Another WTH? Example of Cheap Renewables

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

10 hours ago, Refman said:

I'd suggest we start a new topic on the Jones Act if ya'll want to debate that in more detail.

^ Jones Act thread

[SLL + 24]

On ‎6‎/‎4‎/‎2018 at 8:54 AM, Refman said:

It's not that hard to do the math, you can double check it yourself. 754MW * 6 hours per day * 365 days per year

You're right, it's not that hard.  For a facility with articulating panels, they should be able to get a heck of a lot more sunlight, even on average, than 6 hours a day.

I am looking, but cannot find any information on the panels that Villanueva uses.

[Refman + 207]

On 5/19/2018 at 5:24 PM, Tom Kirkman said:

^  Yep.

 

3 hours ago, SLL said:

You're right, it's not that hard.  For a facility with articulating panels, they should be able to get a heck of a lot more sunlight, even on average, than 6 hours a day.

I am looking, but cannot find any information on the panels that Villanueva uses.

Looks like they are trackers

https://www.renewableenergymagazine.com/pv_solar/nextracker-delivers-754-mw-of-solar-trackers-20180319

 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 6/4/2018 at 1:35 AM, Jan van Eck said:

Unfortunately, both solar and wind have substantial fuel costs.  When the sun goes down or the panels are clouded over, their output drops off, sometimes very rapidly, and some other source of power has to come on-line instantly to take up the slack.  That cannot be either oil, or coal, or nuclear, as the response time is not there  (unless you have spinning reserve connected). The default power source thus is a gas-turbine generator.  Now the problem with this is that fast start-up is wasteful and inefficient, so you end up paying quite a bit for the ability to have this fast-response take-over power.  

And you have a parallel problem with wind. Current machines need a minimum wind speed to energize, typically at least 12 mph. You also have these over-speed problems with strong winds, where the system either feathers the blades or the tower turret disintegrates. At either extreme, the wind machines have to have automatic shut-offs, and once again you need the same capacity in stand-by power to take up the load. 

Can you do ti with diesel generators?  Yes, you can,but the generators would have to be kept in a constant state of readiness, specifically the fuel and the machine itself have to remain heated. And you can do that, start up the generators for fifteen minutes every four hours, the German Army did that with their Tiger Tanks to avoid being over-run.  Yet, a bit awkward. 

There is often some confusion with renewables where intermittency is confused with unpredictability. While solar and wind are intermittent they are not unpredictable within short term time frames. Coal and oil plant (not that ther eis nuch left of this) plant can respond adequately

In a European context Wind energy output predictability is within 97% in 1 hour and 90% in 5 hours.  

I will use a UK example here:

At the 5 hour mark an estimated out turn of 8000MW means output maybe between 7200 and 8800MW. At the one hour mark the variability around that same out turn estimate is only a couple of hundred MW either way. 

Drax power station ( 4400MW Coal & Biomass) has a ramp rate of 17% of capacity per hour so in 5 hours it can vary output by 3.7GW. That one very large coal fired power station can adjust output to meet the unpredictability of the entire UK wind fleet. In practice that variability is met by a wide range of gas,coal, Hydro and pump storage

Gas is better and more flexible but coal plant of 1970's vintage can cope. I suspect modern coal units would have much more flexibility.  

A better way to manage this, even better than gas is dynamic demand systems, Pump storage, retrofitting Hydro with pump storage and 2nd life utilisation of EV and PHEV batteries. 

[NickW + 2,714]

On 6/4/2018 at 1:35 AM, Jan van Eck said:

Unfortunately, both solar and wind have substantial fuel costs.  When the sun goes down or the panels are clouded over, their output drops off, sometimes very rapidly, and some other source of power has to come on-line instantly to take up the slack.  That cannot be either oil, or coal, or nuclear, as the response time is not there  (unless you have spinning reserve connected). The default power source thus is a gas-turbine generator.  Now the problem with this is that fast start-up is wasteful and inefficient, so you end up paying quite a bit for the ability to have this fast-response take-over power.  

