Here below is a response to a note that I sent to the author and energy expert, Dave Hoopman of ''Anxious about Adequacy'' found in ''Wisconsin Energy Cooperative'' magazine, related to Adams-Columbia Electric Cooperative, regarding our energy needs considering what Green energy sources can and cannot do to supply the needs of a growing and robust economy now ore even the near future.
As many are aware, the progressive socialist liberals are demanding the end of fossil fuel energy consumption, coal, gas and nuclear that we need to meet our energy needs now and in the future, and be replaced by wind, solar and biofuels. The ''new wave ''socialists like AOC want all fossil energy production gone immediately.
Here is what I wrote to Mr Hoopman concerning how our energy resources are being shut down faster then common sense or logic would dictate given green source of energy or decades away from being able to replace fossil energy:
Mr Hoopman - I just read your report in my Wisconsin Energy coop magazine on the closing of fossil fuel energy generation facilities across the country and in some cases ahead of time, their contract date for renewal I believe you said. The question that remains is have those in charge of making logical decision regarding our economy and the security of our country, has common sense fled from them like the timely demise of the Capital Times?
Has common sense, reality been lost on people that should know better or is it simply the very contagious disease of climate change taken a stronger hold on more people then we original thought. And to not carry on like I would like to, soap box and all, is there anyone in our government still awake and not room temperature, to take a stand and say the idea of having our country being without fossil fuel energy, except in a back up position, to supply our economy and private consumption that is demanding at least 8-10% increases each year, every year to continue to grow and prosper?
And as the ''New Wave'' socialist AOC and several other young and new legislators who believe our planet will be gone in twelve years if we do not end fossil energy consumption immediately. Her Green Energy plan to stop climate change, clearly for them the most important crisis now facing us, the United states, if not the entire world, if we don't end fossil fuel consumption it means destruction for our country at best and our population, and at worst a catastrophic end for our economic capitalist foundation economy as well as world order?
Is there anyone that can take a stand against insanity in Washington? It seems like most other agencies and departments in our government that are tasked to lead have taken the easy way out 'by going along to get along'.- Don't make waves with the climate change people or bad things will happen to you and or your family?
What's the future going to be?
(Below is Hoopman's response)
As I’m sure you gathered from the magazine article, I share many of those concerns. A big part of the problem—maybe the biggest part—is that a great many people are under the impression that it would be easy to replace existing generation with renewable energy sources: Build a few windmills; shut down a coal plant. What’s rarely realized is that matching the generation capacity of a (purely hypothetical) coal plant of, say, 400-megawatt capacity would require a great many turbines spread across a very large area because the so-called “energy density” of wind and other renewables is a great deal less than any fossil fuel can yield.
A few concrete examples might be more helpful.
Wisconsin Power and Light operates a four-unit natural gas-fired plant just off Highway 151 on the southwest side of Fond du Lac, known within the industry as “South Fond du Lac.” It can produce up to 344 megawatts of generation. It sits on a plot of land I would very roughly estimate at about six acres, and though I don’t believe it’s normally used in this manner, it’s capable of producing power continuously, all day, every day.
Not far from there, in western Fond du Lac County, Wisconsin Power and Light’s Cedar Ridge Wind Farm has 41 turbines that can produce a combined total of 68 megawatts. An estimate from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory says the land area of the Cedar Ridge facility works out to 116 acres per megawatt of energy produced, or 12.3 square miles overall.
Also in Fond du Lac County, up on the east shore of Lake Winnebago, there is the Blue Sky Green Field wind farm operated by Milwaukee-based WE Energies. This facility has a rated capacity of 145 megawatts. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates the land requirement for the facility at 52 acres per megawatt, which works out to a little less than 12 square miles total.
So you need a lot more land to get a megawatt of power from wind turbines than you do to get the same megawatt from gas or coal or nuclear. But that’s only part of the story.
The numbers I cited above are based on what’s known in the industry as “nameplate capacity,” the full amount of power a unit is theoretically capable of generating. Another industry term, the “capacity factor” describes the percentage of any given period of time—an hour, a week, a year—that a unit can be expected to be producing power. The capacity factor for renewables varies widely with geography. In Wisconsin, the capacity factor for wind facilities is about 24 percent, meaning (very roughly) any given turbine in this state can be expected to produce power 14 minutes out of any given hour; 40 hours in any given week, etc.
It is none of my business to discourage anyone who wants to put a solar panel on his roof or buy shares in a community solar project, or put a turbine in the back yard; these are not bad things in and of themselves and they can often be a positive good. But I would be less than honest if I led people to believe they can expect to obtain power from these devices all the time. I believe most of the people who install them understand this.
On a broader scale, we’re asking for trouble if we naively assume renewables can quickly or easily replace the gas or nuclear facilities (or in the near term the dwindling number of coal facilities) that produce the vast bulk of the power used in this country. Even when they aren’t delivering power to the grid, fossil-fueled plants with a capacity equal to the renewables being used at any given time have to be kept running so they can step in at a moment’s notice when the wind stops blowing or clouds cover the sun. In short, backup generation on standby to be instantly fed into the grid, 24-7, is what makes it possible to use the renewables at the times when they’re available.
Lots of people want to use renewable energy and the cooperatives I work for try to help them do it in practical ways. At the same time, people need to understand that no form of energy is magic. There are always tradeoffs no matter how your energy is produced.
I hope you’ll find it at least somewhat reassuring that the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which I wrote about in the article you read, is speaking up to make sure the changes in our energy mix aren’t forced to happen so quickly that system reliability is compromised.
Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Dave Hoopman
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