delusionofgrandeur

…the UK’s Energy Policy is full of wind.

Labour MP John Hutton stated on the BBC Politics Show that it is the UK government’s intention to build 7,000 or so new wind turbines for electricity generation around the UK. In a slightly inflammatory fashion, the BBC has pointed out that would be one turbine for every two miles of coastline but they fail to note that it would only be the case if they were set equidistantly around the coast. They will, of course, be arranged in ‘batteries’ to allow for easier installation, maintenance and shorter cable runs. The placement, however, is very far from the problem.

The real problem seems to be minister’s lack of basic understanding when it come to how the electricity grid is operated.

Mr Hutton said:

“There is the potential, we believe, out there, using the resources that there are around the UK to generate maybe all of the electricity that households need … from offshore wind sources,”

Certainly there is. When the wind is blowing.

7,000 wind turbines would be rather less than useful for electricity generation when there is no wind and they are all idling. This is why wind turbines will never be anything other than supplementary generators. We have to have base-load generation and that is only available from sources which are not dependent on uncontrollable external factors like wind. That limits the options for base load generation to hydroelectric, hydrocarbon (coal, gas, oil) and nuclear. Then we need load-following generation (the generation that takes up any difference between base and peak load), once again, this has to be provided by the controllable sources of hydroelectric, hydrocarbon and nuclear.

So, of the only options for base-load generation:

• Hydroelectric generation is limited in the UK. Once you’ve tapped all the available dams for power, you can’t build any more unless you intend to flood more valley/catchment areas. There is also a concern that non-tidal hydro is adversely affected by droughts. Hydroelectric dams can also load-follow at the risk of depleting the reservoir supply faster.
• Hydrocarbon generation is always the one to take a battering from environmentalists but, once again, that isn’t the real problem. The real issue is that we are running out of hydrocarbon supplies and as such, the price will continue to spiral upwards for this sort of generation
• Nuclear generation, also hated by environmentalists should provide the most effective method of base-load generation. The system itself is clean in operation and if we bought modern French reactors, we could minimise the radioactive waste. It is worth remembering that France generates so much power through it’s 50+ nuclear reactors, they can sell the power on to other nations (including the UK) and boost their economy in the process.

Wind can only supplement these base-load generators. It cannot be a base-load itself and it cannot load-follow reliably. The wind will do as it pleases. We cannot control it.

The people of the UK must ask whether they really want such massive expenditure on a generation system that could see them sat in darkness several days a week.

Photo Credit: André Karwath by-sa-2.5

Tags: base-load, government, uk, wind farms, wind generation

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 12:55 pm and is filed under Economy, Politics, Ramblings, Tech News.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.