And you have a parallel problem with wind. Current machines need a minimum wind speed to energize, typically at least 12 mph. You also have these over-speed problems with strong winds, where the system either feathers the blades or the tower turret disintegrates. At either extreme, the wind machines have to have automatic shut-offs, and once again you need the same capacity in stand-by power to take up the load. 

Can you do ti with diesel generators?  Yes, you can,but the generators would have to be kept in a constant state of readiness, specifically the fuel and the machine itself have to remain heated. And you can do that, start up the generators for fifteen minutes every four hours, the German Army did that with their Tiger Tanks to avoid being over-run.  Yet, a bit awkward. 

Spinning reserve is not there to cope with changes in renewable output. Its primary purpose is to absorb a sudden unpredictable outage of a large generator. 

In a UK context (i use the UK as this is the system I'm most familar with) the largest generator in the system is Sizewell B which is approx 1100MW. So in a system with no renewables you would need sufficient spinning reserve to cope with that loss. 

//www.bmreports.com/bmrs/?q=generation/windforcast/out-turn

At the time of writing the steepest decline in wind output in the above link is approx 500 MW per hour. Thats 8-9 MW per minute in a system that has >40GW of capacity not including interconnections with France, The Netherlands and Ireland. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

8 minutes ago, NickW said:

Spinning reserve is not there to cope with changes in renewable output. Its primary purpose is to absorb a sudden unpredictable outage of a large generator. 

Hi, Nick, very interesting analysis you set forth!

In New England, the wind "farms"  are typically required to install large spinning reserves in order to avoid imbalances and keep the KVAR where it is supposed to be.  The installation of the rotating condenser is at the base of the wind farm before the connection to the grid lines. In some cases the costs of the condenser is sufficient to nix the project, by the time you figure out how to truck that monster up to the site and hook it up. 

Keep in mind that one ongoing problem with all these installations is that the cabling is largely maxed out, and cannot handle large swings in current.  Nobody wants to pay to put up new towers and cables, and even where it would be a good plan, those projects run into lawsuits from the eco-lunatics.  Cheers. 

[NickW + 2,714]

15 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Hi, Nick, very interesting analysis you set forth!

In New England, the wind "farms"  are typically required to install large spinning reserves in order to avoid imbalances and keep the KVAR where it is supposed to be.  The installation of the rotating condenser is at the base of the wind farm before the connection to the grid lines. In some cases the costs of the condenser is sufficient to nix the project, by the time you figure out how to truck that monster up to the site and hook it up. 

Keep in mind that one ongoing problem with all these installations is that the cabling is largely maxed out, and cannot handle large swings in current.  Nobody wants to pay to put up new towers and cables, and even where it would be a good plan, those projects run into lawsuits from the eco-lunatics.  Cheers. 

I stand to be corrected but a rotating condenser is primarily there to regulate voltage to assist the process of synchronising the generator to the grid. All AC generators that are connected to the grid require this. This is not spinning reserve although I appreciate it can contribute additional SR. 

The problems you describe in your second paragraph are one of the key reasons why blustery turbulent sites are not favoured for wind farm development. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

42 minutes ago, NickW said:

I stand to be corrected but a rotating condenser is primarily there to regulate voltage to assist the process of synchronising the generator to the grid. All AC generators that are connected to the grid require this. This is not spinning reserve although I appreciate it can contribute additional SR. 

The problems you describe in your second paragraph are one of the key reasons why blustery turbulent sites are not favoured for wind farm development. 

To take the example of Vermont, which has become a nascent colonial property of Wall Streeters seeking wind-farm and solar-farm exploitation, those industrial wind machines were previously simply direct-connected to the grid. After the decay problems were found once you got above a minimal number of machines, the grid operator proceeded to demand that these installations, typically perched on ridge lines and then mounted on high pylons to both get up into the heavier winds and have longer blades for more power capture, install a synchronous condenser at the base.  Numbers as high as $25 million were being bandied about for the all-in costs of such a condenser. 

If you get the pole top up high enough, and now those heights are in the hundreds of feet, then you get the prop blades up into where the wind is largely laminar flow. However, you still do not get a steady-state wind, which in the USA seems to be mostly in the area of the Western Great Plains.

