N.Y. Governor Signs Climate Bill

[ceo_energemsier + 1,818]

New York on July 18 awarded two major offshore wind contracts to Norway’s Equinor and a joint venture between Denmark’s Orsted and U.S. utility Eversource, procuring more of the renewable power than it had planned as part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Cuomo made the announcement at a New York City news conference just before signing into law a landmark climate bill to reduce the state’s greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050. The law mandates reducing emissions by 85% from 1990 levels by 2050, and offsetting the remaining 15%, making the state carbon-neutral.

Offshore wind is expected to play a key role in reducing the state’s emissions, and the state has a goal of procuring 9,000 megawatts (MW) by 2035. The two contracts unveiled add up to 1,700 MW of capacity, or enough to power 1 million homes, Cuomo said. The state’s first procurement had originally planned to be between 800 and 1,200 MW.

Instead, it awarded an 880-MW contract to Orsted and Eversource for the Sunrise Wind project off the eastern coast of Long Island and another 816-MW contract to Equinor for its Empire Wind farm that will supply New York City.

The projects will be completed by 2024, Cuomo said, also pledging $287 million in state funds to build facilities to support the industry.

“These projects will help make New York the hub for this growing, exciting, necessary future industry,” Cuomo said, adding that they will generate $3.2 billion in economic activity and create 1,600 jobs.

Four major developers had submitted proposals to the state, including a joint venture between EDF and Shell and another between Avangrid Inc and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners.

The New York contract marks another recent win for Orsted, which last month was awarded a 1,100-MW contract by the state of New Jersey for a project off the coast of Atlantic City.

The selection of Orsted and Equinor continues the trend of European companies dominating the nascent U.S. offshore wind sector.

The cost of generating electricity from offshore wind farms has dropped dramatically in recent years but is far more costly than power from wind facilities onshore. The United States currently has just one small offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island that is also owned by Orsted, but larger projects are being developed both there and elsewhere in the Northeast.

[markslawson + 1,042]

8 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

New York on July 18 awarded two major offshore wind contracts to Norway’s Equinor and a joint venture between Denmark’s Orsted and U.S. utility Eversource, procuring more of the renewable power than it had planned as part of Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s ambitious plan to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

This article is full of the hot air that is common in any reporting on wind power.. example

 

9 hours ago, ceo_energemsier said:

“These projects will help make New York the hub for this growing, exciting, necessary future industry,” Cuomo said, adding that they will generate $3.2 billion in economic activity and create 1,600 jobs.

What would this hub do? The bulk of manufacturing of turbines is done in China and offshore wind farms are common in Europe. As for the claims about economic activity, how would these wind farms create 1,600 jobs? The article doesn't say and I bet none of the journalists reporting on it asked, or bothered to look beyond the press release. The bit about one million homes is when the turbines are operating at full, rated capacity. How often does that happen? What is the average output (its something like 40 per cent of rated capacity for offshore turbines, usually) and what happens when they aren't producing much?    

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

More kobs for foreign companies....should make Americans (and the unions) happy.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

There are some illustrative wind propeller operations in and near New York State up along the Niagara River and Lake Ontario.  The one that perhaps most dramatically illustrates the problems of these machines is the big installation (86 machines, each rated 2.3 MW, built by Siemens) on Wolfe Island, which sits smack at the entrance to the St. Lawrence River right on the border with the USA, inside Ontario (Canada).  It is a fiendishly monstrous installation, wrecking the local vistas, and the vibrations of the blades have driven away the earthworms underneath, rendering the soil unusable for growing vegetables and (of course) any dairy cattle.  Here is what the place now looks like from a boat:

Would you like to vacation here?  Live here?  These folks have invited the Devil himself into their home.  You cannot attempt to live any closer than at least 1,000 feet from such a machine, as the pulses will disturb your life both awake and sleeping.  these machines will literally make you sick. 

The installation made a laughingstock out of Ontario Hydro  (and the Govt of Ontario), with a "Power Purchase Agreement"  [PPA]  of forced purchase by the Province of whatever is produced at some astronomical rate. This 2009 installation came as a result of the eco-warrior government of Kathleen Wynne, the woman that ran for Premier of the Province (on the Liberal ticket) on the premise that she was homosexual and therefore the people should vote for her to demonstrate their tolerance and acceptance.  Unfortunately for the people this idea brought in the era of craziness in Ontario governmental decision-making, with the destruction of nuclear power (and even hydro power) and the advance of mostly wind power (some solar, but the big push was wind).  The other crazy ideas resulted in the complete collapse of Ontario manufacturing, especially in Southwest Ontario, now littered with empty factory buildings. The economic collapse, now including the entire auto industry except for one small plant building I think Honda autos, is so complete that in the last election the Wynne government was totally destroyed, going from 96 seats out of 120 down to five, and losing official Party status in the Legislature.  This has ushered in the era of the Ford administration, nothing to write home about  (the Ford brothers are the crazies of the right wing of Ontario politics), but at least it was no longer the leftists, which for Ontario is already a major step up. 

