If you have doubts about the potential of wind energy to play a significant role in the transition away from fossil fuels, you may find the following interesting. Below the fold...
The USA is still way behind the ball on wind energy, with less installed capacity per person than about 13 other nations. The main wind action is taking place across the Atlantic, where the "big five" of per capita wind electricity (Denmark, Spain, Germany, Portugal and Ireland) have emerged as leaders in the renewable source.
To see the potential of wind energy, take a look at the latest IEA Monthly Electricity Statistics for the OECD, in particular Denmark production for January 2007. It was a bumper month for Danish renewables (for Denmark, renewables means almost 100% wind energy) at 1225 GWh, not the first month over 1000 GWh but still setting a new monthly record.
In January, 1225 GWh / 4093 GWh = 29.93% of Danish-produced electricity came from wind. Oh, so close to 30%! If an engineer had only climbed a ladder and huffed and puffed, they might have reached it. (Actually if you remove net Danish exports, it represented 35% of the electricity Danes themselves used.) Here's what the average Dane got from those turbines:
Denmark Non-hydro renewables production for January 2007:
1225 GWh
/ 5.447 million (population)
= 224.89 kWh per person over 31 days
/ 31 (days in January)
= 7.25 kWh/person/day |
That 1225 GWh from wind was enough that the Danes reduced their January 2007 production from combustibles by 17% from the previous January, saving tonnes of CO2 emissions. By contrast, American generation from coal and other combustibles kicked off the year 10% higher than the same 2006 period, spewing many additional tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
How does the Danish January wind result stack up against, oh, let's say, U.S. nuclear generation? Now, I'm not an opponent of nuclear power. I'm not a big fan either, preferring efficiency savings and renewable sources as higher priorities, but I am firmly in the "anything but fossil fuels" camp. Nuclear energy is a valuable component of the shift away from fossil fuels, when it's done well - such as the examples of Sweden and France, currently #1 and #2 respectively in per-capita nuclear electricity production. Perhaps the diary How to discuss nuclear energy reasonably should be required reading for discussion of non-fossil electricity sources. But it isn't, and comments from some of the more extreme pro-nuclear users on Daily Kos show a strong hostility to wind power. I've read:
- how wind cannot produce large-scale energy,
- how wind farms will take too long to build,
- that we should forget wind because only nuclear can replace fossil fuels,
- that "this 'renewable' (do the wind farms grow like trees?) solution is even worse than 100% coal burning concerning climate change". (Yes, that is from a real comment. I just had to laugh.)
This type of rhetoric indicates to me that it could be worthwhile looking at what Danish wind and American nuclear energy actually provide for the average Dane and American. We saw what a good month of wind does above. Now for the nuclear:
USA nuclear production for 2006:
787218 GWh
/ 301.87 million (population)
= 2,608 kWh per person per year
/ 365 (days in 2006)
= 7.14 kWh/person/day |
Hang on a second: 7.14 is less than 7.25. Yes, on a good day the average Dane can get more electricity from Denmark's wind turbines than the average American will get from nuclear power plants. And soon it won't be just the Danes. Spain is aiming for 20% non-hydro renewable electricity by the end of 2010, and will need about 50+ GWh annually to achieve it. They're already more than halfway there from practically nothing six years ago, and still growing at more than 30% a year:
Year | Spain production from Non-hydro Renewables (GWh) | Growth from previous year |
2000 | 4740 | |
2001 | 6780 | 43% |
2002 | 9330 | 38% |
2003 | 12055 | 29% |
2004 | 15582 | 29% |
2005 | 20890 | 34% |
2006 | 28828 | 38% |
Thus far in 2007, the IEA data shows Spanish non-hydro renewable production up 33% from the same period of 2006. Portugal and Ireland are also experiencing rapid wind energy growth. (Both are close to 10% electricity from wind already, and have big farm plans.)
There's nothing magical about the wind in Denmark and Spain. The wind farm load factors there are not internationally high. If a small densely populated European country with barely average load factors can produce 7 kWh/person/day from wind, there's no reason why a whole host of other nations can't do better. For example, many Danish farms have a load factor of only 20-25% but the national average is 40%+ where I live. The newest project to pass the consent process in New Zealand (West Wind, a 66-turbine 200MW farm) will have an estimated load factor of 47% and will be generating electricity more than 90% of the time.
Can anyone remind me again why a majority of American politicians sat back this century and let the USA burn record high amounts of coal, while Denmark worked hard on wind technology and amassed (by the end of 2005) nineteen times the per-person installed wind turbine capacity of the United States?
Oh yeah, the country had a Republican majority congress and the Bush administration. I should have guessed Republicans would be the reason.
***
P.S. 2006 was a good year for U.S. wind farm construction: those breeze-loving Danes now only have fifteen times as much installed wind turbine capacity per person as Americans.
P.P.S. I'm sure some commenters will point out Denmark's coal use. Yes, it's still high by European standards. For anyone curious, the United States burns about 160 times as much coal as Denmark. That's about three times as much per person. Actually, given 2007 trends so far, it's probably closer to four times as much per person by now.