Wind Turbines and Silver Spoons

I have some  questions for you my despised and disgruntled Little Englanders.

Say you had a nice little rowing boat. A fine little craft which you loved and loved you back. It loved you in a way that only boat owners (and their boats) can know.

Let us give our fine little craft an inspiring name.

Let us call her "Tellus Mater" - after the Roman goddess.  After all, this is not a Greek tragedy - even for Dioclese.

Lets say that on one terrible day, our fine little craft "Tellus Mater" sprung a leak. She started to sink. Remember, you love your little "Tellus Mater" and your little "Tellus Mater" loves you back. You would, no doubt be alarmed, panic stricken even.

But maybe you are also strapped for cash (like Billothewisp). There are mouths to feed, fires to stoke, bills to pay. Oh, so many demands! On such a little a budget!

Maybe you only have a tenner in your pocket. You need to buy a bailer for the boat but you need to feed the kids as well.

What do you do? (this is multiple choice so you don't have to take your socks off to answer it)

Do you:

1. Buy an effective bailer that you can rely on.

2. Spend your money on some really fashionable silver spoons.

OK that may seem somewhat bizarre. So lets us work up some model answers to both possibilities.

Answer 1:

With your effective bailer you save the boat. Then with the change left over buy some food for the kids. Job done. (Drama Queens need not apply).

or

Answer 2:

With your silver spoons in your hands you sneer your disdain about anyone who would buy anything as ugly as a proper bailer.

Unfortunately baling the boat out with your spoons proves difficult. They only bail tiny amounts of water and often they fail to bail out anything at all.

You pride and joy - the fine little boat "Tellus Mater" gets ever lower in the water.

You desperately buy more spoons and clutch more spoons in each hand. You paddle desperately at the water.

The man selling the spoons is very happy and tells you what a fine example you make and suggests ugly bailers should be banned.

You sneer at those around you who suggest that you really need a good bailer and the spoons are simply a waste of money and time. Eventually though, out of irritation, and seeing your spoons do not really work all that well, you heed their advice.

You take out a loan and buy a bailer as well.

Of course from then on most of the bailing gets done by the bailer, but every now and then when the conditions are <just> right you revert to using the spoons.

At last little "Tellus Mater" is saved.

The spoons are still wonderfully fashionable and you can grandstand to all those around you. You can tell them about how wonderful your spoons are and how they are the true saviour of "Tellus Mater" Meanwhile the despised bailer is chucked over the side.

The Grotty Yotties down from the city, sitting at anchor on their floating Eco Gin Palaces, hear your fine words and listen transfixed. They need silver spoons as well! A competition ensues.

Who has the most silver spoons?
Who is the most fashionable?

Ugly bailers are abandoned en-masse, just in case they ruin the new image.

The man selling the spoons is very, very happy. Your kids though are crying because they have gone unfed. (moan.. moan.. moan.. some people are always complaining)

Meanwhile, unseen by you and the Grotty Yotties the skies have darkened. A few spots of rain announce the coming storm.

All of the bailers have drifted away........


So my grubby little international band of compatriots what is the moral of this tale?

Well funnily enough the average sized bailer holds about 2 litres of the old briny, whereas a fashionable silver dessert spoon holds about 20 milli-litres of the same salt sea ocean.

The ratio then is about 100:1

Just by utter coincidence a modern nuclear power station is rated around 920MW whereas a shiny new fashionable  wind farm consisting of four of the very largest turbines is rated at just under 9.2MW (although really it only ever manages about 2MW).

Again we have a ratio of 100:1

So, in a tight spot, what do we choose? 

Ugly bailers or silver spoons?

Nuclear power or wind turbines?

Practicality or Fashion-ability?

Oh, Decisions. Decisions.

Wind Power, Winter and No Wind

Just a short update on the contribution the theoretical 2.4GW of metered wind generation is making  at this critical time.

Here are some figures from NETA and a little commentary from me.