Wolfe Island became a killing field for wildlife, as it is situated on a major bird migratory flyway.  It kills 14 migratory birds per year per windmill, and another 4,000 bats overall. Along with Canada geese, these machines have slaughtered eagles and hawks by the hundreds.  The raw truth is that this island has turned from a pastoral refuge into a death machine.  

Can politicians really be this stupid?  Yes, they can.  This is the result. 

[butasha + 123]

Twenty-One Bad Things About Wind Energy — and Three Reasons Why

https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/21-bad-things-wind-power-3-reasons-why/

Long interesting article that will not go over well with the green zealots.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,130]

Quantifying heat wave fraud.  Enjoy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDZFFObVoPk

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

On 7/21/2019 at 2:00 AM, markslawson said:

What would this hub do? The bulk of manufacturing of turbines is done in China and offshore wind farms are common in Europe. As for the claims about economic activity, how would these wind farms create 1,600 jobs? The article doesn't say and I bet none of the journalists reporting on it asked, or bothered to look beyond the press release

Mark, 

I cannot and will not speak to the economic rationale behind these offshore windfarms, but your above statement is incorrect. 1.600 US jobs in entirely feasible, atleast during construction and also a lot during O&M (Operations & Maintenance). Courtesy of the Jones a lot of smaller vessels will need to build and serviced. Existing vessels will need to be converted. Other work will include steel-work of structures (US has capacity at idle yards) which might be a little more expensive than Europe, but transport costs (not to mention the potential costs of delays) will make manufacturing in the US entirely feasible. Add to this all the installation personel and assembly in base-port etc. 

 

[markslawson + 1,042]

14 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

I cannot and will not speak to the economic rationale behind these offshore windfarms, but your above statement is incorrect. 1.600 US jobs in entirely feasible, atleast during construction and also a lot during O&M (Operations & Maintenance). Courtesy of the Jones a lot of smaller vessels will need to build and serviced. Existing vessels will need to be converted. Other work will include steel-work of structures (US has capacity at idle yards) which might be a little more expensive than Europe, but transport costs (not to mention the potential costs of delays) will make manufacturing in the US entirely feasible. Add to this all the installation personel and assembly in base-port etc. 

I won't argue the above, although it would be nice if the report itself said so.. However, I don't think you realise you've dug a deep hole for this project. If you're talking about 1600 jobs during construction the question is how many jobs would haver been created by building the equivalent in a conventional plant? If the wind farms create more jobs than the equivalent fossil fuel plant that's bad. Those extra jobs have to be paid for by the consumer, and the higher resulting prices mean higher costs and potentially fewer jobs elsewhere in the economy.  With the 1600 figure I assumed they were talking about some sort of efficiency gain but, of course, they were probably talking about construction. If so its straight misdirection. More jobs in this case is bad.. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

7 hours ago, markslawson said:

If the wind farms create more jobs than the equivalent fossil fuel plant that's bad.

I don't know if they do or don't. 

7 hours ago, markslawson said:

Those extra jobs have to be paid for by the consumer, and the higher resulting prices mean higher costs and potentially fewer jobs elsewhere in the economy. 

I specifically said I cannot and will not speak to the economic rationale. 

7 hours ago, markslawson said:

More jobs in this case is bad.. 

That assumes that construction of FF plant would create less construction jobs. Do you know if this is the case?

---------------------------

Above said, in the interest of being fair - have a look at what offshore renewables have done for the UK North East and dying coastal communities. It has revived many; created jobs and activity. Has it been expensive? Yes. But is has also provided many skilled and unskilled jobs.

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 7/21/2019 at 10:05 PM, butasha said:

Twenty-One Bad Things About Wind Energy — and Three Reasons Why

https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/21-bad-things-wind-power-3-reasons-why/

Long interesting article that will not go over well with the green zealots.

And the updated version of the article:

https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/25-industrial-wind-energy-deceptions/

[Tom Kirkman + 8,860]

On 7/22/2019 at 9:40 AM, Wastral said:

Quantifying heat wave fraud.  Enjoy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDZFFObVoPk

Nice graphs in the 6 minute video.  The climate scaremongering headlines screencapped are amusing, especially once you realize that this "heat wave" that the media is panicking about is actually close to the historical median temperatures for July.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

8 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Above said, in the interest of being fair - have a look at what offshore renewables have done for the UK North East and dying coastal communities. It has revived many; created jobs and activity. Has it been expensive? Yes. But is has also provided many skilled and unskilled jobs.

