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Tilting toward windmills
Bookwatch Tilting toward windmills If the exploitation of any fuel, be it fissile, fusile, long-dead fossil or recently dead biomass, is too risky for the human race, then the human race must either turn to the renewables (excepting biomass) or it must turn back to a pre-industrial style of living. If you accept that proposition then you do so with an urgency that depends on your interpretation of 'too risky'. Your interpretation, also dependent, weaves together your identification of the risk (as political, economic, environmental, geological, technological and/or whatever) with your assessment of its size and immediacy (or remoteness). A t the EC's directorate-general for energy the view is that fuels must be relied upon for a long time yet, even if not in a pre-1970s mix. In the words of H . N . Nacfaire and K. Diamantaras, 1
both of the directorate-general, 'The fundamental aim of Community energy policy is to ensure the Community's energy supplies at reasonable cost, to guarantee their security of supply and to minimize their environmental impact'. More particularly, stimulated by the oil shocks of the 1970s, the Community has based its energy policy on reduction of dependence on oil (especially of the imported variety), diversification of energy supply sources, greater use of indigenous sources such as coal, nuclear energy and renewables, and increased energy efficiency. Nacfaire and Diamantaras claim c o n s i d e r a b l e progress since 1973. They instance a fall from 62% to less than 40% in the Community's dependence on oil for primary energy, and a rise of over 20% in energy efficiency. However, these authors look to the U S A for their standard of comparison. They find there a federation that depends on outside supplies for less than 12% of its needs. It is by such comparison that the Council of Ministers has been spurred to try harder. The Council's principal aims for 1995 have therefore become: to obtain
ENERGY POLICY December 1989
better-structured and more diverse energy supplies, to reach substantially higher energy efficiency, to keep the oil and natural gas fraction of the fuel for electricity generation below 15%, to b a l a n c e c o n c e r n o v e r e n e r g y against concern for the environment, and to p r o m o t e the r e n e w a b l e s . Evidently the Community does not regard fuels as so risky that a complete shift to the renewables need be contemplated. In fact, the 'promotion' of the renewables boils down to half a dozen main lines of activity. These are: research, development and demonstration; clearance of legislative and administrative obstacles; consideration of the renewables for European Development Fund programmes; establishment of uniform standards for equipment; encouragement of private companies, and of the distributors who purchase the electricity those companies produce, to exclude discriminatory conditions from their contracts; and fostering of cooperation between Community industries. The renewables already provide about 7% of Europe's energy, according to some colleagues of Nacfaire and Diamantaras. G. Caratti et al 2 state that most of the renewables' contribution is via a well established technology - hydroelectric generation - that accounts for 5% of the total. The rest is from biomass, mainly in the form of f u e l w o o d . T h e g r e a t e r p a r t of Europe's hydraulic resource is already being tapped for electricity generation so any major growth in the renewables' contribution to this sector must come from elsewhere. Caratti et al distinguish wind energy technology as the closest of the newly emerging technologies to economic attractiveness. Wind energy is probably the most uniformly distributed of the renewables in Europe and has the biggest potential in both the medium and the long term. A realistic target for the year 2000, in the eyes of these
authors, is 5% of the electricity generated in the Community. That would save about 26 million tonnes of oil a year. It would also stop the annual emission of over a hundred million tonnes of COz (the main 'greenhouse' gas) out of the Community's 2 700 million total. The authors call for 'fair play' for wind turbine generators (w t gs). In small and medium sizes (which can generate up to a few hundred kilow a t t s e a c h ) t h e s e m a c h i n e s can already be cost-effective where the wind is strongest, yet they are coming only slowly into use except where there are subsidies made 'explicit' by government policy. There is a feeling, say Carotti and his fellow writers, that investment in wind power is being retarded by subsidies, overt or covert, to conventional technologies. Thus the market is being distorted and appraisals of the options are not being done justly. Neglect of the full social costs may have delayed the commercial introduction of wind power by as many as 11 years. That estimate is not the authors' own but is one that they take from the results of a study initiated by the Community: this happened because there were suspicions that all the costs and benefits were not being considered when comparing investments in wind, photovoltaic ('solar cell') and conventional power technologies. The study, led by Olav ltohmeyer, 3 was focused on West Germany for illustrative purposes only, say Caratti et al, but the conclusions are expected to be broadly similar for all European countries. In their report Hohmeyer et al note other authors' observations to the effect that the macroeconomic and social advantages of new energy technologies, and the hidden costs of conventional energy systems, are not adequately represented in microeconomic evaluations. The general market pricing mechanism does not seem to these authors to work well enough in such cases. Where the market is seriously distorted, they remark, the government should compensate by internalizing the externalities. Thus to help the m a r k e t m e c h a n i s m o p t i m i z e the allocation of economic resources, government needs knowledge of the full social costs of energy. Hohmeyer and
