Wind Power In Trouble on Two Fronts
A cube held together by the attraction of neodymium sphere magnets.
"Wind power is being squeezed on two fronts. Natural gas prices remain low, limiting the financial incentive to install wind capacity. Meanwhile, the Chinese government continues limit the supply of rare earth elements (REE), and the magnets required for wind turbines use sizable quantities of two of them, neodymium and dysprosium. Any interruption in supply, accompanied with price shocks, could debilitate the wind industry, whose struggle to become competitive is already being harmed by the success of its competitors like natural gas.
At the end of 2010, China controlled over 97 percent of the world’s REE production and around one-third of reserves. However, China’s geopolitical posturing has caused it to significantly reduce export quotas for REE by 37 percent in 2010, as well as 35 percent in 2011. This has caused a massive price shock for REE; while the price of neodymium has fallen from its highs of mid-2011, at about $200/kg, it is still vastly more expensive than it was in 2006 when it was only $10/kg.
This comes just as wind turbines were falling in price after nearly a decade of price increases in the U.S. The Wind Turbine Price Index reported that prices worldwide in 2010 were at their lowest level per MW since 2005, at $1.33 million dollars. Data from the Department of Energy show that prices for wind turbines per kW actually bottomed out around 2001 and until recently had been steadily increasing. Despite improved technology since the early 2000s, larger turbines, a falling dollar, more expensive labor and higher steel costs were the top four reasons for price increases from 2002-2008."
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I am now thinking wind energy could fail. Because of its high EROEI I used to think we could get 20% of our power from wind since the wind blows 25% of the time. I figured that most of that 25% would be when there was demand. Boy was I ever wrong. Wind almost never generates power when you need it & only makes power when you don't. Wind energy production is completely out of phase with demand. Texas Wind Energy Fails, Again At 10% installed wind-generation capacity Texas wind capacity is way over built & spilling off energy every night. Likely 7% is all the useful wind capacity we can achieve & it comes at a high price since you still have to build the same amount of Coal & Natural Gas capacity as you would without wind.
The only way to get this to work is to sleep during the middle of the day in summer & just air-condition the bedroom. Then do all your work at night.
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