Japan earthquake + tsunami + nuclear problems

[portlandatheist]

I live near the Columbia river gorge, site of a substantial wind farm. I think what people seem to be forgetting here with all the number crunching is that we will ALWAYS need on demand baseload energy no matter how much installed wind capacity you have. Even if the wind farms produce all the energy needed measured over the period of a year, it still produces no energy when the wind is not blowing. Our wind farms are of no use to us when the wind isn't blowing and when the strong East winds kick in, it does benefit us but sadly, it overwhelms the grid and the majority of the energy isn't harvested and is simply wasted. It would be really nice and clever to think of a use of that excess energy for needs that aren't time sensitive like pumping water up river, heating molten salt, making hydrogen, or something else. Any of those options would require another huge amount of infrastructure and probably still wouldn't solve the need for on demand power. The point is, no matter how much wind capacity we have, its a mute point when the wind isn't blowing.

 

[Dymanic]

Also, does anyone have an estimate of the annual power usage per household that is better than mine?

According to the US Department of Energy, the average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year. That works out to a little over one kilowatt-hour per household per hour (one megawatt hour for a thousand households), but not by much.

 

[Dymanic]

It would be really nice and clever to think of a use of that excess energy for needs that aren't time sensitive like pumping water up river, heating molten salt, making hydrogen, or something else.

Iceland has been developing an aluminum smelting industry as a means of exploiting its abundance of hydro and geothermal power. They import the ore, and essentially export electricity as embedded energy in the smelted aluminum. And there's a solar power plant in Spain (Andasol) that uses molten salt as a storage medium.

 

[Christian Klippel]

Iceland has been developing an aluminum smelting industry as a means of exploiting its abundance of hydro and geothermal power. They import the ore, and essentially export electricity as embedded energy in the smelted aluminum. And there's a solar power plant in Spain (Andasol) that uses molten salt as a storage medium.

Yeah, Iceland is really great when it comes to renewables. The energy is literally spewing out from the surface there. To bad it's not everywhere like that. Germany kind of sucks in that regard. Not much sun with high intensity, only a few months per year. And wind isn't that great here either, on average.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[portlandatheist]

Iceland has been developing an aluminum smelting industry as a means of exploiting its abundance of hydro and geothermal power. They import the ore, and essentially export electricity as embedded energy in the smelted aluminum. And there's a solar power plant in Spain (Andasol) that uses molten salt as a storage medium.

We have the Goldendale Aluminum plant right next to a dam(and now a large wind farm) for the same reasons as you mentioned above and it runs when electricity can be bought inexpensively(essentially when there is "extra" electricity). My main point is that this is infrastructure that needs to be taken into consideration beyond simply calculating the energy output of wind farms. Even with the Goldendale Aluminum plant, lots of electricity gets wasted and it would nice to see more things like it that take advantage of excess energy that would otherwise be left underutilized and we still need our baseload energy sources and likely always will.

 

[lomiller]

We have a total installed capacity of 27,214 MW = roundabout 27 GW. If it could run 24/7 that would result in 27 * 24 * 365 = 236.520 GWh = roundabout 237 TWh per year fed into the grid. However, the real amount fed into the grid is actually roundabout 39 TWh per year. That makes for a ratio of 237 / 39 = 6.07..., or roundabout 6. So, the turbines are running only 24 / 6 = 4 hours per day on average. That means that without a storage system, you will have 20 hours per day without electricity. Using a storage system, you need to install 6 times the capacity of what would be needed for the households if the turbines could run 24/7.

Germany is indeed normally under 20% capacity factor, but that’s in large part because Germany is relatively wind poor. Capacity factor for good locals typically runs between 25% - 35%, and some farms with very good sites it can be over 40%. This does not mean the wind farm “is only generating electricity 25% - 35% of the time” rather it means the farm is producing electricity most of the time but at a rate below its nameplate capacity.

Capacity factor is, of course, always considered when calculating how much energy a wind farm will produce, this makes sites with low expected capacity factor more expensive because you need more turbines to get the same energy but doesn’t impact their ability to produce any given amount of energy.