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his colleagues assert that government has not hitherto possessed the necessary information and that their study essays a first systematic evaluation of the external effects of energy systems. Many of those effects cannot be adequately quantified or monetarily assessed, it is granted, but the team has tried monetary comparison wherever possible. The ranges of the effects amenable to this treatment are believed to make a first rough comparison possible between the competing energy systems. The method is claimed to be valid for any market economy although the figures derived are acknowledged to apply directly only in West Germany. Bearing that proviso in mind, one may ponder the figures. For the production of one unit (ie 1 kWh) of energy the cost (1982 prices) of the gross external effects of electricity from fossil-fired power stations is f o u n d to lie in the range 0 . 0 4 0.09DM. For nuclear stations (excluding those with fast breeder reactors) the c o r r e s p o n d i n g costs are 0 . 1 0.2DM. A n average of these gross external costs, weighted to allow for the relative proportions of fossil and nuclear power in the country, is 0.050.12DM. Taking both the positive and the negative external effects of winddriven and photovoltaic generators into account (and in the process regarding the external costs of present generating stations as avoided costs) the calculators find external benefits of 0.06--0.12DM for wind and 0.070.17DM for photovoltaics. 'Even without the inclusion of all external effects', write Hohmeyer et al, 'and with a deliberate bias against renewable energy sources, the monetarized net external effects of wind and photovoltaic solar energy systems are of the same order of magnitude as basic market prices of conventionally generated electricity'. The inclusion of external effects, it is stated, indicates that wind-generated electricity becomes competitive 'considerably earlier than market prices
that 'Wind energy has long been recognized as safe and non-polluting but now it can also claim to be the cheapest method of generating electricity that can be installed'. They arrive at this conclusion without any resort to externality costing. The generating costs that they offer utilities in commendation of their case can be calculated by a method that Swift-Hook presented more fully in a British W i n d E n e r g y A s s o c i a t i o n 'position paper' three years ago. 5 A simple formula 6 is claimed to suffice because there are no time-variable fuel costs to consider and because interest charge variations scarcely matter - construction times are so short that w t gs can be up and operating before interest has mounted significantly. The two authors give actual cost and performance figures for the first year of operation of a Californian wind farm equipped with 20 British w t gs. 'On windy European sites', declare Lindley and Swift-Hook, 'these figures give generation costs 20% less than nuclear or coal-fired generation, despite the fact that the wind does not blow all the time'. The fact that the wind does not blow all the time is a frequently proffered reason for doubt - even derision about wind power. A common belief is that wind-driven power stations are incapable, without recourse to an energy storage system, of delivering the steady mains supply we all love in the UK (and hope not to lose after privatization). This belief is not restricted to laypersons: an Open University text on energy resources 7 notes the unpredictability of UK wind and asserts that therefore 'a storage facility is required in the form of batteries, pumped storage schemes or via the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen fuel'. While it is true that individual w t gs will not deliver when the wind fails, the situation changes when scattered wind farms send their produce to a s u b s t a n t i a l grid. A s S w i f t - H o o k show'. explains, s 100% availability is denied Contributing to the record 4 of a by any kind of power plant - the European Wind Energy Association average availability in the C E G B falls meeting on the environmental issues short of 88%. The concept of 'firm facing wind power, Dr David Lindley power' is a statistical one, says the and Professor Don Swift-Hook affirm professor, and enough w t gs to pro-
622
vide the s a m e annual energy as should, say, the Sizewell B PWR station, would also provide roughly the same amount of firm power. The fact, described by Swift-Hook as 'surprising to the layman', is that 'energy storage is not needed for wind power any more than it is for other plant'. I n d e e d , on L i n d l e y and SwiftHook's evidence, there are neither technical nor economic barriers to widespread adoption of wind power plant. The only problems that they acknowledge to exist are environmental and institutional. Wind farms are extensive, even though the w t gs themselves occupy only 1% or 2% of the land and leave the rest for other use. To visual obtrusion are added noise, interference with radio and television, hazards of flying blade fragments and danger to birds. EEC legalities and UK local rates also present obstacles. Swift-Hook remains confident, however, reaffirming that wind energy, renewably and without p o l l u t i o n , gives e l e c t r i c i t y m o r e cheaply and safely than does any other source, and believing that the environmental problems and legal constraints (all detailed in his book 1°) are surmountable. The Countryside Commission is disposed to favour the views of wind enthusiasts because, as it part-echoes Swift-Hook, such energy sources as theirs 'are renewable, they do not consume fossil fuels, and nor do they create atmospheric pollution'. All the same, in the Commission's foreword to a review compiled on its behalf, it notes the 'significant visual and other impacts' that the countryside and coast might suffer, and it observes magisterially that the criteria for site selection should be just as stringent as those for coal-fired, oil-fired or nuclear generating plant. This stringency excludes National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Heritage Coasts, the Broads and the New Forest unless overriding national need is proved and there are no other sites. On that ground the Commission has a l r e a d y o b j e c t e d strongly to one of the three trial wind farms proposed by the CEGB: the site is at Langdon Common in the north Pennines. (The first trial wind farm seems to be going forward unim-
