# Are wind turbines worth it? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 13, 2010, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201 "2010-08-13T23:20:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/61 "2010-08-16T04:54:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Instead of tying wind turbines into the grid, we should tie them to individual buildings or groups of buildings. That would make the problem of intermittence much worse. When you have a grid spanning half the country, and windfarms scattered across that entire region, they’re almost certainly not going to all becalm at once, and the total power generated is going to stay pretty consistent. If they’re just on a per-building basis, though, then you’re going to need a backup generator for each and every building. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/62 "2010-08-16T05:46:22Z")
On the one hand what he’s referencing is [distributed generation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_generation). While distributed generation can be stand alone it is more commonly tied into the grid, allowing the grid to supplant when the local demand exceeds the local energy production, and selling back to the grid if or when it has excess. The plan is not to be independent of the traditional grid but to relieve it of strain - at both the generation and the distribution levels. OTOH wind speeds tend to be lower at lower heights so the cost effectiveness tends to be lower - taking advantage of the wind tunnel effects between buildings (“funnel the air into turbine corridors”) is an interesting idea though. Do you mean vertical like [this](http://www.helixwind.com/en/)? Or by funnel do you mean like [this](http://earth2tech.com/2009/06/03/startup-green-energy-tech-installs-first-small-wind-concentrators/)? Of course urban wind power electricity generation may do best with a different sort of generator: how about [piezoelectric](http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19274-innovation-reinventing-urban-wind-power.html)? And finally along the lines of the suggestion is [this](http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/124/3/confusing-the-wind-the-burj-khalifa-mother-nature-and-the-modern-skyscraper): > [@](#): > > 50-story Bahrain World Trade Center in the center of Manama. In this structure, wind is not just treated as an obstacle to be overcome, but as a source of energy to be harnessed. It’s the first skyscraper to integrate large wind turbines into its design. Three 225-kilowatt, 95-foot diameter wind turbines hang from separate walkways connecting the identical, sail-shaped towers. Together, these turbines supply about 15 percent of the towers’ electricity, the equivalent, designers say, of the energy needed to power over 300 homes. The unique shape of the buildings directs wind gusts towards the turbines, increasing wind speeds and creating an artificial wind tunnel between the two towers.14 > > “Usually,” says Jan Klerks, Research & Communications Manager at the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, skyscrapers “have to fight the wind but this type of building is trying to grab the wind.”15 > > Around the world, other skyscraper projects are beginning to take advantage of the wind to save and even generate energy. One of them is the Pearl River Tower, a 71-story supertall set to open in 2010 in Guangzhou, China. Originally conceived as a “zero-energy skyscraper,” one that uses zero or even negative energy, the Pearl River Tower has been designed both to reduce energy consumption and generate some of its own power. The building employs a wide variety of strategies, including four integrated wind turbines, to accomplish these goals.16 > > “The building is actually positioned on the site to be directly facing into the prevailing wind,” says Russell Gilchrist, designer of the Pearl River Building and practice leader at Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill, the architecture firm that also designed the Burj Khalifa. “It’s slightly counterintuitive on one level to place the broad face into the wind because it attracts quite a lot of wind load. In this case, we choose to ignore that and tried to tap into the wind potential.”17 > > The Pearl River Tower has four integrated wind turbines placed inside separate three-by-four meter holes, or apertures, one-third and two-thirds of the way up the building. Unlike normal wind turbines, these vertical axis turbines can capture wind blowing in almost any direction. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 9:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/63 "2010-08-16T09:11:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If it were possible to extract usable energy from the zero-point field, then it would carry with it a significant risk of destroying the entire Universe as we know it. The fact that the Universe has not yet been destroyed in this manner is thus good evidence for it not being possible. What? Doing something **might** destroy the universe so the fact that the universe is still here is ‘good evidence’ for it not being possible? Awesome logic! (Other possibilities: It can’t happen naturally and no one has tried. It **might not** destroy the Universe.) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 9:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/64 "2010-08-16T09:57:53Z")
> [@TroutMan](#): > > He also said that a turbine can never recover the installation cost; the electricity generated over its lifetime will be worth less than the cost of installation. I’ve heard this over in the UK, but it’s not about money, it’s about carbon. “The construction of a turbine uses more carbon than it will ever offset in its lifetime.” No idea if this is true or not. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/65 "2010-08-16T10:12:29Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > > [@TroutMan](#): > > > > He also said that a turbine can never recover the installation cost; the electricity generated over its lifetime will be worth less than the cost of installation. > > I’ve heard this over in the UK, but it’s not about money, it’s about carbon. “The construction of a turbine uses more carbon than it will ever offset in its lifetime.” No idea if this is true or not. This seems **extraordinarily** unlikely because the carbon cost tends to be closely related to energy costs and if the energy cost of building, installing and running a wind turbine were even a small fraction of the total costs no one would ever have installed a production (as opposed to test) example. These nonsensical factoids often pop up because there’s no penalty for telling lies so anyone who is against something is perfectly free to spout utter nonsense in support of their views. This can the get repeated and innocently presented as ‘fact’ by others. Another one you often here when there is talk of pedestrianising an area is: “That’s the quickest way to kill of all the trade in an area stone dead”. Complete and utter nonsense, of course (generally - it might have happened in a couple of ill considered schemes) because if that were the case no one would do it and all the schemes that have already been undertaken would have been rapidly reversed. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/66 "2010-08-16T10:22:14Z")
