tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1681309162921999685.post7871963357758809242..comments2023-10-29T06:59:01.084-07:00Comments on A Cubic Mile of Oil: Fracking helps reduce CO2 emissions more than wind?Ripuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10693357289665686756noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1681309162921999685.post-25686157596821551182012-08-22T04:16:40.661-07:002012-08-22T04:16:40.661-07:00Your understanding and usage of capacity factor is...Your understanding and usage of capacity factor is wrong and, therefore, some of your "important" conclusions, too:<br /><br />1) Wind turbines in a larger area do not have the the same maximum and mimimum production times. This leads to interesting observations/conclusions:<br /><br />a) The maximum backup power must exceed 70% of the demand, however this higher demand is only needed for few hours per year.<br />In Germany, for example, only 4% of the currently installed wind power can be considered as reliable base load, if you connect production sites from France to Poland, you would get a much number (~15%). <br /><br />b) You can install a much higher wind power without loosing much of the produced energy. As a result, you need much less chemical energy (methane). If 50% excesss power only produce 7% wasted energy, there is no argument for your numbers.<br /><br /><br />2) You work with data for wind turbines, which are obsolete or at least ignore current developments, e.g. with turbines optimised for weak wind you can increase the capacity factors of on-shore wind turbines. <br /><br />3) Wind is quite predictable in larger areas. You would, therefore, use a mixture of different NG power plants. And very important, there are other possibilities available to flatten production and demand peaks like pump storage and compressed air storage, the latter can easily be combined with NG plants. In addition, during spring-autum you can nicely combine wind with PV - even less chemical energy needed.<br /><br /><br />If you want to promote nuclear energy -in principle no problem for me- you should start with better arguments when it comes to the rejection of alternatives. In the current form you do more damage than good for promoting nuclear energy, especially when you compare a technology like thorium reactor which is in best case only in the experimental stage with working alternatives.<br />In addition, with prices of around 5000 USD /kw in existing modern reactors the production costs for nuclear electricity does not longer look so promising for me. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1681309162921999685.post-44954541127260770092012-08-20T08:31:03.056-07:002012-08-20T08:31:03.056-07:00CO2 emissions from wind are worse than you might t...CO2 emissions from wind are worse than you might think. Their capacity factor is about 30%, so for each wind turbine there must be a source of quick-ramping electric power that can provide energy for 70% of the time. That source is natural gas combustion turbine generation (NGCT) because they can start up quickly, like airplane engines.<br /><br />Natural gas is clean relative to coal, in that it generates about twice the heat energy per kilogram of CO2 emitted. However, NCGTs have a electric/thermal efficiency of about 30%. The combined cycle gas turbines (CCGTs) that could replace baseload coal power use the gas turbine exhaust to boil water used in a steam turbine, generating power both from gas combustion turbines and steam turbines. The electric/thermal conversion efficiency is about 60%. But CCGTs can not back up wind turbines because they do not ramp power up and down fast enough. <br /><br />As a consequence, wind turbines with NGCTs for backup consume more natural gas than CCGTs alone. There is more on this in my new book...<br />http://www.thoriumenergycheaperthancoal.comRobert Hargraveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06846491141058940965noreply@blogger.com