The US Will Need A Lot of Land to Reach Zero Carbon

As a follow up to my previous post about Biden going nuclear, I have attached an article from Bloomberg reporting on a Princeton University study evaluating the landmass required to support a variety of energy sources to get to zero carbon. Wind has a big problem.

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-energy-land-use-economy/

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Comment by Willem Post on May 11, 2021 at 8:52am

HIGH COSTS OF WIND, SOLAR, AND BATTERY SYSTEMS IN NEW ENGLAND

https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-costs-of-wind-sol...

Area Requirements of Energy Sources in New England

 

An August 2009 study for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory examined land-use data for 172 projects, representing about 80% of the installed and targeted wind capacity, in the U.S., and found an average area of 85 acres/MW. 

http://www.aweo.org/windarea.html

 

This study includes all area aspects of an energy source.

According to Tom Gray of the American Wind Energy Association, the average is 60 acres/MW. Table 1 assumes an average of (85 + 60)/2 = 72.5 acre/MW 

https://www.strata.org/pdf/2017/footprints-full.pdf

 

A 1000 MW combined-cycle, gas-turbine plant, CCGT, on 343 acres produces 5.5 times the electricity of a 1000 MW solar plant on 8100 acres, i.e., solar needs 5.5 x 8100/343 = 130 times the land area of a CCGT plant to produce a MWh

 

A 1000 MW nuclear plant on 832 acres produces 6.2 times the electricity of a 1000 MW solar plant on 8100 acres, i.e., solar needs 6.2 x 8100/832 = 60.4 times the land area of a nuclear plant to produce a MWh

 

Low-cost CCGT and nuclear electricity: 

 

- Is not season/weather-dependent,

- Is not variable 

- Is not intermittent

- Has minimal CO2 

- Has near-zero particulates. See tables 1 and 2

 

Table 1/Source

 Capacity

CF

Area

Ridge line

Production

Times

 Production

New England

MW

acre/1000 MW

miles/1000 MW

MWh/y

solar

MWh/acre

Nuclear

1000

0.90

832

7,889,400

6.2

9,482

CCGT

1000

0.80

343

7,012,800

5.5

20,445

Wind

1000

0.30

72,500

62

2,629,800

2.1

36

Solar

1000

0.145

8,100

1,271,070

1.0

157

Comments on table 2

  

- The owners of legacy systems were paid much higher prices, than owners of newer systems. This was especially the case after the onset of competitive bidding, a few years ago.

 

- Vermont legacy “Standard Offer” solar systems had greater subsidies, up to 30 c/kWh paid to owner, than newer systems, about 11 c/kWh

 

- Wind prices paid to owner did not have such drastic reductions as solar prices.

 

- Vermont utilities are paid about 3.5 c/kWh for various costs they incur regarding net-metered solar systems

 

- "Added to the rate base" is the cost wind and solar are added to the utility rate base, which is used to set electric rates.

 

- “Traditional cost”, including subsidies to owner and grid support, is the cost at which traditional is added to the utility rate base

  

- “Grid support costs” would increase with increased use of battery systems to counteract the variability and intermittency of increased build-outs of wind and solar systems.

 

NOTES:

1) The prices in table 2 should be compared with the NE wholesale grid price, which has averaged about 4.2 c/kWh, starting in 2009, due to low-cost CCGT and nuclear plants, which provided at least 65% of all electricity loaded onto the NE grid in 2019.

 

- Wind, solar, landfill gas, and methane power plants provided about 4.8%, after 20 years of subsidies

- Pre-existing refuse and wood power plants provided about 4.6%

- Pre-existing hydro power plants provided about 7.4%

- The rest was mostly hydro imports from the very-low-CO2 Canada grid, and from the much-higher-CO2 New York State grid

 

https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/

https://nepool.com/uploads/NPC_20200305_Composite4.pdf


2) There are O&M costs of the NE grid, in addition to wholesale prices.

ISO-NE pro-rates these costs to utilities, at about 1.6 c/kWh. Charges are for: 

 
Regional network services, RNS, are based on the peak demand occurring during a month

Forward capacity market, FCM, are based on the peak demand occurring during a year.

 

3) Each local utility has its own O&M grid costs, in addition to item 2, some of which are detailed on electric bills.

 

4) Vermont utilities buy electricity from various sources; average cost about 6 c/kWh, plus ISO-NE charges of about 1.6 c/kWh, for a total of 7.6 c/kWh.

 

Table 2/Vermont & NE sources

Paid to

Subsidies

Grid support

GMP

 Added to

Total

Traditional

Times

owner

to owner

cost

adder

rate base

cost

cost

c/kWh

c/kWh

c/kWh

c/kWh

c/kWh

c/kWh

c/kWh

Solar, residential rooftop, net-metered, new

17.4

5.2

2.1

3.5

20.9

28.2

7.60

3.7

Solar, residential rooftop, net-metered, legacy

18.2

5.4

2.1

3.5

21.7

29.2

7.60

3.8

Solar, com’l/ind’l, standard offer, combo

11.0

6.74

2.1

11.0

19.84

7.60

2.6

Solar, com’l/ind’l, standard offer, legacy

21.7

10.5

2.1

21.7

34.3

7.60

4.5

Wind, ridge line, new

9.0

4.1

2.4

9.0

15.5

7.60

2.0

Wind, offshore, new

12.1

5.4

2.8

12.1

20.3

7.60

2.7

Maine Offshore Wind Turbine Systems

 

The ocean waters near Maine are deep. Almost all offshore wind turbines would need to be floating units, anchored at the seafloor with at least 3 long cables.

The 700-ft tall wind turbines would need to be located at least 25 miles from any inhabited islands, to reduce the visuals, especially with strobe lights, 24/7/365

The wind turbines would be far from major electricity demand centers, such as Montreal and Boston.

Transmission systems would be required to connect the wind turbines to demand centers

All that would make the cost of electricity produced by these wind turbines more expensive than those south of MVI.

http://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/deep-water-floating-offshore-wind-turbines-in-maine

 

Maine is in active discussions with stakeholders to add 751 MW of onshore wind turbines.

Maine is not in active discussions with stakeholders to add offshore wind turbines, as shown by the interconnection proposals on page 13 of URL

https://nepool.com/uploads/NPC_20200305_Composite4.pdf

 

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on May 9, 2021 at 4:34pm

Newt Gingrich: In My Mind “There Was No Question” all of the Close Battleground States Were Stolen in 2020 Election (VIDEO)

The tide truly is turning when Newt can go on FOX News and not be lectured for making such a bold and honest statement. Of course, Maria Bartiromo is not your average FOX News host.

Newt Gingrich: In My Mind "There Was No Question" all of the Close ...

Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on May 5, 2021 at 8:25pm

The Who's Roger Daltrey criticizes today's 'woke generation'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-9526699/The-Whos-Roge...

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Sign up today and lend your voice and presence to the steadily rising tide that will soon sweep the scourge of useless and wretched turbines from our beloved Maine countryside. For many of us, our little pieces of paradise have been hard won. Did the carpetbaggers think they could simply steal them from us?

We have the facts on our side. We have the truth on our side. All we need now is YOU.

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 -- Mahatma Gandhi

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Vince Lombardi 

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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