Germany facing blackouts...

[biffvernon]

Renewables progress:
http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1 ... 14,00.html

Maybe setting one's country up to be the world leader in renewables technology is not the worst business plan.

[Potemkin Villager]

Unlike successive craven British governments, the German Government is being relatively open with its population about energy constraints. It has laid it on the line that the alternative to wind farms everywhere is either nuclear power or blackouts.

Lud

IMHO it is not quite as simple as an either/or choice. Nuclear (and coal as well) has a particular ecological niche in the pantheon of power generation in that it runs flat out all the time to supply base load, the power level below which electricity demand never falls.

Holier than thou folks getting all excited about their PV and so called "green" top up from wind, should bear in mind that it is coal and nuclear in the background that allows these box of tricks to work to allow them to feel so apparently virtuous!

Even if there are "wind farms" everywhere they cannot supply base load so the whole system of largely uninterrupted power supply, where supply is always matched to demand to maintain near constant frequency falls down rather dramatically..........

Germany suffers another problem in not being blessed with a particularly energetic wind resource which means many impressive looking wind turbines, despite the fact that their rotors are turning a fair bit of the time, in fact have rather unimpressive energy production.
(Certainly compared to sites in parts of UK and Ireland).

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Worse.

Wind power isn't sustainable as it relies on aluminium and copper to make the turbines and towers and you can't run a smelting works on wind power.

[Keepz]

Unlike successive craven British governments, the German Government is being relatively open with its population about energy constraints. It has laid it on the line that the alternative to wind farms everywhere is either nuclear power or blackouts. Can you imagine the British Government being so candid?

I don't know how you can say that. The UK Government has published masses and masses of information about the energy market. So have National Grid. So have Ofgem. The UK has one of the most open and well informed energy markets in the world, and has benefited from billions of pounds' worth of investment at no cost to the taxpayer in a system which, year after year, has defied the expectations of this forum and kept the lights on. The reason it hasn't said that the alternative to wind farms everywhere is nuclear or blackouts is that that is simply not true.

Unlike the British, the Germans are in the habit of acknowledging a problem at the outset and working out what to do about it as a nation, not just as a heap of individuals with competing interests.

Having one big plan that everybody is agreed on and implementing it at the national level is great if you are right (though I cannot offhand think of any examples) - and completely disastrous if you are wrong. Have you perhaps heard of groupthink?

Whereas a heap of individuals with competing interests and a diversity of views will deliver far greater creative forces and far greater security - some will make mistakes and they'll suffer and learn from them, but those will be balanced by those that turn out to be right.

The fact is that there are competing interests. We want security of supply, low prices and low carbon, and those objectives are in conflict particularly if you are determined to rule out nuclear. Wishing don't make it otherwise, in Germany any more than anywhere else.

[adam2]

Worse.

Wind power isn't sustainable as it relies on aluminium and copper to make the turbines and towers and you can't run a smelting works on wind power.

Aluminium and copper can be recycled to make new wind turbines, coal or oil is gone forever once burnt.
Aluminium is one of the most abundant metals known, no question of shortages. Extracting the metal from the ore requires a great deal of electric power, this could be supplied from a grid into which wind turbines and other sources feed.
Recycling copper needs large furnaces, these may be either electric or FF according to price and availability.

[clv101]

Wind power isn't sustainable as it relies on aluminium and copper to make the turbines and towers and you can't run a smelting works on wind power.

Minerals like Al and Cu are basically limited only by the supply of energy (see universal mining machine). Using them in a non-destructive way to generate energy is fairly close to a perfect theoretical definition of sustainable.

[Ludwig]

I don't know how you can say that. The UK Government has published masses and masses of information about the energy market. So have National Grid. So have Ofgem. The UK has one of the most open and well informed energy markets in the world, and has benefited from billions of pounds' worth of investment at no cost to the taxpayer in a system which, year after year, has defied the expectations of this forum and kept the lights on. The reason it hasn't said that the alternative to wind farms everywhere is nuclear or blackouts is that that is simply not true.

Yes it is.

Reports on the energy are no use if they're not publicised.

Having one big plan that everybody is agreed on and implementing it at the national level is great if you are right (though I cannot offhand think of any examples) - and completely disastrous if you are wrong. Have you perhaps heard of groupthink?

It's all about attitude, not the ideas themselves. If everyone pulls in different directions, nothing works.

Germany has a good record of doing what it takes to get things working. You clearly don't know anything about the place.

Whereas a heap of individuals with competing interests and a diversity of views will deliver far greater creative forces and far greater security - some will make mistakes and they'll suffer and learn from them, but those will be balanced by those that turn out to be right.

Cobblers. It's precisely the approach you describe as being so "creative" and "bringing greater security" that is reponsible for us not being able to agree about a sustainable energy policy and instead just raiding every country with oil under the pretext of humanitarian intervention.

[SleeperService]

I don't know how you can say that. The UK Government has published masses and masses of information about the energy market. So have National Grid. So have Ofgem. The UK has one of the most open and well informed energy markets in the world, and has benefited from billions of pounds' worth of investment at no cost to the taxpayer in a system which, year after year, has defied the expectations of this forum and kept the lights on. The reason it hasn't said that the alternative to wind farms everywhere is nuclear or blackouts is that that is simply not true.

Yes it is.

