Windturbines: the whole truth.
III2. The European goals.
In Brussels, at the end of 2007 and at the beginning of 2008, the EU defined its goals for reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse-gas emission.
Those goals are:
In 2020 the emission of the greenhouse-gas CO2 must have dropped 20% with regard to 1990. The share of renewable energy sources must then have increased by 20% and the energy-efficiency must have risen 20%.
Apart from Brussels' peculiar preference for the ever recurring number 20, one must say these are remarkably ambitious plans. It will be interesting to see whether these impressive numbers clearly express their intentions and if they are actually feasible, or rather aimed at enthralling the public. For working this out, let us suppose that Brussels considers greenhouse-gas emission more or less proportional to energy consumption.
We may well suppose energy consumption in Europe will rise by 2.5 per cent yearly between 1990 and 2020. That means that in those thirty years energy consumption will rise from 100 per cent in 1990 to its 2.1 fold in 2020. In other words: 20 per cent of the energy consumption in 1990, expressed in kilowatt-hours is the equivalent of the 20/2.1 part or 9.5 per cent of the energy consumption in 2020. Now that sounds much more modest than those fabulous numbers mentioned in the Brussels goals, that indeed seem to be intended to impress. At least if the audience was aware of what exactly was being exposed, which I slightly doubt.
The Dutch government made the EU goal its own and at the beginning of 2008 pronounced its intention to reach that same goal by increasing the use of renewable sources such as wind, hydraulic, solar and biomass sources. It is not clear whether the government was aware that our consumption of electrical energy is but a relatively small part of our total energy consumption. Because for forms of energy other than electricity production, the mentioned energy sources will not be suitable.
As the Netherlands does not produce water power of any importance, and electric solar cells will only generate a small crumb of electricity and very irregularly at that, wind energy and perhaps the burning of bio-fuel in plants and in vehicles will have to become the main sources of energy.
It seems highly unlikely that bio-fuel will become available sufficiently to have any substantial effect on our total energy management. On the other hand it is clear that significant use of bio-fuel will not mean an advantage but rather a very great disadvantage to the world. As is also stated in the scientifically grounded article published in the NRC newspaper of 9 and 10 February 2008 "Bio-fuel reinforces the greenhouse effect". The title alone ought to set us to keep reading. The first line of the article, which contains many figures, says: "The use of bio-fuels such as alcohol and bio-diesel on a large scale turn out not to suppress the greenhouse effect but rather reinforce it dramatically." The article shows how groundless the arguments are for recommending more intensive use of bio-fuel.
In order for our Dutch government to reach the Brussels goals there remain therefore only the windturbines, which would have to be built in very great numbers. When making this bold decision the Dutch government disregarded, or has perhaps even purposefully ignored, those 90 per cent of conventional reserve power that must always be available for immediate operation. That means a few robust plants will have to be built, not meant for our regular electricity production. These will just have to be kept running in order to compensate for those variations of the wind power. That is of course going to be a very costly business. And for those few more knowledgeable people there is this chilly surprise: "Precisely because we are going to use so many windturbines we have to keep building plants!"
Apart from this, it seems rather improbable that the members of our Dutch government were aware of the following two essential issues:
- The average yield per wind turbine of each of the 1,828 ones operative in 2006 was no more than a thirteen millionth parts of our total electricity consumption (According to the Dutch CBS, Central Office for Statistics). But once again, do not forget: this tiny amount was produced with hundreds of variations of the current, in a highly unreliable manner.
- The average yield of the state of the art 3 MW windturbines, of enormous proportions, will be no more than six hundred thousandth parts of our national consumption. Again, this is produced with hundreds of unpredictable variations of the current.
It seems like it that in Brussels as well as in the Dutch government there is a lack of hard-headed technicians and calculators. Translating into numbers what their plans would concretely mean does not seem to be their strongest side. It is also not clear what is meant by "the energy efficiency must have grown by 20 per cent". This sounds as if it would be feasible for every energy consuming process to suddenly need 20 per cent less energy. This again sounds like a beautiful political slogan since it will most certainly turn out not to be realistic. Politicians tend not to check the numbers for reaching their utopias for which technicians are entrusted to search the solution.
As the word 'nuclear' is considered blasphemy by a few political parties, the goals set by Brussels and our Government (less greenhouse-gas emission) will only be reached by means of rigorous energy saving. There are many energy consuming enterprises and industries that already voluntarily co-operate in this, with much inventiveness and considerable successes. All these voluntary savings represent substantially more kilowatt-hours than would be yielded by hundreds of windturbines. Therefore, those voluntary efforts undoubtedly deserve our compliments.
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