ENERGY POLICY December 1989
Bookwatch
peded. It is to be built at Capel Cynon, Wales, if the energy minister consents. Planning is well advanced for generation to begin there in 1991.) The 'review of existing knowledge' compiled for the Commission is by Mark Hancock et al, 11 whom the foreword writers compliment for the comprehensiveness of their review while 'not necessarily' agreeing with all their opinions. The authors' main conclusions, as they put them, are these: •
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Wind energy is b e c o m i n g an established industry with 17 000 modern turbines in California, over 2 000 in D e n m a r k and strong interest in many other countries. Given equal treatment with other fuel sources, wind energy is already economically competitive and with technical development its costs are steadily falling. Wind turbines can benefit a local community, adding considerably to the income from land, increasing its value and boosting economic activity in the area. Land based wind energy could make a significant contribution to the UK electricity supply. Wind turbines are at worst a nuisance, the effects being localized and easily reversible. They are never a serious danger to the environment unlike traditional power forms, the effects of which can be widespread, permanent and costly. Where wind energy does pose environmental problems, these can often be overcome by technical solutions without affecting the viability of this energy source. Wind turbines are tall structures which cannot be hidden but, with sensitive development in harmony with the prevailing landscape, the effect is by no means negative and can even enhance visual appreciation. The visual appreciation of wind turbines is greatly affected by wider attitudes towards wind energy and its usefulness. The current approach to the planning of all major energy projects in the U K is centralized and there is often opposition from the general public. Experience in
ENERGY POLICY December 1989
some other countries suggests that, for wind energy, a decentralized approach with more local involvement can lead to greater acceptance. As the Countryside Commission's reaction shows, it is not merely the presence of an energetic wind regime in a locality that qualifies it for a wind farm. Enthusiasts assiduously map and measure the resource, employing computer aids and every other clever device they can. They may discover such wind-rich places as did the North Western Electricity Board (Norweb), in collaboration with the Department of Energy's Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU). What Norweb and ETSU found would enable the area board, after privatization, to site w t gs that would produce electricity at a cost as low as 1.7p/kWh. Yet the report that carries these mouth-watering tidings 12 has to include a long list of 'siting and environmental considerations' that could make wind farming as tough an energy policy nut as nuclear power. In the words of the Norweb report: Siting requirements for wind turbines dictate that they are located in open country, preferably on high ground and on hill tops. This makes them very visible. Siting of machines requires great sensitivity and good relations with the local population. Generally people require some education about the role of wind energy today because very few people have seen or seriously considered modern wind turbines. However, surveys have shown that people are also generally predisposed to benign energy technologies like wind power. Public survey conducted around the CEGB/D En wind parks will be particularly valuable. Public reaction to wind power is something that will develop in time, but it should be recognised that unfavourable public reaction could significantly hamper the deployment of wind turbines. The Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment, inevitably referred to as N A T F A , is a group of renewable energy enthusiasts. In 1987 N A T T A commissioned Alexi Clark 'to identify, in very broad terms, some typical areas where wind farms might be sited and some of the problems that could be involved'. In his report Clark 13 states a simple underlying philosophy: 'the impacts are largely aesthetic, not chemical or physical in any form that seriously affects the n a t u r a l e n v i r o n m e n t ' .
Attempting quantification, he argues that, 'When faced with the choice of damage to the physical or the aesthetic environment, aesthetic considerations should be at least an order of magnitude less serious'. The Countryside Commission might demur. Clark continues: 'Pollutants from existing energy sources are mainly non-visible, cumulative and often subtle in their effects. By contrast wind energy is clean but highly visible. Comparison between these energy sources needs to be made on this basis'. He states with disarming candour that much of his study is derivative. His original contribution is a collection of what he calls case studies. These are his reports of what he found, when he visited various wind turbine installations in Britain, by way of landscape obtrusion, noise, flickering shadows, radio and television interference, safety, effects on wild life, wind availability, sites, public attitudes and planning. Clark provides an Appendix promisingly titled, 'The art of minimizing environmental impact'. The art turns out to involve tracking down 'sites of least resistance' in a hunt that begins at national scale and narrows to regions before homing in, first within kiiometres and then within hundreds of metres. 'Site blockers' and 'site inhibitors' are listed, as are the direct environmental effects of wind turbines. The author's last word is that 'it should be possible to identify sufficient sites for 10-20% supply programme, using the whole of the UK's land area'. Shelf space, and therefore Bookwatch space, must be found nowadays for videos too. The Department of Energy has sponsored a two-part 40m i n u t e e d u c a t i o n a l cassette, presented by John Twidel115 of Strathclyde University, which explains w t gs technically and praises them environmentally. David Bellamy TM advocates w t gs in a 26-minute video made by the CEGB. Bellamy, not surprisingly, would like to see wild life reservations in wind parks, perhaps more than he would crops and livestock on wind far/'Hs.
