Safety and Resilience: Side Benefits of Renewable Energy
Here’s an article that makes an important but normally overlooked point: renewable energy systems are generally far less susceptible to storms, earthquakes, and other natural (or man-made) disasters than fossil fuel or nuclear plants. This is largely due to the fact that they use no fuel, or, more precisely, that their fuel is manufactured in a large nuclear reactor 93 million miles away and sent to us, at no cost or danger, at 186,000 miles per second.
I don’t quite understand how wind turbines can be less susceptible to storms, including hurricanes and tornadoes, than fossil fuel and nuclear generating plants. There are nuclear generating plant designs which make it practical to instal them underground. If that is done in areas where flooding is impossible, they should be immune to the weather. Unfortunately, many nuclear plants have been built in areas where flooding can be a problem.
Fiji installed tilt-up wind turbines which could be lowered in advance of hurricanes. On a per-kilowatt basis, they cost far more than non-tilt-up wind turbines, partly because they were much smaller.
If there is some economical way to make wind turbines adequately resistant to high winds, I would like to know that it is.
Solar systems, of whatever kind, have to collect solar energy over large area. It would seem that they also would be difficult to design to resist high winds, except for non-articulated roof-top systems when they are fastened directly to a roof to which they closely conform.
It keeps bothering me how, in spite of evidence like this sad situation, but positive non the less, wind and solar have the best characteristics plus on top of that use no water resources, why are these systems so under attack by fossil burners. Well, Ghandi said: first they don´t pay attention, then they deny, then… they attack, lastly: we win.
Wind and solar don´t consume oil, gas or coal, they don´t leave toxic chemicals, radioactive materials behind so they are cheaper and better. Everybody should notice that.
They do have a very serious problem; they are intermittent sources of power. So far, they depend on nuclear and fossil fuel sources of power to back them up.
Craig,
I’m afraid I have to call BS on the article you linked. One of the things I’ve been looking for over the past week is an estimate of what percent of solar panels were ruined by the storm. I’m pretty certain that the tally will be higher than anyone would like to see, and reflect a far higher LCOE as a result.
My reasoning is that if high winds have a tendency to rip up shingles, then it stands to reason that much larger sheets that have a small air spacing between them and the roof would be far more vulnerable to being torn off of the roof. Also the large amount of debris associated with a tropical storm would stand to batter the cells, scratching them and reducing their effectiveness.
Wind power is far more resilient to hurricane-level winds because the blades can be pitched to allow a minimal profile – with most of the blades and the nacelle at a height that is above the dangerous debris.
The reason that no-one was worried about the loss of solar power is that solar power is insignificant compared to nuclear generation in the area of interest. Only 36 GWh were generated in NJ by solar power throughout the month of August (a number that would naturally be far higher than what would be expected in October or November)… Meanwhile, demand for electricity in New Jersey in August was ~3.6 TWh. That means the solar panels produced ~1% of NJ energy in August… and in all likelihood would have been expected to produce ~0.5% of the electrical energy in November.
The nuclear power plants – on the other hand – produced ~3 TWh, or ~83% of the total electrical energy needs in August. It seems logical that the potential loss of ~83% of the state’s generation would be a priority compared to the potential loss of <1% of the state's generation.
OK, thanks for the correction. Please let me know what you come up with in the way of storm damage.
Craig,
I have yet to find a single report. I think we will only know by comparing year-over-year solar power generation in the affected areas. That information won’t be available until February or March. So I don’t have any facts that prove my suspicion yet…
I just wanted to let you know that the conclusion drawn in the linked article was not supported by reason. People in NJ just want to keep the lights on right now. They’ll start worrying about solar power again once the situation returns to normal.
🙂
My point wasn’t really this particular blackout in NJ, but disasters generally, both now and in the future. It seems to me that renewables generally — especially as they’re implemented with distributed generation — are less prone to outages than fossil fuel plants whose fuel lines can be cut off via embargoes, earthquakes, and floods. The plants themselves are also more susceptible to interruption by sabotage.
Craig,
I agree – in general – with your overall point. But I think that there are always exceptions to any rule.
In this case, the distributed nature of solar left it quite vulnerable to a distributed threat like a 1000-mile superstorm.
I maintain my suspicion that wind energy is pretty resilient against high-wind events… but I suspect that wind power would be extremely vulnerable to an earthquake – which doesn’t really bother solar power much.
I think that overall there is more to be said for distributed generation than not, so we largely agree… but it’s complex, and the linked article was simply not making a valid case.
I enjoy the fact that you make us all to think about things like this. We’re all better off for it.
Thank you… and keep fighting the good fight.
Thanks for the kind words. It’s true that I try to get at all this from as many different angles as possible. And I’m definitely not quitting. This is fun and extremely rewarding.
I’m not so sure that wind turbines are adequately resistant to hurricanes.
Some years ago, Fiji installed wind turbines in the Sigatoka area. They were French-made tilt-up turbines that could be lowered to prevent hurricane damage. If wind turbines were really resistant to hurricanes, then presumably Fiji would not have installed tilt-up turbines since they cost considerably more for the power delivered.
If the wind direction were invariant during storms, then perhaps wind turbine blades could be adjusted to prevent damage. But the wind is not totally unidirectional.
The following is an advertisement for a wind turbine that can be tilted down for hurricane protection, thereby presumably indicating that there is a need to lower them to prevent hurricane damage:
http://www.vergnet.com/en/faq.php
Frank,
Most wind turbines are programmed to lock down and pitch the blades out of the wind at ~55-60 mph.
I don’t have data to back this up, but it’s hard to imagine that the wind force at 75 mph with the blades pitched out of the wind,would cause greater strain than a ~55 mph wind with the blades pitched to catch the wind.
It’s kind of like a sailboat trimming sails in higher wind. The mast doesn’t snap in the higher wind because the profile that is caught in the wind is greatly reduced. I’d imagine that hurricanes that have higher wind speeds (100+ mph) would be dangerous for wind, but 75 mph should be manageable.
Fiji installed tilt-up turbines to cope with hurricanes. They would not have done so if there had been another method to cope with hurricanes.
Winds in some areas can exceed 150 mph.