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Africa: Wind Power in Global Context
AfricaFocus Bulletin
Oct 4 2009 (091004)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
"Wind is .. abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales
up easily and can be developed quickly. Oil wells go dry and coal
seams run out, but the earth's wind resources cannot be depleted.
... harnessing one fifth of the earth's available wind energy would
provide seven times as much electricity as the world currently
uses. ... At the heart of Plan B is a crash program to develop
3,000 gigawatts (3 million megawatts) of wind generating capacity
by 2020, enough to satisfy 40 percent of world electricity needs.
... Indeed, the idled capacity in the U.S. automobile industry is
sufficient to produce all the wind turbines the world needs to
reach the Plan B global goal. " - Lester Brown, Plan B 4.0, October
2009
This web-only AfricaFocus Bulletin contains brief excerpts on the
role of wind in the world energy economy from the chapter on
renewable energy in the new book Plan B 4.0. It is provided as
background information for another AfricaFocus Bulletin sent out
today (http://www.africafocus.org/docs09/wind0909.php) highlighting
the new book by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer, The Boy who
Harnessed the Wind. The full text of chapters in Plan B 4.0 is
available at http://www.earth-policy.org/?/books/pb4/pb4_table_of_contents
To buy the book Plan B 4.0 go to
http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0393337197
For The Boy who Harnessed the Wind, go to
http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0061730327
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on the environment and climate
change, see http://www.africafocus.org/envexp.php
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++++++++
Turning to the Wind
[Excerpts. For full text, including footnotes and data tables,
visit http://www.earth-policy.org/?/books/pb4/pb4_table_of_contents
or buy the book at http://www.africafocus.org/books/isbn.php?0393337197]
Wind is the centerpiece of the Plan B energy economy. It is
abundant, low cost, and widely distributed; it scales up easily and
can be developed quickly. Oil wells go dry and coal seams run out,
but the earth's wind resources cannot be depleted. A worldwide
survey of wind energy by the Stanford University team of Cristina
Archer and Mark Jacobson concluded that harnessing one fifth of the
earth's available wind energy would provide seven times as much
electricity as the world currently uses. For example, China with
vast wind-swept plains in the north and west, countless mountain
ridges, and a long coastline, all rich with wind has enough readily
harnessable wind energy to easily double its current electrical
generating capacity.
The United States is also richly endowed. In addition to having
enough land-based wind energy to satisfy national electricity needs
several times over, the National Renewable Energy Lab has
identified 1,000 gigawatts (1 gigawatt equals 1,000 megawatts) of
wind energy waiting to be tapped off the East Coast and 900
gigawatts off the West Coast. This offshore capacity alone is
sufficient to power the U.S. economy. Europe is already tapping
its off-shore wind. An assessment by the Garrad Hassan wind energy
consulting group concluded that if governments aggressively develop
their vast off-shore resources, wind could supply all of Europe's
residential electricity by 2020.
For many years, a small handful of countries dominated growth in
the industry, but this is changing as the industry goes global,
with some 70 countries now harnessing wind resources. World wind
electric generation is growing at a frenetic pace. From 2000 to
2008, generating capacity increased from 17,000 megawatts to an
estimated 121,000 megawatts. The world leader in total capacity is
now the United States, followed by Germany (until recently the
leader), Spain, China, and India. But with China's wind generation
doubling each year, the U.S. lead may be short-lived.
Measured by share of national electricity supplied by wind, Denmark
is the leader, at 21 percent. Four north German states now get one
third or more of their electricity from wind. For Germany as a
whole, the figure is 8 percent and climbing. Denmark is now
looking to push the wind share of its electricity to 50 percent,
with most of the additional power coming from off-shore. In
contemplating this prospect, Danish planners have turned energy
policy upside down. They are looking at using wind as the mainstay
of their electrical generating system and fossil-fuel-generated
power to fill in when the wind ebbs. In Spain, which already has
nearly 17,000 megawatts of capacity, the government is shooting for
20,000 megawatts by 2010. France, a relative newcomer to wind
energy, is looking to develop 25,000 megawatts of wind by 2020; out
of this, 6,000 megawatts would be off-shore.
As of early 2009 the United States had just over 28,000 megawatts
of wind generating capacity, with an additional 38 wind farms under
construction. Beyond this, proposed wind farms that can generate
some 300,000 megawatts are on hold, awaiting grid construction.
In addition to Texas and California, which is planning a
4,500-megawatt wind farm complex in the southern end of the state,
several other states are emerging as wind superpowers. As noted
earlier, Clipper Windpower and BP are teaming up to build the
5,050-megawatt Titan wind farm in eastern South Dakota. Colorado
billionaire Philip Anschutz is developing a 2,000-megawatt wind
farm in south central Wyoming to generate electricity for
transmission to California, Arizona, and Nevada.19
In the east, Maine a wind energy newcomer is planning to develop
3,000 megawatts of wind generating capacity, far more than the
state's 1.3 million residents need. New York State, which has 1,300
megawatts of wind generating capacity, plans to add another 8,000
megawatts, with most of the power being generated by winds coming
off Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. And soon Oregon will nearly double
its wind generating capacity with the 900-megawatt wind farm
planned for the windy Columbia River Gorge.
