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Friday, June 24. 2011

From a college student reader of Maggie's:

As much as I hate that wind turbines have become this symbol of youthful "green action" and as much as I love birds....

They kill an estimated 40,000 birds a year -- compare that to the hundreds of millions that domestic and feral cats kill, 174 million killed by power lines, 1 billion killed by windows, 70 million killed by pesticides, 80 million killed by cars, and 50 million killed by lighted communication towers. I know you're targeting the hypocrisy of the green movement, but there are better hypocrisies to target.

You might as well be protesting windows here, BD.

If you want green hypocrisy and stupidity, check out the green plastic hard hats distributed at "Power Shift" and all the students who drove across the country to go the event (as I'm sure you'll be excited to target young, misinformed enthusiasm). A ton of my friends went to that inane, completely masturbatory event... Ridiculous. This is the kind of thing I hate: http://i.imgur.com/UTHSn.jpg

Or even look at the "greenwashing" of GE, AEP and Exxon.

Turbines are not effective energy in urban areas, but are entirely helpful in at least reducing nuclear waste in rural ones. You would need something like 1700 turbines to generate the same power as a nuclear power station, but doesn't that make sense in a smaller setting?

Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects, Our Essays at 16:30 | Comments (41) | Trackbacks (0)

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I don't think the writer's last paragraph is true. they are not helpful in reducing consumption b/c they take so much energy to fabricate, install and maintain.

That's the point. That's it, right there!

Wind power has a few, select uses. Mass energy production is not one of them.

#1 DrTorch on 2011-06-24 16:30 (Reply)

She is going to lose her liberal card real soon. I like that she is considering these things and not accepting easy answers. But I think the turbines are wrong headed and give the perception of efficiency when they are really inefficient.

Much like ethanol and solar, that must be subsidized to exist, the wind game is just a WPA job of the present.

#2 BrianInIdaho on 2011-06-24 16:42 (Reply)

As long as the wind blows....
Oh,wait! we still have to have that standby generation for when it doesn't. Let see, that would be double the investment, plus those pesky expensive switching gear that you wouldn't need with the stand alone.
She's not going to lose her liberal card. She's just going to be surprised that she IS actually part of the line of broke starving people who thought they were smarter than the rest of us!

#3 Jerry on 2011-06-24 17:03 (Reply)

A billion birds dead by window collisions??? Really??? A billion with a B???

Cats kill hundreds of millions??? Those are some pretty clever cats.

With all those billions of dead birds it's a wonder we have any birds at all.

And what's up with the harping on nuclear powered energy...never figured that one out unless it is a holdover from Soviet propaganda trying to convince our naive lefty leaning kids to fight anything technologically advanced like nuclear science.

#4 phil g on 2011-06-24 17:30 (Reply)

I didn't have a liberal card to begin with. I'm saying that demonizing wind power because it chops up birds is a prevaricated, waste-of-time time argument. There are more important things to poke fun at in the Green Movement.

#5 The Yeti on 2011-06-24 17:34 (Reply)

Way to go, Phil G, you completely fabricated my "harping on nuclear powered energy" and disputed some legitimate data. Had you actually read what I wrote, you would have seen that I'm a huge proponent of nuclear energy and had you taken the time to look it up, you would have found that those numbers are correct.

And Jerry, I apologize. Really, I do. You're not arrogant, you're just better than me.

And Dr Torch... That is literally what I said. You are disputing words that I wrote to replace them with an alternately phrased version of words that I wrote. It's too bad the original blog post didn't say, "Submitted by conservative, male, old fart" -- maybe then you would have realized that I'm actually agreeing with you on this issue.

#6 The Yeti on 2011-06-24 18:03 (Reply)

Yo Yetser, slow down. I did not mean to confer you specifically have an issue with 'nucular' power as you never mentioned it, was just commenting on the general trend of lefty leaning greenies and many youngsters who reflexively reject it.

#6.1 phil g on 2011-06-25 08:03 (Reply)

So much for "inquiring" and "skeptical". So much as mention the words "college", "student" and "reader" and you all go completely McCarthy on my traditionalist ass.

#7 The Yeti on 2011-06-24 18:08 (Reply)

I'm not technologically advanced, Phil G? How about looking up evidence before mocking someone? It's called the internet. Suck it, Monsieur G:

http://www.sibleyguides.com/conservation/causes-of-bird-mortality/

#8 The Yeti on 2011-06-24 18:14 (Reply)

Yeti: Defensive much?

