2014 ndi 6ws-fitzmier, Lundberg, Abelkop Economy Disads Spending da
Download 0.74 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Offshore Wind Energy too costly-development location and tech challenges make turbines too costly to make
Link—Offshore windOffshore wind is overly expensive-resource limitations increase costs of structuresOcean Energy Council 14(“Offshore Wind Energy”, http://www.oceanenergycouncil.com/ocean-energy/offshore-wind-energy/) Although it would be technically feasible to mount wind turbines on floating structures, studies have shown that it would be very expensive to do this. However, technical developments may make floating offshore wind farms economically feasible in the future. WHY OFFSHORE WIND ENERGY? There are several factors which suggest the development of an offshore wind energy industry. The resource is extremely large, the energy costs, although initially higher than for onshore, are cheaper than other renewable technologies and the risks are low, as several demonstration projects elsewhere have shown. Many people, while agreeing that wind turbines are a useful strategy, are not happy to see them in their area. This is the NIMBY principle – not in my back yard. Siting wind turbines at sea will reduce the constraints that can be found on land, such as the visual impact and planning challenges. Greater distance will reduce visual impact from land Opportunity to apply new technologies Similar issues on the potential impact on fish and mollusc stocks, bird life and seabed sediment, Navigation and fishing issues may be greater Water may be deeper Weather and the sea state may be rougher Economics may dictate larger turbines with limited proven performance Installation will be more difficult and costly Connection costs will be greater Maintenance will be more difficult and costly Wind farms will have to be larger to provide economies of scale to cover these costs Investment and risk will be greater America currently uses some 95 Quad – - one quad is equivalent to 1 quadrillion BTU or a one followed by 15 zeros. Some estimate that we could generate 100 Quad if we deployed anywhere from 3-10 million wind machines, (on Alaskan coastal plain?) depending on the size of the machines used. The electricity produced by these machines would be converted to hydrogen, which in turn can be stored and shipped via pipeline, tanker or cryogenic bulk carrier. The technology is well developed but off-shore wind is expensive because of construction costs and bringing the power to grid. Disadvantages: Wind is not predictable so other forms of power must be available to make up any shortfall. Harry Braun, Hydrogen News, proposes: The cost of electricity is a major factor in hydrogen production costs. Although any solar energy option can generate the electricity needed for hydrogen production, the cost of electricity generated from photovoltaic solar cells is approximately 10-times more expensive than the electricity generated from megawatt-scale wind machines. State-of-the-art wind systems, which have an installed capital cost of approximately $1,000 per kW and a 35% capacity factor, are able to generate electricity for approximately 4-cents per kWh. If the wind systems are mass-produced like automobiles for large-scale hydrogen production, their capital costs will be expected to drop to well below $300/kW, which will reduce the cost of electricity to 1 or 2-cents per kilowatt hour (kWh). There is some scope for reversing the whole way we look at power supply, in its 24-hour, 7-day cycle, using peak load equipment simply to meet the daily peaks. Today’s peak-load equipment could be used to some extent to provide infill capacity in a system relying heavily on renewables. The peak capacity would complement large-scale solar thermal and wind generation, providing power when they were unable to. Improved ability to predict the intermittent availability of wind enables better use of this resource. In Germany it is now possible to predict wind generation output with 90% certainty 24 hours ahead. This means that it is possible to deploy other plant more effectively so that the economic value of that wind contribution is greatly increased. Offshore Wind Energy too costly-development location and tech challenges make turbines too costly to makePlatts 13(Jim, Lecturer in Manufacturing Engineering Tripos at University of Cambridge, “Offshore wind is too expensive, and that’s unlikely to change”, The Conversation, December 5, 2013, http://theconversation.com/offshore-wind-is-too-expensive-and-thats-unlikely-to-change-20987) A joint venture between Vestas and Mitsubishi is developing a large, 8MW wind turbine but production won’t go ahead until there are sufficient orders to make it worthwhile. A leader in this month’s Windpower Monthly, the industry journal, explains that “collaboration is vital for offshore future” and that “the European wind industry continues to suffer from political indecision and backtracking on subsidies.“ The UK is a particular offender for this, as shown by this week’s changing figures. Likewise Germany, which had intended to build more than 30GW of offshore capacity, now aims for 6.5GW – and only if the price is right, which it currently isn’t. Building things in the middle of the sea is very, very expensive, and that isn’t going to change. Foundations all at sea Pictures of offshore wind turbines look very much like those on land. But what lies beneath the water, and getting it there, is the problem. A standard Siemens 3.6MW turbine, rotor, gearbox, electronics and all, weighs around 250 tonnes. The steel tower that supports it when used on land weighs about 260 tonnes. At the Dong Energy windfarm at Walney off the Cumbrian coast the water is 30m deep. A huge steel cylinder is driven 30m into the seabed – it weighs 600 tonnes, and comes from China. A connector sleeve that links the cylinder to the tower that is inserted into it weighs 300 tonnes, and also comes from China. These are very expensive and cost a great deal to put in place. Then there is the matter of bringing the electricity ashore. All in all, it’s expensive and energy intensive. Challenging connections Germany has four offshore wind farms connected to the grid, with each connected by cables of different voltages and substations of different designs – essentially what happened to be available at the time each system was ordered. More standardisation is needed to cut costs, but in truth the complexities of moving material out to sea, setting it up, and connecting high voltage equipment underwater, over 100 miles, will require many leaps in technology before offshore wind farms are robust and economical. When asked what the wind power sector might look like ten years hence, Jonathan Cole, offshore managing director of Spanish firm Iberdrola said “unless offshore wind is 40% cheaper in a decade it won’t matter what the sector looks like, because offshore won’t be part of it.” Little England The UK holds 3.5% of the world’s wind energy capacity. About a third is offshore, but even this small amount accounts for more than half of all offshore wind installations on the planet. This is not a good place to be. In the 1980s I created the designs, the manufacturing processes, the team and the company that made all the wind turbine blades in the UK. My old team is now the global blade technology development centre for Vestas on the Isle of Wight. I have many, many years experience in technology development of all sorts. But with the exception of a few groups of engineers such as my old team, the UK seems to have no understanding of what developing wind technology involves. It is barely part of this 30-year-old industry that employs over 150,000 people in Europe alone, yet prides itself on having more than 50% of this tiny offshore non-market that the big boys in the real wind energy industry such as GE ignore, as it will never be good business. But the UK is so illiterate in these strategic technical matters, with an unruly market with unclear and changing policies, full of protesters ignorant of not only how the technology works, but what is required to sustain it as an economically viable industry. Offshore wind is at best an area of research and development, not a real market. Even in its wildest dreams, offshore is a niche market, fraught with technical difficulty and seriously expensive. Instead the industry’s efforts are put to developing larger rotors and taller towers for its workhorse machines to generate more electricity at lower costs in southern Germany, for example, where the market is. It’s unlikely whether such developments, even with the best forward planning and standardisation, can ever make a good economic case for offshore wind over anything else, despite what the government hopes to achieve with its paltry financial incentives. Directory: wp-content -> uploads -> 2014 2014 -> For want of a nail 2014 -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 2014 -> Ihbb asian Championships 2014 middle school bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> Ihbb european Championships 2014 Bowl Round 4 First Quarter 2014 -> International History Bee and Bowl 2013-14 Asian Division Question Set Bowl Round Six 2014 -> United states patent and trademark office 2014 -> Coffs harbour eisteddfod vocal syllabus 2014 -> Listen News Programs Schedule pledge now 2014 -> Slow club announce third album complete surrender Download 0.74 Mb. Share with your friends:
|