I am not a fan of these wind machines as currently formulated, mostly because they are rapaciously installed on ridge lines in sensitive ecological areas, involve a great deal of blasting, and require Interstate-sized roads built up to the mountaintops in order to transport the giant blades and the even more giant cranes to put it all together.  So you wreck a pristine mountain ecology and view just to go harvest some intermittent wind.  That does not strike me as a reasonable deal.

I also personally dislike the people who are proposing these projects  (New Yorkers).  They show up with their tie-in rates that drive up the price for the locals, in effect transferring wealth from the poorer local residents to their own pockets, for which the developers risk nothing.  Then the accreted wealth is transferred to very expensive home down on Martha's Vineyard, big mega-yachts, and the call-girls kept on board for entertainment.  All at the price of ordinary folks, which to me is offensive and an abuse of capitalism. 

The further problem is that these projects privatize the profits and socialize the losses.  What happens is that the market is distorted by the Federal (and sometimes State) Investment Tax Credits, which run to 30% of the capital costs of the project.  The General Partners (the New Yorkers doing the deal) put up zero cash and keep that 30% rebate check, so on a $100 million project they keep $30 million for no investment.  The Cash to build the project comes from the Limited Partners, who profit from the elevated feed-in tariffs, as high as 27 cents.  After the project is milked, then some ten or fifteen years down the road the machines have these expensive failures, such as blown gearcases or snapped-off blades or fires in the generator, and the tower gets abandoned. There are now some 15,000 towers simply left abandoned, littering the countryside.  The cost to remediate the site is left to the taxpayers (socializing the losses). And you do have to take them down as they are aviation hazards and those gearcases contain contaminant oils. Plus they are serious eyesores. Meanwhile the two guys that were the General Partners are off in New York indulging themselves with their $10,000-a-night call girls (at your expense). Personally, all that offends me. 

And those wind machines really do not work that well.  The design, using tri-blades, is sub-optimal, and is used because that is the way the industry has developed, so although there is this technical experience curve with that design, it does not function optimally in the setting it is installed in. When they put these things up on flat farmland, the pulsing vibrations drive away the earthworms, so the idea that the land is multi-use, with crops below and the blades above, is laughable.  It is not just that the machines are Rube Goldberg; they are actually destructive, and hugely expensive, with the astronomical cost shifts onto the backs of the ordinary people.  It is the worst form of arrogant aristocratic exploitation.  It reminds me of King Leopold of Belgium exploiting the Congo. Ugh. Argh. 

Edited June 16, 2018 by Jan van Eck

[NickW + 2,714]

51 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

To take the example of Vermont, which has become a nascent colonial property of Wall Streeters seeking wind-farm and solar-farm exploitation, those industrial wind machines were previously simply direct-connected to the grid. After the decay problems were found once you got above a minimal number of machines, the grid operator proceeded to demand that these installations, typically perched on ridge lines and then mounted on high pylons to both get up into the heavier winds and have longer blades for more power capture, install a synchronous condenser at the base.  Numbers as high as $25 million were being bandied about for the all-in costs of such a condenser. 

If you get the pole top up high enough, and now those heights are in the hundreds of feet, then you get the prop blades up into where the wind is largely laminar flow. However, you still do not get a steady-state wind, which in the USA seems to be mostly in the area of the Western Great Plains.

I am not a fan of these wind machines as currently formulated, mostly because they are rapaciously installed on ridge lines in sensitive ecological areas, involve a great deal of blasting, and require Interstate-sized roads built up to the mountaintops in order to transport the giant blades and the even more giant cranes to put it all together.  So you wreck a pristine mountain ecology and view just to go harvest some intermittent wind.  That does not strike me as a reasonable deal.

I also personally dislike the people who are proposing these projects  (New Yorkers).  They show up with their tie-in rates that drive up the price for the locals, in effect transferring wealth from the poorer local residents to their own pockets, for which the developers risk nothing.  Then the accreted wealth is transferred to very expensive home down on Martha's Vineyard, big mega-yachts, and the call-girls kept on board for entertainment.  All at the price of ordinary folks, which to me is offensive and an abuse of capitalism. 