While U.S. attention has focused on the wind-rich Great Plains, and
rightly so, another area is now gathering attention. For years, the
only off-shore wind project in the east that was moving through the
permitting stage was a 400-megawatt project off the coast of Cape
Cod, Massachusetts. Now Massachusetts has been joined by Rhode
Island, New York, New Jersey, and Delaware. Delaware is planning an
off-shore wind farm of up to 600 megawatts, an installation that
could satisfy half the state's residential electricity needs.
East Coast off-shore wind is attractive for three reasons. One, it
is strong and reliable. The off-shore region stretching from
Massachusetts southward to North Carolina has a potential wind
generating capacity that exceeds the requirement of the states in
the region. Two, the East Coast has an extensive, rather shallow
off-shore area, which makes off-shore wind construction less
costly. And three, this electricity source is close to consumers.
To the north, Canada, with its vast area and only 33 million
people, has one of the highest wind-to-population ratios of any
country. Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta are far and away the leaders
in installed capacity at this point. But in recent months three of
Canada's four Atlantic provinces New Brunswick, Prince Edward
Island, and Nova Scotia have begun discussions to jointly develop
and export some of their wealth of wind energy to the densely
populated U.S. Northeast.
Impressive though the U.S. growth is, the expansion now under way
in China is even more so. China has some 12,000 megawatts of wind
generating capacity, mostly in the 50- to 100-megawatt wind farm
category, with many more medium-size wind farms coming. Beyond
this, its Wind Base program is creating six mega-complexes of wind
farms of at least 10 gigawatts each. These are located in Gansu
Province (15 gigawatts), Western Inner Mongolia (20 gigawatts),
Eastern Inner Mongolia (30 gigawatts), Hebei Province (10
gigawatts), Xinjiang Hami (20 gigawatts), and along the coast north
of Shanghai in Jiangsu Province (10 gigawatts). When completed,
these complexes will have a generating capacity of 105 gigawatts as
much wind power as the entire world had in early 2008.
In considering the land requirements to produce energy, wind
turbines are extraordinarily efficient. For example, an acre of
corn land in northern Iowa used to site a wind turbine can produce
$300,000 worth of electricity per year. This same acre of land
planted in corn would yield 480 gallons of ethanol worth $960. This
extraordinary energy yield of land used for wind turbines helps
explain why investors find wind farms so attractive.
And since wind turbines occupy only 1 percent of the land covered
by a wind farm, farmers and ranchers continue to grow grain and
graze cattle. In effect, they can double crop their land,
simultaneously harvesting a food crop wheat, corn, or cattle and
energy. With no investment on their part, farmers and ranchers
typically receive $3,000 10,000 a year in royalties for each wind
turbine erected on their land. For thousands of ranchers in the
U.S. Great Plains, the value of electricity produced on their land
in the years ahead will dwarf their cattle sales. One of the early
concerns with wind energy was the risk it posed to birds, but this
can be managed by careful siting to avoid risky migration and
breeding areas. The most recent research indicates that bird
fatalities from wind farms are minuscule compared with the number
of birds that die flying into skyscrapers, colliding with cars, or
being captured by cats.
Other critics are concerned about the visual effect. When some
people see a wind farm they see a blight on the landscape. Others
see a civilization-saving source of energy. Although there are
NIMBY problems ("not in my backyard"), the PIMBY response ("put it
in my backyard") is much more pervasive. Within rural communities,
competition for wind farms whether in ranch country in Colorado or
dairy country in upstate New York is intense. This is not
surprising, since the jobs, the royalties from wind turbines, and
the additional tax revenue are welcomed by local communities.
At the heart of Plan B is a crash program to develop 3,000
gigawatts (3 million megawatts) of wind generating capacity by
2020, enough to satisfy 40 percent of world electricity needs. This
will require a near doubling of capacity every two years, up from
a doubling every three years over the last decade. This
climate-stabilizing initiative would require the installation of
1.5 million wind turbines of 2 megawatts each. Manufacturing such
a huge number of wind turbines over the next 11 years sounds
intimidating until it is compared with the 70 million automobiles
the world produces each year. At $3 million per installed turbine,
this would mean investing $4.5 trillion by 2020, or $409 billion
per year. This compares with world oil and gas capital expenditures
that are projected to reach $1 trillion per year by 2016.
Wind turbines can be mass-produced on assembly lines, much as B-24
bombers were in World War II at Ford's massive Willow Run assembly
plant in Michigan. Indeed, the idled capacity in the U.S.
automobile industry is sufficient to produce all the wind turbines
the world needs to reach the Plan B global goal. Not only do the
idle plants exist, but there are skilled workers in these
communities eager to return to work. The state of Michigan, for
example, in the heart of the wind-rich Great Lakes region, has more
than its share of idled auto assembly plants.
Wind has many attractions. For utilities, being able to sign
long-term fixed-price contracts is a godsend for them and their
customers. When they look at natural gas, they look at a fuel
source with a volatile price. When they look at coal-fired power,
they face the uncertainty of future carbon costs.
The appeal of wind energy can be seen in its growth relative to
other energy sources. In 2008, for example, wind accounted for 36
percent of new generating capacity in the European Union compared
with 29 percent for natural gas, 18 percent for photovoltaics, 10
percent for oil, and only 3 percent for coal. In the United States,
new wind generating capacity has exceeded coal by a wide margin
each year since 2005. Worldwide, no new nuclear-generating capacity
came online in 2008, while new wind generating capacity totaled
27,000 megawatts. The structure of the world energy economy is not
just changing, it is changing fast.
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication
providing reposted commentary and analysis on African issues, with
a particular focus on U.S. and international policies. AfricaFocus
Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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