> [@qpw3141](#): > > This seems **extraordinarily** unlikely because the carbon cost tends to be closely related to energy costs and if the energy cost of building, installing and running a wind turbine were even a small fraction of the total costs no one would ever have installed a production (as opposed to test) example. The implication is, I think, that it’s a government-subsidised scam of some kind. Anyway, [here’s](http://www.bwea.com/energy/myths.html) a site saying that what I quoted is bollocks: > [@](#): > > Myth: Building a wind farm takes more energy than it ever makes > Fact: The average wind farm will pay back the energy used in its manufacture within 3-5 months of operation[sup]4[/sup]. This compares favourably with coal or nuclear power stations, which take about six months. A modern wind turbine is designed to operate for more than 20 years and at the end of its working life, the area can be restored at low financial and environmental costs. Wind energy is a form of development which is essentially reversible – in contrast to fossil fuel or nuclear power stations. > > [sup]4[/sup] Milborrow, Dispelling the Myths of Energy Payback Time, as published in Windstats, vol 11, no 2 (Spring 1998). ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 10:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/67 "2010-08-16T10:30:11Z")
Hmm, that’s about energy expenditure not carbon. Will keep looking. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/68 "2010-08-16T10:52:32Z")
> [@jjimm](#): > > The implication is, I think, that it’s a government-subsidised scam of some kind. Yes, that sounds about par for the course. Of course, these people never explain **why** any government would want to deliberately waste money on something that was not going to bring any benefit to either their voters or themselves. I know governments can be **incredibly** incompetent but the idea that governments around the world are all consistently getting such cost-benefit analyses so mind numbingly wrong is really beyond belief. If you want to keep looking you’ll need to find something that has a **vast** carbon cost but very little energy or monetary cost since, on average, according to the figures you quote, a wind turbine will produce 60 times more money that it costs to build, install, and run. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/69 "2010-08-16T12:29:56Z")
Another problem with wind generation is that it typically produces more at night than during the day. And power isn’t worth a damn in the middle of the night - maybe 25 or 30 bucks a MWh. The daytime is when you’ll see any spikes in the market. Last week, for example, it got as high as about as $200/MWh at PJM-West Hub, and last week wasn’t that great of a week. In general, most weekdays in the summer will see a lot of hours around 50 to 70 dollars, and a few hours around 100-200. Occasioanlly you get big spikes and see 300-500, but only for a couple of hours here and there. But those numbers _never_ come in at night - there’s just not enough demand and too many people are dumping energy because they don’t want to cycle their fossil units. Wind, in general, is just not that great - it has some potential, but a few things need to happen still. Namely, better transmission from high wind areas of the country and much better and more prominent energy storage ability (in order to minimize ancillary service costs, lack of grid inertia and help to arbitrage time of day produciton). Until that point the wind is only in the money when it’s either subsidized (a lot of the recent pipeline of gen was done because of the accelerated depreciation for tax treatment, which was awesome) or if the value of the RECs is predicted to be high, which can depend on your state. All in all, wind will probably play a role in our grid, but it’s a long cry from great right now and it does depend on the gov somewhat to get any real prominence. ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/70 "2010-08-16T12:31:42Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > > [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > > > China builds nuclear power plants for half what it costs us, because they don’t have to deal with Greenpeace or the NRC. They have 24 nuclear power plants under construction right now and a total of 56 planned by the end of 2011. > > > > [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf63.html) > > Um, the Chinese don’t give a shit about the enviroment, they also don’t give a shit about their own people, so they can cut corners. Why is coal from China so much cheaper? Because they cut corners in their mines, and as a result, they have the highest accident rates and fatalities in the world for coal mines. Yeah, a good idea to go nuclear for them.:rolleyes: Your comments about coal seem to be a non-sequitur to what I was talking about. The Westinghouse Ap-1000 plants that China is building are safer than any plants currently operating in the United States. They actually are the state of the art in plant safety. Here is something I wrote in my blog last year about the AP-1000. [http://www.anupchurchchrestomathy.com/2009/06/three-stages-of-technology.html](http://www.anupchurchchrestomathy.com/2009/06/three-stages-of-technology.html) The Chinese are actually working on pebble bed reactor designs that may let them retrofit existing coal plant to convert them to nuclear plants. ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/71 "2010-08-16T14:42:59Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > And they will have a catastrophic event risk commensurate with the number of installed reactors that they have. Yeah, good thing we don’t have any catastrophic events with our current system. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, an oil rig in the Gulf blew up? ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/72 "2010-08-16T14:56:27Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > > > And they will have a catastrophic event risk commensurate with the number of installed reactors that they have. > > Yeah, good thing we don’t have any catastrophic events with our current system. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, an oil rig in the Gulf blew up? Or all the CO2 created by burning fossil fuels built up in the atmosphere? Or a good chunk of the profits from selling fossil fuels to all those gas guzzling SUV’s found its way into the pockets of extremists who could use it to arm themselves and try and build nuclear weapons? Oh, wait … ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/73 "2010-08-16T15:27:04Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > > [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > > > And they will have a catastrophic event risk commensurate with the number of installed reactors that they have. > > Yeah, good thing we don’t have any catastrophic events with our current system. Can you imagine what would happen if, say, an oil rig in the Gulf blew up? Obviously oil is a problem in several ways - but we don’t use it very much for generating electricity. You need some for start fuel on coal plants, and CTs will run on oil when gas transport is thin or when heating demand drives up nat gas costs in the winter. But the total energy production is tiny compared to coal, nat gas, urnaium. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/74 "2010-08-16T16:37:12Z")
