Derek Sorensen

We hear a lot these days about endangered species. From the Orang Utan to the Polar Bear, Giraffe sub-species to Turtles; it’s almost unheard of to turn on the TV or open a newspaper without reading something about a species about to go extinct. But, for all this publicity, we never hear about the pressure on what is fast becoming one of Earth’s rarest species. A 2009 census[1] concluded that there are only 75 individuals remaining in the wild[2][3] yet this species does not warrant a single newspaper headline, is not on WWF or Greenpeace’s radar, and doesn’t even appear on the IUCN Red List[4].

It’s not as though the problem isn’t known. Scientists have been observing the decline of this species for around 15 years but as yet their warnings have been ignored. Highly dependent for their survival on global temperature, there are signs that if things continue as they are[5], this species, and it’s sub-species, will be extinct within five years. I hope that this blog will in some small way help to raise awareness of the plight of these rarest of our planet’s creatures.
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I’ve been doing some sums and I can’t quite believe the answers I’ve come up with, so I wonder if some kind soul could help me understand where I’ve gone wrong.

Around the middle of this month I read an article in the Telegraph which gave me pause. It claimed that when the Walney offshore wind farm extension was completed, the 288 square kilometer installation would generate 750Mw of electricity. A quick back-of-the-envelope indicated that, for this installation at least, the electricity generated per square kilometer was around 2.6Mw.

I received quite a bit of help from various people on twitter and in comments to this blog post and have managed to get hold of some figures which I hope are accurate relating to the installed nominal UK wind generation capacity over time, and also five-minute snapshots of wind generation.

The figures I have:

Total nominal installed capacity (on- and off-shore) is very close to 8.5Gw based on tables found at ref.org.uk. Sorting by accreditation date this figure has been reasonably constant since November 2012.

Five minute data taken from Gridwatch.

Wind generation density (calculated as above): 2.604 Mw/square Km. I assume this is a good as it gets, the wind off Walney Island is legendary, and I further assume that offshore installations pack the turbines in as efficiently as possible.

I wanted to work out how much land area we’d need if we were to actually want to produce the claimed 8.5Gw installed capacity. The naive calculation is to divide 8.5Gw by 2.604Mw to arrive at a figure of 3,264 square kilometers. This is incorrect because wind is intermittent, and so we need to reduce that figure by taking the average actual generation which, I am led to believe, is generally assumed within the industry to be 40%. This means we must multiply the area required by 2.5, which gives an area of 8,160 square kilometers. But even than this is just an average. I wanted to know what we’d need to generate this amount of power 24/7, 365 days a year.

Using the data downloaded from Gridwatch, and the following formula, I’ve calculated the area requirement for each five minute snapshot just for the first 12 days of March 2013. The results are incredible.

The highest figure for generation in that period was 4.339Gw, just shy of 51% of nominal capacity, at 15:20 on 10th March. The lowest was 29Mw, at 22:00 on 2nd March. The graph below gives an idea of the spread over that 12 days.

So what area of land would be required to generate 8.5Gw, 24/7, over that period? The calculation is:

Area required = (nominal / actual) * (nominal / density)

where nominal is the nominal capacity, i.e. 8.5Gw, actual is the actual generation at that moment, and density is the Mw/square Km, computed above as approximately 2.604.

Plugging our high/low figures into that function:

when wind generation was briefly at 4.339Gw, the area requirement would have been 6,449 square kilometers. When wind generation was at 29Mw, the land requirement would have been a ridiculous 964,872 square kilometers - almost four times the land area of the UK.

If we are determined to commit to generating any substantial part of our electricity needs from wind power, then we have to choose one of three options:

1) Accept that there will be times - sometimes for quite extended periods - when we are unable to generate sufficient power for our needs, and the lights are going to go out somewhere.

2) Accept that we will need to keep our traditional means of power generation as a backup for when wind fails

3) Accept that every inch of our countryside will eventually be covered in wind turbines.

Of course, this whole argument rests on my calculations and assumptions being correct. I would be grateful for any and all advice, criticism and corrections to my calculations or assumptions. And frankly, I can’t believe I haven’t made a mistake. No sane person who has access to this data - as our government and its advisors surely must - would allow even one wind farm to be build if the return is as poor as this.

This was originally posted in September, 2012 on ecademy.com, a site which no longer exists. I’m posting it again here because the topic has become current again.

I believe that in July 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and Michael Collins remained in Lunar Orbit. These three men were my childhood heroes, along with the Russian Cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space.

I believe that smoking causes cancer. That knowledge doesn’t prevent me from smoking, even though I know it should. I believe that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus.

I believe Lee Harvey Oswald killed JFK, although I admit I don’t know enough about it to know why I believe that. Nor do I know enough about the assassination of Martin Luther King to really form an opinion.

I believe the Illuminati are a fictional construct and there is no New World Order, although I also believe that people in power would like more power, and some will do practically anything to get it.

I believe that the attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941 was a cock-up of the grandest scale on the part of the US Navy. In particular I do not believe any government would purposely permit their people and particularly their materiel to be wasted in this way.