The further problem is that these projects privatize the profits and socialize the losses.  What happens is that the market is distorted by the Federal (and sometimes State) Investment Tax Credits, which run to 30% of the capital costs of the project.  The General Partners (the New Yorkers doing the deal) put up zero cash and keep that 30% rebate check, so on a $100 million project they keep $30 million for no investment.  The Cash to build the project comes from the Limited Partners, who profit from the elevated feed-in tariffs, as high as 27 cents.  After the project is milked, then some ten or fifteen years down the road the machines have these expensive failures, such as blown gearcases or snapped-off blades or fires in the generator, and the tower gets abandoned. There are now some 15,000 towers simply left abandoned, littering the countryside.  The cost to remediate the site is left to the taxpayers (socializing the losses). And you do have to take them down as they are aviation hazards and those gearcases contain contaminant oils. Plus they are serious eyesores. Meanwhile the two guys that were the General Partners are off in New York indulging themselves with their $10,000-a-night call girls (at your expense). Personally, all that offends me. 

And those wind machines really do not work that well.  The design, using tri-blades, is sub-optimal, and is used because that is the way the industry has developed, so although there is this technical experience curve with that design, it does not function optimally in the setting it is installed in. When they put these things up on flat farmland, the pulsing vibrations drive away the earthworms, so the idea that the land is multi-use, with crops below and the blades above, is laughable.  It is not just that the machines are Rube Goldberg; they are actually destructive, and hugely expensive, with the astronomical cost shifts onto the backs of the ordinary people.  It is the worst form of arrogant aristocratic exploitation.  It reminds me of King Leopold of Belgium exploiting the Congo. Ugh. Argh. 

WTF is paying feed in tariffs of 27c per kwh for onshore wind? That may have been acceptable circa 1990. 

Many of these issues you cite are quite resolvable. For example on abandonment a standard planning consent clause in UK and European planning is that a fund is established at the outset of the project to pay for removal - this is often lodged with the local authority to avoid any risk from the  developer / operator going bust. Anyway thats a lot of steel and copper siting there for the taking if anyone is minded too

When you say 15000 towers abandoned - do you mean actual wind turbines built from say 1980 or are you including farm units used to draw up water (Outback Oz is covered in these). 

Any link to the Earthworm claim. I currently live in East Anglia (UK) and drive past many fields full of wheat, barley, sugar beet, oil seed that happen to have wind turbines in them. Perhaps the vibrations you claim don't affect British earthworms.....

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, NickW said:

WTF is paying feed in tariffs of 27c per kwh for onshore wind? That may have been acceptable circa 1990. 

Many of these issues you cite are quite resolvable. For example on abandonment a standard planning consent clause in UK and European planning is that a fund is established at the outset of the project to pay for removal - this is often lodged with the local authority to avoid any risk from the  developer / operator going bust. Anyway thats a lot of steel and copper siting there for the taking if anyone is minded too

When you say 15000 towers abandoned - do you mean actual wind turbines built from say 1980 or are you including farm units used to draw up water (Outback Oz is covered in these). 

Any link to the Earthworm claim. I currently live in East Anglia (UK) and drive past many fields full of wheat, barley, sugar beet, oil seed that happen to have wind turbines in them. Perhaps the vibrations you claim don't affect British earthworms.....

Nick, here's the big problem: 

Suppose there is a dismantling reserve set up in trust somewhere.  There is zero assurance that that fund will be large enough to pay for removal plus site restoration. 

The problem is that these ridgeline sites are well above 2,500 feet.  And the machines are huge: in the 500-foot class. So to remove them, first you need to inch some gigantic crane up there, one of those beasts sitting on a platform with 128 wheels underneath, and then it has to get up into that very fragile terrain with very little if any soil cover, so the original road that was blasted through the mountainside has to be restored to take the load.  After you get the giant crane up then it has to be assembled, with other cranes, so you need to re-clear the site of whatever fresh vegetation and trees have sprung up. Then you have to get the crew in there and climb up that tower and start dismantling the monster, lowering the remaining blades back down to earth, where they are taken off the mountain by giant trucks, remembering that these blades are in the 250-foot class  (unless you saw them up on-site, which would be challenging enough).  Then after that, you have to remove the generator and gearbox, no small feat to lower back down to the ground.  Then you have to truck that beast off the mountain, down what is in essence a primitive gravel road.  Then you have to dismantle that tower, which can be done in sections, and then the sections either hauled off on a lowbed with a truck in front and another in back to provide braking down the mountain, or you cut it up into smaller pieces and use smaller trucks.  

