wind mills can be laid out along the motorways, which reduces the preoccupations with an aesthetics significantly.

In addition, according to a survey of November 2003 [6] ordered by the Languedoc-Roussillon area at the Institute SCA, “the tourists accept the wind mills well: 92% of the tourists questioned on 25 sites in full tourist period regard the use of the wind mills as “a good thing”. Only 16% estimate that they “degrade the landscape in which they are established”. The tourists questioned in sites where exist wind mills or which saw some are definitely more favorable to the wind mills than those which did not see any.” One can wonder the land one why then falls of 20% as of the appearance of wind mills? Nor why 80% of the local referendums reject the construction of wind mill in their commune?

Impact of the installations

One can speak about the lack of impact study:

• The projects are sometimes initiated without public consultations or before the evaluation of the problems which they can generate. [ref. necessary]
• Inappropriate localization [ref. necessary]
• Potential interference with the military radars within the framework of the detection of a flying aircraft at low altitude or for the weather radars for the detection of precipitation. Indeed, the wind mills constitute an obstacle with the wave propagation. According to the proximity and the density of the park of wind mills, this can constitute a major blocking at low altitude giving a zone of shade in the data. Moreover, as the blades are in rotation, the radar notes their rate of travel and the processing data by Doppler filtering cannot differentiate them from a target moving.

Obstruction of the wind mills

Surface on the ground necessary to produce a significant part of the energy needs for a country starting from the wind power is prone to debate.

The current wind mills require an important surface on the ground, imposed by rotation necessary according to the direction of the wind, by the size of the blades, the interference between wind mills close on flow to wind, by safety measure in the event of fall.

The current wind mills allow in best case a density of 10 MW/km ², that is to say 10 W/m ²; in practice, the average is about 0,5 W/m ². The turbine wind mills, for the state of prototype in 2006, are intended to function posed on roofs of building and will thus not occupy space intended for other uses.

Produced energy is about 20GWh/km ² [7] for the well been windy sites. By considering 25000 km ² of surface (that is to say 5% of the metropolitan territory), the potential of French production would be about 500TWh according to this source. 20 GWh/km ² /an account for 4 to 5 wind mills of 2 MW per km ², leaving 99% of the face free of access and available, for example, for fields or forests. As comparison, a photovoltaic solar power station has a production, in a very sunny site (Portugal or south of Spain), about 40 to 50 GWh/km ² /an. But in this case 100% of surface is used…

Outputs

Projections of the EWEA [8] envisage a production of 425 TWh/an for 2020 in the UE25, and a potential of 3000 TWh on a world level, with a doubling foreseeable of the production per unit of area on the ground. Celà corresponds to 12% of the world electric request, on the basis of rise of 66% of the request.

The GWEC envisages 3 scenarios, “reference”, “moderate”, “advanced”, envisaging a production in 2020 respectively of 566 TWh, 1375 TWh and 2632 TWh [9].

Ornithological aspect

Detailed article: protection of the birds.

Several studies on the wind mills [10] show that the number of birds killed by the wind mills is negligible compared to the number which die because of other human activities. For example, in the United Kingdom, where there are a few hundreds of wind mills, there is approximately each year a single bird killed by a wind mill, while 10 million perish by cars. Another study suggests that the migratory birds adapt to the obstacles; these birds which do not modify their road and continue to fly through a wind park would be able to avoid the blades, at least under the conditions of the study (weak wind and in day). In the United Kingdom, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds thus concluded that:

“The evidence available suggests that correctly positioned wind parks do not represent a significant danger to the birds.”

According to the League for the protection of the birds, with the documented exceptions of the crested plover, the redshank and the barge with black tail, of many species seem to be able to use space close to the wind parks to nest. [11]

Insertion in the electrical supply network

Needs for the wind mills with respect to the electrical supply network

The connection of wind mills to the total network of electric distribution (without local storage of energy) requires, as for the other power stations of electric production, of the lines high-tension. The concentration of the wind mills in park terrestrial, coastal or maritime corresponds to a logic of centralization of the offer of current, with counter-current of the often evoked vision of a decentralized production.

At the end of 2006, an electronic bulletin of the Embassy of France in Germany indicates that the wind production requires the installation of 850 km cables from here 2015 and 1950 km from here 2020 [12]. In addition, of the local oppositions (syndrome NIMBY) to the construction of external lines of sea result in burying the cables, which would involve a doubling of the amount of the invoice of electricity of the industrial customers.