Arthur Conway Harrow, UK
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Bookwatch/Conference report ~H.N. Nacfaire and K. Dimantaras, 'The European Community demonstration programme for wind energy and community energy policy', Proceedings of the European Wind Energy Conference 1989, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Michael Faraday House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY, UK, to be published. 2G. Carrati, R.A.W. Shock and W. Palz, 'The European Community wind energy R&D programme', Proceedings of the European Wind Energy Conference 1989, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Michael Faraday House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY, UK, to be published. 3Olav Hohmeyer, et al, Social Costs of Energy Consumption, Springer Verlag, Berlin, West Germany, 1988, 187 pp, DM49. 4D.T. Swift-Hook, editor, Wind Energy and the Environment, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Michael Faraday House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY, UK, 1989, 183 pp, £40. SBritish Wind Energy Association, Wind Power for the UK, British Wind Energy Association, 4 Hamilton Place, London
WlV 0B0, UK, 1987, 25 pp, £5. 6The formula is G = (C/W)(R + M)/hF, where G = generation cost, C = initial capital cost, W = rated power of wind turbine generator, R = annual charge on capital, M = annual operation and maintenance cost as a fraction of initial capital, h = 8760 (hours in a year) and F = load or capacity factor. 7G.C. Brown and E. Skipsey, editors, Energy Resources: Geology, Supply and Demand, Open University Press, 12 Cofferidge Close, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes MK11 1BY, UK, 1986, 221 pp. SOp cit, Ref 5. 9Swift-Hook, op cit, Ref 4. lOlbid. l~Mark Hancock, Jim Platts and Neil Ramsden, The Environmental Impact of Wind Turbines: A Review of Existing Knowledge, The Countryside Commission, John Dawes House, Crescent Place, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 3RA, UK, 1989, 76 pp, £10. 12ETSU and Norweb, Prospects for Renewable Energy in the Norweb Area, Renewable Energy Enquiries Bureau, Energy
Conference report Sweden's energy path Vattenfall Electricity Congress, Gothenburg, Sweden, 30 May-1 June 1989
Sweden's electricity industry is faced with an extreme challenge in constrained optimization. Following a referendum the parliament has decided that nuclear power, which presently provides around 50% of total electricity production, is to be entirely phased out by 2010. Four of the largest wild rivers are protected by law against development for hydropower. There are also very strict limits on the emissions of atmospheric pollutants, including an undertaking not to increase national emissions of CO2. The Swedish State Power Board, V a t t e n f a l l , has started to think through the difficult set of choices before it with this ambitious conference. Twenty-seven papers surveying the latest developments in electricity use, supply and planning were commissioned, published and sent to the four hundred participants before the meeting. The conference itself consisted of a series of plenary sessions 624
and discussion groups with the authors, without any formal presentations of the papers. In general, this worked well, producing an excellent book 1 and a sort of gigantic planning seminar involving Vattenfall employees, other Swedes and various international specialists. The book, as well as the conference discussion, approaches the Swedish electricity sector dilemmas as a largescale application of what has come to be known in the USA as 'integrated least-cost resource planning'. Electricity supply options are compared with each other and with options for conserving electricity (increasing the efficiency of electricity use), taking into account cost, timing, environmental impact and other variables. Some of the papers present extremely useful updates or overviews on some of the supply- and demandside resources compared. Samuel Baldwin's work on electric motor
Technology Support Unit, Building 156, Harwell Laboratory, Oxfordshire O X l l 0RA, UK, 1989, 302 pp. A 30 pp 'overview report', summarizing the main findings for the general reader, is also available. 13Alexi Clark, Windfarm Location and Environmenta/Impact, Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment, c/o Energy and Environment Research Unit, Faculty of Technology, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK, 1988, 130 pp, £20 for organizations, £10 for individuals. 1"Hancock, op cit, Ref 11. 1sJohn Twidell, presenter, There's Energy in the Wind, educational video, Audio Visual Services, 155 George Street, Glasgow G11XQ, Scotland, UK, 1989, 40 min, PAL £20, NTSC £26, SECAM £26. 16David Bellamy, presenter, Power from the Wind, documentary video, CEGB Film and Video Library, Viscom Ltd, Park Hall Road Trading Estate, London SE21 8EL, UK, 1989, 26 min, VHS £11.85, Beta £11.85, U-matic £24.15. Also available on free loan.