Then when you are all through there is the demolition of that big concrete base, which is perhaps 130 feet square and 20 feet deep. Unless you abandon the base, which is not exactly site restoration, but what I predict will happen.  Then you have to remove that road and the gravel, and bring in new soil, and re-plant with the native vegetation found at that altitude.  Then you have to monitor and prevent erosion, which is a or the major challenge.  Anything less and you do not have site restoration. 

Those access roads are built with a slope of about 3% grade, so to get to the top of the ridgeline they are typically at least five miles long. And remember that in order to allow for those very long blades to make it up there, the curves have to be quite wide-radius so you end up with massive amounts of b lasting and filling.  Do you seriously think there is ever going to be enough money in trust to pay for all of that? Of course not.  What happens is either the taxpayers are on the hook or it gets abandoned, the site causing erosion of the soils and silting of the streams, wrecking the brook trout habitat that is so prized in Vermont and New Hampshire. 

See, that's the problem.  The hustlers from New York and Wall Street don't give a damn about the rural countryside or the poor people that live there.  It is all ripe for exploitation, as long as the hustlers can make beaucoup bucks.  I find it offensive. 

[NickW + 2,714]

17 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Nick, here's the big problem: 

Suppose there is a dismantling reserve set up in trust somewhere.  There is zero assurance that that fund will be large enough to pay for removal plus site restoration. 

The problem is that these ridgeline sites are well above 2,500 feet.  And the machines are huge: in the 500-foot class. So to remove them, first you need to inch some gigantic crane up there, one of those beasts sitting on a platform with 128 wheels underneath, and then it has to get up into that very fragile terrain with very little if any soil cover, so the original road that was blasted through the mountainside has to be restored to take the load.  After you get the giant crane up then it has to be assembled, with other cranes, so you need to re-clear the site of whatever fresh vegetation and trees have sprung up. Then you have to get the crew in there and climb up that tower and start dismantling the monster, lowering the remaining blades back down to earth, where they are taken off the mountain by giant trucks, remembering that these blades are in the 250-foot class  (unless you saw them up on-site, which would be challenging enough).  Then after that, you have to remove the generator and gearbox, no small feat to lower back down to the ground.  Then you have to truck that beast off the mountain, down what is in essence a primitive gravel road.  Then you have to dismantle that tower, which can be done in sections, and then the sections either hauled off on a lowbed with a truck in front and another in back to provide braking down the mountain, or you cut it up into smaller pieces and use smaller trucks.  

Then when you are all through there is the demolition of that big concrete base, which is perhaps 130 feet square and 20 feet deep. Unless you abandon the base, which is not exactly site restoration, but what I predict will happen.  Then you have to remove that road and the gravel, and bring in new soil, and re-plant with the native vegetation found at that altitude.  Then you have to monitor and prevent erosion, which is a or the major challenge.  Anything less and you do not have site restoration. 

Those access roads are built with a slope of about 3% grade, so to get to the top of the ridgeline they are typically at least five miles long. And remember that in order to allow for those very long blades to make it up there, the curves have to be quite wide-radius so you end up with massive amounts of b lasting and filling.  Do you seriously think there is ever going to be enough money in trust to pay for all of that? Of course not.  What happens is either the taxpayers are on the hook or it gets abandoned, the site causing erosion of the soils and silting of the streams, wrecking the brook trout habitat that is so prized in Vermont and New Hampshire. 

See, that's the problem.  The hustlers from New York and Wall Street don't give a damn about the rural countryside or the poor people that live there.  It is all ripe for exploitation, as long as the hustlers can make beaucoup bucks.  I find it offensive. 

