Wind energy – nothing but hot air?

Talking to Ueli Gubler* about the Swiss energy transition

(14 December 2021) Many governments, including that of Switzerland, have decided to minimise CO₂ emissions in the country due to the predicted global warming. It is assumed that man-made CO₂ emissions are the reason for a predicted rise in the earth’s temperature.¹

Since not only CO₂-emitting forms of energy are to be excluded (coal, natural gas, oil), the planned energy transition threatens to result in a supply crisis because parallel, the phase-out of nuclear power, which was decided in 2011 under the impression of the Fukushima disaster in Germany and Switzerland, is imminent. “Swiss Standpoint” had the opportunity to talk to Ueli Gubler about this.

“Swiss Standpoint”: Mr Gubler, the planned energy transition will not come for free, both financially and in terms of our standard of living. It is becoming apparent that there will not be enough electricity available in the winter months. Switzerland would be dependent on imports from abroad. But before we turn to the question of how realistic the energy transition is – how high do you think the costs will amount to?

Attuning to “electricity shortages”

Ueli Gubler: In the voting booklet on the Energy Act (“Energy Strategy 2050”), the Federal Council was still reassuring us in 2017 with costs of 40 CHF per household per annum. In 2021, Federal Councillor Simonetta Sommaruga opened the referendum campaign on the CO2 Act by saying that the energy transition would probably cost 100 billion. These are only the investment costs. For a three-person household, that will easily amount to 1500 CHF [1600 US $] annually for 25 years – mind you, without taking into account price increases in energy costs.²

If the Federal Council had communicated honestly from the beginning, the “Energy Strategy 2050” would already have been scrapped, just like the CO₂ Act this year. 100 billion corresponds to the sum that Germany has spent on its energy transition over the last 20 years – with less than convincing success.

The “Energy Strategy 2050” assumes that electricity must and can be exported in summer and imported in winter. Germany, however, wants to shut down its remaining six nuclear power plants by 2023 and coal-fired power plants from 2030 onwards. Switzerland has also decided to phase out nuclear power. Throughout Europe, this will lead to an electricity shortage. There will be nothing to import anymore. Gradually, it is dawning on the parliaments. But instead of providing enough electricity, they are getting us attuned to electricity shortages.

On the one hand, CO₂-emitting energy sources such as coal, gas or oil are to be excluded from electricity generation, on the other hand, we are getting out of nuclear power. For the energy transition, the so-called alternative energies are left: sun, wind, geothermal energy and water. That’s good news – nothing but clean energy. Do you see any problems in this?

Yes, there are some serious problems. Because electricity produced from coal and nuclear power plants cover the base load, which means they supply electricity around the clock, regardless of the season. With hydropower, we could and can balance out the peaks. Wind and solar power are available at specific times. The wind usually dies down during the night. This could perhaps be bridged by means of energy storage. However, the corresponding technology still does not exist. Far more serious, however, are the seasonal fluctuations between summer and winter. They amount to 1:5 for the sun and 1:2 for the wind. Such huge amounts of electricity cannot be hoarded even with all the resources in the world.

What does the energy transition mean for our electricity grids?

So far, the restructuring of the electricity grids has not been discussed at all. Today’s supply works like the road network: from the motorway to national roads – from there to the communities and then to the access roads.

If solar and wind power are now produced at the ends of the grid, the cross-sections there are too small and would have to be extended. The overhead power lines are then no longer needed, or only to a limited extent. It is not only the power lines but also the transformers that need to be adapted. Depending on the grid, electricity will be transported at 380,000, 220,000, 40,000, 400 or 230 volts.

What are the consequences for grid stability?

To give you a better idea: it is not a matter that when there is a shortage of electricity, the lamps shine a little weaker and the water on the cooker takes a little longer to boil.

If the voltage in the grid drops only minimally, the frequency (50 hertz per second) drops. Even a deviation of 0.2 hertz is critical. The power grid must then be supported, otherwise it collapses and we are in the dark. We then have a “blackout”, an outage. Depending on the severity of the breakdown, it can take hours or up to days until the grid “is back up and running” again.

Since wind and solar power is irregular, i.e. it cannot be planned, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep the grid in balance. The larger their share, the more delicate it becomes. A lot of people don’t know it, but on 8 January 2021, the European grid had a close shave of collapsing at 2 pm.

“Dark doldrums”

In connection with the fluctuations of solar and wind energy, people often talk about “dark doldrums”.

The word combination suggests that it is dark at night or sometimes very cloudy during the day. No solar electricity is generated then. If the irradiation is up to 800 watts per square metre (W/mIn addition to the miserable capacity utilisation, the low energy density of wind and solar energy must also be taken into account. Switzerland’s nuclear power plants have a capacity of 3000 MW. A wind turbine has an output of 3 MW. This means that 1000 wind turbines would be required at an utilisation rate of 100%. Because of the 16% utilisation rate, about 6000 are therefore required. The space required for this would be 600 km²) in summer, it drops to less than 200 W/m² in winter. If the wind also fails (doldrums) – and this is the rule at night – both energies fail: we have “dark doldrums”.

Do these fluctuations already have an impact on costs today?

Yes, Germany already spends over 1 billion euros annually to maintain grid stability. The costs also include the interlocking of surplus electricity and the emergency purchase during dark doldrums.

Supposing our electricity grid collapses. We have an outage.³ What does that mean?

It depends on how long it takes for our grids to come back on. When our drinking water reservoirs have been emptied but not refilled – we usually need electricity to do this – then we will have no water. When the food in the supermarkets is defrosted, it has to be disposed of by the tonne. The shops are likely to be closed anyway because cash registers and all payment transactions are paralysed. Computer and telecommunication networks are down, etc.