The manager of the French electrical supply network (RTE), estimates that the integration of wind electricity in the current network is possible without major difficulties to a total value of 10 to 15 GW, in particular thanks to the presence in France of 3 independent layers of wind, which will allow a smoothing of the production much better than in Germany or in Denmark. However this declaration is strongly disputed, the future will slice. [13]

Output of the wind mills

The wind mills are characterized by their output according to the speed of the wind. The current wind mills present a curve reached a maximum and limited to winds of less than 90 km/h.

The wind mills under development are designed to function with winds exceeding 200 km/h and to produce a quantity of energy proportional to the speed of the wind on the totality of the operating range.

Ademe ordered a report/ratio at the Climpact company. The results of this report/ratio indicate that by the effects of the climatic reheating, the winds being used for the wind production of energy should decrease of almost 10 % from here to 2100.

Intermittency of the wind

The wind is a random resource. The wind mills thus produce electricity in an intermittent way on an electrical supply network. Because of the difficulties of the storage of energy, it is difficult to ensure a production of electricity for one period without wind.

Germany, which significantly invested in the wind power, can encounter difficulties: its wind network, although distributed on all its territory, and thus freed from purely local effects, can pass from 0 to 100% of its capacities in the space of a few days (for example on the network E one [14]). At the time of the heat wave of 2003, the capacity of the wind mills fell to less than 10% from its face value [15]. During the heat wave of the summer 2003, Germany had to import a quantity of electricity equivalent to two nuclear sections of about 1000 MW [16].

The complementarity of energies in a network of production could attenuate this problem, but the power failure of November 4, 2006 which deprived of electricity of tens of million Europeans left Germany [17]. The wind one is blamed in this breakdown, more for disconnections and reconnexions automatic “savages” because of the fall of the frequency of the network towards the 49 Hz that because of variations of production due to the wind.

Average storage of wind electricity

To mitigate this problem of intermittency of the wind, there is in numerous ways of storing electricity, with very variable costs and outputs: hydraulics, hydrogen, compressed air, batteries, wheels of inertia, etc…

On a large scale (and thus while being based on an electrical supply network of quality, as in France), one of the best means of storing electricity is hydroelectric energy. STEP (stations of transfer of energy per pumping) are constituted of basin lower and of upstream reservoir (natural or artificial), which makes it possible to store energy (for example of wind electricity) during the periods of low consumption by pumping lower basin towards the upstream reservoir, and to restore it during the periods of keen demand while making forward the water of the upstream reservoir towards the lower basin by a turbine. The STEP are of the interest to be able to store very great quantities of energy (until several hundreds of GWh), with an excellent output (80 to 85%), and to start itself very quickly (in a few minutes). In France the largest STEP is the dam Grand' Maison, with a maximum power of 1800 MW (equivalent to 2 nuclear engines).

In the United States, a company designs new wind mills who will produce compressed air instead of electricity. [18] In the nacelle of the wind mills a compressor of air in the place of the alternator is. The compressed air is stored and makes it possible to make turn an alternator to the request. The output of this technique of storage is about 50%.

Another track is the electrolysis of water and the production of hydrogen, which can be stored before being reconverted in energy according to needs' by means of a fuel cell, producing electricity and heat. The total output of this cycle of energy production is still too weak at present to return interesting the storage of energy by hydrogen. Technologies related to hydrogen require progress, mainly of maintenance and manufacturing cost, before being able to pass at an industrial stage. The first fuel cells connected on electrical grids were brought into service in the years 1990.

Lastly, a Canadian company developed a storage of great capacity with batteries with vanadium. In a traditional battery, once the charged battery, one cannot charge more since one is to the maximum of the load. The innovation here, consists in replacing the electrolyte charged and ionized by another. Thus the load can continue with another electrolyte. One can continue the load as a long time as one wants. The limit is now the storage capacity in electrolyte which circulates through the battery by a pump. The electrolyte is stored in its own tank which one determines volume according to the desired storage capacity and who does not have theoretical limit. Company (VRB) claims that a storage capacity of 100 MWh is realizable within sight of its last and successful experiments [ref. necessary]. One can use these great storage capacities in several manners:

1) As a simple storage. What consists in buying electricity when it is cheap due to overproduction (the night) and to resell it at the time of peak demand day labourers when the price of electricity is high.

2) As a buffer storage in complement of the production of a wind park. When the wind production weakens, the batteries founissent the complement to keep the quasi stable final production. When the wind production is suffisemment strong, there is refill of the batteries. Thus the 2 production curves wind and batteries are opposite and complementary. The sum of the 2 founit to the network a “smoothed” production curve (as with the wind park of Sapporo in Japan).