Doesn't  this same potential issue apply to every other development? Do nuclear power, fossil fuel plant, tar sands developers give funds to govt / local government upfront  for the site  restoration in the event they go bust (or far more likely sell the development towards the end of its life to a shell company that then goes bust leaving the tax payer to pick up the tab;-) 

If these sites are good locations  they will probably be reused - its far easier to get planning permission on established sites. In Europe 1st generation sites that had 250-500KW units are now being redeveloped with fewer higher power turbines typically 2-3MW. 

Its easy to quantify the cost of removal as its simply the removal of the tower, turbine and rotor much of which has significant salvage value. The turbines are often suitable for reconditioning and redeployment to other sites as they are replaced by much larger units. Removing the Concrete base as you suggest is eco 'lunacy' - its best just to leave these in situ to degrade naturally. 

If the developments you describe had to build 5 mile roads then that is probably a bad development unless that road had a dual purpose. In Europe most developments utilise existing roads for nearby access. 

The trust fund system works adequately in the UK and Europe. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Do nuclear power, fossil fuel plant, tar sands developers give funds to govt / local government upfront  for the site  restoration in the event they go bust

The nuke plants do, the others do not.  That said, the real question is: do the nuke plants have enough set aside?  Probably not; part of that reserve fund is designed to accrue interest payments from investments, and the amount of that calculation has led to big fights.  Should they have reserve funds?  That is a societal question, politics not engineering. In general, nuke plants are removed down to the last pound of foundation concrete. Whether or not that is excessive or "eco-lunacy" is up to your point of view, again politics. Personally, I think the best and highest use of a nuke plant site where the reactor is obsolete is to remove only the reactor part and install a new one, and re-use the condenser, generator, transformers, tie-in and so forth.  However, that is just me, and obviously others do disagree (and want NO nukes). In my view nuke power is quite benign and new thorium reactors can be and are being built to use up the vast stock of residual nuke rods and cores that are still "hot" and have lots of life left. You can run the USA for the next 500 years as to electric generation just on the spent fuel waste being stored in casks, but (so far) there has been little enthusiasm for doing that.  And that is because politics, not engineering, rules the roost.

If these sites are good locations  they will probably be reused 

That seems to work in Europe but remember that those wind machines and their power outputs are buttressed with huge subsidies, one of the reasons that retail power in Europe is insanely expensive.  In the USA (and Canada), the sites are simply abandoned as the business model is of the Limited Partnership, where the keystone in financing is the Federal Tax Credit of 30%.  Without that, the projects make no sense. There is no salvage value in old machines; the blades develop fatigue cracks and are scrap, worthless and cost money to shred.  The gearbox has too many hours on it and is no longer reliable.  The actual generator might be usable in some non-tower application, but no prudent engineer is going to reuse it on another tower when it has a work history in severe conditions, you do not know and cannot predict when it will fail - and failures in situ are very expensive. Besides (as you observe) the power ratings tend to become higher, so reuse would not do the job for you.

If the developments you describe had to build 5 mile roads then that is probably a bad development unless that road had a dual purpose. In Europe most developments utilize existing roads for nearby access.  

Well, guess what, that is exactly the big problem is building industrial wind plants on mountain ridgelines!  There is no road up there, precisely because they are fragile areas and have no other practical use. It is a bit like building a road to the top of the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc, or that mountain at Cape Wrath.  And the road is not some quaint little country lane; they are constructed some 50 feet wide in order to accommodate the giant machines that are used to haul the giant pieces up there, and the cranes needed to put it together.  And those roads do a ton of damage, leading to lots and lots of erosion. The whole concept is totally insane, and makes sense only with the federal tax credits and feed-in tariffs and subsidy payments.  It is all an exercise in fantasy, and without those societal transfer payments, would never be contemplated much less actually built.  It is all eco-lunacy of the first order.  It is madness to go wreck your mountains forever to obtain some decade or 15 years of variable electricity at huge expense.  But the New Yorkers are perfectly good with that, all due to the subsidies and tax credits.  Cheers.

