 on the grid, which is often the 1000+ MW needed to replace a large coal or nuclear plant. As noted above, these reserves are far more costly and inefficient than the slower-acting reserves that modestly increase in need at high penetrations of wind energy.
Le Pair also assumes that all changes in supply and demand must be accommodated by fossil fuel power plants, even though in many parts of the world hydroelectric plants provide the needed reserves without any emissions penalty at all.
Le Pair’s rough and obsolete estimates for the emissions/efficiency penalty for operating a fossil fuel power plant at less than full load or cycling the plant are also considerably higher than real-world data indicates, as many fossil fuel plants can decrease their output by 1/3 or more without experiencing more than a trivial decline in efficiency. This is particularly true of modern fossil plants that are designed to operate very flexibly with minimal reductions in efficiency.
Finally, Le Pair ignores the findings of other studies that the emissions savings of wind energy are even larger than expected because wind energy tends to disproportionately displace dirtier and less flexible coal plants relative to less dirty and more flexible natural gas plants.
As a result of these flaws, le Pair’s estimates greatly overstate the challenge of integrating wind energy and any emissions penalty associated with integrating wind. The theoretical power system he envisions is completely different from how the actual power system operates.
Consequently, his results and conclusions that lead him to attack wind are a pure fiction that bears no relationship to what happens on the real power system. As a result, it is not surprising that his conclusions are contradicted by a large body of government and independent grid operator data and peer-reviewed studies, referenced in the links at the beginning, showing that wind energy does result in the expected savings of fossil fuel use and emissions.
As an added case study to illustrate the real-world emissions and fossil fuel use savings of wind energy, let’s look at Spain’s success with wind energy.The data for Spain shows a remarkable success story of wind and solar energy drastically cutting Spain’s fossil fuel use and emissions. Between 2005 and 2009, Spain’s CO2 emissions from coal and natural gas consumption fell from 150.5 million metric tons to 117.1 million metric tons, a decline of 22% over just four years.
Electricity production from wind steadily grew from 20.1 billion kwh in 2005 to 34.8 billion kwh in 2009. Hydroelectric output also increased as a result of 2005 being a poor water year, going from 17.7 billion kwh in 2005 to 26.0 billion kwh in 2009. Total electricity generation in Spain was flat over this time period, with 272.1 billion kwh produced in 2005 and 275.1 billion kwh produced in 2009. So wind grew from providing 7.4% of the country’s electricity in 2005 to 12.6% in 2009, while hydroelectric increased from 6.5% to 9.5%.
Solar power also helped out by growing from almost zero output in 2005 to 5.8 billion kwh in 2009. Spain became a net exporter of electricity over that time period, going from exporting 1.3 billion kwh in 2005 to 8.1 billion kwh in 2009, so one can’t argue that an increased reliance on imports allowed Spain to keep its emissions low. If one wants to remove the impact variability in hydroelectric output may have on the results, one can use 2006 as the base year, since 2006 and 2009 had nearly identical hydroelectric output.
With 2006 as the base year, wind farm output increased from 22.1 billion kwh to 34.8 billion kwh, growing from 7.9% of electricity generation to 12.6% of electricity generation. CO2 emissions fell from 144.6 million metric tons in 2006 to 117.1 million metric tons in 2009, a decline of 19%. All of the data is available here:
Le Pair claims that it takes 1.5 years for a wind turbine to produce enough energy to offset the energy that was used to build and install the turbine. The only cited basis for this claim is a very rough back-of-the-envelope es