3) To store the wind power in isolated site. Thus, a community which fed to 100 % with a diesel group, after the installation of 2 wind mills and batteries of great capacity, feeds now to 86 % into wind. The diesel does not ensure that the complement of 14 %. It is seen that with these batteries of great capacity one can develop the wind one beyond what is currently done. The only limit is the investment in storage capacity of the electrolyte; i.e. until where one is decided to go in this field.

4) To produce electricity of wind origin with the batteries only at the peak periods of consumption. To hold the use of wind only at the peak periods of consumption would make it possible not to oversize the conventional sites of production which are currently adapted to the peak periods of consumption. This oversizing generates a overcost which one could then eliminate. What would make it possible to also obtain for the wind production a much better profitability since it quasi totality of the production would be sold with the best prices. This system would be thus gain-gaining. (see bond Ci below for details of all this information)

Economic aspect

If a comparison of the costs were made on the basis of real cost of production, the wind power could be competitive in many cases. [ref. necessary] If the complete cost (environment, health, etc) is taken into account, wind power could be competitive in the majority of the cases. [ref. necessary] Moreover, the costs of the wind power decrease constantly thanks to the development of technology and the economies of scale. [ref. necessary]

Wind kWh, product under good conditions, can be sold today around 5 to 7 hundreds (centimes of dollars) [19].

According to the European association of the wind power (EWEA - European Wind Energy Association) [20], the cost of produced kWh was of 8,8 c€ in the middle of the Eighties for a turbine of 95 kw, it is currently of 4,1 c€ for a turbine of 1000 kw, and should be located at 3,1 c€/kWh in 2010. The cost in 2006 [21] of natural gas is of 4,5 c€/kWh, that of the fuel domesticates of 6,5 c€/kWh, that of the propane of 9,3 c€ (to be noted that the tendency on fossil energies is with the constant rise, between 5,4% and 11,5% per annum - average 8,6% over the 15 last years for oil).

Projection at 2020 of the EWEA [22] envisages a cost of wind brought back to 2,45 c€/kWh.

Construction

The questions characteristic related to construction of wind mills are [23] [24]

• Production of the wind mills and the machine elements
• Distribution of the royalties
• Evaluation of the environmental impact (in particular in term of erosion of the grounds and impact on the forests)

Associations speaking in the debate on energy éolienne

• Very many associations support the development of the wind power: Switzerland-Eole in Switzerland, wind Planet and France wind power in France, Avel PEN Ar Bed in Brittany and of many other local associations.
• Opponents organized themselves in the form of associations, the Vent federation of Anger! [25] regoupe more than 300 of these associations.
• In Quebec, the Éole-Prudence group brings together the citizens in favour of the Community wind parks, installed at good distance from the inhabited zones.

Public opinion

According to a survey [26] Louis Harris published on April 28, 2005, 91% of the French are declared favorable to the wind power.

Notes

• The partisans of renewable energies see in mix-energetics combining wind, solar and geothermics, in the storage of the energy and energy saving a solution to mitigate the problems of intermittency of the wind one. [quotation necessary]
• The countries most dependent on the wind power (Germany, Denmark, etc) mitigate the intermittency with thermal energy and the importation of electricity produced by other countries, in particular nuclear French. Denmark is the country where the wind power is developed, but whose CO2 emissions per capita are highest of Europe. The production of electricity is done primarily by the means of the coal-fired powers, which emit very large volumes of CO2 [27].
• Denmark stopped the development of its wind for the causes above and seeks solutions of storage.
• The current situation of Germany would be catastrophic if France it had also developed its wind instead of nuclear power: Who would provide electricity to these two countries in period of not-wind? To rest on over-equipped neighbors is not a demonstration valid for validate the large wind one: This last MUST find solutions of massive storage of energy under penalty of remaining marginal in the provisioning of the country (actuellementil reaches a maximum towards 4% in Germany).
• Projections of the “trend energy Scenario at 2030 for France - DGEMP-OE (2004) - synthesis of the work completed in 2004 by the Observatory of the energy of the Directorate-General of energy and the raw materials” rests on the respect by France in 2010 of the criterion of 21% of renewable energy in mix energetics. Within this framework, this scenario proposes in 2030 a rough annual production of 43 TWh for the wind one and the solar one (for a power of 19 clear GW installed). This power can be compared in the same scenario with the forecast of an annual production of 409 TWh in 2030 for the nuclear power (power of 51 GW installed), corresponding to the closing of the current power stations after 40 years of lifespan and the construction of 2 EPR per annum since 2020 [28]. However, “France is in electric overproduction and does not need to increase its capacity [production]” [29], the construction of wind mills is thus useless.

• The European Directive for 2010-2020 is not any obligatory. It aims at reducing the electric CO ² emissions and France is very advances some in this field.