Edited June 17, 2018 by Jan van Eck
typing error

[NickW + 2,714]

8 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Do nuclear power, fossil fuel plant, tar sands developers give funds to govt / local government upfront  for the site  restoration in the event they go bust

The nuke plants do, the others do not.  That said, the real question is: do the nuke plants have enough set aside?  Probably not; part of that reserve fund is designed to accrue interest payments from investments, and the amount of that calculation has led to big fights.  Should they have reserve funds?  That is a societal question, politics not engineering. In general, nuke plants are removed down to the last pound of foundation concrete. Whether or not that is excessive or "eco-lunacy" is up to your point of view, again politics. Personally, I think the best and highest use of a nuke plant site where the reactor is obsolete is to remove only the reactor part and install a new one, and re-use the condenser, generator, transformers, tie-in and so forth.  However, that is just me, and obviously others do disagree (and want NO nukes). In my view nuke power is quite benign and new thorium reactors can be and are being built to use up the vast stock of residual nuke rods and cores that are still "hot" and have lots of life left. You can run the USA for the next 500 years as to electric generation just on the spent fuel waste being stored in casks, but (so far) there has been little enthusiasm for doing that.  And that is because politics, not engineering, rules the roost.

If these sites are good locations  they will probably be reused 

That seems to work in Europe but remember that those wind machines and their power outputs are buttressed with huge subsidies, one of the reasons that retail power in Europe is insanely expensive.  In the USA (and Canada), the sites are simply abandoned as the business model is of the Limited Partnership, where the keystone in financing is the Federal Tax Credit of 30%.  Without that, the projects make no sense. There is no salvage value in old machines; the blades develop fatigue cracks and are scrap, worthless and cost money to shred.  The gearbox has too many hours on it and is no longer reliable.  The actual generator might be usable in some non-tower application, but no prudent engineer is going to reuse it on another tower when it has a work history in severe conditions, you do not know and cannot predict when it will fail - and failures in situ are very expensive. Besides (as you observe) the power ratings tend to become higher, so reuse would not do the job for you.

If the developments you describe had to build 5 mile roads then that is probably a bad development unless that road had a dual purpose. In Europe most developments utilize existing roads for nearby access.  

Well, guess what, that is exactly the big problem is building industrial wind plants on mountain ridgelines!  There is no road up there, precisely because they are fragile areas and have no other practical use. It is a bit like building a road to the top of the Matterhorn or Mont Blanc, or that mountain at Cape Wrath.  And the road is not some quaint little country lane; they are constructed some 50 feet wide in order to accommodate the giant machines that are used to haul the giant pieces up there, and the cranes needed to put it together.  And those roads do a ton of damage, leading to lots and lots of erosion. The whole concept is totally insane, and makes sense only with the federal tax credits and feed-in tariffs and subsidy payments.  It is all an exercise in fantasy, and without those societal transfer payments, would never be contemplated much less actually built.  It is all eco-lunacy of the first order.  It is madness to go wreck your mountains forever to obtain some decade or 15 years of variable electricity at huge expense.  But the New Yorkers are perfectly good with that, all due to the subsidies and tax credits.  Cheers.

Restoration

I am not anti nuclear, indeed I think it was an energy policy travesty (thanks Blair) to stop the UK's nuclear programme in 1997. Had we not the UK would now have several GW of reliable low cost PWR's with a life span out to 2060-70. Aside I am making the point that plenty of other energy developments carry much larger liabilities that potentially can fall on the taxpayer. 

Salvage value of redundant wind turbines (which offsets site restoration costs):

Blades and nacelles- ground up and used as fuel in WTE power stations (this is very common in Germany) 

Copper - $5000 a tonne

Aluminium - $600 a tonne

Steel - $150 a tonne

Redeployment

http://dutchwind.com/

There is a healthy market in 2nd hand turbines. These are older reconditioned turbines of 1990's vintage. Typically they are redeployed to large industrial sites where the power is often used directly (there are several examples in East London). The sites they came from are then redeveloped with fewer larger turbines. 

Subsidies

 Subsidies for onshore wind are now being rapidly phased out in Europe. Subsidy levels for offshore wind are falling.

