International Energy Agency Predicts Wind Will Dominate Europe's Grid By 2027 (arstechnica.com) 69
AmiMoJo shares a report from Ars Technica: Today, roughly 25 percent of the European Union's power currently comes from nuclear sources, with coal and gas each delivering a little above 20 percent. Wind constitutes 10 percent of the European Union's energy mix. But by 2027, IEA's forecasts (PDF) put wind just beating all other electricity sources with a 23-percent share of the energy mix. "Other Renewables" like biomass plants contribute a little over 20 percent, gas adds 20 percent, nuclear contributes just a little below 20 percent, and coal declines to just over 10 percent. Solar energy contributes about six or seven percent in the IEA's 2027 scenario. The European Union has a wealth of wind energy, especially offshore wind energy, a sector in which the EU is the global leader. Offshore wind allows turbines to be built bigger, and coastal winds are often stronger and more consistent than onshore winds. [The IEA forecasts 200 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity by 2040.]
Wind Power (Score:1)
aka lots of hot air blowing out of Brussels...
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Hasn't anyone heard of this wonderful (albiet expensive) invention called a BATTERY?
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Why would heavy industry be any different from any other user of electricity? As long as your sources provide sufficient electricity, there isn't any issue.
Re:Good no more trade problems with the EU (Score:4, Funny)
That's a good question lets look.
How Much Does it Cost to Produce One Ton of Aluminum?
Although the newest smelters can be closer to 12,500 kWh per ton, let’s say most smelters are consuming electricity at 14,500-15,000 kWh/ton of ingot produced.
Admittedly Aluminum production is one of the most energy intense industries but the common factor is large scale consumption of power and the need for reliable power. You really don't want to expose a steel mill to a brownout.
Wind is both more expensive and less reliable than conventional sources which is why Germany still operates brown coal power plants for it's steel industry. The more wind you have the more expensive your overall power costs.
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Admittedly Aluminum production is one of the most energy intense industries but the common factor is large scale consumption of power and the need for reliable power. You really don't want to expose a steel mill to a brownout.
Yeah, but the penalty for a brownout when refining bauxite electrolytically is a lot lower than the penalty for a cooldown at a steel mill.
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Admittedly Aluminum production is one of the most energy intense industries but the common factor is large scale consumption of power and the need for reliable power. You really don't want to expose a steel mill to a brownout.
Yeah, but the penalty for a brownout when refining bauxite electrolytically is a lot lower than the penalty for a cooldown at a steel mill.
Yes, I was trying to convey the point that any large scale continuous material processor is going to be very averse to random power outages, and using particular instances to illustrate.
Re:Good no more trade problems with the EU (Score:4, Insightful)
Because Europe is not going to take any measures to keep their grid stable?
I sort of suspect that they are going keep that a high priority as wind capacity is installed, just as they do now and have always done. A whole array of measures are available (long distance transmission to even things out, pumped storage, battery storage, having sectors that can shut down or reduce demand when needed, postpone planned maintenance outages, etc.). Even the pessimistic analyses of fossil fuel proponents admit that the stability problems they predict won't start showing up until the penetration reaches about 30%. This forecast has it increasing to only 27%.
Also the emphasis on randomness is odd, since wind patterns are not in fact random at all, and are predictable with very good accuracy several days out. We aren't talking about the wind blowing on your lawn, but across a huge subcontinent.
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Because Europe is not going to take any measures to keep their grid stable?
Because that is magically free and granted by renewable power fairy ?
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Because that is magically free and granted by renewable power fairy ?
Who says it needs to be free ? It just needs to be cost effective.
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Because Europe is not going to take any measures to keep their grid stable?
Because that is magically free and granted by renewable power fairy ?
No, it isn't free but your sweet coal and nuclear doesn't do jack shit to keep the grid stable so I don't know why you are arguing for them.
In fact, the problem they have is very similar to the ones you get from solar and wind in that the energy production doesn't follow the load. (You can't just ramp up coal and nuclear that quickly.)
That is why you still need a fairly big portion of hydroelectric power plants to deal with the difference between other power sources and the load.
Hydroelectric doesn't care a
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Now explain why in an age of modern grids and battery storage any one form of electricity production would be inherently more prone to brownouts than any other. Please show your work.
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I'm sorry, could you translate this for native English speakers?
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Yes, I was trying to convey the point that any large scale continuous material processor is going to be very averse to random power outages
That makes no sense at all. There are many different processes, and some are much more tolerant of fluctuating power than others. In addition, some processes can be redesigned to be more robust for power fluctuations. You can't cherry pick a particularly sensitive process, and apply it to a range of different industries.
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Admittedly Aluminum production is one of the most energy intense industries but the common factor is large scale consumption of power and the need for reliable power. You really don't want to expose a steel mill to a brownout.
And smelters in Europe go bankrupt when they can't secure connection to German power. [reuters.com] So much for your "expensive overall power costs"...