This old white fart finds what you wrote eloquent. I do think that you may be ignoring the question of who maintains the wind turbines for long enough to pay back the costs?

TC

#9 Leatherneck on 2011-06-24 18:18 (Reply)

Yeti, like Leatherneck I was complimenting you on your thought progression-not slamming you.
שָׁלוֹם

#10 BrianInIdaho on 2011-06-24 18:40 (Reply)

A billion bird deaths by window every year??????

Pull the other one!

I can't believe anything you say ever now because you lie. And about such stupid sh@t.

#11 Jeffersonian on 2011-06-24 18:55 (Reply)

Dude - relax - you have to admit smacking folks upside the head with numbers that sound unbelievable - after all, we are a community "of inquiring, skeptical....." - was a little harsh.

There is no doubt about the number of bird fatalities from all kinds of technological devices - the numbers sound like exaggerations - at least give 'em that. :>)

I think the whole issue of birds and wind turbines is a red herring anyway. The actual truth is that industrial strength wind turbines are not a very efficient way to produce energy for any number of reasons including, but not limited to, the variable nature of wind. Even T. Boone Pickens, who sunk a huge chunk of change into the Oklahoma/Texax wind corridor admitted that it's a dead end for mass production of energy. In small applications, they are probably a good way to produce efficient amounts of local energy for individual homes and with a good buy-back program from the local utility, probably cost effective. A zillion acres of wind turbines are not the answer to America's energy needs. Same with solar energy - zilions of acres of solar panels ain't gonna do it either.

The real answer is coal, chemical scrubbers for exhaust emissions and nuclear plants - lots of nuclear plants.

Good job defending your position - stick around - things get weirder around here from time to time. Have you met Doc Mercury yet? :>)

#12 Tom Francis on 2011-06-24 18:56 (Reply)

As a cat lover, I am highly sceptical about that billion figure (cats prefer to eat Lyme disease carriers like mice and chipmunks and rabbits and voles before hard-to-catch birds). I've had cats all my life, and they generally catch birds in their first year or two of life, before the cats have been fixed, and when the cats are still agile and before human yelling and punishment and heavy feeding of kibble cures them of it. I have to say that any bird that is stupid enough to get caught by a cat, deserves to be. Presumably cats are making birds smarter??? Natural selection....In our yard, the birds torment the dog and cat, hopping just out of reach, fluttering wings.

I happen to think wind turbines are useful as an adjunct power source in rural areas for those wanting to live off the grid. But they are so hideous, and so cost ineffective that we can't steel ourselves to install one. Our neighbors have one that makes the most godawful racket and is a total eyesore. I've also read that the large collections of wind turbines are being documented to actually change rainfall patterns and temperature in unpredictable ways.

#13 retriever on 2011-06-24 20:10 (Reply)

Regarding bird kills and wind energy, here is a passage from Environmental Impacts of Wind-Energy Projects (2007), published by the National Academies Press.

QUOTE:

Having said the above, we provide here estimates summarized by Erickson et al. (2005) and estimates reported by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS 2002a). Those sources emphasize the uncertainty in the estimates, but the numbers are so large that they are not obscured even by the uncertainty. Collisions with buildings kill 97 to 976 million birds annually; collisions with high-tension lines kill at least 130 million birds, perhaps more than 1 billion; collisions with communications towers kill between 4 and 5 million based on “conservative estimates,” but could be as high as 50 million; cars may kill 80 million birds per year; and collisions with wind turbines killed an estimated 20,000 to 37,000 birds per year in 2003, with all but 9,200 of those deaths occurring in California. Toxic chemicals, including pesticides, kill more than 72 million birds each year, while domestic cats are estimated to kill hundreds of millions of songbirds and other species each year. Erickson et al. (2005) estimate that total cumulative bird mortality in the United States “may easily approach 1 billion birds per year.”

Clearly, bird deaths caused by wind turbines are a minute fraction of the total anthropogenic bird deaths—less than 0.003% in 2003 based on the estimates of Erickson et al. (2005)

While the estimates are rather wide-ranging, the point is that birds killed by wind energy constitute a trivial proportion of birds killed from interaction with man-made objects.For the record, I am pro wind energy [my household is powered by wind], pro coal, and pro nuclear. My oil field experience leads me to support drilling.

If you disagree with the above author, I suggest you take it up with him with appropriate documentation to refute him.

