Wind Is Not Power At All (Part II – Power Density) — MasterResource

Part I of this three-part series set the stage for examining intermittent power sources, especially wind, as viable sources of electricity. Part 2 addresses

one of the critical power considerations: power density.

In his MasterResource series, Vaclav Smil compared the power

densities of a range of fuels for electricity production, which
demonstrates the inadequacies of renewables. David MacKay also
makes a useful contribution to this topic.[i] Table 1 summarizes the
results, which take into account entire fuel cycles, transportation and
transmission requirements for a range of assumptions.

Note that all renewable energy sources are ten to over a thousand
times less effective than those serving our needs today, with wind
providing one of the poorest performances of the renewable sources
shown, outside of wood. Areas required for renewables are large
because of the dispersed, and often remote, nature of their energy
supply.

The problem that this presents is that our current electricity

infrastructure is based on high power density generation facilities
supplying the low power densities of users, and in general, user
power density is about ten times higher than most renewable sources,
including wind.[ii]

In the case of wind, it is acknowledged that some agricultural

activities may be possible within the areas needed for wind turbine
separation, although there is growing experience that this may not be
the case (see here and here), but this misses the point that many
activities will not, and substantial implementation of wind will
increasingly impose on these. Also, there are space requirements
beyond the wind turbine base footprint, for example, access roads
and additional buffer zones for a variety of reasons, including human
habitation and increased transmission lines (more on this later).
Table 1 – Power Densities for Selected Fuels for Electricity
Generation

Notably missing in the above

are nuclear and hydro plants.
Based on land claims for fuel
extraction, processing and
waste storage, nuclear plants
are in about the same range as
fossil fuel plants.[iii] Smil also provides a more general
representation as shown in Figure 1, which does include hydro, and
for which there are two representations; the higher power density for
upper-course sites, and the other for lower-course sites.[iv]

The power density of fossil fuel and nuclear electricity plants is the
same order of magnitude of the total power for an average
tornado.[v] The power density of wind is closer to that of a horse.[vi]

Figure 1 – Power Densities of Fossil Fuel Extraction and

Generation Compared to Renewable Energy Conversions

Hydro-electric sources have low

power densities because of the
size of water reservoir areas,
which are estimated to account
for about one-half of the total
land requirements for all aspects
of electrical energy conversion,
which includes mines, oil and
gas fields, refineries, pipelines,
generation plants and
transmission.[vii]

The next largest category is transmission lines, accounting for about

one-quarter of land requirements for electricity generation. This is
important because the current emphasis on additional transmission
lines to accommodate new renewables, especially wind with the
quantities projected, adds substantially to the areas required to
support these energy sources. The existing grid fans out from today’s
high power density generation sites to the low power density (diffuse)
consumption requirements of buildings, factories and cities. Wind
and solar require large grid increases to provide an additional
‘fanning out’ at the generation end because of the inflexibility and
dispersion of the locations required to collect the diffuse energy
supply.

Apart from the not inconsequential grid considerations, what is the

significance of the low power density of renewables? Any
transformation from today’s high power density generation facilities
will require many significant adjustments, which will take decades to
accommodate for economic, technological (e.g., massive storage
capabilities and electrification of transportation) and societal and
human nature reasons. The latter refers to the need for the developed
nations to adjust their use of primary energy supply use downwards
to allow for the inevitable growth of this in developing countries.
Other factors include de-urbanization (in part moving closer to the
sources of renewable energy), substantially more careful use of
energy, significantly improved energy efficiency in buildings (which
depends largely on new structures, for example, designed to better
accommodate substantially improved photo-voltaic energy
converters), transportation and distribution systems (e.g., for
distribution of hydrogen fuel produced centrally by renewable
sources, if this proves feasible). The practical time frames for these
are many decades, and for some, the end of the 21st century.

As described in Part I, this time scale creates a race with that for
concerns about climate change impacts. Therefore short to medium
term policies (the next 10-30 years) should focus on those electrical
energy sources that have the energy and capacity requirements that
best address this.

The net of this is that the current rush to massive implementations of

wind plants is an extremely premature, unwise policy. Of the two,
wind and solar, direct tapping of solar energy has by far the most
useful and effective outlook for renewables, but the entry point for
utility-scale commercialization of this is still many decades away. We
need a well thought out energy use evolution in the meantime, not a
revolution.

Based on power density, this is how Smil summarizes the outlook for
renewables:

As a result, these new energy infrastructures would have to be spread

over areas ten to a thousand times larger than today’s infrastructure
of fossil fuel extraction, combustion and electricity generation: this is
not an impossible feat, but one posing many regulatory
(environmental assessments of affected areas, rights-of-way
permission and inevitable lawsuits), technical and logistic
challenges. Higher reliance on renewable energies may be desirable
(mainly because of perceived environmental and strategic reasons)
and technical advances would also make it an increasingly
appealing economic choice–-but inherently low power densities of
these conversions will require a new system of fuel and electricity
supply that will be able to substitute for today’s dominant practices
only after decades of gradual development.

Power density alone establishes wind as unworthy of the diversion of

significant amounts of national wealth, human resources, especially
within our governments, and time, all of which could be more
productively used.

However, wind also fails in the other dimension of power–capacity

value. This is the consequence of its randomness and intermittency of
supply, which has the effect of shifting the power density comparison
even less favorably for renewables. This will be addressed in Part III.

[i] MacKay, David (2008). “Sustainable Energy – without the hot

air”. http://www.withouthotair.com/download.html
[ii] Smil, Vaclav (2008). “Energy in Nature and Society: General
Energetics of Complex Systems”. The MIT Press. Page 383.

[iii] Smil, page 313.

[iv] Smil. pages 311-312.

[v] Smil, page 45.

[vi] Smil, page 156.

[vii] Smil, page 313.

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