“No wind, no electricity”

Let’s go back to wind energy. Besides the sun, which does not always shine and is rarely seen in winter, we rely on wind energy. However, wind energy does not seem to be a constant either. But it is now supposed to take over a significant part of the alternative energies and lead Switzerland into a green future. What problems do you see for wind energy? Do wind turbines make sense in Switzerland?

To put it bluntly: “no wind, no electricity”. On the North Sea coast there is twice as much wind as here: 9 m/sec compared to 4.5 m/sec. In fluid dynamics there is the so-called V3 law. It says that the energy increases or decreases to the cube of the flow velocity. Double the wind therefore means: eight times the yield. The same wind turbine produces only ¹/₈ times as much here as on the North Sea coast. That actually speaks for itself.

You mentioned the efficiency of wind energy. How does it compare with other energy sources?

The utilisation of electricity generation plants is expressed with so-called “full-load hours”. One forms the quotient between the amount of electricity generated and the installed capacity of a plant and puts the figure in relation to the time span (usually to the 8760 hours per year). Geothermal energy performs best with 95%. The worst performers are wind energy with 16% and solar energy with 12%.

6000 wind turbines on 600 km²?

Envisaging Switzerland with sufficient wind turbines and photovoltaic systems …

2. The nuclear power plants require only 2.5 km² for this. By way of illustration, the canton of Thurgau has an area of 970 km². Almost the same applies to photovoltaic.

Let’s assume we have weeks of sunshine and strong winds. How can we store this surplus electricity for the long, dark, cold and windless winter days?

I have to disappoint you. For 30 years, people have been searching for a technical solution for storage. Dry batteries are only good for short power cuts. The only halfway suitable solution is pumped hydro storage. However, this requires a considerable number of new dams in the mountains. The existing ones supply hydroelectric power and cannot simply be confiscated. The additional expense is unaffordable.

The “common people” on foot again

Recently, hydrogen has come into the discussion. Wind and solar energy are used to produce hydrogen, which can be stored. The fuel cell can then be used to generate electricity again. But it is not possible to produce electricity in large quantities. It only works for the electric drive of cars. However, it is immensely expensive so that only rich people could actually afford cars. It would then be like in the old days when the wealthy travelled in their carriages while the “common people” travelled on foot.

The hydrogen produced must first be compressed at 300 bar for transport – and at the petrol pump it must be compressed again to 700 bar. The tank in the car is then under a pressure of 700 bar – a not very reassuring idea. In the car, the hydrogen is then used to generate electricity in a fuel cell. This is stored in a battery. From now on, the whole thing works like an electric car. The efficiency is then no more than 20% with a wickedly expensive installation.

Politicians publicly dream of producing hydrogen in the sunny deserts of the Sahara. They forget that there is plenty of sun there, but no water. Added to this is the politically precarious situation in which such plants would have to operate. It makes no sense to convert the whole car industry to this technology when it is just about to switch to “normal” electric cars.

The bridge is shorter than the width of the river

So we are heading for uncertain times?

Professor Werner Sinn⁴ points out that and how the energy supply is being run into a brick wall.⁵ It is incomprehensible that in view of the supposedly apocalyptic energy crisis, gas-fired power plants of all things are being relied on to bridge the gap. That is cynical. Bridging to where? The bridge is shorter than the width of the river it is meant to cross! Obviously, the climate crisis itself is not taken very seriously.

The rest of the world is showing the way: windy Holland is no longer building wind turbines and is relying on nuclear power. Emmanuel Macron has just announced the same for France. The Czech Republic and Poland are going the same way. China has just announced the construction of 150 nuclear power plants for the next 15 years.⁶ Worldwide, more than 100 nuclear power plants are planned or already under construction. The same applies to approximately 1400 coal-fired power plants. This clearly shows that our path will be by far the most expensive and the most unstable. All assertions to the contrary are “lies” or make it clear that the problem of renewable energies has not been understood or is simply ignored.

They have not yet realised that fourth-generation nuclear power plants are already being put into operation. Its technology is so advanced that the nuclear waste can be reprocessed, which makes final storage much less of a problem. The focus is now on small nuclear power plants, which are far cheaper and their risk is significantly lower.

Thank you very much for this interview, Mr Gubler. Obviously, politics is hastily cobbling things together.

* Ueli Gubler, engineer HTL, freelance journalist, gets to the bottom of allegations and conjectures. As an engineer, he takes a close look at certain regularities and figures

(Translation “Swiss Standpoint”)

1 Swiss Standpoint has talked about this in detail with Ueli Gubler, cf. Swiss Standpoint, “Climate change: over 40 years of wrong predictions … What CO₂ has to do with climate change”, 23 October 2021 https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-gesellschaft/over-40-years-of-wrong-predictions.html

2 Per person/capita (8 million inhabitants) this makes about 12,500 francs – for a 3-person household a total of 37,500 francs, i.e. 1500 francs for 25 years. The annual additional costs due to higher electricity prices are added to this. In Germany, the price for a kWh has more than doubled.

3 cf. Swiss Standpoint. Jakob Wehrli. Securing the power supply. Blackout due to maintenance deficiencies?
https://swiss-standpoint.ch/news-detailansicht-en-gesellschaft/securing-the-power-supply.html

4 Prof. Dr Hans-Werner Sinn, German economist, university lecturer emeritus at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, President of the ifo Institute for Economic Research from 1999 to 2016.

5 cf. https://www.hanswernersinn.de/de/themen/Energiewende

6 https://www.watson.ch/international/energiewende/182812879-laender-die-auch-in-zukunft-auf-atomenergie-setzen (accessed 28 November 2021)