Reports on the energy are no use if they're not publicised.

Having one big plan that everybody is agreed on and implementing it at the national level is great if you are right (though I cannot offhand think of any examples) - and completely disastrous if you are wrong. Have you perhaps heard of groupthink?

It's all about attitude, not the ideas themselves. If everyone pulls in different directions, nothing works.

Germany has a good record of doing what it takes to get things working. You clearly don't know anything about the place.

Whereas a heap of individuals with competing interests and a diversity of views will deliver far greater creative forces and far greater security - some will make mistakes and they'll suffer and learn from them, but those will be balanced by those that turn out to be right.

Cobblers. It's precisely the approach you describe as being so "creative" and "bringing greater security" that is reponsible for us not being able to agree about a sustainable energy policy and instead just raiding every country with oil under the pretext of humanitarian intervention.

+1 for Ludwig here!

You've been back more recently than I have so I don't know what's really behind the nuclear turnoff either. I suspect keeping Ms Merkel's coalition going in the face of the euro crisis is a factor, that was a common topic in the spring. Also it's better to be decommissioning the older nukes ASAP rather than HAVING to do so later when there's no money to do it.

Modern Germany is almost paranoid about open government so I don't think the reasoning will be long coming out.

[Potemkin Villager]

I suspect keeping Ms Merkel's coalition going in the face of the euro crisis is a factor, that was a common topic in the spring. Also it's better to be decommissioning the older nukes ASAP rather than HAVING to do so later when there's no money to do it.

Modern Germany is almost paranoid about open government so I don't think the reasoning will be long coming out.

A very courageous decision Prime Minister if I may say so!

At the risk of repetition fatigue "Holier than thou folks getting all excited about their PV and so called "green" top up from wind, should bear in mind that it is coal and nuclear in the background that allows these box of tricks to work to allow them to feel so apparently virtuous!

Even if there are "wind farms everywhere" they cannot supply base load so the whole system of largely uninterrupted power supply, where supply is always matched to demand to maintain near constant frequency falls down rather dramatically.......... ".

[JavaScriptDonkey]

Aluminium and copper can be recycled to make new wind turbines, coal or oil is gone forever once burnt.
Aluminium is one of the most abundant metals known, no question of shortages. Extracting the metal from the ore requires a great deal of electric power, this could be supplied from a grid into which wind turbines and other sources feed.
Recycling copper needs large furnaces, these may be either electric or FF according to price and availability.

I was only being half serious but now it comes to it, can you actually generate enough power from a wind farm and get it to a smelting works in order to produce aluminium? I know some works have their own power plants on site as the currents required require ridiculously large conductors.

I suspect (having not done the math) that it is not possible to have enough wind turbines close enough together to generate enough current to produce aluminium from ore.

Wiki's introduction to the Lynemouth Plant suggests that it is not possible.

The first was a source of electric power to smelt the aluminium. One tonne of aluminium requires the same amount of electricity that an average family uses in 20 years, so cheap power was needed.[1] In 1972 Alcan commissioned Lynemouth Power Station less than 200 m (660 ft) from the smelter's site, to fulfil its power needs. The station's site was convenient for access to the Ellington and Lynemouth coal mines nearby, which were also the fundamental reason for the nearby village's creation.[1] The power station has a 420 megawatt (MW) capacity, more than enough to meet the load requirements of the smelter.[2] The spare electricity is sold to the National Grid.

[Bandidoz]

Erm - use Hydro to smelt Alu - just like they did at Shawinigan, Ontario.

The whole "single source of electricity should be able to breed itself" argument is nonsense.

[Ludwig]

I was only being half serious but now it comes to it, can you actually generate enough power from a wind farm and get it to a smelting works in order to produce aluminium? I know some works have their own power plants on site as the currents required require ridiculously large conductors.

I suspect (having not done the math) that it is not possible to have enough wind turbines close enough together to generate enough current to produce aluminium from ore.

No one is seriously arguing that wind power can save industrial civilisation. It can't, and neither can anything else - short of a die-off of 95% of the world's population.

Given that, the argument is not whether wind power is the solution, it's whether it's even worth looking for a solution. I respect the Germans for at least trying to do the right thing, which is more than we're doing.

[biffvernon]

can you actually generate enough power from a wind farm and get it to a smelting works in order to produce aluminium?

Yes. Ecotricity tell me that the embodied energy in their Enercon turbines and their concrete bases is generated in well under a year.

Do the maths: an 800kW turbine at 25% load factor produces 1752000kWhrs per year. A million units of electricity smelts a fair sized heap of aluminium.

[adam2]

A fair sized aluminium smelter uses from 100MW up to perhaps 1000MW.
The usuall way to provide this is from a dedicated coal burning or hydroelectric power station.

It could however be supplied from a reasonably sized grid network, into which wind turbines are connected.
The wind turbines do not have to be near the smelter.
Aluminium production is an inherently continous process that cant be easily started and stopped. A reliable power source is vital, either on site generation AND a grid connection, or TWO independant grid connections.

Modern aluminium smelters can run at a variable rate, consuming say a minimum of 200MW and a maximum of 400MW, that would clearly be valuable to help balance supply and demand.

[biffvernon]

It makes a great deal of sense to make aluminium in Iceland, where there is an abundance of cheap electricity. That's why aluminium comes from Iceland.