drive systems and Terry McGowan's on energy-efficient lighting cover the enormous technological advances applicable to these key end-uses. Both authors emphasize that achieving the largest efficiency improvements requires paying attention to and optimizing the whole motor drive or lighting systems, not simply changing the motors or light bulbs. The papers by Robert Williams and Eric Larson on gas turbines and by David Calson on photovoltaics report equally impressive advances in new generation technologies. Eric Larson, Per Svenningsson and Ingemar Bjerle propose an interesting system for combining biomass gasification with gas turbine power generation. The summary paper, 'The challenge of choices: technology choices for the Swedish electricity sector' by Birgit Bodlund, Evan Mills, Tomas Karlsson and Thomas Johansson, attempts to bring the other contributions together into an overall least-cost planning analysis. The main conclusions are dramatic and somewhat counterintuitive, and have been summarized as follows: 'Electricity demand in 2010 could be cut by more than half by improvements in the efficiency of use. It would be possible to phase out nuclear power production without having to build new hydro power staE N E R G Y P O L I C Y D e c e m b e r 1989
both of the directorate-general, 'The fundamental aim of Community energy policy is to ensure the Community's energy supplies at reasonable cost, to guarantee their security of supply and to minimize their environmental impact'. More particularly, stimulated by the oil shocks of the 1970s, the Community has based its energy policy on reduction of dependence on oil (especially of the imported variety), diversification of energy supply sources, greater use of indigenous sources such as coal, nuclear energy and renewables, and increased energy efficiency. Nacfaire and Diamantaras claim c o n s i d e r a b l e progress since 1973. They instance a fall from 62% to less than 40% in the Community's dependence on oil for primary energy, and a rise of over 20% in energy efficiency. However, these authors look to the U S A for their standard of comparison. They find there a federation that depends on outside supplies for less than 12% of its needs. It is by such comparison that the Council of Ministers has been spurred to try harder. The Council's principal aims for 1995 have therefore become: to obtain
ENERGY POLICY December 1989
better-structured and more diverse energy supplies, to reach substantially higher energy efficiency, to keep the oil and natural gas fraction of the fuel for electricity generation below 15%, to b a l a n c e c o n c e r n o v e r e n e r g y against concern for the environment, and to p r o m o t e the r e n e w a b l e s . Evidently the Community does not regard fuels as so risky that a complete shift to the renewables need be contemplated. In fact, the 'promotion' of the renewables boils down to half a dozen main lines of activity. These are: research, development and demonstration; clearance of legislative and administrative obstacles; consideration of the renewables for European Development Fund programmes; establishment of uniform standards for equipment; encouragement of private companies, and of the distributors who purchase the electricity those companies produce, to exclude discriminatory conditions from their contracts; and fostering of cooperation between Community industries. The renewables already provide about 7% of Europe's energy, according to some colleagues of Nacfaire and Diamantaras. G. Caratti et al 2 state that most of the renewables' contribution is via a well established technology - hydroelectric generation - that accounts for 5% of the total. The rest is from biomass, mainly in the form of f u e l w o o d . T h e g r e a t e r p a r t of Europe's hydraulic resource is already being tapped for electricity generation so any major growth in the renewables' contribution to this sector must come from elsewhere. Caratti et al distinguish wind energy technology as the closest of the newly emerging technologies to economic attractiveness. Wind energy is probably the most uniformly distributed of the renewables in Europe and has the biggest potential in both the medium and the long term. A realistic target for the year 2000, in the eyes of these
authors, is 5% of the electricity generated in the Community. That would save about 26 million tonnes of oil a year. It would also stop the annual emission of over a hundred million tonnes of COz (the main 'greenhouse' gas) out of the Community's 2 700 million total. The authors call for 'fair play' for wind turbine generators (w t gs). In small and medium sizes (which can generate up to a few hundred kilow a t t s e a c h ) t h e s e m a c h i n e s can already be cost-effective where the wind is strongest, yet they are coming only slowly into use except where there are subsidies made 'explicit' by government policy. There is a feeling, say Carotti and his fellow writers, that investment in wind power is being retarded by subsidies, overt or covert, to conventional technologies. Thus the market is being distorted and appraisals of the options are not being done justly. Neglect of the full social costs may have delayed the commercial introduction of wind power by as many as 11 years. That estimate is not the authors' own but is one that they take from the results of a study initiated by the Community: this happened because there were suspicions that all the costs and benefits were not being considered when comparing investments in wind, photovoltaic ('solar cell') and conventional power technologies. The study, led by Olav ltohmeyer, 3 was focused on West Germany for illustrative purposes only, say Caratti et al, but the conclusions are expected to be broadly similar for all European countries. In their report Hohmeyer et al note other authors' observations to the effect that the macroeconomic and social advantages of new energy technologies, and the hidden costs of conventional energy systems, are not adequately represented in microeconomic evaluations. The general market pricing mechanism does not seem to these authors to work well enough in such cases. Where the market is seriously distorted, they remark, the government should compensate by internalizing the externalities. Thus to help the m a r k e t m e c h a n i s m o p t i m i z e the allocation of economic resources, government needs knowledge of the full social costs of energy. Hohmeyer and
