In April, six Scottish wind farm companies were paid £300,000 (US$485,000) to shut down generation. The problem? Over a two-day period they were producing too much electricity. UK wind power groups were cock-a-hoop. At last, a good news wind energy story not built on the quicksand of fanciful claims to “free” energy(1), for once based on the hard math of actual production.

Unfortunately, the apparent “success” story turns out instead merely to reinforce serious concerns over the volatility of base load supply to power grids from highly variable generation sources; not to mention highlighting yet another ‘hidden’ public subsidy necessary to cope with the problem. According to the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF), the amount of public cash paid to the companies amounts to a staggering 20 times the value of the electricity that would have been generated.

The REF, a British research agency, admits that the variation of wind power generation does pose significant problems for power grid management with “no solution in sight”. The agency further cites two necessary developments if the problem is to be resolved: better energy storage and interconnection with international grids enabling excess generation to be bought and sold. The problem is that industrial scale electricity storage is already the Holy Grail for electricity producers. Equally, it has been shown that the same high pressure-cold weather systems that affect the UK also tend to settle over much of northern Europe, and for extended periods. Thus wind turbine electricity generation – as in this year’s severe January cold spell – can immediately become no spin zones when most needed.

All of which leaves us with the economic and energy realities of the currently insoluble problems associated with variable, especially wind, power generation and power grid stability – the prime subject of two important books that provide a very different perspective on Britain’s “world lead” in wind power generation.

“Forget Renewables”

As computer pioneer John McCarthy of Stanford University has said, “He who refuses to do the arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense”. Ultimately that’s reflected in the avoidance of hard statistics by wind power lobbies reliant on PR spin – forgive the pun – to make the spurious economic case for their product. Dr John Etherington and Derek Birkett are, however, men for whom ‘doing the math’ is everything. Etherington and Birkett have each authored short books. Etherington’s The Wind Farm Scamand Birkett’s, When Will the Lights Go Out? Etherington is a former Reader in Ecology who, since retirement, has specialised in researching the implications of intermittent renewable electricity generation, especially wind power. Birkett is a former Grid Control Engineer for Northern Scotland. What Etherington and Birkett don’t know about their subject isn’t worth knowing.

In his forward to Birkett’s When Will the Lights Go Out, former UK Government Energy Secretary Lord Peter Walker says the book should be read “by Members of Parliament, the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet”. In truth it needs to be much wider given Britain’s renewables and wind pioneering status. Both authors converge to deliver a critical message: the volatile variability of renewable energy additions, especially dominant wind, provides an incremental threat rendering power grids “inherently unstable”. So concerned is grid expert Birkett that he even boils down his book to a stark two-word warning: “forget renewables”.

Unforgiving Beast

Etherington’s The Wind Farm Scam majors on the investment to energy return ratio: that claimed as “capacity” – by an industry with a very substantial stake in building wind farms – v load factor – which easily de-stabilizes power grid mechanisms reliant upon a steady and regular base loading supplies for wider distribution. Etherington provides key statistics which reveal how the “energy content of wind is so small at low speeds that no useful work is available below about 3 m to 5m per second (7 – 11 mph; c. Beaufort 3)” Then “most wind turbines generate between this low speed limit and up to about 25m/s (56 mph; c. Beaufort 9) when they shut down for safety”, much as the enforced Scottish example above.

Throughout Etherington reveals hard statistics that show the basic physics of wind energy, including energy capture, energy loss and associated costs. The book rattles though easy-to-read details of turbine efficiency, increasing problems over turbine noise, the inflated claims of the wind industry over carbon emissions and a range of social issues including bird deaths from rotor blades that often move at up to “150 mph”. Most disturbing of all, however, is the delineation of the lengths to which government has gone to obscure a “purposely complex” and thus “hidden” regime of massive subsidies to pay for renewables, especially wind power. As the writer of the forward to Etherington’s book states, this “makes wind-generated electricity arguably the most heavily subsidized commodity in history”.

While Etherington deals extensively with same key problem, Birkett’s When Will the Lights Go Out? majors on the key issue often lost on public and journalists, that “Comprehension is lost for those who do not appreciate the distinction between capacity and energy.” Both authors cite how the wind industry and their lobbies pro-actively mislead by persistently adducing alleged “maximized capacity” that in practice performs much more poorly. Rather than cite how many homes wind power could support at maximum, for instance, for figures to be meaningful for comparison purposes, says Birkett, “Any estimate of energy output should be stated in megawatt-hours (MWh), nominally over an annual period”. Additionally, such is the gross inefficiency of wind generation, Birkett states “almost all wind capacity needs replication [hydrocarbon back-up] by conventional means”. Needless to say, another infrastructure requirement subsidized via “opaque mechanisms”.

What both authors provide is a much-needed insight into how the real hard statistics presage a looming energy crisis for Britain – and thereby for others – prepared to over-invest in current renewable technology demonstrably unable to “synchronize” with a power grid requiring stable and predictable base loading.

Britain’s wind power sector, especially in Scotland – with all the natural geological advantages other nations mostly do not possess – far from presenting a “world lead” in wind power development, is patently attempting to defeat the laws of energy, as Messrs Etherington and Birkett ably demonstrate; de-stabilizing national power grids into the bargain.

The critical assessments here ought to be central to national and international discussion. But patently, there are those who simply refuse to do the arithmetic, condemned to “talking nonsense”. In short, paying to shut down expensive power generating infrastructure may soon prove the least of our social problems.

“It needs little imagination to become aware of the extensive consequences that follow any disconnection of power in our complex, technology-based society,” says Birkett. “Any extended loss of electrical power would be likely to result in civil disorder in most of our major cities. This circumstance should be seriously considered when making decisions to impose unprecedented, extensive, intermittent and uncontrollable forms of generation supply onto this unforgiving beast of a grid system”.

Amen to that.

The Wind Farm Scam: An Ecologists’s Evaluation by John Etherington and When Will The Lights Go Out? Britain’s Looming Energy Crisis, are both published by Independent Minds, an imprimateur of Stacey International.

------

(1) I’ve always been quick to refute the notion of “free” wind, solar or any other source of energy. It could equally be claimed that oil, gas and coal are “free” as it lies in the ground awaiting utilization. The reality, however, is that all potential sources of energy require a capitalized ‘mining’ and distribution infrastructure. Thus all industrial scale energy sources must be subject to economic considerations and restraints based primarily on commercial scale energy returns and investor returns, perhaps informed by environmental considerations. In short, are they economically viable for use by mankind?