Uko,
Thanks for that bit of information. I hope the proponents of wind energy
are right because we will be running out of oil one of these days. Note
that Bush claims that the US will need 393 000 MW on new installed capacity
by the year 2020. I fail to see how this could be met solely by wind power.
Consider that the wind farm in Altamont Pass has an installed capacity of
550 MW. You would need 714 of these farms. It would still be interesting to
see the cost analysis.
But I'm getting off topic. The initial question was raised by Kamilla who
wanted to know which advocacy groups are reliable sources of information.
I'm still sceptical.
Chuck
-----Original Message-----
From: Uko Zylstra [mailto:zylu@calvin.edu]
Sent: Thursday May 31, 2001 3:26 PM
To: vandergraaft@aecl.ca
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: Organizations
Chuck,
I just received this news (copied below) from World Watch Institute
concerning wind power which you questioned. I think it contains answers to
many of your questions. I personally find this sort of summary analysis
helpful in getting a handle on policy decisions, etc.
Uko
Uko Zylstra, Ph.D.
Biology Department
Calvin College
tel: (616)957-6499
email: zylu@calvin.edu
>>> "Vandergraaf, Chuck" <vandergraaft@aecl.ca> 05/31/01 10:29AM >>>
Uko,
I am not familiar with the WorldWatch Institute, but I have heard of it.
Just out of curiosity, I went to their Web site and extracted the following
information from http://www.worldwatch.org/alerts/010517.html :
"We are now in the early stages of an energy revolution that is as profound
and rapid as the one that ushered in the age of oil a century ago. This new
energy system-highly decentralized, efficient, and based increasingly on
renewable resources and hydrogen fuel-is already beginning to emerge in
other parts of the world. Without visionary leadership, the United States
risks falling behind its economic competitors and compromising its political
credibility on the international stage."
and, a bit further down the page,
""Micropower" is the term used to describe the unmistakable global trend in
power generation toward decentralized, efficient units, such as fuel cells
and microturbines, that operate primarily on natural gas. It is a shift as
profound as the move from mainframes to personal computers, creating equally
significant new business opportunities. Locking the U.S. power system into
the twentieth-century, large-scale, fossil and nuclear-based models will
cripple the global competitiveness of the U.S. energy industry while
exacerbating health and environmental problems."
next,
"Hydrogen: "Tomorrow's Petroleum"
Will the most abundant element in the universe be a missing element in Bush
energy policy? Automotive and energy companies, as well as startups, are
pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of
hydrogen-based fuel cells to power portable electronics, stationary power
systems, and motor vehicles. Hydrogen and fuel cell technology may reorient
the global energy system as profoundly as did the discovery of oil and the
invention of the internal combustion engine more than a century ago.
and, finally,
"Today, wind power is the world's fastest growing energy source at 27
percent per year, and is less expensive than both gas- and coal-fired
electricity. "
There are three points I want to make:
1. From the first excerpt, "this new energy system-highly decentralized,
efficient, and based increasingly on renewable resources and hydrogen fuel
..." and from the last excerpt, "... hydrogen and fuel cell technology may
reorient the global energy system ..." it appears that WWI considers
hydrogen a fuel. I wonder where they expect to drill for hydrogen! My
guess is that hydrogen will have to be generated by breaking the O-H bond of
water and that takes more energy that one gets by burning hydrogen (second
law of thermodynamics). So, basically, all that a hydrogen economy will do
is to provide us with a portable energy supply at an energy cost.
2. The second excerpt is precisely what I mentioned in my previous e-mail,
to Dave: decentralization of power; Note that nothing is said about
controlling the effluent of all these microturbines.
3. To claim that wind power is growing at 27% is a typical skewing of
statistics. (The accompanying table shows growth rates for other energy
conversion systems as well). What is missing is the installed capacity! Of
course, with very few wind generators installed, any addition represents a
proportionally large growth. To state that wind power is less expensive
than gas- and coal-fired electricity without providing data is questionable,
especially when, earlier on, the statement is made that "The cost of nuclear
generated electricity is roughly double that of other energy sources now in
the power market." So, is electricity form nuclear twice as expensive as
that from coal and gas and more than twice that of wind? If so, why are
most nuclear power plants running flat out and why are nuclear power plant
owners now submitting applications for licence renewal?