621
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his colleagues assert that government has not hitherto possessed the necessary information and that their study essays a first systematic evaluation of the external effects of energy systems. Many of those effects cannot be adequately quantified or monetarily assessed, it is granted, but the team has tried monetary comparison wherever possible. The ranges of the effects amenable to this treatment are believed to make a first rough comparison possible between the competing energy systems. The method is claimed to be valid for any market economy although the figures derived are acknowledged to apply directly only in West Germany. Bearing that proviso in mind, one may ponder the figures. For the production of one unit (ie 1 kWh) of energy the cost (1982 prices) of the gross external effects of electricity from fossil-fired power stations is f o u n d to lie in the range 0 . 0 4 0.09DM. For nuclear stations (excluding those with fast breeder reactors) the c o r r e s p o n d i n g costs are 0 . 1 0.2DM. A n average of these gross external costs, weighted to allow for the relative proportions of fossil and nuclear power in the country, is 0.050.12DM. Taking both the positive and the negative external effects of winddriven and photovoltaic generators into account (and in the process regarding the external costs of present generating stations as avoided costs) the calculators find external benefits of 0.06--0.12DM for wind and 0.070.17DM for photovoltaics. 'Even without the inclusion of all external effects', write Hohmeyer et al, 'and with a deliberate bias against renewable energy sources, the monetarized net external effects of wind and photovoltaic solar energy systems are of the same order of magnitude as basic market prices of conventionally generated electricity'. The inclusion of external effects, it is stated, indicates that wind-generated electricity becomes competitive 'considerably earlier than market prices
that 'Wind energy has long been recognized as safe and non-polluting but now it can also claim to be the cheapest method of generating electricity that can be installed'. They arrive at this conclusion without any resort to externality costing. The generating costs that they offer utilities in commendation of their case can be calculated by a method that Swift-Hook presented more fully in a British W i n d E n e r g y A s s o c i a t i o n 'position paper' three years ago. 5 A simple formula 6 is claimed to suffice because there are no time-variable fuel costs to consider and because interest charge variations scarcely matter - construction times are so short that w t gs can be up and operating before interest has mounted significantly. The two authors give actual cost and performance figures for the first year of operation of a Californian wind farm equipped with 20 British w t gs. 'On windy European sites', declare Lindley and Swift-Hook, 'these figures give generation costs 20% less than nuclear or coal-fired generation, despite the fact that the wind does not blow all the time'. The fact that the wind does not blow all the time is a frequently proffered reason for doubt - even derision about wind power. A common belief is that wind-driven power stations are incapable, without recourse to an energy storage system, of delivering the steady mains supply we all love in the UK (and hope not to lose after privatization). This belief is not restricted to laypersons: an Open University text on energy resources 7 notes the unpredictability of UK wind and asserts that therefore 'a storage facility is required in the form of batteries, pumped storage schemes or via the electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen fuel'. While it is true that individual w t gs will not deliver when the wind fails, the situation changes when scattered wind farms send their produce to a s u b s t a n t i a l grid. A s S w i f t - H o o k show'. explains, s 100% availability is denied Contributing to the record 4 of a by any kind of power plant - the European Wind Energy Association average availability in the C E G B falls meeting on the environmental issues short of 88%. The concept of 'firm facing wind power, Dr David Lindley power' is a statistical one, says the and Professor Don Swift-Hook affirm professor, and enough w t gs to pro-
622
vide the s a m e annual energy as should, say, the Sizewell B PWR station, would also provide roughly the same amount of firm power. The fact, described by Swift-Hook as 'surprising to the layman', is that 'energy storage is not needed for wind power any more than it is for other plant'. I n d e e d , on L i n d l e y and SwiftHook's evidence, there are neither technical nor economic barriers to widespread adoption of wind power plant. The only problems that they acknowledge to exist are environmental and institutional. Wind farms are extensive, even though the w t gs themselves occupy only 1% or 2% of the land and leave the rest for other use. To visual obtrusion are added noise, interference with radio and television, hazards of flying blade fragments and danger to birds. EEC legalities and UK local rates also present obstacles. Swift-Hook remains confident, however, reaffirming that wind energy, renewably and without p o l l u t i o n , gives e l e c t r i c i t y m o r e cheaply and safely than does any other source, and believing that the environmental problems and legal constraints (all detailed in his book 1°) are surmountable. The Countryside Commission is disposed to favour the views of wind enthusiasts because, as it part-echoes Swift-Hook, such energy sources as theirs 'are renewable, they do not consume fossil fuels, and nor do they create atmospheric pollution'. All the same, in the Commission's foreword to a review compiled on its behalf, it notes the 'significant visual and other impacts' that the countryside and coast might suffer, and it observes magisterially that the criteria for site selection should be just as stringent as those for coal-fired, oil-fired or nuclear generating plant. This stringency excludes National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Heritage Coasts, the Broads and the New Forest unless overriding national need is proved and there are no other sites. On that ground the Commission has a l r e a d y o b j e c t e d strongly to one of the three trial wind farms proposed by the CEGB: the site is at Langdon Common in the north Pennines. (The first trial wind farm seems to be going forward unim-