I believe that Area 51 is a US Air Force base. I don’t believe there are any aliens there, either living or dead (although I did thoroughly enjoy the recent Pegg/Frost film, Paul).

I believe that the attacks of September 11th 2001 were the work of Muslim terrorists.

I don’t know enough about SARS to form an opinion.

I don’t believe a Flying Saucer crashed at Roswell in 1947.

I believe Princess Diana’s death was a tragic accident, caused by pursuit by Papparazzi and her driver being under the influence of alcohol.

I don’t know anything about the Oklahoma City bombings and I’m not sufficiently interested to want to find out.

I believe Coca Cola is quite tasty, although I prefer lemonade. I hadn’t heard until recently that Coca Cola might have done some clever marketing related to changing the formula. If they did, then fair play to them.

I don’t know enough about CFCs to be certain one way or the other about whether they have a serious impact on the Ozone Layer. I have come across some bits and pieces in the past about CFCs and patents, and the timing of the discovery of the Ozone Layer, but I’ve not done enough research subsequently to form a definite opinion. I’m content that not using CFCs is, on balance, a good thing.

I believe that protection of the environment trumps financial concerns. The caveat is that I feel the Precautionary Principle as commonly stated goes too far and is harmful both to the economy and to the environment.

I believe that global average temperatures have increased during the past century. I believe that human activities have contributed to that increase. 97% of carefully selected Climate Scientists also believe this, as do most climate sceptics. I don’t believe that this is catastrophic, and I don’t believe it will become a catastrophe. I think that overall, warmer is better. I also believe that the climate has always changed.

I believe that Stephan Lewandowsky is a sincere CAGW activist, who believes that a gerrymandered survey aimed to paint anyone who doubts the CAGW thesis as a swivel-eyed loon will help his cause. I also believe his paper will be retracted.

I believe this will be my last blog on the CAGW meme. Mother Earth has decided not to play along any more, and the whole thing will come crashing down in a handful of years, to be replaced by another scare story as justification for emptying your wallet, and the whole thing has gone so far beyond ridicule no longer even holds any entertainment value. I believe I might comment on other people’s blogs on the subject, and I’ll continue to whinge about inefficient methods of energy production such as Wind and Solar.

I’m at the initial stages of some research into wind turbines, around the topic of claimed and actual efficiency. To that end I’m trying to get hold of accurate information on the UK’s:

• 1) Current total installed Wind capacity (that’s the nominal capacity - i.e. that claimed by the operators)
• 2) The number (and, optionally, siting) of Wind Turbines. I’m only concerned with industrial turbines, i.,e. those which contribute to the generation statistics.
• 3) The total area given over to Wind turbines. It’s true that land used for turbines can be used for other purposes, however I want to work out the overall “footprint” of the boundaries of wind farms. For various reasons this might not be calculable.
• 4) Nominal wind generation capacity over time
• 5) Historic actual electricity generation and demand (broken down by generation type, e.g. coal, gas, wind, nuclear)

The fundamental question I want to try to answer is what area of land (and/or sea) is required to generate an arbitrary level of power, reliably, 24/7. The main factors that feed into that are the space requirements of wind turbines and their actual capacity (as opposed to their nominal capacity or even their estimated capacity).

So far I have identified the following resources which appear to cover (4) and some of (5):

Balancing Mechanism Reporting System (BMRS) realtime and historical generation and demand data.

U.K. National Grid Status a site presenting the BMRS data in a more accessible form, with a download of 5-minute demand/supply snapshots running back to mid 2011.

Sustainable Energy without the hot air online version of the 2008 book by David MacKay.

(edit to add: The National Grid Wind Power Operation summary page states that in January 2013 wind capacity was 5.5Gw, however it’s not clear if that is nominal capacity or average capacity, a difference which could make a significant difference to the calculation.)

Plus a large number of blogs and other sites of questionable authority which I’m reluctant to use unless I can verify their accuracy.

Can anyone suggest sources for the missing pieces?

Please note: this blog currently gets lots of spam comments, and so I am forced to post moderate. I’m not at my desk 24/7 and so it might take a while for comments to be approved. Please be patient, but if you post a comment and think I might have missed it please feel free to contact me @th3Derek on twitter.

Shark: Jumped.

I admire you. I am in awe of you, and what you plan to do. I can’t begin to comprehend the courage needed to plan such a journey, let alone undertake it.

In a little over six months time you will begin a journey of three thousand miles, much of it through hostile territory. The risk of attacks by bandits and terrorists is high and aid workers have been kidnapped for ransom or killed for what they own. Your caravan will make an attractive target for those who take what they want by force. You need an armed escort if you are even to survive, let alone reach your intended destination: the refugee camps of the Sahrawi people in Tindouf Province in the Algerian Western Sahara.

Your aim is ambitious: to distribute 20,000 Sustainable Food Growing Kits in 2013, so that the Sahrawi people can begin to grow their own food. To help at least some of these tens of thousands of people become more independent; restoring dignity to a people displaced by war almost 40 years ago. This mission will see one hundred such “gardens in a box” delivered to the Sahrawi people. Later the kits will be flown in via military airbases and distributed by women’s groups, but this first adventure will demonstrate your commitment and raise awareness not only of the project, but of this people and their predicament.