I don't think I have taken the comments of the WWI out of context. My
impression of an, admittedly limited, inspection of their publication, that
WWI is an advocacy group and presents a mixture of facts, opinions, and
questionable statistics to make a point. If I'm wrong, I'm sure that
somebody will haul me up short. ;-)
Chuck
From: "Reah Janise Kauffman" <rjkauffman@earth-policy.org>
To: <news@earth-policy.org>
Date: 5/31/01 3:34PM
Subject: Earth Policy--Wind Power & Bush Energy Plan
NEWS FROM EARTH POLICY INSTITUTE.
EARTH POLICY ALERT
Alert 2001-3
Copyright Earth Policy Institute 2001
May 31, 2001
WIND POWER: THE MISSING LINK IN THE BUSH ENERGY PLAN
Lester R. Brown, President
The eagerly awaited Bush energy plan released on May 17, 2001,
disappointed
many people because it largely overlooked the potential contribution of
raising energy efficiency. It also overlooked the enormous potential of wind
power, which is likely to add more to U.S. generating capacity over the next
20 years than coal.
In short, the authors of the plan appear to be out of touch with
what is
happening in the world energy economy, fashioning an energy plan more
appropriate for the early twentieth century rather than the early
twenty-first century. They emphasized the role of coal, but world coal use
peaked in 1996 and has declined some 11 percent since then as countries have
turned away from this climate-disrupting fuel. Even China, which rivals the
United States as a coal burning country, has reduced its coal use by 24
percent since 1996.
Meanwhile, world wind power use has multiplied nearly fourfold over
the
last five years, a growth rate matched only by the computer industry. In the
United States, the American Wind Energy Association projects a staggering 60
percent growth in wind-generating capacity this year.
Wind power was once confined to California, but during the last
three
years, wind farms coming online in Minnesota, Iowa, Texas, Colorado,
Wyoming, Oregon, and Pennsylvania have boosted U.S. capacity by half from
1,680 megawatts to 2,550 megawatts. The 1,500 or more megawatts to be added
this year will be located in a dozen states. A 300-megawatt wind farm under
construction on the Oregon/Washington border is currently the world's
largest.
But this is only the beginning. The Bonneville Power Administration
(BPA)
indicated in February that it wanted to buy 1,000 megawatts of
wind-generating capacity and requested proposals. Much to its surprise, it
received enough to build 2,600 megawatts of capacity in five states, with
the potential of expanding these sites to over 4,000 megawatts. BPA, which
may accept most of these proposals, expects to have at least one site online
by the end of this year.
A 3,000-megawatt wind farm in the early planning stages in South
Dakota,
near the Iowa border, is 10 times the size of the Oregon/Washington wind
farm. Named Rolling Thunder, this project, initiated by Dehlsen Associates
and drawing on the leadership of Jim Dehlsen, a wind energy pioneer in
California, is designed to feed power to the midwestern region around
Chicago. This proposed project is not only large by wind power standards, it
is one of the largest energy projects of any kind in the world today.
Advances in wind turbine technology, drawing heavily from the
aerospace
industry, have lowered the cost of wind power from 38 cents per kilowatt
hour in the early 1980s to 3 to 6 cents today depending on the wind site.
Wind, now competitive with fossil fuels, is already cheaper in some
locations than oil or gas-fired power. With major corporations, such as ABB,
Shell International, and Enron plowing resources into this field, further
cost cuts are in prospect.
Wind is a vast, worldwide source of energy. The U.S. Great Plains
are the
Saudi Arabia of wind power. Three wind-rich U.S. states-North Dakota,
Kansas, and Texas-have enough harnessable wind to meet national electricity
needs. China can double its existing generating capacity from wind alone.
Densely populated Western Europe can supply all of its electricity needs
from offshore wind power.
Today Denmark, the world leader in wind turbine technology and
manufacture,
is getting 15 percent of its electricity from wind power. For
Schleswig-Holstein, the northernmost state of Germany, it is 19 percent and,
for some parts of the state, 75 percent. Spain's industrial state of
Navarra, starting from scratch six years ago, now gets 24 percent of its
electricity from wind.
As wind generating costs fall and as concern about climate change
escalates, more and more countries are climbing onto the wind energy
bandwagon. In December, France announced it will develop 5,000 megawatts of
wind power by 2010. Also in December, Argentina announced a plan to develop
3,000 megawatts of wind power in Patagonia by 2010. In April, the United
Kingdom accepted offshore bids for 1,500 megawatts of wind power. In May, a
report from Beijing indicated that China plans to develop some 2,500
megawatts of wind power by 2005.