#14 Gringo on 2011-06-24 20:23 (Reply)

Retriever
I happen to think wind turbines are useful as an adjunct power source in rural areas for those wanting to live off the grid. But they are so hideous, and so cost ineffective that we can't steel ourselves to install one

In your neck of the woods, wind energy is not cost effective. You made the correct call. This map indicates that areas of the Great Plains would be better.

#15 Gringo on 2011-06-24 20:49 (Reply)

In reality it is the type of birds killed that is the concern. Golden Eagles. Comparing birds in total to Eagles is disingenuous. Much like pine trees are not Redwoods.The Eagles reproduce at a low rate. Golden Eagles must be protected and the turbines are killing them at an alarming rate.

#16 BrianInIdaho on 2011-06-24 21:56 (Reply)

Over 1.5 Billion bird deaths each year by man-made causes alone, using the middle of those estimates and without including hunting, or chicken farming, or turkey farming, or natural causes, on a land mass of 3.5 million square miles.

That's a lot of carcases per square mile.

Not to mention that there must be a huge source providing all these birds per year.

No wonder my car is always covered in bird shit.

#17 mitchel44 on 2011-06-24 22:10 (Reply)

GE has come up with new design of power station designed to make up for the erratic output of turbines. They claim this will enable more turbines to be installed because this new power plant can ramp up and down rapidly to match turbine output as the the wind blows or doesn't.

so the reality is we need to pay for 2 power plants for one output?!

senseless.

#18 dave on 2011-06-24 23:08 (Reply)

When was the last time a Golden Eagle, a Bald Eagle, an Osprey or a Turkey Vulture committed Hari Kari on your living room window?

#19 Fritz (Link) on 2011-06-24 23:11 (Reply)

Snowfall has become the least of my concerns; I'm too busy shoveling up the piles of dead birds.

#20 Big___Al on 2011-06-24 23:16 (Reply)

I have maybe one or two birds that kill themselves flying into the glass on my deck, per year. Wife's put decals on them; that may work.

Still, I read the link, and I keep seeing the word "may" preceding "kill", and "estimates" with no methodology. I did see "loss of habitation" as the major cause, and that I believe. But I'm not seeing fewer birds, so it appears that bird reproduction is keeping up with these losses.

#21 Sam L. on 2011-06-25 00:32 (Reply)

You know that article about bird deaths that Yettles linked to up above?

Would you like to guess what the site believes is the major cause of the spoon-billed sandpiper's decline?

"Climate Change – Possibly the leading cause of decline."

So obviously their estimates of bird deaths are both scientific and accurate.

The only thing I got out of this article is that college kids will believe anything.

And I'm pretty sure we already knew that.

#22 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-06-25 06:54 (Reply)

Dr. M, try refuting the article on bird deaths that I linked to. Be my guest. National Academy of Sciences.

The point is that bird deaths from wind turbines are a trivial amount compared to other bird deaths. Refute that.

#22.1 Gringo on 2011-06-26 22:40 (Reply)

College kids also seem very defensive.

#23 phil g on 2011-06-25 07:59 (Reply)

Phil - It did seem kind of obvious that this was Yettles' first experience with a blog post. The problem is that the point he/she was making was a good one -- that wind turbines are so wrong for so many reasons that it seems silly to get hung up on bird deaths -- but the mistake was believing that just because some 'science' site offers up a bunch of stats, that they're to be believed. And when it turns out to be an AGW site, you KNOW they're pushing a hidden agenda and not a single thing on the site can be taken at face value.

Doc's Evolutionary Tree:

1. regular people
2. dog drool
3. used car salesmen
4. pond scum
5. lawyers
6. scientists

I think that pretty much sums it up.

#24 Dr. Mercury (Link) on 2011-06-25 09:54 (Reply)

The two major problems with wind power are:
1. Even in the best locations the wind blows dependably for 6 hours a day on average or to put it another way it does not blow for 18 hours a day. So this enormous investment is not producing for 75% of the time. Also many windmills are installed in less then the best locations so the numbers are much worse.
2. A big state of the art windmill costs so much to build (and most of those cost are in energy used to build it) that it can never produce as much energy as it took to build it. The ONLY way a commercial windmill farm can be practical or profitable is if the government subsidizes it.

We need a practical and sustainable source of alternative energy. We have not found it yet. Not solar, not wind, and certainly not ethanol. The biggest impediment to discovering such an energy source is government subsidies and regulations. They are designed to favor those failed alternatives and discourage anything that might actually be competitive.

#25 GoneWithTheWind on 2011-06-25 11:47 (Reply)

GoneWithTheWind.
2. A big state of the art windmill costs so much to build (and most of those cost are in energy used to build it) that it can never produce as much energy as it took to build it.

