Wind power
Hallo folks. Sorry I’ve been a bit quiet this week (I promise, by the way, never to use this blog’s title as a jokey excuse for lackadaisical productivity… y’know, some kind of crass remark like “Well what did you expect from the QUIET road, eh? eh?”). I’ve had one of those weeks where you think to yourself on Friday afternoon, “Haaaang on a second; wasn’t it Sunday just now? What in the name of god happened to the week?”
My great fear is that I’ll be lying on my deathbed and I’ll think “Haaaang on a second; wasn’t I sixteen years old just now? What in the name of god happened to the last fifty years?” Something tells me though, just as the light finally fades forever, we all think that.
So what have I been thinking about this week?
Well, I was going to write something about how publicly listed corporations, through having a legal obligation to maximise the return for their investors, are forces for evil in the world. It’s a common theme in my writing, and this week the thought was sparked off by reading about Body Shop being taken over by L’Oreal. However the impetus was mollified (for this week) by reading Merrick’s excellent piece on the subject. So on that subject… “what he said!”
And talking about Merrick, you should probably read Iceland: Greenpeace’s Shameful Silence for news of a new spin on an old environmental issue… hydroelectricity and the uses to which we put this so-called, self-styled “green” energy.
Which brings me onto the topic of today’s sermon… wind power. Y’know, I’m scared witless that someone’s going to discover some great environmental problem with wind power. Turns out that wind-turbines slow down the earth’s rotation… killing all the bees or something. In my view, that’ll be the final message from this planet that we’re just not wanted anymore.
Oh, and those of you who object to the things on aesthetic grounds can piss off. Sorry, but there you have it. I think they look lovely. But then, I think power pylons look lovely too… and I don’t hear anyone objecting to them as long as they can watch Big Fricking Brother on Satellite Television! So when the wind-farm protesters start demanding the removal of the pylons (starting with the ones connecting up their towns), I’ll start listening to their objections about aesthetics.
And no, the “bird deaths” thing doesn’t wash either. Clearly there will be certain areas where a wind farm would be particularly destructive to migrating birds (Altamont in San Francisco turned out to be one such area), and they should be avoided. But then you hear about a wind farm located – many would say foolishly –
… at the San Gorgonio Pass […] near Palm Springs. A 1986 study found that 69 million birds flew though the San Gorgonio Pass during the Spring and Fall migrations. During both migrating seasons, only 38 dead birds were found during that typical year, representing only 0.00006% of the migrating population.
Mike Sagrillo | Putting Wind Power’s effect on birds into perspective
There will be those who say that 38 dead birds is 38 too many. But when you do put that number into perspective, it becomes a no-brainer. I have to wonder where the people who say “38 is too many” stand on the issue of the 130 million killed by power lines in the US alone each year? Or the estimated 1 billion globally that die simply from colliding with glass windows? Do they still drive cars despite the 70 million or so birds that are killed by US automobiles each year?
And let’s not forget the toll from those oil spills and other fossil-fuel pollutants that gets replaced by the wind farms. Mike Sagrillo (from whom I stole all the stats, read his article) points out that even the heavily criticised Altamont farm would need to operate for up to 1,000 years to kill as many birds as one oil tanker spillage.
There are huge issues with wind power of course. It’s inefficient when compared with fossil fuels (but it does pass all the ERoEI tests… in simple terms, wind farms produce more energy than it takes to manufacture and maintain them). It’s not an “always-on” energy source. But frankly, we’re going to have to start understanding that the way we treat energy usage has to change.
And here’s my proposition (or part of it)… I’m concentrating here on Ireland and Northern Europe… other parts of the world will need other solutions. It’s all about localisation.
Simply put; we need a two-tier electricity grid.
The first tier is for essential services. Hospitals obviously. Plus public transportation. Also I propose some kind of facility which would provide – among other things – refrigeration for the local community, plus other non-essential but useful electricity services (charge points for mobile phones and laptop computers; that sort of thing). This tier will be kept going – using a combination of tidal, existing hydro, sustainable biomass, and batteries charged during times of “wind surplus”. Which in northwest Europe will be pretty frequently.
The second tier is for the rest of us. Once there’s more electricity in the system than is required for essentials, then – for those not in a position to have their own small home wind-turbine (tens of thousands of which will be feeding their own surplus into the grid during windy days) – lights and televisions can start coming on across the country.