The growth in wind power is consistently outrunning earlier
estimates. The
European Wind Energy Association, which in 1996 had set a target of 40,000
megawatts for Europe in 2010, recently upped it to 60,000 megawatts.
The Bush plan to add 393,000 megawatts of electricity nationwide by
2020
could be satisfied from wind alone. Money spent on wind-generated
electricity tends to remain in the community, providing income, jobs, and
tax revenue, bolstering local economies. One large advanced design wind
turbine, occupying a quarter acre of land, can easily yield a farmer or
rancher $2,000 in royalties per year while providing the community with
$100,000 of electricity. U.S. farmers and ranchers, who own most of the wind
rights in the country, are now joining environmentalists to lobby for
development of this abundant alternative to fossil fuel.
Once we get cheap electricity from wind, we can use it to
electrolyze
water, producing hydrogen. Hydrogen is the fuel of choice for the new,
highly efficient, fuel cell engine that every major automobile manufacturer
is now working on. Daimler Chrysler plans to be on the market with fuel
cell-powered cars in 2003. Ford, Toyota, and Honda will probably not be far
behind. William Ford, Chairman of Ford Motor Company, says he expects to
preside over the demise of the internal combustion engine.
Surplus wind power can be stored as hydrogen and used in fuel cells
or gas
turbines to generate electricity, leveling supply when winds are variable.
Wind, once seen as a cornerstone of the new energy economy, may turn out to
be its foundation. The wind meteorologist who analyzes wind regimes and
identifies the best sites for wind farms will play a role in the new energy
economy comparable to that of the petroleum geologist in the old energy
economy.
With the advancing technologies for harnessing wind and powering
motor
vehicles with hydrogen, we can now see a future where farmers and ranchers
can supply not only much of the country's electricity, but much of the
hydrogen to fuel its fleet of automobiles as well. For the first time, the
United States has the technology and resources to divorce itself from Middle
Eastern oil.
In addition to neglecting the potential of wind, the Bush energy
strategy
pays only lip service to climate stabilization. This is a high-risk
strategy. With business as usual, the International Panel on Climate Change
recently projected a global temperature rise during this century of up to 6
degrees Celsius (10 degrees Fahrenheit). If this rise occurs, the rest of
the world may hold the United States, the leading CO2 emitter, responsible.
What the United States needs now is an energy plan for this century,
one
that takes into account not only recent technological advances in wind
power, fuel cells, and hydrogen generators, but also the need to stabilize
climate. Perhaps Congress will bring the energy plan into the twenty-first
century and restore U.S. leadership in the fast-changing world energy
economy.
###
Additional data and information sources at www.earth-policy.org or contact
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The Alerts may be reproduced free of charge with due acknowledgement given
to Lester Brown and Earth Policy Institute. To help us monitor this service,
please mail or email a copy of the publication in which they appear to Reah
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-----Original Message-----
From: Uko Zylstra [mailto:zylu@calvin.edu]
Sent: Thursday May 31, 2001 8:49 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu; Kamilla ludwig
Subject: Re: Organizations
Kamilla,
I am more familiar with WorldWatch Institute than the other two you
mentioned.
I consider the WorldWatch State of the World books and WorldWatch magazine a
good source of information on environmental trends. I use their materials as
a
basis for many of my lectures. If they have an axe to grind, I think it is
one
which all Christians should be concerned with as well.
Uko Zylstra, Ph.D.
Biology Department
Calvin College
tel: (616)957-6499
email: zylu@calvin.edu
>>> "Kamilla ludwig" <kamillal@worldnet.att.net> 05/30/01 05:46PM >>>
I am wondering which organizations and advocacy groups are the most reliable
sources of good information.
What can any of the listmembers tell me about, for instance:
Union of Concerned Scientists
Center for Science in the Public Interest
WorldWatch Institute
I am particularly interested in those organizations that are active in
public
health. Are there any other organizations that might be better sources for
information and for possible involvement?
Also, before I forget again, I have looked around a bit for some of the
answers
about our earlier discussion in GM foods, particularly the claim about
Monarch
butterfly toxicity. It seems that those claims were wildly exaggerated.
Just
goes to show you can't trust someone just because they have a tenured
position
and a PhD after their name!
Thanks,
Kamilla
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 31 2001 - 17:31:31 EDT