Volume 7, No. 4
Promoting Cooperation to Maintain and Enhance
Environmental Quality in the Gulf of Maine
Winter 2003

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Q & A: Dr. Larry Hughes

Though costs remain high, wind power could help ease energy woes

 

By Andi Rierden, Editor

Nova Scotia needs to shift from its reliance on coal-fueled power plants and other non-renewable energy sources and get moving on building an infrastructure of energy alternatives, like wind and solar, says Dr. Larry Hughes, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Dalhousie University in Halifax. As it stands, Nova Scotians produce an average of 20 tons of greenhouse gases per person each year. The majority of the gases come from electricity generated by five coal-fired plants, which create most of the air pollution in the province.

Dr. Larry Hughes
Photo: Sandra Cook

Two years ago, Hughes and his colleague, Dr. Tim Little, launched the Nova Scotia Wind Energy Project with funding from the federal government’s Climate Change Action Fund for Public Education and Outreach. The project has enlisted schools and community groups to measure wind levels and its potential for electricity generation at six sites across the province. A second phase involves installing wind turbines at the three most promising sites for electricity generation. The turbines will be used for research and training.

Nova Scotia Power, the province’s utility company, has installed one turbine each at Grand Etang [Cape Breton Island] and Little Brook [Bay of Fundy shore]. It is estimated that a proposed 17-turbine wind farm at Pubnico Point in southwestern Nova Scotia will generate enough to power 10,000 to13,000 average-sized Canadian homes per year. But the province should not stop there, Hughes says. To make a substantial reduction in greenhouse emissions, “What you need over the next ten years is ten Pubnico Point wind farms,” along with incentives and policies to encourage clean energy sources.

In a recent interview, the Gulf of Maine Times asked Hughes about the feasibility of wind power in Nova Scotia and its prospects for the future. The following is an excerpt from that conversation:

Q. What are your measurements from the Nova Scotia Wind Energy Project and the Grand Etang and Little Brook turbines telling you?

A. We haven’t found the killer site yet. In this area you find that the winter winds are quite strong and look promising, but come April turbines like the one in Little Brook basically shut down because there are not enough winds throughout the summer months. When we talk about wind power we have to calculate in the capacity factor, that’s the percentage of time the turbine is actually operating or producing power. In Grand Etang last January, the winds were so strong that it was almost at 100 percent capacity factor. But during the summer months it was incredibly low. So you may have had a 100 percent capacity factor for only one month. But throughout the year, it’s actually around 30 to 35 percent. And that’s what most people find overall at most sites.

Q. Where do you find the strongest winds?

A. The Tantramar Marshes [upper Bay of Fundy] look very promising. The winds are incredibly strong throughout that peninsula. If we use the wind energy from there, we can now start to do clever things. As fronts move across the province from west to east, you could put wind farms in Amherst, and in the Cobequid Mountains and keep working across the province. So when winds start dying down in one region, they start picking up in another.

Q. What else do you need besides strong, sustainable winds?

A. It’s all very well to have a good site, it’s another to be close to a transmission facility. Once you have to start adding lines to get to your wind farm, it starts adding to the cost. The best approach is to find land with a good wind source, then get the permission from the owner to set up the turbines. And third, make certain you’re close to a transmission line. Farmland is ideal in that the footprint at the base of the turbine is relatively small, so you could plow around it and cattle can graze up to it. Turbines don’t gobble up that much land. In many places in the United States, farmers are encouraged to put up wind turbines and they in turn are given government production tax credits, which are essentially subsidies for the farmers.

Q. What about the overall expense?

A. The big problem is, wind power really isn’t there in terms of cost. It’s more expensive than coal if you don’t take things like environmental costs into account. But even if you factor those things in it doesn’t necessarily bring the price of coal up to the price of electricity from wind since many of the costs are hard to quantify. There are ways to close the gap through things like production tax credits, where producers of electricity from wind power receive tax credits per kilowatt hour. In Canada, the Wind Power Production Initiative provides such a subsidy [see: http://www.canren.gc.ca/].

Q. If costs are the dominant obstacle, won’t this impede Canada’s ability to fulfill its commitment under the Kyoto protocol to reduce greenhouse gases?

A. My concern is that Kyoto is not going to be ratified by Russia. And if the treaty isn’t signed by Russia it’s not going to come into force. So by relying solely on Kyoto you fall into a trap. You can still use the environmental argument, but you also need to weigh in the economic argument. That is, that energy prices are going to rise because we are basing everything on coal and we no longer produce our own coal. We’re also finding that gas is a limited resource. There was the promise of Sable [offshore] gas but some companies are pulling out. Why? Because to drill a hole in the offshore here costs about $80 million, plus it’s sour gas, meaning it has sulphur in it and that has to be removed, which also adds to the costs. But if you drill a hole on dry land in eastern British Columbia it costs about $4 million. That said, I believe that within the next decade, with the innovations in wind power and the fact that you don’t have to worry about fuel costs, that the costs of generating wind energy are going to go down.

Q. What about the potential for offshore wind farms?

A. The rule of thumb with offshore turbines is that you don’t place them in water deeper than ten metres [33 feet], simply because it’s so expensive to build the footings. So the trick is to find shallow waters. The nice thing about offshore winds is that there are no obstructions and you get a much cleaner wind source. But once again, you have the problem of connecting to the grid. The farther you go offshore, the longer your transmission lines are going to have to be. The other issue is birds. One concern is that the towers they put the generators on must have warning beacons and these can attract birds. During a federal environmental assessment you have to do a bird survey, listing all the birds seen in that area. If there are any endangered birds in the area, the project could be stopped. These are real concerns and rightly so. Unfortunately with wind power there are trade-offs. Maybe we just have to accept a few bird kills.

Q. Is it feasible for homeowners to invest in wind power?

A. We have a cottage that is powered by wind and solar. Again, the winter winds are powerful but not the summer winds. However, the solar panels even during the winter are doing a marvellous job. Once you get to late January the sun starts to get really hot. If your house is built correctly, south facing and so forth—the sun can give you electricity, and as well heat your home. We’re completely off the grid. So solar should be the number one choice for homeowners, though not everyone can afford it. It would be very helpful if the province developed guidelines saying all houses should be built to maximize solar gain. Then over the next 20 years you’ll start seeing a housing stock of solar houses.

Q. What would you like to see for the future?

A. What you need over the next ten years is ten Pubnico Point wind farms, which would allow Nova Scotia to meet one- third to one-half of our six percent Kyoto emission reduction target. The way you do it is by mandating the utility company through a Renewable Portfolio Standard, legislation that says to a utility ‘you will adopt renewables over a certain period, meeting a certain target.’ We should also adopt the model used in Denmark, where biomass power stations supplement the wind, using wood, straw or other plant matter for fuel. The waste heat can be used for industrial purposes such as greenhouses, for agriculture or to heat small towns. In Denmark they run them as co-operatives.

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