You have not bothered to document this statement, because it is total nonsense. Here is some documentation to prove that you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/17/18478/085#more

http://www.wind-works.org/articles/EnergyBalanceofWindTurbines.html

#25.1 Gringo on 2011-06-25 22:03 (Reply)

#26 Gringo on 2011-06-25 13:51 (Reply)

Dr. Mercury -- Sibley identifies the leading cause of Spoon-Billed Sandpiper death, "changes to habitat during migration and loss of breeding areas". I don't see the quote you are pointing to anywhere.

http://www.sibleyguides.com/2007/10/troubled-times-for-spoon-billed-sandpiper/

Furthermore, the eagle argument is a little inchoate. Bald Eagles were taken off the endangered species list a few years ago and there are more eagles on the whole right now than there were thirty years ago. And how many wind turbines were there thirty years ago?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR2007062801562.html

And of course I'm defensive! I take a lot of flack for questioning illogical BS at my very-liberal university and it quite ruffles my feathers to hear "these college kids will believe everything they read" and twist my words to fit their argument.

#26.1 The Yeti on 2011-06-25 19:28 (Reply)

"(Wind) turbines are not effective energy .... but are entirely helpful in at least reducing nuclear waste..."

The first part is true enough but the last clause is completely wrong.

When the wind blows, the grid operators reduce power output from power plants fueled by natural gas, the most expensive fuel on almost all grids (some islands use oil.)

Nuclear plants are base load since there running costs are very low - no point in backing down their output. They ALWAYS run, except for refueling during periods of low power usage (Spring and Fall typically.)

As others have astutely pointed out above, even with wind, you still need fossil-power plants so you pay for two pieces of hardware where before you only needed one.

So what is wind power worth? Only the price of the natural gas that doesn't get burnt. With a modern combined cycle gas turbine at a 6,900 BTU/kw-hr heat rate, $5 a million BTU gas, that means a kw-hr of wind output is only worth about 3 cents a kW-hr in system savings.

If wind mill owners only got what they are worth to the customer, no one would build them.

#27 Whitehall on 2011-06-25 14:03 (Reply)

#28 The Yeti on 2011-06-25 19:29 (Reply)

One point about the utter uselessness of wind turbines seems to have been missed here.

IIRC, they max out at about 44% efficiency, and that happens only in a narrow range of about10-12 mph. By the time the wind hits 20 they are down to something like 8% and it just gets worse the faster the wind blows. Ditto below 10 mph, they produce virtually nothing.

So.... unless the wind is consistently blowing about 12 mph they aren't producing any electricity.

#29 feeblemind on 2011-06-26 12:59 (Reply)

So.... unless the wind is consistently blowing about 12 mph they aren't producing any electricity.
Document, please.

I also note that GoneWithTheWindmade the following claim at comment #25:

QUOTE:

2. A big state of the art windmill costs so much to build (and most of those cost are in energy used to build it) that it can never produce as much energy as it took to build it.

I requested documentation. None came. I provided documentation to show that the the claim of GoneWithTheWind had no basis whatsoever in reality.

#29.1 Gringo on 2011-06-26 13:38 (Reply)

IIRC, they max out at about 44% efficiency, and that happens only in a narrow range of about10-12 mph.
The graph is NOT in mph [miles per hour], but in m/s: meters per second. Here is a quote from the article:

QUOTE:

"The maximum efficiency of 44% is reached in a 9 m/s wind (18 mph) and falls sharply at higher wind speeds. For a reasonable range of winds, the average effiency is around 20%,

Because the power goes as v3, there is no real need to optimize design for highest efficiency at highest windspeed because the power capacity in the wind will greatly exceed that which can be obtained by the generator. "

One might quibble about precisely where the maximum efficiency is, but it is around 9-12 m/sec.

By the time the wind hits 20 they are down to something like 8% and it just gets worse the faster the wind blows.
The final sentence from the above quote-"power goes as V cubed"- puts paid to what you have stated about efficiency. However, as you didn't catch it, I will explain in detail. You may not consider the detail necessary.

You are talking here about miles per hour. Looking at the graph, efficiency at 20 mph, using a quick and dirty conversion of 2 mph~ 1 m/s, is around 10 meters per second, is around 0.4. [ 40%]

If you were referring to the 20 on the graph, that would be 20 meters/second. A quick and dirty conversion useful for so-called back of the envelope calculations or ballpark estimates would convert 20 meters/second to 40 miles/hours (For what it's worth, more precisely, 20 meters per second is equal to 45 miles/hour).