ENERGY POLICY December 1989
Bookwatch
peded. It is to be built at Capel Cynon, Wales, if the energy minister consents. Planning is well advanced for generation to begin there in 1991.) The 'review of existing knowledge' compiled for the Commission is by Mark Hancock et al, 11 whom the foreword writers compliment for the comprehensiveness of their review while 'not necessarily' agreeing with all their opinions. The authors' main conclusions, as they put them, are these: •
•
•
•
•
•
•
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Wind energy is b e c o m i n g an established industry with 17 000 modern turbines in California, over 2 000 in D e n m a r k and strong interest in many other countries. Given equal treatment with other fuel sources, wind energy is already economically competitive and with technical development its costs are steadily falling. Wind turbines can benefit a local community, adding considerably to the income from land, increasing its value and boosting economic activity in the area. Land based wind energy could make a significant contribution to the UK electricity supply. Wind turbines are at worst a nuisance, the effects being localized and easily reversible. They are never a serious danger to the environment unlike traditional power forms, the effects of which can be widespread, permanent and costly. Where wind energy does pose environmental problems, these can often be overcome by technical solutions without affecting the viability of this energy source. Wind turbines are tall structures which cannot be hidden but, with sensitive development in harmony with the prevailing landscape, the effect is by no means negative and can even enhance visual appreciation. The visual appreciation of wind turbines is greatly affected by wider attitudes towards wind energy and its usefulness. The current approach to the planning of all major energy projects in the U K is centralized and there is often opposition from the general public. Experience in
ENERGY POLICY December 1989
some other countries suggests that, for wind energy, a decentralized approach with more local involvement can lead to greater acceptance. As the Countryside Commission's reaction shows, it is not merely the presence of an energetic wind regime in a locality that qualifies it for a wind farm. Enthusiasts assiduously map and measure the resource, employing computer aids and every other clever device they can. They may discover such wind-rich places as did the North Western Electricity Board (Norweb), in collaboration with the Department of Energy's Energy Technology Support Unit (ETSU). What Norweb and ETSU found would enable the area board, after privatization, to site w t gs that would produce electricity at a cost as low as 1.7p/kWh. Yet the report that carries these mouth-watering tidings 12 has to include a long list of 'siting and environmental considerations' that could make wind farming as tough an energy policy nut as nuclear power. In the words of the Norweb report: Siting requirements for wind turbines dictate that they are located in open country, preferably on high ground and on hill tops. This makes them very visible. Siting of machines requires great sensitivity and good relations with the local population. Generally people require some education about the role of wind energy today because very few people have seen or seriously considered modern wind turbines. However, surveys have shown that people are also generally predisposed to benign energy technologies like wind power. Public survey conducted around the CEGB/D En wind parks will be particularly valuable. Public reaction to wind power is something that will develop in time, but it should be recognised that unfavourable public reaction could significantly hamper the deployment of wind turbines. The Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment, inevitably referred to as N A T F A , is a group of renewable energy enthusiasts. In 1987 N A T T A commissioned Alexi Clark 'to identify, in very broad terms, some typical areas where wind farms might be sited and some of the problems that could be involved'. In his report Clark 13 states a simple underlying philosophy: 'the impacts are largely aesthetic, not chemical or physical in any form that seriously affects the n a t u r a l e n v i r o n m e n t ' .
Attempting quantification, he argues that, 'When faced with the choice of damage to the physical or the aesthetic environment, aesthetic considerations should be at least an order of magnitude less serious'. The Countryside Commission might demur. Clark continues: 'Pollutants from existing energy sources are mainly non-visible, cumulative and often subtle in their effects. By contrast wind energy is clean but highly visible. Comparison between these energy sources needs to be made on this basis'. He states with disarming candour that much of his study is derivative. His original contribution is a collection of what he calls case studies. These are his reports of what he found, when he visited various wind turbine installations in Britain, by way of landscape obtrusion, noise, flickering shadows, radio and television interference, safety, effects on wild life, wind availability, sites, public attitudes and planning. Clark provides an Appendix promisingly titled, 'The art of minimizing environmental impact'. The art turns out to involve tracking down 'sites of least resistance' in a hunt that begins at national scale and narrows to regions before homing in, first within kiiometres and then within hundreds of metres. 'Site blockers' and 'site inhibitors' are listed, as are the direct environmental effects of wind turbines. The author's last word is that 'it should be possible to identify sufficient sites for 10-20% supply programme, using the whole of the UK's land area'. Shelf space, and therefore Bookwatch space, must be found nowadays for videos too. The Department of Energy has sponsored a two-part 40m i n u t e e d u c a t i o n a l cassette, presented by John Twidel115 of Strathclyde University, which explains w t gs technically and praises them environmentally. David Bellamy TM advocates w t gs in a 26-minute video made by the CEGB. Bellamy, not surprisingly, would like to see wild life reservations in wind parks, perhaps more than he would crops and livestock on wind far/'Hs.