If your rationale for a destructive and dysfunctional electrical generation policy is "how many jobs," then you might as well promote building military goods, such as tanks and self-propelled guns, which are very labor-intensive yet serve no economic purpose (other than employment).  For that matter, outlier ports such as Belfast could go back to building battleships for the Navy by the dozens, those monsters require lots of manpower to put together.  

Might bankrupt the Treasury doing it, though.  Did in the past.  Ask old King George, and a few others.  Spain's Armada comes to mind; they all sank, but hey, sure provided a lot of employment!

[markslawson + 1,042]

16 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Above said, in the interest of being fair - have a look at what offshore renewables have done for the UK North East and dying coastal communities. It has revived many; created jobs and activity. Has it been expensive? Yes. But is has also provided many skilled and unskilled jobs.

No idea about construction jobs, or even about operating costs, but the major problem with wind farms is that any capacity they have has to be basically duplicated by conventional plants or major storage put on the system. Where the system already has plenty of capacity then its not such a problem but it is a direct extra cost. You can't have the carbon reduction without paying for it. Another approach (Australian) is "demand management" which is a euphemism for paying major users to stay off a system which can't support them because so much intermittent capacity has been put on it. Those users may then have their own generators. Of course I'm well aware that putting a major project near a community will help it - just as a major coal fired plant would help any town near it, and help develop skills and so on. I don't see how that's part of the argument. Low bills for energy users would help communities everywhere. Anyway, thanks for the discussion. Leave it with you. 

[Rasmus Jorgensen + 1,169]

On 7/23/2019 at 5:51 PM, Jan van Eck said:

If your rationale for a destructive and dysfunctional electrical generation policy is "how many jobs," then you might as well promote building military goods

I did not say that there aren't better ways for society to spend their money. However, Europe are now building subsidy free offshore windfarms - all that really needed was for the supply chain to reach some sort of critical mass (+ some innovation). I guess it remains to be proven to what degree intermittent powersupply can work, but as long as it is being added to a manageable extent I really don't see the problem. Especially if it provide employment.. 

Another discussion is if society instead should devote their resources to thorium reactors, but this seems to be taking off. A Danish company, seaborg, seems to have been inspired by your vision of container-rized MS reactors https://www.seaborg.co/ 

[NickW + 2,714]

On ‎7‎/‎21‎/‎2019 at 1:00 AM, markslawson said:

This article is full of the hot air that is common in any reporting on wind power.. example

 

What would this hub do? The bulk of manufacturing of turbines is done in China and offshore wind farms are common in Europe. As for the claims about economic activity, how would these wind farms create 1,600 jobs? The article doesn't say and I bet none of the journalists reporting on it asked, or bothered to look beyond the press release. The bit about one million homes is when the turbines are operating at full, rated capacity. How often does that happen? What is the average output (its something like 40 per cent of rated capacity for offshore turbines, usually) and what happens when they aren't producing much?    

Join the bold bits.

The bulk is undertaken in Denmark and Germany as far as the export market for Turbines goes (Vestas and Siemens) . I accept some of the component parts will be of Chinese origin

Goldwind and GE are also major manufacturers but have been to date  largely confined to their home markets although GE is now manufacturing in France.

 

 

 

[NickW + 2,714]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 4:51 PM, Jan van Eck said:

If your rationale for a destructive and dysfunctional electrical generation policy is "how many jobs," then you might as well promote building military goods, such as tanks and self-propelled guns, which are very labor-intensive yet serve no economic purpose (other than employment).  For that matter, outlier ports such as Belfast could go back to building battleships for the Navy by the dozens, those monsters require lots of manpower to put together.  

Might bankrupt the Treasury doing it, though.  Did in the past.  Ask old King George, and a few others.  Spain's Armada comes to mind; they all sank, but hey, sure provided a lot of employment!

Except the wind turbines have served a purpose beyond that of creating jobs. They have displaced a fair quantity of imported coal and gas from the UK network.

Furthermore that development phase learning curve has now bought us to a point where wind energy on a cost per kwh basis is almost competitive with fossil fuels without taking account of externality costs.

 

[NickW + 2,714]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 8:42 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

And the updated version of the article:

https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/25-industrial-wind-energy-deceptions/

That article is so badly written its hard to know where to start with it.

[NickW + 2,714]

On ‎7‎/‎23‎/‎2019 at 4:51 PM, Jan van Eck said:

If your rationale for a destructive and dysfunctional electrical generation policy is "how many jobs," then you might as well promote building military goods, such as tanks and self-propelled guns, which are very labor-intensive yet serve no economic purpose (other than employment).  For that matter, outlier ports such as Belfast could go back to building battleships for the Navy by the dozens, those monsters require lots of manpower to put together.  

Might bankrupt the Treasury doing it, though.  Did in the past.  Ask old King George, and a few others.  Spain's Armada comes to mind; they all sank, but hey, sure provided a lot of employment!