Using the same data set, yesterday and earlier today, NETA came up with these predictions:

This gives peak output (NOT the average) as 4% rising to 5% of the rated output. The prediction is that output may treble tomorrow. But this will still be only 16% of the total boiler-plate rating - and will peak at 21:00 - just in time for people to start turning in for the night. Even then it is still a shamefully low figure.

If we look at the contribution made by different types of generation :

We see that the contribution from windpower is 0.1%. From the much lauded boiler-plate rating it should be just under 4.5%

That is, the total metered wind-turbine supply in all of the UK, at this time of maximum demand is providing us with 1/1000th of what we need. The boiler-plate rating the wind industry keeps boasting about states it should be about 1/25th.

We have actually been buying 12 times as much as this from the French. Even the pumped storage facility in Wales (usually used to meet short lived demand peaks and to control the mains frequency) provided eleven times as much. Hydroelectricity, of which we have very little, still provided double the wind power output.

It has been like this for days.

Luckily we are not in a position where we are dependant on wind for serious power generation.

But what if we were?

What if we were dependant on wind power or, in this weather, on its spinning reserve? What if the wind power "enthusiasts" get their way and we largely replace coal generation with wind turbines backed up by CCGT (Combined Cycle Gas Turbines)

On first look, it appears that it would not matter - during a time like this we simply would be using the CCGT spinning reserve.

Regrettibly it does matter. It matters massively. Dare I say it matters catastrophically. During weather like we are having right now, it would push our dependence on Gas to almost 70%.  We would need to significantly increase the gas transport infrastructure to feed these CCGT stations. Most importantly we would need to stockpile much more gas. At the moment, our meagre 7 day supply relies on the fact that power generation can, over a number of days, maximise use of coal and nuclear and minimise gas. That goes out the window if you need to guard against wind power failing and have no other option but to use gas..

I'll explain fully in a future post. Possibly the next, maybe the one after that. But I havn't got time to elaborate at the moment.

Wind Turbines and Spinning Reserve

When the supporters of wind turbines run out of wishful thinking they usually try disparaging the legitimate concerns of those of us who view these ineffective monstrosities with the contempt they deserve.

It has long been pointed out that due to the vaguaries of the wind, there needs to be a backup ready to take over when they stop turning. The latest jolly wheeze our dreamworld compatriots have come up with is that there does not need to be any more backup as there is already enough spinning reserve.

For those who do not know the jargon: We have our power supplied mainly by base load generation. That is power stations running on full load. Nuclear power is particularly good at this. This is then backed up by spinning reserve. This spinning reserve can provide small corrections to the power requirement in which case it is said to go from spinning reserve and into generation. But is there mainly ready to kick in if anything goes wrong, like a major grid failure or power station failure. Spinning reserve power stations are using fuel but providing no electricity. The energy used is dissipated in the cooling towers.

The pro wind turbine lobby assert that as the spinning reserve is bigger than any single power supply unit then it should also be quite capable of coping with any drop of output from wind turbines. On a (very) shallow level that sounds like a good point but really we need to look at what the spinning reserve is there for.

Spinning reserve is an emergency backup. Its  size is calculated to allow the grid to cope with major failure of otherwise reliable and predictable components.

And that is the point. 

The major failure of a power station is a crisis and the spinning reserve is there to ensure there are no power cuts. The spinning reserve currently built into the system is most certainly not there to iron out the erratic output of wind turbines as well. 

If (god forbid) anyone actually builds another of these off-shore wind farm abortions and it then suffered a major grid failure, well: Yes. That is what the spinning reserve is for.  

But  it is most certainly not there to cope with the wind suddenly dropping. If you want to cope with that you need more spinning reserve.

The most shocking aspect of the pro-turbine dreamers is their sheer propensity to be at best, economical with the truth and at worst, lie through their teeth.

One day we will look back on all this lunacy and view it with derision. I just hope and pray that when that day comes the lights will still be working.