Arthur Conway Harrow, UK
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Bookwatch/Conference report ~H.N. Nacfaire and K. Dimantaras, 'The European Community demonstration programme for wind energy and community energy policy', Proceedings of the European Wind Energy Conference 1989, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Michael Faraday House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY, UK, to be published. 2G. Carrati, R.A.W. Shock and W. Palz, 'The European Community wind energy R&D programme', Proceedings of the European Wind Energy Conference 1989, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Michael Faraday House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY, UK, to be published. 3Olav Hohmeyer, et al, Social Costs of Energy Consumption, Springer Verlag, Berlin, West Germany, 1988, 187 pp, DM49. 4D.T. Swift-Hook, editor, Wind Energy and the Environment, Peter Peregrinus Ltd, Michael Faraday House, Stevenage, Hertfordshire SG1 2AY, UK, 1989, 183 pp, £40. SBritish Wind Energy Association, Wind Power for the UK, British Wind Energy Association, 4 Hamilton Place, London
WlV 0B0, UK, 1987, 25 pp, £5. 6The formula is G = (C/W)(R + M)/hF, where G = generation cost, C = initial capital cost, W = rated power of wind turbine generator, R = annual charge on capital, M = annual operation and maintenance cost as a fraction of initial capital, h = 8760 (hours in a year) and F = load or capacity factor. 7G.C. Brown and E. Skipsey, editors, Energy Resources: Geology, Supply and Demand, Open University Press, 12 Cofferidge Close, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes MK11 1BY, UK, 1986, 221 pp. SOp cit, Ref 5. 9Swift-Hook, op cit, Ref 4. lOlbid. l~Mark Hancock, Jim Platts and Neil Ramsden, The Environmental Impact of Wind Turbines: A Review of Existing Knowledge, The Countryside Commission, John Dawes House, Crescent Place, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire GL50 3RA, UK, 1989, 76 pp, £10. 12ETSU and Norweb, Prospects for Renewable Energy in the Norweb Area, Renewable Energy Enquiries Bureau, Energy
Conference report Sweden's energy path Vattenfall Electricity Congress, Gothenburg, Sweden, 30 May-1 June 1989
Sweden's electricity industry is faced with an extreme challenge in constrained optimization. Following a referendum the parliament has decided that nuclear power, which presently provides around 50% of total electricity production, is to be entirely phased out by 2010. Four of the largest wild rivers are protected by law against development for hydropower. There are also very strict limits on the emissions of atmospheric pollutants, including an undertaking not to increase national emissions of CO2. The Swedish State Power Board, V a t t e n f a l l , has started to think through the difficult set of choices before it with this ambitious conference. Twenty-seven papers surveying the latest developments in electricity use, supply and planning were commissioned, published and sent to the four hundred participants before the meeting. The conference itself consisted of a series of plenary sessions 624
and discussion groups with the authors, without any formal presentations of the papers. In general, this worked well, producing an excellent book 1 and a sort of gigantic planning seminar involving Vattenfall employees, other Swedes and various international specialists. The book, as well as the conference discussion, approaches the Swedish electricity sector dilemmas as a largescale application of what has come to be known in the USA as 'integrated least-cost resource planning'. Electricity supply options are compared with each other and with options for conserving electricity (increasing the efficiency of electricity use), taking into account cost, timing, environmental impact and other variables. Some of the papers present extremely useful updates or overviews on some of the supply- and demandside resources compared. Samuel Baldwin's work on electric motor
Technology Support Unit, Building 156, Harwell Laboratory, Oxfordshire O X l l 0RA, UK, 1989, 302 pp. A 30 pp 'overview report', summarizing the main findings for the general reader, is also available. 13Alexi Clark, Windfarm Location and Environmenta/Impact, Network for Alternative Technology and Technology Assessment, c/o Energy and Environment Research Unit, Faculty of Technology, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, UK, 1988, 130 pp, £20 for organizations, £10 for individuals. 1"Hancock, op cit, Ref 11. 1sJohn Twidell, presenter, There's Energy in the Wind, educational video, Audio Visual Services, 155 George Street, Glasgow G11XQ, Scotland, UK, 1989, 40 min, PAL £20, NTSC £26, SECAM £26. 16David Bellamy, presenter, Power from the Wind, documentary video, CEGB Film and Video Library, Viscom Ltd, Park Hall Road Trading Estate, London SE21 8EL, UK, 1989, 26 min, VHS £11.85, Beta £11.85, U-matic £24.15. Also available on free loan.
drive systems and Terry McGowan's on energy-efficient lighting cover the enormous technological advances applicable to these key end-uses. Both authors emphasize that achieving the largest efficiency improvements requires paying attention to and optimizing the whole motor drive or lighting systems, not simply changing the motors or light bulbs. The papers by Robert Williams and Eric Larson on gas turbines and by David Calson on photovoltaics report equally impressive advances in new generation technologies. Eric Larson, Per Svenningsson and Ingemar Bjerle propose an interesting system for combining biomass gasification with gas turbine power generation. The summary paper, 'The challenge of choices: technology choices for the Swedish electricity sector' by Birgit Bodlund, Evan Mills, Tomas Karlsson and Thomas Johansson, attempts to bring the other contributions together into an overall least-cost planning analysis. The main conclusions are dramatic and somewhat counterintuitive, and have been summarized as follows: 'Electricity demand in 2010 could be cut by more than half by improvements in the efficiency of use. It would be possible to phase out nuclear power production without having to build new hydro power staE N E R G Y P O L I C Y D e c e m b e r 1989