Each kit costs £575 and if you are to be successful you will need sponsorship. I hope anyone who reads this will contact their local schools, businesses, churches, etc. to tell them about the New Dawn project and ask them to consider sponsoring a kit, or contribute something towards one.

Every penny contributed will go towards the kits. Perhaps people might consider making a small donation themselves: even a fiver will help.

The more people who know about New Dawn, the more likely it will be to succeed. Twitter users can tweet to hashtag #4×4xfiver to show their support for the project. Anyone with contacts in the media might ask their media contacts to highlight it.

http://www.newdawnproject.com/

God speed, Martin. I look forward to your safe return.

An exercise from my creative writing class: write something about wind. Here goes:

Wind

Dad took me to look at the turbines again today. I didn’t want to go. We’ve been every day this week, and he just gets angry and upset. I suppose I can understand it; I’m not altogether happy about it either, but I’ve got used to it. And it’s only been three weeks, the wind is bound to start blowing again soon.

I suggested to Mum that she go along instead, but she gave me “that look” and I realised that wasn’t going to happen. I even offered to do the washing while she was out - we’ve had to start washing our clothes in an old bath in the yard. It’s a nasty job and I hate doing it - not that we have all that much washing at the moment; we tend to wear most of our clothes to keep warm. Anyway, with no hot water we don’t tend to bathe all that often. Nobody does. I don’t even notice the smell any more. It’s not all that practical at this time of year anyway, the clothes just freeze on the line and don’t dry at all. But despite my offer she said she’d rather stay at home and look after Parton.
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This time, it appears, the shoe is on the other foot. Unlike the two Climategate leaks, this appears to be a leak of some internal memos and documents from the Heartland Institute, a US Right-Wing think-tank who - among other things - oppose drastic action regarding Global Warming.

As usual, I’m a bit behind with this, since I’ve been nose-to-the-grindstone on a large project at the moment, but since I was (fairly) quick to report the two Climategate leaks, it seems only fair I should also bring this one to people’s attention. I’ve not had time to think too much about it yet, nor to look at the source documents or other commetary, so please consider this a placeholder for the moment.

If you want to catch up on the story, a good place to start might be Anthony Watts’ recent post regarding the leak. You might find the post itself illuminating, or perhaps not depending on your perspective, but it does have plenty of links to other sites which you might find more informative / palateable/ non-heretical / etc. Watts’ post is here:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/02/15/some-notes-on-the-heartland-leak/

I’ll add more below when I have had a change to catch up.

Evil Oil-funded Climate Change Deniers have kidnapped the BBC’s Richard Black and replaced him with a climate-change sceptical clone.

It’s the only way I can account for this BBC environment article.

Here’s the end of the piece, which is about modelling the climate of the UK - one of the best understood climates in the world. The phrase “these figures” in the quote refers to the wildly difffering predictions of various different climate models on such things as floods and heatwaves:

When quizzed about these figures, one of the Met Office scientists said that many other projections were based on single computer models.

Putting the range of uncertainty in the public domain from this large suite of models was, she said, “intellectually honest”.

Fair enough. But the exercise also surely gives you an insight into the limits of current modelling when the various models, each of them supposed to be “state-of-the-art”, reach such divergent conclusions.

As a policymaker, as a business leader, as a citizen, would you make decisions on the basis of these models?

Something should be done! We want the old Richard Black back - this one isn’t nearly as funny - but he doies appear to be more “intellectually honest”.

Seriously, though, it’s quite an interesting thing to see Black, formerly so cosy with UAE’s CRU, etc. suddenly writing something that you would not be at all surprised to see on a sceptical site: that models can’t be relied upon. And whatever else he is, Black is no fool. He knows that the entire fabric of Man-made Global Warming is based on computer models. To declare no faith in them is to declare disbelief in Man-made Global Warming.

I never thought I’d see the day. First Monboit falling in love with Nuclear energy, then Mark Lynas declares his mistrust of the IPCC, and now Richard Black, quite possibly the most visible of the Climate Change Alarmists at the BBC, admits that Man-made global warming is a crock. Who knows, he might even start reporting real science, as opposed to Team “science”, one day soon.

They say that rats leave a sinking ship. Is that what we’re seeing here? Or could there be a more charitable explanation? I honestly hope so; I don’t believe anyone is ever totally beyond redemption. Hate the sin, not the sinner, and all that.

It’s been interesting following the extent of sea ice in the arctic through the year. It seemed at one point as if it was going to break the record minimum set back in 2007, but then in mid July the rate of loss started slowing down, taking it well within the “normal” range. I understand this was due to changing wind patterns, so ice wasn’t being blown southwards as fast into warmer waters. And early in August even seemed to be increasing slightly. However, it appears to have suddenly taken a nose dive - it appears to have lost around a quarter of it’s area almost overnight. Here’s the graph for today (7th August 2011):
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