There in lies the saving to the treasury from wind energy,. Build enough wind turbines and the UK will no longer need Qatari gas (can probably rely on its own sources and some Western Hemisphere imports) so we no longer need to build loads of extra naval ships to police the Gulf from the nasty I-ranians

Win - win for the UK taxpayer.

[markslawson + 1,042]

11 hours ago, NickW said:

The bulk is undertaken in Denmark and Germany as far as the export market for Turbines goes (Vestas and Siemens) . I accept some of the component parts will be of Chinese origin

Okay, export market, duly noted. In lieu of trailing through the figures myself I'll accept that.. and thankyou..

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 7/20/2019 at 7:00 PM, markslawson said:

This article is full of the hot air that is common in any reporting on wind power.. example

 

What would this hub do? The bulk of manufacturing of turbines is done in China and offshore wind farms are common in Europe. As for the claims about economic activity, how would these wind farms create 1,600 jobs? The article doesn't say and I bet none of the journalists reporting on it asked, or bothered to look beyond the press release. The bit about one million homes is when the turbines are operating at full, rated capacity. How often does that happen? What is the average output (its something like 40 per cent of rated capacity for offshore turbines, usually) and what happens when they aren't producing much?    

I recently heard an estimate that wind and solar could only go to 50% of our energy because of variability. Does anyone here have opinions on that issue. I think California will figure that out pretty soon. I would guess more like 35% might be practical, although it would cost more. I am not figuring out storage because I think that will not be cost effective for decades. There might be an exception where water could be pumped uphill with excess electricity and released through an electric turbine.

http://theconversation.com/how-pushing-water-uphill-can-solve-our-renewable-energy-issues-28196

Edited July 30, 2019 by ronwagn

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 hour ago, ronwagn said:

I recently heard an estimate that wind and solar could only go to 50% of our energy because of variability. Does anyone here have opinions on that issue.

Ron, it would depend on how much variability, in terms of voltage and frequency, you are prepared to accept.  Then you also have variability in output, ranging down to zero.  If you can accept that, then your system could be entirely wind and solar.  However, for a modern society that is not practical.  For example, urban street light systems, and their controllers, need the power parameters rather tightly controlled, or they burn out, go out of sequence, or the programmable controllers will fail.  Can you accept your city without streetlights?  Those are the kinds of trade-offs you would have to  make.  

The idea of stored pumped water is a failure.  That system is extremely damaging to fish. The fish kill rate is somewhere around 97%.  Are you prepared to accept the eco-destruction of an entire river?  If not, then that system will not work for you. 

About all that will work, in today's technology, is the installation of giant synchronous condensers across the power sources.  Those should be able to keep the power signal stable between tight tolerances.  But the cost is substantial.  One decent-sized synchronous condenser will set you back about 25 million dollars (US).  Can the budget withstand such hits?  And if not, you would have to accept greater variability. 

If you start subtracting out what you cannot realistically do, then you are likely back down to a maximum on-line component of wind and solar of perhaps 22-30%.  And that is the absolute maximum, assuming everything else falls into place.  And at those concentrations, you would need to accept load-shedding.  It is for these reasons that I predict oil/gas gensets and hydro will continue to be the big factor, until new nuclear power is developed.  Cheers.

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,130]

2 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Ron, it would depend on how much variability, in terms of voltage and frequency, you are prepared to accept. 

PNW will gladly cut the cord to CA.  We get cheaper power as well.  It is only one main interconnect anyways. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

On 7/23/2019 at 2:42 AM, Tom Kirkman said:

And the updated version of the article:

https://www.masterresource.org/droz-john-awed/25-industrial-wind-energy-deceptions/

Added to my Problems with Wind Turbines topic. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zx10GNbo8Oj7kDTxPF1vUZ5u0b8ce07zsEojs9U7u10/edit#

[markslawson + 1,042]

5 hours ago, ronwagn said:

I recently heard an estimate that wind and solar could only go to 50% of our energy because of variability

One theoretical limit is 33 per cent.. wind typically varies between nothing and full power with the average around one third of rated output for on-shore turbines. You can pile on more wind turbines so that more power is delivered in the in-between periods so you can get a higher average. Activists have long claimed that spreading out the turbines will reduce the variation but no-one seems to have made that work. Isolated grids using PVs and wind power have gotten to 70 per cent average but that's using batteries on grids small enough to make a difference.. Activists often claim grids have gotten to 100 per cent but a closer look indicates that they are talking about 100 per cent at any one times, not 100 per cent average.. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

16 hours ago, markslawson said:

Activists have long claimed that spreading out the turbines will reduce the variation but no-one seems to have made that work.

"Activists" either did not study physics or at best got a "C" in high school.  And therein lies the problem:  you have these people spouting off who have no technical training in the subject matter.