UK has removed subsidies for ongoing projects. Despite this:

https://www.powerengineeringint.com/articles/2018/01/uk-onshore-wind-moves-forward-despite-lack-of-subsidy.html

Location

When I lived in Oz the woman who lived opposite was telling me what an expensive scam solar power is. The fact she had her panels installed on a South East facing roof didn't appear to be a factor in her considerations. 

The point is when choosing locations the trick is to chose suitable ones that among many other factors will include access. Across Europe wind farms are generally not located on the top of mountains, not least because such locations are considered to be areas of outstanding natural beauty. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Hi, Nick.

None of your local European conditions are directly transferable to what is being done in the North Americas. 

There are no waste to energy power stations, other than for municipal garbage, and even those are few.  I doubt they would accept ground-up blades as waste.  The costs of grinding up the blades would be substantial.  Those WTE plants do not pay for the materials, you have to pay them to take the stuff.  It would have to be trucked across State lines, another legal problem. For example, there are no WTE plants anywhere in Vermont, a big energy-plantation State. 

You can get some money for the steel towers but it costs you far more to get it out of there, off some mountaintop, so there is zero incentive for anyone to do so. I suppose you could melt down the copper in the generator, but again, the cost of bringing in the multiple cranes to get it down off the nacelle is more than the scrap value.  That stuff just gets abandoned.

In the US, nobody puts up a wind machine at their factory.  The practice is to buy a big diesel generator, if you absolutely need continuing power. Otherwise, those guys just pull off the grid. 

And yup, mountains are outstanding areas of natural beauty.  the problem is that the New Yorkers don't come here to appreciate the raw natural beauty; they come here to set up a plantation and exploit the natives, then spend the money down on Martha's VIneyard with their hookers.  Who cares about those mountains? Not them. 

[NickW + 2,714]

9 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Hi, Nick.

None of your local European conditions are directly transferable to what is being done in the North Americas. 

There are no waste to energy power stations (what about cement plants - they can also use ground up blades as fuel), other than for municipal garbage, and even those are few.  I doubt they would accept ground-up blades as waste (Why not - they are already burning plastic, woods, and no doubt some co-mingled glass) .  The costs of grinding up the blades would be substantial. (No it isn't - they are fibre glass and balsa wood)  Those WTE plants do not pay for the materials, you have to pay them to take the stuff (which offsets against the cost of landfilling them)  It would have to be trucked across State lines (Imposed Govt Bureaucracy there) , another legal problem. For example, there are no WTE plants anywhere in Vermont, a big energy-plantation State. 

You can get some money for the steel towers but it costs you far more to get it out of there (I said offset - not pay the full cost), off some mountaintop, so there is zero incentive for anyone to do so. I suppose you could melt down the copper (again offset opportunity) in the generator, but again, the cost of bringing in the multiple cranes to get it down off the nacelle is more than the scrap value.  That stuff just gets abandoned (which is why upfront decommissioning trust funds held by a third party are a good idea) 

In the US, nobody puts up a wind machine at their factory (Fair enough but there is a major international market for 2nd hand turbines - If European turbines can be exported to Africa and SE Asia why can't US turbines?).  The practice is to buy a big diesel generator, if you absolutely need continuing power. Otherwise, those guys just pull off the grid. Apples and oranges comparison.  Wind turbines redeployed in such a way are not emergency back up gensets in the same way a diesel would be deployed. An example local to me is a potato farmer who purchased a second hand unit to run a large cold store. The power simply displaces a proportion of what he would have to purchase).   ( Ford, Avon Docks are two examples I can think of that have done the same)

And yup, mountains are outstanding areas of natural beauty.  the problem is that the New Yorkers don't come here to appreciate the raw natural beauty; they come here to set up a plantation and exploit the natives, then spend the money down on Martha's VIneyard with their hookers.  Who cares about those mountains? Not them. No argument here where turbines are deployed and spoil exceptional scenery

Vermont isn't the world or North America as a whole. You appear to be describing some unique-ish local conditions and applying them nationally. 

 Response above in bold.