It will require a huge investment in infrastructure, but we’ve probably still got a few years of cheap oil left if we decide to manage it sensibly. And it will require a huge shift in attitude, a huge change in lifestyle, a revolutionary approach to the next two decades. Maybe I’ve been reading too much Orwell of late, but as he would say; there’s no question that we have the physical tools at our disposal… all it requires – and I use the word ‘political’ in its broadest sense here – is the political will.
Renewable sources of energy and the suitable industrial infrastructure are massively underdeveloped. The problems you cite of available demand are beginning to pinch, even now with fossil fuel systems, presumably against rising fuel costs.
I was shocked to learn that in the UK we have 2 full scale power stations running continualy above energy requirements just to cope with the energy peak that occurs during advert breaks during evening television viewing.
But don’t worry this appalling wastage has a solution. We just all have to buy new appliances! Grid Aware appliances which detect when there is a power surge and switch off.
This initiative hit the news last week here in the UK and while it does have some merit it looks to me that it will generate more wastage in discarded appliances than it could ever do in efficiency improvements. Additionally i can’t see how it would help unless we all bought new appliances. So clearly utterly ineffective unless it were actually legislated for, which it isn’t. Ethical consumerism suddenly is looking like a easy target for a business opportunity. Oh and to top it all this is funded by a charity.
There are some excellent canidates for dealing with the problem of uneven power demand, which as I say is not just a problem for renewables. Seen historicaly its always been a problem, just not so anyone would care as the cost of fossil fuels has made it an insignificant consideration.
The flywheel is a great candidate and the type of solution that big industry could do really well. But this would need major investment on the part of the now private (or French) power industry. I assume the cost of fuel is still not high enough warrant such investment.
As you say Jim real political will is needed, ethical consumerism just won’t be enough.
March 25th, 2006 | 6:59pm
by Matt Gahan
The sporadicness of wind becomes less of a problem the more wind farms you build – if it’s not windy in Mayo it probably is in Cork or somewhere.
The problem we’ve had with UK windfarms is their stupid siting. At Cefn Croes in Ceredigion they drained a peat bog – rare habitat made of undecayed moss which, once drained, rots and releases CO2. They chopped down loads of trees (about 60 clear acres per turbine). Then they trumpeted it as environmentally sound.
The go-ahead for the monster Lewis farm is even more stupid. More peat bog drainage, which isn’t only killing rare wildlife and adding CO2 to the atmosphere, but is unsound as a bed for such heavy items. Other peatbog windfarms – Ireland I believe has had one – have had landslips.
None of this is an argument gainst wind farms per se, but as long as peat bogs are cheaper than fucking golf courses, we’ll be siting them badly.
The thing about Orwell’s tools vs political will thing is curious. I saw Tony Benn speak last autumn. He said that we’d need several dozen earths to provide everyone with an American standard of living. He also said we squander our wealth on weaponry when the same money could pay for eveyone to live well. He said ours was the first generation that had the welath to be able to make the choice.
He assumed that ‘having the money’ equates to ‘having the resources to supply what the money wants to buy’.
Also, as we’re undoubtedly near the American end of the consumption spectrum, us Europeans need to consume a fucksight less. Which means the political will you/Orwell speak of is something new, something Benn avoided in his money=ability view. It means we have to demand less for ourselves.
As everyone I know is well informed about this and yet we all still fritter away unsustainable resources for frivolous uses, I’m not too hopeful. We’ll keep going until it’s taken off us.
March 26th, 2006 | 1:08pm
by Merrick
We’ll keep going until it’s taken off us.
– By which time it’ll be too late. As you know, Merrick, I completely agree with your assessment of the likelihood of a genuinely enlightened response to peak oil. I have no real belief that humanity will begin to act intelligently for the first time in history. But my point remains… we do actually have the resources (as of right now) to build a genuinely sustainable Europe where everyone works and consumes less, but aren’t in danger of starvation or freezing to death.
However, in order to build such a society, we need to begin diverting huge amounts of resources right now. If we wait until we no longer have the oil to run our cars, then we won’t have enough to solve our problem either. Let’s not forget; we built our current energy-hungry system using half the crude oil in the ground. We’ve still got half left (albeit at an ever-decreasing rate of extraction) to build something sane.
But so long as we’re burning our resources to fight foreign wars, or run a fleet of private cars, or fly around the world on a whim then we’re clearly not using those resources for the good of our future.
March 26th, 2006 | 2:27pm
by Jim