You are correct that efficiency peaks and then falls at further increases in wind speed. Your stated figure of 8% efficiency at 20 on the graph [20 meters/second] is good enough for ballpark estimates. I got a different figure with a centimeter ruler, but that doesn't matter: 8% is close enough for argument's sake.

The efficiency is watts of electrical energy captured and generated divided by watts of power generated by the wind.

How does the amount of electrical energy generated by the wind turbine at 20 meters/second compare to the amount of electrical energy generated at 10 meters per second? This is what is known as a scaling problem, which the article discusses/

In equation terms:

(Amount of electrical energy generated @ 20 mps)/(Amount of electrical energy generated @ 10 mps)=

((Power in wind @20 mps)X (Efficiency of turbine @ 20 mps) )/((Power in wind@10 mps)X(Efficiency of turbine @ 10 mps))

Or: ((Power in wind @20 mps)/(Power in wind @ 10 mps)) X ((Efficiency of turbine @ 20 mps)/( Efficiency of turbine @ 10 mps))

From the article:

QUOTE:

Power per sq. meter = .0006 V3

Therefore power increases relative to the cube. Ratio of speeds=(20/10)=2 . For power, this this ratio would be cubed, so there would be 8 times the power in wind at 20 m/s as there is at 10 m/s. (2 cubed =8)

In addition to the equation, the article also points out the consequences of it: much more power at higher speeds:

QUOTE:

Power going as v3 is a big deal 27 times more power is in a wind blowing at 60 mph than one blowing at 20 mph

Regarding the relative efficiencies, for a quick and dirty estimate, we will use .4 as the efficiency at 10 m/s.

We therefore get
(Amount of electrical energy generated @ 20 mps)/(Amount of electrical energy generated @ 10 mps)=

:((Power in wind @20 mps)/(Power in wind @ 10 mps)) X ((Efficiency of turbine @ 20 mps)/( Efficiency of turbine @ 10 mps))
= 8X (.08/.4) = 1.6

Therefore, at 20 m/s, even with the lower turbine efficiency at higher speeds, there is 60 % more electrical energy generated (1.6 is equivalent to 60% more) than at 10 m/s. Or, there is ~60% more electricity generated at ~40 mph than at ~20 mph.

If I am boring you with detail, I apologize, but from your statements, I thought the detail was needed.

Check out the graph which shows a big cost /kwh decrease in wind energy in 2-3 decades. I have seen similar graphs. Basically, as wind turbines got higher, they captured wind at higher speed, resulting in higher efficiencies and lower costs.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

#29.2 Gringo on 2011-06-26 22:25 (Reply)

Here ya go Gringo. From a green site yet. You will have to scroll down the page maybe 2/3 way to see the graph.

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l11.html

#30 dingfod@hotmail.com on 2011-06-26 15:12 (Reply)

Let's see if MF will let this one by: your link .

#30.1 Gringo on 2011-06-27 11:41 (Reply)

Here ya go Gringo. From a green site yet. You will have to scroll down the page maybe 2/3 way to see the graph.

ttp://zebu.uoregon.edu/disted/ph162/l11.html

#31 dingfod@hotmail.com on 2011-06-26 15:15 (Reply)

Of course you have to add the "h" back to the url.

The comment was rejected for SPAM(!!!) with the entire url posted.

Sorry for the double post. I accidentally pulled the plug on my connection as I was sending sending the comment comment.

#31.1 feeblemind on 2011-06-26 15:19 (Reply)

Yes, I know how the Spameister works on this site. Many is the time it has short-circuited a link I put on.

I will check the links out. Thanks.

#31.1.1 Gringo on 2011-06-26 20:17 (Reply)

I wonder how my email got on those posts instead of my name? Oh well. I don't use that account except to sign in to comment anyway.

Yes. I have seen you vent your frustration with the Spam trap, Gringo.

Doc is a wizard, just as Merlin was for King Arthur. One would think he could put on his wizard hat and get out his maracas and say, "Unka-bunka-chinchu, sis-boob-bah!" Then wave his magic wand and chant, "Twizzle-twaddle-twubbled gnome, time for you to leave Maggie's Farm!', and Poof! The problem would be fixed.

Of course I don't know the exact incantation or I could fix it myself.

Hopefully Doc can figger it out when he is not swamped by his day job.

#31.1.1.1 feeblemind on 2011-06-27 01:03 (Reply)

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Friday, June 24. 2011

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