 

[macdoc]

Originally Posted by portlandatheist
It would be really nice and clever to think of a use of that excess energy for needs that aren't time sensitive like pumping water up river, heating molten salt, making hydrogen, or something else.

like charging eVs perhaps ;-)

 

[Christian Klippel]

Germany is indeed normally under 20% capacity factor, but that’s in large part because Germany is relatively wind poor. Capacity factor for good locals typically runs between 25% - 35%, and some farms with very good sites it can be over 40%. This does not mean the wind farm “is only generating electricity 25% - 35% of the time” rather it means the farm is producing electricity most of the time but at a rate below its nameplate capacity.

Capacity factor is, of course, always considered when calculating how much energy a wind farm will produce, this makes sites with low expected capacity factor more expensive because you need more turbines to get the same energy but doesn’t impact their ability to produce any given amount of energy.

Right. My calculation was indeed simplified, just to make the point that it is not possible to say that a turbine has 1 MW and thus can deliver power to homes requiring 1 MW all the time on average. Wind is a tricky thing. Too little, and it won't even spin. Then there is the "good zone", and above that they put on the brakes. At least the ones that i'm somewhat familiar with.

Over here i have seen almost exclusively the "wattage fallacy" in all the media. They talk about how many MW a nuclear plant has, and that this can be replaced by the same MW for a turbine, and hey, presto, we can turn of the reactors because we have the capacity we need! Once i tell the people that such calculations are worthless, and tell them about the capacity factor, i almost exclusively get a look like a deer in the headlights. Then you can almost see the brains working to figure out how much would be really needed. And once you bring up the problem of storage, they are pretty much lost anyways.

To me, that is basically lying to the people, just to push an agenda. Of course they don't tell "real lies", but they just don't tell the whole story, carefully avoiding to mention such facts. Just yesterday i read a story about how great solar is in Germany. 11 GW, up to 13 GW! That can save a lot of reactors, they tell. But they also completely omit the fact that this is a peak value, in the summer, under good conditions. That's just dishonest, in my opinion.

Greetings,

Chris

 

[r-j]

Like saying the Fukushima plants can deliver vast quantities of clean power with no danger to Japan? Or that nobody could foresee this disaster?

TOKYO—Japanese regulators discussed in recent months the use of new cooling technologies at nuclear plants that could have lessened or prevented the disaster that struck this month when a tsunami wiped out the electricity at the stricken Fukushima Daiichi power facility.

However, they chose to ignore the vulnerability at existing reactors and instead focused on fixing the issue in future ones, government and corporate documents show. There was no serious discussion of retrofitting older plants with the alternative technology, known as "isolation condensers," government advisers said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703410604576216481092750122.html

Or that the amount of radiation released is nothing to worry about?

 

[lomiller]

To me, that is basically lying to the people, just to push an agenda. Of course they don't tell "real lies", but they just don't tell the whole story, carefully avoiding to mention such facts. Just yesterday i read a story about how great solar is in Germany. 11 GW, up to 13 GW! That can save a lot of reactors, they tell. But they also completely omit the fact that this is a peak value, in the summer, under good conditions. That's just dishonest, in my opinion.

Hot days is summer also happen to be the highest demand period so that 11-13 GW is put to good use when it's there and when it's not it's probably not required. Solar in the mix is a no brainer for this reason alone.

Renewable, particularity wind, are usually described in terms of how many homes they can supply precisely because it allows form the inclusion of capacity factor withing confusing people with nameplate capacity. When talking about the technical details, however, there is little choice but to cite the actual numbers.

At the end of the day just giving the facts is not being deceptive. Now, if someone were directly comparing wind to some other type of generation and not including capacity factor then this is wrong but you have presented little evidence for this actually happening.

TBH it seems to me is that you expect a laundry list of qualifiers every time anyone says any anything positive about renewable but exclude those same background to your own arguments.

 

[lomiller]

Like saying the Fukushima plants can deliver vast quantities of clean power with no danger to Japan?

As things seem to be winding down there is a high certainty it did just that.

Or that nobody could foresee this disaster?

I don't know that anyone has said that. My understanding is that these mark 1 plants are widely considered to fall short of the safety standards of more modern ones. Is things stand, however, even this reduced safety proved to be sufficient to withstand a natural disaster of enormous scale. Now consider that new plants would have fared far better still.

The bottom line is that ultimately this is a compelling story of a threat averted with some lessons for the future, not a nuclear disaster.