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24/7 supply that will not stop when the wind stops.
To have the power stop and then start up a heavy industry production line....
A set competitive price so heavy industry can export its products without having to factor in a changing price of power.
Re:Good no more trade problems with the EU (Score:4, Informative)
Actually some heavy industries love wind power-- they get paid to use energy at times. Wind is a great component of a diversified energy grid, especially when the turbines are geographically dispersed. He challenge for wind is its low capacity factor, which means you need to cover ~35% of its rating with either more (geographically dispersed) wind turbines, or another source of dispatchable power.
When you do it with wind, you run the risk that you end up with over-capacity, and you make the other power sources more expensive because you artificially reduce their capacity factor from ~90% to ~10-20%.
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Actually some heavy industries love wind power-- they get paid to use energy at times.
That reads more like other users are forced to subsidize them.
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But they are getting cheaper power at all other times. The reason that wind capacity is increasing is that is a less expensive source of power. I guess those other users are also being "forced" to buy cheaper power then?
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why does people do FUD with wind? maybe they don't really understand it... nobody talks about 100% wind, if there is no wind, you still have all other energy sources, like gas, nuclear, hydric.
There are ALWAYS redundant power sources, even nuclear... if one fails, all other will have to fill the hole... yes, wind may fail more, but it works most of the time and it is CHEAPER than other sources. If there is need for more energy, pump the nuclear, gas, hydric power stagings. During the night, make the wind pu
You can't store wind (Score:1)
Re:You can't store wind (Score:4, Informative)
1. Over a large enough area, the wind is always blowing somewhere. You just need enough capacity. Also: have you ever been near the North Sea? The weather is brutal there.
2. Negative pricing was seen in the UK long before intermittent renewable energy was a significant source of energy for electricity generation.
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Negative pricing is generally caused by transmission limitations rather than broader generation limitations. If you can't get (say) a reasonable percentage of North Sea wind to London, it is quite likely that you will go negative in pricing for some other areas. It doesn't help when the transmission lines are shared with baseload plants that can't quickly respond to load changes.
You need to subsidize new technology in order to move forward. The fact that a number of these price guarantees (subsidies) don'
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the wind mill operators
You have described "wind turbines."
A wind turbine is a device that converts the wind's kinetic energy into electrical energy.
As for windmills...
Centuries ago, windmills usually were used to mill grain (gristmills),
Re:You can't store wind (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck
We've been doing wind-power since the early 1970s, and it makes up 50% of our energy, and NOW you tell me it doesn't work?!? Why didn't you bring us this revelation decades ago, before we made it work?!?!?
Re:Baseload is king for manifacture (Score:4, Informative)
The whole base load thing only came to existence because of coal power plants that weren't able to follow the load. As soon as they (and the nukes) are closed, the base load concept will be retired.
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There are always plenty of idiots that think anything they do not like (usually for demented reasons) "does not work". Ask an actual engineer or scientist and it turns out that is just a lie.
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Storage! (Score:2)
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Grid scale battery technology is getting a lot of study now, but there isn't yet much market demand, and so the focus is more on basic research at this point, rather pushing for commercializing. Lithium is not going to be used on a large scale, you see it in limited use right now simply because it is available because of other markets (like vehicles). Sodium ion batteries, look very promising. They are cousins of lithium ion batteries, but with much cheaper raw materials.
Pumped hydro definitely works and is
Any old port in a high wind (Score:1)
No, Mr. Trump - face the other side of the fan !!
I don't think I'm going to live that long (Score:2)
It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it. On the other hand maybe if western countries stopped screwing with them for cheap oil they could modernize. True story, Iran was a s
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It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it.
No need to speculate because they are already doing it. They use the money to make investments. Dubai is building a resort city to attract business owners, while Qatar buys everything related to sports, football (soccer) in particular.
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It would be interesting to see what the middle east is going to do when the buried treasure that's kept them afloat so long is worth about the same as the rocks that bury it.
I have said this before in a similar discussion, but it bears repeating. Venezuela is probably a solid indicator of what is in store for the Middle East if the petroleum market crashes hard.
US politic commentors should be ashamed (Score:1)
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Its the people like the people commenting here about US politics, and the terrible way they do it.
Yeah, the eyes of the world are on Slashdot! I just got done explaining the Slashdot effect and just how irrelevant this place has become since those days to someone in meatspace.
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sounds like (Score:2)
It sounds like wind has some fans in the EU.
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northern countries have mountains and water, hydric power is the main power source. Yes, solar will not work there, but it works in the south. Wind, there are months (and places) with lot of wind. And as always, you need redundancies, gas included, so each one can fill any hole left by any other power source. And again, if wind blows when it is not needed, pump water to higher places so you can use it later.
When wind works, it is cheaper than everything else and you can save the coal or gas. Notice that you