> [@](#): > > What? > > Doing something might destroy the universe so the fact that the universe is still here is ‘good evidence’ for it not being possible? > > Awesome logic! > > (Other possibilities: It can’t happen naturally and no one has tried. It might not destroy the Universe.) More like, it absolutely would destroy the Universe, unless prevented from doing so by some sort of safeguards that we can’t yet even begin to imagine. As for “no one has tried”, I refuse to believe that there have been no technological civilizations in our entire past light cone, and given how stupid technological civilizations can be (as evidenced by humans), I’d expect at least one of those alien civilizations to have tried it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/75 "2010-08-16T16:40:17Z")
**Darth Panda** , if you insist on disasters associated with our electricity production systems specifically, rather than energy production in general, you could consider the 2008 Tennessee ash spill. Or, for that matter, any of a large number of coal mine accidents. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/76 "2010-08-16T17:04:00Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > More like, it absolutely would destroy the Universe, unless prevented from doing so by some sort of safeguards that we can’t yet even begin to imagine. So, you are now saying it definitely would … unless it wouldn’t. I mean, we can’t even imagine how to do it so it’s hardly surprising we haven’t imagined sub-components such as the safety systems required. Perhaps it would be easier if you would provide a citation to some credible evidence that abstracting ZPE would ‘destroy the universe’ because at the moment it sounds like wide eyed hysteria of the ‘The Large Hadron Collider could make a black hole that will eat the Earth’ type. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/77 "2010-08-16T17:12:53Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > Another problem with wind generation is that it typically produces more at night than during the day. And power isn’t worth a damn in the middle of the night - maybe 25 or 30 bucks a MWh. The daytime is when you’ll see any spikes in the market. Last week, for example, it got as high as about as $200/MWh at PJM-West Hub, and last week wasn’t that great of a week. In general, most weekdays in the summer will see a lot of hours around 50 to 70 dollars, and a few hours around 100-200. Occasioanlly you get big spikes and see 300-500, but only for a couple of hours here and there. But those numbers _never_ come in at night - there’s just not enough demand and too many people are dumping energy because they don’t want to cycle their fossil units. A very important point which people not in the industry just do not appreciate. The cyclic power generation during the day can be horrible as well. I heard horror stories from some clients last week of a “3GW drop” which supposedly happened last month in the upper midwest, when the wind just quit despite all weather predictions, and everyone had to scramble to throw more gas and coal plants online as fast as possible, and even then there were still blackouts and brownouts. ---
**Author:** ![qpw3141](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/6bbea6/32.png) [@qpw3141](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/qpw3141)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/78 "2010-08-16T17:19:22Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > A very important point which people not in the industry just do not appreciate. > > The cyclic power generation during the day can be horrible as well. I heard horror stories from some clients last week of a “3GW drop” which supposedly happened last month in the upper midwest, when the wind just quit despite all weather predictions, and everyone had to scramble to throw more gas and coal plants online as fast as possible, and even then there were still blackouts and brownouts. I think the industry does appreciate it but have just not got around to doing enough about it yet. When you are using a power source that is inherently unreliable, in the short term, such as wind power (turbine or wave) you need to provide something like [**this**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity) to back it up. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/79 "2010-08-16T17:20:26Z")
> [@JoelUpchurch](#): > > > [@constanze](#): > > > > Um, the Chinese don’t give a shit about the enviroment, they also don’t give a shit about their own people, so they can cut corners. Why is coal from China so much cheaper? Because they cut corners in their mines, and as a result, they have the highest accident rates and fatalities in the world for coal mines. Yeah, a good idea to go nuclear for them.:rolleyes: > > Your comments about coal seem to be a non-sequitur to what I was talking about. No, I used the practice of coal mining as the first example that came to mind of the Chinese cutting corners on safety to save money. > [@](#): > > The Westinghouse Ap-1000 plants that China is building are safer than any plants currently operating in the United States. They actually are the state of the art in plant safety. They may be safe on paper or not, I don’t trust the Chinese to build things properly given their record. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [August 16, 2010, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201/80 "2010-08-16T17:24:37Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > C’mon, we’ve had that discussion a few times. Facts don’t change their minds. Yes, no matter how many accidents like Chernobyl and Three Mile Island happen, the pro-nuclear lobby keeps claiming that reactors are safe and that accidents can never happen, no, we are completly sure. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-wind-turbines-worth-it/550201.md?page=5)