 

[Aepervius]

The tsunamis and earthquake did not kill, or maim or displace millions of people in Tokyo, much less further south. The radiation on the other hand, it is an actual problem. No matter how much people claim it isn't.

The radiation did not kill , maim or displace ANYBODY in tokyo.

The tsunami killed (in the 10 of thousands ?) maimed and polluted (industry site destroyed), completely sent an infrastructure to stone age ruining the region economy, WIPED town out of the earth surface.

Rather than go into uncivility on qualifying the intelligence of your comment, and your actual warping of information to your opinion, I would recommend you to either stop trolling , or if you think you are not trolling, to take a bit of time to calm outside this thread to research a bit rather than spout non sense.

 

[Aepervius]

Meanwhile, the suffering in poor Japan just keeps increasing. Those poor babies. And mothers. Now they fear the water they drink. And it's just starting.

The earthquake and tsunami didn't effect most of the people directly. But the radiation, that is causing so much fear and tension. If it's dangerous now, what about in a month? And nobody has any plan at all to deal with this.

OK. Clearly a troll from the language alone.

r-j good boy, byebye.

/ignore.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

The windmill can power the houses only a few hours a day. Or less.

What a lie. Is anyone here honest enough to call somebody on that sort of huge lie?

Wind doesn't blow 24/7, dude.

 

[macdoc]

If it's dangerous now, what about in a month? And nobody has any plan at all to deal with this.

it's called half life - it's radioactive iodine at vanishingly small amounts and it vanishes all by itself...fancy that..

fearmongering jerks come out of the ratholes of ignorance all the time on this topic....

try some knowledge for a change...
http://xkcd.com/radiation/

 

[MattusMaximus]

OK. Clearly a troll from the language alone.

r-j good boy, byebye.

/ignore.

Good idea, I suggest others to likewise.

*Puts r-j on ignore (plonk)*

 

[Puppycow]

The tsunamis and earthquake did not kill, or maim or displace millions of people in Tokyo, much less further south. The radiation on the other hand, it is an actual problem. No matter how much people claim it isn't.

As someone who was in in Tokyo when the earthquake struck, and was stuck in my office for the night because the trains stopped running, I disagree. The shaking was terrifying. The aftershocks are scary too. Seven people actually died in Tokyo. The tap water though, I'm not scared to drink that. Not yet anyway. And they checked the levels again today and they were back down within the legal limit (it was only one location among many that was over the limit on Wednesday).

 

[jayh]

Using these numbers of "X number of households" based on nameplate rating (and even factoring in a duty factor) is very deceptive.

The problem is that wind output varies, unpredictably, from 100% to 0%, whereas households, and even more so industry and electric rail need absolutely rock steady output. Average won't help. The grid cannot store any where remotely near enough electrical power to rely on these types of sources.

True some storage schemes have been proposed (including the sodium mentioned above) but NOT ONE of these is currently doable on anywhere near the scale that is required by the grid.

If more transportation is shifted to electric vehicles which would mostly be recharged at night, then solar really becomes a bigger problem because it is completely useless when it is needed most.

As I mentioned previously, both these require large amounts of backup power. Hot spare generation requires the generators be running at full speed (it takes hours to days to bring a cold generator online), ready to kick in, which defeats the 'renewable' energy component.

 

[Walter Wayne]

Using these numbers of "X number of households" based on nameplate rating (and even factoring in a duty factor) is very deceptive.

The problem is that wind output varies, unpredictably, from 100% to 0%, whereas households, and even more so industry and electric rail need absolutely rock steady output. Average won't help. The grid cannot store any where remotely near enough electrical power to rely on these types of sources.

To be clear, households don't need rocksteady output, they need output that peaks at the same time the households do. Some numbers above suggested around 1kW average power required for households in the States. My toaster oven can consume more than that. In Canada, power consumption is a lot higher in the winter than the summer, so if you want to store generated power, as the excess generated in summer will have to be available at the end of the winter.


P.S. -2 degrees Celsius in Ottawa now, at the end of March.

 

[r-j]

The shaking was terrifying. The aftershocks are scary too. Seven people actually died in Tokyo. The tap water though, I'm not scared to drink that. Not yet anyway. And they checked the levels again today and they were back down within the legal limit (it was only one location among many that was over the limit on Wednesday).

Are you in Tokyo right now?