Matt Ridley and Wind Energy

This is my comment to Matt Ridley article “The beginning of the End of Wind” that was published in his blog. It can be found at http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/beginning-end-wind

I have to confess that I have just discovered your blog, Mr. Ridley. I am in the middle of your book “The rational optimist”, very excited, enjoying the reading, and in agreement with most of what I am getting, but only entering now into the phase where energy gets into the discussion. Your article “The beginning of the End of Wind” has blown all my internal alarms. And this because energy is something I am very familiar with. I have been working in oil & gas, propulsion, conventional generation, co-generation and renewable energy for the last thirty years, and I have a decent feeling for what the energy outlook looks like. Your statements about wind, which I plan to address just after this preamble, have raised big concerns on me. And this because I question now if your statements on the whole range of disciplines where I am not at all knowledgeable, like anthropology, genetics, food, etc, where your line of thought have been so convincing to me, have been based upon the same light ground as the one with which you are dismissing wind as a valid source for electricity generation.

I do not know enough about off-shore wind to understand if it makes economic sense or not. But your remarks are not addressed to offshore wind, but to wind energy in general, and my comments are addressing wind generation in general, rather than off-shore wind

Now let me comment on some of the issues in your article,

Wind energy is a meaningless scam that is ended

 You mention that “…to the nearest whole number, the percentage of the world’s energy that comes from wind turbines today is: zero”. Because wind energy produces electricity, that is the area where you must judge whether it is meaningful or not. Wind energy is now 2.5% of the electricity produced in the world, 6.3% of the electricity produced in the EU, 3.3% of the electricity produced in the UK. And if it is not a relevant number still, it is because this building up of power has happened only in the last ten years. Electricity generation is long term infrastructure that are build to stay for a long time, and wind cannot and should not replace it right away. What really matters is what percentage of the new generation is wind going to grab? Well, the International Energy Agency, in its 2011 outlook, Page 184, states that renewable energy will make 44% of the new electricity up to 2035, wind being a third of that amount. So wind will make 15% of the new electricity being delivered. That is certainly not negligible by any standard.

Wind energy cost double

 The wikipedia page you are quoting does not support your statement. Even the ultra-anti-renewable Exxon-Mobil, always so active against renewable sources of energy had no other option than to recognize the cost competitiveness of wind against nuclear, gas and coal generation. I invite you to read the Energy Outlook of 2007, 2008 and 2009 that the company publishes to realize the internal change of mind in Exxon of wind costs compared to conventional generation. The competitiveness of wind and solar depends, of course, on the resource available. It varies with the plant capacity as much as gas and coal generation is dependent on the fuel cost to be competitive. You are forgetting here that this is the first time since hydro lost its prominence, that renewable sources of energy with unlimited availability (unlike geothermal or biomass) are able to provide electricity at a cost which depending on the site conditions, are close or even lower in some cases to conventional fuel. I am really puzzled how you fail to recognize this, in the same way that you blame others in your book failing to recognize amazing steps in other fields of technology, like GM food, or industrial fertilizers, for instance. The fact that technology and critical mass manufacturing have made wind and solar energy available at today´s costs, are an amazing step forward for the energy supply of generations to come. Or are you one of those who think that oil and gas will last forever, despite shale gas?

How did the wind-farm scam fool so many policymakers?

 In “The rational optimist” you mention here and there, and I think that you are right, that exchange, openness, lack of barriers, have contributed to human prosperity more than any planned economy. It is true, but it is also true that while the individuals and organized groups were setting the scene for trade and exchange, there were supra-individual entities taking care that expensive infrastructure was build up, precisely to support that development. The Romans with its highly developed roads, acueducts, ports, etc are a good example. But you are much better than I am to elaborate on this. Even today, is the task of the collective power to address and regulate large infrastructure that last beyond a generation, and that the individual initiative will not be able to address. Train, highways, defense, water and energy, are areas, where while private investment, technology and initiative is most desired, there has to be and has always been a collective support to make them happen. While wind and solar technologies have been well known for at least 30 years, it has been the political will of Denmark first, and then Germany, Spain, Italy, the US, and now China, that have made the scale of manufacturing and industrial development possible for wind to achieve its present cost structure. And the world and human kind should be grateful to these countries for that. Very similar development is happening in solar energy. If it were not for the political will in these countries, wind and solar would remain today at small scale stage, pilot plant development. Negligible. .

Other issues

I am not going to address in detail a bunch of other issues that you are including in your article, that deserve another intervention in your blog. Some are surprising that you bring in, like the permanent magnet issue. There is no issue in the industry here. Magnets have been and still are mainly provided by electric current feed, copper and iron, and only lately some large manufacturers are shifting to permanent magnets – that include neodymium – but this is not a specific feature of wind mills, and wind energy can live perfectly well without these permanent magnets. It is true that Prius cars carry 1 Kg of this material per car, but that is a Prius issue. Bats and birds were mainly hit at the dawn of wind energy, when mills were smaller and rotation speeds much faster. With today´s large and slow wind mills, chances for accidents of this kind are negligible.

All in all, it looks as if it were the despoiling views, and the scam that you detect under the renewable cloud that bothers you most. On the views, I am also disturbed when I see nice places in the country side with a new wind farm on it, but like the romantics organics you mention in your book, this seems to be the path for prosperity, and the fact that we are now observing how electricity is generated for the first time, does not make the situation worse. If we can see them there, it is because there was a road on the first place, and my car to get there, and myself disturbing the view.

But from what I learn from you book, what solar and wind are also achieving, like mini-hydro, or co-generation before, is helping to remove the monopoly held by large utilities and energy providers. And I agree with your book, that this is for good. It is happening with large telecoms and mobile communication and internet. They are losing their monopolistic status. Media moguls are also loosing it through internet, and in the energy field, distributed generation will make it happen as well. For good.

A last comment about shale gas. I believe that shale gas is a great step forward in making sure that there is going to be enough fossil reserves to make the transition to a non fossil world smooth. It is also going to help to avoid geopolitical blackmailing, and is already providing stability and security of supply in the US. But there is a long list of issues that the fracking industry needs to address, like the amounts of water and the disclosure of chemicals being injected, the issues on contamination of water resources, the relation with induced earthquaques. I believe that natural gas is going to be the source of base electricity for a long long time, and nuclear and coal will be fading out, slowly but steady. But let´s not forget, as you mention, that natural gas generation still produces 450 g of CO2 per kWh of electricity generated, half as bad as coal. And that the climate change issue could still be true, and we do have to control our CO2 emission level as we – rational optimists – continue to work towards improving the level of prosperity of those who do not spend as much energy as we – developed world – do.

I apologize for my English, not being my mother language. I remain your fan, and a rational optimist, by definition.