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Power is blowing in the Wind
A few years ago the United States was the world leader in the development
of wind energy, but that is no longer true. European countries have taken
the lead, leaving America behind. Recently there has been a renewed interest
in America's wind potential and manufacturers of large wind turbines are
looking toward the Ocean. In many places off the shores of the United
States strong winds blow over the surface of the Ocean.
The energy potential carried in ocean winds has encouraged the development
of a new generation of wind turbines designed specifically for offshore
service. These new giant wind turbines are rated at greater than 3 megawatts.
That means that one turbine, operating at full capacity can produce over
3,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity, every hour, as long as a strong wind
blows. GE Wind Energy has a 3.6
megawatt turbine designed for offshore
installation.
Giant
wind turbines are usually set up in groups called wind farms.
An offshore wind farm consisting of 300 wind turbines rated at 3.6 megawatts
each, would produce as much electricity as a typical nuclear power plant
(about a million kilowatt-hours per hour), as long as the wind blows.
Building the wind farms offshore provides an added benefit: because the
wind turbines are positioned anywhere between ten and one hundred miles
off the coast, people on shore can’t hear them or see them. The world's
oceans cover more than 70% of the planet's surface. Because the surface
of the ocean is so large, millions of wind turbines could be built and
positioned at sea. The potential energy from wind at sea is yet to be
realized.
Wind technology faces three major challenges: cost, energy storage,
and transmission of power to the consumer. The cost is in the high upfront
capital investment. But after the initial investment is made, the wind
is free; it is the cost of building the machines that is expensive. The
manufacturing costs are coming down; the capital investment for a Wind
farm will be comparable to the cost of building a new coal fired electric
plant that has equivalent generating capacity.
Energy storage and transmission lines are infrastructure. The best
locations for capturing wind power are not always conveniently located
near population
areas. The electricity produced by the wind turbine needs to be connected
to a utility grid that delivers power to homes and businesses. The utility
grid requires a steady, predefined voltage. Wind is not steady or predictable.
The solution is to store the energy generated by the wind turbine and
then draw from the stored power to generate electricity when needed.
One way to store the winds energy is to use the electrical power generated
by the wind turbine to run an air compressor and then store the compressed
air in an underground reservoir. The compressed air is then used to
drive
a conventional gas turbine, which generates a steady, predefined voltage
for the utility grid. Municipal
utilities in Iowa have decided to go with the compressed air option. Other types of energy storage are possible, such as pumped
hydro and hydrogen
gas.
A Case
Study of the Cost, Price, and Value of Wind-Generated Electricity
Prepared for presentation at the
North American Energy Summit Western Governors' Association
Albuquerque, New Mexico, April 15-16, 2004
Excerpt from Chapter 1: The Wind Energy Resource
- An Introduction
There is now general agreement that
emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases due to human
activities
are playing a significant role in climate change. Conflicts over control
of oil have been rife in the world for nearly a century; they continue.
But in the last decade-and-a-half a major new resource, greater
than
the oil that transformed the economy of the twentieth century has become
economically viable – energy from wind.
The global
land-based wind energy resource is several times the world’s total
electricity generation.
Photo: Courtesy of Archer and Jacobson / Journal of Geophysical Research
This map of global wind speeds shows that land-based wind power has the potential to produce
five times more energy than the world consumes. The offshore wind resource potential may be even
greater.
The United States is well endowed with wind energy
in areas where it is developable. The top 12 states (of the lower 48)
with high wind energy in areas with large farms and lands on which wind
turbines can be built have a total potential of about 10 billion megawatt-hours,
equivalent to roughly 2.6 times the total electricity generation of
the U.S. This excludes offshore wind energy. This is, of course, a statement
of the resource base. A great deal of investment, not only in wind farms,
but also in infrastructure, especially transmission infrastructure,
will be required before even a fraction of this physical resource base
can be turned into a technical and economic reality in the U.S. energy
system.
Another way to look at it is that the annual
amount of wind energy that can be generated is the same order of magnitude
as the entire annual oil output of all countries belonging to the Organization
of Petroleum Exporting States in physical terms. About two percent of
the wind resource in the twelve most windy states would, over 40 years,
be equivalent to the entire oil reserves of the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, assuming they are as high as 10 billion barrels. Of course,
the wind energy potential would still be available after that, while
the oil reserves of ANWR would be exhausted. North Dakota, Texas, and
South Dakota together (or any three of the top five states together)
have enough wind energy to displace all U.S. oil imports, which at present
stand at 11 million barrels per day. We will discuss how wind energy
and efficiency initiatives can indirectly help reduce oil consumption
in cars... The New Mexico wind energy resource alone is the same order
of magnitude as US oil imports from the Persian Gulf region. As noted
above, these comparisons give a broad picture of the magnitudes of energy
involved (rather than an exact technical equivalence). Of course, translating
this potential into an actual reduction in oil imports to realize the
positive impact on security will be a complex and costly matter.
When considering the economics of wind
as compared to fossil fuels, it is important to recall the actual
magnitude of the
investment associated with oil and natural gas production. In 2003,
the International Energy Agency estimated that the world investment
in oil and gas between 2001 and 2030 will equal nearly $6.1 trillion.
Almost $3.9 trillion of that expenditure is expected to be in exploration
and development costs alone. The U.S. and Canadian investment in
oil
and natural gas over this time period is predicted to be more than
one-fourth of the global total. Looking just at the two largest
U.S. oil companies,
Chevron-Texaco and Exxon-Mobil, we note that between 2000 and 2002
they spent a combined total of $31.3 billion on exploration and
production
while their net output actually dropped by just over 2% per year over
that same time. Energy is a costly business, and a vital one. Huge
energy-related
investments in the supply, transport, and demand sectors are inescapable
for a modern economy. A central question is whether and under what
circumstances
these investments make economic sense. But there are also other factors – climate
change and security issues, in particular, are problems associated
increasingly with greater use of petroleum.
Wind energy development has been proceeding rapidly
in the past few years. It is the fastest growing source of electricity.
But this is from a small base. Total installed wind capacity in the
United States at the end of 2003 was 6,370 MW. This is far lower than
the 28,440 megawatts of capacity in the European Union at the end of
2003, equivalent to the electricity consumption of 35 million people
in the European Union and providing 2.4% of the total EU electricity
consumption. In 2002 and again in 2003 Europe added almost as much wind
capacity as the entire U.S. installed capacity. Wind energy meets less
than half a percent of U.S. electricity demand. The present low level
of U.S. use of wind is in stark contrast with its immense potential
in economic, environmental and security terms.
Wind Power power could become the World's Leading Energy Source
Wind Power can offer protection from the price swings caused by uncertain
natural gas supplies
References:
www.awea.org —the
American Wind Energy web site
Wind Powering America
PUTTING WIND POWER'S EFFECT ON BIRDS IN PERSPECTIVE
Resources:
www.Windtesting.com
Advanced Composites, Inc.
Guided Tour on wind energy
The National Wind Technology Center
Energy Storage:
The Missing Link in the Electricity Value Chain
High-Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Transmission:
GE
HVDC technology
ABB HVDC technology
Superconducting Transmission Lines
Nanotechnology leads to discovery of super superconductors
High-Voltage Composite Electricity Transmission Lines:
Composite
Technology Corporation
Composite-Reinforced Aluminum Conductor (CRAC)
CRAC-TelePower: Electricity and Data over the same line—Produced by the California Energy Commission
 size: 44 page report—
238Kb
Recommended reading:
Our Energy Challenge
by Nobel Laureate Dr. Richard E. Smalley
Zero Interest Financing —Investment Capital for American Energy Independence
Projects
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